,1829.] Aff'cdrs in General. 93 



Mont Blanc is 15,500 feet above the Mediterranean. Specimens were 

 texhibited of the compositions of all the mountains round Mont Blanc. 

 Periodically an immense quantity of snow falls down from the summit 

 of the Mont, enough, as the guide said, to crush all Europe like flies. 

 " On throwing stones down the precipices, thousands of feet deep, the 

 traveller feels an almost irresistible desire to throw himself after them !" 

 We are infinitely better pleased to have those fine things told to us, 

 than by us. Until the steam engine shall run up mountains, or Pro- 

 fessor Leslie furnish us with wings, never shall we tread the summit of 

 Mont Blanc. We may admire the Dr.'s naivete in recommending apo- 

 plectic patients to let the mountain alone; and we should add, that 

 asthmatic individuals may as well content themselves with the wonders 

 of the telescope. We are not even doubtful about the wisdom of female 

 ascendancy on those occasions, though a mad Scotchwoman and her 

 daughter showed their legs, 



" Sliding on the ice 

 All on a summei-'s day," 



as the chanson has it. The exposure of limbs may, in itself, be a charm 

 to those whom Nature has blessed with handsome ones, but we should 

 conceive that being carried on the shoulders of half a dozen of Alpme 

 peasants, trundled in their arms, dragged from rock to rock by leg or 

 arm, as it may please them, slumbering under a general covering on the 

 snow, and all the other peculiarities of a mountain adventure, would not 

 be the most advisable matters in the world for a woman who retanied 

 any pretensions to delicacy, unless she were a philosophe : a name which 

 reconciles every thing, palliates every thing, and accounts for every 

 thing. But as to the male adventurers, we ask but one question, 

 cui bono? Has science ever obtained the most trivial good from all" 

 their climbings > Not an atom. We hear of faces skinned, fierce bites 

 of musquitos, a dead sparrow, or a living butterfly ; but beyond this, 

 the climber brings nothing from the forehead of the monarch of moun- 

 tains. It will be at once a comfort and a misfortune to the future heroic 

 to kiiow, that a speculating Swiss is now constructing a regular Slac- 

 adamized road to the top, by which asses can ascend ; — the only 

 animals, that we should presume fit for the adventure. 



In the course of the month, a very intelligent and injured man has 

 breathed his last— Terry, the actor. His fate should be a lesson to the 

 folly and heartlessness of creditors. Terry, after having established a 

 professional rank, of no slight value, by a very original style of perforni- 

 ance, became one of the proprietors of the Adelpbi Theatre. His 

 success was remarkable ; and, before the close of two years, his share 

 of the proceeds amounted to little less than four thousand pounds. Had 

 bis creditors possessed common sense or common feeling, they would 

 have given him a little more time ; and this ingenious man must have 

 been clear, and with a fortune. But they grasped at what they could 

 get at the moment, and for a sum which was trivial, compared to his 

 prospects, they ruined him. He was forced to fly to the Continent ; his 

 property in the Theatre devolved into other h;inds, and lie was utterly 

 undone. After a while he returned, to attempt re-entering on his pro- 

 fession ; but his spirit was b'-,)ken ; he felt his iHculties for tlie stage 

 impaired, and lie retired, lieart-brokcn, if ever man was. A few months 



