William Stearns Davis - "A Day In Old Athens"

H. C. Leeds - "The Laws of Euchre"

Moliere (Poquelin) - "The Magnificent Lovers"

Various - "Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Botanic Garden

E >> Erasmus Darwin >> The Botanic Garden




[_Pinna. Cancer_. l. 70. See additional notes, No. XXVII.]

[_With worm-like beard_. l. 71. See additional notes, No. XXVIII.]

[_Feed the live petals_. l. 82. There is a sea-insect described by Mr.
Huges whose claws or tentacles being disposed in regular circles and
tinged with variety of bright lively colours represent the petals of
some most elegantly fringed and radiated flowers as the carnation,
marigold, and anemone. Philos. Trans. Abridg. Vol. IX. p. 110. The Abbe
Dicquemarre has further elucidated the history of the actinia; and
observed their manner of taking their prey by inclosing it in these
beautiful rays like a net. Phil. Trans. Vol. LXIII. and LXV. and LXVII.]

[_And drop a pearl_. l. 84. Many are the opinions both of antient and
modern concerning the production of pearls. Mr. Reaumur thinks they are
formed like the hard concretions in many land animals as stones of the
bladder, gallstones, and bezoar, and hence concludes them to be a
disease of the fish, but there seems to be a stricter analogy between
these and the calcareous productions found in crab-fish called crab's
eyes, which are formed near the stomach of the animal, and constitute a
reservoir of calcareous matter against the renovation of the shell, at
which time they are re-dissolved and deposited for that purpose. As the
internal part of the shell of the pearl oyster or muscle consists of
mother-pearl which is a similar material to the pearl and as the animal
has annually occasion to enlarge his shell there is reason to suspect the
loose pearls are similar reservoirs of the pearly matter for that
purpose.]


85 3. "YOUR myriad trains o'er stagnant ocean's tow,
Harness'd with gossamer, the loitering prow;
Or with fine films, suspended o'er the deep,
Of oil effusive lull the waves to sleep.
You stay the flying bark, conceal'd beneath,
90 Where living rocks of worm-built coral breathe;
Meet fell TEREDO, as he mines the keel
With beaked head, and break his lips of steel;
Turn the broad helm, the fluttering canvas urge
From MAELSTROME'S fierce innavigable surge.
95 --'Mid the lorn isles of Norway's stormy main,
As sweeps o'er many a league his eddying train,
Vast watery walls in rapid circles spin,
And deep-ingulph'd the Demon dwells within;
Springs o'er the fear-froze crew with Harpy-claws,
100 Down his deep den the whirling vessel draws;
Churns with his bloody mouth the dread repast,
The booming waters murmuring o'er the mast.


[_Or with fine films_. l. 87. See additional notes, No. XXIX.]

[_Where living rocks_. l. 90. The immense and dangerous rocks built by
the swarms of coral infects which rise almost perpendicularly in the
southern ocean like walls are described in Cook's voyages, a point of
one of these rocks broke off and stuck in the hole which it had made in
the bottom of one of his ships, which would otherwise have perished by
the admission of water. The numerous lime-stone rocks which consist of a
congeries of the cells of these animals and which constitute a great
part of the solid earth shew their prodigious multiplication in all ages
of the world. Specimens of these rocks are to be seen in the Lime-works
at Linsel near Newport in Shropshire, in Coal-brook Dale, and in many
parts of the Peak of Derbyshire. The insect has been well described by
M. Peyssonnel, Ellis, and others. Phil. Trans. Vol. XLVII. L. LII. and
LVII.]

[_Meet fell Teredo_. l. 91. See additional notes, No. XXX.]

[_Turn the broad helm_. l 93. See additional notes, No. XXXI.]


III. "Where with chill frown enormous ALPS alarms
A thousand realms, horizon'd in his arms;
105 While cloudless suns meridian glories shed
From skies of silver round his hoary head,
Tall rocks of ice refract the coloured rays,
And Frost sits throned amid the lambent blaze;
NYMPHS! YOUR thin forms pervade his glittering piles,
110 His roofs of chrystal, and his glasy ailes;
Where in cold caves imprisoned Naiads sleep,
Or chain'd on mossy couches wake and weep;
Where round dark crags indignant waters bend
Through rifted ice, in ivory veins descend,
115 Seek through unfathom'd snows their devious track,
Heave the vast spars, the ribbed granites crack,
Rush into day, in foamy torrents shine,
And swell the imperial Danube or the Rhine.--
Or feed the murmuring TIBER, as he laves
120 His realms inglorious with diminish'd waves,
Hears his lorn Forum sound with Eunuch-strains,
Sees dancing slaves insult his martial plains;
Parts with chill stream the dim religious bower,
Time-mouldered bastion, and dismantled tower;
125 By alter'd fanes and nameless villas glides,
And classic domes, that tremble on his sides;
Sighs o'er each broken urn, and yawning tomb,
And mourns the fall of LIBERTY and ROME.


[_Where round dark craggs_. l. 113. See additional notes, No. XXXII.]

[_Heave the vast spars_. l. 116. Water in descending down elevated
situations if the outlet for it below is not sufficient for its emission
acts with a force equal to the height of the column, as is seen in an
experimental machine called the philosophical bellows, in which a few
pints of water are made to raise many hundred pounds. To this cause is
to be ascribed many large promontories of ice being occasionally thrown
down from the glaciers; rocks have likewise been thrown from the sides
of mountains by the same cause, and large portions of earth have been
removed many hundred yards from their situations at the foot of
mountains. On inspecting the locomotion of about thirty acres of earth
with a small house near Bilder's Bridge in Shropshire, about twenty
years ago, from the foot of a mountain towards the river, I well
remember it bore all the marks of having been thus lifted up, pushed
away, and as it were crumpled into ridges, by a column of water
contained in the mountain.

From water being thus confined in high columns between the strata of
mountainous countries it has often happened that when wells or
perforations have been made into the earth, that springs have arisen
much above the surface of the new well. When the new bridge was building
at Dublin Mr. G. Semple found a spring in the bed of the river where he
meant to lay the foundation of a pierre, which, by fixing iron pipes
into it, he raised many feet. Treatise on Building in Water, by G.
Semple. From having observed a valley north-west of St. Alkmond's well
near Derby, at the head of which that spring of water once probably
existed, and by its current formed the valley, (but which in after times
found its way out in its present situation,) I suspect that St.
Alkmond's well might by building round it be raised high enough to
supply many streets in Derby with spring-water which are now only
supplied with river-water. See an account of an artificial spring of
water, Phil. Trans. Vol. LXXV. p. 1.

In making a well at Sheerness the water rose 300 feet above its source
in the well. Phil. Trans. Vol. LXXIV. And at Hartford in Connecticut
there is a well which was dug seventy feet deep before water was found,
then in boring an augur-hole through a rock the water rose so fast as to
make it difficult to keep it dry by pumps till they could blow the hole
larger by gunpowder, which was no sooner accomplished than it filled and
run over, and has been a brook for near a century. Travels through
America. Lond. 1789. Lane.]


IV. "Sailing in air, when dark MONSOON inshrouds
130 His tropic mountains in a night of clouds;
Or drawn by whirlwinds from the Line returns,
And showers o'er Afric all his thousand urns;
High o'er his head the beams of SIRIUS glow,
And, Dog of Nile, ANUBIS barks below.
135 NYMPHS! YOU from cliff to cliff attendant guide
In headlong cataracts the impetuous tide;
Or lead o'er wastes of Abyssinian sands
The bright expanse to EGYPT'S shower-less lands.
--Her long canals the sacred waters fill,
140 And edge with silver every peopled hill;
Gigantic SPHINX in circling waves admire;
And MEMNON bending o'er his broken lyre;
O'er furrow'd glebes and green savannas sweep,
And towns and temples laugh amid the deep.


[_Dark monsoon inshrouds_. l. 129. When from any peculiar situations of
land in respect to sea the tropic becomes more heated, when the sun is
vertical over it, than the line, the periodical winds called monsoons
are produced, and these are attended by rainy seasons; for as the air at
the tropic is now more heated than at the line it ascends by decrease of
its specific gravity, and floods of air rush in both from the South West
and North East, and these being one warmer than the other the rain is
precipitated by their mixture as observed by Dr. Hutton. See additional
notes, No. XXV. All late travellers have ascribed the rise of the Nile
to the monsoons which deluge Nubia and Abyssinia with rain. The whirling
of the ascending air was even seen by Mr. Bruce in Abyssinia; he says,
"every morning a small cloud began to whirl round, and presently after
the whole heavens became covered with clouds," by this vortex of
ascending air the N.E. winds and the S.W. winds, which flow in to supply
the place of the ascending column, became mixed more rapidly and
deposited their rain in greater abundance.

Mr. Volney observes that the time of the rising of the Nile commences
about the 19th of June, and that Abyssinia and the adjacent parts of
Africa are deluged with rain in May, June, and July, and produce a mass
of water which is three months in draining off. The Abbe Le Pluche
observes that as Sirius, or the dog-star, rose at the time of the
commencement of the flood its rising was watched by the astronomers, and
notice given of the approach of inundation by hanging the figure of
Anubis, which was that of a man with a dog's head, upon all their
temples. Histoire de Ciel.]

[Illustration: Fertilization of Egypt.]

[_Egypt's shower-less lands_. l. 138. There seem to be two situations
which may be conceived to be exempted from rain falling upon them, one
where the constant trade-winds meet beneath the line, for here two
regions of warm air are mixed together, and thence do not seem to have
any cause to precipitate their vapour; and the other is, where the winds
are brought from colder climates and become warmer by their contact with
the earth of a warmer one. Thus Lower Egypt is a flat country warmed by
the sun more than the higher lands of one side of it, and than the
Mediterranean on the other; and hence the winds which blow over it
acquire greater warmth, which ever way they come, than they possessed
before, and in consequence have a tendency to acquire and not to part
with their vapour like the north-east winds of this country. There is
said to be a narrow spot upon the coast of Peru where rain seldom
occurs, at the same time according to Ulloa on the mountainous regions
of the Andes beyond there is almost perpetual rain. For the wind blows
uniformly upon this hot part of the coast of Peru, but no cause of
devaporation occurs till it begins to ascend the mountainous Andes, and
then its own expansion produces cold sufficient to condense its vapour.]


145 V. 1. "High in the frozen North where HECCLA glows,
And melts in torrents his coeval snows;
O'er isles and oceans sheds a sanguine light,
Or shoots red stars amid the ebon night;
When, at his base intomb'd, with bellowing sound
150 Fell GIESAR roar'd, and struggling shook the ground;
Pour'd from red nostrils, with her scalding breath,
A boiling deluge o'er the blasted heath;
And, wide in air, in misty volumes hurl'd
Contagious atoms o'er the alarmed world;
155 NYMPHS! YOUR bold myriads broke the infernal spell,
And crush'd the Sorceress in her flinty cell.

[_Fell Giesar roar'd_. l. 150. The boiling column of water at Giesar in
Iceland was nineteen feet in diameter, and sometimes rose to the height
of ninety-two feet. On cooling it deposited a siliceous matter or
chalcedony forming a bason round its base. The heat of this water before
it rose out of the earth could not be ascertained, as water looses all
its heat above 212 (as soon as it is at liberty to expand) by the
exhalation of a part, but the flinty bason which is deposited from it
shews that water with great degrees of heat will dissolve siliceous
matter. Van Troil's Letters on Iceland. Since the above account in the
year 1780 this part of Iceland has been destroyed by an earthquake or
covered with lava, which was probably effected by the force of aqueous
steam, a greater quantity of water falling on the subterraneous fires
than could escape by the antient outlets and generating an increased
quantity of vapour. For the dispersion of contagious vapours from
volcanos see an account of the Harmattan in the notes on Chunda, Vol. II.]


2. "Where with soft fires in unextinguish'd urns,
Cauldron'd in rock, innocuous Lava burns;
On the bright lake YOUR gelid hands distil
160 In pearly mowers the parsimonious rill;
And, as aloft the curling vapours rise
Through the cleft roof, ambitious for the skies,
In vaulted hills condense the tepid steams,
And pour to HEALTH the medicated streams.
165 --So in green vales amid her mountains bleak
BUXTONIA smiles, the Goddess-Nymyh of Peak;
Deep in warm waves, and pebbly baths she dwells,
And calls HYGEIA to her sainted wells.


[_Buxtonia smiles_. l. 166. Some arguments are mentioned in the note on
Fucus Vol. II. to shew that the warm springs of this country do not
arise from the decomposition of pyrites near the surface of the earth,
but that they are produced by steam rising up the fissures of the
mountains from great depths, owing to water falling on subterraneous
fires, and that this steam is condensed between the strata of the
incumbent mountains and collected into springs. For further proofs on
this subject the reader is referred to a Letter from Dr. Darwin in Mr.
Pilkington's View of Derbyshire, Vol I. p. 256.]


"Hither in sportive bands bright DEVON leads
170 Graces and Loves from Chatsworth's flowery meads.--
Charm'd round the NYMPH, they climb the rifted rocks;
And steep in mountain-mist their golden locks;
On venturous step her sparry caves explore,
And light with radiant eyes her realms of ore;
175 --Oft by her bubbling founts, and shadowy domes,
In gay undress the fairy legion roams,
Their dripping palms in playful malice fill,
Or taste with ruby lip the sparkling rill;
Croud round her baths, and, bending o'er the side,
180 Unclasp'd their sandals, and their zones untied,
Dip with gay fear the shuddering foot undress'd,
And quick retract it to the fringed vest;
Or cleave with brandish'd arms the lucid stream,
And sob, their blue eyes twinkling in the steam.
185 --High o'er the chequer'd vault with transient glow
Bright lustres dart, as dash the waves below;
And Echo's sweet responsive voice prolongs
The dulcet tumult of their silver tongues.--
O'er their flush'd cheeks uncurling tresses flow,
190 And dew-drops glitter on their necks of snow;
Round each fair Nymph her dropping mantle clings,
And Loves emerging shake their showery wings.


[_And sob, their blue eyes_. l. 184. The bath at Buxton being of 82
degrees of heat is called a warm bath, and is so compared with common
spring-water which possesses but 48 degrees of heat, but is nevertheless
a cold bath compared to the heat of the body which is 98. On going into
this bath there is therefore always a chill perceived at the first
immersion, but after having been in it a minute the chill ceases and a
sensation of warmth succeeds though the body continues to be immersed in
the water. The cause of this curious phenomenon is to be looked for in
the laws of animal sensation and not from any properties of heat. When a
person goes from clear day-light into an obscure room for a while it
appears gloomy, which gloom however in a little time ceases, and the
deficiency of light becomes no longer perceived. This is not solely
owing to the enlargement of the iris of the eye, since that is performed
in an instant, but to this law of sensation, that when a less stimulus
is applied (within certain bounds) the sensibility increases. Thus at
going into a bath as much colder than the body as that of Buxton, the
diminution of heat on the skin is at first perceived, but in about a
minute the sensibility to heat increases and the nerves of the skin are
equally excited by the lessened stimulus. The sensation of warmth at
emerging from a cold-bath, and the pain called the hot-ach, after the
hands have been immersed in snow, depend on the same principle, viz. the
increased sensibility of the skin after having been previously exposed
to a stimulus less than usual.]


"Here oft her LORD surveys the rude domain,
Fair arts of Greece triumphant in his train;
195 LO! as he steps, the column'd pile ascends,
The blue roof closes, or the crescent bends;
New woods aspiring clothe their hills with green,
Smooth slope the lawns, the grey rock peeps between;
Relenting Nature gives her hand to Taste,
200 And Health and Beauty crown the laughing waste.


[_Here oft her Lord_. l. 193. Alluding to the magnificent and beautiful
crescent, and superb stables lately erected at Buxton for the
accomodation of the company by the Duke of Devonshire; and to the
plantations with which he has decorated the surrounding mountains.]

VI. "NYMPHS! YOUR bright squadrons watch with chemic eyes
The cold-elastic vapours, as they rise;
With playful force arrest them as they pass,
And to _pure_ AIR betroth the _flaming_ GAS.
205 Round their translucent forms at once they fling
Their rapturous arms, with silver bosoms cling;
In fleecy clouds their fluttering wings extend,
Or from the skies in lucid showers descend;
Whence rills and rivers owe their secret birth,
210 And Ocean's hundred arms infold the earth.


[_And to pure air_. l. 204. Until very lately water was esteemed a
simple element, nor are all the most celebrated chemists of Europe yet
converts to the new opinion of its decomposition. Mr. Lavoisier and
others of the French school have most ingeniously endeavoured to shew
that water consists of pure air, called by them oxygene, and of
inflammable air, called hydrogene, with as much of the matter of heat,
or calorique, as is necessary to preserve them in the form of gas. Gas
is distinguished from steam by its preserving its elasticity under the
pressure of the atmosphere, and in the greatest degrees of cold yet
known. The history of the progress of this great discovery is detailed
in the Memoires of the Royal Academy for 1781, and the experimental
proofs of it are delivered in Lavoisier's Elements of Chemistry. The
results of which are that water consists of eighty-five parts by weight
of oxygene, and fifteen parts by weight of hydrogene, with a sufficient
quantity of Calorique. Not only numerous chemical phenomena, but many
atmospherical and vegetable facts receive clear and beautiful
elucidation from this important analysis. In the atmosphere inflammable
air is probably perpetually uniting with vital air and producing
moisture which descends in dews and showers, while the growth of
vegetables by the assistance of light is perpetually again decomposing
the water they imbibe from the earth, and while they retain the
inflammable air for the formation of oils, wax, honey, resin, &c. they
give up the vital air to replenish the atmosphere.]


"So, robed by Beauty's Queen, with softer charms
SATURNIA woo'd the Thunderer to her arms;
O'er her fair limbs a veil of light she spread,
And bound a starry diadem on her head;
215 Long braids of pearl her golden tresses grac'd,
And the charm'd CESTUS sparkled round her waist.
--Raised o'er the woof, by Beauty's hand inwrought,
Breathes the soft Sigh, and glows the enamour'd Thought;
Vows on light wings succeed, and quiver'd Wiles,
220 Assuasive Accents, and seductive Smiles.
--Slow rolls the Cyprian car in purple pride,
And, steer'd by LOVE, ascends admiring Ide;
Climbs the green slopes, the nodding woods pervades,
Burns round the rocks, or gleams amid the shades.
225 --Glad ZEPHYR leads the train, and waves above
The barbed darts, and blazing torch of Love;
Reverts his smiling face, and pausing flings
Soft showers of roses from aurelian wings.
Delighted Fawns, in wreathes of flowers array'd,
230 With tiptoe Wood-Boys beat the chequer'd glade;
Alarmed Naiads, rising into air,
Lift o'er their silver urns their leafy hair;
Each to her oak the bashful Dryads shrink,
And azure eyes are seen through every chink.
235 --LOVE culls a flaming shaft of broadest wing,
And rests the fork upon the quivering string;
Points his arch eye aloft, with fingers strong
Draws to his curled ear the silken thong;
Loud twangs the steel, the golden arrow flies,
240 Trails a long line of lustre through the skies;
"'Tis done!" he shouts, "the mighty Monarch feels!"
And with loud laughter shakes the silver wheels;
Bends o'er the car, and whirling, as it moves,
His loosen'd bowstring, drives the rising doves.
245 --Pierced on his throne the slarting Thunderer turns,
Melts with soft sighs, with kindling rapture burns;
Clasps her fair hand, and eyes in fond amaze
The bright Intruder with enamour'd gaze.
"And leaves my Goddess, like a blooming bride,
250 "The fanes of Argos for the rocks of Ide?
"Her gorgeous palaces, and amaranth bowers,
"For cliff-top'd mountains, and aerial towers?"
He said; and, leading from her ivory seat
The blushing Beauty to his lone retreat,
255 Curtain'd with night the couch imperial shrouds,
And rests the crimson cushions upon clouds.--
Earth feels the grateful influence from above,
Sighs the soft Air, and Ocean murmurs love;
Etherial Warmth expands his brooding wing,
260 And in still showers descends the genial Spring.


[_And steer'd by love_. l. 222. The younger love, or Cupid, the son of
Venus, owes his existence and his attributes to much later times than
the Eros, or divine love, mentioned in Canto I. since the former is no
where mentioned by Homer, though so many apt opportunities of
introducing him occur in the works of that immortal bard. Bacon.]

[_And in still showers._ l. 260. The allegorical interpretation of the
very antient mythology which supposes Jupiter to represent the superior
part of the atmosphere or ether, and Juno the inferior air, and that the
conjunction of these two produces vernal showers, as alluded to in
Virgil's Georgics, is so analogous to the present important discovery of
the production of water from pure air, or oxygene, and inflammable air,
or hydrogene, (which from its greater levity probably resides over the
former,) that one should be tempted to believe that the very antient
chemists of Egypt had discovered the composition of water, and thus
represented it in their hieroglyphic figures before the invention of
letters.

In the passage of Virgil Jupiter is called ether, and descends in
prolific showers on the bosom of Juno, whence the spring succeeds and
all nature rejoices.

Tum pater omnipotens foecundis imbribus Aether
Conjugis in gremium laetae descendit, et omnes
Magnus alit, magno commixtus corpore, faetus.

Virg. Georg. Lib. II. l. 325.]


VII. "NYMPHS OF AQUATIC TASTE! whose placid smile
Breathes sweet enchantment o'er BRITANNIA'S isle;
Whose sportive touch in showers resplendent flings
Her lucid cataracts, and her bubbling springs;
265 Through peopled vales the liquid silver guides,
And swells in bright expanse her freighted tides.
YOU with nice ear, in tiptoe trains, pervade
Dim walks of morn or evening's silent shade;
Join the lone Nightingale, her woods among,
270 And roll your rills symphonious to her song;
Through fount-full dells, and wave-worn valleys move,
And tune their echoing waterfalls to love;
Or catch, attentive to the distant roar,
The pausing murmurs of the dashing shore;
275 Or, as aloud she pours her liquid strain,
Pursue the NEREID on the twilight main.
--Her playful Sea-horse woos her soft commands,
Turns his quick ears, his webbed claws expands,
His watery way with waving volutes wins,
280 Or listening librates on unmoving fins.
The Nymph emerging mounts her scaly seat,
Hangs o'er his glossy sides her silver feet,
With snow-white hands her arching veil detains,
Gives to his slimy lips the slacken'd reins,
285 Lifts to the star of Eve her eye serene,
And chaunts the birth of Beauty's radiant Queen.--
O'er her fair brow her pearly comb unfurls
Her beryl locks, and parts the waving curls,
Each tangled braid with glistening teeth unbinds
290 And with the floating treasure musks the winds.--
Thrill'd by the dulcet accents, as she sings,
The rippling wave in widening circles rings;
Night's shadowy forms along the margin gleam
With pointed ears, or dance upon the stream;
295 The Moon transported stays her bright career,
And maddening Stars shoot headlong from the sphere.

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.