Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. — John Shaqi
Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
I doubt not many of your readers will have been as much amused as myself
with the choice specimens of Foreign English enshrined in your pages. When
at Amsterdam, some years since, I purchased a _Guide_ to that city, which I
regard as a considerable literary curiosity in the same line. It was
published at Amsterdam, by E. Maascamp, in 1829, and contains from
beginning to end a series of broken English, professing all the while to be
written by an Englishman.
It commences with the following "Advertisement:"
"The city of Amsterdam--remarkable as being one of the chief metropoles
of Europe, and as being in many respects the general market of whole
the universe; justly celebrated for--its large interior canals, on both
of their sides enlivened and sheltered by ranges of large, thick, and
beautiful trees, and presenting, on large broad and neatly kept, most
regularly pav'd quays, long chains of sumptuous habitations, or rather
palaces of the principal and _weathy_ merchants; moreover remarkable by
its Museum for the objects of the fine arts, &c., its numberless public
edifices adapted either to the _cultivation_ of arts, or to the
exertions of trade, or to _establishments_ charitable purposes, or of
temples of all manners of divine worship--the city of Amsterdam, we
say," &c. It is dated "This 15^{the} of Juin, 1829."
In page 14. the author gives us an account of his habits, &c.:--
"I live in Amsterdam since some considerable time I drink no strong
liquors, nor do I smoke tobacco and with all this--I have not been
_attacked_ by those agues and fevers w^h frequently reign here from the
month of Juin to the end of the autumn: and twenty foreigners whom I
know, do follow the same system, and are still as healthy as I myself;
while I have seen a great many of natives taking their drams and
smoking their pipes _ad libitem_, and moreover _chawing_ tobacco in a
quite disgusting manner, who," &c.
An Amsterdam Sunday, p. 42.:
"On sundays and holydays the shops and warehouses, and, _intra muros_,
those of public entertainment are _close_: the devotees go to church,
and sanctify the sabbath. Others go to walk outside the towngates:
after their walk, they hasten to fine public-play-gardens, where wine,
thea, &c. is sold. Neither the mobility remains idle at _these_
entertainments. Every one invites his damsel, and joyously they enter
play-gardens of a little less brilliancy than the former. There, at the
crying sound of an instrument that _rents_ the ear, {347} accompanied
by the delightful handle-organs and the rustic triangle, their tributes
are paid to Terpsichore; every where a similitude of talents: the
dancing outdoes not the musician."
Description of the Assize Court:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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