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In 2019 with funding from 


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nttos://archive.org/details/s11d13415270 








—» OQ ete 


Pew Scrics. 


CHARLES KNIGHT & CO., 
LONDON. 





COMMITTEE. 


Chatrman—The Right Hon. LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., Member of the National Institute of France. 


William Allen, Esq., F.R. and R.A.S. 
Captain Beanfort, R.N., F.R. and B,A.8. 
George Burrows, M.D. 

Peter Statford Carey, Esq., A.M, 

The Right Hon. Lord Conyleton. 

John Conolly, M.D. 

Willfam Coulson, Esq. 

R. b. Craig, Esq. 

The Right Rev. the Bishop of St. David's, D.D. 
J. F. Davis, Esq., F.R.S. 

H. T. Dela Beche, Esq., F.R.S. 

The Right Hon. Lord Denman, 

Samuel Duckworth, Esq. 

The Right Rev. the Bishop of Durham, D.D, 
Sir Henry Ellis, Prin, Lib. Brit. Minis. 

T. F. Ellis, Esq., A.M., F.R.A.S. 

John Elllotson, M.D., F.R.S, 

George Evans, Esq. 

Thomas Falconer, Esq. 


Alton, Staffordshtire—Rev, J. P. Jones, 
Anglesea— Rev, &. Willlains, 

Rev. W. Johnson. 

— Miller, Esq. 
Barnstaple.— — Bencraft, Esq. 

Witiiam Gribble, Esq. 
Belfast— Jas, L. Drummond, M.D. 
Birmingham—Paul Moon James, Eaq., Trea- 

surer. 

Bridpouri—James Williams, Esq. 
Bristol—J.N.Sanders, Esq., F.G.S, Chairman. 

J. Reynolds, Esq., 7'reasurer. 

J.B. Estlin, Esgy., F.L.S., Secretary, 
Caleutta—James Young, Esq. 

C. H, Cameron, Esq. 


Cambridge—Rev, Leonard Jenyns, M.A.,F.L.S. 


Rev. John Ludge, M.A. 

Rev. Prof. Sedgwick, M.A., F.R.S.&G.S. 
Canterhury—John Brent, Esq., Alderman, 

Willlain Masters, Esq. 
Carlisle—Thomas Barnes, M.D,, F.R.S.E. 
Curnarvon—R. A. Poole, Esq. 

William Roberts, Esq. 
Cheeter—Heury Potts, Esq. 
Chichester—C. C. Dendy, Esq. 
Cochermuuth—Rey. J. Whitridze. 
Corfu—Joln Crawford, Esq. 

Plato Petrides 
Coventry—C. Bray, Eaq. 
Denbigh—'Thomas Evans, Esq. 
Deriy—Joseph Strntt, Esq. 

Edward Strutt, Esq., M.P. 

Devonport and Stunehouse—Jolin Cole, Esq, 

John Norinan, sq. 

Lt. Col. ©. Hamilton Smith, F.R.S, 
Durham—The Very Rev. the Dean. 
Edinbuegh—sir C. Bell, F.R.S.L. aad E, 

J.S. Traill, M.D. 


Vice-Chairman—The Right Hon, EARL SPENCER. 


ZTreasurer—JOHN WOOD, Esq. 


Sir I. l.. Goldsmid, Bart., F.R. and R.A.S. 
Francis Henry Goldsmid, Esq. 

B. Gompertz, Esq., F.R. and R.A.S, 

J. T. Graves, Esq., A.M., F.R.S. 

G. B. Greenough, Fsaq., F.R. and L.S. 

Sir Edmund Head, Bart. A.M, 

M.D. Hill, Esq., Q.C. 

Rowland Hill, Esq., F.R.A.S. - 

Right Hon. Sir J. C. Hobhonse, Bart., M.P. 
Thos. Hodgkin, M.D. 

David Jardine,,Esq., A.M. 

Henry B. Ker, Esa. 

Thomas Hewett Key, Esq., A.M. 

Sir Charles Lemon, Bart., M.P. - 

George C. Lewis, Esq., A.M. 

Yhomas Henry Lister, Esq. 

James Loch, Esq., M.P., ¥.G.S. 

George Long, Esq., A.M. 

H. Maiden, Esq., A.M. - 





LOCAL COMMITTEES. 


Etruria—Josiah Wedgwood, Esq. 
Ex«cter—J.Tyrretl, Esq. 

John Milford, Esq. (Coaver.) 
Glamorganshire— Dr. Malkin, Cowbridge. 
W. Williams, Esq., Aberpergwm. 

Glasgow—K. Finlay, Esq. 
Alexander McGrigor, Esq. 
James Conper, Esq. 

A.J. D. D’Orsey, Esq. 

Juernsey—F, C. Lukis, Esq. 


Hitcham, Suffolk— Rev. Prafessor Henslow, 
M.A,., ois: & GS; 
Hull—Jas. Bowden, Esq. 


Leeds—J, Marshall, Esq. 


Lewes—J. W. Woollgar, Esq. 

Henry Browne. Esq. 

Liverpool Loe. As.—J. Mutteneux, Esq, 

Rev. Wm, Shepherd, L.L.D. 
Maidenhead—R. Goolden, Esq., F.L.S. 
Matdstone—Clement T, Smyth, Esq. 

John Case, Esq. 

Manchester Loc. A8.u—G. W. Wood, Esq., 
M.P., CA. 

Sir Benjamin Heywood, Bt., Treasurer. 

Sir George Philips, Bart., M.P. 

T. N. Winstanley, Esq., Hon. Sec. 
Merthyr Tydvitl—Sir J. J. Guest. Bart., M.P. 
Minchinhampton—John G. Ball, Esq. 
Neath—Jolin Rowland, Esq. 
WNeweastle—Rev. W. Turner, 

T. Sopwith, Esq., F.G.S, 

Newport, Isleof Wight—Ab. Clarke, Esq. 

T. Cooke, Jun., Esq. 

R. G. Kirkpatrick, Esq. 

Newport Pagnetl—J. Millar. Esq. 
Norwich—Richard Bacon, Esq. 

Wm. Forster, Esq. 

Orsett, Essex—Corbett, M.D. 


A. T. Malkin, Esq. A.M, 

Mr. Sergeant Manning. 

R. I, Murchison, Esq., FLR.S., F.G.S8. 
The Right Hon. Lord Nugent, 

W. S. O’Brien, Esq., M.P. 

Richard Quain, Fsq. 

P.M. Roget, M.D. Sec. R.S., F.R.A.S. 
R. W, Rothman, Esq., A.M. ° 

Sir Martin Archer Shee, P.R.A., FIRS. 
Sir George ‘I, Staunton, Bart., M.P. 
John Taylor, Esq. F.R.S. 

A. T. Thomson, M.D. F.L.S. 

Thomas Vardon, Esy. 

Jas. Walker, Esq., F.R.S., Pr. Enet., Clv. Bug. 
H, Waymouth, Esq. 

Thos. Webster, Esq., A.M. 

Right Hon. Lord Wrottesley, A.M,, F.R,A.3. 
J.A. Yates, Esq., M.P. 


Oxford—Ch.Daubeny, M.D.F.R.S.Prof.Chenm, 
Rev. Baden Powell, Sav. Pof, 
Rev. John Jordan, B.A, 
Pesth, Hungary—Count Szechenyl. 
Piymouth—W. Woollcombe, Eay., ?.A,38,, CA, 
Wm. Snow Harris, Esq., F.R.S. 
EB. Moore, M.D., F.L.S., Seeretary, 
G. Wightwick, Esq. 
Dr, Trail}. 
Prestergn—Rt. Hon. Sir H. Brydges, Tart. 
A. W. Davis, M.D. 
Ripon—Rev. H.P. Hamliton,M,A,,F. 1.8.39, 
Rev. P. lewart, M.A. 
Ruthin—Rev. the Warden of 
Humphreys Jones, Esq. 
Ryde, I. of Vight—Sir Rd. Simeon, Be. 
Salisbury—Rev, J. Barfitt. 
Sheffield—.J. H. Abraham, Esq. 
Shepton Mallet—G. F. Burronglis, Exc, 
Shrewsbury—R. A. Slaney, Esq., M.P. 
South Petherton—Johun Nicholetts, Kaq. 
Stockport—H. Marsland, Esq., Treasures. 
Henry Coppock, Esq., Secretary. 
Sydney, New S. WVales—W. M, Manning, Faq. 
Swansea— Matthew Moggridge, Esq. 
Lavistoek—Rev. W. Evane. 
Joha Rundle, Esq., M.P. 
Truru— Henry Sewell Stokes, Esq, 
Tunbridge Weils—Yeats, M.D. 
Uttoreter— Robert Blurton, Esq. 
Virgina, U. S.—Professor Tucker, 
Worcester—Chas, Hastings, M.D. 
C. H. Hebb, Esq. 
Wrerhum—Thomas Edgworth, Esq. 
Major Sir William Lloyd. 
Yarmouth—C. E, Rumbold, Esq. 
Dawson Turner, Ese 
York—Rev. J. Kenrick, M.A, 
Jolin Philllps, Esq. F.R.S., F.t2.5,. 


‘THOMAS COATES, Esq., Secretary, No. 59, Lincotn’s Im Fields, 


CO ee OE lea 


cen te 2 oe a are ae a a ya, 


Loddon: Pijied by Witnram Clowes and Sons, Stamford Streot 


APELAme Gallery, the, 190. 

Aerolites, fall of, at Milan, 51. 

Agriculture, improvers of, 475. 

Aleppo, 141. 

Algebra, moral, 59. 

America, the iron-trade of, 440. 

Anemometer, or wind-gauge, the, 462. 

Artesian well at Grenelle, 441. 

Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, sight of 
the, 411. 


Baspyrovssa, the, 321. 

Backgammon, 100. 

Bacon, Lord, 60. 

Barometer, the, 194. 

Bewick, the engraver, life of, 260, 268. 

Birds, gallinaecous (game), 401, 414. 

Birds’ nests, edible, of the lMastern 
Islands, 367. 

Black lead and black-lead pencils, 394. 

Bodleian Library, the, 223. 

Bone, the.value of a, 218. 

Bosworth Field, the battle of, 433. 

Bouquets at night, 307. 

Brewery, London, a day at a, 121. 

Britton, Thomas, the musical small- 
coal man, 70. 

Burke, Edmund, 129. 

Burns, Robert, 353, 389. 


CameEr, the, 29. 

Cmpada, forests of, 264; post-office in, 
dee 

Canonbury, recollections of, 410. 

Cattle, 273, 281. | 

Cavalry, lidian, charge of, 148. 

Caxton, I. 

Chaucer’s Portrait Gallery: the host, 
65; the cook, 79; the knight, 93; 
the squire, 101; the frankhn, 149; 
the merchant, 171; the sergeant-at- 
law, 185; the doctor of physic, 230 ; 
the parson, 245; the clerk of Oxcn- 
ford, 271; the monk, 293; the friar, 
322; the sumpnonr, 345; the par- 
doner, 375; the ploughman, 393 ; 
the shipman, 442; the haberdasher, 
&c., 449; the miller and the reve, 
460; the manciple, 481; the prioress, 
482; the wife of Bath, 495. 

Chemistry, Domestic: milk, 11. 

Coachmaker’s, a day ata, 501. 

el insect, the, and its produce, 
455. 

Commerce, influence of the Oriental 





INDEX TO VOL, X. 





13th and 15th centuries, 480; Census 
of 1841, 487, 488. 

Esthonians, domestic economy of, 403. 

Etruscan tomb, an, 203. 

Events, great, local memories of: 
Battle of Hastings, 17; Magna Charta, 
117; Battle of Worcester, 233; Battle 
of Bosworth Field, 433. 


FAMINE in India, 108. 

Fans, 480. 

Farne Islands, the, 198, 

Feathers, their nature and uses, 337, 
363. 

Female labour in Arabia, 140. 

Field-flowers, 312. 

Finland farm-house, 116. 

Fish used as food in North America, 
135. 

Flint-glass faetory, a day at a, 81, 

Food, abstinence from, 63, 

Football, game of, in Holborn or the 
Strand, 155. 


GarpDENs of Hindoostan, 403. 

Gent, Thomas, of York, printer, 142. 

Glass-mannfacture, perfection of, 
amony the Egyptians, 302. 

Greatrakes, Valcutine, 421. 

Greece, Modern, agriculture of, 
mode of preparing wiue in, 76. 

Greenland, atmospherieal phenomenon 
in, 59; habits of the people of, 116; 
fishing-boats of, 120. 

Grouse, American, 186, 


aD) C 
fwy9 


IamptTon Court, the Cartoons at, 377, 
425. 

Hare and Rabbit, the, 417. 

Hastings, the battle of, 17. 

Hat-factory, a day ata, 41. 

Fedgehogs, 392, 

Hindoostan, life of the husbandinan in, 
443. 

Hip-joint, diseases of the, 35. 

Hog, the, 237. 

Honey of the Hymettus. 80. 

Horses, British, 229, 

Hungary, the plains of, 132; a gentle- 
man’s establishment in, 140; the 

_ Spring fair at Pesth, 154. 

Hyde Park a century sinee, 272, 

Hygrometer, the, 246. . 


character on, 19; advantages of, 92; IcEBERG, gigantic, 112, 


foreign, moral influence of, 464. 
Contrasts: Lunatic Asylums, 22. 
ao. mode of threshing, in the Fast, 

» 
Corneille, 369. 
Cottages in Bengal, 155. 
Cowper, William, 149. 
Croydon church and palace, 317. 
Criden, Alexander, 31. 


Datry, London, a day ata, 297. 

Danube, the, 333, 349, 365. 

Death, Chinese ideas of, 448. 

Deer of the British Islands, 103, 133. 

Dibdin, Charles, the songs of, 372. 

Discourse, 408. 

Diseases, endemie and epidemic, 291, 
Sli, 314, 316. 

Dogs, wild and domestic, 7, 56, 77. 

Drinks, the artificial cooling of, 319. 

Drummond of Hawthoruden, 169. 

Dulwich Gallery, the, 137, 193, 217, 
Bal, 269, 299. 

Dunbarton Castle, 36. 


East India Company’s museum, 207. 

sconomy, 132. 

Education, 112. 

Emigrants in Canada, 200. 

England: what it has done, and what 
it has yet to do, 92; and the United 
States of Amcrica, mutual interests 
of, 152; Public Records of, 308 ; the 
Islands of, 398, 405, 415, 420; the 
language of, 448; fruits in, in the 


leelanders, dwellings of the, 392. 

Indians, the medicine-bag of the, 440, 

Ingenuity wasted, 267. 

Insanity, success and economy of early 
treatment in, 92. 

Inundations, in Holland, in 1825, 437, 
447. 

Iron aud coal, 288. 

Irrigation in the East, 180. ~ 


JAPAN, town-gardens in, 112; one siu- 
preme power in, 116; the Mikado 
in, 140; uses of the fan in, 148. 


Kasumir, the valley of, 326, 420. 

Kew, the !botanic garden and arbore- 
tum at, 263, 260.- get! 

LaBour, physical and mental, 316. 

Lac insect and its produce; 423. 

Ladakh, the province of, 480. 

Land (poor sandy), improvement of, 
192. 

Land and water, relative quantities of, 
107. 

Law and interest, 204. 

Lichens, phosphoric, 42+4. 

Literary sociality of the time of James 
1, 3-08 

Lithography, progress and history of, 
248.. 

Liveries, 474. 

London: in the time of the Britons, 
4; St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, 


452; London-stone, 204; the Tower, 


473; the Sewers, 485, 491; public 
improvements in, 497. 

Louis XIV., a day of, 33. 

Love of country, 312, 

Lunatic Asylums, 22. 


Maawna Charta, 117. 

Man, stature and weight at different 
ares, 396. 

Manna, 464. 

Manners, among a seattered population, 
248; in Asia Minor, 360. 

Mantis, the, 435. 

pee ores: London, a day at the, 

Si: 

Mechanies’ Institutes, 
108. 

Mechanism and manufactures, exhibi- 
tions 6f—Society of Arts, 1288; Po'ly- 
technie Iustitution, 178; Adelaide 
Gallery, 190. 

Men, Great, local memories of :—Cax- 
ton, 1; Bacon, 60; Milton, 97; Burke, 
129; Cowper, 149; Drummond of 
Hawthornden, 169; Petrarch, 205, 
222; Moliére, 305; Burns, 389; Cor- 
neille, 369. 

Mental delusions, 409. 

Milton, John, 97. 

Mole-eatchers and mole-catching, 371 ; 
moles, their nses, 496. 

Moliére, 303. 

Mnd-turtles, 71. 

Musieal knife, 144. 

Mustard-tree, the, 288. 

Mutual support, 240. 


exhibitions of, 


Natin-mannfaeture, the, 359. 

Napoleon column at Boulogne, 404. 

National Gallery, the, 11, 21, 52, 68, 89. 

Newspapers, American, their appear: 
ance, character, &e., 243. 

Nile, great cataract of Alata, on the, 
332. 

Norway, the bonder or small landowner 
of, 459; seenery ofa fiord in, 464. , 

Nuremberg, 227. 


Occutt Sciences, the, 110, 119, 131. 

Opinion the true prop of good govern- 
ment, 10. 

Opossum and raeoon hunting, 39. 

Oranges, mode of packing at St. Mi- 
chael’s, 3073; peculiarity of the 
orange-tree, 392. 

Oxford, the Martyrs’ Memorial at, 37. 


Parntina in freseo, 450. 

Paraguay, hunting ostriches and wild 
horses in, 20. 

Peasantry of the Pyrenees, 416. 

Peat-gatherer, the, 388. 

Peuny postage, anticipations and re- 
sults, 283. 

Peru, thé Balsas of, 424. 

Petrarch, 20a, 222. 

Philosophy, Natural, 72. 

Piceadilly, 280. 

Pictures, vratnitous exhibitions of :— 
The National Gallery, H1, 21, 52, 68, 
89; Dulwich College, 137, 193, 217, 
241, 265, 289; Hampton Court, 377, 
425. 

Piety and the love of nature, 442. 

Pigeous, domestic, 361. 

Planetary System, the, 72. 

Plants, the death of, 294; noxious ones 
useful, 332. 

Pluviometer, the, 445. 

Population of Great Britain—Census of 
1841, 487, 488. 

Portrait, antique, 387. 

Polyps, the, 67. 

Polytechnie Institution, the, 178. 

Post-office despatch in 1717 and 1841 ; 
the railway post-office, 15&: 

Potash, manutacture of, in Upper Ca- 
nada, 9a. 

Poultry, domestic, 329. 

Prndence, 443. 

Purrah, the, in Afriea, 407. 


a a te a aaa 


RAFFAELLE, sculpture by, 2:7; the Car- 
toons by, 377, 420. 

Railway rambles :—the Ravensbourne 
river, 156, 188; Croydon Chnreh and 
Palace, Beddington, &c., 317; Stoke, 
412, 444. 

Railway-train, how propelled, 51. 

Rain, fossil, 67. 

Rain-gauge, or Pluviometer, 445. 

Ravensbourne river, the, 156, 188. 

Reading-rooms, village, 64. 

Reaping, 296. 

Recreation, 248. : 

Roads and travelling in the olden time, 
182. 

Rome, the climate of, 160. 

Rook, utility of the, 475. 

Roses, Indian, and attar (otto) of, 428. 

ee Asiatic Soeiety’s museum, 324, 
335, 


SALT-MINE at Tuz Koi, Kurdistan, 253), 

Savage, picture ofa, 116. 

Sea, the, luminous and phosphoresceut 
appearance of, 478. 

Seeds of plants, dissemination of, 2Uo. 

Seeing without sight, 116. 

Shakspere and his will, 14; his de- 
lincations of female friendship, 109; 
not a horseboy, 411. 

Sheep, British, 175, 177, 196. 

Shells, beauty of, 236. 

Ship-yard, a day at a, 209, 249. 

Siberia, woollen manufacture in, 16. 

Siroeco of the Mediterranean, the, 49-I. 

Slavonian village, 160. 

Spain, the romances of :--The Cid, 4, 
25, dae (3, LISP tose did, 201, 2ai, 
284, 313, 327. 

Stalactites and stalagmites, 262. 

Steam-boat, how propelled, 75; made 
of iron, 320. 

Steam-engine, 27. 

Stoke, Buckinghamshire, 412, 444. 

Sugar-refinery, a day at a, 161. 

Sunrise on Moung Ktna, 408. 

Superstition in Asia Minor, 264. 


TABLES D’HOTE, influenec of, on the 
Continent, 184. 

Taylor, the water-poet, 476; his Penny- 
less Pilgrimage, 483, 489. 

Texas, the cross-timber district of, 240; 
simplicity of agricultural operations 
in the weed prairies of, 272; the wild 
horse of, 392. 

Thames, a Parsee’s impression of the, 
eoq 

Thermometer, the, 232, 239. 

Thieftakers, Indian, 140. 

Thread, value of, for lace, 155. 

Tobacco-manufactory, a day ata, 465, 

Yowns and their population, improve- 
ment of, 91. 


UKRAINz, the steppes of the, 424. 
Uniteil Serviee Museum, 273, 286. 


VEnICLES, metropolitan, 240. 
Velleia, the fate of, 240. 
Veracity, English, 464. 
Veronese peasantry, 318. 
Virgin earth, 351. 


Walts, the, 15. 

Weasel tribe, the, of the British Islands, 
457. 

Water, the use of, to vegetation, 453. 

Water-fowl, domestic, 335, 595. 

Wickliffe, John; two of this name, 343. 

Wilkie, Sir David, 27%. 

Women, Amcrican and English, eom- 
pared, 440. 

Wouder, 155. 

Worcester, the battle ef, 233. 

Workhouse, Union, two hours at a, 397, 


ZEALAND, New, the natives of, 440. 


BRITISH TOPOGRAPHY AND 
ANTIQUITIES. 
Caxton and his localities, 1. 
William the Conqueror, Harold, and 


the loealities of the Battle of Hast- 


ings, 17. 
Dunbarton Rock, 36. 
Lord Bacon and his localittes, 60. 
Milton and his loeatities, 97. 
Magna Charta and its localities, 117. 
Burke and his localities, 129. 
Cowper and his localities, 149. 
Ravensbourne River, Souree of, 156. 
Keston Common, and Mill, 197. 
Hayes Churchyard, and Yew-tree, 157. 
Drummond of Hawthornden and his 
* localities, 169. 
Bromley Church, 188. 
Water-vate at, 189. 

a the Lady-well, near, 189. 
Beckenham, Lich-gate at, 189. 
Deptford Creek, 190. 

London Stone, 204. 

Bodlcian Library, the interior, 228. 

rar of Worcester and its localitics, 
2O0. 

Cherry-burn, Northnmberland ; house 
m1 Whieh Bewick was born, 260. 

Ovingham Parsonage, banks of the Tyne, 
Ul. 

Neweastle-on-Tyne, Workshop of Be- 
wick, the engraver, 268. 


93 


Watering-house at Kiunightsbridge in 
1841, 280. 
Public Records of England: rolls, 


pouches, hanapers, aud signs, 308, 
309, 310. 7 

Croydon Church, 317. 

Croydon Palace, staircase of the cha- 
pel, with Queen Elizabeth's pew, 
318. 

Mill near Waddon, 318. 

Beddington Church, 319. 

Burns, the poet, and his localities, 
353. 

Windsor Union Workhouse, 397. 

Stoke Church, 412. 

Monument to Gray, 413. 


33 

,, Manor-house, remains of, 444. 
Fae - old kitchen in, 
445, 

», Gray’s summer-honse, 445. 


Richard III., the Battle of Bosworth 
Field, and localities, 434. 

Plan of Bosworth Field, 435. 

St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, 1841, 
452. 

The Tower of London: the Great 
Storehouse, as it appeared on fire on 
the night of Oct. 30, 1941, 473. 

Palace-yard Stairs, in 1641, 477. 

Kdinburgh in the beginning of the 17th 
centnry, 484. 

St. George’s Hall and New Assize 
Courts, Liverpool, 497. 

Liverpool Collegiate Institution, 498. 

St. Mary’s Church, Southwark, 500. 


“FOREIGN TOPOGRAPHY AND 
¥ ANTIQUITIES. 

Aleppo, 141. 

Petrarch and his localities, 205, 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 





Moliere and his localities, 305. 

Scene on the Dannbe, 333, 349, 365. 
Corneille and his localities, 369. 
Napoleon Cohimn at Boulogne, 404. 
Artesian well at Grenelle, Paris, 441. 


THE FINE ARTS. 


The Romances of Spain :—Tune Crp ;— 

Rodrigo of Bivar, the Cid, 4. 

The Cid receiving his father’s sword, 
po 

Rodrigo and Count Lozano, 295. 

The Cid on his war horse, 27. 

Zimena Gomez suing for justice, 49. 

The Cid and the Leper, 73. 

Parting of Rodrigo and Zimena, 75. 

The Cid rescuing the King Don 
Sancho, 13. 

Rodrigo pursuing Bellido Dolfos, 
Tia. 

Death of the King Don Sancho, 153. 

The Cid before Zamora, 153. 


The Virgin and Clild, by Vandyke, 
241. 


Boors merrymaking, by Ostade, 265. 

Landscape with Cattle and Figures, 
by Wouvermans, 289. 

ITampton Court:—Tur Carroons of 


Raffaelle :— 
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, 
377. 


Christ’s Charge to Peter, 331. 
Peter and John healing the Cripple, 
394. 

Death of Ananias, 420. 
Elvmas struck Blind, 428. 
Sacrifice at Lystra, 429. 
Paul preaching at Athens, 432. | 

Tric-trac, from a painting by Temers, 
100. 

Hermia and Helena, from a drawing 
by Severn, 109. 

The Huntsman and Old Hound, after 
Bewick, 261.; 

, Man aud Horse, after Bewitk, 269. 


Rodrigo administering the oath to | Ruined Cottage and Sheep, after Be- 


King Alphonso, 173. 

The Cid going into exile, 172. 

The Cid, Zimena, and her dangh- 
ters, 201. 

Rodrigo defeating the Moors before 
Valencia vl. 

The Cid and the crouching Lion, 
ee 

Rodrigo departing for Toledo, 284. 

St. Peter and the Cid, 313. 

Tomb of the Cid, in the convent of 
San Pedro de Cardena, 328. 

Chancer’s Portrait Gallery: — THE 
CANTERBURY TALES :— 

The Host aud the Cook, 65. 

The Knight and the Squire, 93. 

The Franklin and the Merchant, 145. 

The Sergeant-at-law and the Doctor 
of Medicine, 145. 

The Parson and the Clerk of Oxen- 
ford, 245. 

The Monk and the Friar, 293. 

The Sumpnour and the Pardoner, 
345. 

The Ploughman and the Shipman, 

. 393. 

The Hahberdasher, the Carpenter, the 
Weaver. the Dyer, and the Tapis- 
trer, 449. 

The Miller, the Maneciple. and the 
Reve, 460. 


wick, 269. = 
Senlpture—* Dolphin and Child,” by 
Raffaele, 277. . 
Sailors singiny, after a drawing by Wil- 
liam Lee, 373, 
Bursting of St. Anthony’s Dyke, Hol- 
land, from an etching by P. Nolpe, 
437. 


NATURAL HISTORY. 


Dogs, 9, 37, 77. 

Camels, 29. | 

Deer of the British Islands, 105, 133. 

British Sheep, 177, 199. 

British Horses, 225. 

Hogs, 237. 

Woodcock, 270. 

British Cattle, 273, 291. 

The Babiroussa (Sus Babyrussa, Linn.), 
321. 


Domestic Poultry, 329. 

Domestic Pigeons, 361. 

Domestic Water-fowl, 385. 
Gallinaceous Birds (game), 401. 
Hares and Rabbits, 417. 

Weasels of the British Islands, 457. 


TRADL, MANUFACTURES, AND 
COMMERCE. 


The Prioress and the Wife of Bath, |} 


481. 
Portrait of Chaucer, 496. 
The National Gallery :— 
The Infant St. John, by Mumillo, 13. 
The Dutch Housewife, by Maes, 21. 
The Nativity, by Rembrandt, 52. 
The Market-eart, by Gainsborongh, 
68. 
The Holy Family, by Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, 89. 
Dulwich Gallery :— 
Spanish Beggar-boys, by Murillo, 
137. 
Landseape and Cattle, by Cuyp, 193. 
Martyrdom of St. Scbastian, by 
Guido, 217. _ 


IHat-making :—Ilat battery or kettle, 
41; cutting-machine, 43; blowing- 
engine, 43; ‘ blowing,’ 44; mi- 
-croscopic view of fibre of beaver fur, 
44; section of the cap, 45; ‘ ruff- 
ing,’ 46; ‘ blocking,’ 46; dyeing- 
caldron, 46; stages of shaping, 47. 
Flint-glass manufacture :—Glass-blow- 
ing furnace, 831; glass-melting pots, 
83; section of melting-pan, 83; 
gronnd-plan of melting-furnace, 84 ; 
blowing inoulded bottle, 85; mould 
for casting glass, $5; rolling glass 


on marver, 85; blowing glass 
through the working-tube, 85; 


shaping and blowing a glass jug, 85; | 


Coach Making 


clarct-jug, 86; re-heating glass at 
the furnace, 86; glass-cutter at work, 
87; glass-engraver at work, 88. 

A London Brewery: Entrance to Bar- 
elay’s brewery, 121; maltman and 
malt-bin, 122: malt-crushing ma- 
chine, 123; buckets of the ‘ Jacob’s 
ladder,’ 123; sectional view of the 
principal vessels and apparatus, 124; 
cleansing in the rounds, 126; large 
vat, 126; drawing off, 127, 

Sugar Refinery :—Interior, 1613 boil- 
ing sugar In vacuo, 165; sugar inthe 
heater, 165 ; filling the moulds with 
liquid sugar, 166; ‘ brushing-off,’ 
* turning-off,’ and papering the 
lump-sugar, 167, 168. 

Ship-buildmg Yard:—Ship on the 
stocks building and ship in dock for 
repairs; 209; boys spinning oaknm, 
211; making treenails, 212; steam- 
ing-house for ships’ planks, 214; 
frame-timbers of 2 West India trader, 
216; interior of a mast-house, 249; 
boring for treenails, 25!; caulking, 
251; serving of rope with spun yarn, 
2095; sailmaker at work, 256. 

A London Dairy :—Milking-shed at 
twelve o’cloek, 297; side view and 
section of a Dutch cow-housce, 300; 
cattle-layers at Islington, 304. 

Loudon Marble-works :—Show-room, 
337; sawing-machine, 340 ; rippiwe- 
bed, 341; small circular cutter, 341; 
moulding-bed, 3423 square grinding- 
bed, 343; circular grinding-bed, 
343; polishing-bed, 344. 


Tobacco Manufaetory :—Tobacco-ware- 


house, London Docks, 465; tobaeco- 
kiln, 468; cutting-machine, 469; 
making pigtail, 4703; stripping the 
leaf, 471; making cigars, 471; snuff- 
grinding machines, 472. 

:—Intcrior of conch- 
making loft; speeching or spoking 
a coach-wheel; tiring a coach-wheel ; 
turning an iron axle; smith’s shop, | 
making a coach C-spring; drawing 
ie coach-beading itt plater’s shop 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


Lonis NIV. in his bedchamber, 33. 

Initial letter (S), 156. 

Moder Shadoofs for irrigation in the 
East, 180. 

The Sackiveh, or Persian wheel, 181. 

Threshing by the Sledge, 220. 

Threshing by the Drag, 221. 

Threshing by Horses, 221. 

Bewick’s Funeral, 270. °* 

Sir John Dinely, portrait, 256. 

The Peat-gathecrer, 388.. 

John Kelsey, portrait, 409. 

Valentine Greatrakes, portrait, 421. 

Geological section of the Basin of 
Paris, 441. 

John Taylor, the water-poct, 476. 

Deer-hunting in the HWighlinds, 489. 

London Sewers, three section's, 491. 


OF THE 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE 


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and the Almonry, on its sides; and the old Hall of 
The minor illustrations eomprise the Initial Letters in the upper part ofthe Engraving, whieh show the 
art is the Monogram whieh formed his deviee ; the seroll-work ornament 
different parts of the picture, 
VoL. Is 


(The Views consist of—the Weald of Kent, above the Portrait ; old Westminster Atbey 


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only two ornaments of that kind used by Caxton; in the lower p 
is selected from the wood euts of his Golden Legend + and the curious figures, &c. which occupy the eorners and 


are illustrative of Caxton’s paper-marks. | 


No, H6%. 


tr 


THE PENNY 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. 
CAXTON. 


THE interest we feel in seeing —or in listening to 
the accounts of those who have seen— the locality 
of ahy highly important event, is perhaps one of 
the most curious as it certainly is one of the most 
universal and unvarying of the mental characteristics. 
What long and painful pilgrimages have not been 
made to see the place where a great poet, patriot, or 
philosopher was born or buried; where an empire 
was lost and won; the hberties of a people overthrown 
or established! What countless books too have not 
been written describing for the hundredth time that 
which still the public are most heartily willing to 
read of! And, whatever may be the origin of this 
interest, the experience of all men attests its utility. 
Who, we may ask, has ever stood upon a spot rendered 
sacred to a great memory without finding that the 
event itself, with all its consequences, became there 
clearer to his apprehension than before ; without feel- 
ing his love and veneration for all that was great and 
good—or his contempt and abhorrence for all that was 
sordid and bad in that event, there confirmed and 
deepened, we might say rendered ineffaceable for ever ? 
But, compared with the interest which all educated 
persons feel in standing upon such spots—in cherish- 
ing the thoughts which Dr. Johnson has beautifully 
described as associated with Marathon or Bannock- 
burn—the perfection of such feelings can be enjoyed 
only by a few. The printing-press and the graver 
make such scenes, 1n a certain sense, accessible to all. 
We propose to employ these instruments in bringing 
such scenes and associations home to the understand- 
ing and hearts of readers. Rich, beyond every other 
country, aS our own undoubtedly is in its great men 
and great events, it has appeared to us that a series 
of papers in which their local memories should form 
the peculiar and distinguishing feature, would be ge- 
nerally acceptable. Such a series therefore we com- 
mence with the life of Caxton, the first English 
printer ; he who first made knowledge generally ac- 
cessible to the English people. This is a tribute of 
gratitude which is due to his memory from the ‘ Penny 
Magazine.’ 

From the fifteenth century is commonly and justly 
dated the revival of learning in Europe. The destruc- 
tion of the Greek empire by the taking of Constan- 
tinople, and the consequent dispersion of a host of its 
most illustrious men through Italy—the enlightened 
munificence of the then reigning pope, Nicholas V., 
and of the noble prince merchant of Florence, Cosmo 
de’ Medici, all united to give a fresh impulse to the 
diffusion and cultivation of a taste for Greck literature, 
and, through its medium, for letters generally. France, 
Germany, and England speedily felt the invigorating 
influence ; everywhere the concentrated gloom of cen- 
turles appeared to be slowly rolling off. Precisely at 
this period, so important, but also so critical for the 
interests of literature and the universal well-being of 
man, was discovered in Germany the art of printing. 
What a discovery ! and at what a time! The fitness of 
the one alone could have enhanced the value of the 
other. Into that eventful history we are not here 
about to enter; we wish merely to remark, that almost 
from the first moment that the knowledge of the new 
powcr (the most sublime that man has ever evoked 
from material agencies) began to be bruited abroad, 
among the most attentive and eager of the listeners 
was an Tnglishman, then residing in the Low Coun- 
tries ; and who, when he found that it was no chimera 
of the inventor’s brain, but a solid, substantial, albeit a 
most wonderful thing, set himself in earnest to ac- 
quire the necessary skill to direct its manifestations, 


MAGAZINE. [JANUARY 2, 
After the expenditure of a considerable amount of 
money, some years of the prime of his life, and, we 
may safely conclude, a world of anxious cares in over- 
coming the difficulties that he must have met with, he 
succeeded ; and having made two or three preliminary 
experiments of the art abroad, he returned to England, 
inspired doubtless with a noble exultation at the 
thought of the precious blessing he was about to be 
the means of conferring upon his beloved couutrymen. 
That Englishman was William Caxton. 

Of the particulars of Caxton’s life we unfortunately 
know very little; and but for the incidental remarks 
found occasionally interspersed through the prologues 
or prefaces with which he commenced his publications, 
that little would be reduced to almost nothing. He 
‘was born,” to use his own words, “and learnt his 
English in Kent in the weald;’* the date is sup- 
posed to be about 1412. His family is said to have 
been of great repute of old, and “gentle like.” Inan 
age when ignorance was general even among the 
higher classes, for Caxton to have received the educa- 
tion he undoubtedly did, would seem to imply that his 
parents were no ordinary persons. “JI am bounden,” 
he gratefully acknowledges, “to pray for my father’s 
and mother’s souls, that in my youth sent me to school, 
by which, by the sufferance of God, I get my living, 
I hope truly.” He was most probably sent to London 
at an early age to receive a superior instruction to 
that obtainable in his native place, for he calls the city 
his “mother, of whom he had received his nurture 
and living ;” at all events, he was apprenticed there 
to one Robert Large, an eminent mercer or mer- 
chant, who filled the offices of sheriff and lord mayor. 
It is in accordance with all we know of Caxton’s cha- 
racter to find his master, who died in 1441, marking 
the estimation in which he held him by a bequest of 
twenty marks. The same year Caxton went abroad; 
according to some writers, as a factor or ecneral agent 
of the Mercers’ Company, which was then one of the 
wealthiest and most influential of the metropolitan 
corporations ; accordmg to others, for private members 
of the company, or on his own account. He continued 
abroad for at least thirty years, as he himself informs 
us, residing for the most part in “ Brabant, Flanders, 
Holland, and Zealand.” Of his position and character 
during a part at least of this time, we have an un- 
doubted testimony. In 1444 we find him and one 
Robert Whitehall, Esq. commissioned as ambassadors 
and special deputies to continue and confirm a treaty 
then existing, or to create a new one, between Ed- 
ward IV. and Philip, duke of Burgundy. The manner 
in which he acquitted himself of this duty led, in all 
probability, to the next event in Caxton’s life, his en- 
tering the houschold of Margaret, duchess of Bur- 
gundy, and sister of the English king. Of his duties 
and rank in this new situation we are utterly ignorant; 
some writers have spoken of his holding a merely 
memial office, an idea too absurd for scrious refuta- 
tion. We have seen the nature of his previous public 
employment; we shall presently find an indication, 
equally satisfactory, of the confidential and honourable 
nature of the private relations existing between him 
and his noble mistress. 

But we have now reached, and must therefore first _ 
mention, one of the great events of Caxton’s life. 
This was the printing of his first work, the ‘Recucil 
des Histoires de Troyes,’ composed by Raoul le Fevre, 
chaplain to the duke of Burgundy, and which there is 
every reason to conclude was the first book ever 
printed in the French language. None of the biogra- 
phers of Caxton allude to this circumstance, and we 
are indebted for our knowledge of it to Mr. Hallam, 


* Weald, from a Saxon word signifying a fonest or unculti- 
vated tract. 


1841] THE PENNY 
who states * that the earhest works printed in France 
bear the date of 1470 and 1471, whilst there is little 
doubt that the ‘Recucil’ was printed during the life 
of the duke of Burgundy, and therefore in or before 
1467 ; at all events, it must have been finished before 
March, 1468, for then Caxton began the translation of 
the same work into the english, and printed it as he 
translated ; aud certainly he would not at that period 
have had two works in hand at once. Mr. Hallam 
speaks of the omission of this fact by the French 
biographers as ‘“ hardly excusable ;” but surely it 
would be too much to expect them to prove Caxton’s 
ciaim to an honour that his own countrymen had 
neglected, and, by neglecting, might be supposed to 
disbelieve. The second work printed by Caxton was 
a Latin oration ; and the third was the translation of the 
‘Recueil’ before mentioned. This was, as we have scen, 
commenced at Bruges, in 1468; 1t was finished at Co- 
logne, in 1471. By printing these three works, Caxton 
had doubtless obtained considerable proficiency, and 
perhaps at the same tine had instructed persons to act 
as his future assistants. Within the next two or three 
years he returned to England, and commenced print- 
ing in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. We 
transcribe the following passage from Stow :—“St. 
Ann’s, in the parish of St. Margaret. There was an 
old chapel, over against which the Lady Margaret, 
mother to King Henry VII., erected an alms-house for 
poor women, which is now turned into lodgings for 
the singing-men of the college. The place wherein 
this chapel and alms-house stood was called Eleemo- 
synary or Almonry, now corruptly the Armbry, for that 
the alms of the abbey were there distributed to the 
poor, and therein Islip [this is a mistake, JZilling, and 
not Islip, was then at the head of the abbey], abbot 
of Westminster, erected the first press of book-print- 
ing that ever was in Iengland, about 1471, where 
William Caxton, citizen and mercer of London, who 
first brought it into England, practised it.” The 
figures in the monogram used by Caxton (sce the 
engraving at the head of this article) form the reverse 
impression of 74, which are supposed to mark the date 
of Caxton’s commencing his art in ‘this country, 
namely 1474. His first edition of ‘The Book of 
Chess’ is dated that year, and if that was printed 
abroad, as Dr. Dibdin supposes, there is no doubt 
that the second edition of the same work, datcd 1475, 
Was printed at Westminster. The religious house 
mentioned by Stow stood near the entrance to the 
abbey, a little to the west of the sanctuary ; and as 
Caxton was under the abbot’s protection, there would 
be nothing remarkable in his alluding, as he has done, 
to his printing “‘7z the abbey at Westminster,” even 
though there were no othcr foundation for the allu- 
sion than the circumstances we have mentioned: at all 
events, it is not certain that his press was ever erected 
anywhere but in the Almonry. The following is a 
copy of a very curious placard printed by Caxton, 
and now at Oxford :—“ If it please any man spiritual 
or temporal to buy any pyes [or pies] of two and three 
commemorations of Salisbury, as enprinted after the 
form of this present letter, which be well and truly 
correct, let him come to Westminster, into the 
Almonesrye, at the reed pale, and he shall have them 
good cheap. Supplico stet cedula.” 

On his arrival, Caxton met with warm encourage- 
ment and effective assistance from various influential 
persons, in carrying out his good and great object of 
encouraging learning aud genius by providing an 
effective means of disseminating their fruits, and of 
furnishing books, to use his own words, “capable of 
instructing the ignorant in wisdom and virtue.” The 

e ‘Introduction to the History of Literature in Europe in the 
Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries,’ 


MAGAZINE. ‘3 


| Abbot of Westminster, Milling, took him, as we have 


stated, under his 1nmmediate protection, a courageous 
as well as an enlightened act, for so divided in opinion 
as to the cifects of the new wonder were the clergy, 
that one of their number, a bishop of Lojiidon, is said 
to have uttered the remarkable cxpression, “If we do 
not destroy that dangerous invention, it will destroy 
us.” The earls of Worcester and Rivers, the two 
brightest ornaments of the nobility at that period, both 
distinguished for their learning and intellectual ac- 
complishments, as well as for their military and poli- 
tical abilities, and, it is melancholy to add, both also 
perishine by the axe of the exccutioncr. during the 
wars of the Roses, (speaking of the former, Caxton 
finely says, “‘at which death every man that was there 
might learn to dic”), these noblemen were also patrons 
of the great printer, and assisted him by translating 
works for his press. Lastly, Caxton says he “acted 
under the shadow of the king’s noble protection ;’ and 
a drawing in a manuscript in Lambeth Palace records 
his presentation at court by Lord Rivers. Of the pro- 
gress of the art in Caxton’s hands, both as to the me- 
chanical difficulties to be surmounted, and the public 
approbation that it was indispensable to obtain in the 
shape of pecuniary encouragement, we can form a 
tolerably good idea by examining the dates of Caxton’s 
publications. We thus find that one publication only 
appeared in each of the years 1474, 1475, 1477, and 
1478, and none in the two mtervening years, or in 
1479; but in 1480 three works were issued from 
the press, in 1481 four, and in the next ten years 
nearly fifty. These books were generally well 
adapted to the taste of the reading public of the day. 
Warton, in his ‘History of Poctry,’ bears emphatic 
testimony to the literary results of Caxton’s labours, 
“who,” he says, “by translating and procuring to 
be translated a great number of books from the 
French, greatly contributed to promote the state of 
literature in England.” Caxton had the gratification 
of secing the art he had so worthily begun, in a fair 
way to be as worthily continucd. Bectore his death, 
his eminent successor, Wynkyn de Worde, and tour 
others, were all busily engaged in the same pursuit. 
Three of these were foreigners, as was also De Worde, 
all probably brought over by Caxton as his assistants. 
Caxton’s death took place im 1491 or 1492, as we find 
from the parish accounts of St. Margaret's, Westmin- 
ster, which, in connection with one of these two years, 
have the following passage :—“Item, at burying of 
William Caxton, for four torches, 6s. 8d. Item, for 
the bell at same burying, 6d.” 

In the ‘ Lives of the Fathers,’ translated by Caxton, 
but published after his death by Wynkyn de Worde, 
it is stated by the latter that Caxton finished the trans- 
lation “the last day of his life ;’ a significant, and, to 
our mind, a delightful evidence of the peaceful and 
appropriate end of the good old man, enjoying to the 
last the perfect possession of his facultics (he must 
now have been about eighty years old), and using them 
to the last in forwarding the business of his art, and 
the consequent good of his fellow-men. His remains 
were interred in the church of St. Margaret, where 
a monument to his memory has been erected by the 
Roxburgh Club. 

We add a few words on Caxton’s typography. He 
appears to have made use of five distinct sets or 
founts of type, all of the kind now deneminated black- 
letter. Aimong his other merits, Dr, Dibdin attributes 
to him the first employment of British arlsts to illus- 
trate printed books; the wood-cuts im the ‘Canter- 
bury Tales’ are considered by him to be of native 
origin. We may also state that the earliest known 
specimens of English engraving on wood are the 
figures in Caxton’s ‘ Mirror of the W “ 


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[JANUARY 2 


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1841 | 


THE CID.—No. 1. 
“ I’m Rodrigo of Bivar, 
A Castillian good and true.” 
Romances of the Cid. 


In a low state of social advancement, poetry, unlike 
every other art, may attain a very high degree of ex- 
cellence, if not in delicacy and refinement of expres- 
sion, at least in elevation of thought and vigour of 
imagination. One of the greatest bards the world has 
known was 


‘The blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle.” 


This is explained by the ancient adage that “a 
man is born, not made, a poet;” and though peculiar 
natural powers are indispensable for the attainment of 
excellence in every art, the superior simplicity of the 
machinery requisite for the expression of poetry, at least 
under certain forins, leaves room for a more free de- 
velopment of genius. 

Metre being the form best adapted to the oral trans- 
mission of events, poetry, in the literary history of 
every nation, has had an origin antecedent to prose. 
Homer and Hesiod sung centuries before Herodotus 
wrote. Ages before the prose chronicles of modern 
Europe were indited, the deeds of heroes and other 
striking events were recorded and handed down from 
generation to generation in the form of ballads, which 
in many instances constitute the foundation of the earlier 
histories jn prose. Every nation in Europe possesses 
its stock of poetical traditionary lore ; the phlegmatic 
and meditative Scandinavian and German, and the 
fervid, mercurial child of the South, have alike in the 
earliest periods of their history chosen poetry as the 
medium of recording the glorious deeds of their he- 
roes, or whatever occurrences were to them fraught 
with interest. 

No nation, however, can boast of so large a body 
of ancient popular poems as Spain. Several circum- 
stances combine to explain this unrivalled wealth 
in ballad literature. The almost unceasing contest 
which the Christian Spaniards maintained for eight 
centuries with the Arab invaders of their soil, afforded 
a long series of brilliant achievements and stirring 
events to be recorded; the intercourse which, notwith- 
standing this warfare, existed between the two nations, 
sufficed to imbue the Christians with that peculiar love 
of song which characterised their Mohammedan foes. 
But the principal cause of the great prevalence of 
ballad poetry among the Spaniards is to be found in 
the extraordiuary facility with which it could be con- 
structed, owing to the flexibility of the language and 
the simplicity of the metre and rhyme employed—a 
simplicity so remarkable that a bard might with little 
difficulty pour forth in song his thoughts as they arose. 
“The most rude and illiterate man,” says Duran, a 
inodern native collector of Spanish romances,* “ might 
compose these loosely formed narrations. Even at 
the present day, though the romance has now acquired 
such perfection as to render it adaptable to every class 
of compositions, it continues as subject to the con- 
trol of the vulgar as of the learned. All alike com- 
pose romances, and there is probably not 
to be found a single Spaniard, even among those who 
despise the romance for its facility of construction, 
who has not sung of love, war, heroic deeds, or ficti- 
ious events in this species of metrical composition.” 

It is impossible to determine with accuracy the date 
of anonymous poems orally transinitted through many 


* It may perhaps be superfluous to mention that this word 
takes its origin from the Romance language, the corrupt Latin 
spoken in the southern countries of Europe after the overthrow 
of the Western Empire,—the language in which the Trouba- 


dours sung their lays and fabliaux, their tales of love and chi- | 


valry. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. r 


ages. It is evident, however, that much of the ballad 
poetry of Spain which has come down to us is of great 
antiquity, claiming an origin anterior to the most an- 
clent English ballads extant. Duran is of opinion 
that the earliest poetry of the Peninsula was in the 
romance form; yet long poems in Alexandrine metre 
have been preserved, which are on all hands adinitted 
to have been written in the middle of the twelfth cen- 
tury. We cannot here enter into a lengthened dis- 
quisition on this subject; 1t 1s enough for us to state 
the probability that Duran is correct. ‘“ Although,” 
says he, “none of the romances extant are in ever 
part anterior to the fourteenth century, I think I can 
discern in them fragments of others and proverbial 
stanzas of a much more remote antiquity.” As the 
earlier romances of Spain were the productions of 
unknown and obscure individuals, they were never 
committed to writing, but were handed down orally 
through many generations ; and being remodelled and 
modernised by each in succession, they have retained 
so little of their original character, as to render it im- 
possible to determine with precision the century to 
which they belong. Like old coins, they have gained 
a polish by passing through many hands, but their 
original stamp is effaced, and the date of their issue 
is no longer distinguishable. 

The romances of Spain are of several kinds ;—those 
which are considered to be strictly historical—those of 
chivalry, which may be regarded as more or less 
founded on facts—those decidedly fictitious, the sub- 
jects of which are taken from the prose: chivalrous 
romances or the epics of the Italian poets—those re- 
lating to love and pastoral subjects—and last, though 
not least in number or beauty, those commonly classed 
separately, as the Moorish romances. Some of these, 
it is believed, are actually the productions of Spanish 
Moors, but the greater part were written by Cliristians 
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and refer 
chiefly to the romantic but unavailing struggle of, the 
high-souled Moors of Granada with the forces of Fer- 
dinand and Isabella. As poetical compositions these 
rank above all the other romances (for at this period 
ballad literature was not confined to the lower classes, 
being taken into favour by the noble and the learned), 
but as historical records they obtain little credit, save 
in as far as they are confirmed by the prose chronicles. 
It is to the first-mentioned class of romances, those 
viewed as historical, that we shall now confine our 
attention. 

To the historian and antiquarian these narrative 
romances are full of interest. In the early periods of 
Spanish history far more political liberty was enjoyed, 
and much freer expression of opinion was allowed 
than in later days, when Spain was held in the iron 
grasp of an intolerant and inquisitorial priesthood ; 
and the popular poems of those early times, being 
wholly disregarded and uninfluenced by the upper 
ranks, may consequently be considered as exhibiting 
a more correct representation of facts than the poetry, 
or even professed history, which springs up 1n the sun- 
shine of courtly favour. It is not, however, pretended 
that these romances are to be implicitly relied on as 
historical or antiquarian authorities. The fact of their 
having been transmitted orally through many succes- 
sive ages must invalidate their testimony to a certain 
extent; yetthere is no reason to doubt that the repre- 
sentations made by them of the general state of society 
in those early ages are accurate; and that they have 
not in every instance undergone great alterations 1s 
evident from the language of some being scarcely less 
antiquated than that of the earliest Castilian poem 
extant, written in the middle of the twelfth century. 
Greater credence is due to these ballads on the ground 
that, though the productions of the middle ages—. 


6 THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


those days of wild romance—they very rarely overstep 
the bounds of possibility: they are free from those 
absurd extravagancies which disfigure the prose ro- 
inauces of chivalry. What little of. the marvellous 
they contain is of a religious character—a few saintly 
legends sprinkled here and there throughout a vast 
body of poetry, only in sufficient quantity to tincture 
it with the peculiar character of the national reli- 
gion ;—such legends in fact as a Romanist of our own 
enlightened age and country would have little diff- 
culty in crediting. No enchanters to whisk their 
victims away a thousand miles in the twinkling of an 
eye to the foul dungeons of some subterranean pa- 
lace—no dragons to devour their monthly tribute of 
denuded virgins—no spell-bound knights—no maidens 
escaping their pursuers, and preserving their honour 
by rendering themselves invisible with magic rings. 
All is truth, nature, and simplicity in the Spanish 
romances. They are in fact lttle more than simple 
inetrical narrations of events. ‘‘ The authors of these 
romances,” says the German critic Bouterwek, “never 
ventured to embellish with fictitious circumstances 
stories which were in themselves interesting, lest they 
should deprive their productions of historical credit. 

They paid little attention to ingenuity of 
invention, and still less to correctness of execution. 
When an impressive story of poetical character was 
found, the subject and the interest belonging to it 
were seized with so much truth and feeling, that the 
parts of the little piece, the brief labour of untutored 
art, linked themselves together, as it were, spontane- 
ously, and the imagination of the bard had no higher 
ofhce than to give to the situations a suitable colouring 
and effect. These antique racy effusions are nature’s 
genuine offspring. To recount their easily recognised 
defects is as superfluous as it would be impossible, by 
any critical study, to imitate a single trait of that 
noble simplicity which constitutes their highest 
charin.” 

These romances may be said to form a connccting 
link between poetry and prose; scarcely rising above 
the latter in the display of fancy and imagination, and 
yet retaining the form and in some respects the dis- 
tinctive character of the former. Some critics have 
altogether denied their claim to the title of poetry. 
‘““ There is as wide a difference,” says Juan del Encina, 
“between a poet and a romance-maker as between a 
composer of music and a mere singer, as between a 
geometrician and a stone-cutter.” Without entirely 
concurring in this opinion, we will adinit that never 
does the Spanish popular muse aspire to bold poetical 
soarings. She is content with a lowly flight. She 
loves to dwell on even the unimportant actions of her 


favourite heroes, and to sing of their countenances, | 


their costume, their weapons, their attendants. This 
minuteness of description, trivial as it may be deemed 
by those who despise all but the highest efforts of the 
poetical art, is at least a presumptive evidence of 
truth, and renders these narrative romances valuable 
as pictures of the manners and costumes, and as records 
of the popular opinions of the Spaniards of the middle 
ages—points on which the sober page of history is too 
often silent. But they are not utterly devoid of poetic 
merit; for the narration, however simple, of events in 
themselves often highly poetic, cannot be wholly 
prosaic ; and this same simplicity of style has a charm 
to some minds indescribable, and far beyond what 
could be produced by a more highly wrought or fan- 
ciful diction. Moreover the simplicity of the Spanish 
narrative romances occasionally rises into majesty and 
even subhlimity; and at times they evince a Homcric 
power of condensing a world of thought into a simple 
sentence or word. Then the noble and elevated sen- 
iments, the depth and freshness of feeling, the tender- 


[JANUARY 2, 


ness, the pathos, and the all-pervading nature and 
truthfulness, ever awakening the sympathies of the 
reader, make ameuds for the absence of higher poetical 
qualities. 

We are aware that Southey has decried the merits 
of the heroic ballads of the Spaniards, and pronounced 
them to be much inferior to our own. To what au- 
thority this opinion is entitled we leave those who are 
acquainted with the Spanish to Judge for themselves, _ 
But waiving the question of comparative literary 
merit, there 1s one point of view in which the Spanish 
romances have indisputably the advantage,—it 1s the 
elevated tone of morality which pervades them, and 
this is a feature which essentially distinguishes them 
from those of England and other northern nations. 
These latter abound in evidences of being the produc- 
tions of a state of society scarcely emerged from bar- 
barism. Atrocious murders, inhuman cruelties, daring 
outrages on person and property, in short every species 
of vice and crime which belongs to a rude state of 
society, are dwelt upon in the early ballads of our own 
coultry, not only without disapprobation or disgust, 
but with manifest delight. But even the earliest 
Spanish romances savour of a society that has made 
considerable advances in civilization and moral excel- 
lence. Their morality is not, it is true, that which 
commands the smitten to turn his cheek to the smiter; 
it does not comprehend extraordinary meekness and 
humility, for martial valour 1s in this, as in the ancient 
classic code, esteemed the highest of human virtues. 
But these romances are redolent of all the virtues and 
graces which characterise the age of chivalry. To 
the enthusiastic admiration of valour is united a hu- 
mane and kindly generosity toward the weak or van- 
quished, and a pervading gentleness and courtesy ; an 
indomitable pride and self-respect is blended with a 
noble scorn of whatever is fraudulent, base, and dis- 
honourable, au ardent love of truth, a fervour of 
loyalty to the sovereign and of devotion to the fair sex 
equalled only by the depth of religious fecling. There 
is that wnion of stern and gentle qualities, which is 
set forth in a ballad describing a Moorish knight of 
Granada, who is represented to be 


“ Lixe steel amid the din of arms, 
Like wax whien with the fair.” 


Deeds of crime are often narrated by these romances 
as historical facts, but instead of being dwelt upon 
with zest, they are in general depicted with so much 
pathos that abhorrence of the crime 1s heightened by 
the sympathy excited for the victim. Female frailty, 
however, appears rom these romances to have been 
as common in Spain in the olden time as in our own 
day, and to have been regarded with eyes no less 
lenient; yet even in this respect the ballads of Spain 
are well matched by those of our own country. 

In giving our readers some specimens of Spanish 
ballads, we select those relating to the Cid. The Cid 
is the great hero of Spanish history, whose glorious 
deeds have for eight centuries been the theme of song, 
and doubtless tended to fire the courage of a Gonsalo 
and a Cortes, and perhaps in our own times to stir up 
many a Spanish hero to resist the yoke of a conqueror 
greater than they. He is thus addressed in one of the 
ballads which recount his history :— 


‘* Mighty victor, never vanquish d, 

Bulwark of our native land, 

Shield of Spain, her boast and glory, 
Kaneht of the far-dreaded brand, 

Venging scourge of Moors and traitors, 
Mighty thunderbolt of war, 

Mirror bright of chivalry, 
Ruy, my Cid Campeador !” 


“Campeador” is a term hardly translatable. into 


19-11.] 


English, for our word “champion,” to which it most 
nearly answers, excites httle of that proud triumphant 
feeling which thrills the Spanish bosom at the mention 
of the ““Campeador.” It is a name which none hving 
has a right to claim but our own hero of a hundred 
battle-fields. 

All the chivalrous virtues are concentrated in the 
person of the Cid. He was in truth a chevalier sans 
peur et sans reproche, the beau-ideal of a knight- 
errant, yet not the mere creation of fancy. His cx- 
istence has indeed been called into question by Masdeu 
and some few others, on the ground that, as depicted 
by the romances, he is too extraordinary and periect a 
character to be real. But though it be very possible 
that the popular voice has arrayed its darling 1n colours 
not his own, has sung his praises only and concealed 
his defects, there 1s, mmdependently of the romances, 
such a mass of evidence to prove his real existence as 
must put the fact beyond all doubt to the mind of 
every candid reader, and assure him that the Cid was 
something more than a mere imaginary embodiment 
of the chivalrous virtues. Not only are his deeds re- 
corded bya lengthy poem written within half a century 
of lus death, as well as by the earliest prose chronicles, 
but he is mentioned by the Arab historians of Spain, 
who, while admitting his victories, depict him in those 
shadowy hues in which the vanquished are ever in- 
clined to regard their conqueror. The Cid then, as 
we gather his history from the numerous romances 
which have come down to us, we propose to introduce 
to our readers, translating such portions of those poems 
as will suffice to impart a knowledge of his history 
and give an insight into the pecular character of 
Spanish romances. 

It may be as well to remark that all the romances 
of the Cid cannot lay claim to an equal antiquity ; 
some, as is evident from their language, being among 
the most ancient Spanish romances extant, while others 
are known to have been written as late as the sixteenth 
century. 

Tor the chronological arrangement of these detached 
poems, and to supply gaps in the history occasioned by 
the deficiencies of certain romances and the loss of 
Others, we shall have recourse for guidance to the 
‘Poem of the Cid,’ already mentioned, which Southey 
thinks the work of a contemporary, and says is “ un- 
questionably the oldest poem in the Spanish lan- 
guace ;’ and also to two prose ‘ Chronicles of the Cid,’ 
supposed to have been written about the thirteenth 
century, but first printed in black letter in the years 
1541 and 1552 respectively. The latter embodies all 
the substance of the former, with much additional 
matter; and claims to be a translation from the Arabic, 
though it is more probably a compilation partly from 
Arabic sources. 

We must say a few words on the structure of these 
ballads. They are in lines of seven or eight syllables, 
or rather of three and a half or four feet, generally 
trochaic; but correctness of quantity was little re- 
garded by the artless writers of these romances, who 
for the most part moulded their lines as best suited 
their convenience. But it is the rhyme which constitutes 
the peculiar feature in the structure of these ballads, 
and gives them their unique character. It is what is 
called by the Spaniards the assonant rhyme, to distin- 
fuish it from the consonant rhyme, or such as is in use 
among us. The assonant demands that the last vowel, 
when the line ends in a single syllable, or that the last 
two vowels, when it ends in atrochee, should corre- 
spond in every alternate line, be the consonants what 
they may. Thus voz, sefor, jurd, son, dos, are asso- 
nant rhymes of the first sort; and dado, malos, diablo, 
cano, Sancho, are instances of trochaic assonant. The 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. ” 


same rhyme is continued in alternate lines throuchout 
a romance; but the poem itself is divided into coplas 
or stanzas of four lines, occasionally lengthened to six 
When this form is better suited to the convenience of 
the writer. In our translations we shall not attempt 
to preserve the peculiar rhyme, which is altogether 
foreign to the genius of the English language; for 
though the Spaniards are from habitude capable of 
thoroughly comprehending and enjoying the harmonies 
of the assonant, 1t would to an English ear cease to be 
rhyme atall. Nor shall we imitate the monorhymic 
verse, which is scarcely attainable in our inflexible 
language. We shall nevertheless adhere to the tro- 
chaic measure, endeavouring to represent in English 
not only the sentiments and expressions, but as nearly 
as possible the style and dress of the Spanish romances. 

The engravings which accompany this series of arti- 
cles are original designs by Mr. Harvey, who has, 
whilst following the imaginative course of the story, 
, aa to the costume and character of the age of 
the Cid. 


DOGS, WILD AND DOMESTIC. 


As of all animals (we of course except man) the dog 
is that which has its mental constitution the most sus- 
ceptible of impression, and therefore the most readily 
influenced by education, so of all animals the dog is 
that the physical constitution of which is the most ex- 
tensively modified by the agencies of climate ard the 
culture of man. The almost ninumerable varicties 
into which the dog has ramified,—the distinctions 
which these varieties display in habits, instinct, form, 
and size, are so perplexing, and render it so difficult 
to conceive that all are the lineal descendants of one 
common origin, that some naturalists have been dis- 
posed to assign to each of the well-marked breeds a 
distinct primitive source. 

Without advocating the opinion that the dog is de 
rived from the intermixture of distinct primitive 
races, or contending on the other hand that its nu- 
merous varieties are all referrible to one origin, let us 
endeavour to ascertain whether among the wild spe- 
cies of the genus Canis there be one to which we can 
refer as the type of the domesticated dog, and whicn 
of the numerous varieties of the latter approaches to 
the primitive stock. 

“Those species,’ observes Buffon, “which man has 
ereatly cultivated, whether belonging to the animal or 
the vegetable world, are beyond all those which are the 
most altered; and as the alteration is sometimes to 
such a degree that we cannot recognise in them any- 
thing of their primitive form (such being the case with 
wheat, which has no resemblance to the plant from 
which it is supposed to have derived its origin), it 
is not impossible that among the numerous varicties 
of the dog, which we see im the present day, there is 
not one which bears a resemblance to the original 
type, or rather, to the first animal of this species.” 

Let us then, by way of facilitating our object, take a 
cursory review of the principal varieties into which 
the domestic dog has ramified, and attempt to throw 
them into sections, grouping together those which the 
most nearly resemble each other in leading physical 
peculiarities, and compare them with those of certain 
wild species of the genus Canis, which naturalists have 
regarded as the primitive source of the dog. 

Dogs vary so much in size, and in the length and 
quality of the hair, that we discard these points at 
once,—and this, the rather, as we know such modifica- 
tions to be greatly dependent upon food and climate. 
If, however, we attend to the form of the head, we shall 
discern a marked difference in this respect among the 


8 THE PENNY 
varieties around us, and easily distinguish a group 
characterised by the elongation of the muzzle, which 
ends more or less acutely, by the erect or semi-ercct 
position of the ears, and by a somewhat oblique direc- 
tion of the eye, giving an air of cunning wildness and 
distrust to the countenance. This latter trait never- 
theless is not an invariable accompaniment to the 
others; it is the diagnostic of a low degree of cultiva- 
tion, and is never seen in what are termed “ high-bred 
races,” however produced may be the muzzle. 

To this group belongs the Esquimaux Dog (Canis 
familiaris, var. borealis). 

In its general aspect this animal so closely resembles 
the wolf of its native wilds, that it 1s not easy to dis- 
tinguish between them, when seen at a little distance. 
Indeed, any person visiting the museum of the Zoolo- 
sical Society of London, and looking at a fine specimen 
of the Esquimaux dog (212, d, of Cat. Mamm., 1838), 
which is placed near a grey wolf from the high northern 
parts of America (214, Cat. Mamm., 1838), might leave 
with the impression that both were of the same species, 
unless informed to the contrary. In both the fur is 
deep and thick, both have the same erect cars, the same 
breadth of skull between them, and the same sharp- 
ness of muzzle ; and m addition we may state that, in 
-lts native wilds at least, the voice of the Esquimaux 
dog is not a bark, but a long melancholy howl. From 
this similarity between the wolf of the Esquimaux 
country, and the variety of dog im question, many na- 
turalists have considered the latter as nothing more 
than a domesticated race of the former, which at some 
period inan urged by necessity reclaimed, and which, 
losing in course of time its natural wildness and {ero- 
city, has devoted its honest and faithful services to his 
welfare. Itis however to be remarked, that the anti- 
pathy of the Esquimaux dog to the wolf is inveterate : 
these animals not only regard the wolf as an enemy, 
but fear it, and though they attack the bear with un- 
daunted energy, they never, unless impelled by neces- 
sity, venture to assault the wolf. 

The wolt-dog (chien-loup) and the Siberian dog 
(chien de Sibérie) of Buffon appear to be closely re- 
lated to the Esquimaux dog; Buffon regards them as 
immediate varicties of the shepherd’s dog (‘ Chien de 
Berger,’ fol. 4), which he considers to be that which of 
all is the nearest to the primitive type, since, as he 
observes, ‘in all inhabited countries, whether men be 
savage or partially civilised, dogs resembling this more 
than any other are spread.” In the civilised states of 
Ivurope, where other breeds are encouraged, the pre- 
servation of this he supposes to arise only from its 
utility, and from its being, because less attractive than 
other varicties, despised and abandoned to the pea- 
santry charged with the care of flocks. 

Strong as is the resemblance of the Esquimaux dog 
to the wolf, it is not more so than that of several other 
varieties of dog to other wild species of the genus Cants. 

We may instance the Hare-Indian’s dog (Canis 
familaris, var. lagopus), characterised by a narrow 
elongated and pointed muzzle, by erect sharp ears, 
and by a bushy tail not carried erect, but only shehtly 
curved upwards, and by the general slenderness of the 
form. The hair is fine and silky, thickening in winter, 
when it becomes white or nearly so, but in summer it 
is marked with patches of greyish black, or slate-grey 
iutermingled with shades of brown. So nearly does 
this dog resemble the arctic fox of the regions where 
it is found (namely, the banks of the Mackenzie River 
and of the Great Bear Lake, traversed by the arctic 
circle), that they have been considered mercly as va- 
rieties of each other, one being of the wild, the other 
of the domesticated race. The Hare-Indian’s dog is 
never known to bark in its native country, and the 


MAGAZINE | JANUARY 2, 
beautiful pair brought to England by Sir John Franklin 
and Dr. Richardson, and presented to the Zoological 
Society, never acquired this canine language; but one 
born in the Zoological Gardens readily learned it, and 
made his voice sound as loudly as any European dog 
of his size and age. 

This variety is of great value to the natives of the 
bleak and dreary realms where the elk and the rein- 
deer are objects of the chace; though it has not 
strength fitting it for pullmg down such game, yet 
‘its broad feet and light make enable it to run over 
the snow without sinkimg, if the slightest crust be 
formed on it, and thus easily to overtake the moose or 
reindeer, and keep them at bay until the hunters come 
up.” Now it cannot be supposed, nay, it is highly 
improbable that this active imtelligent dog is specifi- 
cally identical with the arctic fox. Is it then sprung 
from the same souive as the Esquimaux dog? The 
question involves many difficulties. In these two dogs 
we see animals closely resembling certain wild species 
of the genus Canis which inhabit the same regions; 
now if we turn to another part of the world, we shall 
find parallel cases. In Australia we find a race of 
dogs, termed Dingo, which are so woli-like in form, 
that the first navigators who touched at New Holland 
scarcely recognised them as dogs. Dampier, in the 
account of his voyage performed in 1699, states that 
his “man saw two or three beasts like hungry wolves,” 
and the similarity is evident. ‘These dogs are occa- 
sionally domesticated, if we may use such a term, by 
the natives of Australia, but they exist wild in the re- 
moter districts, hunt in packs, and are the scourge of 
the grazing districts, making sad havoc among the 
cattle and sheep. The Dingo is about as large as a 
harrier; its body is firmly built, its limbs peculiarly 
muscular; its head is broad between the ears, and its 
muzzle is acute; its ears are short, pomted, and erect; 
its tail, which is rather long and somewhat bushy, is 
pendulous, or at most only raised horizontally. The 
eeneral colour is sandy red. ‘The eyes are rather 
small and oblique, and have a very sinister expression. 

The agility and muscular powers of the Dingo are 
extraordinary, and its cunning and ferocity are as 
much so; it never barks, but howls loudly; with other 
dogs it is unsocial, and evidently regards them as 
enemies. This animal is generally believed by natu- 
ralists to have been imported by man into Australia, 
and therefore not to be truly indigenous in that 
country. It is not found in Van Diemen’s Land. 

The Dingo, wild and untractable in its native regions, 
is capable of being only partially domesticated, not 
more so, indeed, than a wolf. A few years since, we 
obtained the possession of a young Dingo, bred in this 
country, which at the age of about six weeks was re- 
moved from the mother; and our endeavour was to 
render it docile and attached. On putting it into a 
room, it immediately skulked into the darkest corner, 
and there crouching, eyed us with looks of great dis- 
trust ; as soon as left to itself, 1t commenced the most 
melancholy howling, which, however, it ceased on 
our return; this for some days was its constant prac- 
tice, and, when placed in a kennel, the greater part of 
the day was thus employed. It grew up strong and 
healthy, and gradually became reconciled to those from 
whom it was accustomed to receive food, but was shy 
towards others, retreating into its kennel at their ap- 
proach. It never barked, nor, lke the domestic dog, 
gave notice of the approach of strangers, and asa guard 
it was perfectly useless. A great part of the day was 
tg in howling, and that so londly as to be heard at 
the distance of half a mile. When the moon shone 
brightly, it would sit and utter for hours its lamenta- 
tions, not a little to the annoyance of the neighbourhood. 


1841.] 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 9 


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m) = = D 4 aie \ et y 

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ia, North American dog; b, Australian dog; ¢, South American dog; d, Scotch greyhound: e, English greyhound; ff African dog; g, Thibet mastif.) 


_ The Dingo, whose habits, in a state of domes- 
ticity, were such as we have described, with all its 
shyness, was at the same time ferocious, but would 
never make an open attack; several times, however, 
it snapped at persons who happened to be walking 
Within its reach, but only when their backs were turned, 
and it immediately retreated again into its kennel. 
Its aspect, manner, and voice were so wolf-like, that 
most persons supposed it to be a wolf, and we ourselves 
felt convinced that it would never emulate the ordi- 
hary dog, either in affection to its keepers, in docility, 
intelligence, or voice. 

_ Closely allied to the Dingo, if not the same animal, 
is a wild dog inhabiting the interior of Sumatra (Canis 


No. 06. 


Sumatrensis), which hunts in packs, and resembles a 
wolf in aspect ; its colour is the same, its nose is sharp, 
its ears erect and hairy, its limbs strong, its tail pendent 
and bushy, especially about the middle, whence it be- 
comes more slender to the tip. ' 
Besides the Sumatra wild dog, India produces an- 
other wild dog, common in the Dukhun, and called 
Kolsun by the Mahrattas. Colonel Sykes describes it 
as having the head compressed and elongated, but the 
nose not very sharp. The eyes are oblique. “The 
expression of the countenance is that of a coarse ill- 
natured Persian greyhound, without any resemblance 
to the jackal, the fox, or the wolf, and, in consequence, 


essentially different from the Canis Quao or Sumatrensts 
VoL X.—C 


10 THE_PENNY 
of General Hardwicke. The ears are long, erect, and 
somewhat rounded at the top. The limbs are remark- 
ably large and strong in relation to the bulk of the 
animal, its size being intermediate between the wolf 
aud jackal.” 

This animal, which is termed Canis Dukhunensis, 1s 
regarded by Colonel Sykes as identical with the wild 
dog of Nepal, the Canis primevus of Mr. Hodgson, 
the skulls in both being the same in general form, and 
the posierior tuberculous tooth of the lower jaw being 
alike deficient. The only difference between them 
appears to consist in the quality and colour of the fur, 
that of the Dukhun animal being paler and less dense 
than that of the dog from Nepal. 

Mr. Hodgson rejects, with most modern zoologists, 
the claim of the wolf, the jackal, and the fox to rank 
as the prototype of the familiar dog. He argues 
avainst regarding as such the half-reclaimed Dingo of 
Australia. He thinks that he has detected this original 
race i the Buanst of Nepal, the eastern and western 
limits of whose ranges appear to be the Sutlege and 
the Burhampootra, and which seems to extend, with 
some immaterial differences, into the Vindyia, the 
Ghauts, the Nilgiris, the Casiah Hills, and in the chain 
passing brokenly from Mirzapore, through South 
‘ Bahar and Orissa, to the Coromandel coast. 

But the question here reverts, is the Kolsun, Buadnsi, 
or Dhaic (supposing these names to belong to the same 
species) the origin of our domestic races? Has the 
wolf-like Esquimaux dog, or the fox-hke Hare In- 
dian’s dog, descended from it, or the huge Thibet mas- 
tiff, which guards the sheep in the very country which 
the Bianst inhabits? We know not on what grounds 
Mr. Hodgson assumes the Buiansu or Dhale to be the 
origin of the domestic dog, from which it differs in the 
number of the teeth; but to this point we shall have 
occasion to revert hereafter. As all reclaimed animals 
exhibit a tendency to return, 1f uninfluenced by man, 
and beyond his jurisdiction, to their primitive state, it 
would be interesting to ascertain, if possible, what 
races of dogs are thus emancipated, and what are their 
characteristics. 

The Spaniards introduced the dog into South Ame- 
rica and the West Indian Islands, the breed being a 
kind of hound, and their object was to hunt down, by 
means of these animals, the defenceless natives: the 
brutal work being completed, many cf these dogs 
were driven to rely upon their own resources, and be- 
came wild, and spread a wild race. Azara states that 
these dogs are called Yagoua (a name also given to 
the Jaguar) in Paraguay, where they are very com- 
mon, inhabiting caves. They formerly abounded in 
IJayti, Cuba, and all the Caribbean Islands, but are 
now extirpated there, or nearly so. According to 
Oexmelin and others, these wild descendants of a re- 
claimed race resemble the greyhound ; others describe 
them as having the head flat and elongated, the muz- 
zle sharp, and the general aspect wild and savage. 
The body is slender and fleshless. They are strong 
and active, and chace thelr prey in packs. When 
taken young, they are casily domesticated, differing in 
this respect from the Dingo of New Holland. Some 
years since we knew a dog said by its owner to be the 
offspring of the wild race of Cuba or St. Domingo— 
we forget which. It was of a red colour, with black- 
ish lips. The muzzle was long and somewhat 
pointed; the ears were semipendent, the limbs long 
but powerful, the chest deep, and the loins slender: 
it was intelligent, but fierce, and its scent was in great 
perfection. Jt had no resemblance in aspect or habits 
to the wolf or to the Dingo, and its nose was broader 
and less elongated than that of the greyhound, to 
ae in the figure of the body, it bore some resem- 

wANCC, 


MAGAZINE. [JANUARY 9, 
This dog must not be confounded with a species of 
wolf inhabiting South America, called Agouara-gou- 
aza, or Guara (Canis jubatus), and which 1s of a cin- 
namon-red colour. This animal, according to Noseda 
(see Azara, 1., p. 309), so closely resembles a dog, that 
any person seeing it in the plains, and not really 
knowing it, would take it for one. It was probably 
this or some allied species which Columbus js said _ to 
have found at the island of St. Martha, and which 
Herrera describes as “dogs which did not bark.” 

Wild dogs, or dogs become wild, exist also in va- 
rious parts of Africa, as Congo, &c., aud are said to 
have a meagre figure and a long head and sharp muz- 
zle, and to hunt in packs. They are perhaps the wild 
descendants of a fine race of bloodhounds, of which a 
pair were brought to England by Major Denham, who 
had employed them for the chace of the gazelle; they 
followed the game not only by their scent, but also 
by the eye: their speed is stated to have been extraor- 
diary. In this latter respect they resembled the grey- 
hound, and also in their habits of following the game 
by the eye; but they differed from the greyhound in 
possessing a fine scent. 

It appears, then, that the wild dogs of India, the 
Canis Sumatrensis excepted, and the wild descendants 
of tame dogs, as we see them in South America and 
Africa, have less of the wolf in their appearance than 
the half-reclaimed Dingo of the intelligent but surly 
Esquimaux dog; and it is not impossible that the 
Dingo and the Sumatran wild dog may be specifically 
the same. In none, however, of the true wild dogs is 
the head precisely of the same form as we See in the 
greyhound, although Colonel Sykes notices a resem- 
blance in this point between the wild dog of the 
Dukhun and the Persian greyhound. The greyhound 
and its varietics are characterised by the extent to 
which the elongation of the head is carried; the cars 
are small and semipendent, and the eyes, contrary to 
what we observe in the wild races and in the woli-like 
breeds, are full, animated, and expressive—the index 
of a high state of cultivation. 

Buffon regards the French Matin and the great 
Danish dog as the main stock of the greyhound race ; 
but this is not clear. Jn Scotland and Ireland there 
existed in very ancient times a noble breed of grey- 
hounds used for the chase of the wolf and the deer, 
and. these are, we contend, the pure source of the 
common greyhound, which in warm climates degene- 
rates. Jn Ireland few of this fine race are now to be 
found. With the extirpation of the wolf, the necessity 
for keeping up the breed in perfection ceased, and it 
eradually merged into the ordinary kind used for the 
hare. In the Highlands, however, where the wild 
deer yet wanders over extensive hilly ranges, this dog 
is still found, if not in such perfection as formerly, 
still greatly superior to the common greyhound in 
strength, size, and courage. Its hair is rough and 
wiry, its chest is remarkable for volume, and its hmbs 
are long and muscular. A similar breed existed and 
still continues to exist in Albania: 1t was celebrated 
by the ancients for its prowess. No breed of dogs is 
more distinct than that of the greyhound Cncluding 
the common race and the Highland, Irish, and Alha- 
nian). Their form and characters are too well known 
to need a particular detail. They are remarkable for 
following their game ‘not by the scent, but by the eye ; 
the sense of smell, indeed, appears to be less acute in 
them than in most other dogs; but in quickness of 
eye and speed they excel all. From the antiquity of 
this breed, we might be induced to suppose that in it 
is to be seen the nearest approach to the primitive 
source, or to one of the primitive sources of the re- 
claimed race; and perhaps the Insh greyhound or 
wolf-dog does present us with some characters in 


1841.) 


common with the primitive type whence it took its 
origin. Granting this, however, we are still as far off 
as ever from the object of our search ;—we have no 
reason to believe such a type to exist m the Canis pri- 
mavus, or Buansu, for though there may be points of 
resemblance between this animal and the Buansu, 
there are points of difference, and especially as re- 
spects the number of the teeth; and the resemblance 
rather leads us to infer that the greyhound, of all do- 
mestic dogs, retains the most distinctly the gencral 
characters of its primitive origin, than that this origin 
is to be found in the Buansti. We may yet discover a 
wild dog still more closely related than this to the. 
ereyhound. We have only attended so far to dogs 
with elongated or acute muzzles; but other groups 
yet remain for our survey, and to these we shall pro- 
ceed in a future number. 

The spirited engraving, drawn by Mr. T. Laudseer, 
represents the Esquimaux dog, the Dingo, the South 
American dog, the Highland greyhound, the com- 
mon greyhound, the African hound, and the Thibet 
mastiff. 


DOMESTIC CHEMISTRY. 
MILK. 

Tue abundant supply of milk in most countries— 
indeed in all countries where domestic animals of cer- 
tain kinds are kept, the extensive use of milk as food, 
and the nutritious qualities which it possesses, render 
it sueh an important article of domestic economy, that 
a few details respecting its chemical nature will not 
be destitute of interest. It is one of the most beautiful 
provisions of nature, that organised beings adapt, as 
articles of food, substances lower in the scale of organi- 
zation than themselves; or which, if not onginally 
lower, become so in some measure by certain sponta- 
neous changes which they undergo. From the vege- 
table kingdom up to man, who occupies the highest 
rank in the animal kingdom, we may trace the opera- 
tion of this law; subject, it is true, to certain excep- 
tions, or—as we should rather call them—accidents ; 
for although a man may afford a meal to a wild beast, 
yet the usual prey of the wild beast is found among ani- 
mals of inferior size or organization. Carbonic acid and 
water, both inorganic compounds, constitute to a great 
extent the food of plants: plants become the aliment, 
aud, by assimilation, a part of the substance of many 
animals; and these animals again supply food to other 
animals; and so on in an ascending series. 

We have in former papers explained that organic 
niatter is for the most part composed of three or four 
simple substances or ultimate elements, which, having 
a strong tendency to unite in twos, form certain 
proximate principles, which (as far as the article food 
Is concerned) are to a considerable extent identical 
with those composing the bodies of the animals them- 
selves. Thus many animals have not to form these 
proxiniate principles from their elements, but simply 
to take them as they are already formed by iferior 
animals or plants. By this provision the assimilating 
organs become less extensive and complicated; as 
inay be seen by comparing the structure of carnivo- 
rous and graminivorous animals,—vz.e. those which 
feed respectively on flesh and on grain; while at the 
same time many animals have the power, in a minor 
degree, of assimilating substances below as well as 
above themselves in the scale of organic being. 

The close relation which exists between many ap- 
parently very different substances, has led to several 
extensive generalizations. Thus sugar, or the saccha- 
rine principle, may be considered characteristic of the 
vegetable kingdom: the oleaginous, or oily principle, 
exists both in vegetables and animals; and although 
different in appearance and form, yet the peculiar pro- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


I] 


perties of oleaginous bodies are strongly marked, and 
are quite distinct from the saccharine. Another prin- 
ciple is the albuminous, which, under the name of 
albumen, forms the white of am egg, and exists exten- 
sively in most animal substances. Now these three 
principles,—the saccharine, the oleaginous, and the 
albuminous,—are capable of assuming an infinite va- 
ricty of forms, without altering their essential com- 
position. They can also pass readily into each other, 
and combine with cach other, or at least these changes 
can be effected by organic agents. 

The conclusion to which these remarks lead is, 
that as organised beings derive their food from other 
organised beings, such food must necessarily consist 
of one or more of the three great principles we have 
named; and such is indeed the case in every alimen- 
tary compound which has been proved to be well 
adapted to the wants of the animal. 

These remarks are well illustrated and supported 
by the composition of mz/k,—the only specimen of food 
prepared by nature expressly as such. AII other arti- 
cles of food exist, asit were, for themselves, or in order 
to minister to the organic body of which they fonn 
a part :—they are appropriated by animals, it is true; 
but they have a separate existence of their own, and 
certain offices to perform in the economy of nature, 
apart from their more important one of supplying 
food. Milk, on the contrary, except as an article of 
food, seems to perform no office in the animal eco- 
nomy; and we shall probably not err if we suppose 
milk to stand as the great and perfect model to which 
all nutritious substances must be referred. In every 
description of milk is found a mixture of the three 
principles noticed above :—the saccharine principle 
manifests itself in what is familiarly termed “sugar 
of milk ;” the oleaginous principle leads to the pro- 
duction of ‘butter ;’ and the albuminous to that of 
““ cheese.” 

Although the three principles just mentioned are 
variously modified, and combined in different pro- 
portions im the milk of different animals, yet there 
is no instance known in which any one of the three 
is altogether absent. Dr. Prout has remarked :— 
‘Perhaps it is impossible to name a substance con- 
stituting the focd of the more perfect animals, which 
is not essentially a natural compound of at least two, 
if not of all the three great principles of aliment. 
But it is in the artificial food of man that we see this 
great principle of mixture most strongly exemphfied. 
T{e, dissatisfied with the spontaneous productions of 
nature, culls from every source ; and by the force of 
his reason, or rather of his instinct, forms in every 
possible manner, and under every disguise, the same 
great alimentary compound. ‘This, after all his cook- 
ing and his art, how much soever he may be disinclined 
to believe it, is the sole object of his labour; and the 
more nearly his results approach to this object, the 
more nearly do they approach perfection. Even in 
the utmost refinements of his luxury, and in his 
choicest delicacies, the same great principle is attended 
to; and his sugar and flour, his eggs and butter, im all 
their various forms and combinations, are nothing 
more or less than disguised imitations of the great ali- 
mentary prototype milk, as furnished to Inm by na- 
eure.” 

We have said that “sugar of milk ” 1s derived from 
the saccharine principle of that hquid. It may be 
obtained from skimmed milk, or still better froin the 
whey which remains after the separation of the curd 
in making cheese. Sugar of milk is sometimes used 
in medicine, and the chief supply is from those parts 
of Switzerland where cheese is extensively made. 
The whey is evaporated by heat to the consistence of 
honey, poured into moulds, and left to dry in the sun. 

| C2 


12 THE PENNY 
In this crude state it is prepared for pharmaceutical 
purposes by being dissolved in water, clarified with 
white of egg, and evaporated to a syrupy consistence, 
when white crystals of sugar are obtained. These are 
soluble in water, and have a faint sweet taste. 

The term “sugar of milk” was objected to by 


Thénard, on the ground that it is not susceptible of. 


the vinous fermentation, and therefore could not be 
a real sugar. On this account some persons have 
denied that ardent spirits could be procured from 
milk; but the united testimony of travellers respect- 
ing the kowmiss or arki of the Tartars and Calmucks, 
the deban of the Arabs, and the yaourt of the Turks— 
all intoxicating drinks prepared from milk, mduced 
the Russian chemist Oseretskowsky to institute an 
inquiry on the subject. His conclusions were, that 
milk does not undergo the vinous fermentation when 
the butter and cheese are removed from it; that whey, 
although containing all the sugar of milk, does not 
entcr into the vinous fermentation, even though yeast 
be added. It appears, however, that “sugar of milk,” 
or lactine, as it is chemically termed, is convertible 
into real sugar by being boiled in water acidulated 
with sulphuric acid. | 

The oleaginous principle of milk is separated in 
the familiar process of churnmg. When milk is 
allowed to stand for some time, the cream rises to the 
surface, ana being skimmed off and kept a few days, 
a peculiar acid contained in milk, called lactic acid, 
increases in quantity. By agitation the particles of 
butter unite into a mass, and buttermilk remains. 

The albuminous portion of milk may be sepa- 
rated by the action of an acid, which coagulates it and 
forms curd; this, by pressure, becomes cheese; and 
the fluid which remains after the curd is separated is 
called whey. The chemistry of butter and cheese 
making may occupy our attention hcreaiter. 

A curious discovery respecting the preservation 
of milk has been made by a Russian chemist. He 
reduces milk to a dry mass by gentle evaporation, and 
the powder thus obtained can be prcserved in well- 
corked bottles for any length of time. On adding to 
this powder the requisite proportion of water, milk is 
produced which is said to be scarcely distinguishable 
trom fresh cows’-milk. Many a traveller and voyager 
would welcome such “portable milk” as a valuable 
addition to his store of provisions. 

Another method of preserving milk is to bottle it, 
to secure the cork with wire, and then to place the 
botties in cold water, which must be brought gradually 
to the boiling point. Milk thus treated is said to keep 
fresh for a year or two. 

The enormous consumption of milk in large towns 
is a sufficient temptation to the dealcrs in that article 
to adulterate it extensively. In London we believe 
the chief source of adulteration is water, although 
many persons fancy that chalk, flour, or starch are 
among the adulterants employed. A moment’s consi- 
deration will show that chalk cannot be employed to 
adulterate milk, because it is insoluble therein. But 
flour may with more probability be employed: thus, 
the milk is largely diluted with water ; a little brown 
sugar or treacle is added to restore the sweetness; the 
flour is mixed with water, and boiled; and the paste 
thus produced is soluble in the milk and water. M. 
Barreul, in his memoir on milk, published a few 
years ago, states this was one of the modes in which 
the Parisian milkmen adulterated milk, and on conti- 
nuing a searching analysis into the fraud thus prac- 
tised, it was found that they sometimes employed an 
emulsion of sweet almonds, with which, for the cost 
of about one franc, they were able to convert thirty 
pints of water into milk; but finding a cheaper arti- 
cle in hemp-seed, that became employed instead of 


MAGAZINE. 


[| JANUARY 9 


almonds, and thus was milk, until the fraud was disco- 
vered, manufactured from a small quantity of cows’ 
milk mixed with these adultcrants. Some of the Pa- 
risian milkmen resorted to a practice which acquired 
for them the reputation of selling milk that never 
turned sour. ‘This was done by adding a small quan- 
tity of subcarbonate of potash or soda to their artificial 
milk, which, saturating the lactic acid as fast as it 
formed, prevented the coagulation of the curd. 

The flavour of milk is so peculiar, that these or any 
other adulterations might soon be detected if the use 
of them became prevalent. 


GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. 


THERE are now three places in the Metropolis and its 
neighbourhood where the taste of every man, from the 
weaver of Spitalfields to the peer of Belgrave Square, 
may be cultivated by the inspection of the works of 
the great painters, and this without any charge to the 
individual. These places are, the National Gallery, 
Hampton Court Palace, and Dulwich College. It is 


| our intention, from time to time, to present our readers 


with copies of some of the master-pieces of these col- 
lections, carefully drawn on the spot by competent 
artists, and engraved with every possible excellence 
attainable by wood-engraving. The subject of the 
present number is the Infant Saint John of Murillo, 
drawn by Mr. Fussell, and engraved by Mr. Jackson. 

At the time of the opening of the National Gallery 
in Trafalgar Square, we gave a view of the building 
(see vol. v., No. 299), and explained the purposes of 
its erection, taking the opportunity to offer some re- 
marks on the collection of pictures, as well as some 
notices on the National Galleries on the Continent. 

A brief recital of the principal features in the 
history of the National Gallery will, therefore, be 
sufficient on the present occasion, as we may refer 
to the previous aecount for a more particular detail. 

The first step towards the foundation of a public 
collection of pictures was made by the purchase of 
the Angerstein Gallery ; for this the sum of 57,000V. 
was given, which, although a large was not an ex- 
travagant price, since for one picture alone, the 
Sebastian del Piombo, 20,0007. had been previously 
oifered (by Mr. Beckford) and refused, and it is 
probable that were the collection to be now offered for 
sale, a larger sum would be obtained for it. 

The original collection consisted of about forty pic- 
tures, chiefly Itahan ; but Sir George Beaumont’s noble 
piit of his cellection, in 1826, and the bequest of the 
Rev. William Holwell Carr, shortly after, enriched the 
gallery with some fine specimens of other schools. The 
collection has also been increased by several other gifts, 
and lately by the bequests of Lord Farnborough and 
Lieutenant-Colonel Harvey Ollney. Several fine pic- 
tures have also been purchased for the nation, at differ- 
ent times, of which we may particularly mention 
Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, purchased for 50002. ; 
the Virgin au Panier, by Coreggio, 3800/.; the Ecce 
Homo, and the Education of Cupid, by the same mas- 
ter, 11,500/. the two; the St. Catherine, by Raffaelle, 
4000/.; the Holy Family, by Murillo (together with 
the Brazen Serpent, by Rubens), 7000/.; and, lastly, 
the St. John, by Murillo, for 21007. 

Most of these are recent additions to the Gallery, 
and the last has only just been submitted to the in- 
spection of the public. Some critical remarks have 
appeared in former numbers of this Magazine on 
several of the pictures in the Gallery (see Nos. 8, 12, 
24, 47, &c.), and we hope not without some effect in 
directing the attention of visitors to some of the more 
important objects in the collection, as well as tending 
to make the taste for the fine arts more popular. 
Since the building in Trafalgar Square was erected, 


1841.] 





























THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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(The Infant Saint John,—Murillo.} 


and the pictures scen to more advantage, the visitors 
have gradually been becoming more numerous, and 
appear better to appreciate the beauties with which 
they are surrounded. | 

The Infant St. John, by Murillo, has only recently 
been added to the Gallery, and must be unknown to 
a great majority of our readers. This has partly in- 
fluenced us in giving it priority, but it is deserving 
of it in other respects; ‘the subject is an interesting 
one, and as a picture it deservedly ranks high. 

The composition, colour, and expression are good, 
and the whole effect is veryimpressive. The tender and 
innocent expression in the features of the “disciple 
whom Jesus loved,” of him who was sclected to take 
so great a share in the propagation of the mild precepts 
of Christianity, is finely depicted ; and the happy cfiect 
with which the painter has repeated this expression in 
the face of the lamb is deserving of particular com- 
mendation. Though there is a delightful simplicity 
in the whole composition, as well as in the particular 
features of the young saint and his companion, it 1s 
managed with so much art (though it is only per- 
ceptible in its effects) that the artist has been enabled to 
elevate the composition to a degree of sublimity suff- 
cient to inform us that the figure of the young 
shepherd is that of one destined to become an actor 


in events of a great and holy character. Though 
it should seem that John was about twenty-five or 
twenty-six years of age when he was called to follow 
Christ, painters have dclightcd to imagine him as the 
carly associate of his Master, and in almost every pic- 
ture of the Holy Iamily, so favourite a subject with 
the old painters, he is represented as partaking of the 
joys of childhood in the companionship of him to 
whom in after-life he expressed such devotion, whose 
precepts he was indefatigable in propagating, and by 
whom he was regarded with peculiar favour and affec- 
tion. Murillo seems to have been imbued with the 
same spirit as his immediate predecessors; and in this 
picture he appears to have intended to represent 
the idea that, even in his carly days, the mild and 
affectionate disciple cherished the ‘Lamb of God’ 
with the fond devotion for which he was distinguished 
in his after-years. 

This picture was purchased for 2100/., at Sir Simon 
Clarke’s sale last year, at which sale also the com- 
panion picture, the Good Shepherd (certainly su- 
perior, and better known by the engravings of it), was 
knocked down to Mr. Rothschild for the sum of 3045/. 
It is stated to have been in the Robit collection. It is 
the last picture added to the Gallery up to the present 
time (1841), and makes the total number in the collec- 


14 


tion 177. These we have classed (taking the names 
from the Gallery Catalogue) according to the schools ; 
but it should be observed, that with respect to some 
few of the pictures, opinions differ as to the name of 
the artists. 

The plan of the following numerical synopsis has 
been taken from one which appeared in the ‘ Penny 
Cyclopxdia,’ vol. xvi., p. 103, but the dates of the 
births and the deaths of the artists, when known, have 
been added, and the enumeration brought up to the 
present time (January, 1841) :-— 


Italian School. 


Baroccio, b. 1528, d. 1612. ‘ ; 

J. Bassano, b. 1510, d. 1592 . ; 

L. Bassano, b. 1559, d. 1623 . 

Bronzino, b. 1577, d. 1621 : , 

Buonarotti Michael Angelo, b. 1474, d. 
1564 : , , : : 

A. Caracci, b. 1560, d. 1609 . 

L. Caracci, b. 1555, d] i619. a. 

Caravaggio, b. 1569, d. 1609. : : 

Correggio, b. 1494, d. 1534 . : : 

Canaletto, b. 1697, d. 1768 . : : 

Domenichino, b. 1581, d. 1641 

Ercole da Ferrara : : : : 

Mazzolino da Ferrara, b. 1481, d. 1530 . 

Garofalo, b. 1481, d. 1559 ~~. ; ; 

Giorgione, b. 1477, d. 1511 

Guercino, b. 1590, d. 1666 

Guido, b. 1574, d. 1642 

C. Maratti, b. 1652, d. 1713 . 

Mola, b. 1609, d. 1665 . 

Paduanino, b. 1552, d. 1617 . . 

Parmegiano, b. 1503, d. 1540 

Pannini, b. 1691, d. 1758 : 

S, del Piombo, b. 1485, d. 1547 

B. Peruzzi, b. 1481, d. 1536 

Raffaelle, b. 1483, d. 1520 =. 

Giulio Romano, b. 1492, d. 1546 

Salvator Rosa, b. 1614, d. 1673 

A. del Sarto, b. 1488, d. 1530 

Titian, b. 1480, d. 1576 

Tintoretto, b. 1512, d. 1594 

A. Veronese, b. 1600, d. 1670 

P. Veronese, b. 1530, d. 1588 

L. da Vinci, b. 1445, d. 1520 


pd med framed pune 


© : 
3 | ee NO I el oe AO NE a ae el OO ee el et OO Seon en Bueno 


Spanish School. 


Murillo, b. 1613, d. 1685 ——. ‘ 
Velasquez, b. 1594, d. 1660 . : 


ae] mes 


Flemish and Dutch. 


J. Both, b. 1610, d. 1650 
Cuyp, b. 1606 

Decker 4 : : A 
Van Goyen, b. 1596, d. 1656 : 
Vander Helst, b. 1613, d. 1670 : , 
Jordaens, b. 1594, d. 1678 ‘ ; 
Maes, b. 1632, d. 1693 . 

Vander Neer, b. 1619, d. 1683 : ; 
Vander Plaas, b. 1647, d. 1704 ; : 
Rembrandt, b. 1606, d. 1674 ‘ : 
Rubens, b. 1577, d. 1640 . . : : 
Stork, d. 1708 . : : : : 
Steinwyck, b. 1550, d. 1603 . : 
Teniers, b. 1610, d. 1694 : F 
Vander Velde, b. 1633, d. 1707 
Vandyck, b. 1598-9, d. 1641 . 


e é @ 


G2 
S | Ma BN GO bed bed ST ST et et bt tt bed bed 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(JANUARY 9, 


Eyench. 
S. Bourdon, b. 1616, d. 1671 
Claude, b. 1600, d. 1682 
Lancret, b. 1690, d. 1743 : 
N. Poussin, b. 1594, d. 1665 . 
G. Poussin, b. 1600, d. 1663 . 


i) 


pond 
cS | aoe OH 


English. 
Beaumont . : 
Beechy 

Constable . : : 
Copley, b. 1737, d. 1815 
Gainsborough, b. 1727, d. 1788 
THogarth, b. 1698, d. 1764 
Hoppner, b. 1759, d. 1810. : 
}fousinan, or Huysman, b. 1656, d. 1636 
Jackson, b. 1778, d. 1831 : : , 
A. Kaufiiman, b. 1742, d. 1807 
Lawrence, b. 1769, d. 1830 


Pether 7 ; ; . : 
Reynolds, b. 1723, d. 1792 
West . ; : : ‘ 


Wilkie P ; . 
Wilson, b. 1714, d. 1782 


| Nr POM Re weearaeeetyg 


ls 


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Total . ; E : >». 


SHAKSPERE AND HIS WILL. 


Amona the many idle representations of the private | 
life of our great dramatist, one of the most current 
has been, perhaps, that of his having lived on ill terms 
with his wife. This has received the ehief grounds 
of support from the manner in which she is men- 
tioned in his will. In the recently published part of 
the ‘Pictorial Shakspere’ the received interpretation 
of the will has been successfully combated, and the 
reputation of one who in all likelihood was as truly 
a good as he was a great man completely relieved 
from this reproach. ‘The Editor says :—“‘ We felt de- 
sirous, upon the earliest possible occasion after the 
subject had fully presented itself to us, to vindicate 
Shakspere from a calumny which, through the long 
continuance of a misapprehension, has constantly pre- 
sented itself to the thoughts even of those who were 
most anxious to believe that the poet of universal 
benevolence—the gentlest, the most tolerant spirit 
that ever came to win men to charity and love by 
other than the lessons of inspiration—was incapable 
of a deliberate act of cruelty and contempt towards 
the wife of his bosom. 

“The theory that Shakspere’s married life was one 
of unhappiness has, ike many other more recent 
stories of the same kind, been somewhat too easily 
credited. Mr. de Quincey thinks that it made him 
resolve, after ‘four years of conjugal discord,’ upon 
his plan of ‘solitary emigration to the metropolis.’ 
Mr. Moore thinks that it 1s proved by his assumed 
non-residence at Stratford, having regard to the time 
of the births of his children, and by his last bequest to 
her. There was one who knew Shakspere weil,— 
who, illustrious as he was by birth and station, does 
not hesitate to call Aim, one of the poor players of the 
Blackfriars, ‘my especial friend ’—who testifies deci- 
dedly enough to the public estimation of his domestic 
conduct. Lord Southampton, speaking of Burbage 
and Shakspere, thus writes to Lord Kilesmere, the 
lord chancellor, in 1608, ina letter by which he in- 
troduced them to him to plead their own cause against 
an act of oppression of the lord mayor and aldermen 
of London :—‘ Their trust and suit now is, not to be 


1841.] 


molested in their way of life whereby they maintain 
themselves and their wives and famulies, being both 
married and of good reputation.’* Itis to the pro- 

riety of the domestie conduct of Burbage and 
Shakspere that Lord Southampton alludes in the 
words ‘good reputation.’ He had already, speaking 
of one as ‘our English Roscius,’ and of the other as 
‘writer of some of our best English plays,’ described 
them as ‘right famous in their qualities.’ Yet one of 
these, according to the reeeived interpretation of his 
will, compromises his ‘ good reputation,’ not six years 
afterwards, by executing a document, signed by five 
witnesses, his friends and neighbours, in whieh he 
treats his wife with neglect and ‘bitter sareasm,’ for 
which estranged affections would have been no war- 
ranty ; and consigns her, with this solemn avowal of 
contempt and hatred to a miserable dependenee, not 
even recommended or implhed, upon the bounty of 
their common children. According to the dictum of 
Malone, who first dragged this offensive bequest into 
notice sixty years ago, ‘His wife had not wholly es- 
caped his memory ; he had forgot her,—he had reeol- 
lected her,—but so recollected her, as more strongly 
to mark how little he esteemed her; he had already 
(as 1t 1s vulgarly expressed) eut her off, not indeed 
with a shilling, but with an old bed.’ 

“The ‘forgetfulness’ and the ‘negleet’ by Shak- 
spere of the partner of his fortunes for more than 
thirty years is good-naturedly imputed by Steevens 
to ‘the indisposed and sickly fit... Malone will not 
have it so :—‘ The various regulations and provisions 
of our author’s will show that at the time of making 
it he had the entire use of his faculties.” We tho- 
roughly agree with Malone in this particular. Shak- 
spere bequeaths to his second daughter three hundred 
pounds, under eertain conditions ; to his sister, money, 
wearing apparel, and a life-interest in the house where 
she lives; to his nephews, five pounds each ; to his 
grand-daughter, his plate; to the poor, ten pounds; 
to various friends, money, rings, hissword. The chief 
bequest is that of his real property to his eldest 
daughter, Susanna Hall, for her life, and then entailed 
upon her heirs male; and in default of such issue, 
upon his grand-daughter and heirs male: and in de- 
fault of sueh issue, upon his daughter Judith and her 
heirs male. Immediately after this comes the clause 
relating to his wife :— 

‘Item, I give unto my wife my second-best bed, with the 
furniture.’ 


“Tt was the object of Shakspere by his will to perpe- 
tuate a family estate. In doing so, did he neglect the 
duty and affeetion whieh he owed to his wife? He 
did not. ~ 

“Shakspere knew the law of England better than 
lis legal commentators. His estates, with the exeep- 
tion of a copyhold tenement, expressly mentioned in 
his will, were freehold. His wife was entitled to 
dower. She was provided for amply, by the elear and 
undeniable operation of the Englsh law. Of the 
houses and gardens whieh Shakspere inherited from 
his father, she was assured of the ¥ ieiritercat of a third, 
should she survive her husband, the instant that old 
John Shakspere died. Of the capital messuage ealled 
New Plaec, the best house in Stratford, which Shak- 
spere purchased in 1597, she was assured of the same 
life-interest from the moment of the conveyanee, pro- 
vided it was a direet’eonveyance to her husband. That 
it was so conveyed we may infer from the terms of the 
conveyanee of the lands in Old Stratford and other 
places, which were purchased by Shakspere in 1602, 
and were then conveyed ‘to the onlye proper use and 
behoofe of the saide William Shakspere, his heires 


* «New Facts regarding the Life of Shakspeare,’ p. 33. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


| distant; and we 


15 


and assignes for ever.’ Of a lfe-interest in a third of 
these lands also was she assured. The tenement in 
Blackfriars, purchased in 1614, was conveyed to 
Shakspere and three other persons; and, after his 
death, was re-eonveyed by those persons to the uses of 
his will, ‘ for and in performance of the confidence 
and trust in them reposed by William Shakspere 
deceased.’ In this estate, certainly, the widow of our 
poet had not dower. 

“Tt is unnecessary for us, in this place, at least, 
more minutely to enter into the question before us. 
It is sufficient for us at present to have the satisfac- 
tion of having first pointed out the absolute cer- 
tainty that the wife of Shakspere was provided for by 
the natural operation of the law of Icngland. She 
could not have been deprived of this provision except 
by the legal process of Fine—the voluntary renuncia- 
tion of her own right. Jf her husband had alicnated 
his real estates, she might still have held her right, 
even against a purehaser. In the event, which we be- 
lieve to be improbable, that she and the ‘ gentle Shak- 
spere’ lived on terms of mutual unkindness, she would 
have refused to renounee the right which the law gave 
her. Jn the more probable ease, that, surrounded 
with mutual friends and relations, they lived at least 
amieably, she could not have been asked to resign 
it. Inthe most probable case, that they lived affec- 
tionately, the legal provision of dower would have 
been regarded as the natural and proper arrange- 
ment,—so natural and usual as not to be referred 
toin a will. By reference to other wills of the same 
period it may be seen how unusual it was to make any 
other provision for a wife than by dower. Such a pro- 
vision in those days, when the bulk of property was 
real, was a matter of course. The solution which we 
have here oftered to this long-disputed question super- 
sedes the necessity for any conjecture as to the nature 
of the provision which those who reverenee the memory 
of Shakspere must hold he made for his wifc.”. 


TVA Ti. 


We have seen “the latter end of a sea-coal fire”’— 
Dame Quiekly’s notion of the perfection of enjoyment. 
The snow lies hard upon the ground—icy. The noise 
of the strects. is almost hushed, save that the cabman’s 
whip is oceasionally heard urging his jaded horse over 
the slippery causeway. We ereep to bed, and, looking 
out into the cold, as if to give us a greater fecling of 
comfort in the warmth within, see the gas-hghts shming 
upon the bright pavement, and, perhaps, give one sigh 
for poor wretched humanity as’ some shivering wan- 
derer creeps along to no home, or someone of the most 
wretched nestles in a sheltering doorway to be ques- 
tioned or disturbed by the inflexible police watcher. 
It is long past midnight. We are soon in our first 
sleep ; and the dream eomes whieh is to throw its. veil 
over the realities of the day struggle through whieh 
we have passed. The dream gradually slides into a 
vague sense of delight. We lie in a pleasant sun- 
shine, by some gushing spring; or the never-ceasing 
murmur of leafy woods is around us; or there 1s a 
harmony of birds in the air, a chorus, and not a song ; 
or some sound of instrumental melody is in the dis- 
tance, some faintly remembered air of our ehildhood 
that comes unbidden into the mind, more lovely 1n its 
indistinetness. Gradually the plash of dripping waters, 
and the whispering of the breeze among the leaves, 
and the song of birds, and the hum of many instru- 
ments, blend into one more definite harmony, and we 
recognise the tune, whieh is familiar to us,—for we are 
waking. And then we hear real music, soft and 
listen, and the notes ean be-followed; 


16 


and presently the sound is almost under our window ; 
and we fancy we never heard sweeter strains ; and we 
recollect, during these tender, and, perhaps, solemn 
chords, the honied words, themselves music,— 


“Soft stillness, and the night, 
Become the touches of sweet harmony.” 


But anon, interposes some discordant jig; and then 


we knew that we have been awakened by the Waits. ’. 


In the times when minstrelsy was not quite so much 
a matter of sixpences as in these days, there were en- 


thusiastic people who made the watches of the night: 


melodious, even though snow was upon the ground; 
and there were good prosaic people who abused them 
then as much as the poor Waits sometimes get abused 
now. ‘These were the days of screnaders, and Eng- 
land, despite of its climate, was once. a serenading 
country. Old Alexander Barclay, in his ‘Ship of 
Fools,’ published in 1508, describes to us “ the vaga~ 
bonds” whose enormity is so great, 


‘¢ That by no means can they abide, ne dwell, 
Within their houses, but out they need must go; 
More wildly wandering than either buck or doe,— 
Some with their harps, another with their lute, 
Another with his bagpipe, or a foolish flute.” 


But he is especially wrath against the winter min- 
strels :— 
“ But yet moreover these fools are 80 unwise, 

That in cold winter they use the same madness ; 

When all the houses are lade with snow and ice, © 

O, madmen amased, unstable, and witless ! 

What pleasure take you in this your foolishness ? 

What joy have ye to wander thus by night, 

Save that ill doers alway hate the light ?” 


The “foals” had the uncommon folly"to do all this 
for nothing. But in a century the aspect of things 
was changed. The “madmen” divided themselves 


into sects—those who paid, and those who received’ 


pay; and the more sensible class came to be called 
Woats—hliterally, Watchers. .If we may judge from 
the following passage in Beaumont and Fletcher 
(‘The Captain,’ Act 11., Sc. 2), the performances of 
the unpaid were not entirely welcome to delicate 
ears -— 


““ Fab. The touch is excellent; let’s be attentive. 
Jac. Hark! are the Warts abroad ? 
Fab. Be softer, prithee ; 
"Tis private music. 
Jac. What a din it makes ! ? 
I'd rather hear a Jew’s trump than these lutes; 
They cry like school-boys.” 


The Waits, according to the same authority, had 
their dwellings in the land of play-houses and bear- 
gardens, and other nuisances of the sober citizens; and 
they were not more remarkable than the “private 
music ” for the charms of their screnadings :— 


“ Citizen. Ay, Ned, but this is scurvy music! I think he has 
sot me the Warts of Southwark.” 


The Watts had, however, been long before a part of 


city pageantry. But as the age grew more literal and 
mechanical,—as music went out with poetry, when the 
cultivation of what was somewhat too emphatically 
called the useful became the fashion,—the Waits lost 
their metropolitan honours and abiding-place; and 
came at last to be only heard at Christmas. They re- 
tired into the country: The last trace we can find of 
them, as folks for all weathers, is at Nottingham, in 
1710. The ‘Tatler’ CNo. 222) thus writes :— 
‘Whereas, by letters from Nottingham, we have 
advice that the young ladies of that place complain 
for want of sleep, by reason of certain riotous lovers, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[JANUARY 9, 


who for this last summer have very much infested the 
strects of that eminent city with violins and bass-viols, 
between the hours of twelve and four in the morning.’ 
Isaac Bickerstaff adds, that the same evil has been com- 
plained of “in most of the polite towns of this island.” 
The cause of the nuisance he ascribes to the influence 
of the tender passion. ‘ For as the custom prevails at 
present, there is scarce a young man of any fashion in 
a corporation who does not make love with the Zown 
Music. The Waits often help him through his court- 
ship.’’. :The censor concludes, “that a man might as 
well serenade in Greenland as in our region.” But 
he gives a more sensible reason for the actual decay 
of serenading, and its unsuitableness to England. “In 
Italy,” he says, “ nothing is more frequent than to hear 
a cobler working to an opera tune; but, on the con- 
trary, our honest countrymen have so little an incli- 
nation to music, that they seldom begin to sing till they 
are drunk.” It is strange that a century should have 
made such a difference in the manners of England. 
In Elizabeth’s reign we were a musical people ; in 
Anne’s, a drunken people. Moralists and legislators 
had chased away.the lute, but they left the gin; and 
so madrigals: were thrust out by tipsy derry-downs, 
and the serenader became a midnight bully. 

The Waits are a relic of the old musical times of 
England ; and let us cherish them, as the frosted bud 
of a beautiful flower that has yet life in it. 


Woollen Manufacture in Siberia.—In ‘the middle of one of 
these newly arisen birch-woods is situated the manufacturing 
town of Telma, consisting of two rows of log houses, erected on 
the sides of a log road covered with smooth planks. A hand- 
some stone church in the Italian style, ‘and spacious barracks, 
give the place an air of importance. But the workhouse of Telma 
is the wonder of Siberia. It is with constantly increasing ad- 
miration (says M. Ermann) that one approaches the workhouse, 
a fabric of two stories, and which is, no doubt, the largest and 
finest specimen of architecture in North Asia. The front of it 
has a length of three hundred and sixty-four feet, and is adorned 
with massive columns, between which, in two rows, are the 
windows, of the purest plate glass. The lower story is divided 
into three apartments, in which are carried on the manufac- 
ture of cloth. Above dwell the officers who manage the insti- 
tution on the account of the crown. Stone warehouses, and 
mills of different kinds, are situated along the banks of the 
stream which drives the machinery of the workhouse. The ad- 
vantages of the locality were discovered a century ago, by private 
speculators, since which time Telma has been famous for its 
cloth manufactory. More recently, glass, paper, and linen 
have been ‘added ‘to’ its productions. The inhabitants of 
Telma are about two thousand .in number, of whom eight 
hundred find employment in the manufactories. They are 
persons exiled for crimes, but whose manners, nevertheless, are 
irreproachable in their-new and more fortunate situation, in 
which they are neither pressed by want nor goaded by despair. 
They are supplied gratuitously with’ meal, and receive, besides, 
an amount of wages proportioned in each instance to the value 
of the labour. "The wool required for the manufactory at Telma 
is procured chiefly from the Buraets and Tunguses, who wander 
with their flocks over the southern borders of Siberia. The 
machinery for combing and spinning the wool was originally 
procured from England, and was afterwards made in Siberia, ac- 
cording to the English model, at one-fifth of the cost of the latter. 
Telma produces annually about fifty thousand yards of woollen 
cloth, and half that quantity of linen. The former is sold ata 
price not exceeding half-a-crown a yard. Among the causes 
operating to depreciate it, one of the most influential is fashion. 
So decided a preference is given to European cloth, that nothing 
short of a very great saving in the price can reconcile the 
Siberian to the manufacture of his own country. Pains are 
taken, notwithstanding this discouragement, to improve the 
wool, and in 1830 a flock of four hundred and eighty Spanish 
sheep were driven from Moscow to Irkutsk; and, notwithstand- 
ing the length of the journey and the plagues of the Barabinskian 
steppes, three hundred. of them reached their destination in safety. 
— Travels in Siberia, by a German. 


1241.] THE PENNY MAGAZINE. a. 

















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The Portrait of William (at the top of tne Engraving) 1s froma MS, History, written by William of Jumidyes, in the eleventh century, and now in 
the Bibliotheque at Rouen; the other Portrait is that of Harold, from an Enelish MS,, entitled ‘ Liber Benedietionum,’ preserved in the Bibliotheque 
at Paris. Both Portraits, it is believed, are now for the firsttime engraved in this country, The other Ilustrations comprise the Seal of Battle Abhbey,— 
a View of the Coast where the Normans landed,—VPevensey Castie,--and a design exhibiting the Costume of the Warriors engaged in the Battle. The 


seroll-work ornaments are taken from Ms. [Huminatious of the period.} 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT EVENTS. 


THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 


WHATEVER our individual opinions may be as to the 
object or necessity of any particular battle, or even of 
battles and warfare generally, there are few, we econ- 
ceive, who can Look upon the scene of a “ well-foughten 
field” without finding themselves drawn, as it were, 
into its influences, or, as memory brings before them 


No. 004. 


the chief features of that dread struggle, without par- 
ticipating more or less in all its wild eommotion and 
excitement. The fate of the combatants, also, must 
necessarily arouse our attention and solicitude; the 
courage and fortitude of the soldier, the intellectual 
skill and power of the commander, who, amidst all the 
horrors of the time, calmly orders, watehes over, tore- 
sees, and provides for everything, are in themselves, 
apart fram the purposes for which they are exerted, 


VoL. X.—D 


18 THE PENNY 
qualities that appeal irresistibly to our sympathy and 
admiration. But let the safety of a kingdom, the hap- 
piness and liberty of a people, hang at the same tune 
trembling in the balance, and the struggle assumes a 
positively sublime aspect: whatever its issue, we can 
never afterwards look upon that field without emotions 
of a powerful and solemn nature. Such a struggle was 
the battle of Hastings, the subject of the present paper ; 
in which we propose to notice some of the more inte- 
resting details of that tremendous conflict in connection 
with the localities to which they have been referred.* 
The aspect of the field is now very different from 
what it was on Harold’s birth-day, the fatal 14th of 
October, 1066; a change produced by the erection of 
the magnificent abbey, the walls of which embraced 
the whole of the hill forming the centre of Harold’s 
position. Prior to this period there is no reason to 
suppose that any buildings stood in the neighbour- 
hood, with the exception of a church, dedicated to 
St. Mary, for the use of the peasants scattered about 
the surrounding forests. On the summit of the hill in 
question, and on the left of the road from Hastings to 
London, about eight miles from the former place, the 
Saxon king planted his standard, and immediately op- 
posite, on a similar hill, waved the flag of the Norman 
invader. Between the hills, a beautiful valley of 
ereen meadows and luxuriant woods winds away, in 
a northern direction, towards Hastings, where it meets 
the sea. The village of Battle, which owes its ex- 
istence entirely to the building of the abbey, extends 
principally along the sides of the road beyond the 
spot where we turn off to reach the ruins of the latter. 
Whilst yet at a distance these present no very striking 
coup @oil. A large barn-like outline meets the eye, 
mixed with broken walls and buttresses, and the whole 
encompassed with trees; but on near examination we 
find the undoubted remains of a once rich and noble 
structure. Little however of the original architecture 
now exists, the principal portions having been rebuilt 
during the time of the later Henries. The abbey at 
present consists of three sides of a large quadrangle, 
of which the middle has been converted into a dwell- 
ing-house, and the others are ruious. On the front 
of the dwelling-house we find nine elegant arches 
filled up; these are the only remaining portions of the 
church. It is very probable, though we do not find the 
opinion anywhere put forth, that the abbey seal (of 
which a representation is given in the engraving at 
the head of this paper) presents us with a faithful view 
of that edifice. Its ground-plan 1s no longer traceable 
throughout, but’ a dark pool is said to mark the place 
where the foundations of the choir were dug up, and in 
this choir stood the high altar, erected at the spot on or 
near which some of the most umportant and interesting 
events of the battle occurred. Here Harold planted 
his standard, with the solemn determination to conquer 
or to die beneath it. Here, when after so many hours 
of conflict the strategy of Wilham accomplished what 
neither the valour nor superior numbers of his troops 
could accomplish for him (we allude to the manceuvres 
by which the too impetuous Saxons were drawn from 
their position and disorganised), and the battle was 
evidently going in favour of the Normans, here, we 
repeat, then took place the last struggle. Here the 
arrow, on the flight of which such momentous conse- 
quences lung, penetrated Harold’s brain, and deprived 
his followers of all hope of success. Here the brothers 
of the fallen monarch, Gurth and Leofwin, and other 
brave men, still gathered round the standard as their 
last rallying point, and were immediately hemined in 
by the Normans, who made the most desperate efforts 
to seize 1t. Robert Fitz-Ernest had almost grasped 


* For a general account of the battle and of the abbey, see 
vol. i1., p. 211, of the ‘Penny Magazine.’ 


MAGAZINE. [JANUARY 16. 
it, when a battle-axe laid him low. Twenty Norman 
knights then undertook the task, and, with the loss of 
ten of their number, succeeded in lowering the English 
standard, and planting in its stead the consecrated 
banner sent from Rome, in token of victory. Here, 
lastly, when all was over, and the exulting Normans 
were caracolling their horses over the dead bodies, 
in their riotous joy at having won such a battle, and 
at the prospect of the plunder that lay before them 
in the rich towns and broad fertile meads of Iing- 
land, William ordered a space to be cleared of the 
slain, and there, on that dreadful spot, with sixty 
thousand dead or dying men stretched all around, 
feasted his principal officers! Yn connection with this 
spot, every writer we have consulted, following Mr. 
Gilpin,* supposes that the accident of Harold’s stan- 
dard being fixed here could scarcely have determined 
the choice of the site for the erection of the church, 
as the whole neighbourhood does not afford any other 
place equally eligible; and therefore concludes the 
former statement to have been a mistake. But surely 
the very reasons given for the choice of the spot in 
one case, apply with at least equal reason to the other. 
Where should Harold have fixed the rallymg mark 
for his men, but on the highest and most conspicuous 
place he could find P 

Leaving the abbey, we proceed to notice some of the 
other localities connected with the battle, foremost 
among which in interest is that part of the coast where 
the Conqueror landed. Between the lofty foreland of 
Beechey Head and Hastings, a direct distance of abont 
ten miles, the coast forms a kind of bay comprising a 
magnificent sweep of romantic and beautiful scenery. 
About the centre of thus is Pevensey with its ancient 
castle, and between Pevensey and Hastings, at or near . 
a place called Bulverhithe, landed the Norman expe- 
dition. The precise spot is not improbably marked 
out by a tradition preserved in the neighbourhood. 
At ashort distance westward from Hastings are the 
ruins of an ancient chapel, supposed to have been dedi- 
cated to St. Leonard, and about a quarter of a mile 
beyond, at a place called the “Old Woman’s Tap,”. we 
find a flat rock, overhanging a pool, known as the 
Conqueror’s Table, and the tradition is that he dined 
here unmediately after the disembarkation. The ex- 
pedition had quitted St. Valery, near Dieppe, on the 
morning of the 26th of September, 1066. ‘ Williain 
led the van in a vessel which had been presented to 
him for the occasion by his wife Matilda, and which 
was distinguished by its splendid decorations in the 
day, and in the darkness of night by a brilliant hght at 
its mast’s head...... This ship sailed faster than all the 
rest, and in his impatience Wilham neglected to order 
the taking in of sail to lessen its speed. In the course 
of the night he left the whole fleet far astern. Early 
in the morning he ordered a sailor to the mast-head to 
see if the other ships were coming up. ‘I can see 
nothing but the sea and sky,’ said the mariner, and 
then they lay-to. To keep the crew in good heart, 
William ordered them a sumptuous breakfast, with 
wines strongly spiced. The sailor was again sent aloft, 
and this time he said he could make out four vessels 
in the distance; but mounting a third time shortly 
alter, he shouted ‘Now I see a forest of masts and 
salis? A few hours after this, the united Norman 
fleet came to anchor on the Sussex coast, without 
meeting with any resistance ; for Harold’s ships, which 
had so long cruised upon that coast, had been called 
elsewhere, or had returned into port through want of 
pay and provisions.” + An interesting incident marked 
the landing. William hiinself was the last man who 
quitted the ships, and as his foot touched ground he 


* “Observations on the Coasts of Hampshire, Sussex, &c. . 
t ‘Pictorial History of England,’ vol. i., p. 210. 


1841. | THE PENNY 
made a false step, and fell upon his face. The mishap 
caused a general feeling of apprehension among the 
superstitious soldiery, who cried out ‘God keep us! 
but here’s a bad sign!” The Conqueror, however, 
leaping gaily to his feet, and showing them his hand 
full of English earth, cried “ What now? whiat asto- 
nishes you? J have taken seizin of this land with my 
hands, and by the splendour of God, as far as it ex- 
tends, it 1s mine—itis your’s!” Another version of 
this story is to the effect that Wilham saved himself 
from falling, but sank to some depth in the sand, and 
could hardly extricate himself; on which one of his 
followers remarked, ‘‘ You had almost fallen, my lord, 
but you have well maintained your standing, aud have 
now taken deep and firm footing in the soil of Eng- 
land: the presage is good, and hereupon I salute you 
king!” From the coast -William marched to Hastings, 
near which he formed a camp, and set up two wooden 
towers or castles, which he had brought with him (in 
pieces) from Normandy, and placed in them his pro- 
visions, stores, &c. He now endeavoured to make 
himself well acquainted with the surrounding country 
by means of exploring parties, which he occasionally 
accompanied in person. At one of these times, he set 
out from the camp attended by only fifteen horsemen, 
and was absent for several hours. The roads were 
very bad, and after along ramble, to make matters 
worse, they lost their way, and before they could re- 
cover it, their horses were so jaded, that all the party 
were compelled to disinount, and return on toot, en- 
cumbered as they were with their heavy armour. 
William Fitz-Osbourne, one of their number, became 
so exhausted with fatigue, that the duke, to relieve 
hun, took his helmet, and carried it himself all the 
way tothe camp. The castle of Pevensey was at this 
time oceupied by a detachnient of Norman soldiers. 
This is an edifice of great antiquity, built, it is sup- 
a by the Romans, and probably restored by 

ilam at or soon after the period of the Conquest. 
The Roman themelzi, or layers of brick disposed in the 
Saxon herring-bone fashion, are still visible in the 
walls. The castle stands upon an eminence, the cast 
side of which was formerly washed by the sea, though 
now at some distance fromit. It is of a triangular 
form, with the corners rounded off. The walls average 
about ten feet in thickness, and are tolerably entire to 
the height of twenty or twenty-five feet; they are 
strengthened by solid towers. The buildings in the 
area of the interior censist of a keep and six large 
hollow towers or bastions. The principal entrance 
was between two round towers. The castle was ori- 
ginally defended on all sides by water; namely, by a 
moat on the cast, west, and south, and by the sea on 
the north. The great strength of Pevensey has been 
attested on more than one occasion: we may particu- 
larly mention its defence in 1080, by Odo, bishop of 
Bayeux, then in rebellion against William Rufus, and 
who held out for six weeks in spite of the determined 
assaults of the latter: famine at last compelled a sur- 
render. Itis worthy of note that the earliest portions 
of Pevensey are in the best preservation. 

It is gencrally considered by the English historians 
that Harold's body was given up to his mother, and 
deposited in Waltham abbey ;* but there is a story 
mentioned by some of the old chroniclers to the effect 
that Harold escaped from the battle, and lived for 
some years afterwards as an anchorite in a cell near 
St. John’s church, Chester; a fiction truly ridiculous 
taken in connection with the character and position of 
the Saxon king. Subsequent events proved with what 
difficulty the sturdy Saxon spirit was subdued even 
after the battle of Hastings, and wzthout Haroid or 
any leader who could unite all the strength of the 

* See vol. ix., p. 201, of this publication. 


MAGAZINE. 19 
country: what might not have been done with him?’ 
Whilst on’the other hand, Wilham losing, as he did, 
in that very battle one-fourth of his army, must have 
been ruined by two cr three more of such victories! 
A much more probable relation as to the disposal of 
Harold’s body is given by William of Poictiers, a 
trustworthy writer. He states that .although the 
weight of the corpse in gold was offered (a suin that 
has been calculated at eleven thousand guineas), the 
Conqueror gave astern refusal, and ordered it to be 
buried on the beach, adding with a sneer, that must 
indeed have been bitter to every Eenghsh ear, as sati- 
rising but too justly the neglect that had led to all 
their misfortunes, “He guarded the coast while he 
was alive; let him continue to guard it after death!” 


INFLUENCE OF THE ORIENTAL CHA- 
RACTER ON COMMERCE 


(From Dr. Bowring’s ‘ Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria.’} 


THERE is mm the inertness of Oriental character a 
ereat impediment to commercial development. The 
habits of the people are opposed to activity, and the 
motives which elsewhere lead to the gradual, how- 
ever slow, accumulation of property, are fait and in- 
sufficient ; for the rights of property are but vaguely 
recognised, and a continuity of effort, in any case 
whatever, is of very rare occurrence. The examples 
are few in which opulence is reached by a continuous 
dedication of energy and attention to a given end. 
Most of the wealth possessed by the Mussulmans has 
been the result of conquest—of the power of oppres- 
sion, or of some fortuitous and accidental circum- 
stances. It rarely happens that either agriculture or 
manufacture or commerce is the source of a Mo- 
hammedan’s opulence. Slow and careful accumula- 
tion is a rare virtue in the East. Where fortune 
visits, her visits are sudden and liberal; but as every- 
thing is held by a slight and uncertain tenure, the 
possession of one day is succeeded by the poverty of 
the next; and if there be, as there almost universally 
is, a want of those untired exertions by which, in 
Christian nations, men so frequently amass riches, sti 1] 
more is there a want of that prudence and foresight 
which check the march of destruction. No element in 
the Mussulman character is more opposed to the sound 
commercial principle than their indifference to the pro- 
eress of decay, their unwillingness to repair the ravages 
of time. If an edifice be shaken by an earthquake, 
it is abandoned—it is seldom or never raised again on 
its foundations—that which is overthrown 1s never res- 
cued or renovated. A ruined building, like a felled 
oak, remains in the dust for ever. Iven in the popu- 
lous parts of some of the great cities of Syria, the 
heaps of ruins which have been left in the pathways 
by successive earthquakes have not been removed. 
A few hours’ labour would clear the wrecks away ; 
but the passengers prefer to clamber up and down 
the piles of stones and fragments rather than to dis- 

lace them. So little disposition is there to alter or to 
interfere with what has been, that we found the apart- 
ments of the castle of Aleppo in precisely the state In 
which they were abandoned to the conquerors ; the 
halls strewed with armour, covered with broken bows, 
quivers, and arrows, in tens of thousands, and nuim- 
berless dispatches with the sultan’s signet still scat- 
tered about the floor. Added to these obstacles, and 
operating in the same direction, the unchangeableness 
of the Mohammedan usages and stitutions 1s an 
almost invariable impediment to the development of 
commercial prosperity. The merchant is rarely an 
honoured being. Those who wield the power of the 


| sword and the authority of the Book, the warrior and 


jOe 


20 


the ulema, are the two really distinguished races of 
society. All productive labour, all usefully employed 
capital, is regarded as belonging tosomething mean 
and secondary. In the ports of Syria, the presence of 
Europeans has modified to some extent the commer- 
clal usages of the country; but in the towns of the 
interior, in the great depots, the bazaars represent the 
same system of commerce which existed many hundred 
years ago. Huge khans receive the foreign mer- 
chants who come with caravans from remote regions, 
and carry on their trades, both of sale and purchase, 
precisely as it was conducted by their forefathers. The 
bazaars are divided into different regions, such as 
those of the druggists, of spice-men, of the woollen- 
drapers, of the silk-merchants, of the traders in 
cotton goods, the shoemaker, the garment-seller, the 
lronmongers, and a variety of others. Each generally 
has a separate street for its particular department, and 
the sale and purchase of goods are carried on with con- 
siderable formality. The buyer goes to the shop of 
the seller, is treated to coffee and a pipe, and he then 
discusses the merits and the price of the merchandise 
in which he trades. The bargain is generally of slow 
arrangement. Independently of the bazaars, there 
are certain days on which auctions are held, and all 
sorts of goods are paraded up and down for public 
sale. But notwithstanding all impediments and diffi- 
culties, wherever repose and peace have allowed the 
capabilities of Syria to develop themselves, pro- 
duction and commerce have taken rapid strides. 
One of the immediate consequences of Ibrahim 
Pasha’s conquest was a sense of security, the esta- 
blishment of an improved police, and an immediate 
extension of trading relations, principally due to 
the presence of Europeans. When the policy of peace 
was interrupted, commercial intercourse was de- 
ranged, the amount of imports and exports dimi- 
nished, the number of merchants from foreign coun- 
tries sensibly lessened, and the hopes of progressive 
improvement were all checked and disappointed. But 
both for agriculture and manufactures Syria has creat 
capabilities. Were fiscal exactions checked and recu- 
lated—could labour pursue its peaceful vocations— 
were the aptitudes which the country and its inhabit- 
ants present for the development of industry called 
into play—the whole face of the land would soon be 
changed. It appeared to me that there was a rreat 
disposition to activity among large bodies of the pea- 
santry, and much skill among the manufacturing 
labourers of the towns. There would, if properly 
encouraged, be no want of demand for European 
articles, nor of the means of paying for them; and 
among the articles most required, those furnished b 

British industry are particularly prominent. But the 
articles for which the sale would be most hkely to 
extend are such as, having undergone a process of 
manufacture as raw materials, lend themselves to fur- 
ther and final manufacture, such as iron, copper, and 
tin plates, for the making of sundry vessels, threads 
and yarns of silk, flax, woollen, and cotton, &c. These 
and other such would be suited by Oriental skill to 
Oriental tastes better than English ignorance of those 
tastes could possibly fashion them. I noticed a reflux 
of opinion favourable to the manufactures of the 
country, they having already greatly benefited by the 
linport of the half-wrought materials to which Ihave 
been referring ; for in the finishing of most articles 
the Syrians are not wanting in dexterity or experience ; 
they have, like all Orientals, a pretty accurate sense 
of the beauty and arrangement of forms and colours ; 
the patterns they work, though not very Varied, are 
generally graceful ; their dyeing is excellent; their 
artisans are dexterous and intelligent. They use, for the 
most part, a rude machinery, but their wages are high 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[JANUARY 16, 


enough to keep them in tolerable condition ; and were 
some of the modern improvements, such as the Jac- 
quard loom, introduced, there would be a revival of 
manutacturing prosperity. 


Hunting Ostriches and Wild Horses.—We had taken three 
brace of birds, when, an ostrich starting before us, Candioti, 
Jun., gave the war-whoop of pursuit to his Gaucho followers, 
and to me the well-known intimation of “Vamos, Senor Don 
Juan.” Off went, or rather flew, the Gauchos; my steed 
bounded away in their company, and we were now, instead of 
tracking an invisible bird through tufted grass, in full cry after 
the nimble, conspicuous, and athletic ostrich. With crest erect, 
and angry eye, towering above all herbage, our game flew from 
us, by the combined aid of wings and limbs, at the rate of sixteen 
miles au hour. The chase lasted half that time; when an In- 
dian peon, starting a-head of the close phalanx of his mounted 
competitors, whirled his balos, with admirable grace and dex- 
terity, around his head, and with deadly aim flung them over 
the half-running, half-flying, but now devoted ostrich. Ivre- 
trievably entangled, down came the giant bird, rolling, fluttering 
panting ; and being in an instant dispatched, the company ot 
the field stripped him of his feathers, stuck them in their girdles 
and left the plucked and mangled carcass in the plain, a prey 
to the vultures, which were already hovering around us. e 
uow came upon an immense herd of wild horses, and Candioti, 
Jun., said, “Now Senor Don Juan, I must show you how we 
tame a colt.” So saying, the word was given for the pursuit of 
the herd, and off, once more, like lightning started the Gaucho 
horsemen, Candioti and myself keeping up with them. The 
herd consisted of about two thousand horses, neighing and 
snorting, with ears erect aud flowing tails, their manes outspread 
to the wind, afirighted the moment they were conscious of pur- 
suit. The Gauchos set up their usual cry; the dogs were left 
in the distance, and it was not till we had followed the flock at 
full speed, and without a check, for five miles, that the two 
headmost peons launched their bolas at the horse which each had 
respectively singled out of the herd. Down to the ground, with 
frightful somersets, came two gallant colts. The herd con- 
tinued its headlong flight, leaving behind their two prostrate com- 
panions. Upon these the whole band of Gauchos now ran in; 
lazos were applied to tie their legs; one man held down the 
head of each horse, and another the hind quarters, while with 
siugular rapidity and dexterity other two Gauchos put the 
saddles aud bridles on their fallen, trembling, and nearly frantic 
victims, This done, the two men who had brought down 
the colts bestrode them as they still lay on the ground. In a 
moment the lazos which bound their legs were loosed, and at 
the same time a shout from the field so frightened the potros, 
that up they started on all-fours, but, to their astonishment, 
each with a rider on his back, riveted, as it were, to the saddle, 
and controlling them by means of a never-before-dreamed-of 
bit in his mouth. The animals made a simultaneous and most 
surprising vault; they reared, plunged, and kicked; now they 
started off at full gallop, and anon stopped short in their career, 
with their heads between their legs, endeavouring to throw their 
riders. ‘* Que esperanza !” “ vain hope, indeed!” Immoveable 
sat the two Tape Indians: they smiled at the unavailing efforts 
of the turbulent and outrageous animals to unseat them; and in 
jess than an hour from the time. of their mounting, it was very 
evident who were to be the masters. The horses did their 
very worst, the Indians never lost either the security or the grace 
of their seats; till, after two hours of the most violent efforts 
to rid themselves of their burden, the horses were so exhausted, 
that, drenched in sweat, with gored and palpitating sides, and 
hanging down their heads, they stood for five minutes together, 
panting and confounded, but they made nota single effort to 
move. Then came the Gaucho’s turn to exercise his more 
positive authority. Hitherto he had been entirely upon the 
defensive. His object was simply to keep his seat and tire out 
lis horse. He now wauted to move it in a given direction, way- 
ward, zigzag; often interrupted was his course at first, still the 
Gaucho made for a given point; and they advanced towards it, 
till at the end of about three hours the now mastered animals 
moved in nearly a direct line, and, in company with the other 
horses, to the questo, or small subordinate establishment on the 
estate to which we were repairmg. When we got there, the two 
horses, which so shortly before had been free as the wind, they 
tied to a stake of the corral, the slaves of lordly man, and ald 
hope of emancipation was at an end.— Robertson's Paraguay. 


1841.] 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. | 


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GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. 
THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 


Tue pictures of the Dutch and Flemish painters in the 
National Gallery are neither so numerous nor so im- 
portant as those of the Italian school; although, to 
judge from the greater attention given to them by the 
eenerality of the visitors, they appear to be considered 
more interesting. Scenes of familiar life are things 
which everybody can understand, and people who can- 
not judge whether a picture is well or badly painted, 
are interested by the subject and the manner in which 
the artist has treated it. 

The rural merrymaking, the social converse by the 
fireside, the household employments of the females, 
and the industrial pursuits of the men, were the sub- 
jects generally chosen by Teniers, Ostade, and the 
greater portion of the Dutch painters ; those who at- 
tempted the higher flights of Rubens. Vandyck, and 
Rembrandt being comparatively few. 


The imaginative minds of the Italian painters, 


warmed by the remembrance of the great events re- 


corded in the early history of their country,—by the 
elorious scenery by which they were surrounded,— 
and by the imposing ceremonies of the religion m 
which they were educated, attempted the illustration 
of the holy writings, or endeavoured to represent with 
the pencil the stories of the great poets which Italy 
and the neighbouring shores of Greece had given 
birth to. With their enthusiasm and with such sub- 
jects for their pencil, they could not stoop to perpetuate 
the scenes of every-day life which the Dutch delighted 
to transfer to their canvas. Of a cold and apathetic 
temperament, little conversant with the languages or 
literature of other countries, and having no tales of 
antiquity or of the deeds of warlike ancestors to prompt 
them to higher works, they merely looked out of 
their doors for subjects for their pencil, or availed 
themselves of the scenes enacted in their own habita- 


| tions. These they worked up with an industry suitable 


22 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[JANUARY 16, 


to the national character, and succeeded, in most cases, | sent period exhibits a marked deficiency of great 


in achieving elaborate representations of such scenes, 
of the faithfulness of which their patrons could well 
judge. 

Nicholas Maes may be reckoned among the more 
successful of these laborious artists. He was born at 
Dort, in the year 1632. After studying for some time 
under Rembrandt, he employed himself in painting 
small pictures, similar to the one in the National 
Gallery which we have engraved on the occasion; but 
not finding such works very profitable, he became a 
portrait-painter, in which department of art he found 
considerable encouragement, as his pictures, with much 
of the force which his study of Rembrandt’s manage- 
ment of lizht and shade enabled him to give, possessed 
the agreeable quality of softness, the absence of which, 
in most of his distinguished master’s productions, was 
a cause of much annoyance to the ladics and gentlemen 
of Holland. ; 

After practising some time in Amsterdam, he paid a 
visit to Antwerp, for the purpose of studying the works 
of Rubens and Vandyck. While there he became ac- 
quainted with Jordaens, whose pictures he much ad- 
mired, and whose manner he aitempted to imitate. 
Even in his small cabinet pictures the effect of this 
limitation may be observed, and in his larger pictures 
it is more apparent. It is recorded of this artist, that 
on his first visit to Jordaens, in order to view his 
pictures, on expressing himself much struck with 
their beauty, Jordaens, addressing himself to Maes, 
asked him what were the subjects to which he particu- 
larly devoted himself. Maes, in a little confusion, 
answered, “he was a painter of portraits.” To which 
the other replied, “J pity you most sincerely for being 
a martyr to that style of painting, where, let your 
merit be ever so great, you are condemned to suffer 
the whim, the folly, the impertinence, and the igno- 
rance of such a number of both sexes.” 

Whether it was this speech which influenced him, or 
that his own inclinations prompted him to a different 
line of art, it 1s certain that we afterwards find him 
attempting large pictures of domestic scenes, for which, 
having already achieved a reputation, he found more 
patronage than at first. 

On his return to Amsterdam he was continually 
employed, and his works considered so estimable, that 
it was deemed a favour to procure a picture from him. 
He passed the remainder of his life in Amsterdam, 
and died at the age of sixty-one, 1n the year 1693. 

The picture we have engraved was painted in the 
year 1654. Itis on wood, and measures thirteen inches 
and a half high, by eleven inches and a half in width. 
There 1s another picture by this master, styled the 
Cradle, in the Gallery, of about the same size. The 
subject of the Dutch Housewife needs no explanation, 
but we may direct attention to the powerful manner 
in which the bright hehts on the figures are made to 
bring them forward frorn the dark background, which, 
although of a very deep colour, is not at all heavy, 
nor so opaque as the colour used might lead one to 
expect it would be. pee 


é 


CONTRASTS. 
LUNATIC ASYLUMS. 


In the history of most great truths calculated to pro- 
mote the happiness and welfare of society, there are 
two natural periods—often, unfortunately, widely se- 
vered from each other—their discovery, and their prac- 
tical application ; and the character of an ara may, in 
a great measure, be estimated by the advances made 
iu it through either or both of these stages. The 


observation, therefore, frequently made, that the pre- | 


men,—who are the discoverers,—may be true (although 
contemporary opinions on such a matter are but of 
doubtful value), and still the pertod vtself be a great 
one from the extraordinary energy displayed in it in 
the carrying out of truths and principles which, though 
not new, are now for the first time made familiar to 
the minds of men by their powerful influence on the 
business and enjoyments of life: #hzs characteristic 
at least our own era exhibits in the most unmistake- 
able manner. A single glance at the state of socicty 
at present, in comparison with its state at any former 
time, will satisfy us how much has been recently 
done in widening its basis and perfecting its structure 
as the great instrument of human welfare. ‘To illus- 
trate the particular direction and extent of these im- 
provements is the object of the following series of 
papers; in which we propose to show, by a few striking 
examples of contrast between what we were and what 
we are, how generally beneficial those improvements 
have been, how rapid has been their progress of late 
years, and, judging of the future by the past, how cheer- 
ing are the prospects before us. 

Various particulars connected with the treatment of 
lunatics in this country two or three hundred years 
ago, may be obtained from the incidental remarks 
scattered over the writings of the authors of the period. 
In Shakspere there are many allusions of this kind. 
Thus we find that when Antipholus, in the ‘ Comedy of 
Errors,’ is supposed to be mad, he is ‘ bound” and 
thrown into “a dark and dankish vault.” In ‘As you 
hke it,’* again, Rosaline says to her lover, ‘‘ Love is 
merely a madness, and deserves as well a dark house 
and a whip as madmen do.” So that at this period 
bonds, darkness, and flagellation were the matter-of- 
course remedies for lunatics! We learn also that 
lunatics whose malady was found to be unattended 
with danger to those around them, were permitted to 
leave the hospital with an iron ring soldered about 
their left arm, asa mark of their condition, and the 
permission accorded to them to beg. Of the wretched 
moral and physical condition of these outcasts, Shak- 
spere has put a striking description in the mouth of 
Kdgar,* who, threatened with certam danger, says :— 

‘© While I may scape 
I will preserve myself; and am bethought 
To take the basest and most poorest shape, 
That ever penury, 1n contempt of man, 
Brought near to beast: my face I’ll grime with filth ; 
Blanket my lois; elf all my hair in knots ; 
And with presented nakedness outface 
The winds and persecutions of the sky. 
The country gives me proof and precedent. 
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, 
Strike in their numbd and mortified bare arms 
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary ; 
Aud with this horrible object, from low farms, 
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills, 
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers, 
Enforce their charity.” 


At a later period, Hogarth’s print, the last of the 
famous series of the ‘ Rake’s Progress,’ shows us that 
no particular amchoration had taken place: more or 
less of nakedness, dark cells, chains, straw, and an 
utter recklessness as to the fitness of the patients for 
each other's society, appear as the chief characteristics 
of the mode of treatinent then in force. Quiet, me- 
lancholy, violent, and frenzied patients, there appear 
mingled together ; a circuinstance enough of itself to 
make a sane man insane, were he thrown into such 
horrible companionship: is it probable that to those 
already mad the consequence would be less injurious ? 

But although we have thought that these isolated 


1841. ] THE PENNY 
indications of the former method of managing luna- 
tics would not be without interest for our readers, and 
have cousequently included them in our paper, they 
are not at all necessary for the filling up of the con- 
trasts we have alluded to: unfortunately the same 
state of things existed down to the present century! 
In 1807, Sir G. O. Paul, writing to the Secretary of 
State on the subject of pauper-lunatics in the country, 
remarks: “I believe there is hardly a parish of any 
considerable extent in which there may not be found 
some unfortunate creature of this description, who, if 
his ill treatment has made him phrenetic, is chained in 
the cellar or garret of a workhouse, fastened to the leg 
of a table, tied toa post in an outhouse, or perhaps 
shut up in an uninhabited ruin [the writer adds ina 
note, he had witnessed cach of these methods], or if his 
lunacy be inoffensive, left to ramble half naked or half 
starved through the streets or highways, teased by the 
scoff and jest of all that is vulgar, ignorant, and un- 
feeling.” But, it may be observed, these unhappy crea- 
tures were not in any of the public asylums, and that 
the treatment there would be very different. Let us 
see. Eight or nine years later, a magistrate gave the 
following evidence, before a parliamentary committee, 
respecting York Asylum :—“ Having suspicions in 
my mind that there were some parts of that Asylum 
which had not been seen, I went early in the morning 
determined to examine every place; after ordering a 
ereat number of doors to be opened, I came to one 
which was in a retired situation in the kitchen apart- 
ments, and which was almost hid by the opening of a 
door in the passage ; I ordered this door to be opened ; 
the keepers hesitated, and said the apartment belonged 
to the women, and they had not the key; I ordered 
them to get the key, but it was said to be mislaid, and 
not to be found at the moment; upon this I grew an- 
gry, and told them I insisted upon its being found, and 
that if they would not find it, I could find a key at the 
kitchen fire-side, namely the poker ; upon that the key 
was immediately brought. When the door was opened, 
I went into the passage, and I found four cells, I think, 
of about eight feet square, 1n a very horrid and filthy 
situation OP ws Mecca, Sc. :* ‘the particulars 
are too disgusting for further detail. Up stairs he 
found a room twelve feet by seven feet ten inches, 
containing thirteen women, who at night had no other 
habitation than the cells described. ‘That the respon- 
sible parties may have all the benefit of their defence, 
we may add that the “arrangements” were stated to 
have been only temporary, and necessitated by a re- 
cent fire. It was also stated in evidence, that in the 
sameAsylum patients had been whipped, kept gene- 
rally ina filthy state, treated with every kind of per- 
sonal indignity, shut up naked in dark cells, and 
money obtained by the keepers for necessary clothing. 
There appeared also but too much reason to suppose 
that patients had died from neglect or ill treatment. 
There was one statement made in connection with this 
Institution, which alone suffices to explain all these 
evils ;—the physician was in effeet ‘the sole physician, 
sole visitor, and sole eommittee,—and had the whole 
management of the institution for many years.” Of 
course we here refer to the system, not to any particu- 
lar individual. 

We now turn to the Metropolitan institutions; and 
at St. Luke’s Hospital, certainly, at the same period, 
some improvement was visible; though the institu- 
tion was far, very far from being what it might have 
been even then. But at Bedlam, again, it was proved 
before the committee that a great number of the pa- 
tients were closely chained to the wall, and occasionally 
handeuttfed besides; that they were left in that state 

* Statement made by Godfrey Higgins, Esq., to the Select 
Committee of 1814-15. 


MAGAZINE 23 
with no other covering than an unfastened blanket; 
that the patients in the cells were obliged in winter to 
shut out what little light the narrow window afforded, 
on account of the cold—the windows being unglazed, 
&c. But there 1s one case which shows, as well as 
a thousand could do, the spirit of the system pursued at 
Bedlam up to 1815! In consequence of attempting 
to defend himself from what he conceived to be unjust 
treatment on the part of the keeper, Wiliam Norris, 
a patient, was fastened by a long chain, which, passing 
through a partition, the keeper by going into an ad- 
joining cell could draw him close to the wall at his 
pleasure. Norris, however, managed to muffle the 
chain with straw from the bed on which he lay, so as 
to prevent it being drawn through the partition. Then, 
with the concurrence of the medical authorities, the 
following proceedings took place :—a stout iron ring 
was riveted round his neck, from which a short chain, 
about twelve inches long, passed to a ring made to 
slide up and down an upright massy iron bar, six feet 
high, fixed in the wall. Round his body a strong iron 
bar, about two inches wide, was riveted; on each side 
of this bar or hoop was a circular projection, which, 
bemg fashioned to and enclosing each of his arms, 
pinioned them close to his sides. From this waist-bar 
two others passed over his shoulders, and were riveted 
to the first, both before and behind. The iron ring 
round his shoulders was connected by a double hnk 
with the shoulder-bars. From each of these bars passed 
another small chain to the sliding ring on the iron 
bar. This complicated machinery being upon the un- 
fortunate man, he could only lie on his back in bed, 
or, keeping close to the wall, raise himself to an erect 
posture : nota step forwards could he make, nor could 
he lie on either side on account of the projections en- 
closing his arms. Jn this state was Norris found on 
the 2nd of May, 1815, by several gentlemen, and in 
this state had he lived for nine years! He was released, 
but lived only to the following year; though that was 
long enough to show the falsity or error of the allega- 
tions as to his ferocious violence made to excuse such 
treatment. 

This is one side of the picture—a dark and melan- 
choly one indeed. Turn we now to the other. 

Passing with brief but grateful mention the labours 
of Pinel in France and of the Quakers (at their Re- 
treat near York)in England, who appear to have been 
the first in their respeetive countries to set the exam- 
ple of a more humane and enlightened mode of 
treatment, we proceed to see what is the system now 
in operation, for which purpose we take the Pauper 
Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell; not that the institu- 
tions before mentioned would not of themselves pre- 
sent a satisfactory contrast to their former state,.but 
that on the whole the principles of the new system 
appear to have been carried farther in Hanwell than 
in them. 

We will suppose a patient is about to enter Hanwell 
full of the alarm which the idea of confinement ex- 
cites in lunatics as well as in other people. On his 
approach he sees a large and cheerful-looking house, 
standing on the slope of an eminence in the midst of 
its own pleasant grounds. In passing through the 
latter, he sees various persons in the same condition 
as himself busily employed in digging or raking the 
soil, trimming the plants, &c. On entering the 
building, the Principal questions both the patient and 
his friends as to his malady, conduct, tendencies, &c., 
in order,that he may place hin in the ward occupied 
by persons whose state assimilates most nearly to his 
own. He is then stripped, thoroughly cleaned, and 
the comfortable dress of the asylum is put on. He 1s 
now examined by the house surgeon, and, 1f necessary, 

y the physician, with a view to medical treatment. 


24 


It the lunacy be of recent origin, the cure is generally 
speedy, and tolerably certain ; (90 out of 100 of such 
persons, for instance, are cured at Hanwell;) but if 
the disease has been of long duration, so also will be 
the cure. The patient is next invited to set himself 
at work, and become in every respect a member of 
the family. He is shown the bricklayers, joiners, 
tinners, blacksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, brush, twine, 
pottle, and basket makers, coopers, &c., all busy in 
their workshops. If he can render no assistance to 
any of these, there are the gardens and the farm, 
where he is sure to be found useful. Perhaps he is 
idle or perverse, and will not work: well, there 1s no 
preventing such things; and it must.be frankly owned, 
that at Hanwell, Dr. Ellis, its late manager, himself 
confesses it is necessary sometimes to resort to the 
extreme measure of—violence? oh, no!—but the 
bribe of a little tobacco, beer, or tea, or some other 
much-thought-of luxury, and that soon imduces a 
change of resolution. And thus it is, we may ob- 
serve by the way, that out of 612 patients at Hanwell 
in a recent year, 452 were daily employed, and the 
remainder were mostly fatuous, or too feeble for any 
occupation. Well, the patient finds himself in a new 
and strange scene ; but the attention paid to his com- 
forts soon reconciles him to it. The rooms in which 
he sleeps, eats, or works are light, airy, warm, and 
comfortable ; he sees the surgeon and physician of the 
institution making their daily rounds to inquire into 
the health and comfort of him and his companions ; if 
he is at work out of doors, a draught of beer is brought 
to him between breakfast and dinner, and again be- 
tween dinner and supper; he is invariably spoken to 
kindly; his self-respect is never heedlessly, much 
less intentionally wounded ; in his leisure hours there 
are chess, draughts, &c. for his amusement, also a 
library,* with its Penny and Saturday Magazines, its 
books of voyages and travels and of interesting biogra- 
phy: a concert, assisted by an excellent organ (pur- 
chased from the funds of the bazaar established by Mrs. 
Ellis among the female patients with the happiest 
results), takes place once a week, and he assists in the 
preliminary arrangements as to the choice of tunes, &c. ; | 
and even on Sunday, the day on which the patients are | 
most uncomfortable and difficult to manage, from the 
absence of the usual employment, there is the afternoon 
singing meeting, where all the inmates of the asylum 
learn, or at least endeavour to do so, the hymns and 
psalms that are to form part of the evening service : 
and lastly, there is that service itself, which is most 
anxiously anticipated; “indeed, there is as much 
anxiety,” says Dr. Ellis, in his work on insanity, 
“amongst the patients to be permitted to attend and to 
come in their best dresses, as there 1s amongst the sane, 
previous to an attendance on the most fashionable 
congregation in London, and it would be difficult 
to find in the metropolis one more orderly or devout.” 
But supposing our patient to exhibit a savage vio- 
lence of temper or mood, must not the old mode of 
confinement, darkness and chains, be then resorted to? 
Let Miss Martineau, who visited Hanwell in 1834, 
answer. She states, that out of 566 patients then in 
the house, 10 only were restrained, and the restraint 
was simply the confinement of their arms as they 
walked about among the other patients. But we must 
not suppose there are no other modes of restraint, 
though that we are about to mention will not injure 
the reputation of Hanwell for humanity. “<‘ Oh, do 
let me out, do let me go to my dinner!’ wailed one in 
her chamber who had been sent there because she was 
not ‘well enough’ for society in the morning. The 


* For which the institution is mainly indebted to Mr, 
J. Gurney. | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[JANUARY 16, 


dinner-bell had made her wish herself back again 
among her companions. ‘Let me out, and I will be 
quict and gentle.’ ‘Will you? was the only answer 
when her doors were thrown open. Inan instant she 
dispersed her tears, composed her face, and walked 
away like a chidden child.”* Mr. Hill, late of the 
Lincoln Lunatic Asylum, recommending treatment of 
a similar kind in cases of violence, says, ‘a maniac is 
seldom known to break his word.” Our patient has 
thus perhaps ultimately recovered; on quitting the 
Asylum its parting care for his welfare is manifested 
in the pecuniary assistance rendered to him (from a 
fund specially provided, called “ the Adelaide Fund”) 
to continue him a little longer in the enjoyment of 
the comforts he cannot yet be safely without, and keep 
his mind easy whilst he seeks employment or resumes 
his natural position. 

Since the retirement of Sir W. Ellis, Dr. Conolly has 
been the resident physician; and under that gentle- 
man’s management still further advances have been 
made. Thus, during the past year, in which 1108 
patients have been treated, there has not been a single 
instance of personal restraint. Even severity of tone 
has almost ceased to be employed in the repression of 
violence, except in very peculiar cases. Among the 
minor improvements that have taken place within the 
Same period are a more generous systein of diet, more 
comfortable clothing, better ventilation, the throwing 
down of some of the gloomy walls dividing the airing 
courts and erecting open railings in their place, the 
laying out of the courts as gardens, &c. 

As it is rather the spirit than the practical details of 
the past and present nodes of treating lunatics that we 
deem important, it does not appear necessary to add 
anything to the foregoing remarks on Hanwell to show 
its contrast with the state of things that prevailed only 
five-and-twenty years ago. But with respect to the 
important matter of restraint, we cannot avoid noticing 
that Mr. Till was the first to contend that no personal 
restraint, such as that implied by the use of bands, belts, 
&c., was necessary ; and, startling as the opinion was, 
he unquestionably reduced his theory to practice in the 
Lincoln Asylum for the space of two or three years 
without a single accident. “It may be demanded,” 
he remarks, ‘‘ what mode of treatment do you adopt in 
place of restraint? How do you guard against acci- 
dents? Jiow do you provide for the safety of the 
attendants? In short, what is the substitute for coer- 
cion! The answer may be summed up in few words, 
viz.—classification, watchfulness, vigilant and unceas- 
ing attendance by day and night, kindness, occupation 
and attention to health, cleanliness and comfort, and 
the total absence of every description of other occu- 
pation of the attendants.” + 

In conclusion then, we have in the one case dark- 
ness, chains, and whips, cold, nakedness, and filth, con- 
tempt, negleet, utter solitude, or a still more mis- 
chievous society, and all generally ending in a deeper, 
and more confirmed, and more dreadful phase of the 
disease, if the unfortunates are not in the mean time 
cut off by a premature death; in the other we have 
the opposites of all these: the first faithfully depicts 
the characteristics of asylums as they were ; the second 
as faithfully what the best of them now are, and what 
the others, we may safely prophesy, will soon become. 


We are often infinitely mistaken, and take the falsest mea- 
sures, when we envy the happiness of rich and great men: we 
know not the miward canker that eats out all their joy and 
delight, and makes them really much more miserable than 
ourselves.— Bishop Hall. 


* Muss Martineau’s account of Hanwell.—Tait’s Magazine, 
1334 
+ Hill on Lunatic Asylums. 


1841. ] THE PENNY MAGAZINE . 20 








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THE CiID.—No. II. 


“ Vengeance is secure to him. 
Who doth arm himself with right.” 
Romances of the Cid. 


Roprico (or, as he.is commonly called, Ruy) Diaz de Bivar, the Cid, 
was born at Burgos in the year 1025. At that period the greater 
part of the Peninsula was im the hands of the Arabs, who had in- 
vaded it more than three centuries before. The handful of Goths 
who had remained unconquered among the mountains of the Asturias, 
had, by gradual inroads upon the Moslem territory, so extended 
their dominion as by this time to have regained possession of the 
north-western quarter of the Penimsula, 7z.e. Galicia, the Asturias, 
Leon, Old Castile, the northern half of Portugal, Biscay, and Na- 
varre, beside part of the provinces of Aragon and Catalonia. This 
territory was divided into several petty kingdoms or counties, the 
principal of which, soon after the birth of Ruy Diaz, were united 
under the authority of Fernando I., founder of the Castilian monarchy. 
The rest of the Peninsula, which for three centuries after the con- 
quest had been subject to the Arabian khalifs of Cordoba, was also, 
at the period we treat of, divided into a number of petty states, 
governed by independent sovereigns. Having thus premised, we 
return to our hero. 

The father of Rodrigo was Don Diego Lainez, the representative 
of an “ancient, wealthy, and noble race,’ claiming his descent fourth 
from Lain Calvo, one of the two nobles elected by the Castilians in 
the preceding century to the supreme power under the name of 
“Judges of Castile”—a title, says the historian Mariana, preferred 
to all. others, as that which could least easily be made available for 
attacks on popular liberty, of which the Spaniards of those days were 
extremely jealous. That Lain Calvo was a great man in his day 1s 
evident from the pride with which the Cid claims him as a fore- 
father; and we have ourselves seen on the great gate of Santa 
Maria ‘at Burgos a statue to his honour, with an iscr ription styling 
him “a most brave citizen, the sword and buckler of the city.” 
Of the mother of the Cid the romances make no mention, but on 
her tomb in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardena near Burgos, 
she is called “Dona Teresa, daughter of the. Count Don Nuiio 
Alvarez’”’—a fact of importance, inasmuch as it shows .the pedigree 
of the Cid to have been noble on both sides. 

When Rodrigo was a mere stripling, his father Diego Lainez 
was grossly insulted by the haughty and. powerful Count of Gor maz, 
Don Lozano Gomez, who dared even to smite him in the presence 
of the king and his court. The romances picture the consequent 
deep dgjection of the worthy hidalgo, who, on account of his 





Vou, Nt 


20 


ercat age, despaired of obtaining vengeanes of Ins 
powerful foe, and sat gloomily brooding over his dis- 
eTaACe : 
rm) ° 


 Ndeed wiis bauist dl drone his eyolics 

Not a mouthful could he taste: 

There he sut with downeast visare— 
Direlv had he been disgraec d. 

Never stinret he froin bis chamber; 
With uo friends would he converse, 

Lest the breath of his dishonour 
Should pelute them with its curse.” 


At length he called together his sons, and seizing 
their tender hands—tender, the romance seems to 1m- 
ply, as much on account of their high birth, as of their 
age—he grasped them so rudely that they cried him 
mercy. But the hot blood of Rodrigo fired at this 
treatment, and he fiercely exelanned— 





‘¢ Loose me, sire! and ill betide thee ! 
Curse upon thee !—let me go! 
Wert thou other than my father, 
Heavens! I would smite thee low! 


v2 
With this hand thou wring’st I'd tear thee— 
Tear thy heart from out thy breast !” 


The lad’s fury, instead of enraging, cheers and de- 
lights the old man, who, with tears of joy, ealls him 
“the son of his soul!” acquaints him with the indig- 
1uty done him, gives hin his blessmg and sword, and 
entrusts hin with the execution of lis vengeance, as 
the only one of his kindred worthy of sueh an emprise. 
The youth joyfully aecepts it, and takes leave of his 
father, praying him to “heed not the wrong, for when 
the Count insulted him, he knew not of his son.” 

No lhght undertaking, however, was this, and so 
thought Rodrigo, when he ealled to mind his tender 
years, and the power of lis adversary, whose arm was 
ever mightiest in the field, whose vote ever first in the 
councils of the king, aud at whose eall a thousand 
brands would flash from the Asturian mountains. Yet 
all this seemed little in eomparison with his father’s 
indignity, the first ever offered to the house of Lain 
Calvo; and he resolved to risk his life for honour’s 
sake, as became a valiant hidalgo.* Down he takes 
an old sword, with which, 1n times past, Mudarra, the 
bold bastard, had taken deadly vengeance on Rodrigo 
de Lara, who had murdered the seven Infantes his 
brothers. This sword the young Rodrigo apostro- 
pluses ere he girds it on: ‘Take heed, thou valiant 
eword, that the arm that wields thee is that of Mudarra. 
Ivizm as thine own steel shalt thou behold me in the 
Heht; yea, thy second lord will prove as valiant as thy 
first. Shouldst thou be -overeome through my eow- 
ardice, then will I sheathe thee in my bosom up to the 
cross of thy hilt. Let us hasten to vengeance—lo! 
this is the hour to give the Count Lozano the punish- 
mnent he meriteth.” 

Waving thus exalted his conrage, he goes forth and 
meets the Count; aud accuses him of unkuightly and 
cowardly conduct in striking an old man in the faee, 
and that man an lndalgo; reminding lim that those 
who have noble escutcheous cannot brook wrongs: 


* FNidalgo is a contraction of hijo de a/go—hiterally, son of 
somethunue. 

7 It was the custom in the middle ages lo make swords with 
hilts of this form, in order that they might answer the purposes 
of religion as well as of destruction. When a knight fell on 
the field of battle, the hilt of his sword was held to his lips in- 
stead of a crucifix, and in his last moments he was comforted 
aud cheered by this emblem of his faith. We have seen in the 
Royal Armoury at Madrid a uumber of swords purporting to 
have beluuged to the earliest heroes of Christian Spain, most of 
which have crucifurm hits. 


THE PENNY ATAGAZINE. 


[JANUARY 23, 


“ How durst thou to smite my father ? 

Craven caitif!! know that uone 

Unto him shall do dishonour, 
Wiie T live, save God alone. 

For this wrong FI nrust have yengeance-— 
Traiter, here I thee defy! 

With thy blood alone my sire 
Can wash out his infamy !” 


the Count, despiming his youth, rephes with a — 
sllecr, 
“ Go, rash boy! go, lest I scourge thee— 
Scourge thee like an idle page.” 


Rodrigo, burning with wrath, draws his sword and 
cries—“ Villain, eome on! Right and nobility on niy 
side are worth a dozen comrades.” They fight—Rod- 


| rigo prevails, slays the Count, cuts off lis head, and 


returns with it in triumph to his father’s house. 

— Don Dicgo was sitting at Ins board, weeping sorely 
for his shame, when Rodrigo entered, bearing the 
bleeding head of the Count by the forelock. Seizing 
Ins father’s arm, lie shook lim from his reverie, and 
sald— 


** Sec! Ive brought the poisonous weed— 
Feed upon it with delight. 
Raise thy face, oh, father mine! 
Ope thine eyes upon this sight. 


Lay aside this grievous sorrow— 
Lo! thine honour is secure ; 

Vengeance hast thou now obtained, 
From all stain of shame art pure. 


Ne’er again thy foe can harm thee; 
All his pride is now laid low; 
Vain his hand is now to smite thee, 
And this tongue is silent now. 


Well have I aveng'd thee, father ! 
Well have sped me in the fight. 
For to him is vengeance certaim 
Who doth arin himself with right.” 


The old inan answered not, so that his son fancied 
he was dreaming, but after awhile he raised his head, 
and with eyes full of tears thus spake :— 


“ Son of my soul, my brave Rodrigo, 
Hide that visage from my sight ; 
God! my feeble heart is bursting, 
So full is it of delight. 


Ah! thou caitii? count Lozano! 
eaven hath well avenged my wrong ; 
Right hath nerv’d thine arm, Rodrigo— 
Right hath made the feeble strong. 


At the chief place of my table, 
Sit thee henceforth in my stead; 
He who such a head hath brought me, 
Of my house shall be the head.” 


Forth rode Diego Lamez to kiss the hand of “the 
oood king” Ferdinand, with three hundred hidalgos in 
lis train, and among them rode “ Rodrigo, the proud 
Castihan.” 

¢¢ All these kinghts on mules are mounted— 

Ruy a war-horse doth bestride ; 

All wear gold and silken raiment— 
Ruy m mailed steel doth ride; 

All are girt with jewell'd faulchious— 
Ruy with a gold-hilted brand ; 

All a pair of wands come bearing— 
Ruy a glittering lance in haud ; 

All wear gloves with perfuine scented — 
Ruy a mailed gauntlet rude ; 

All wear caps of gorgeous colours—— 
Ruy a casque of temper good.” 


As they ride on towards Burgos, they see the hing 
approaching. IJlis attendauts tell lim that yonder 


1Si1.] 


band is led by him who slew the Count Lozano. 


When Rodrigo drew near, and heard them thus con- | thus reminded of 


Tig PIN MY MAGAZIN I. oa 


The proud spirit of the youth could not brook to be 
his amiecriority; “he {elt himself 


versine, he fixed his eyes sicadfastly upon them, and much aggrieved,” and fiercely cried—- 


exclaimed with a loud and haughty volce— 
«© Ts there ‘mong ye of his kindred 
One to whom the Count was dear, 
Who doth for his death seek vengeance ? 
Lo! I wait his challenge here. 
Yet him come, on foot—on horseback ; 
Here I stand—his enemy.” 


The courtiers, however, were awed by the youth’s 
boldness and impetuosity, and 


‘¢ With one voice they all exclaimed, 
Let the foul fiend challenge thee.” 


Diego Laincez and all his followers then dismounted 
to kiss the kine’s hand; Rodrigo alone sat still on his 
steed. His father, vexed at this, called to hun— 


«¢ Come, my son, dismount, I pray thee ; 
Kueel, the king's right hand to kiss ; 
Thou his vassal art, Rodrigo,— 
He thy lord and master is.” 


ht \ Heed be 
Bet Ait NS t 
SATIN ‘ 


v 
Se te ee 
Sell. oa - @ 





‘ Had another such words utter d, 
Sorely had he rued the day ; 
But sith it is thou, my father, 
I thy bidding will obey.” 


As he knelt accordingly to do homage to the king, 
his sword flew half out of its scabbard, which so 
alarmed the monarch, who knew the fierceness of the 
young hero, that he cried—‘Out with thee! stand 
back, Rodrigo! away from me, thou devil! ‘thou hast 
the shape of a man, but the air of a furious hon.” 
Rodrigo sprang to his feet; called for his horse, and 
angrily replhied— 

‘ Tyoth! no honour do I count it, 
Thus to stcop and kiss thy hand ; 
And my sire, im that he kiss d it, 
Hath disgraced me in the land.” 


With these words he leaped into the saddle, and rade 


| away with his three hundred followers. 





oe ee 


== 


-t 


ON eo 
ES. 
~~ ee : 


— 


(«Troth! no honour do I connt it.”’| 





iat CONSTITUTES A STHEAM-ENGINE? 


Ir is a natural result of the complexity in the construc- 
tion of most steam-engines, that wheels and axles, 
cranks and levers appear, to uninitiated persons, as in- 
separable or indispensable portious of the inachine, and 
that the principles of the steam-engine are necessarily 
complicated. Such, however, is not exactly the case: 
the principle by which the steam-engine becomes a 
moving force is beautifully simple; and the com- 
plexity arises chiefly in the mode of applying that 
force to any particular purpose. A steam-boat pas- 
seneer, secing and hearimg the paddle-wheels re- 
volve, may imagine that the steam drives them round, 
and may then wonder what purpose all the compli- 
eaied niachinery beneath the deck is intended to an- 
swer, Soinlike manner may arailroad passenger have 


an indistinct notion that steam acts upon the wheels 
of the locomotive engines, so as to cause thein to i¢- 
volve, but is wnable to dive into the mystery of cianks, 
pistons, and valves, or to divine in what way they are 
connected with the action of the steain. Wuthout 
venturing to enter at any considerable length upon 
so extensive a subject as the variety and application 
of the steam-engine, we will endeavow' so far to 
disentangle the principle from the details as to 
show what really constitutes a steam-engine, -apart 
from any particular purpose to which it may 
be applied. When this is done, we shall be ina 
coudition to answer the questions,—“ liow does a 
steam-vessel move?” and “ How doesa sicam-cailiage 
move ?” 

That ice, water, and steam are convertible sub- 
stauces, every one knows, and itis also pretty ecnerally 

id 3) 


and 


28 


known that heat is the agent by which the conversicn | and smaller than this pressure. 


from one state to another is effected. But it 1s not so 
well known that the difference of bulk between a 
given weight of water and of steam is the true cause 
of the power of the steam-engine, A cubic inch of 
water, weighing about two hundred and _ fifty-two 
grains, may be converted into an equal weight of 
steam, but in the act of transformation it increases in 
bulk more than seventeen hundred times, whereby a 
cubic inch of water becomes nearly a cubic foot of 
steam. How this extensive increase of bulk is brought 
about, we are but little able to say ; all which is posi- 
tively known in the matter being, that a large amount 
of heat is taken up or absorbed during the process. 
A cubic inch of water at 212° may be converted into a 
cubic foot of steam at 212°; yet, although the thermo- 
meter indicates the same temperature in both, so large 
au quantity of heat has been absorbed by the steam as 
would suffice to raise one thousand inches of water one 
degree in temperature. As this large amount of ab- 
sorbed heat is not perceptible by the usual test (the 
thermometer), it 1s called datent or hidden heat. 

But the expansion of an inch of water into a foot of 
steam would be of little use to the engineer, unless 
there were means of effecting the subsequent reduc- 
tion of the steam, and thereby producing a reaction. 
This reduction is effected by cold, which robs the 
steam of so much latent heat as to render it incapable 
of maintaining the vaporic form, and it thence re- 
assumes the form of water. 

These properties of steam, and many others of equal 
importance, were developed in successive ages, and by 
different philosophers ; and the manner in which they 
may be made available as mechanical agents will, 
perhaps, be understood from the following notice of 
Newcomen’s steam-engine, one of the early forms of 
engine :—A metallic boiler is half-full of water, andiis 
placed over a furnace or fire, the heat of which con- 
verts the water in the boiler into steam. The boiler 
is closed in on all sides, but it has a little aperture, 
covered with a valve or plug, which is opened by the 
force of the steam when its expansive power exceeds 
the pressure of the valve. 
from the boiler to an upright cylinder or barrel, in 
which a solid piston or plug works up and down. 
The top of the piston is exposed to the’ open air, while 
the bottom is wholly excluded from atmospheric 
action. Now the air presses on all bodies at the 
earth’s surface with a force of about fifteen pounds per 
Square inch, and the piston is pressed downwards in 
the cylinder by this force. In order, therefore, to 
drive the piston upwards, steam is admitted beneath 
it; and this steam must be raised to a high tempe- 
rature,—gereater that 212°,—in order that its pressing, 
expanding, or elastic force may be more than a balance 
for that of the atmosphere. The steam, then, drives 
up the piston ; but how is it again to descend, so long 
as the steam remains beneath it? To effect this a jet 
of cold water is thrown into the cylinder beneath the 
piston, and robs the steam of so much heat as to render 
it incapable of maintaining the vaporic form: it con- 
denses into drops of water, which, occupying only 
one seventeen-hundredth of their former bulk, leave 
an extensive vacuum in the cylinder. The external 
air has now power to act unresisted, and it depresses 
the piston. A new admission of steam into the cylinder 
again forces up the piston; and anew injection of water 
condenses the steam, produces a partial vacuum, and 
causes the descent of the piston. 

Now it is easy to see what constitutes the principle 
of such an engine as this, and what are merely sub- 
sidiary details. The external air tends to press down 
the piston in the cylinder, and we have to employ an 
antagonist force which shall be alternately greater 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


A pipe conveys the steam | 


[JANUARY 23, 


This antagonist force 
is steam at a temperature greater than 212°, and the 
same steam converted into water, thereby leaving a 
vacuum beneath the piston. The arrangement of the 
fire-grate and flues, so as to impart the greatest amount 
of heat, the shape of the boiler, and the introduction 
into it of a safety-valve and of gauge-pipes, to indi- 
cate the quantity of water and the temperature of the 
steam, the arrangement of the pipe and valves which 
admit steam from the boiler to the cylinder, the mode 
of injecting the water beneath the piston and of car- 
rying away the injected water before new steam is ad- 
mitted, and the mode in which the vertical motion of 
the piston is, by the aid of rods, beams, levers, wheels, 
&c., made available as a mechanical agent, are matters 
of detail which do not touch upon the great principle 
of the machine. 

James Watt, besides practically demonstrating many 
of the properties of steam indicated above, introduced 
a vast number of improvements in every part of the 
machine; and we may now briefly show how the great 
principle of the steam-engine has been brought into 
play by these improvements. The furnace and boiler 
are so admirably arranged, that when the fire 3s too 
strong, a damper is, by the action of the engine itself, 
drawn across the flue, to lower the draught; and 
when the water in the boiler is too low, a valve opens, 
and more water flows in. Steam being produced, it 
is carried along a pipe to the cylinder, and in so doing 
it passes through a valve so contrived as to regulate 
the quantity of steain admitted according to the amount 
of.power required. The cylinder is not open at the 
top, as Newcomen’s, butis enclosed on all sides, having 
an internal piston, wholly shielded from the external 
air. The downward pressure of the air is therefore 
here lost, but, in leu of it, steam is admitted above 
the piston as well as below, but not at the same time. 
Newcomen’s cylinder was partially cooled before each 
downward stroke of the piston by the jet of cold 
water; but Watt’s cylinder must be kept constantly 
warm, and the condensation of the steam is effected, 
therefore, in a separate cylinder, kept in a cistern of 
cold water. Let us suppose that steam admitted above 
the piston presses it down ; a valve is then opened, by 
which the steam is conducted to the condenser, and in- 
stantly cooled, by which a vacuum is formed above 
the piston. Meanwhile steam is being admitted below 
the piston, and as the latter has now a vacuum above 
it, it is forced upwards by the pressure from beneath. 
The communication between the condenser and the 
upper part of the cylinder is then cut off, and another 
opened with the lower part, whereby another series of 
changes occur, the steam driving the piston upwards 
and downwards alternately. 

We are now in acondition to understand a point 
which frequently occasions much perplexity; viz., how 
a steam-engine can do so many different sorts of work : 
drain a mine, or spin a skein of thread, or stamp the 
device on a coin, or make a pin’s head, The explana- 
tion les within a small compass. ‘To the piston of 
every steamh-engine is attached a metallic rod, which 
shares the reciprocating motion given to the piston. 
The “stroke,” or distance traversed by the piston, fre- 
quently amounts to several feet; and any machinery at- 
tached to the remote end of the piston-rod is thus moved 
to and fro through an equal space with great rapidity. 
This motion being produced, there are abundant means 
of giving a circular direction to it: let any one witness 
the mode in which the itinerant knife-grinder produces 
a circular motion of the wheel by the vertical motion 
of the treadle and strap, and he will have a more dis- 
tinct idea than words can give of one such means. 
The circular motion is, in most apphecations of the 
steam-engine, first given toa large heavy “ fly-wheel ;” 


1841.] 


and this fly-wheel may be considered as occupying the 
point of connection between the production and the 
consumption of steam-power. All the complex ar- 
rangements relating to the production and manage- 
ment of the steam have performed their wonted part 
when the fly-wheel is set m motion; and we may 
dismiss the steam-engine from this point, and regard 





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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


29 


the fly-wheel as a mighty workman, whose labours 
may be directed to the roughest as well as to the most 
delicate operations,—to the production of a cotton 
sown, a shilling, a Penny Magazine; a workman to 
whom small things cease to be small, and great things 
cease to be great. 








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[Cumels. ; 


THE CAMEL. : 


In the second volume of the ‘ Penny Magazine’ is a 
reneral account of the Arabian camel. Since that 
article was published, many interesting particulars of 
this most useful animal have been furnished by recent 
travellers; and many erroneous impressions have thus 
been removed. A very complete account of the camel, 
with reference to its frequent mention in the Scrip- 
tures, and its use by the inhabitants of the Holy Land, 
is given in the ‘Pictorial History of Palestine,’ by 
Mr. Kitto, whose original contributions to our little 
publication have often added greatly to its interest and 
value. Irom this source we abridge a few particulars 
of. the habits of “ the ship of the desert.” 

The country most rich and abundant in camels is 
undoubtedly the province of Nejed in Arabia, entitled 
on that account Om el Bel, or Mother of Camels. It 
furnishes Syria, Hedjaz, and Yemen with camels, 
which in those countries become worth double the 
price originally paid for them in Nejed. The Turk- 
inans and Kourds of Anatolia purchase yearly from 
8000 to 10,000 camels in the Syrian deserts, of which 
the greater number are brought there from Nejed. 
But it is the camel of Oman which is celebrated in the 
songs of Arabia, as the fleetest and most beautiful ; 
and, in fact, the legs of the Oman camels are more 
slender and straight, their eyes more prominent and 
sparkling, and their whole appearance denotes them 
of higher lineage than the ordinary breeds of this 
animal. In mountainous countries camels are scarce 
certainly: but it is a mistaken impression that camels 


are not capable of ascending hills; for, provided they 
are rough, they can ascend the steepest and most 
rugged paths with as much facility as mules. The 
feet are large and spreading, and covered at the lower 
part with a rough flexible skin. It 1s an erroneous 
opinion that the camel delights in sandy ground. It 
is true that he crosses it with less difficulty than any 
other animal: but wherever the sands are deep, the 
weight of himself and his load makes his feet sink 
into the sand at every step, and he groans and often 
sinks under his burden. Hence the skeletons of 
camels are found in the greatest numbers where the 
sands are the deepest. The soil best adapted to their 
feet, and which they traverse with the most facility, 1s 
that of which the desert is usually composed, a dry and 
hard but fine gravelly plain. 

In years of scarcity the camel is always barren. If 
the birth of a camel, as is often the case, happens on a 
journey, the Bedouin receives it in his arms, and places 
it for a few hours on the back of its mother. But at 
the first halting-place the little stranger 1s put down 
to receive the parent’s caresses, and always after 1t con- 
tinues to follow her footsteps unassisted. At the be- 
sinning of the second year the young camels are 
weaned ; in the fourth year they begin to breed. 

Accustomed even from its birth to long and toilsome 
journeys, little training is necessary, beyond propor- 
tioning the weight to its tender age, to inure them to 
the carrying of burdens; and they voluntarily kneel 
when about to be loaded for a journey, a position which 
their great height renders necessary. Kneeling is their 
natural state of rest, but when heavily laden on flinty 


30 


or stony ground, it cannot be accomplished withont 
pain. They then drop at once on both front knees, 
and, in order to establish room for their hinder legs, 
are compelled, in that condition and whilst ecncum- 
Lered with the whole weight of the burden, to plough 
them forward. The eallosifies on their joints, although 
nearly of a horny nature in the aged camels, seem in- 
sufficient to defend them, and it 1s impossible for the 
European to view the aet without commiscration. In 
consequence of this the Bedouins never make thei 
kneel to mount themselves, but either cause the animal 
to drop his neek to receive their foot, and on their 
raising it the rider is enabled to gain his seat, or they 
climb up behind; it pleases them much when a stranger 
ean accomplish either of these feats. 

The distinetion between the Camel and the Drome- 
dary is not that the former has two humps and the 
latier but one, as very frequently has been stated, and 
very generally believed. Both have but one hnmp, 
and the dromedary is distinguished from the camel 
only by its higher breed and finer qualities—as the 
ligh blood race-horse is distinguished from the eart- 
horse. Whenever au Arab perceives in one of his 
camels any indieation of its being small and active, he 
trains it for the purpose of ridmg; and if 1f be a 
female, he takes eare to match her with a fine gh- 
bred male, whereby the fine dromedary races are un- 
proved and perpetuated. These animals, destined 
exclusively for riding, are ealled hedjein in Keypt, 
and deloul in Arabia. The two-humped camel 1s the 
northern or Baetrian camel,—the camel of Central 
Asia, —and found, by migration with man, in the 
Crimea, and in the other countries which border the 
Caucasian Monntains. In South-Western Asia this 
camel is scareely known. Stepliens* assures us that 
on the starting of the Mecca earavan he had scen to- 
eether asmany as, perhaps, twenty thousand camels and 
dromedaries, and had not seen among them more ‘than 
half a dozen with two humps. Burckhardt also says 
the Arabs have no dromedaries with two humps, nor 
did he ever see or hear of any in Syria. It 1s true that 
in Anatolia there is a two-humped brecd, produced 
between the two-huimped male dromedary brought 
from the Crimea and a Turkman she-camel. But one 
of the two small humps which the progeny exhibits 1s 
eut off immediately after birth, to render it more fit 
for bearing a load. The single hump of the Arabian 
and Syrian eamels contiues round and fleshy, wlule 
the animal is in good condition ; but, by a remarkable 
provision of nature, this excrescence by its gradual 
absorption supphes the place of other nourishment 
under circumstances of privation. Tew creatures ex- 
iibit so rapid a conversion of food into fat as camels. 
A few days of rest and ample nourishment produee a 
visible augmentation of fiesh; while, on the contrary, 
a few days employed in travelling without food, reduce 
the creature almost immediately to lttle more than a 
skeleton, excepting the hump, which much longer 
resists the effects of fatigue. | 

The first thing, therefore, about which an Arab is 
solicitous, on commencing a long journcy, is the state 
of his camel’s hump. Ii this is in good condition, he 





knows that the animal is in a state to endure mueh’ 


fatigue on a very moderate allowance ef food, believing 
that, according to the Arabic saying, “the eamel feeds 
on its own hump.” The fact 1s, that as soon as the 
hunip subsides, the animal begins to desist from cxer- 
tion, and gradually yield to fatigue. After the creature 
has in this manner lost its hump, it requires three 
or four months of repose and copious nourishment 
to restore it, which, however, does not take place 
until long after the other parts of the body have been 
fully replenished with flesh. It is in these facts, which 


« ‘Incidents of Travel,’ p. 248, 


THE PENNY BMAGAZaT.. 


(JANUARY 23, 


exhibit the hump as a provision of food (so to speak) 
for the exigencies of protracted travel across the 
deserts, that we discover the adaptative use of this 
curious, and, as might scem to the cursory observer, 
needless excrescence. 

The great length of the camel’s neck enables the 
anunal, without stopping, to nip the thorny shrubs 
whieh everywhere abound on the desert, and, alihough 
the spmes on some are suffieiently formidable to pierce 
a thick shoe, the cartilaginous formation of their mouth 
enables them to feed without diffieulty. ‘The Becouwn, 
also, when walking, devotes a considerable poruon of 
his time in colleeting and feeding his camel with the 
succulent plants and herbs whieh eross his paih. These, 
ona journey, with a few handfuls of dates or beans, 
forni its ordinary food ; but while encamped, he 1s fed 
on the green stalk of the jowrce, and the leaves and 
tender branches of the tamarisk, heaped on circular 
mats, and placed before the camel, who kneels while 
he is partaking of them. In Southern Arabia they are 
fed on salt and even fresh fish. 

During a journey it is customary to halt about four 
o'clock, remove the loads, and permit the camels to 
graze around; if the Arabs are desirous of prevent- 
in@ them from straying too far, they tie their fore 
lees together, or bind the fetlock to the upper joimt 
by a cord. The heads N@W@eiy Securediye ce) aims 
whilst travelling, when the Arabs unite them in single 
file, by fastening the head of one to the tail of his 
predecessor. Towards evening they are called in for 
their evening meal, and placed, in a kneeling posture, 
round the baggage. They do not browse alter dark, 
and seldom attempt to rise, but continue to chew the 
cud throughout the greater part of the night. If left to 
themselves, they usually plant their hind-quarters to 
the wind. 

Authorities differ with respect to the camel’s capa- 
bility of enduring thirst. From the data colleeted by 
Burckhardt, it appears that the power varies mueh in 
the ditierent races of the eamel, or rather, aecording 
to the habits respecting the exercise of this faeulty 
which have been formed or exacted by the heat or cold, 
the abundanee or paucity of water, and the state of 
vegetation im the country in which they have been 
brought up. Thus the camels of Anatoha, during a 
summer journey, require water every second day, 
while the cainels of Arabia can dispense with it until 
the fourth, or even the fifth. Bunt then again much 
depends on the season. In spring, when the herbage 
Is green and succulent, it supphes as much moisture 
as the animal's stomach requires; at that season, there- 
fore, the journey across the great Syrian desert from 
Damascus to Baghdad (twenty-five days) may be per- 
formed without any water being required by or given 
to the camels; at that time of the year only, therefore, 
a route destitute of water can be taken. In summer 
the route by Palmyra is followed, in which wells of 
water ean be fonnd at certain distances. Burckhardt 
reckons that, all over Arabia, four entire days conséi- 
tute the utmost extent to which the camel is capable 
of enduring thirst in summer. In case of absolute 
necessity, an Arabian camel may go five days without 
drinking, but the traveller must never reckon on such 
an extraordinary circumstance. The animal shows 
Inanitest signs of distress after three days of abstinence. 
The traveller last named throws much diseredit on the 
popular story of the reserved supply of water m the 
camel's stomach, for the sake of which the animal is 
said to be often slain by his thirsty master. 

Notwithstanding its patience and other admirable 
qualities, the camel is gifted with but little sagacity ;” 
nor does it appear to be capable of forming any strong 
attachment to its master, although it frequently does 
so to one of its own kind with which it has long been 


ee) Pie Pe 3 
accustomed to travel. In protracted desert journeys 
tac camel appears fully sensible that his safety consists 
li keeping close to the caravan, for if detained behind, 
me never ceases making strenuous efforts to 1egain it. 
Ti is a pity to contradict the pleasing picture which 
Ali Bey draws of the peaccfal dispositions of cainels ; 


ad 


vin the 


but the truth must be told, which is, that they are | 


enone 
e oS s se . 
Alter the hardest days journey, no sooner js the 


hageage removed than the attention of the driver is 


the most quarrelsoine beasts in existence. 


required to keep them from fighting, as they are prone 
to give the most ferocious bites and to lacerate cach 
other's ears. 

The desert camels, less accustomed to walls and 
houses than those of Anatolia and Syria, ave with diffi- 
culty led through the streets of towns when they arrive 
in caravans; and it being impossible to prevail upen 
some oi the more unruly to enter the gates, it is often 
found necessary to unload them outside and to trans- 
port the bales into the town on asses. 

There have becn various estimates of the speed of 
the camel. A sufficient number of authorities are 
agreed in estimating its ordimary pace at two and a 
half miles an hour. Calculations made in Syria, 
eypt, Arabia, and Turkistan agree in this. This is 
to be understood as the ordinary pace in long caravan 
journeys, when the animal only zoulks. The saddle- 
dromedaries are capable of other things, although it 
inay be noted that the long journeys which it can per- 
form in a comparatively short time, are in general 
efiectcd less by positive speed than by its very extra- 
ordinary powers of sustained exertion, day after day, 
through a time and space which would ruin any other 
quadruped. For short distances, the swiftness of a 
camcl makes no approach to that of even a common 
horse. A forced exertion in galloping the animal can- 
hot sustain above half an hour, and it never produces 
a degree of speed equal to that of the common horse. 

If a camel happens to break a leg, Ui is immediately 
killed, as such a fracture is deemed incurable. The 
camel is laden as it kneels, and although the load 1s 
Olien Jaid on recent wounds and sores, no degree of 
pain or want ever induces the generous animal to 
reiuse the load or attempt to castit of. But it can- 
not be forced to rise, if from hunger or excessive 
fatiene its strength has failed; it will not then do this, 
even without the load. Under such circumstances 
camels are abandoned to their fate. It is seldom they 
got on their legs again, although instances have been 
known where they have done so, and completed a 
journey of several days. Wellsted tells us he had 
ofien passed them when thus abandoned, and reinarked 
the mournful looks with which they gazed on the re- 
eedine caravan. When the Arab is upbraided with 
inhumanity, because he does not at once put a period 
to the aninal’s sufferings, he answers that the law 
forbids the taking away of hfe save for food; and even 
then, pardon is to be implored for the necessity which 
compels the act. Whien death approaches the poor 
solitary, vultures and other rapacious birds, which espy 
or scent their prey at an incredible distance, asseinble 
in flocks, and, darting upon the body, commence their 
repast even before lite is extinct. The traveller con- 
tinually sees remains of this faithful servant of man, 
exhibiting sometimes the perfect skeleton; covered 
With a shrunk shriveiled Inde, sometimes the bones 
only, altogether deprived of flesh, and bleached to 
dazzling whiteness by the scorching rays of a desert 
sun. 


ee GANDER THE CORRECTOR. 


Ix this quaint and somewhat ambitious designation 
few of our readers, we preswne, will recognise the 


author of a work widely and honourably known—a | Bethnal Green, kcpt by one Matthew Wright. 


-nanly favoured in this respect. 


MAGAZINE. ol 
work distinguished for its accuracy, comprchensive- 
ness, and for the immense amount of labour and 
energy expended upon its preparation—-we allude to 
Alexander Cruden, to whom the public is indebted 
MO ie=t Jou GrGance OF the scriptures it 
mglish language. IItmay excite some surprise 
also in the minds of many wii know the veputea- 
tion of that elaborate and valuable work to hear that 
its author was to a certain extent, through the greater 
part of his life, subject to the visitations of the most 
fearful malady that can afflict mankind—insanity, and 
of which the title he assnmed as above ts but one of 
lnany indications. In the principal collections of bio- 
graphy, encyclopedias, &c., the life of Cruden is 
either but very briefly mentioned or altogether passed 
over; but if from that circumstance it be assunicd 
that there is nothing noticeable or interesting im the 
life, the striking fact we have just mentioned, and 
still more the particulars we are about to givc, must, 
we think, effectually remove the impression. 

Cruden was born at Aberdeen i 1701, and was the 
son of a respectable tradesman, or “ merchant,” as he 
was styled, in accordance with the Scottish custom, 
who had served the office of bailhe in that town. 
Scotland has bcen lone distinguished for its educa- 
tional facilitics, and Aberdeen was more than ordi- 
Young Alexandcr 
was cent first to the grammar-school, and afterwards 
entcred as a student of Marischal College. Ife had 
scarcely finished his studies when the first evidences 
of his malady appeared. To make the matter worse, 
he at the same time fell in love witha young lady, 
who of conse repelled his advances; but his mportu- 
nities became so great, that ultimately Cruden was 
committed to the town gaol. Soon after lus hberation, 
he had to suffer the exquisite inortification of hearing 
that the lady of his heart had proved as frail as she was 
fair, and had only been saved from the humiliation of 
the “cutty-stool” by a precipitate departure. Cru- 
den’s love, however, can scarcely have long outlived 
such a discovery. It was most probably this incident 
which led to Ins removal from Aberdeen ‘to London, 
where for some years he cmployed hinself in teaching 
the classics as a private tutor. Aiter a brief visit to 
the Isle of Man, spent in the same manner, he opened 
a booksellers shop under the Royai Exchange; at the 
same time he filled up his leisure and increased his 
scanty income |yy corrceeting the press for various 
printers, an occupation in which he was soon distin- 
enished for lis accuracy, punctuality, and for the depth 
and variety of the knowledge he brongut to bear 
upon it. Whilst thus peacefully and nsefully engaged, 
his feelings were again shocked by an unexpected 
meeting with the object of his early love. Somewhere 
abont this period he assumed the title of ‘the Cor- 
rector,’ not simply as an evidence of the nature of lus 
private duties, but also of lus asserting before tne 
world his idea of the vocation to which he was called 
asa reformer of the public morals. About this period 
also lie began his great work, the ‘Concordance.’ To 
those who have examined it, no remark as to the 
amount of labour and energy it required will be neces- 
sary ; to those who have not, it will be sufficient to ask 
them to remember what a Concordance 1s—a work 
which indicates every passage in the Bible containing 
a word of any note—and to add, that of all English Con- 
cordances, Cruden’s is the most accurate and complete. 
The completion of the Concordance proved, for some 
time at least, an unhappy circumstance for its author. 
The sudden cessation from his accustonied labonr is 
supposed to have brought on the violent recurrence of 
his infirmity, which now seized him, and in consequence 
of which he was confined in a private madhousce at 


Lad | 


Lue 


AAWLQOHa id 


32 THE PENNY 
following quotation is merely the title of the pamphlet 
Cruden published on his escape from this place :— 
“The London Citizen exceedingly injured, giving 
an account of his adventures during the time of his 
severe and long campaign at Bethnal Green, for nine 
weeks and six days, the citizen being sent thither in 
March, 1738, by Robert Wightman, a notoriously con- 
ceited whimsical man, where he was chained, hand- 
cuffed, strait-waistcoated, and imprisoned; and he 
would probably have been continued and died under 
his confinement, had he not most providentially made 
his escape by cutting with a knife the bedstead to 
which he was chained. With a History of Wightman’s 
Blind Bench, which was a sort of court that sat in 
Wightman’s room at the Rose and Crown in the 
Poultry, and unaccountably pretended to pass decrees 
in relation to the London Citizen; particularly this 
blundering and illegal Blind Bench decreed that the 
London Citizen should be removed from Bethnal 
Green to Bethlehem Hospital, the audacious men 
thinking by that means to screen Wightman and the 
criminals from punishment for confining the Citizen ; 
but Providence frustrated their designs.” The “ pu- 
nishment” here alluded to was to arise from the anti- 
cipated verdicts in the actions for damages which 
Cruden had instituted against Wightman and Dr. 
Munro, the parties he looked on as the chief offenders. 
Of the first trial, that against Dr. Munro, he gives an 
account too long for quotation; it concludes thus :— 
‘¢The chief bencher 1s notan ignorant man, and wanted 
the Corrector to consent that the jury should withdraw, 
and give no verdict; but he refused it with indigna- 
tion, being fully convinced that he had aright to a 
verdict, and therefore he would not approve of their 
unjust proceedings. The bencher afterwards directed 
or rather commanded the jury, by saying, ‘ You are to 
bring a verdict for the defendants,’ which they did. 
The Corrector made a speech in court before the ver- 
dict; and after the verdict, meekly said, ‘I trust in 
God. The chief bencher replied, ‘I wish you had 
trusted more in God, and not have come hither.” A 
new pamphlet now appeared, commencing “ Mr. Cru- 
den exceedingly injured,” &c. And really he seems 
to have been right in his sense of injury, if, as he 
states, such harshness was used towards him; for how- 
ever eccentric or even annoying his conduct to parti- 
cular individuals occasionally may have been, not the 
slightest tendency to mischief as regards any of his 
fellow-creatures ever appeared. Neither does it ap- 
pear possible that his insanity could ever have been 
very violent, for even now, immediately after he had 
thus made his escape from confinement, he returned to 
his old avocations, and, according to competent au- 
thorities, pursued them in the most satisfactory manner 
to all concerned. 
In 1753 he again fell in love; the object of his 
addresses was, on this occasion, a rich widow lady, 
whom he speaks of under the fictitious name of 
Whitaker: His malady now recurred to sucha de- 
gree, that he was once more placed in confinement. 
No sooner was he freed than he commenced, as be- 
fore, an action against the parties; but the counsel 
threw up their briefs before the trial, and the verdict 
was of course again in favour of the defendants. Still 
unsatisfied, Cruden moved the court of King’s Bench 
fora new trial; that, too, was refused; upon which, 
in the presence of the judges, he immediately cried out, 
with a loud voice, “I appeal to the king in council, or 
to the House of Lords.” He reconsidered this deter- 
mination, however, and issued another pamphlet in- 
stead, which he determined to present to the king per- 
sonally. Huis applications for admittance were treated 
with contempt, with but one exception. He had 


hoped, it appears, to have attained the honour of. 


MAGAZINE | JANUARY 23, 

knighthood in these court visits; explaining, that “if 
it should be asked why the Corrector was so desirous 
of the honour of being a knight, he answers, that 
thinking men often seek after titles rather to please 
others than themselves.” Disappointed in this view, he 
next offered himself as a parliamentary candidate for 
the city of London, in 1734, and was actually put in 
nomination. He appealed to the citizens ‘“ whether 
there were not just grounds to think that God would 
be pleased to make him au instrument to reform the na- 
tion, and to bring the citizens of London to a more reli- 
gious temper and conduct.” He was treated with great 
good humour by the other candidates and their friends, 
and although he lost the election, he consoled himselt 
with the thought that he had won the people’s hearts. 

Having thus failed, for the present at least, in his pre- 
Jiminary steps towards the reform of the whole nation, 
he did not in the meanwhile think an unworthy part 
thereof beneath his notice. Hearing of the dissipation 
prevalent in the university of Oxford, he went down, and 
boldly exercised the duties he had imposed upon himself 
He frequented the public walks, reproving whatever 
levity or indecorum met his eye, and on the Sabbath 
bade the wanderers go home and employ their minds 
on sacred subjects. So little was his success after all, 
that he shook off the dust of his feet against the de- 
voted city, and returned to London. In 1761 we find 
him engaged, by Woodfall, as a corrector of his cele- 
brated journal, the ‘Public Advertiser ; and, in 1762, 
he published a second edition of his ‘ Concordance,’ 
with a dedication to the Earl of Halifax. The object 
of this dedication was to obtain pardon for one Richard 
Potter, a seaman, condemned to death for forging a 
brother sailor’s will, and who, from a state of deep 
insensibility and ignorance, was roused, by Cruden’s 
instructions and spiritual ministrations, into a penitent 
and better condition. The application was successful, 
and thus ended an affair which was highly creditable 
to Cruden’s humanity and perseverance. Nothing 
less than a general reform of the criminals in Newgate 
would do after this, which was accordingly attempted 
—we need scarcely add, in vain. 

Cruden was a loyal subject of the house of Hanover, 
and took an active part in the politics of the day. He 
launched a spirited pamphlet at Wilkes, and, not con- 
tent with that, took the trouble to walk through the 
streets, erasing the objectionable “No. 45’* from the 
walls: indeed, whilst we are upon this latter subject, 
we may remark, that he seldom went out without a 
sponge for the purpose of rubbing off the walls any in- 
decent or otherwise offensive expression he might 
find. In 1769 he visited Aberdeen, but it was only to 
find the truth of the old proverb, “a prophet hath no 
honour in his own country.” The extravagance of his 
views, or the ludicrous manner he used in enforcing 
them, excited the laughter of his audiences, and put 
his placidity of temper to a severe trial. One of the 
quizzers was a conceited young clergyman, on whom 
Cruden most effectually turned the ridicule, hitherto 
directed towards himself, by formally and gravely 
presenting him with a little manual then popular in 
Scotland, entitled ‘The Mothers Catechism, dedi- 
cated to the young and the ignorant! But the end 
of poor Cruden’s life, with all its simple follies and 
valuable and enduring labours, was approaching ; he 
returned to London in a few months, and on the Ist of 
November, 1770, was found dead in his chamber at 
his lodgings in Carnden Street, Islmgton. He had 
been in perfect health the preceding evening, and at 
the moment of death must have been praying, as was 
evident from the attitude in which he was found. 


* The number of the ‘North Briton’ im which appeared 
Wilkes’s famous article. 


1S41.] THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 33 


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[Louis XIV, in his Bedchamber. —Adapted from Laborde’s ‘ Versailies,”” 


A DAY OF LOUIS XIV. 


Durine the reign of Louis XIV., which embraced 
the long period of seventy-two years, from 1643 to 
1715, France was changed from a feudal monarchy 
into an absolute one. Under the previous reign 
Richelieu had successfully commenced the policy of 
weakening the feudal nobility, and thus paved the 
way for the absolute government of Louis XIV., 
under whom this work was completed. The nobility 
were drawn from their chateaux to court, employed 
about the person of the monarch, and rendered depen- 
dent on his favour. They soon lost their former spirit 
of independence, and, becoming corrupted by pensions 
and court favours, sank into a state of effeminacy 
from which they never rose. Their vices, follies, and 
weaknesses hastened the Revolution, and at the same 
time disabled them from taking any useful part in 
that great movement, under which they were ruth- 
lessly crushed. , : 

The following account of a day at the court of 
Louis XIV., taken from the memoir-writers of the 
period, presents a humihating picture of the French 
nobility at that time, when the highest object of their 
ambitien was the favour of the sovereign, to obtain 
which they eagerly aspired to perform menial services 
about his person :— 

About eight o'clock in the morning, while a servant 
prepared the fire in the king’s apartment, and Louis 


No. DOO, 


still slept, the pages of the chamber gently opened the 
windows, and removed the collation which had been 
Jeft in case of the king requiring refreshment in the 
night. Bontemps, the first valet, who had slept in 
the same room, and had dressed himself in the ante- 
chamber, re-entered, and waited, silent and alone, until 
the clock struck the hour at which the king had desired 
to be awakened. He then approached the king's bed, 
saying, “ Sire, the clock has struck,” and went directly 
into the ante-chamber to announce that his majesty 
was awake. The folding-doors were then thrown 
open, and the Dauphin and his children, Monsieur and 
the Duke de Chartres, were in waiting to wish him 
“good morning.” The Duke du Maine, the Count de 
Toulouse, the Duke de Beauvillers, first gentleman of 
the chamber, the Duke de la Rouchefoucauld, grand 
master of the wardrobe, entered, followed by the first 
valet of the wardrobe and other officers bringing in 
the king’s dresses. The principal physician and sur- 
seon were also admitted. Bonteimps, then handing a 
silver-gilt vessel, poured on the king’s hands some 
spirit of wine; the Duke de Beauvillers presented 
the holy water, and his majesty made the sign of the 
cross, while the Dauphin and the Duke du Maine, ap- 
proaching the king’s bed, asked him how he had slept. 


| After he had recited a very short religious service, M. de 


St. Quentin laid before him several peruques, and the 
king pointed out the one he intended to wear. As 
soon as he rose from his bed, the Duke de Beauvillers 


VoL. X.-—F 


34 THE PENNY 
handed him a rich morning-gown, and Quentin pre- 
sented the peruque, which the king put on himselt. 
Bontemps next drew on his majesty’s stockings, and, 
on being dressed, the holy water was again offered to 
him. He now went from the balustrade within 
which the bed was placed, but which is not shown 
in the engraving, as the scene is supposed to be 
within it, and, seating himself mm an arm-chair near 
the fire-place, demanded “la premiére entrée,” which 
the Duke de Beauvillers be i in a loud voice, 
on which a page of the chamber admitted those 
who, by right of their office or the king’s favour, 
were entitled to be present at the “petit lever.” 
The Marshal Duke de Villeroy, the Count de Gram- 
mont, the Marquis de Dangeau, M. de Beringhen, 
the four secretaries, Colin and Baurepas, readers of 
the chamber, Vergins, the Count de Crécy, secretary 
of the cabinet, and the Baron de Breteuwl, with se- 
veral keepers of the wardrobe not on service, and 
the keepers of the gold and silver plate, were intro- 
duced. His majesty then underwent the operation 
of shaving, the basin being held by Charles de 
Guisgne, Quentin adjusting the shaving-cloth, and 
applying the soap-brush and razor, and afterwards 
a soft sponge dipped in spirit of wine, and subse- 
quently in pure water. The king wiped his face 
with a dry napkin, Bontemps holding a looking-glass 
during the whole of these operations. When these 
were finished, Caillebat, Marquis de la Salle, and 
Letellier, Marquis de Louvre, master of the wardrobe, 
prepared to attend the king while he dressed, pre- 
vious to which he demanded the “ grande entrées,” the 
admission to which was regarded as one of the highest 
court favours. On each individual presenting himself 
in the ante-room, the Sieur de Rassé, one of the ushers 
of the chamber, approached the Duke de Beauvillers, 
and announced his name in a low tone, the duke re- 
peating it to the king, when, if his majesty did not 
make any objection, the introduction took place. No- 
bles of the highest rank, marshals, bishops, governors 
of provinces, and presidents of the parhament, now 
entered in succession. At lengtha gentle knock is 
heard at the door, and Beauvillers is ready to receive 
from the groom of the chamber the name of the new 
comer, and to announce it to the king ; but the door is 
opened without ceremony, although it was neither a 
ereat churchman nor soldier ; 1t was Racine : and soon 
afterwards Boileau, Moliére, and Mansard, the archi- 
tect, are introduced with as little form. 

The king, however, is now engaged in dressing, and 
the courtiers have the gratification of witnessing this 
ceremony. T’he page of the wardrobe hands to Gabriel 
Bacheler his majesty’s stockings and garters, who 
presents them to the king, and Louis puts on the 
former himself. Another officer hands his ‘“‘ haute-de- 
chausse,” to which silk stockings are attached, and a 
third puts on the king’s shoes. Two pages, splendidly 
dressed, remove the habiliments which the king 
throws off, and his majesty buckles the garters himself. 
Breakfast 1s now ready, and Louis commands Racine 
to seat himself at the table. Two officers of the goblet 
bring in the breakfast service. The chief butler pre- 
sents to the Duke de Beauvillers a silver-gilt cup, in 
which the duke pours out wine and water from two 
decanters, borne by another officer, tastes the beverage, 
and, after the cup has been rinsed, he presents it to 
the king, who drinks. The Dauphin then gives his 
hat and gloves to the first gentleman of the chamber, 
takes a napkin, handed to him by another officer, and 
presents it to the king, who wipes his lips. 

_ After breakfast 1s finished, Louis takes off his morn- 
Ing gown, and the Marquis de la Salle assists the king 
in taking off his night-vest by the left hand, while 
Bontemps is similarly employed on the right. The 


MAGAZINE. | JANUARY 30, 
latter receives from the king his purse, and hands it 
to Frangois de Belloc, who places it in a cabinet, and 
remains in charge of it. Bachelier brings a shirt, 
which he has aired, and presents it to the Duke de 
Beauvillers, and the Dauphin, again laying aside his 
hat and gloves, hands it to the king. Two officers 
extend before the king his “robe de chambre,” and 
Bachelier receives the garment which the king has 
taken off. The Marquis de la Salle assists the 
king to pull on his long stockings, and the Duke de 
la Rochefoucauld helps him on with his under-waist- 
coat. Two valets of the wardrobe then present the 
king with his waistcoat, sword, and the blue ribbon 
with the crosses of the Holy Ghost and St. Louis. The 
Duke de la Rochefoucauld buckles on the sword, and 
the Marquis de la Salle assists his majesty to put on 
his coat, and next presents him with a rich lace cravat, 
which the king ties on himself. The Marquis next 
empties the pockets of the dress which had been worn 
by the king on the previous day, and which is held by 
Bachelier, and receives from the Sieur de Saint- 
Michel two handkerchiefs, presented to him on a waiter. 
The king then kneels in the space between the bed 
and the wall, and repeats a prayer, all the cardinals 
and bishops approaching and joining in a low tone. 
His majesty was now ready to receive such of the 


foreign ambassadors as had occasion to wait upon him ; 


and the ambassador ef Spain was introduced to him by 
appointment, previous to which a coverlet was thrown 
on the bed, and the curtain drawn im front and at the 
feet. The king took his seat within the balustrade, 
the Dukes de Beauvillers and de la Rochetoucauld 
and the Marquis de la Salle standing near hin, and 
the princes of the blood being seated by his side. The 
ambassador is introduced, and makes three obeisances, 
upon which the king rises, and, taking off his hat, 
salutes the ambassador, after which, putting on his 
hat, he resumes his seat. The ambassador, who had 
by this time commenced his address, put on his hat, 
on which the princes did the same. At the conclusion 
of the interview he retires, bowing three times. A 
heutenant-general of one of the provinces is next in- 
troduced, for the purpose of taking the oaths of office, 
during which he kneels and places his hands within 
those of the king, having previously given his sword, 
hat, and gloves to an officer of the chamber. When 
the king was indisposed or took medicine, the honour 
of being present at the “ grand entrée” was one of the 
highest aspirations of the courtiers, the mode of re- 
ception being less formal. 

The “grand entrée” was terminated by the king 
exclaiming, in a loud voice, “To the council!” on 
which he immediately proceeded to his cabinet, where 
he found many officers in waiting, to whom he gave 
orders for the day. To the Bishop of Orleans, first 
almoner, he said that he would go to mass at noon, 
instead of half-past nine, as he had intended; to the 
Marquis de Livry, his first maitre-d’hétel, that he 
would dine in his private apartment, and that he 
would sup “au grand couvert,” that is, in state; to 
Bontemps, who handed to him his watch and reliquary, 
that he would visit the fives’ court; to the officer of 
the wardrobe, that he would go out at two o’clock, and 
would take his mantle and muff; then, putting on his 
ordinary peruque, he took his seat at the upper end of 
a table covered with green velvet, the Dauphin and 
other illustrious and distinguished persons taking their 
seats near him, according to their rank. At the con- 
clusion of the council, his majesty repaired to the 
chapel, and, in passing, gave the watchword of the day 
to the gendarmes, dragoons, and musquetcers. 

During mass, the king’s musicians performed a fine 
motet, composed by the Abbé Robert. At one o’clock 
the Marquis de Livry, baton in hand, announces that, 


1841.] 


dinner is served, when Louis, attended constantly by 
a captain of the guard, repairs to his apartment, two 
attendants preceding him, carrying a table already sct 
out. The Sieur du Plessis, who was in waiting, hands 
to the Duke de Beauvillers a moistened napkin, which 
the Dauphin presents to the king. Each dish had 
been tasted beforehand, and on a sign from the king 
an esquire carver cuts up the viands, and the gentle- 
man in waiting changes the king’s plate. After he 
had dined, his majesty, throwing on his mantle, and 
having received his muff from the master of the 
wardrobe, deseends to his carriage, which is waiting 
for him in the marble court, a crowd of scigneurs 
ranging themselves on each side of the staircase. 
After remaining some time at the fives’ court, where 
the Dukes de Chartres, de Bourgogne, and du Maine 
were enjoying this favourite game, he returns to the 
palace. About three o’clock he pays-a visit to Ma- 
dame de Maintenon, where, reclining inan arm-chair, 
near the fire-place, opposite this lady, who is working 
a piece of tapestry, he every day passed one or two 
hours, listening, occasionally, to Racine, who came 
here sometimes to read his compositions. ‘Esther’ and 
‘ Athalie,’ two of Racine’s best productions, were per- 
formed in this apartment, by the young ladics of the 
school of St. Cyr, for the king’s amusement, who was 
highly pleased with the unexpected entertainment. 
The performanee concluded at an early hour, and at 
ten o'clock Louis took his departure, after remaining 
some time in conversation with madame, who had 
already retired to bed. The king, drawing the bed- 
curtains, then repaired to the apartment in which he 
was to sup “au grand couvert.” 

The different officers had already made the prepa- 
rations for this ceremony ; the table had been laid out 
by a gentleman in waiting; and the dishes were 
brought in according to a ceremonial settled by an 
ordinance of the year 1681. Being seated at the table, 
the king requested the Dauphin and the princes to take 
their places at the otherend. The Dauphin presenting 
a napkin to his majesty, supper commenced, six 
gentlemen remaining standing to wait upon the royal 

arty. When the king wished to drink, the chief 
butler called out, in a loud voice, “a boire pour le 
roi,” on which two of the principal servants under 
him, having made an obeisance, presented a silver-gilt 
cup and two carafes, and tasted the beverage, when 
his majesty helped himself, and, after another obei- 
sance, the two officers withdrew to the sideboard. 
Performances of music took place during the repast, 
and a crowd of courtiers and persons of distinction 
were present, who remained standing, or occupied 
seats around the apartment. All rose on the king 
ectting up from table, and his majesty proceeded to 
the grand saloon, whither the courtiers followed hin. 
Here he remained standing for a few minutes, engaged 
in conversation; then, bowing to the ladies, he re- 
joined his family in another apartment. 

About midnight preparations were made for the 
king’s retiring. A cold collation was taken into the 
apartment where he slept; the arm-chair was drawn 
to the fire-place, and the chief barber arranged the 
dressing-table. On entering, the king found the cour- 
tiers again assembled. He gave his hat, gloves, and 
cane to the Marquis de la Salle, who handed them to 
Saint-Michel, and while he unfastens his belt in 
front, de la Salle detaches it behind, and Saint-Michel 
places it, with the sword, on the dressing-table. His 
majesty then says a prayer, and the almoner, who 
holds the wax lights, also repeats a prayer for the king, 
and informs him that mass will be said next day at 
nine o'clock. The king, returning to his seat, hands 
his watch and reliquary to a valet-de-chambre, and the 
Duke de Beauvillers, having asked his majesty by 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


30 


whom he wished to be hghted, the Duke de Chartres 
is distinguished by this mark of royal favour, and 
takes the wax lights nto his hands. The king then 
takes off the blue ribbon, which de la Salle receives, 
as well as the king’s cravat and waistcoat, and his ma- 
jesty sitting down, Bontemps and Bachclier take off 
his garters, and two valets each draw off one of the 
king’s shoes and stockings, which Saint-Michel places 
on an arm-chair near the bed. ‘T'wo pages present the 
king with his slippers, and the Dauphin his “ chemise 
de nuit,” which had been aired by a valet of the ward- 
robe, and his majesty rises to put on his robe de 
chambre, at the same time bowing to the courtiers, 
who take this as the signal for withdrawing. Bon- 
temps takes the candlestick from the Duke de Chartres 
and gives it to one of the nobles who had solicited the 
honour of holding it, and the groom of the chamber 
cries out, “ Allons, messieurs, passez.’ The “grand 
coucher” is finished, and only the princes and others 
who had been present: at the ‘petit lever” remain. 
The king now seats himself on a folding seat, near the 
balustrade, and Quentin combs and arranges his hair, 
while two valets hold a looking-glass and a lght. 
The Duke de la Rochefoucauld presents the king with 
his nightcap and two handkerchiefs, and the Duke de 
Beauvillers hands to the Dauphin a4 napkin, which the 
latter is to present to the king. Al!l the attendants 
are now dismissed, the physician alone remaining, 
and, after he withdraws, the bed 1s aired, and the king 
is left to enjoy, if he can, the repose which such irk- 
some ceremonies must have made needful. Bontemps 
draws the curtains, secures the doors, and then lays 
down on a bed prepared for him in the same chamber. 
Such was a day of Louis XIV. at Versailles! 


Diseases of the Hip-Joint.—In science, as in the useful arts, 
the advantages of a division of labour are apparent 1n the more 
complete mastery which an individual obtains over a subject to 
which he directs constant attention; but the benefit does not end 
here, for, unlike the proficiency which is attained by subdividing 
the parts of manual employment, the successful prosecutor of 
any particular scientific subject is enabled to communicate the 
results which he acquires, and thus enables others to profit by 
his investigations. The labours of numerous individuals, each 
directing his attention to a part as well as the whole of a sub- 
ject, tend to perfect the science which it embraces. In no 
department is this more obvious than in medical science, and a 
work by Mr. Coulson, ‘On the Diseases of the Hip-Joint,’ is a 
proof of this, as no professional man, without devoting his atten- 
tion to this class of diseases, could have accumulated so many 
valuable facts and such extensive experience concerning it. 
This disease is often the consequence of carelessness, and persons 
expose themselves to it without being aware of their danger. 
Mr. Coulson observes :—“ The continued application of cold to 
the part, a striking cause of enfeeblement, is a common cause of 
this disease. I attended a child, six years old, who had expe- 
rienced two attacks of the disease within nine months, each attack 
having been brought on by’sitting on the cold steps. It often 
originates from damp beds, from working in water or in wet 
grounds, or being casually much exposed to wet, as among 
washerwomen and brewers’ servants, and others liable to have 
their clothes often’ wet. But lying on the damp ground, espe- 
cially when the body is heated, is a very common cause.” He 
thus describes some of the peculiarities of this part of the human 
frame :—‘ All the parts of the hip-joint have a peculiar cha- 
racter; they are low both in regard to vascular action and in 
the scale of sensibility. The value of this is evident, seemg that 
there is no rest to this joint, and that every motion of the body 
is accompanied by movement of the head of the os femoris in 
the acetabulum ; for even the slightest motion, however remote, 
causes less or greater change in the centre of gravity of the body, 
aud compels us to poise the trunk anew upon the hips. Were 
those parts more sensible, we should be perpetually lame. Happily, 
there is sufficient sensibility to form an adequate guard against 
excessive motion of the joint, and little enough to permit the 
natural use of the hmb—a nice adjustment of sensibility to func- 
tion. The left hip-joint, which is feebler than the right, is ob- 
served to be more frequently affected.” 

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[Rock of Dunbarton.—From an original Sketch.] 


DUNBARTON CASTLE. 


Frew even of the generally picturesque castles of 
scotland possess a happier site than that of Dunbarton. 
It stands upon a very singular rock jutting out into 
the Frith of Clyde about fourteen miles below Glas- 
gow, and the top of which divides into two peaks, one 
considerably loftier than the other; over this ver 

irregular surface the buildings which compose the 
castle are scattered. The rock itself stands upon a 
sinall peninsula formed by the junction of the little 
but beautiful river Leven with the Clyde, and occa- 
sionally, when the tides are high in Winter, is com- 
pletely surrounded by water. The fortress commands 
the navigation of the Clyde, and is considered the key 
to the western highlands of Scotland: but its import- 
ance 1s of the past rather than the present ; the interest 
attached to it arises from the events recorded in its 
iustory, and not from its strength, or from the objects 
which cause its strength to be still kept available. To 


those events, however, our space will only admit of 
brief reference. 


The rock was originally called Alcluyth, signifying 
the rock of the Cluid or Clyde, by the Britons, and is 
said to have been the seat of Rhydderech-hael the 
bountiful, king of the Britons. By the Romans it ap- 
pears to have been called Dun-briton, the fort of the 
Britons, from whence comes the present designation ; 
they also made it a naval station, under the name of 
Theodosia; about two hundred and forty years ago, 
various remains of that people were found at Dun- 
barton, and on the western peak of the rock we find a 
circular mass of stones strongly built together, which 
1s Supposed to have been erected by the Romans as the 
base of a watch-tower. From a very early period of 
what we may call the modern history of Scotland, the 
castle formed a royal stronghold, and was considered 
impregnable before the invention of gunpowder ; an 





opinion, however, strangely at variance with the facts 
of the history of the castle, so often has it been taken 
and retaken. Of its state about the middle of the 
sixteenth century, Harding, in his Chronicle, gives the 
following description :— 
‘* And pass on furtherwarde to Dunbertayne, 

A. castle strony, and harde for to obtaine; 

In whiche castle Saincte Patrike was borne, 

That afterward, in Irelande, did winne: 

About the whiche [Dunbertayne] floweth even and morne 

The western seas, without noyse or dinne; 

When furthe of the same the streames dooce rinne 

Twise in xxiv houres without any faile ; 

That no manne maie that strong castle assaile.” 


If there be any doubt as to the fact of St. Patrick’s 
having been born in the castle, there is little or none 
as to this being the true neighbourhood. In his 
‘Confessions,’ Bonaven Tabernie is stated to be the 
place of his birth, which it is supposed is the same 
with Kilpatrick, a town lying between Dunbarton and 
Glasgow. At the commencement of Edward the 
First’s manceuvres to obtain the throne of Scotland, 
Dunbarton was given up to him, and shortly after 
placed -under the charge of John Baliol. Dunbarton 
has a near connection with one of the greatest of Scot- 
land's sons, and with one of the most melancholy events 
of its history. Wallace was brought here immediately 
after he had fallen into Edward’s power by the trea- 
chery of the ever infamous. Sir John Menteith, and 
who, among other rewards, obtained the governorship 
of the castle for his services. A gigantic sword is stil] 
shown in the castle as the identical weapon which the 
great patriot had wielded in many a good fight; and 
a part of the fortress, most probably that in which he 
was confined, was long called by hisname. In 1309 
the castle was taken from Sir John Mentcith by a stra- 
tagem, of which the particulars are not. preserved, but 
the chief actor was one “Oliver, a carpenter,” who re- 


1S41.j THE PENNY 
ceived a grant of lands in consequence. From_ this 
period to that of the reign of the unfortunate Mary, 
the castle was continually changing hands. In the 
early part of Mary’s reign it was taken from the ear] 
of Lennox by the royalists; and after her dethrone- 
ment, its governor, Lord Fleming, still remained faith- 
ful to her cause. But ona dark and stormy night, in 
1571, one Captain Crawford with a few soldiers se- 
cretly scaled the walls, and obtained possession of the 
castle after a sharp struggle. Lord Fleming escaped, 
but his lady was made prisoner, and also a more im- 
portant personage, Hamilton, archbishop of St. An- 
drews, who was particularly obnoxious to the ruling 
party. The unhappy prelate was sent to Stirling, and 
there hung on a tree, with a Latin couplet inscribed 
beneath, that we may thus render: “ Live long, happy 
tree, always flourishing with branches that to us bear 
such fruit.” In 1640 it finally fell into the hands of 
the Parliamentarians, and, shortly after, the Scottish 
parliament ordered the works to be destroyed, an 
order that does not appear to have been at all 
obeyed. Cromwell obtained possession of the castle in 
1652. At the union of the two countries in 1707, 
Dunbarton was one of the Scottish fortresses that it 
was agreed should be kept in continual repair. The 
establishment now consists of a governor—Lord Lyne- 
doch, a lheutenant-governor, barrack-master, store- 
keeper, surgeon, and about forty-two soldiers, mostly 
invalids. , 

The castle is only approachable through an ancient 
and massy gateway, and by a very harrow passage for- 
tified by a strong wall or rampart. Within this wall, 
which is continued almost all round the rock, is 
the guardhouse with lodgings for the officers; and 
from thence a long and steep flight of steps leads to the 
stuumit. The entire way is defended by batteries of 
heavy ordnance. The two peaks of the rock are con- 
nected with each other by a bridge. In the different 
buildings scattered about the rock, two hundred sol- 
diers can be accommodated. The castle is plentifully 
supplied with water from awell. Itis said that an 
immense piece of the rock once fell down from its side, 
and buried a woman and a cow she was milking in the 
plain beneath, so completely that not a vestige of them 
could be seen, and it was found impossible to lift the 
cnormous pile in order to extricate their bodies. 

The town of Dunbarton derives its name from the 
castle, and one or both give name to the shire. Dun- 
barton is now the principal place of the county, as it 
was in very early times of the earldom of Lennox. It 
is also a very ancient royal burgh. The population of 
late years has decreased, mainly through the decline of 
the glass manufacture; in 1831 it amounted to.3623 
persons. Smollett, who was born in the neighbouring 
parish of Cardross, received some portion of his edu- 
cation here. Of his love and admiration of the scenery 
of his native place, he has left a sufficient testimony in 
his beautiful poem on the river Leven, which, though 
scarcely six miles long, presents one continued suc- 
cession of the most charming and beautiful scenery. 


THE MARTYRS’ MEMORIAL, OXFORD. 


Tue power of self-sacrifice for what is believed to be 
a great and holy cause, is one of the noblest and most 
valuable qualities that can adorn or dignify human na- 
ture; and, as all history proves, is confined to no age 
or country, to no sect, party, or colour. But enthu- 
siasm has its mistakes and failures as well as its glori- 
ous truths and successes: it is not always that its dis- 
ciples can be regarded with the peculiar affection and 
reverence with which the great body of Englishmen 
regard the distinguished martyrs of the sixteenth cen- 


tury ;—it is not always that we can look back upon the | 


MAGAZINE. 37 
sentiments which inspired the dying declarations of 
those who have shed their blood in our service, with 
the same deep sense of sympathy and satisfaction that 
we now feel in reading Bishop Latiner’s—“< Be of 
good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man,” that he 
addresses to his fellow sufferer at the stake; “ we shal] 
this day hght such a candle, by Ged’s grace, in Eng- 
land, as, I trust, shall never be put out!” And it never 
was put out!—The beautiful memorial which is now 
in progress of erection near the spot where these ever 
memorable words were spoken, forms a significant 
commentary upon the truth of the fine old martyr’s 
prophecy. | 
The Reformation, which during the reigns of Henry 
VIII. and Edward VI. had made such great progress, 
appeared to be almost brought to a sudden close by the 
accession of Mary. Scarcely had she felt herself se- 
curely seated on the throne of England before the Re- 
formers received unerring indications of the future 
that awaited them, in the umprisonment of their most 
distinguished members, Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, 
Hooper, &c. The revival of the former brutal laws 
against heretics soon followed, and in January, 1555, 
the work of persecution was formally begun by the 
appointment of a commission which sat in the church 
of St. Mary Overy. The fires of Smithfield were lighted 
on the 4th of February, when John Rogers, prebendary 
of St. Paul’s, met his fate with a courage and boldness 
which doubtless inspired many of those who were to 
follow with confidence and strength to imitate his ex- 
ample. Five days after, Bishop Hooper perished at 
Gloucester, and alnost at the same time, from one end of 
the country to the other, might have been seen ascending 
toward the heavens the smoke of those cruel and un- 
natural sacrifices which men offered to the God of 
Love, and in the name of Him who came to declare 
“Peace on earth and good will towards men!” The 
ereatest victims were still reserved. There appears to 
have been entertained from the first a hope of humi- 
lidating Cranmer, and perhaps Ridley and Latimer, by 
inducing them to recant; and no efforts were spared 
to accomplish what was deemed so important to the 
elory of the Roman church and the degradation of 
its antagonist. In March of this year they were all re- 
moved from the Tower to Oxford, and about five weeks 
afterwards, viz. the 14th of April, they were brought 
from their prisons to St. Mary’s church, and there in- 
formed that they were to debate in public on the doc- 
trines of transubstantiation, the efficacy of the mass, 
&c.: if they succeeded in convincing their opponents, 
they were to be freed! No books were allowed them 
—no time for preparation—nor were they even allowed 
to support each other. Cranmer commenced the dis- 
cussion on the 16th, and supported his opinions with 
more courage than had been anticipated from his some- 
what yielding character ; but he was overpowered by 
the number and violence of the speakers, and could 
scarcely make himself heard amidst the hisses and 
hootings with which the Oxford scholars greeted the | 
announcement of every offensive tenet. Ridley met 
with no better treatment on the following day, but his 
nerve, his ability, his determined adherence to one 
line of argument, and the great extent of his know- 
ledge enabled him onthe one hand to detect the 
slightest misquotation on the part of his adversaries, 
and on the other, to bring upon them the whole spirit 
aud force of the Scriptures in support of his V1eWs. 
They were even constrained to acknowledge his subtle 
wit and extensive reading. But what availed it all 
with men who would not be convinced? When pressed 
too closely, they raised a general uproar, all speaking 
to him at once. “I have but one tongue,” cried Rid- 
ley ; “I cannot answer at once to you all.” The glory 
of the Protestant cause in this three days’ contest 1s at- 


38 THE PENNY 
tributed to Ridley. On the third day came Latimer’s 
turn. The poor old man (he was now at least eighty 
years old) was so weak and faint that he could searcely 
stand. “Ha! good master,” said he to one of hus 
judges, “I pray ye, be good to an old man. You may 
be once as old as Jam; you may come to this age and 
this debility.” 

Latimer, who was a man of humble birth and simple 
manners, addressed his audience in English, and was 
therefore better undertood than his companions, who 
had spoken in Latin. But such was the treatment he 
recelved—the divinity school in which these debates 
took place seemed more lke a bear-garden than a 
meeting of religious men to discourse on religious 
topics—that poor Latimer complained, with a naiveté 
that makes us smile, even whilst the tears rush into 
the eyes, that in his time and day he had spoken before 
great kings, more than once, for two or three hours 
together, without interruption ; “but now,” says he, ‘if 
I inay speak the truth, by your leaves, I cannot be 
suffered to declare my mind before you, no, not by the 
space of a quarter of an hour, without snatches, revil- 
ings, checks, rebukes, taunts, such a8 I have not felt 
the like in such an audience all my life long.” On 
the 28th they were all brought up once more to St. 
Mary’s church, and asked whether they would now 
turn or not; but they bade them read on in the name 
of God, for they were not so minded. They were then 
condemned. Nearly eighteen months elapsed before 
the execution of their sentence. Ridley and Latimer 
were first brought to the stake. The seene was a ditch 
on the north side of Oxford, now forming part of the 
town itself, and covered with houses, streets, &c. The 
church of St. Margaret stands almost immediately op- 
posite the place of execution. On quitting the prison, 
Ridley soon reaehed the spot, but Latimer, by reason 
of his great age, walked slow ; seeing this, Ridley went 
to meet him, and, kissing him on the cheek, said, “ Be 
of good heart, brother ; for God will either assuage the 
fury of the flames, or strengthen us to bear it.” Ac- 
cording to custom, a sermon was preached on the occa- 
sion; the preacher was Dr. Smith, who, either from 
fear or interest, had renounced popery in King Ed- 
ward’s time, and was now only the more glad to show 
his zeal in its favour. His text was, “ Though I give 
iny body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth 
ine nothing.” After the sermon, Ridley undressed, 
giving away, as he did so, his apparel, a new groat, 
some nutmegs and bits of ginger, a dial, and what 
other trifles he had about him to the bystanders, some 
of whom were made most happy by the gifts. Latimer, 
from helplessness, submitted himself to the keeper to 
be stripped for the stake ; but when he stood up in his 
shroud, erect, fearless, by the side of the faggots, he 
seemed 1n the eyes of the beholders to be no longer the 
withered and decrepit old man, “ but as comely a father 
as one might behold.” Then it was that as they were 
chaining him to the stake,—Ridley being already fas- 
tened on the reverse side,—the feeble-bodied but great- 
hearted old man broke out with that glorious pro- 
phecy, “ Be of good comtort, Master Ridley, and play 
the man; we shall this day ight sueh a candle, by 
God's grace, in England, as, I trust, shall never be put 
out.” Gunpowder was fastened to the bodies of both ; 
that which was attached to Latimer soon caught, and, 
of course, instantly killed him; Ridley was less for- 
tunate, and his sufferings were as protracted as they 
were terrible. . 

Cranmer lingered in prison five months longer, the 
court hoping that, now he was deprived of the sym- 
pathy and comfort of his former associates, he would 
grow more plant. As an archbishop, also, it was 
necessary, accordiug to the canonical law, to submit 
his case to the pope, by whom he was, with a grievous 


MAGAZINE. [JANUARY JO, 
mockery, cited to appear before lim at Rome within 
eighty days,—Cranmer all the while closely imprisoned 
at Oxford! At the end of that period he was pro- 
nounced guilty, and sentence passed upon him. The hope 
of his enemies was now to be realised : Cranmer’s spirit 
quailed at the near approach of death ; he supplicated 
for mercy, entered into disputes, as if to show that he 
was still open to conviction, and even listened to those 
who spoke of safety through recantation. It was a 
critical moment. Witha subtle and fiendish ingenuity 
they roused the natural love of life, which his captivity | 
had somewhat dulled, into all its original force, or, from 
the force of contrast, into more than its original force ; 
they removed him from his loathsome prison to the plea- 
sant house and gardens of the Dean of Christchurch, 
where he fared delicately, played at bowls, &c., and was 
flattered by being told that the queen loved him, and 
wished earnestly for his conversion for that reason ; in 
short, every thing was done that could be done to 
smooth and make pleasant the downward path that he 
was evidently half determining to tread. His tempters 
triumphed —Cranmer resolved to live—he signed a 
recantation. Alas! he knew not the men he had to 
deal with! Whuilst the monks and learned doctors of 
Oxford were in full jubilee at the prostration of one of 
the proudest columns of the Reformed church, orders 
were given for immediate execution! What must 
Cranmer have suffered now? He had fallen from his 
high estate, and his conscience whispered that he was 
but justly punished. On the 20th of March, the eve 
of his execution, he was asked to transcribe a recan- 
tation to be delivered by him at the stake, after the 
sermon on the following day, which was to be preached 
by Dr. Cole, at St. Mary’s. :' 

When theappointed time came, Cranmer, to the great 
astonishment of the audience generally, instead of read- 
ing his recantation, burst out into a full and explicit 
declaration of his faith in the principles of the new re- 
ligion, and added, “ Now I come to the great thing 
that troubles my conscience more than any other thing 
that I ever said or did in my life ;—that is, the setting 
abroad of writings contrary to the truth which I 
thought in my heart, and writ for fear of death, and to 
save ny life 1f it might be; and that is, all such bills 
which I have written or signed with mine own hand 
since my degradation, wherein I have written many 
things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand offended 
in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand 
shall be first punished. For iu I may come to the 
fire, it shall be first burned. And as for the pope, 
I refuse him, as Christ's enemy, and Antichrist, with 
all his false doctrine.” Here he was hastily dragged 
away, and prevented from further speaking. He was 
then conducted to the same ditch where Ridley and 
Latimer had perished, stripped and tied to the stake. 
He made no request for mercy, uttered no moan, but 
on the contrary, when the flames began to rise, thrust 
forwards his right hand wherewith he had signed the 
recantation, and kept it there while life remained. ° 

‘‘When the fire raged more fiercely, his body abided 
as immoveable as the stake whereto he was fastened, 
and, lifting up his eyes towards heaven, he exclaimed, 
‘Lord, receive my spirit!’ and soon expired. 

“The Romish church of England, with all its ab- 
solute hopes, may almost be said to have perished 
in the flames that consumed Cranmer. The impression 
made by his martyrdom was immense, and as lasting 
as it was wide aud deep. On the side of the Roman 
Catholics, the putting him to death was as gross an error 
in policy as it was atrocious and detestable as a crinie. 

“TIad the malignity of his enemies been directed 
rather against his reputation than his life,—had the 
reluctant apostate been permitted to survive his name, 
a prisoner in the Tower, it must have been a more 


iS41.] 


arduous task to defend the memory of Cranmer, but 
his fame was brightened im the fire that consumed 
fun. * 

It is tothe memory of these men, and of these events, 
that the Martyrs’ Memorial is raised; and its architec- 
tural beauty may well gratify the admirers of both. 
Orginally it was intended to erect a small church ; but 
the idea was abandoned from the impossibility of find- 
ing a suitable site for such a building near the spot 
where the martyrs perished. Ultimately it was deter- 
mined to erect a monumental structure at the north ex- 
tremity of Mary Magdalen’s church, and to rebuild 
and enlarge an aisle of that church, to be called the 
Martyrs’ aisle, and the architecture of which was to 
assimilate in style and expression with the monument. 
These arrangements are now in progress. The design 
of the monument was to be obtained by public comnpe- 
tition; seven artists in all sent in their works, from 
among which Messrs. Scott and Moffat’s was selected. 
The general idea of their structure 1s borrowed from 
the famous cross at Waltham, though with numerous 
alterations, and, it is said, improvements. The lower 
story is higher in proportion to its width than at Wal- 
tham,—it is more lofty (this is seventy, Waltham only 
fifty feet high),—greater strength and boldness is given 
to the mouldings in the basement,—more projections 
to the buttresses,—increased depths to the receding 
pannels. The lowest story, also, as being nearest to 
the eye, and therefore more open to examination, 1s to 
be more elaborately finished, and in the second story 
the niches which are to contain the statues of the three 
martyrs are deeper and more open, whilst the triangu- 
lar blank arches between are diminished in proportion. 
Sir Francis Chantrey has promised his aid in the super- 
intending of the designs and execution of the statues. 
When the work is completed, we shall give an engrav- 
ing. 


OPOSSUM AND RACOON HUNTING. 


[From a Correspondent.} 


Amone the smaller animals inhabiting the woods of 
America is that somewhat singular creature the opos- 
sum ; and although its skin 1s of little or no value, it 
is not only sought after by the more regular hunters, 
but the farmers in many instances find leisure to go in 
pursuit of the opossums, partly for the sake of their 
meat, which is dressed and brought to table, and partly 
in consideration of the depredations they are some- 
times guilty of, which are not confined to the hen- 
roost or the poultry-yard, but extend to the crops of 
Indian corn, of which they are very fond. The opos- 
sum is never found in the more northern sections of 
the United States, nor m any of the adjacent English 
colonies, and even in such of the middle states as may 
possess it, 1f seems to shun the mountain-ranges, where 
the coid during winter is commonly very severe. I have 
never myself seen it, or indeed heard of its being met 
with, in a wild state, east of the river Delaware; nor in 
the southern parts of Pennsylvania have opossums ever 
been found in any considerable numbers, though in the 
adjoining states of Maryland and Virginia, even among 
the old settlements, where groves of the original woods 
have been left standing, these singular animals, at the 
present time, are somewhat numerous. They never- 
theless appear rather particular in their haunts, con- 
fining themselves to certain ranges or districts, and 
live as it were in separate colonies. 

Several years ago I spent some time with an Irish 
family that had resided for many years a little to the 
south of the Maryland boundary-line, until several 

*< Pictorial England,’ vol. ii., p. 528. 

+ For a description of the opossum, see ‘Penny Mag., 
u., No, 102, p. 431. 


’ 


vol, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


I AI TT AEE FP SS SS PP tear 7 


39 


sons had grown up to manhood; andamong other cus- 
toms of the country with which they had become fami- 
har was that of opossum-hunting, since most of the 
original woods (groves, as they are usually called, 
when detached portions of the forest are left when the 
rest of the land is cleared) were frequented by these 
animals. Being aware that 1 was something of a 
hunter myself, my young acquaintances, on learning 
that my experiences were not in the opossum line, at 
once proposed to initiate me; to which I readily gave 
my consent. During the day these creatures are rarely 
seen upon the ground, and if the hunter then goes in 
pursuit of them, he must have a quick eye to the upper 
branches of the tallest of the forest trees, for 1t 1s there 
that they are to be found, moving leisurely from limb 
to limb, or occasionally hanging by the tail and at- 
tempting to swing themselves to some distant branch 
they wish to reach, for, possessing heavy bodies, they 
are by no means able, like the squirrel, to leap from 
one tree to another where the branches do not inter- 
lock. But this was not the.way m which my compa- 
nions, the young Irish-American farmers, commonly 
hunted them, for the mode they usually adopted, and 
which is the one most generally followed, was as fol- 
lows. But it ought -first to be remarked, that this 
species of opossum-hunting depends as much for its 
success upon the dogs which are employed as it does 
upon the guns; and in this respect my young friends 
were better off than most of their neighbours, for they 
possessed a couple of fine Scotch terriers, bred to the 
business, as well as two other dogs of a mixed or 
mongrel breed, and these also had long been trained 
to hunting the opossums. 

It should be previously ascertained which .of the 
forest trees appear to be the favourite haunts of these 
creatures—tor the most part either chestnut, hickory, 
or beech trees,—and near the foot of such trees some 
of the hunters have to be stationed. Moonlight nights 
are the most favourable for these excursions, and it 
was upon one such that, about eleven o’clock, four of 
us set out in quest of our game. So late an hour is 
chosen in order that most of the opossums may have 
come down from their haunts in the trees for the pur- 
pose of foraging im the fields or paying visits to the 
farm-yards ; but although they will sometimes destroy 
poultry, they do not generally venture to a great dis- 
tance from the woods nor so close to the abode of man, 
since, when pursued, their short legs and bulky bodies 
are but ill adapted for rapid flight. 

Myself and one of the young men, armed each with 
a gun, and attended by the two terriers, made our way 
to a part of a distant clump of woods, where, at the 
foot of some tall chestnut-trees, we and the terriers 
took our stations, while two more of the farmer’s sons; 
accompanied by the couple of mongrel cus, com- 
menced ranging the surrounding fields, for the purpose 
of driving back to the woods, rather than capturing, 
the opossums that might happen to be out, while my- 
self and my companions were expected to be able to 
give a good account of as many of them as made for 
the trees where we were stationed. We presently 
heard, by the barking of the dogs employed in ranging 
the enclosures, that they had got upon the scent of 
their game, and a few minutes more gave us employ- 
ment, for the scared opossums began to approach us 
in partics of two and three each, when the terriers 
were let loose upon them. Though these animals are 
but ill calculated for either offensive or defensive 
warfare, they are fat and bulky and tenacious of life, 
so that a contest between a stout one and one of our 
terriers would frequently last two or three minutes, 
which gave others that might be near at hand au oppor- 
tunity of escaping, except when seen by one of us and 
brought down by our guns, 


40 


The two terriers had been so well trained to their 
business, that neither of them ever left the post as- 
signed to it-at the foot of some tree to assist the other 
In its various conflicts with the opossums, but would 
show by its whinings and restlessness how gladly it 
would have done so, had not its own sagacity, improved 
probably by education, convinced it of the impro- 
priety ; and when one of a party of opossums got past 
these terriers, and scrambled up one of the trees, they 
no longer directed their attention towards that point, 
‘apparently comprehending how useless it would be to 
waste further attention upon one that had thus got 
beyond their reach ; but their watchfulness and anxiety 
to prevent a similar result seemed to be increased by 
every such occurrence. 

Though a full-grown opossum is nearly the size of a 
badger, they have not the smallest chance for their 
lives when opposed to a middling-sized Scotch terrier, 
or indeed to almost any other species of the canine 
race ; and were they not prolific animals, and on the 
whole not considered as- either very destructive or 
their carcasses of much value, there is but little doubt 
but the race would become extinct wherever the coun- 
try became settled. 

The racoon is a far more common animal on the 
American continent than the opossum.* It, too, has 
its favourite haunts, for in some situations these 
animals are pretty abundant, while in others, appa- 
rently as well adapted to their tastes and pursuits, they 
are very rarely to be met with. It therefore happens 
‘that one scarcely meets with a person residing in the 
country, whether in the United States or in the British 
North American colonies, except in the very coldest 

arts of them, that is not familiar with these animals— 
or they are found in greater or less numbers from the 
ot. Lawrence to the Mississippi. The racoon, like the 
opossum and the bear, is frequently used as an article 
of food, but it nevertheless requires persons that are 
strangers to racoon meat to divest themselves of cer- 
tain prejudices before they are brought to relish it 
much. Like those other animals, it resorts to climbing 
into the tall trees of the forest for protection, and like 
them also, it subsists partly upon animal and partly 
upon vegetable food, for it is occasionally caught 
among the poultry, and in the forest 1t preys upon 
such birds as come within its reach. But besides its 
agility as a climber, it.is possessed of a degree of cun- 
ning which is scarcely surpassed by the wily fox; so 
that, among the feathered tribes and such small ani- 
inals as it sometimes chooses to make a meal of, it is a 
most dangerous and formidable neighbour, for when 
once its sharp fangs have seized their victim, there is 
but small chance of escaping. 

In the woods where racoons are pretty numerous, 
they are in the habit of frequenting particular trees 
rather than climbing the first that may happen to come 
in their way when they feel disposed to quit terra firma, 
and from the mark they inflict upon the bark with 
their sharp and scratching claws, the practised hunter 
has little difficulty in detecting their favourite haunts. 
But being naturally cautious and watchful, they are 
not easily discovered in their lofty retreats ; and many 
a time have I patiently watched at the foot of a racoon- 
tree for an hour or two, employing the stealth and 
subtilty of the cunning poacher, without the creature 
once venturing to expose any part of its body to my 
view ; evidently being as well aware of my intentions, 
and of my whereabouts, as J was of its presence in 
some part of the tree. In almost every case the racoon 
selects a tree that is more or less decayed, so that in 
case of necessity it can seek for safety in some hollow 


* For the natural history of the racoon, see ‘Penny Mag.,’ 
TOReVIGNO. OAL, Dew. ' 


LEP Oey 


not prevented by dogs or a rifle bullet. 


MAGAZINE. [JANUARY 30, 1841- 
recess, and when once alarmed so as to seek shelter in 
the cavity of some large limb or boll of the tree, they 
will sometimes remain for days before they venture 
from their hiding-place. When the tree is not very 
large, the American hunter often resorts to the ex- 
pedient of hewing it down with his axe; but in that 
case there should be two persons at the least, for 
although the hidden game should continue in its snug 
retreat until it feels the tree reeling from its perpen- 
dicular, not even allowing the jarring blows of the 
heavy axe to alarm it so much as to induce it to leave 
its place of safety, the moment the tree commences 
falling the racoon becomes on the alert, and when it 
has nearly reached the ground the cunning creature 
springs from its hole and dashes through the woods, if 
I have seen 
aracoon miscalculate its time for springing from the 
tree, and thus become stunned by the concussion; and 
have also witnessed them felled to the earth by one of 
the descending branches while in the act of making a 
flying leap; but on the whole, the precision with 
which they calculate the proper moment of quitting 
the tree is very remarkable. 

The racoon, though by no means swift of foot, can 
bustle through the woods at a respectable speed for a 
short distance ; but not possessing the speed of a dog 
when on smooth ground, it ventures as seldom as pos- 
sible far from its favourite haunts and places of se- 
curity; so that as the forests disappear, these animals 
become scarcer, though seldom wholly extinct. But 
itis more for the value of the skin than the carcass 
that the racoon is hunted in most parts of America: 
since, next to the beaver, it yields the best fur used by 
the hatter ; and the value of the skin, which depends 
upon the season in which the animal has been killed, 
as well as the size, ranges from one shilling and six- 
pence to four shillings of our money. Springes, as 
well as traps, are sometimes employed in the capture 
both of racoons and opossums, and with considerable 
success by those who understand the art of trapping. 

A neighbour of mine, an out-and-out American 
hunter, had a colony of tame racoons, some of which 
were as docile as rabbits. He kept them for several 
years, in the hope of increasing his colony so much as 
to make the skins of the old ones annually to be killed 
off pay the expenses of keeping the rest, in which case 
the carcasses would have been clear profit. They were 
by no means so prolific, however, as he had expected, 
for they did not rear half the number of young that 
they probably would have reared ina wild state. They 
were fond of Indian corn, sweet potatoes, and beet- 
root, particularly when boiled; and it was difficult to 
say whether they received more enjoyment from de- 
vouring a carrier pigeon, or feasting upon a few 
spoonfuls of molasses. But if the molasses was 
mixed with a little of the common whiskey of the 
country, they become so ravenous over it, that serious 
quarrels would ensue; and such was their partiality 
for anything sweet mixed with a portion of ardent 
spirit, that after once tasting the mixture, they could 
not be prevailed wpon, except by force, to leave a 
morsel of it unconsumed. In this way he would 
sometimes tempt them to get intoxicated; and al- 
though their behaviour was amusing enough while 
under the influence of the inebriating mixture, partly 
from their quarrels with each other, and the unfavour- 
able effect produced upon the health of these animals, 
for aiter being intoxicated they would refuse their 


ordinary food for some days, two or three of them 


died, so that he abstained from trying any more “such 
curlous experiments” as he denominated the making 
the racoons drunk. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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(The Hat-Battery, or ‘Kettle,’ with Men employed in Wetting, Rolling, Pressing, ‘ Ruffing, and Blocking the Hat- Bodies. ] 


THE early history of our manufactures frequently cx- 
cites a smile at the quaint and energetic manner in 
which some of the old writers denounce the fashions 
of their times; but while we are often disposed to 
azree with them in ridiculing the strange forms of 
dress which have been adopted at different periods, 
we must withhold our assent to the principles of 
their commercial ecconony, which are often short- 
sichted in the extreme. 

Philip Stubbs, a writer of the Elizabethan age, pub- 
lished, in 1585, his ‘Anatomie of Abuses,’ in which, 
among other things, the costuine of the time 1s made 
the subject of censure. After anatomizing ladies’ 
dresses, and discoursing on the iniquities of ruffs and 
fuibelows, he visits the wardrobes of the other sex for 
a similar purpose, and thus speaks of the then fashiona- 
ple hats :—‘‘Sometimes they use them sharp on the 
crown, peaking up like the spear or shaft of a stecple, 
standing a quarter of a yard above the crown of their 
heads, some more, some less, as please the fancics of 
their inconstant minds. Some others are flat and 
broad on the crown, hke the battlements of a house. 
Another sort have round crowns, sometimes with one 
kind of band, sometimes with another, now black, now 
white, now russet, now red, now green, now yellow ; 
now this, now that, never content with one colour or 
fashion two days to an end. And thus in vanity they 
spend the Lord’s treasure, consuming their golden 
years and silver days in wickedness and sin.” But the 
material pleases himn as little as the form and colour: 
-—** And as the fashions be rare and strange, so Js the 
stuff whereof their hats be ade divers also ; for some 


ISSiere 567 


are of silk, some of velvet, some of taffetic, some of 
sarcenet, some of wool; and, which 1s more curious, 
some of a certain kind of fine hair. These they call 
Bever Hats, of twenty, thirty, or forty shillings price, 
fetched from beyond the seas, from whence a great 
sort of other vanities do coine beside.” 

What would be the surprise of Philip Stubbs, if he 
could now witness the extent to which the “ vanity ” 
of “ Bever Hats” influences the cominercial arrange- 
ments of England ;—the unportation of beaver and 
musquash furs from North America, of neutria furs 
from South America, of wools from various parts of 
Continental Europe, of gums, resins, and dyes from 
almost every part of the globe! If he found, too, that 
one single firm gives employment to fifteen hundred 
persons in making hats of various kinds, and that the 
value of all the hats made in Great Britaim 1n one 
year is probably not much less than three millions 
sterling, he would perhaps cease to include “ beaver 
hats” in his list of abuses. 

To mark the advance of the world in this respect, 
since the tine of Stubbs, we propose to consider the 
present state of the hat manufacture. With this ob- 
ject in view, we have visited an cstablishment where 
the processes are conducted on a very complete and 
extensive scale ; and we will suppose the reader to be 
accompanying us through the various departinents of 
that establishment. 

The hat-factory of Messrs. Christy occupies two cx- 
tensive ranges of buildings on opposite sides of Ber- 
mondsey Street, Southwark. These we will term the 
east and west ranges, each of which is approached bya 


VoL. X.—G 


42 


gateway leading from the street. On entering the 
gateway to the cast range, the first object seen at the 
end of a long avenue is a lofty chimney connected 
with a steam-engine, and rising to the height of one 
hundred and sixty fect. Over the gateway isa range 
of warehouses for wool and other articles; and from 
thence, proceeding onwards, is seen on the leit a pile of 
buildings, occupied by cloth cap makers, hat trimmers, 
and packers. On the right cf the same avenue is 
another range of buildings, consisting of a fire-proof 
varnish store-room, silk-hat workshops, and shops 
wherein the early stages of beaver hatting are carried 
on. At the left of the great chimney is a building 
wherein common black glazed or japanned hats are 
made; and near it is an archway leading north- 
ward to another avenue surrounded by buildings. 
These consist of a turner’s shop, where blocks for 
shaping hats are made; a shell-lac store, where the 
Jac 1s bruised, ground, and prepared for use; a black- 
smith’s shop, for the repair of iron-work used in 
various parts of the factory; a saw-mill and sawing- 
room, where machine-worked saws cut up timbers 
into boards for packing-cases required in the export 
department; a logwood warehouse, wherein a power- 
ful machine cuts the logs into fine shreds; a fur-room, 
in which the beaver and other furs are cut from the 
skins by machinery ; rooms whercin the coarse hairs 
are pulled from the skins; the steam-engine, with its 
boiler, furnace, &c. ; a carding-room, for disentangling 
the locks and fibres of wool; a blowing-room, for se- 
parating two qualities of beaver-fur, or hair; together 
with various warehouses, storerooms, carpenters’ 
shops, timber-yard, &c. This brings us to the northern 
extremity of the range; on returning from which we 
pass wool-warehouses and sorting-rooms, wool and fur 
washing-houses, stoving-rooms, fur-hat workshops, 
‘picking’ rooms, clerk’s offices, &c. 

Crossing Bermondsey Street to the western range, 
we find a beaver store-room, the dyc-house, stoving- 
roonis, Shaping and finishing rooms, &c.; the whole 
being, however, much less extensive than the cast 
range. 

It may excite surprise to hear of saw-mills, black- 
smiths’, turners’, and carpenters’ shops on the premises 
of a hat-maker; but this is only one among many in- 
stances which might be adduced, in the economy of 
English manufactures, of centralization, combined 
with division of labour, within the walls of one fac- 
tory. 

The nature of the operations carried on in the greater 
number of these buildings will perhaps be best cx- 
plained by tracing the history of a beaver hat from 
the time when the crude materials enter the factory, 
till the hat, in a finished state, is warehoused. 

If a dozen individuals to whom the subject is new 
were asked, ‘ How is a beaver hat made ?” it is not im- 
probable that we should receive a dozen different 
answers. One would think it is cast in a mould; 
another, that the beaver’s fur, skin and all, is stiffened 
and shaped ; a third, that the fur is in some way woven 
into a kind of cloth, and puton a stiff foundation; but 
perhaps not one would have an idea of the beautiful 
process of felting, which 1s the groundwork of the 
whole theory of hat-making. A beaver hat consists 
mainly of two parts,—the body and the covering ; the 
former of which is made of fine wool and coarse fur, 
mixed, felted, stiffened, and shaped; and the latter of 
beaver fur, made to adhere to the body by the process 
of felting. Wool and ‘fur constitute therefore the 
main ingredients employed. For hats of inferior qua- 
lity, coarse wool 1s employed for the body, and coarser 
fur, or somctumes fine wool, for the covering. 

The wool is brought to the factory in a dirty and 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(Jan, (OeR 


from the animal. It is carried to a large washing- 
house, on a level with the ground, where the steam 
rising from immense boilers and tubs indicates the 
great scale on which the process 1s conducted. The 
wool is soaked and washed, until the greasiness is re- 
moved, and is then subjected to the action cf a screw- 
press, whereby all the water is expelled, and the wool 
left in a clean state. From the washmg-house the 
wool is conveyed toa drying-room ; and, when required 
for use, it undergoes the process of carding in the 
carding-room. In a former number (No. 498) we 
had occasion to explain the action of a carding-engine 
in the cotton manufacture ; and we need say no more 
of it here, than that such an engine, worked by the 
same steam-engine which sets so many other parts of 
the working apparatus in motion, combs out the fibres 
of wool, and presents them in a light and tolerably 
disentangled state. The wool is then ready for the 
hatter; and we will trace the preparation of the fur 
up to the same point. 

The term fur, in a general sense, refers to the hairy 
coating of such animals as the beaver, bear, marten, 
minx, hare, and rabbit. The skins of these animals, 
when merely dried after being stripped from the body, 
are called peltry ; when the skin of the inner side has 
been conrerted into a sort of leather, by a peculiar 
process of tanning, the skins obtain the name of furs, 
in a restricted sense ; and the term is still more re- 
stricted when appled to the hairy coating cut from 
the skin, and presented in the form of delicate fila- 
Inents, 

Now it is in the last-named form that fur is useful 
to the hatter ; and the furs to which he gives the pre- 
ference arc those of the beaver, the musquash, the neu- 
tria, the hare, aud the rabbit, of which the first is by far 
the most valuable. The beaver inhabits the districts of 
North-West America, where its peculiar habits of life 
have given rise to many marvellous tales, the truth of 
which is now more than doubted. (See vol. 11, p. 129.) 
The romantic details often presented in the lives of bea- 
ver-hunters, as well as the mode of dealing between thein 
and the fur-dealers, have been described in two articles 
on the Canadian fur-trade (Nos. 375, 376), and need 
not, therefore, be dwelt on here. The skins, as re- 
ceived at the factory from the Hudson’s Bay Company, 
are tolerably flat and stiff, measuring, generally, about 
three feet by two. The hairy surface is of a brownish 
colour, but is not that to which the hatter attaches 
value; for this animal has two kinds of hair on its 
skin, the innermost of which is short, implicated, and 
as fine as down, and the outermost thicker, lorger, 
and more sparing. Of the separation of these two 
kinds we shall speak presently. 

Neutria is the fur of a small animal called the coy- 
pou, the gquoiya, or the Myopotamus Bonariensis, found 
in various parts of South America. The long or 
coarse hairs are generally of a reddish colour ; and the 
inner or soft hairs, brownish ash colour. It was not 
until about thirty yearsago that hatters, influenced by 
the high price of beaver fur (which within a century 
has risen from 20s. to 80s. per pound), began to use 
neutria fur; but since that time the employment of 
them has become so extensive, that one million neu- 
tria skins have sometimes been imported in one year. 
This animal is yet little known to naturalists, but cer- 
tain peculiarities in the skin beneath the fur have led 
to much conjecture among those who have frequent 
opportunities of inspecting the skins, concerning the 
structure and habits of the animal: for these points 
we refer to the article in No. 248, vol. v., p. 20, 

The ALusquash, or Mus Zibethicus, is a North Ame- 
rican animal, about the size of the common rabbit, and 
covered, like the beaver and the coypou, with two 


ereasy state, retaming much of the moisture derived | kinds of hair or fur, having different degrees of fine- 


SUPPLEMENT. | ie PENy 
ness. The name musk rat is sometimes given to this 
animal, on account of its secretion of a peculiar fluid 
having the odour of musk. (See No. 521.) 

The fur of hares and rabbits is so well known as to 
render few words of description necessary. The rab- 
bits fed on the wolds of Yorkshire are said to yield 
fur much exceeding in value that of the rabbits bred 
near London, by reason of the superior length and 
strength of the hairy filaments. 

We have digressed a little, in order to show the 
nature of the furs employed by the hatter. The skins, 
or pelts, on being conveyed to the factory, are rather 
ereasy and dir ty, and are therefore cleansed with soap 
and Ww ater ; this is effected in the same large washing- 
house where the wool is cleansed. When the pelis 
are dried and required for further processes, they are 
earried to the ‘pulling-room,’ where a number of 
women, seated on stools, are employed in pulling out 
the coarse outer hairs from the skims: these coarse 
hairs are utterly useless to the hatter, and, 1f preserved 
at all, are sold for stuffing cushions and such-like pur- 
poses. Each woman lays a pelt on her lap, or on a 
low bench, and, by means of a knife acting against 
the thumb, tears out the larger hairs, her fingers and 
thumb being guarded by a stout leather shield. 

We next trace the progress of the pelt into a room 
where, to one unused to ‘the din of machinery, every- 
thing seems noise and confusion. This is the ‘cut- 
ting’ or ‘cropping’ room, in which six or eight ma- 
chines are actively at work, each attended by a female. 
We Fnglishmen, happily, know very little of the 
euillotine, or we should probably find some resem- 
blance between its action and that of the cropping- 
machine. A long, broad, and sharp blade, having the 
edge downwar ds, works very rapidly, with a chopping 
action ; and the pelt being imtroduced between the 
blade and a support beneath, the fur is cut from it 
with a precision that nothing can exceed. The im- 
pression on the mind of a v isitor is that the pelt must 








Cn a ~~ 


posi 









ue : b 






. after the fur 


a, the skin, passing between relers 
b, the fur deposited ia a livht layer on an endless 


([Gutting- Machine. 
has been cut from it; 
Cl., - 


MAGAZINE. 43 
inevitably he chopped to shreds, but, by some admirable 
adjustment of mechanism, the fur is removed without 
the skin bemg cut. The female who attends the ma- 
chine puts it in or out of work when required, euides 
the pelt through it, collects the filaments of fur, &e, 
such outer fragments or small pieces of the pelt as do 
not lose their tur by the action of the machine, are 
laid on a table, and women, by the aid of small instrn- 
inent{s shaped somewhat like a cheese-cutter, remove 
the remaiing fur. The denuded skins are useless to 
the hatter, and are sold at a small price to sise-makers 
in the north of England. 


ean 





[Blowing-Engine. a, spot on which the fur is placed; b, box containing 
the revolving fan; ¢, hoNow trunk through which the furis blown; d, re- 
ceptacle w here the finer fur is depusited.] 

We have said that the women in the ‘ pulling’ rooin 
cut, tear, or pull out the long coarse hairs from the 
pelts, and that these hairs are useless to the hatter. 
But it 1s impossible completely to separate the coarse 
from the fine fur by ths means; and, therefore, the 
fur, when cropped trom the pelt by the machines, 1s 
conveyed to the ‘blowing-room,’ finally to efiect the 
separation. This room is probably the largest in the 
factory, and presents a remarkable appearance. It is 
of small height, but measures, perhaps, fifty feet by 
forty, having ‘eight hollow boxes or trunks extending 
nearly the whole length of the room. The action of 
these hollow machines is exceedingly beautiful, and 
may, perhaps, be understood without a minute detail 
of mechanism. <A quantity of beaver or other fur is 
introduced at one end, near a compartment in which a 

‘rane or fly is revolving with a v clocity of nearly two 
thousand rotations in a minute. We all know, even 
from the simple example of a lady's fan, that a body in 
motion gives rise to a wind or draught ; and when the 
motion is $0 rapid as is here indicated, the current be- 
comes very powerful. This current of air propels 
the fur aloug a hollow trunk to the other end of the 
machine, and, in so doing, produces an effect which is 
as remarkable as it 1s valuable. All the coarse and 
comparatively valueless fur is deposited on a cloth 
stretched along the trunk, while the more delicate fila- 
ments are blown to a receptacle at the other end. 
Nothing but a very ingenious arrangement of mecha- 
nism could produce a separation so complete as Is 
here effected ; but the principle of action is not difficult 
to understand. If there were no atmosphere, or if an 
enclosed place were exhausted of air, a guimea and a 
feather, however unequal in weight, w ould fall to thie 
py ound with equal velocity ; but in or dinary circum-~ 
stances, the guinea would obviously fall more quickly 
than the feather, because the resistance of the air 
bears a much larger ratio to the weight of the feather 
than to that of the euinea. As the resistance of air 
to a moving body acts more forcibly on a light than 
on a heavy substance, so likewise does air, when in 
motion, and acting as a moving force. When par- 
ticles of sand and: gravel are driven by the wind, the 


(7 2 


at THE oP ENN 
lightest particles go to the greatest distance. So if is 
with the two kinds of fur in the ‘blowing machine,’ 
those fibres which are finest and lightest are driven to 
the remote end of the machine. 

We have thus visited those parts of the factory in 
which the crude materials are prepared for the hatter, 
and will now, therefore, take our materials to the 
‘body-makers,’ and witness the processes of forming 
them into a hat. 

In one corner of the factory is a dark dingy room, 
where, around a steaming ‘kettle,’ we see six or eight 
nen busily employed at some operation, the nature of 
which can scarcely be divined through the clouds of 
steam. We pass by them, however, and visit some 
upper rooms, where the fur and wool are worked up 
together. The ‘body,’ or ‘foundation, of a good 
beaver hat is now generally made of eight parts rab- 
bits’ fur, three parts Saxony wool, and one part of 
lama, vicunia, or ‘red’ wool. A sufficient quantity 
of these for one hat (about 24 ounces) is weighed out 
and placed in the hands of the ‘bower.’ On entering 
the ‘bowing-room,’ a peculiar twanging noise indi- 
cates to the visitor that a stretched cord is in rapid 
vibration ; and the management of this cord by the 
workman is seen to be one of the many operations in 
hatting wherein success depends exclusively on skilful 
manipulation. A bench extends along the front of 
the room beneath a range of windows, and cach 
‘bower’ has a little compartment appropriated to 
himself. The bow is an ashen staff, from five to seven 
feet in length, having a strong cord of catgut stretched 
over bridges at the two ends. The bow is suspended 
in the middle by a string from the cerling, whereby it 
hangs nearly on a level with the work-hbench, and the 
workman thus proceeds :—the wool and coarse fur, 
first separately and afterwards together, are laid on 
the bench, and the bower, grasping the staff of the 
bow with his left hand, and pluckmeg the cord with his 
right by means of a small piece of wood, causes the 
cord to vibrate rapidly against the wool and fur. By 
repeating this process for a certain time, all the origi- 
a clots or assemblages of filaments are periectly 
opened and dilated, and the fibres, flying upwards 
when struck, are by the dexterity of the workman 
made to fall in nearly equable thickness on the bench, 
presenting a very light and soft layer of material. 
Simple as this operation appears to a stranger, years 
of practice are required for the attamment of profi- 


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The point in the routine of processes at which we 
have now arrived requires a brief consideration of the 


— 


MAGAZINE. [JAN. 1841, 


operation of felting, on which the whole manufac- 
ture of a beaver hat depends. Felting is a process 
whereby animal fibres are made to cohere and to form a 
kind of cloth, without the aid of weaving, plaiting, knit- 
ting, sewing, or any analogous processes—warmth, 
moisture, and friction being the means by which it is 
effected. There is reason to believe that the process 
of felttne was known in early times, and that the 
tents of the Tartars, as well as some articles of cloth- 
Ing, were produced by these means; but the evidence 
on this pot is rather indistinct. At what time felted 
wool was first employed for making hats it wonld be 
dificult now to say; but there is a legend current 
among some of the continental hatters which gives 
the honour to St. Clement, fourth bishop of Rome. 
Most fraternities love to have a patron saint, when 
they can find one; and those hatters who regard St. 
Clement in this ight inform us that this holy man, 
being forced to flee from persecutors, found his feet to 
be so blistered by long-continued travel, that he was 
Induced to- put a little wool between his sandals and 
the soles of his feet. On continuing his journey, the 
warmth, moisture, motion, and pressure of the feet 
worked the wool into a uniformly compact substance. 
F inally, the wanderer, observing the useful nature of 
this substance, caused it to be introduced in the manu- 
facture of various articles of apparel. 

But leaving St. Clement and his felted ‘inner 
soles,’ we may remark that the philosophy of felting 
was not understood until the microscope was applied 
to the examination of animal fibres. It was then 
found that the fibre, whether of wool or fur, is sur- 
rounded by a vast number of minute teeth projecting 
obliquely from the central stem. As these teeth are very 
sharp and are turned in one direction, they present an 
obstacle to the motion of the fibre in that direction, 
but enable it to glide easily in the opposite one ; just 
as an ear of barley, when placed stalk uppermost 
within the cuff of the coat-sleeve, will soon work its 
way up to the shoulder by the motion of the arm. In 
some woolly fibres the irregularities appear like con- 
centric cups, rather than sharp teeth. 





(Microscopic view of a fibre of beaver fur.} 


When a heap of such fibres is rubbed and pressed, 
and the fibres made to curl slightly by the action of 
warmth and moisture, they twist around each other, 
and the teeth interlace so tightly as not to separate. So 
complete, indeed, is the entanglement of fibres thus 
produced, that a coat made from cloth manufactured 
solely by the felting process has been known to last in 
wear ten years. 

‘Che purpose which the serrated structure of hair 
or fur 1s intended to answer 1s matter for conjecture. 
With respect to the double fur of such animals as the 
beaver, the following opinion has been offered : that, 
as the beaver passes much of its time in the water, 
the little projections from the filaments of the inner 
fur may serve as receptacles whereby the water 
is prevented from reaching the skin, and that the outer 
fibres may perhaps act like valves, which, when closed, 
shield the animal from cold, and when open permit 
the evaporation of water from the inner fur, and like- 
ee permit respiration to go on from the pores of the 
skin. 

But whatever be the purpose which these arrange- 
ments answer in the animal economy, it is evident that 
the minute serrations on the fibres of fur and wool 
are the means of the felting: this being understood, 


SUPPLEMENT. | THE PENNY 
we shall be able to comprehend how the fur and wool 
are worked up into the form of a hat, and we therefore 
return to the ‘bowing’ room. The bowed materials 
for one hat are divided into two portions, each of 
which is separately pressed with a hight wicker frame, 

and afterwards with a piece of oil-cloth or leather, 

called a ‘hardening-skin,’ until, by the pressure of the 

hands backwards and forwards all over the skin, the 

fibres are brought closer together, the points of con- 
tact multiplied, the serrations made to link together, 

aud a slightly coherent fabric formed. These two 

halves, or ‘ batts,’ are then formed into a hollow cap by 

-a singular contrivance. One of the ‘batts,’ nearly tri- 
augular in shape, and measuring about half a yard in 

each direction, being laid flat, a triangular piece of 
paper, smaller in size than the batt, is laid upon it, 

and the edges of the batt, being folded over the paper, 

meet at the upper surface, and thus form a complete 

envelope to the paper. The two meeting edges are 

soon made to combine by gentle pressure and friction, 

and the other batt is laid over the first ina similar 

Way, but having the meeting edges on the opposite 

side of the paper. The doubled layer, with the en- 

closed paper, are then folded up in a damp cloth and 

worked by hand; the workman pressing and bending, 

rolling and unrolling, until the fibres of the inner layer 

have incorporated with those of the outer. It is evident 

that, were there not a piece of paper interposed, the 

whole of the fibres would be worked together into a 

mass by the opposite sides felting together; but the 

paper maintains a vacancy within, and when with- 

drawn at the edge which is to form the opening of the 

cap, it leaves the felted material in such a form as to 

constitute, when stretched open, a hollow cone. 

Our visit to this part of the factory has been some- 
what lengthy; but the process of transforming the 
‘bowed’ inaterials into a conical cap is so important, 
as lilustrative of felting, that if this be clearly under- 
stood, all that follows will be tolerably plain. 

Few ‘kettles’ are the scene of such busy operations 
as the hatter’s ‘kettle,’ and few would beso uninviting 
to a person fastidious as to cleanliness. Jmagine a 
large kettle or boiler open at the top, having a fire be- 
neath it, and eight planks ascending obliquely from 
the margin, so as to form a sort of octagonal work- 
bench, five or six feet in diameter, at which eight men 
may work. The planks are made of lead near the 
ketile, and of mahogany at the outer part, and at each 
plank a workman operates on a conical cap, until the 
process of felting or ‘planking’ 1s completed. The 
‘kettle’ contains hot water slightly acidulated with 
sulphuric acid; and, as far as words can do so, the 
following may convey an idea of the process :—The cap 
is dipped into the hot liquor; laid on one of the planks, 
and subjected to a long felting process: it is rolled 
and unrolled, twisted, pressed, and rubbed with a picce 
of leather or wood tied to the palm of the workman’s 
hand, and rolled witha rolling-pin. (p. 41.) From time 
to time the cap is examined, to ascertain whether the 
thickness of the material is sufficient in every part; 
and if any defective places appear, they are wetted 
with a brush dipped in the hot liquor, and a few ad- 
ditional fibres are worked in. Considerable skill is 
required in order to preserve such an additional thick- 
ness of material at one part as shall suffice for the brim 
of the hat. When this felting process has been cou- 
tinued for about two hours, 1t 1s found that the heat, 
moisture, pressure, and friction have reduced the cap 
to one half of its former dimensions, the thickness 
being increased in a proportionate degree. 

In many parts of the factory are ‘stoving’ rooms, 
in which, by the judicious arrangement of flues, achigh 
temperature is maintained. To sucharoom the felted 


MAGAZINE. 45 
the appearance of a fine, stout, and very strong kersey- 
mere, having a drab or greyish colour. There can be 
little doubt that such a fabric is well calculated to 
serve the purposes of common broad-cloth, provided 
the means of manufacturing it of large dimensions 
were ensured ; indeed a company is now established 
for this purpose. 

Is not the reader still puzzled to know how or when 
the hat will make its appearance? We have described 
numerous materials, and have visited many depart- 
ments of the factory, but have still produced only a 
drab-coloured, flexible, conical cap, about fifteen 
inches wide and fourteen high, and without a particle 
of beaver on its surface. The surface, colour, and 
fori are, however, now about to be changed, in the 
order here indicated. 


In the first place, the cap is taken to the ‘ water- 
proofing’ room, where the odour of gums, resins, and 
spirits gives some intimation of the materials employed. 
Guim-lac, gum-sandrach, gum-mastic, resin, frankin- 
cense, copal, caoutchouc, spirits of wine, and spirits of 
turpentine, are the ingredients (all of a very inflam- 
mable nature) of which the water-proofing composition 
is made. This is laid on the cap by ineans of a brush, 
and the workman exercises his skill in regulating the 
quantity at different parts, since the strength of the 
future brim and crown depends much on this process. 

After another ‘stoving,’ by which the spirit 1s evapo- 
rated, the exterior of the cap is scoured with a weak 
alkah, to remove a portion of the gummy coating, and 
thereby enable the beaver fur afterwards to cling to 
the woolly fibres of the cap. | 

Now, for the first time, we have to direct our atten- 
tion to the fine beaver fur, the purchase and ait es 
tion of which are so costly. The washing, plucking, 
cropping, and blowing departments we have already 
visited, and have seen the fibres of fur divided into two 
qualities, of which the finer is that to which the hatter 
attaches value. This finer quality, which appears to 
have been formerly known by the name of ‘ flix,’ was, 
in bygone times, used not only for hats, but also for 
hosiery purposes, in allusion to which Dyer, in his 
poem of the ‘Fleece,’ has these lines :— 

“The beaver’s fix 
Gives kindliest warmth to weak enervate limbs, 
When the pale blood slow rises through the veins.” 


The fur, being bowed very carefully by a smaller 
bow than that employed for wool, is spread out into 
a layer, and by means of the ‘ hardening-skin’ 1s pressed 
and worked into a very delicate and hght felt, just co- 
herent cnough to hold together. This layer, which is 
called a ‘ruffing,’ or ‘ roughing,’ is a little larger than 
the cap body; and, to unite the two, another visit to 
the ‘kettle’ is necessary. The cap being softened by 
submersion in the hot liquor, the ‘ruffing’ is laid on it. 
and patted down with a wet brush, a narrow strip of 
beaver being laid round the inside of the cap, to form 
the underside of the future brim. The beavered cap is 
then wrapped in a woollen cloth, submersed frequently 


or ‘planked’ cap js taken, and, when dried, it presents | in the hot liquor, and rolled on the plank for the space 


46 THE PENNY 
of two hours. The effect of this rubbing and rolling 1s 
very curious, and may be illustrated in a simple man- 
ner:—if a few fibres of beaver fur be laid on a piece 










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of bread-cloth, covered with tissue-paper, and rubbed 
eently with the finger, they will penetrate through the 
cloth and appear at the opposite side. So, hkewise, 
in the process of ‘ruffing,’ each fibre of fur is set in 
motion from root to point, and enters the substance of 
the felt cap. The hairs proceed in a pretty straight 
course, and just enter the felt, with the substance of 
which they form an intimate union. But if the rolling 
and pressing were continued too long, the hairs would 
actually pass through the felt, and be seen on the in- 
side instead of the out; the workinan, therefore, exer- 
cises his judgment in continuing the process only so 
long as is sufficient to secure the hairs in the felt firm 
enough to bear the action of the hat-brush in after- 
days. Inghty or a hundred years ago, when beaver 
fur was cheap, an “old Enghsh gentleman” was wont 
to have his hat so well beavered, that as much nap 
felted through it to the inside as remained on the ex- 
temor; and when the hat showed symptoms of decay 
and old age, it was sent to the maker, who turned it 
inside out, and gave it nearly the pristine freshness of 
a newly-made hat. 

At length the cap is to assume somewhat the shape 
of a hat, before it finally leaves the ‘kettle.’ The 


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workman first turns up the edge of the cap to the 
depth of about an inch and ahalf; and then draws 
the peak of the cap back through the centre or axis, 
so far as not to take out the first fold, but to produce 
an inner fold of the same depth. The point being 
turned back agai, produces 


_ tne dye to which they are exposed. 
a third fold; and thus | house,’ where the hats exchange their drab or grey 


MAGAZINE. [Jan. 1841. 
the workman proceeds, till the whote has acquired the 
appearance of a flattish circular piece, consisting of a 
number of concentric folds or rmgs, with the peak in 
the centre. This 1s laid on the ‘ plank,’ where the 
workman, keeping the substance hot and wet, pulls, 
presses, and rubs the centre until he has formed a 
smooth flat portion equal to the intended crown of the 
hat. He then takes a cylindrical block, on the flat end 
of which he apphes the flattened central portion of the 
felt; and by forcing a string down the curved sides of 
the block, he causes the surrounding portion of the 
ielt to assume the figure of the block. The part 
which is te form the brim now appears as a puckered 
appendage round the edge of the hat; but this puck- 
ered edge is soon brought to a tolerably fiat shape by 
pulling and pressing. 

We here terminate our visit to the ‘ blocking-shop.’ 
The conical cap has been converted into a hat witha 
flat brim; and we take leave of the ‘kettle,’ with its 
hot acid liquor, its wet planks, its clouds of steam, and 
its ingenious attendants. We will suppose the hat to 
have been dried in a stoving-room near the great 
chimney, and will then place 1¢ in the hands of the 
‘shearer.’ In an appropriate room, this workman 
raises and opens the nap of the hats, by means of a 
peculiar sort of comb; and then shears the hairs 
to any required length. Connoisseurs in these 
matters are learned as to the respective merits 
of ‘short naps’ and ‘long naps; and by the shearer’s 
dexterity these are regulated. The visitor recognises 
nothing difficult in this operation ; yet years of prac- 
tice are necessary for the attamment of skill therein ; 
since the workman determines the length of the nap 
by the peculiar position i which the long light shears 
are held. A nap or pile as fine as that of velvet can be 
produced by this operation. 

The routine of processes now requires that we 
should visit the western range of buildings, on the op- 
posite side of Bermondsey Street. At the remote end 
of the court-yard we see a dark and dismal-looking 
building, having very httle lhght, and that little re- 
ceived through wnglazed windows,—large boiling 


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cauldrons, which it requires some nerve to look into,— 
a spacious brass cage or frame,—cranes and tackle for 
raising weights,—and a party of workmen whose per- 
sons and garments denote the staining effect of the hot 
This is the ‘dye- 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


THIE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


47 


hue fora black one. The dyeing ingredients are log- | that is, putting on the lining, the leather, the binding, 


wood and some metallic salts, boiled in certain pro- 
portions in soft water. The logwood is imported from 
Campeachy in logs five or six teet long, and from five 
to ten inches thick ; and a room in this extensive tac- 
tory is appropriated to the cutting of these logs into 
fine shreds. For this purpose a powerful revolving 
wheel, provided with four cutting-blades inserted ra- 
dially in one of its faces, is employed: the ends of the 
logs being applied to these blades, the wood 1s cut into 
shreds with astonishing force and quickness. 

The cauldron with the dyeing ingredients being 
ready, a number of hats are fixed upon blocks, and 
the blocks, by means of a hole at one end of each, are 
fixed to brass pegs inserted ina large skeleton frame ; 
so that the hats shall not tonch each other. The frame 
is then lowered into the cauldron, and turned in such 
a manner as to allow all the hats to be submerged in 
the dye; after which the frame is hauled up, and the 
hats allowed to drain for thirty or forty minutes. This 
alternate submersion and partial drying is repeated 
twelve or fifteen times, until every fibre of the hat,— 
felt as well as nap,—is thoroughly dyed. This is fol- 
lowed by soaking and washing, which frees the surface 
froin impurities ; and the hat is then again ‘stoved.’ A 
few subsequent processes remove certain irregulari- 
ties of shape, which the hat has acquired by repeated 
submersions in the dye-liquor. 

We next visit a department of the building where 
‘finishers’ are employed. A boiler is so arranged as 
to yield a jet of steam, over which the hat is held until 
thoroughly softened; and having a block shaped in 
every part nearly as the hat is intended to he, the 
‘finisher’ pulls, rubs, and presses the hat. until it as- 
sumies the form of the block; after which the nap 1s 
stretched, turned in any required direction, and 
smoothed, by various sets of brushes, small cushions 
of velvet, and heated irons. The adjoining cuts show 


three successive stages in the shaping of the hats, from 
the first rough ‘blocking’ to the production of a flat 
and smooth-edged brim while on the finishing-block ; 
likewise a beaver bonnet on the block by which it is 
shaned. 





Once again we cross to the east range, and visit the 
first story of a large pile of buildings on the left hand. 
Hfere the busy hum of lively voices soon indicates to 
the visitor the sex of the inmates. We enter a large 
square room, full of litter and bustle, and find fifty or 
sixty young females employed in ‘trimming’ hats, 


&c. Some are sitting at long tables,—some standing, 
—others seated round a fire, with their work in their 
laps; but all plying the industrious needle, and earning 
an honourable subsistence. 

A word or two respecting the employment of females 
in factories :—The texture of English society is such, 
that the number of reputable employments for females 
in the middle and huinble ranks is very small. Most 
fathers and brothers are well aware of this; and wo- 
men themselves, however desirous of contributing to 
their means of support, are cramped in their efforts by 
the limited range of avocations left open to them. The 
effect of this is such as never fails to result when the 
vineyard is too small for the labourers; the number 
of employments being few, so many females embark 
in them that the supply greatly exceeds the demand, 
and the value of female labour is thereby brought to a 
very low level. Under such circumstances it is im- 
portant to inquire how far female labour may be 
available in factories where the subdivision of employ- 
ments 1s carried out on a complete scale ; and the fac- 
tory now under consideration may afford some valuable 
hints on this point. The number of females employed 
here is not far short of two hundred, whose earnings 
vary from eight to fourteen shillings per week. The 
degree of ingenuity required varies considerably, so as 
to give scope for different degrees of talent. Among 
the processes by which a beaver hat is produced, wo- 
men and girlsare employed in the following :—pluck- 
ing the beaver skins; cropping off the fur; sorting 
various kinds of wool; plucking and cutting rabbit's 
wool; shearing the nap of the blocked hat Gn some 
cases); picking out defective fibres of fur; and trim- 
ming. Other departments of the factory, unconnected 
with the manufacture of beaver hats, also give em- 
ployment to numerous feinales. Where a uniform 
system of supervision and of kindness on the part of 
the proprictors is acted on, no unfavourable effects are 
to be feared from such an employment of females in a 
factory. We cannot dwell longer on this matter; but 
in endeavouring to solve the important problem, “ Ilow 
can all live—and live honestly ?” the nature and extent 
of female employments becomes a prominent subject 
for thought. 

But we have not yet finished our hat. However 
carefully the process of ‘ blowing’ may be performed, 
in order to separate the coarse fibres of the fur from the 
more delicate, there are always a few of the former 
left mingled with the latter ; and these are worked up 
during the whole of the subsequent processes. Women 
are employed, therefore, atter the hats have left the 
‘finishers,’ in picking out, with small tweezers, such 
detective fibres as may present themselves at the sur- 
face of the hats. 

Lastly; the hat is placed in the hands of a workman 
whose employment requires an accurate eye, and a 
fertile taste in matters of shape and form: this 1s the 
‘shaper.’ He has to study the style and fashion of the 
day, as well as the wishes of individual purchasers, by 
eiving to the brim of the hat such curvatures 1n various 
directions as may be needed. Simple as this may ap- 
pear, the workman who possesses the requisite skill 
can command a high rate of wages. Fortunate is the 
‘shaper’ who during a ramble to any place of fashiona- 
ble resort can espy a new form of brim,—a curl here, 
a depression there,—and can lnitate it at his work- 
bench,—he will please his employer, and profit .him- 
self. 

Thus we arrive at the finished state of the beaver 
hat; and may now leave it to run its career through 
all weathers,—wet and dry,—cold and heat,—till 1t 1s 
destined to be replaced by anew one. Whether we are 


| contented with the “shocking bad hat,” or have to en- 


48 PEE Pree 
dure the uneasy pressure of the stiff and glossy new 
one with fortitude, we must assuredly acknowledge 
that a beaver hat, whether considered with reference 
to the peculiar processes by which it is produced, or to 
the number of distinct sets of work-people (irom 
twenty to twenty-five) through whose hands it passes, 
occupies an interesting and important place in the 
nanufacturing history of this country. 

In tracing the progress of a beaver hat, from the 
time when the materials are brought into the factory, 
till the hat is made, trimined, and shaped, we have 
carried the reader through the greater part of this 
large establishment, and have shown the purposes to 
which the different departments are appropriated. It 
will, however, be desirable to say a few words respect- 
ing the silk-hat departinent. 

As the number of beavers caught annually in Ame- 
rica has greatly declined, the price of beaver-fur has 
of late years increased ; and this circumstance has led 
to the production ofa kind of hat which presents some 
rescmblance to beaver, and yet may be produced at a 
low rate. This is the sk hat, the manufacture of 
which has gone through several stages of improvement, 
by which even an humble ‘gossamer’ now presents a 
neat and glossy exterior. 

Silk is wholly incapable of the process of felting, 
and therefore cannot be employed in the same manner 
as fur and wool. The body of the silk hat is made 
either of coarse felted wool, or of sume light material 
such as willow or stiffened cambric; and on this is 
placed a covering or hood of silk plush, sewn to the 
proper size for the hat. The Messrs. Christy weave 
thar own plush at a factory in Lancashire, and 
send if to London in the form of a soft glossy mate 
rial, which is cut and sewn by women to the requisite 
shape of the hats. 

The bodies are made in a very rough way, by shaping 
the willow, cotton, or felted -wool round blocks, and 
using a substance of extra thickness for the brim. A 
varnish cement is used to join the various parts; and 
a resinous stiffening composition is laid over the outer 
surface. Some time before the plush hood is laid on, 
the body is coated with a peculiar varnish, which, 
being softened by a heated iron after the hood is laid 
in its proper position, causes the plush to adhere to the 
foundation. This process is the most difficult in the 
silk-hat manufacture; for not only must the plush be 
made to adhere in every part, but the seam or joining 
up the side of the hat must be made as Little visible as 
possible. No sewing is here employed; but the two 
imecting edges are brought precisely together, pressed 
down with a heated iron, and the silk shag brushed 
over the joint. 

The minuter details of the silk-hat department we 
must pass over; for, so far as they differ from beaver 
hatting, they are of much less interest. Beaver hatters 
look down with some little scorn on the operations of 
silk hatting ; and certainly, so far as regards manipu- 
lative skill acquired by long practice, the former 
branch of handicraft is by far the most remarkable; 
put still the silk hatter appeals with such moderation 
to the purse of the purchaser, that we cannot afford to 
lose sight of him. 

The silk hatters, instead of occupying different parts 
of the factory, are congregated in one building along 
the southern side of the avenue leading to the great 
chunney; the building being divided into numerous 
small apartments. On the left of the chimney is a 
range of shops wherein are made common black glazed 
japan hats, such as are worn by sailors and persons 
much exposed to the weather. The bodies of these 
hats are made of common felted wool, and the outer 
covering is a thick coating of black varnish or japan, 
presenting a glossy surface. A high temperature is 





MAGAZINE. [JAN. 1841 
required for this purpose, and the situation and ar 
rangement of the shops are such as to ensure this 
temperature. 

There is a distinct range of apartments in which 
scal-skin and other skin or fur caps are made. In 
these, unlike beaver hats, the fur is not cut from the 
pelt and then felted; but the pelt, with the fur re- 
maining on it, is dressed into leather, and is cut up 
into such pieces as may, by subsequent processes, be 
formed into caps of various shapes. 

Another department, entirely distinct from the rest, 
is that in which cloth caps of various kinds are made. 
This, generally speaking, is effected by necdlework, 
and wholly differs from the processes of hat-making. 

Here we terminate our visit to an establishment 
which presents so considerable a number of interesting 
processes. We have selected that of Messrs. Christy 
because, from the completeness and systematic arrange- 
ment of the details, 1t well illustrates the economy of 
a large factory,—the concentration of many depart- 
nents within the walls of one establishment, the divi- 
sion of labour, the exercise of delegated authority by 
foremen to each department, and_a general super- 
vision of the whole by the proprietors. It is difficult 
to estimate the area of ground covered by all the 
workshops; but the reader may, from the foregoing 
details, form some idea of the humerous piles of building 
constituting the factory. There are many establish- 
ments in and near London, such as water-works, gas- 
works, ship-yards, tan-yards, brewhouses, distilleries, 
elass-works, &c., the extent of which would excite no 
little surprise in those who for the first time visited 
them. Indeed the densely packed masses of building 
forming the eastern districts of the metropolis, on both 
sides of the river, include individual establishments 
which, although they would appear hke little towns if 
isolated, scarcely mect the eye of a passenger through 
the crowded streets. | 

We may here remark, as a completion of our notice 
of the hat manufacture generally, that the making of 
straw-hats, so much worn in country places, is in the 
hands of a class of persons altogether different from 
those engaged in the other branches of hatting. The 
finer qualities of straw, as well as white whale- 
bone and white chip, are used for bonnets rather 
than for hats; but the mode of manufacture is 
nearly the same in all. There are delicate planing- 
machines in use, by which any soft kind of wood 
can be cut into thin shavings, and the shavings, at the 
same time, cut into very narrow strips with great pre- 
cision. Such is the case with willow, and also with 
whalebone. The willow of which the foundations of 
silk hats are frequently made is prepared in some such 
way as this; the narrow strips of willow being plaited, 
or perhaps we might say woven, into a square shect 
sufficiently large for three hats. A shght glance at 
the willow foundation of a silk hat will show the 
nature of the material, and will also show that the 
mode in which the narrow strips are linked together 
reseinbles weaving rather than plaiting. It 1s not 
dificult to imagine, from these few details, that a hat 
or bonnct may be made from any such materials as 
whalebone, wood, straw, cane, rush, or others wherein 
a longitudinal fibrous structure is found; and the 
reader will readily call to mind numerous examples 
of such an application of fibrous matcrials. 

In conclusion, we have to acknowledge the courtesy 
of the proprictors, and to express our pleasure at the 
harmonious and kindly feeling which evidently exists 
at this factory between the employers and the em- 
ployed. The maimtenance of such a fecling between 
parties thus connected is of the highest importance in 
a manufacturing country like England, aud forms one 
of the most valuable tivs in the structure of society. 


Fen. 6, 18414 THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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THE CID.—No. I. Ve 


« Justice, king! I sue for justice— 
Vengeance on a traitorous knight 
Grant it me !—so shall thy children 
Thrive, and prove thy soul’s delight.” 


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Loup shouts and crics, mingled with the clashing of 
RE arms, aroused the court in the royal palace at Burgos. 
——- = In great astonishment King Ferdinand and his r?cos- 
ce homes, or nobles, descended to the mate, and there 


found Ximena Gomcz, daughter of the Count Lozano, 
attended by a numerous train. She was clad in robes 
of black; a gauze veil of the same hue covered her 
head; her hair hung in long and dishcvelled tresses 
over her fair neck, and tears were streaming from 
her eyes. She fell on her knees at the king’ s fect, 
crying for justice against him who had slain her 
father : 


“ Justice, king! I sue for justice— 
Vengeance on a traitorous kuight. 
Grant it me !—so shall thy children 
Thrive, and prove thy soul's dehght. 


Like to God himself are monarchs 
Set to govern on this earth, 

All the vile and base to punish, 
And to guerdon virtuous worth.’ 


No. DOS. 


But the king who doth not justice 
Ne’er the sceptre more should sway— 
Ne’er should nobles pay him homage— 
Vassals ne’er his hests obey : 


Never should he mount a charger— 
Never more should gird the sword— 

Never with his queen hold converse— 
Never sit at royal board.” 


‘ Thou hast slain the best and bravest 


That e’er set a lance in rest, 
Of our holy faith the bulwark— 
Terror of cach Paynim breast. 


Vor. X.—H 


Her eye then fell on Rodrigo, who stood among the 
attendant nobles : 


THE 


» Traitorous murderer, slay me also! 
Though a woman, slaughter me! 
‘ 2 an M 
Spare not—I'm Ximena Gomez, 
Thine eternal enemy ! 


Here’s my throat—smite, I beseech thee! 
Smite, and fatal be thy blow! 

Death is all I ask, thou caitiff}— 
Grant this boon unto tly foe.” 


Not a word did Rodrigo reply, but seizing the bridle 
of his steed, he vaulted into the saddle, and rode 
slowly away. Ximena turned to the crowd of nobles, 
and seeing that none prepared to follow him and take 
up her cause, she cried aloud, “ Vengeance, sirs! J 
pray ye, vengeance!” A second time did the damsel 
disturb the king, when at a banquet, with her cries for 
justice. She had now a fresh complaint : 


‘¢ Every day at early morning, 
To despite me more, I wist, 
He who slew my sire doth ride by, 
| With a falcon on his fist. 


At my tender doves he flies it ; 
Many of them hath it slain. 

See! their blood hath dyed my garments 
With full many a crimson stain. 


List !—The king who doth not justice, 
He deserveth not to reign ;”’ &c. 


and she rebuked the king in the same strain as on the 
occasion of her former complaint. Fernando, partak- 
ing of the superstition of the age, did not relish her 
implied curses, and began to ponder on the course he 
had to pursue. ‘God in Heaven help me and lend me 
his counsel! If 1 imprison the youth, or put him to 
death, my Cortes will revolt, for the love they bear him ; 
if I fail to punish him, God will call my soul to ac- 
count. I will at all events send a letter forthwith, and 
summon him to my presence.” 

This letter was put into the hands of Diego Lainez. 
Rodrigo asked to see it, but the old man, suspecting 
some sinister design against his boy, refused to show 
it, saying, “It is nothing, save a summons for thce to 
xo to Burgos; but tarry thou here, my son, and I will 
eo in thy stead.” “ Never!” rephed the youth,— 


‘ Neer would God or Holy Mary 
Suffer me this thing to do. 
To what place soe’er thou goest, 
Thither I before thee go.” 


How tendcr is the filial affection here betrayed by 
the Cid, and yet is it by no means inconsistent with the 
fierce burst of passion which the paternal squeeze had 
before called forth. 

That Rodrigo was not punished is evident, for 
Ximena repeated her visit to the king a third anda 
fourth time, still demanding vengeance. On. this 
latter occasion she was attended by thirty squires of 
noble blood, arrayed in long robes of black which 
swept the ground behind them. The king was sitting 
on his high-backed chair listening to the complaints of 
his subjects, and dispensing justice, rewarding the good 
and punishing the bad, for “thus are vassals made 
rood and fatthful.” The mace-bearers being com- 
manded to quit the royal presencc, Ximena fell on her 
knees and renewed her complaint : 


“King! six moons have past away 
Since my sire was reft of life, 
By a youth whom thou dost cherish 
For such deeds of murderous strife. 


Four times have I cried thee justice— 
Four times have I sued in vain; 
Promises I get in plenty— 
Justice none can I obtain.” 


The king thus comforts her : 


PENNY MAGAZINE. 


i husband. 


[FEBRUARY 6 


‘* Say no more, oh, noble damsel! 
Thy complaints would soften down 
Bosoms were they hard as iron,— 
Melt them were they cold as stone. 


If I cherish Don Rodrigo, 
For thy weal I keep the boy ; 
Soon, I trow, will this same gallant 
Turn thy mourning into joy.” 


Fernando probably saw, what the damsel herself did 
not understand, that Rodrigo’s hawking at her doves 
in lis daily rides by her dwelling, was but a rough 
mode of courtship, intimating that he himsclf was 
flying at higher game in their mistress. 

The second feat of arms achieved by our young hero 
was his conquest of five Moorish chiefs, or kings, as the 
romances teri them, who had made a foray into the ter- 
ritory of Castile. They had ravaged the land nearly to 
the gatesof Burgos, the capital, everywhcre unresisted ; 
had talscn many captives and a vast booty, and were 
returning in triumph, when Rodrigo, then but a beard- 
less youth, who had not secn twenty summers, mounted 
his steed Babieca, gathered a host of armed men, fell 
suddenly upon the Moors as they were crossing the 
mountains of Oca, routed them with great slaughter, 
and captured the five kings, with all their slaves and 
booty. 


‘“ Rodrigo Diaz, great his honour ; 
Beardless tho’ le be, and tender, 
To him princes five of Moordom 
Fealty and tribute render.” 


The spoil he divided among his followers, but reserved 
the kings for his own share, and carried them home to 
his castle of Bivar, to present them as proofs of his 
prowess fo his mother. With his charactcristic gene- 
rosity, which was conspicuous even at this early age, 
he then set them at liberty, on their agrecing to pay 
him tribute; and they departed to their respective 
lands, éxtolling his valour and magnaniunity. 

The fame of this exploit soon spread far and wide 
through the land, and, as martial valour was in those 
chivalrous times the surest passport to ladics’ favour, 
it must have had its duc effect on Ximena’s mind, and 
will in a great measure account for the entire change 
in her sentiments towards the youth which she mani- 
fested on her fifth visit to the palace at Burgos. J*all- 
ing on her knees before the king, she spoke thus :— 


‘ J am daughter of Don Gomez, 
Count of Gormaz was he hight, 
Him Rodrigo by his valour 
Did o erthrow in mortal fight. 


King! I come to crave a favour— 
This the boou for which I pray, 

That thou give me this Rodrigo 
For my wedded lord this day. 


Happy shall I deem my wedding, 
Yea, mine honour will be gréat, 

For right sure am I his tortune 
Will advance him in the stafe. 


Grant this precious boon, I pray thee! 
"Tis a duty thou dost owe ; 

For the great God hath commanded 
That we should forgive a foe. 


Freely will I grant him pardon 
That he slev my much-loved sire, 
If with gracious ear he hearken 
To my bosom’s fond desire.” 


‘‘Now I sec,” said the king, “how true it is what I 
have often heard, that the will of woman is wild and 
strange. Hitherto this damsel hath sought deadly ven- 
eeance on the youth, and now she would have him to 
Howbeit, with right good-will, I will grant 


1841.1 


what she desireth.” He sent at once for Rodrigo, who, 
with a train of three hundred young nobles, his friends 
aud kimsmen, all arrayed in new armour and robes of a 
sunilar colour, obeyed with all speed the royal sum- 
mons. The king rode forth to meet him, “for right 
well did he love Rodrigo,” and opened the matter to 
him, promismg him great honours and much land if 
he weuld make Ximena his bride. Rodrigo, who de- 
sired nothing better, at once acquiesced : 


* King and lord! right well it pleaseth 
Me thy wishes to fulfil; 
In this thing, as in all others, 
I obey thy sovereign will.” 


The young pair then plighted their troth in presence 
of the kmg, and in pledge thereof gave him their 
hands. He kept his promise, and gave Rodrigo Val- 
duerna, Saldana, Belforado, andSan Pedro de Cardena, 
for a marriage portion, 

On the day appointed, Rodrigo was arrayed by his 
brothers for the wedding. Having doffed his well- 
burnished and graven armour, he put on first a pair of 
galligaskins, or long loose drawers, with fringes of 
purple, then his hose, and over both a wide pair of 
Walloon breeches, ‘such as were worn im that golden 
age,” saith the romance. His shoes were of cow’s lea- 
ther and scarlet cloth, fastened over the instep with 
buckles. His shirt was even-edged, without fringe, 
embroidery, or stiffening, “for starch was then food for 
children ;” lis doublet or waistcoat was of black satin, 
with loose sleeves, and quilted throughout, the which 
doublet “his father had sweated in three or four 
battles ;’ over this he wore a slashed leathern jerkin 
or jacket, “im memory of the many slashes he had 
given in the field,* a German cloak lmed with plush, 
and a eap of fine Flemish cloth with a single cock’s 
feather, completed his costume. But we must not 
forget his sword Tizona, “the terror of the world,” t 
which he girt about him with a new belt, which, says 
the romance, ‘cost him four quartos,” a sum that 
might have been considerable in those days, but 1s now 
only a fraction more than an English penny. Thus 
gaily attired, he descended to the court of the palace, 
where the king, his nobles, and the bishop who was to 
perform the ceremony, awaited lnm on foot. All then 
moved in procession to the church to the sound of 
music, Rodrigo walking in the midst. 

After awhile came Ximena, with a veil over her 
head, and her hair dressed out in large flaps hanging 
down over her ears. She wore an embroidered gown 
of fine London cloth, and a close-fitting spencer with 
a flap behind. She walked on high-heeled clogs of 
red leather. A necklace of eight medals or plates 
of gold, with a small pendent image of St. Michael, 
which together were ‘worth a city,” encircled her 
heck, : 

The happy pair met, seized each other’s hands, and 
embraced. Then’said Rodrigo with great emotion, as 
he gazed on his bride— 


** JT did slay thy sire, Ximena, 
But, God wot, not traitorously ; 
"Twas in open fight I slew him: 
Sorely had he wronged me. 


* If we may rely on the authenticity of a suit of armour 
shown in the Royal Armoury at Madrid as that of the Cid, 
these slashes must. have been fashionable in Spain at avery early 
age, for on the cuirass of that suit are engraved rude figures of 
meu with short slashed breeches. 

‘+ Here the romance is guilty of an anachronism; for, accord- 
ing to the chronicle, the poem, and other romances, Tizoua did 
not become the property of the Cid till many years after, when 
he wou it from the Moorish king Bucar beneath the walls of 
Valencia, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


ol 


A man I slew-~a man I give thee— 
Here I stand thy will to bide! 

Thou, i place of a dead father, 
Hast a husband at thy side. 


All approved well his prudence 
And extolled him with zeal : 

Thus they celebrate the nuptials 
Of Rodrigo of Castile.” 


Another romance, apparently of more modern date, 
describes the wedding costume of the Cid with equal mi- 


| nuteness, but very differently, dressing him in a doublet 


of dove-eoloured satin, hight scarlet hose, and slashed 
shoes of yellow silk, a short jaeket with sleeves closel 
plaited beneath the shoulder, a folded handkerchief 
hanging from his girdle, a collar of gold and precious 
stones about his neck, and a short black cloak with 
hood and sleeves over all. This costume appears to 
belong to a less remote age than the former; but we 
have no means of determining the question, as the 
chronicles are wholly silent on the subject. 

A third romance gives an animated description ot 
the procession from the chureh to the royal palaee, 
where the wedding feast was laid out, and tells us how 
the streets of Burgos* werestrewn with boughs of sweet 
cypress—how flowered cloths were hung from the 
windows—how the king had raised a festive arch of 
great elegance at the cost of thirty-four quartos—how 
minstrels sung their lays to the honour of the wedded 
pair—and how buffoons and merry-andrews danced 
and played their antics, one with bladders in hand, an- 
other in the disguise of a bull, and a third in the like- 
ness of a demon, to whom the king gavesixteen mara- 
vedis, “ because he scared the women well.” At the 
head of the procession marched the bridegroom and 
the bishop who had performed the ceremony, with 
their attendants; then followed a crowd of these bois- 
terous merry-makers; and the king, leading the fair 
Ximena by the hand, with the queen and many a veiled 
lady, brought up the rear. As they passed through 
the streets, wheat was showered from the windows 
upon the bride—a mute but emphatic expression of 
a desire that she might prove prolific. The seeds fell 
thiekly on the neck and into the bosom of the blush- 
ing Ximena, and the king officiously plucked them 
forth with his own hand; whereat exclaimed the wag 
Suero— 


© Tis a fine thing to be aking, but Heaven make me a hand! 
The king was very merry wheu he was told of this, 
And swore the bride, ere eventide, should give the boy a kiss. 


The king went always talking, but she held down her head, 
And seldoin gave au answer to anything he said: - 

It was better to be silent, among such a crowd of folk, 

Than utter words so meaningless as she did when she spoke.” 


We quote from Lockhart, who has rendered with 
rreat spirit several of the romances of the Cid into 
English ballad metre. a 


Fall of Aerolites at Milan.—On the 17th of July, 1840, at 
seven o'clock in the morning, a loud detonation was heard, re- 
sembling a peal of thunder, aud near Golosecca three luminous 
projectiies were observed proceeding towards Somma, trom east 
to west. The sound of the explosion extended for twenty or 
thirty miles round Milan. The largest aérolite was found neat 
Ceresato, a village in the neighbourhood, having penetrated 
twenty inches into the earth. It weighed 10 lbs. 20z. The 
others were of smaller size, and fell wear the larger cue; but 
they have not been found. 


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* The romances are not agreed as to whether the wedding 
was celebrated at Burgos or Palencia, but the chronicles deter 
mine it to have been at the latter city. 


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GRATUITOUS EXHIBITION OF PICTURES. 
THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 


THERE 18 no painter who has attained to a high re- 
putation whose works are so likely, with the unin- 
structed in art, to. mislead, both by their merits and 


defects, as the illustrious artist whose name stands at 
the head of this article. 


Mr. Angerstein, and now, together with the other 
valuable pictures of that gentleman, forms a portion of 
the National Gallery. Of its merits as a work of art, 
which, in the opinion as well of critics as of practi- 
honers of painting, are held to be of the highest order 
of excellence, we shall presently procccd to speak, 


and endeavour to point out the grounds of the admira- | 


tion in which it is held, and then offer some remarks 
upon the principles which have guided Rembrandt in 
the management of his works. 

_ As, however, this is the first time we have had occa- 
sion to criticise the productions of this painter, we 
wil give a‘very short account of the leading events of 
his lite. He was born on the 15th of June, 1606, and 
was the son of a millcr, named Gerretz, who lived near 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE 


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Leyden, on the banks of the Rhine, whence, when the 
painter attained to reputation, he was distinguished by 
the title of Rembrandt van Ryn. He studied succes- 
sively under Jacob van Swannenberg, -Peter Lastman, 
and Jacob Pinas, in all not more than fifteen months. 
From these preceptors he learned manual dexterity, 


vh me § | but the peculiar.effects of his works, the prevalence of 
L The Nativity, which is repre- | 
sented above, was formerly in the collection of the late | 


dark in his pictures, was the result of his own observa- 
tion in his father’s mill, where he had opportunities of 
secing the strongest contrasts of light and shade. He 
worked for some time at his native place, but, having 
frone to the Hague, at the advice of a fellow-student, 
he there sold a pictuxe for a hundred florins, and, soon 
after, obtained numerous commissions for landscapes 
and portraits, which he executed at home. In 1630 he 
settled in Amsterdam, and at the same time married, 
and undertook the tuition of many pupils, who paid 
one hundred florins a year each. One of his earliest . 
and steadiest patrons was the burgomaster Six, for 
whom he painted the Woman taken in Adultery, 
which now forms another of the most splendid orna- 
ments of the National Gallery. Rembrandt was 
scarcely less eminent as an engravcr than as a painter, 


| but we have no occasion here to speak upon that sub- 


1$41.] 


ject. He died at Amsterdam, having accumulated 
considerable wealth, in 1674. A tale has been told of 
him which has been related of other artists, and is, per- 
haps, about as true of him as of any other. It is, that 
finding, during his earlier career, his pictures were 
not purchased so promptly as he wished, he caused it 
to be given out that he was dead, ordered a sale of 
his paintings and engravings, and so enhanced their 
vale. . 

The subject of the Nativity is one which has been 
frequently handled by Rembrandt, and by other painters 
of the same school;. by them, perhaps, on account of 
its presenting an opportunity, from the homeliness of its 
locality, of indulging in their favourite representations 
of familiar life; by Rembrandt, without doubt, from 
its affording a noble field for the display of his peculiar 
power. In observing the work now before him, it 
will not fail to strike the intelligent spectator that the 
composition is lighted from two distinct sources; the 
chief splendour is derived from the glory emanating 
from the divine Infant, whilst the right-hand portion 
is illuminated by the lantern in the hand of the standing 
figure, and the background is further lighted by some 
means not comprised within the limits of the picture. 
This has enabled the painter to distinguish between 
the supernatural and the natural lights, and the various 
eradations of both, and the effect produced must be at 
once admitted to be masterly in the extreme. The first 
presents a greater purity of tint, and the latter a glow- 
ing richness, which, whilst it contrasts forcibly with 
the surrounding shadows, adds, by its increased yellow- 
ness, brilliancy even to the emanation proceeding from 
the cradled Redeemer. The background represents 
the interior of a stable, and the cattle give identity to 
the scenc. 

Rembrandt is said not only to have repudiated the 
beauties of Grecian and Itahan art, but also to have 
ridiculed them; but whether so or not, certain it ishe 
never, in his own practice, evinces purity of form, and 
very rarely justness of proportion. Indeed his figures 
are remarkable for their uncoutlmness, and sometines 
deformity, rather than for their beauty, and he would 
almost appear to have preferred vulgarity to grace. 
IIe seems to have generally had defective models to 
work from, and to have scrupulously followed what he 
saw. 

Thus disclosing the prevailing fault of the painter 
brings us to the point where we may describe what are 
his excellences above all others, and what is the prin- 
ciple upon which he constructed his works. 

The great merit, then, of Rembrandt consists in his 
open knowledge of harmony in colouring, and of 
is nanagement of the lights and darks, technically 
called chiaro-’scuro. In the former, his pictures evi- 
dence his skill by the fact that the moment they meet 
the eye they produce a pleasing sensation. The un- 
tutored spectator is first struck by the glowing rich- 
ness of the performance, before he proceeds to consider 
the deformity of the figures, and voluntarily admits 
that he is gratified without knowing wherefore he is 
pleased. In compositions such as that now under no- 
tice, namely, interiors lighted only in a small propor- 
tionate degree, this is more frequently the case than in 
other works of this master. A larger space, only 
partially iluminated, must naturally present powerful 
contrasts, and such as the most uncultivated eye must 
at once understand ; but in exterior views, where there 
is a much larger proportion of light, and in which, 
hotwithstanding, strong oppositions of dark are to be 
found, it requires much greater knowledge of the 
principles of art to form a just estimate of their cor- 
rectness. We have, however, now to speak only of 
the class of which the cut above is a brilliant example. 
In observing a picture of this class, the spectator, after 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


53 


the first sensation of visual pleasure has subsided: 
should consider whether the effect depicted is accounted 
for by the subject itself, that is, whether, for the sha- 
dows he sees before him, there is a light placed in 
such a position in the picture, or indicated as being 
beyond its limits, as must necessarily produce such a 
shade ; if he find that to be the case, he may be sure 
that the painter has achieved his end, he has’ eratified 
the eye and has satisfied the understanding. If, upon 
further inspection, he finds that the painter has so 
arranged his colours that the most brilliant and the 
hghtest shall form a portion of that part of the picture 
from which or by which it is illuminated, and shall 
find the dark draperies and other objects so introduced 
as to combine with the shadows-to form a contrast, he 
will, in some degree, perceive and understand what is 
meant by the term chiaro-’scuro. In a word, then, a 
person in viewing the works of Rembrandt must look 
for fidelity of effect, and not for. correctness of draw- 
ing, 

If we regret the absence of that dignity of form with 
which Raffaelle invests his Scripture characters, we 
must not pass over without notice the fact that as the 
creat events of the life of the Saviour, from his birth 
in a stable to his death by the most shameful punish- 
ment of the cross, were characterised by lowliness, 
and as most of the important agents in the progress of 
Christianity itself were of humble station, as in the 
instances of Peter and Andrew and James and John, 
there is perhaps less blame attachable to Rembrandt 
for the familiarity of his figures in such subjects than 
would at first sight appear. He knew that the in- 
struments of the divine revelation were of lowly birth 
and of mean occupation, and he therefore represented 
in his pictures such forms as his models presented un- 
dignified by any adventitious aid from his pencil. He 
painted for brilliancy of effect and splendour of 
colouring, and not for beauty of form or majesty of 
expression. It is, therefore, for the former qualities 
that he is to be prized. 

The works of Rembrandt are open to observation 
for his neglect of the propriety of costume, but we 
must not on that account the less value the truth of 
what he does represent. [tis unquestionably better that 
the verity of history should be preserved in all works 
of art, but all parts of a picture should represent a 
consistency of date; yet, because historic truth is vio- 
lated, we must not be led into an opposite extreme, 
and refuse our approbation to the fidelity of the imita- 
tion which is before us. If this painter, like other 
artists of his own school, and eminent ones of the 
Venetian and Flemish schools, has violated history, 
still he has not violated painting in its rules, so long 
as the things he has represented are, in themselves, 
true to nature. | 

It is sometimes objected that no effect is to be ob- 
served exactly similar to that given by Rembrandt ; 
that in no instance can we see such depth of shadow 
where there is positive light. To a certain extent this 
is true, and the reason is manifest, for no painting can 
exactly imitate positive light, though it may give the 
effect of it by the minute exactness with which the 
gradations from light to dark are depicted. If, by so 
much as the brightest part of a picture necessarily 
falls short’ of positive light, in the same degree the 
other parts of it are made so much darker than reality, 
the scale of proportion is preserved, and the work is 
therefore consistent in itself, and true as an imitation 
of nature. If this be borne in mind in watching the 
productions of Rembrandt, it will greatly tend to 
familiarise the untutored in art to the superb con- 
trasts he displays. 

Of the principle by which this great genius was 
euided, it will be necessary only to say that he con- 


o4 THE PENNY 
sidered the power of his picture was to be gained by 
an infinitely greater proportion of dark than light, a 
principle diametrically opposed to that by which Ru- 
bens was guided in his practice. 

We avoid, as much as possible, technical phraseology, 
but there is one point of a practical nature to which the 
attention of a visitor to this picture may be drawn. It 
is the mode in which the artist worked. The glowing 
effect caused by the lights in his pictures is produced 
by the masterly use of what artists call glasing, that 1s, 
painting over opaque colour with rich transparent 
tints, a practice which originated with the Venetian 
sehool, and was adopted by those of Holland and 
Flanders. It is acknowledged that no other mode of 
operation will give equal brilhaney, and it eannot be 
denied that by no hand has it been more skillfully 
_applied than that of the illustrious Rembrandt. 


HOW IS A RAILWAY TRAIN PROPELLED? 


(Continued from page 29.] 

In our previous artiele we trust we have enabled the 
reader to comprehend ‘what eonstitutes a steam- 
engine.” Itis not the application of steam-power to 
any particular purpose, but itis the production of a 
reciprocating motion. A portion of water in a boiler 
is exposed to the aetion of fire; steam is formed; 
this steam is admitted into a cylinder, through which a 
piston works; the steam drives up the piston, and is 
then converted into water by being put in eommunica- 
tion with a cold vessel; a vacuum is thus formed below 
the piston, and this, and steam admitted above it, press 
down the piston; this second amount of steam is eon- 
densed; and a new series of similar movements occur. 
The piston thus being set In motion, a connecting rod 
eommunicates this motion to inachinery, by which the 
motion is eonverted into some definite kind by cranks 
or other means. This is the great principle of the pro- 
cess; and by far the larger part of the beautiful but 
compheated mechanism seen in a steam-engine con- 
sists of matters of detail not involving the principle on 
which the engine acts, but tending to bring that prin- 
ciple to better aceount. Such an engine is a condensing 
engine. The application of steam-power to loco- 
motion and to shipping frequently requires a modifi- 
cation of the arrangement, constituting a high-pressure 
engine, the nature of which will be seen hereafter. 

How many a railroad traveller has marvelled at the 
hidden power which propels him and his companions 
at so rapid a rate! We books his place, pays his fare, 
enters one of a long string of vehicles, and presently 
feels himself to be in motion. Before and after him 
may be human beings, cattle, horses, private carriages, 
merchandise ; yet all are driven on by the same im- 
pulse, and with a rapidity whieh, twelve years ago, we 
would have deemed almost chimerical. The traveller 
finds the train headed by an engine which appears to 
afford the nloving power,—by a meehanical horse, in 
fact, which requires no other provender than coke and 
water; and he may naturally wish to gather a brief 
outline of the mode in which this most valuable species 
of horse performs its work. This outline we will en- 
deavour to give. 

In pages 28 and 29 of the present volume we explained 
the main points which constitute a steam-engine, as well 
as the mode nm which the power there gained is made 
available for the production of circular motion. For 
a locomotive carriage another form of engine is neees- 
sary, principally on account of the inconveniently large 
spaee which a condensing apparatus would occupy. It 
will be remembered, that the steam which moves the 
piston in a common steam-engine is afterwards con- 
veyed 19 a vessel surrounded by cold water, the chil- 
ling effect of whieh re-converts the steam into water, 
and thereby produces a vacuum beneath the piston. 


MAGAZINE. {FEBRUARY 6, 
But in an engine destined for motion, both size and 
weight become matters of importance; and if the con- 
densing apparatus can be dispensed with altogether, 
the engine will obviously be rendered smaller and 
lighter. 

The only mode of getting rid entirely of the principle 
of condensation in the steam-engine is to employ 
steam of such a power as greatly exceeds the presse 
of the atmosphere. All the beams, rods, &c. of a 
steam-engine are subject to atmospheric pressure ; 
and in Newcomen’s engine it was this pressure, act- 
ing on one side of a piston while the other side was in 
vacuo, Which caused the descent of the piston. In 
Watt’s engines the atmosphere is excluded, but still 
the foree of the steain does not greatly exceed that of 
the atmosphere. In the locomotive-engine, however, 
the condensing apparatus being absent, it 1s found that 
powerfully heated steam is required, which steam 
having a great pressure, such engines are termed h7gh- 
pressure, nN contradistinetion to condensing or low- 
pressure engines. ‘These terms are generally but not 
universally correet, for the principle of high-pressure 
is sometimes combined with that of condensation. 

When water boils freely in an open vessel, the 
steam rising from it has a pressure or elasticity equal 
to that of the atmosphere. Under ordinary circum- 
stances,- when the barometer indicates about 30 
inches pressure, this occurs at the temperature of 212°, 
Under no circumstances can boiling water, in an open 
vessel exposed to the free action of the atmosphere, 
greatly exceed this temperature. Buta closed vessel 
produces a ehange of effect; for if it be sufficiently 
strong to resist a bursting pressure from within, the 
water is capable of attaining a far higher temperature; 
indeed we know of no limit to this increase but the 
inability of the vessel to bear the pressure. In genera] 
the steam of boiling water exerts a pressure of about 
15 pounds on-every square inch of surface exposed to 
it; but with an increase of temperature in a close 
vessel, this pressure increases very rapidly; for in- 
stanee, at 226° it is about 20 pounds; at 238°, 25 
pounds; at 257°, 35 pounds; at 300°, 70 pounds on the 
Square inch. 

Now this rapidly increasing pressure is the source 
of power in the high-pressure engine; and one of the 
chief problems which the maker has to solve is, what 
must be the strength of a close boiler, to bear such and 
such a pressure from within? In practice, high-pres- 
sure engines are employed with a force or pressure of 
steam varying from twenty to one hundred and twenty 
pounds on the square inch. Let the reader clearly 
understand this point, and he will see how great is the 
pressure which the boiler has to sustain. If the boiler 
were of a cylindrical shape, and measured six feet 
long by three in diameter, it would have a surface of 
more than 9000 square inches: if steam of 120 inches 
pressure were within the boiler, it would exeeed the 
atmospheric pressure from without by 105 pounds per 
inch; which would give (105 x 9000 =945,000) the 
enormous force of nearly one million pounds tending 
to burst the boiler from within. 

A power, similar to this in its origin, but of less in- 
tensity, is that to which loeomotive-engines owe their 
value. A piston-rod is conneeted by a erank with 
the wheels of the carriage, in sueh a manner that when 
one moves the other must move also. The object is 
therefore to give a reciprocating motion to the piston ; 
and this is effected by admitting high-pressure stcam 
into the cylinder wherein the piston works, so that a 
portion of steam, after moving the piston, may escape 
into the open air, and leave room for the piston to 
return by the force of a new supply of steam admitted 
on the other side of 1t. 

Although James Watt conceived the idea of such an 


1841. | 


employment of bigh-nressure steam, yet Messrs. Trevi- 
thick and Vivian appear to have been the first to put 
it in action, about forty years ago. They constructed 
a steam-carriage, Which proved a preeursor to some 
others used on the tramways in the north of England 
and in Wales; but the subject was not fairly tested 
until the railway system developed its wonderful 
power. While the projectors of the Liverpool and Man- 
chester Railway were engaged in that important under- 
taking, they were in doubt as to what moving power 
might best be apphed to the carriages, whether horse- 
power, stationary engines with traction ropes, or loeo- 
motive engines. The first two were successively aban- 
doned, and the last resolved on; but in order to obtain 
the utmost amount of power with the least expendi- 
ture of fuel, a premium was offered to the owner of 
any locomotive-engunie which should, on a certain trial- 
day, produce the most favourable results. The trial 
took place in October, 1829, and the: premium was 
awarded to Messrs. Stephenson and Booth, for the 
performance of the ‘ Rocket’ engine. Since that time, 
numerous lnes of railway have been opened; and 
such gradual changes and improvements have been 
made in the locomotive-engines, as to bring them to 
the form represented in the annexed cut. The upper 


figure shows the external appearance, familiar to all 
railroad travellers; the lower figure is a longitudinal 
section, through the middle of the engine. 





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(a, Fire-box; b, boiler; c, smoke-box; d,steam chamber; e, cylinder 
and piston; fand g, safety valves; A, steam-whistle ; i, feed-pipe.] 

The larger part of the engine is occupied by the 
boiler, made generally of iron, but sometimes of copper. 
Ai the lunder end of the boiler is a fire-box, so arranged 
as to be surrounded by water at every part except a 
door at which the fuel is introduced, and an open grating 







THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


newed, 


OO 


at bottom, the object of this water envelope heine to 
prevent as much as possible the radiation and Ne of 
heat. A man stands on the little stage or rallery at 
the back of the engine; anda carriage called a tendey 
containing eoke and water, comes next after the engine, 
between it and the passenger carriages. The operations 
may be coneeived to go on in the following manner. 

The feed-pipe conveys water from the tender into 
the boiler by the action of a small forcing-pump placed 
beneath the latter, and worked by the piston-rod. 
Supposing then the boiler to have its proper quantity 
of water, the fire-box to have been supplied with 
coke, and a fire lighted, the smoke and heated air soon 
fill the fire-box, and then traverse a number of brags 
tubes which pass from end to end of the boiler, that is, 
from the fire-box to the smoke-box. These tubes are 
sometimes as many as a hundred and twenty in number, 
and about an inch and a half in diameter; and their 
object is to present as much heated surface as possible 
to the water in the boiler. The smoke and air, after 
losing a great portion of their heat, pass into the 
smoke-box, from thence upwards into the chimney, 
and thence into the open air. This mode of tubiag 
the boiler is one of the greatest improvements which 
have been introduced in locomotive engines, since the 
extent of heated surface causes the water to boil in a 
surprisingly short time. 

So much for the fire and its appendages: now for 
the steam. As the inside of the boiler is wholly 
shielded from the atmosphere, the water may be made 
to attain as high a temperature as the strength of the 
boiler will admit; and the space between the water 
and the root of the boiler becomes filled with steam of 
very high pressure. This steam is mixed with a good 
deal of spray from the water, and in order to effect a 
separation, the stearn is made to ascend into a steam- 
chamber before it descends to the cylinder. After the 
separation from the spray, the steam descends the 
steam-pipe in the direction of the arrows, and then 
enters a little chamber, where, by the aetion of an in- 
genious shding valve, it passes alternately before and 
behind the piston into the cylinder. The piston is 
thus driven alternately backwards and forwards; and 
at each motion the steam, after having performed its 
office, passes into a waste pipe, and goes upwards in 
the direction of the arrow into the chimney, the latter 
thus serving to carry off both steam and smoke. 

The piston being set in motion backwards and for- 
wards, the rod to which it 1s connected acts, by the in- 
tervention of a crank, on the large central driving- 
Wheels, which are thus made to revolve, and conse- 
auently the whole machine to be set In motion. The 
puis or ‘ pantings’ which we hear several times ina 
sceond, are occasioned by the escape of the steam from 
the eylinder, after it has performed its work, into the 
chimney. There are two cylinders and two cranks on 
opposite sides of the machine; but the description of 
one set will avail for the other also. 

The engine-man, on the little stage behind the bouler, 
has several pieces of mechanism under his immediate 
control. By ineans of the steam-whistle (A) he can 
admit steam into a small receptacle, where, passing 
through a minute aperture, and striking against a 
sharp edge, it produces a piercing noise, which acts 
as a warning signal. Near this whistle is a handle 
which, by means of a rod, opens or shuts a valve in the 
steam-pipe, and thereby regulates the admission of 
steam to the cylinder. Gauge-eocks are placed at the 
back of the boiler, by which the engineer knows how 
much water is in the boiler; and if the quantity be 
deficient, another handle, near his foot, enables him to 
open a eommunieation between the water-tank in the 
tender and the feed-pipe by whieh the supply is re- 
At the upper part of the boiler are two valves, 


26 THE PENNY 
so regulaied that when the steam exceeds a certain 
pressure, these valves are opened, and the steam escapes: 
one valve is under the control of the engine-man, 
but the other (g) is locked up, thus acting as a check 
against the engine-man, should he desire to increase 
the rapidity of the engine (and therefore the pressure 
of the steam) beyond proper limits. There 1s reason 
to believe that in some cases this valve hkewise 1s, very 
improperly, placed at the discretion of the engine-man. 

A provision for opening and shutting the valves in 
the cylinder several times in a second, another piece 
of mechanism for reversing the motion of the vehicle, 
a brake for retarding the revolution of the wheels, &c., 
are also portions of this beautiful engine; but what 
we have briefly described constitute the essentials, by 
which the general principle of action is regulated. 
The motion of the locomotive engine bemg once pro- 
duced, the manner in which the tender and the long 
train of carriages are set in motion, by being linked to 
it and to each other, need hardly be told. With 
regard to the high velocity attained, we must refer it 
to three conjoined causes, viz. the powerful action of 
steam asa prime mover, the near approach to a level 
on which the carriages move, and the smoothness of an 
iron rail-track, compared with a gravel road. 


Children should be imured as early as possible to acts of 
charity and mercy. Constantine, as soon as his son could write, 
employed Azs hand in signing pardons, and delighted im con- 
veying, through Ais mouth, all the favours he granted. A noble 
introduction to sovereignty, which is instituted for the happiness 
of mankind.—Jortin. 


DOGS, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 
{Continued from p. 11.] 


Ir the long-muzzled breeds of our dogs be deemed the 
nearest to the primitive wild stock, whatever that may 
have been, it will follow that, in proportion as the do- 
mestic varieties lose this characteristic elongation of 
the head, and have the muzzle abbreviated, and the 
forehead and volume of the skull itself enlarged, they 
recede from their original type, and may be presumed 
to have been more influenced by the many causes which 
are involved in domestication. They are, in fact, more 
completely domesticated, and, if the term be allowed, 
civilized. Such are the dogs comprising the section of 
which the engraving gives characteristic examples. In 
our former paper we alluded to the shepherd’s dog, 
which Buffon regards as nearest to the primitive stock, 
but which is more remote, if our ideas be correct, than 
he supposes. This valuable and intelligent dog is 
placed by F. Cuvier in the second section, distinguished 
by the head being very moderately elongated, the fore- 
head being elevated, and the cerebral cavity compara- 
tively voluminous. In referring the shepherd’s dog 
to this section, we consider F. Cuvier to be right, but 
at the same time we think that it is to be regarded as 
a link between this and the previous group. Its muzzle 
is more elongated and sharper than in the spaniel; its 
cars are short and erect, or semi-erect, and its general 
contour 1s hght, strength and activity being combined. 
still its skull is developed, and its intelligence is ex- 
traordinary. Of the discrimination, sagacity, and faith- 
fulness of these dogs, many authenticated accounts are 
current. The shepherd’s dog knows its master’s flocks, 
probably by the mark impressed upon the wool; it 
will single out a sheep, under .the direction of its 
master, from the rest, keep it separate, or disengage 
it again from the flock, should it regain and mingle 
with them ; it will keep two flocks apart ; and, should 
they coalesce, re-divide them. It will watch and de- 
fend them from strange dogs or foxes, and it will drive 
them to any place required. 


MAGAZINE. [FEBRUARY 6, 

We knew, some years since, a dog of the shepherd’s 
breed, which belonged to a man who had a large herd 
of cows under his charge. During the summer they 
were depastured on very extensive fields (an Cheshire) 
communicating with each other, and morning and 
evening this dog, at the bidding of his master, would 
collect them all together and gently drive them to the 
accustomed milking-place. Jf, when he had driven 
them for some distance, he discovered that one was 
missing, he would run back and traverse the fields till 
he met with the object of his search, which he would 
conduct to the herd, and then pursue his ordinary 
duty. 

Closely alhed to the shepherd's dog is the cur, or 
drover’s dog. This useful aninal is larger than the 
shepherd’s dog; the hair is generally shorter, and the 
tail, even when not cut purposely, often appears as if 
it had been so. Bewick, who was well acquainted 
both with the drover’s and the shepherd’s dog, speak- 
ing of the former, says, ‘many are whelped with short 
tails, which seem as 1f they had been cut, and these are 
called in the north self-tailed dogs.” The same writer 
is disposed to consider this breed as a true or perma- 
nent kind, and he informs us that great attention is 
paid to it. It seems to us, however, that the drover’s 
dog is, in reality, a cross between the shepherd’s dog 
and some other race, perhaps the terrier. It often 
partakes largely of the characters of the shepherd’s 
dog, but is taller in the limbs. These dogs bite 
severely, and always attack the heels of cattle, so that 
a fierce bull is easily driven by them. They are sin- 
eularly quick and prompt in their actions, and, as all 
who have watched them in the crowded noisy tumul- 
tuous assemblage of men and beasts in Smithfield must 
have observed, they are both courageous and intelli- 
cent. To their masters, who often il-treat them, they 
are faithful and attached. 

The Siberian dog, as depicted by Buffon, is closely 


| allied to the shepherd’s dog, but is larger; and, from 


the inclemency of its country, more densely coated with 
long shaggy hair, which felts like wool. A fine female 
dog of this breed in our possession is singularly faith- 
ful and intelligent, but very noisy, pleasure being 
expressed by a loud barking, continued, if the animal 
be not checked, during a walk of two or three miles. 
She is an excellent house-guard, and her bark on 
the approach of strangers is very different from that 
of pleasure. So great is her indifference to cold, that 
she does not hesitate to plunge into the Thames, with 
the thermomcter far below the freezing-point, nor 
does she suffer the slightest inconvenience ; a heap of 
snow or the frost-bound earth is preferred to a snug 
kennel as a sleeping-place. Itis not without difficulty 
that she is restrained from chasing sheep and cattle, and 
will often, to our annoyance, slink off, when unper- 
ceived, and scour the fields, driving oxen or sheep 
before her. 

Of the present section of dogs, the shepherd’s dog 
and its allies seem to form a distinct group, m which 
we suspect the lurcher should be also included, though 
this may possibly be a mixed breed between the grey- 
hound and rough terrier, or greyhound and shepherd’s 
dog. Bewick figures and describes it. He says that 
it is less and shorter than the greyhound, with stronger 
limbs; its body is covered with a rough coat of hair, 
inost commonly of a pale yellow colour ; its aspect is 
sullen, and its habits, whence it derives its name, are 
dark and cunning. “ As this dog possesses the advan- 
tage of a fine scent, it is often employed in killing 
hares and rabbits in the night-time.” It steals silently 
and cautiously upon them while they are feeding, and 
then suddenly darts forward and seizes them. It is 
said that a well-trained dog will make terrible havoc 


| in a preserve for hares, or in a warren 


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[a, Spaniel] ; 6, Fox-Hound; c, Pointer; d, Lurcher; e, Newfoundland; f, Shepherd’s Dog; g, Talbot Hound; /#, Blood-Houud.] 


THE Spaniels form a distinct group of the present | 


section. Among them we include the pure setter. 
The spaniels are remarkable for docility and an affec- 
tionate disposition, and these good qualities, combined 
with their beauty, render them gencral favourites. The 
fur is long and silky, sometimes curled or crisped ; 
the ears are large and pendent, and the expression of 
the countenance is pleasing and intelligent. All pos- 
sess an excellent scent, and especially the setter, the 
qualities of which are well known to the sportsman. 

The water-spaniel belongs to this group; its utility 


to persons engaged in the pursuit of water-fowl is ex- | 


tremely great; it swims well, is very hardy, and’is an 
excellent retriever, bringing the birds which have been 
shot on the water to its master. The French poodle 
may be referred to the spaniels. It 1s, we consider, 
very nearly allied to the rough water-dog figured 
by Bewick, the grand barbet of Buffon (whose figure, 


No. 569. 


indeed, Bewick has copied), and of which the petit 
barbet of Buffon is a smaller variety. 

The rough water-dog is a most valuable and intel- 
lhgent animal, It is robustly made, and covered 
universally with decp curly hair. It exceeds the 
water-spaniel in size and strength, but has the samme 
aquatic habits and docility. It is much used as a 
retriever by the shooters of water-fowl. No dog is 
more easily taught to fetch and carry than this; and 
its memory is surprising. If any small article be 
shown it, and put into a certam place, this dog, after 
the lapse even of several days, or when at consider- 
able distance from the spot, will, when bidden, hasten 
to it, search out the article, and return with it to his 
master. Mr. Bell relates an anecdote of one of these 
dogs finding a piece of money which its master had 
lost, and retaining it for a whole day in its mouth, 
till its master’s return, when it joyfully laid the com 


Vou, <1 


23 


at his fect. During the whole of the time it had 
taken no food, from unwillingness to part, even for a 
few minutes, with the property of which it deemed 
itself the guardian. 

It is impossible for us to enter into an cnumeration 
of all the breeds of spanicls; we may notice, however, 
the Marlborough and King Charles breeds, which, 
from their beauty and liveliness, are in the highest es- 
teem. In all essentials there is a close similarity 
among the dogs of this group, and the differences con- 
sist rather in size than in any other characteristics. 
Naturalists have been inclined to regard the New- 
foundland, the Labrador, and the Alpine dogs, as true 
spaniels. We do not consider this opimion as correct. 
They form a little group by themselves, and in many 
points the Alpine, or Mount St. Bernard’s dog, ap- 
proaches to the mastiff. We have scen several fine 
examples of this breed ;—their size is equal to that of 
the largest mastiff; the muzzle 1s deep; the ears are 
pendulous ; the fur is rather long and wiry ; the cye is 
full and very expressive ; and the form of the body and 
limbs indicates great strength. The peeuhar robust- 
ness of form, and especially the depth of the muzzle, 
and character of the fur, serve to distinguish this no- 
ble dog from the largest of the spaniels. The Labra- 
dor dog, often called Newfoundland, presents the same 
general features, excepting that the fur is longer and 
softer, and sometimes disposed to curl. A fine dog of 
this breed brought from Labrador gave us the follow- 
ing admeasurements :—total length, including tail, six 
feet three inches; height at shoulder, two feet six in- 
ches; length of head, from occiput to point of nose, 
eleven inches; circumference of chest, three feet one 
inch. In Labrador these powerful and intelligent 
dogs are used for drawing sledges loaded with wood, 
&c., and are of great service to the settlers. The 
Newfoundland dog is essentially the same as the 
Labrador, but, if our observations be correct, it does 
not attain to so large a stature. Of the extraordinary 
sagacity of the dogs of this group,—of the courage and 
intelligence of the Mount St. Bernard’s dog,—of the 
fidelity, usefulness, and aquatic propensities of the 
Labrador and Newfoundland breed, nothing need be 
said. All are famihar with instances in which human 
beings have owed their life to the exertions of these 
devoted creatures ;—all are acquainted with their no- 
ble qualities. 

Another distinct group of dogs belonging to the pre- 
sent section is that which contains the hounds. Several 
varieties of hound now cxist; and of these the beagle, 
the harrier, and the foxhound are familiar to all our 
readers. No country equals Iingland in the swiftness, 
spirit, and endurance of its hounds; and in no country 
is so much attention paid to the various breeds, espe- 
cially to the harrier and foxhound. The beagle was 
formerly a great favourite, but is now little used. It 
is of small stature, but of exquisite scent, and its 
tones, when heard in full cry, aremusical. It has not, 
however, the strength or fleetness of the harricr, and 
stall less so of the foxhound, and hence it does not 
engage the attention of the sportsmen of the modern 
school, who, unlike Sir Roger de Coverly, are impetu- 
ous in the field, preferring a hard run to a tame and 
quiet pursuit. The beagle was only employed in 
hunting the hare, as is the harrier, but the foxhound 
is trained both for the deer and the fox. The strength 
and powers of scent of the foxhound are very great, 
and many astonishing instances of the energy and en- 
durance of these animals are on record. 

Formerly two noble varieties of the hound were 
common in England, which are now seldom seen. We 
allude to the old English hound, or talbot, and the 
blood-hound. 

Of the old English hound, which is described by 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Fenruary 13, 


Whittaker, in his ‘History of Manchester, as the 
original breed of our island, we some years since saw 
a fine specimen in Lancashire. It was tall and robust, 
with a chest of extraordinary depth and breadth, with 
pendulous lips, and deeply-set eyes; the ears were 
large and long, and hung very low; the nose was 
broad, and the nostrils large and moist. Its voice was 
deep, full, and sonorous. The general colour was 
black, passing into tan or sandy-red about the muzzie 
and along the inside of the limbs. Shakspere’s de- 
scription of the hounds of Theseus, in the ‘ Midswnmer 
Night’s Dream,’ is truc to the letter, as referring to this 
breed, with which he was, no doubt, well acquainted :— 


‘¢ My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 
So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung 
With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 
Crook-kneed and dewlapp’d like Thessalian bulls ; 
Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouth hke bells 
Each under each.” 


It was with hounds of this breed that “to hunt the deer” 
“ Earl Persie took his way; and it was with these 
dogs that our ancestors chased the larger kinds of 
gyame, with which, when our island was almost one 
vast forest, the country abounded. For delicacy of 
scent and acuteness of hearing, they were unrivalled, 
and their great power rendered them a match even 
singly for the strongest of their ‘ quarry.’ 

The bloodhound, with equal delicacy of scent, has 
shorter ears, and a taller and perhaps lighter figure 
than the talbot. This celebrated dog was once in 
ereat request, and was employed by our ancestors, not 
only in the pursuit of game, but of men. Laid on the 
track of the felon or marauder, it kept up a steady 
persevering chase, and was not baffled without difii- 
culty. Sir Walter Scott, in his graphic description of 
the “stark moss-trooper,” Sir William of Deloraine, 
eives as a proof of his merit, that he 

‘¢ By wily turns and desperate bounds 
Had baffled Percy’s best blood-hounds.” 


And the same accomplished knight thus eulogises 
iis dead enemy :— 
‘¢ Twas pleasure as we look’d behind 
To sce how thou the chase would wind— 
Cheer the dark blood-hound on his way, 
And with the bugle rouse the fray.” 


Blood-hounds, or, as the Scotch called them, Sleuth- 
hunds, were kept at one time in great numbcrs on 
the Borders; and fugitive kings, as well as moss- 
troopers, were often obliged to study how to evade 
them. Bruce, it appears, was repeatedly tracked hy 
these dogs, and on one occasion only escaped by wad- 
ing for a considerable distance wp a brook, and thus 
baffling the scent. ‘A sure way of stopping the dog 
was to spill blood upon the track, which destroyed the 
discriminating fineness of his scent. A captive was 
sometimes sacrificed on such occasions. Henry the 
minstrel tells a romantic story of Wallace, founded on 
this circumstance. The hero’s little band had been 
joined by an Irishman named Fawdon, or Fadzean, a 
dark, savage, and suspicious character. After a sharp 
skirmish at Black-Erne Side, Wallace was forced to 
retreat with only sixteen followers. The Enghlsh pur- 
sued with a border blood-hound. In the retreat Faw- 
don tired, or affecting to be so, would go no farther ; 
Wallace having in vain argued with him, in hasty anger 
struck off his head, and continued the retreat. When 
the English came up, their hound stayed upon the dead 
body.” (Notes to the ‘ Lay of the Last Minstrel.’) ~ 

The specimens of this dog which we have seen were 
of a sandy-red colour with black muzzles. 

We have hitherto said nothing respecting the 
pointer. The old Spanish pointer 1s decidedly related to 
the hound, and the breed now generally used by sports- 


1841.] 


men is originally from this source; but as the fox- 
hound is rendered by assiduous cultivation lighter, 
smaller, and more fleet than the talbot (its origin, as 
we presume), so the modern pointer may be regarded 
as a lighter and more active branch of the heavy slow 
Spanish pointer, which indeed is now seldom seen. 

We may conclude our present section with the ter- 
rier and its varieties. Two breeds of this spirited and 
well-known dog are common: one, called the Scotch 
terrier, is covered with rough wiry hair, and having 
short legs and a long body; the other, called the 
Ienglish terrier, is sleek, with longer legs and a more 
elegant form; its colour is black, with tanned limbs, 
and a tanned spot over each eye. In both the muzzle 
is moderately long and sharp, and the ears are erect; 
the eye is quick; the powcr of smell acute. For un- 
earthing the fox or badger, and for worrying rats and 
“such small deer,” these dogs are celebrated, and they 
make excellent house-guards. 

The turnspit, a variety now seldom seen, is allied 
most nearly to the terrier, but 1s destitute of the bold- 
ness and spirit of that breed. It is long-bodied, with 
short bowed legs and a curled tail, and the iris of one 
eye is often of a different colour from that of the 
other. 

In taking a review of ‘the dogs to which we have 
directed our attention, as comprising the present sec- 
tion, we cannot fail to observe that they are endowed 
respectively with qualifications or habits certainly not 
innate, but the result of education at least originally, 
which edueation, continued through a series of gencra- 
tions, has produced permanent effects. For example, 
no dog ina state of nature would point with his nose 
ata partridge, and then stand like a statue, motion- 
less, for the dog would gain nothing by such a pro- 
ceeding. Man, however, has availed himself of the 
docility and delicacy of scent peculiar to a certain 
breed, and has taught the dog his lesson, and the lesson 
thus learned has become second nature. <A young 
pointer takes to its work as if by intuition, and scarcely 
requires discipline. Hence, therefore, must we con- 
clude that education not only effects impressions on 
the sensorium, but transmissible impressions, whence 
arise the predispositions of certain races. Education, 
in fact, modifies organization, not that it makes a dog 
otherwise than a dog, but it supersedes, to a certain 
point, instinct, or makes acquired propensities in- 
stinctive, hereditary,-and, therefore, characteristics of 
the race. The effect of this change of nature is not to 
render the dog more independent,: not to give it any 
advantage over its fellows, but to rivet more firmly 
the links of subjection to man. 

It is not to the pointer alone that these observations 
apply; all our domestic dogs have their own acquired 
propensities, which, becoming second nature, make 
them, in one way or another, valuable servants. No 
one, we presume, will suppose that the instinctive pro- 
pensities implanted by nature in the shepherd’s dog 
make it not a destroyer but a preserver of sheep. On 
the contrary, this dog, ike every other, is carnivorous, 
and nature intends it to destroy and devour. But 
education has supplanted instinct, to a certain point, 
aud has implanted a disposition which has become an 
hereditary characteristic, and hence a shicpherd’s dog 
of the true breed takes to its duties naturally. But a 
shepherd’s dog could not, delicate as its sense of smell 
is, be brought to take the place of the pointer in the 
field, even thongh it were subjected to training from 
the earliest age ; nor, on the other hand, could a pointer 
be substituted with equal advantage in the place of a 
shepherd’s dog, as the assistant of the drover: Each 
is civilised, but in a different style, and education has 
limpressed upon each a different bent of mind, a 
different class of propensities. 


TEE PAN NAY 


MAGAZINE. 59 


The Bayonet.—(I'rom a Correspondent. )\— At page 490 of the 
Jast volume of this work, in an article on the Horse Armoury i 
the Tower, the first invention of the socket bayonet is attribrted 
to the French, during the campaigns of William HI. in Flanders. 
Now the earliest of these campaigns was that of 1693, which 
was terminated by the battle of Neerwinden, on July yah i\ 
whilst there is every reason to believe that the socket bayonet 
was constructed in Scotland, in the winter of 1689, by Generat 
Mackay; in consequence of the defeat which he sustained in the 
Pass of Kilhecrankie, on the 26th of July in that year, having 
been partly occasioned by the inability of his soldiers to fix their 
dagger-hilted bayonets with sufficient promptitude to receive the 
charge of Dundee’s Highlanders, against whom they had just 
fred a volley. It is by no means unlikely that the ring-bayonet 
may have been introduced into the Freuch army during the war 
in Flanders; and that it may even have been employed in the 
field by them, before it was generally adopted in our service. 
But this should by no means detract from the veteran Mackay, 
in having devised a means to prevent our soldiers from sustaining 
defeat through the same cause which had led to his overthrow. 
The authority for the above statement is a MS. journal of 
Mackay himself; cited by R. Chambers, Esq., in his history of 
Dundee’s insurrection, in Constable's Miscellany. [The au- 
thority for the previous statement was Meyrick. ‘The difference 
of date is only of a few years. ] 


-_ 


Aimospheriec Phenomena in Greenland.—The curious effects 
of the unequai refraction, produced by the varying tempera- 
ture and density of the different strata of air, constitute one of 
the most singular phenomena of Greenland. They usually 
occur on the evening or night after a clear day, and are most fre- 
quent on the approach or commencement of easterly winds. Not 
ouly does this state of the atmosphere elevate places above their 
proper position, bringing objects sunk below the horizon into 
view, but also changes and contorts their appearance. It most 
usually produces an increase in the vertical dimensions of the 
object affected, elevating the coast, and giving it a bolder and 
more precipitous outline; making the fields of ice rise lke cliffs 
of prismatic spar, whilst the higher and more irregular masses 
assume the forms of castles, obelisks, spires, or, where the pin- 
uacles are numerous, a forest of naked pines. In other places it 
displays the resemblance of an extensive city, crowded with 
pubhe edifices, whilst huge masses of rock seem suspended freely 
in the air. Sometimes ships are seen with their mgging curionsly 
distorted, an additional sail, or an inverted image of the vessel, 
many times larger than the real object, appearmg above. 
Such are a few, and but a few, of the changes produced, “as 
from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand;” but many others 
occur which it is impossible to describe, their forms altering with 
inconceivable rapidity, and one deceitful image disappearing 
only to be replaced by another.—LEdinburgh Cabinet Library. 


Moral Algebra.—W hen difficult cases occur, they are difficult 
chiefly because, while we have them under consideration, all the — 
reasons pro and con are not present to the mind at the same 
time; but sometimes one set present themselves, and at other 
times another, the first bemg out of sight. Hence the various 
purposes or inclinations that alternately prevail, and the un- 
certainty that perplexes us. To get over this, my way 13, 
to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns, 
writing over the one pro, and over the other con; then, 
during three or four days’ consideration, I put down, under 
the different heads, short hints of the different motives that 
at different times occur to me, for or against the measnre. 
When I have thus got them all together in one view, I en- 
deavour to estimate their respective weights, and where I find 
two (one on each side) that seem equal, I strike them both out. 
If I find a reason pro equal to some two reasons con, I strike 
out the three. If I judge some two reasons cor equal to some 
three reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding, I 
find at length where the balance lies; and if, after a day or two 
of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance 
occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly. 
And though the weight of reasons cannot be taken with the 
precision of algebraic quantities, yet, when each is thus con- 
sidered separately and comparatively, and the whole hes before 
me, I think I can judge better, and am less lable to inake a 
rash step; and, in fact, I have found great advantage from tins 
kind of equaticn 1 what may be called moral or prndential 


1 2 


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[Lory Bacon und his Locanrrss. The Portrait from the engraviug by Marshall, 1641, prefixed to Bacon’s ‘ Lite of Henry VII,’ Beneath the 
portrait lis arms, taken from Marshall's portrait; the Chancellor’s Mace, Antograph of King James, und other insignia of office, from origimal antho- 
rities. At the top, to the left, York House, from a drawing by Hollar, engraved in Wilkinson’s ‘ Londini Illustratay’ to the right, Old Gray's Inn 
from a printin Pennant Collection, Brit. Mus. At the left side, Gorhambury, from a drawing of the remains of the original mansion by Neale 1810, 
engraved in * Beauties of England and Wales ;’ and Highgate, with the Old Church, from a print by Chatelaine, 1749. At the bottom, St. Michael’s 
Church, St, Alban’s, from a drawing in George III.’s Collection, Brit, Mus.] 


Lid 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. tory of the greatest of modern philosophers. There, 
ye * the extent of misery and degradation which may await 

: the highest intellectual powers, if they are not steadily 
A MORE Impressive or valuable lesson, one of wider or | directed to the fulfilment of the great purposes for 
more permanent application in the conduct of life | which they,were given, receives a more vivid illus- 
through the trials and temptations of the world, it | tration than it has ever before received, than we may 
would perhaps be impossible to find, than in the his- | expect it will ever receive again: it is sufficient for one 


1841.] 


such man to have thus suffered, for one age to have 
exhibited so melancholy a spectacle. But is it only 
the great ones of the earth who are to take the lesson 
home? Is it they only who palter with their better 
judgments, who but too often make their actions but 
one continued satire on their thoughts, consciences, 
and, we might add, wishes? The answer 1s obvious. 
Of all errors or vices, this, ma lesser or greater degree, 
is probably the most common. How few of us are 
there, it may be feared, who do not, for the sake of 
worldly interests, sometimes quit the plain high road 
of strict duty and right, calculating, as doubtless Bacon 
calculated, that it would be easy to return uninjured ; 
who do not, ike him, yield but a divided allegiance, 
seeing perhaps, as he saw, the folly of the hope in 
others of serving both “ God and Mammon,” yet, like 
him, clinging not the less pertinaciously to it ourselves. 
To all then but those who are free from temptation or 
above it, the “ Local Memories” of this great and in 
many respects illustrious man will be full of matter 
for the deepest reflection: of their mterest it would be 
idle to speak, 

Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas 
Bacon, who held the office of keeper of the great seal 
for twenty -years during the reign of Elizabeth, was 
born at York House in the Strand, on the 22nd of 
January, 1561. The history of this mansion is not un- 
worthy of notice. It was originally an inn or palace 
of the bishops of Norwich, and exchanged by them 
with the archbishops of York for Suffolk House, South- 
_wark: from that time it was called York House. 
Here Bacon was born, and spent some portion of his 
boyhood ; and here, later in life, he lived in the greatest 
inagnificence: after his fall it was purchased by Buck- 
ingham, who appears to have rebuilt or greatly im- 

roved it. It was next settled by the parliament upon 
its general, Lord Fairfax, and then, curiously enough, 
it reverted, by the marriage of Fairfax’s daughter with 
the second earl of Buckingham, into the hands of the 
Vilhers family. The house, or at least the greater 
part of it, was now pulled down, and upon the site, and 
within its precincts, were built the four streets which 
still bear that nobleman’s name and title—George, 
Villiers, Duke [of], Buckingham: the “ of” gives 
name to analley. The only remains of this beautiful 
mansion are York Stairs, one of Inigo Jones’s most 
admired works, and a part of the old ceiling, still pre- 
served in the house No. 31, Strand, at the corner of 
Villiers Street. Whilst yet a boy, Bacon attracted 
the notice of the queen, who called him her young 
lord keeper, and had frequent occasion to admire his 
ready address and dexterity. She once asked him how 
old he was: ‘“ J am just two years younger than your 
majesty’s happy reign,” was the ready reply. The 
future courtier is here already visible. The future 
philosopher was no less so in the fact of his leaving 
his play-fellows to go to a vault in St. James’s Street 
to investigate into the cause of an echo he had there 
discovered. In his thirteenth year he entered Trinity 
College, Cambridge. Of the very early development 
of his mighty intellect, Dr. Rawley, afterwards his 
chaplain and biographer, records an interesting proof. 
“ Whilst he was commorant at the University, about 
sixteen years of age (as his lordship hath been pleased 
to impart unto myself), he first fell into the dislike of 
the philosophy of Aristotle; not for the worthlessness 
of the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all high 
attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being 
a ‘ philosophy (as his lordship used to say), only strong 
for disputations and contentions, but barren of the pro- 
duction of works for the life of man.’ In which mind 
he continued to his dying day.” It is said, and the 
preceding statement makes it probable, that he at this 
time formed the outline of his own system, which was 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


61 


in direct antagonism to the ancient philosophy, as we 
shall hereafter see. On leaving college he visited the 
Continent, from whence he was recalled in 1580 by 
news of the sudden death of his father. His prospects 
were sadly clouded by this event. He now desned to 
employ his great talents in hterature and_ politics. 
The ruling statesmen, the Cecils, were relatives of 
Bacon, and he naturally expected their assistance. But 
he was one of those able men whom he says, and with 
every appearance of truth, it was their especial policy 
tosuppress. All his applications, and they were nume- 
rous, and somewhat servilely humble, were disre- 
garded, and he found himself compelled to study the 
law. He accordingly entered Gray’s Inn, a place to 
which from that time to his death he was’ much at- 
tached, and with which many of his pleasantest memo- 
ries were associated. The apartments on the first floor 
of the house No. 1, on the north side of the square, are 
said to be still in the same state that they were when 
he last visited them. ‘The walls have a handsome oak 
wainscoting, and over the chimney-piece is a beauti- 
ful ornament. In the garden, which he greatly 
adorned, and where doubtless many of his happiest 
hours were spent, there were but a few years ago 
some trees planted by his own hand. The books of 
the Society abound with his autographs, written in 
connection with the business of the Inn, of which he 
was even then recognised as the most distinguished 
member. Although the hall in which Bacon so often 
sat no longer presents its former aspect, there is still 
much left of the original structure. 

We must now pass rapidly over many important 
events in Bacon’s life. He was called to the bar in 
1582, made a bencher in 1586, appointed counsel-ex- 
traordinary to the queen in 1590, and at last received 
something like a recognition from the Cecils of his 
claims upon them, im the grant of the reversion of the 
office of registrar of the Star Chamber. This, as Bacon 
says, “‘mended his prospects, but did not fill his barn,” 
for it was tweuty years before he began to receive the 
salary, which amounted to 1600/. a year. When the 
office of solicitor-general became vacant, Bacon’s early, 
warm-hearted, and noble-minded friend, the Earl of 
Essex, made the most strenuous efforts to obtain it for 
him, but the Cecils were adverse and all-powerful. 
To mitigate the disappointment, Essex gave his friend 
an estate worth 1800/., and in so doing, Bacon says, 
“the manner was worth more than the matter.” When 
Essex’s fortunes began to decline, Bacon remonstrated 
with him in a kindly manner, and even when, in spite 
of all his advice, Essex’s rashness broke out into open 
insurrection against the queen, Bacon still used all his 
influence and address to mitigate its consequences. 
But now there was a great change. He had perhaps 
by this time received a hint that he was treading upon 
dangerous ground in his efforts to save his friend, at 
all events from the present period commences that 
series of shameful acts which blacken the great philo- 
sopher’s memory. By the queen's desire he appeared 
as counsel against his friend, and as if this alone was 
not sufficient, he strove to secure a conviction by means 
perfectly unjustifiable from their unfairness and dis- 
honesty. Bacon’s benefactor was executed ; and 
then, to turn the current of popular opinion which ran 
strongly in Essex’s favour, Bacon having before so 
well proved his zeal in pressing changes affecting his 
friend's life, was now desired to direct his talents 
avainst his friend’s fame: ‘ A declaration of the 
practices and treasons attempted and committed by 
Robert, earl of Essex,’ accordingly appeared from his 

en ! 

In 1592 Bacon was returned member for Middlesex. 
Upon the accession of James in 1603, his prospects 
greatly unproved. He had used his utmost address to 


62 


impress the monarch with a favourable opinion of him, 
whilst Elizabeth was yet alive, and he was successful. 
Whatever James might be in other respects, he cer- 
tainly appreciated Bacon’s wit, learning, and genius. 
The first mark of favour was the honour of knight- 
hood. Bacon’s reasons for desirmg this honour are 
amusing: he was the only untitled person im his mess 
at Gray's Inn, and he had “found an alderman’s 
daughter, a handsome maiden, to his liking,” whom 
soon after he married. Other honours followed. He 
was appointed king’s counsel in 1604, solicitor-general 
in 1607, attorney-general in 1612, and he was now 
evidently determined to let no lack of zeal in the 
service of the “ powers that be” prevent a still further 
advancement. An aged clergyman, named Peachum, 
was apprehended for having in his possession a written 
serinon containing passages of, as it was alleged, a 
treasonable nature. It was desired to punish hm, but 
neither the facts nor the law were sufficient to meet 
the case fairly. Bacon undertook to get rid of the first 
difficulty by torturing the prisoner; of the second, by 
tampering, beforehand, with the judges. In the last 
only he succeeded, for Peachum had, as Bacon com- 
plained to the king, ‘(a dumb devil.” The poor old 
man was however tried, convicted, and sentenced to 
death; but for very shame the court felt compelled to 
restrain its desire for his execution. So the poor but 
brave old man languished the lttle remainder of his 
days in prison. The friendship of Buckmgham, the 
kine’s favourite, now helped to smooth Bacon’s way 
to the highest offices. In 1617 he was appomted the 
keeper of the great seal, and in the followmg year 
lord high chancellor. Huis ambition had now obtained 
all that it had desired. Most enviable appeared his 
lot to the eyes of the world. He now lhved at York 
House, the place of his birth, and there it was that in 
1620 he celebrated his sixtieth birth-day with the 


ereatest magnificence, and in the midst of a splendid | 


circle of friends. Ben Jonson, who was there, wrote 
some of the happiest of his panegyrical rhymes on the 
occasion, All things, he says, seemed to smile about 
the old house, “the fire, the wine, the men;”’ and the 
scene altogether impressed him so greatly that he thus 


speaks of Bacon and his state :— 


* Eneland’s High Chancellor, the destined heir, 
Tn his soft cradle, to his father’s chair, 
Whose even thread the fates spin round and full 
Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.” 


During all these events, Ins literary reputation had 
been steadily growing. His Essays were published in 
1596; ‘The Advancement of Learning,’ in 1605; ‘ The 
Wisdom of the Ancients,’ in 1610. Other works had also 
appeared, and shortly after his elevation to the chancel- 
lorship was sent forth ‘ The Organon,’ which justified 
the boasts of his youth, that it should be “ the greatest 
birth of time,’ and on which he had spent his leisure 
hours from that time upwards till its final completion 
in his old age. To return to what we may call his 
worldly history: he had been by this time raised to 
the rank of Viscount St. Alban’s, and there closes the 
course of his prosperity. 

In 1621 James found himself compelled from want 
of money to assemble a parhament for the first time 
for six years. It was a period of great dissatisfaction. 
Many grievances were complained of by the people, 
and their representatives were determined to examine 
into the matter thoroughly. They did so; and, in 
the course of thew labours, resolved to inquire 
into the state of the courts of law. A committee was 
appointed, and on the 15th of March of the very year 
which had witnessed the publication of the book that 
was destined, more than any other of his publications, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(Fepruary 19, 


to work an entire revolution in philosophy, Bacon 
was publicly charged with corruption m his high 
office. One of the cases brought forward will show 
the nature of the whole. A gentleman of the name 
of Aubrey, having a swmit depending m Chancery, 
and being almost ruined by expenses and delays, was 
advised by some hangers-on of the chancellor to make 
him a present. He obtained with great difficulty a 
hundred pounds from a usurer, which was given to 
his lordship, Aubrey being at the same time assured 
by some of the chancellor’s dependants that all would 
go right. “ A jalling decree,” however, was pronounced 
against him, and in his despair the unfortunate man 
exposed the whole. Numerous cases of a similar or 
worse description were also substantiated, until Bacon 
wrote to the peers, as they were pursuing the inquiry, 
and confessed their general truth. A still more direct 
admission was demanded and obtamed, and then a 
committee of the House waited upon the chancellor at 
York House, where he was enduring all the agonies 
of the eternal shame he saw he had brought upon his 
head: their object was, to be sure that he had really 
signed the confession. ‘* My Lords,” said the broken- 
hearted man, “it is my act, my hand, my heart. 
I beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a broken 
reed.” IIe was sentenced to pay a fine of £40,000, 
to be confined in the Tower for hfe, and rendered 
incapable of holding any office or of sittmg in 
parhament. He was, however, soon released from 
the Tower, with orders to banish himself from: the 
court, and ultimately every part of the sentence was 
remitted. 

We now follow him to Gorhambury, the magnificent 
seat of his father, the home of a considerable portion 
of his boyhood, and which was now to be the resting 
place of his old age. During all the bustle and splen- 
dour of office, he had frequently found means to escape 
to the quiet and meditation which there awaited him, 
and for the better enjoyment of such opportunities, he 
built, about half a mile from Gorhambury, a house 
which cost him ten thousand pounds. There he now 
endeavoured to alleviate the anguish which preyed 
upon his heart, by collecting around him some of the 
most distinguished of the many friends which not even 
his disgrace had alienated, and who were most proud 
of the office which he sometimes imposed upon them 
of writing to his dictation. Pobbes, a scarcely less 
distinguished name in philosophy, then a young man, 
was often employed in this way. Bacon never again 
entered into public life, but continued to the very day 
of his death to occupy himself in his literary and philo- 
sophical labours. ‘ The great apostle of experimental 
philosophy was destined to be its martyr. It had 
occurred to him that snow might be used with advan- 
tage for the purpose of preventing animal substances 
from putrifymg. On a very cold day early in the 
spring of the year 1626, he alighted from his coach 
near Highgate, in order to try the experiment. He 
went into a cottage, bought a fowl, and with his own 
hands stuffed it with snow. While thus engaged, he 
felt a sudden chill, and was soon so much indisposed 
that it was impossible for him to return to Gray’s Inn. 
The Earl of Arundel, with whom he was well ac- 
quaimted, had a house at Highgate. To that house 
Bacon was carried. The Earl was absent, but the 
servants who were in charge of the place showed great 
respect and attention to the illustrious guest. Here, 
after an illness of about a week, he expired early in 
the mornmg of Easter-day, 1626. His mind appears 
to have retained its strength and hveliness to the last. 
He did not forget the fowl which had caused his death. 
In the last letter that he ever wrote, with fingers which, as 
he said, could not steadily hold a pen, he did not omit to 
mention that the experiment of the snow had succeeded 


1841.] 


“excellently well.”* In his will he wrote, “ For my 
burial, I desire it may be in St. Michael's Church, St. 
Alban’s: there was my mother buried, and itis the parish 
eliurch of my mansion-house of Gorhambury, and it is 
the only Christian church within the walls of Old Veru- 
lan. kor my name and memory, I leave it to men’s 
charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and the next 
ages.’ He was of course buried where he desired; 
huis faithful friend and secretary, Sir Thomas Meautys, 
erecied a monument to his memory,+ and when he 
died, was‘ himself buried at the feet of the illustrious 
man he had so loved and honoured. 

According to the views of the author of the eloquent 
essay from which we have just been quoting—an essay 
on Bacon’s Life and Philosophy, which should be bound 
up with every edition of his works—the chief charac- 
teristic of that philosophy was its direct antagonism to 
all that had previously existed under the same name. 
“The ancient philosophy disdained to be useful and 
was content to be stationary. It dealt largely in 
theories of moral perfection, which were so sublime 
that they never could be more than theories.” Bacon’s, 
on the contrary, was essentially a philosophy of utility 
and progress—he thought the ‘fruit’ of more con- 
sequence than the leaves and flowers, he desired to 
multiply human enjoyments, to mitigate human suffer- 
ing, to improve man’s estate. And hence it is that he 
is justly regarded as the author of modern philosophy, 
that from the day of his death his fame has been pro- 
gressively increasing, and will doubtless coutinue so 
to do, until he is recognised in every age and country 
as one of the most illustrious benefactors of the human 
nevee. 


ABSTINENCE FROM FOOD. 


ALTHOUGH ordinarily, for the due sustenance of the 
vital powers, it is necessary that supplies of food should 
be periodically administered ; yet the power of abstain- 
ing from sources of nourishment has been sometimes 
possessed to a great extent. The attention of the 
curious has been excited from a remote period even 
to the present times, by cases in which life has been 
said to have been protracted durimg extraordinary 
long periods without the aid of food; and the annals 
of this and of other countries abound wiih such nar- 
rations. Thus we are told that one Cicely de Ridge- 
way, who was eondemned for the murder of her 
husband, in the reign of Edward III., fasted forty days. 
This, as is stated in a record preserved in the Tower, 
being attributed to miraeulous agency, she was par- 
doned. One John Seot, being involved in debt, took 
sanctuary at Holyrood, where he fasted for thirty days. 
The rumour of this reaching the king’s ears, the 
man was placed under surveillanee in Edinburgh 
Castle, and again fasted for the space of thirty-two 
days. Ile was set at liberty, and, repairing to Rome, 
exhibited his powers of abstinence to Clement VII. 
In 1603, James Roberts, a surgeon, published, “with 
the king’s privilege,” ‘A true and admirable historie 
of a mayden of Consolens, in the province of Poictiers, 
that, for the space of three years and more, hath lived, 
and yet doth [live], without receiving either meat or 
drinke, of whom his majesty in person hath had the 
View, and (by his command) his best and ehiefest 
phisitians have tryed all means to find whether this 
fast or abstinence be by deceit or no.’ 

The ‘ Philosophical Transactions,’ vol lxvii., eontain 
a full account of the case of Janet M‘Leod, who swal- 
lowed nothing but a_ little water for four years. 
Although the evidence upon whieh many cases are 
based seems satisfactory, yet, when the facts related 


*< Edinburgh Review,’ July, 1837, article Lord Bacon.’ 
+ An Engraving of the Monument is given i vol. 1., p. 130. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


63 


so entirely pass the bounds of credibility, we are justi- 
fied in rejecting them. This is seen in a remarkable 
manner 1 the case of Anne Moore, the fasting woman 
of Tutbury. This woman preteuded to have lived 
some years without food, and had been subjected to a 
watching by her sceptical neighbours, from which or- 
deal she came out triumphantly. Her credit now firmly 
established, crowds visited her froin all parts, so that she 
was enabled to place a considerable sum of money in the 
funds, resulting from the fees she charged for admission 
into her apartment. Yet, after all, this woman, when 
submitted to a second well-concerted system of watch- 
ing, instituted by persons of the first respectability, 
confessed the imposture, and admitted that her friends 
had from time to time clandestinely supplied her with 
small portions of food. There ean be no doubt that 
the great majority of these marvellous cases were also 
lmpositions. But yet there is as little doubt that per- 
sons have been known to pass an immense period 
without food, especially if they have had access to 
moisture, which seems to have a wonderful power in 
assisting the endurance of privation. Thus Ann Moore 
herself indubitably fasted nine days while under her 
last surveillance. So, too, many accounts we have of 
yersons buried by snow or other accidents confirm the 
latter part of the observation. Elzabeth Woodeock, 
to whom this calamity occurred, near Cambridge, 
supported life for eight days, by sucking portions of 
the snow by which she was surrounded. A young 
man, confined in a eoal-pit by a burst of water, re- 
mained there undiseovered for twelve days; and a 
woman, who lost her way in a eoal-pit, preserved life 
for three days by means of her own milk, and for 
fifteen other days upon water. In experiments in- 
stituted by Redi, he found that fowls deprived of all 
food, solid or fluid, died on the mnth day, while one 
to whieh he gave water lived to the twenticth day. 

Persons subject to various diseases can occasion- 
ally bear the diminution of food to a great extent, 
but it is in those who are the vietims of hypoehondria 
or insanity that this is seen in the most remarkable 
derree. 

Dr. Willan records the case of a young man who 
for sixty-one days took no other food than water to 
whieh a little orange juice was added. This person, 
as well as a hypochondriac cited by Doebel, who 
fasted forty days, died’ soon after a return to food. 
Ponteau mentions a madman who took nothing for 
forty-seven days but a pint and a half of water per 
diem, and for thirty-eight of these days remained in 
the same position. Dr. Franeis relates the case of a 
negro woman, who, believing herself the subjeet of 
Obi magic, refused all sustenance for several weeks, 
during which time she only took two cups of water 
slightly medieated with wine. 

Famine is, perhaps, the most horrible form in which 
death can make its approaches. The narrations of the 
dreadful sufferings endured from shipwrecks, sieges, 
and famines are but too familar. - A prostration of 
the vital powers is followed by wild delirium and 
restlessness, during which the most powerful instincts 
of nature have been so disregarded, that a mother 
has been known to devour her offspring. ‘Stupor and 
coma elose the terrible seene. The duration of life 
under such eireumstances varies in different indi- 
viduals, being usually short in proportion to the youth 
and robustness of frame; and thus, as Dr. Paris ob- 
serves, Dante was true to nature when, 1n picturing 
the fate of Count Ugolino and his sons, he represents 
the unhappy parent as surviving lus children for some 
days. Women, too, are thus able to support abstinence 
longer than men: most of the reported eases of long 
abstinenee have occurred in women. Terrible as is 
this description of death, it has been sometimes en- 


64 THE PENNY 
countered for the purposes of suicide. In the ‘ T'rans- 
actions of the Acad. Roy. de Med.’ cases are recorded 
of persons thus persisting, for an immense period, 
until their object was accomplished. But, perhaps, 
the most determined case on record is ‘that of Viterbi, 
a Corsican, who, condemned to die for a murder of 
which he declared himself innocent, resolved thus to 
terminate his existence. Although, during the first 
few days, he suffered the greatest torment from hunger, 
he resisted the meats, &c. which were offered him, and 
continued calmly to await and record in ajournal his 
approaching end. This was delayed, in some measure, 
by his yielding, on one or two occasions, to the tor- 
meuting thirst which assailed him (a constant symptom 
in those suffering from starvation), and drinking a 
little wine. He lingered on, possessed of his mental 
faculties until the twenty-first day, when he expired. 
The ancient physicians held the highest opmion of 
the powers of abstinence in producing longevity and 
in curing disease, an opinion in which many moderns 
have coincided: the longevity of the early Christians, 
who retired from persecution into the deserts of Arabia, 
and of the primitive saints and hermits, who lived 
with such frugality, has been often cited. On the other 
hand, many consider that however desirable during 
the existence of acute disease, abstinence too rigid in 
its observance or too long in its duration may be pro- 
ductive of much mischief when the body is in health. 
One of the strongest advocates of abstinence, or rather 
of temperance in living, speaking, as he did, with all 
the force derived from practical experience, was the 
Venetian nobleman Louis Cornaro, who lived in the 
sixteenth century. By his voluptuous course of life, 
he had brought himself to such a state that, at the age 
of forty, his physicians announced to him that without 
a thorough change in his mode of living his days would 
indeed be short. With a determination which nothing 
could shake, he at once commenced the abridgement 
of his daily food, until he had reduced it to a most in- 
slenificant quantity. In proportion as he did this, he 
found his health, strength, and spirits improve, and 
lived in the full enjoyment of every faculty to the 
advanced age ofacentury. Convinced of the immense 
benefit he had derived from his regimen, he composed 
three or four little treatises upon the subject, in which 
he warmly recommends its adoption . he writessensibly, 
contending only for the principle of abstemiousness, 
and not for the exact mode and degree which he him- 
self had employed. In his later publications he rejoices 
in the benefit his advice had conferred upon. inany. 
Not only did he find his bodily health improve, but 
also the disposition of his mind. When at the age 
of seventy-eight, urged by his friends and physicians, 


he increased his food to twelve or fourteen ounces per 


diem, but soon perceived the ill effects upon his health 
and temper, which were at once removed by recurring 
to his spare diet. ‘Writing at this period, he reprobates 
the opinion that old age is little better than death, and 
shows how actively he passes the day in the pursuit of 
the arts, and in labouring to inform his fellow-citizens 
upon various points relating to their interests. He 
congratulates himself upon the serenity of mind he 
had arrived at, which elevated hun above all grovelling 
contemplations. His cheerfulness was constant: ‘then 
how gay, pleasant; and good humoured I am,” he 
writes: and again, “at my present age of eighty- 
three, I have been able to write a very entertaining 
comedy, abounding with mnocent mirth and pleasant 
jests.” The late Mr. Abernethy was a great admirer 
of Cornaro, and, we believe, reprinted his little work. 
Dr. Miller of New York observes that an exemption 
from pestilential diseases by reason of abstemiousness 
becomes sometimes national. Thus the French and 
Spaniards in the West Indies and other warm climates 


the stomach, is of difficult and slow digestion. 


MAGAZINE. [FEBRUARY 13, 


are observed, by their abstemiousness from spirituous 
liquors and their retention of a spare diet, to escape 
daugers to which the British, more plethoric in their 
habits of body and less careful in their mode of living. 
have frequently fallen victims in great numbers. 

In persons rescued from impending starvation, the 
ereatest care is required in administering food. Many 
lives, which might have been saved, have been lost by 
rashness in this respect. All solid food must at first 
be avoided, and. especially milk, which, solidifying in 
A little 
thickened broth only should be given every few hours. 
Mr. Hunter found by experiment that animals en- - 
feebled by abstinence maintain their temperature with 
difficulty, and thus the cautious application of heat and 
gentle friction should not be neglected. 


Village Reading-Rooms.—In a little volume entitled ‘The 
Forester’s Offering,’ by Mr. Spencer Hall, the first part is devoted 
to legendary tales of ‘“‘merrie Sherwood,” and of Robi Hood 
and his followers; and, after glancing at the past, the author 
turns to the modern history of the forest, and notices, among 
other contrasts which it now presents, the libraries and mechanics’ 
institutes i the towns and villages within its boundary. He 
tells us ** of woodmen and agricultural labourers, after the wonted 
toils of the day are concluded, plodding six miles through 
the depths of the forest to the rural village of Edwinstowe, not to 
spend the night and their scanty earnings in quarrelling and 
drunkenness, as was once the fashion amongst this class, but to 
obtain useful information, and, after improving and humanizing 
each other by assembling together, to carry the results into the 
bosoms of their families.” The Instory of one of these institu- 
tions, “ founded on the very spot where our ancient kings signed 
the cross, for lack of skill to wnte their names ” (Edwinstowe), 
will not be without interest to the general reader. The first 
attempt to form a library, in 1886, failed, and the subject re- 
maiued in abeyance for a whole year. ‘* At the close of the 
summer of 1837,” says Mr. C. Thomson, a correspondent of the 
author, residing in the village, ‘it struck me that if a few per- 
sons would unite, and begin the new year by paying one penny 
per week, taking periodicals to the amount subscribed, they 
would form the nucleus of a lbrary. I got twenty names the 
first week, aud we started the first Tuesday in January, 1838, 
and have now fifty members. We have had three readings, or 
lectures, and we purpose forming a music class on our next 
meeting, and to resume our readings and lectures. We have an 
annual meeting on New Year’s Eve, when a report of the year’s 
proceedings is read, addresses are delivered, and we have also a 
tea-party, open to all persons of character, whether members cr 
not, on payment. of ninepence, the surplus money going to the 
book-fund. The periodicals taken are,—‘ Chambers's Journal,’ 
‘ Athenzeuin,’ ‘ Farmers’ Magazine,’ ‘ Loudon’s Gardeners’ Maga- 
zine,’ Mechanics’ Magazine,’ Architectural Magazine,’ ‘ Poly- 
technic Journal,’ ‘ Penny Magazine,’ ‘ Tait’s Magazine,’ ‘ Visitor,’ 
Knight’s ‘ Pictorial Shakspere,’ ‘ Pictorial History of England,’ 
and, in addition to these, the works of Cooper and Scott, bio- 
graphy, travels, elementary works on science, &c. We admit 
females as members, and likewise to the lectures; and the insti- 
tution comprises men of all trades in the neighbourhood, as well 
as farmers and agricultural labourers, many of whom reside at 
distances varying from two to six miles from the village. We 
have never applied for honorary members or donations, nor have 
any hitherto volunteered. Our rules are such as those which 
usually govern mechanics’ libraries, with, however, this differ- 
ence, that apprentices are permitted to. read or take out books, 
simply on condition of their masters or parents being answerable 
for their punctual return uninjured, and, to conciliate all parties, 
we except works on religious controversy and politics. An 
anxiety prevails amongst the members to build, by shares, a 
library and museum, with two dwelling-houses beneath, to pay 
(with what may be gained by occasionally letting the large room 
for public purposes) the interest for the mouey invested; and I 
think this will be ultimately accomplished. Formerly no place 
was more constantly or conspicuously figuring in the local police 
report than this; but now it is just the reverse, and its name is 
seldom seen there. 


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(The Host and the Cook.) 


CIAUCERS PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE HOST. 


“Tue two names which perhaps do the greatest 
honour to: the annals of English lterature are those 
of Chaucer and Shakspere. After the dramas of 
Shakspere, there 1s no production of man that dis- 
plays more various and vigorous talent than the 
‘Canterbury Tales.’ Splendour of narrative, richness 
of fancy, pathetic simplicity of incident and feeling, 
a powerful style in delineating character and man- 
ners, abd an animated vei of comic humour, each 
takes its turn in this wonderful performance, and 
each in turn appears to be that in which the author 
was most qualified to succeed.” Thus writes Godwin, 
in the preface to his Life of the poct, reviewing genc- 
rally the characteristics of the great father of English 
poetry; but elsewhere, noticing that particular quality 
which more than any other stamps Chaucer's produc- 
tions, he calls him emphatically “ the poet of character 
and manners :” itis in that hg¢ht we here propose to 
view lim. : 

To many, perhaps to a majority of our. readers, the 
‘Canterbury Tales’ are comparatively unknown; a cir- 
cunstance that, considering their extraordinary merit, 
and their pecuhar fitness for popular appreciation and 
enjoyment, is much to be lamented, and is only to be 


accounted for by the generally prevailing notion of the | 


difficulty of understanding the language in which they 
are written. Were this difficulty as great as is com- 
monly assuined, there would be what we may term 
great poctical injustice in doing so little for Chaucer 
who has done almost everything for us; who not only 
created for us a national poetry, but restored to us a 
national tongue. But the difficulty is less than it 
seems, and may be almost entirely got rid of, without 


pronunciation. A glossary at the foot uf each page to 
explain any difficult words, modern spelling whcre 
practicable, and a careful accentuation of the words in 
each line, which, in accordance with the principles 
that guided Chaucer in its composition, require to be 
differently pronounced than at present,* will enable 
any reader of ordinary intelligence to enjoy this fine 
old poet in his own admirable dress. A word or two 
on the great error which has so long existed with re- 
gard to Chaucer’s versification will not be out of place. 
Dryden, for instance, says, “It were an easy matter to 
produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame 
for want of half a foot and sometimes a whole one, 
and which no pronunciation can make otherwise.” 
The first part of this statement was evidently founded 
on entire ignorance or want of consideration of the 
state of the language when Chaucer wrote. Jor cen- 
turies the French tongue only was used in the court 
and among the higher classes of society; Chaucer, 
with a noble ambition, determined to write an English 

oem in English words, but of course would find if 
impossible to eradicate all traces of the French, sup- 
posing him to have wished to do so. Huis poems, 
therefore, abound with Gallicisms, and a great number 
of lis words require to be pronounced in accordance 
with the laws of the French rather than the English 
tongue. It must also be acknowledged that he did 
what doubtless every other great poet under his cir- 
cumstances would have done too, chose whichever pro- 
nunciation—the French or the English, both as yet in 
a very unsettled state—suited him best at the mo- 
ment. Had Dryden attended to this, he would hare 
found his great predecessor’s versification generally 
flowing and musical, often singularly so. With regard 


* These improvements are carried into effect in Mr. Cowden 


any innovation on the poct’s own words or modes of ! Clarke’s ‘ Riches of Chaucer.’ 


No. 7/0. 


Kote... 


66 


to the last part of his statement, Dryden must be held 
blameless, except for want of faith :—he saw many ex- 
quisite lines, and should therefore have had more con- 
fidence in their author than to suppose him capable of 
writing lines which “no pronunciation could make 
otherwise” than defective :—for the truth is that the 
early editions of Chaucer were gricvously corrupt ; 
and in the very passage cited by Dryden to illustrate 
Chaucer’s defects, the lines that then appeared to 
justify the more scrious part of his complaint are now 
known to be wrong. Thus Dryden read— 
‘¢ For this ye knowen as well as I;” 


which should be 


“For this ye knowen al so well as I,” &c. 


The plot of the ‘Cauterbury Tales’ may be briefly 
described. A troop of pilgrims to the shrine of 
Thomas i Becket at Canterbury, twenty-nine in 
number, are met at the Tabard, now the Talbot Inn, 
Southwark, the evening preceding the day on which 
they intend to commence their journey. These pil- 
erims are so admirably selected from the different 
classes of socicty, that we sce in the development of 
their characters “all the various manners and hu- 
mours, as we now call them,” says Dryden, speaking 
of his own time, “of the whole English nation. Not 
a single character has escaped him.” The “prologue” 
to the work describes all these personages, after which 
the Host, the subject of our present paper, is intro- 
duced as follows :— 

«© A seemly man our hosté was with all 
For to have been a marshall in a hall; 
A largé man he was with eyen steep, 
A fairer burgess is there none in Cheap: 
Bold of his speech, and wise, and well ytaught, 
And of manhood him lackéd righté nought : 
Eke thereto was he right a merry man.” 


Our readers are now acquainted with no less im- 
portant a personage than the contriver of the principal 
portion of the plot or fable of the ‘ Canterbury Tales,’ 
the chief agent in the conduct and management of the 
whole. “Great cheer” has “our host” made for the 
pilgrims, giving them strong wine, and “ victual of 
the best ;” but during the supper, at which, in accord- 
ance with the custom of the good old tunes, he pre- 
sided, he has thought of something still better, which 
he takes the first opportunity to communicate. Ac- 
cordingly, after supper, he thus addresses the pil- 
erims :— 





‘¢ Now Lordings, truély 
Ye be to me welcéme right heartily, 
For by my truth, if that I shall not he, 
T saw not this year such a company 
At once in this herberwe™* as 13 now. 
Fain would I do you mirth, and I wist how ; 
And of a mirth I am right now bethought 
T'o do you ease, and it shall cost you nought. 
Ye go to Canterbury ; God you speed, 
The blissful martyr quité+ you your meed ; 
And well I wot as ye go by the way, 
Ye shapen you to talken and to play ; 
For truély comfért ne mirth is none 
T'o riden by the way dumb as the stone; 
And therefore would I maken you dispdrt, 
As I said erst, and do you some comfort. 
And if you liketh all by one assent, 
Now for to standen at my judgément, 
Aud for to worken as I shall you say 
To-morrow, when ye riden on the way ; 
Now by my father’s soulé that is dead, 
But ye be merry, smitetht off my head : 
Hold up yonr hands withouten moré speech.” 


* Herberwe,—arbour, 1m. 
+ Quite for requite. 
+ Smiteth for smite. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[FEBRUARY 20, 


The answer of the pilgrims may be easily guessed ; 
the frank hearty good-nature—the gay jovial spirit of 
the appeal was cordially responded to; ina spirit of 
the truest wisdom, Chaucer, who makes himself one 
of the party, says— 

“ Us thought it was not worth to make it wise,’ 
so they ‘‘bad him say his verdict as him lest :”*— 


“ Lordings, quod he, now hearkeneth for the best; 
But take it not, I pray you, in disdam : 
This is the point, to speak it plat and plain, 
That each of you, to shorten with your way, 
In this viage+ shall tellen talés tway ; 
To Canterbury ward, I mean it so, 
Aud homeward he shall tellen other two, 
Of Aventures that whilom have befall. 
And which of you that beareth him best of all, 
That is to say, that telleth in this case 
Talés of best senténce and most solace, 
Shall have a supper at your aller cost, 
Here in this place, sitting by this post, 
When that ye come again from Canterbury.” 

We cannot but here observe, by the way, how this 
last line but one carries the eye and the thought back 
to the domestic architecture of the middle ages, when 
the large rooms or halls of inns, and of gentlemen’s 
mansions of a secondary and inferior class, were sup- 
ported sometimes by a pillar or “ post” in the centre, 
sometimes .by one near each end of the room. Near 
the post appears to have been the head of the table, 
the place of honour ; for the Host says the victor in the 
proposed intellectual games shall sit “here in this 
place, sitting by the post ;” and it is a characteristic evi- 
dence of the dignity and social rank of ‘ hosts” in those 
days to find Henry Bailly, our host, even in the presence 
of a knight of distinguished reputation, who forms one 
of the party, taking that seat as a matter of course. 
The proposal is now told, but the host naturally wishes 
himself to enjoy the mirth it provides, and thereiore 
adds— 

«¢. for to maken you the moré merry, 
I will myselven gladly with you ride 
Right at mine owen cost, and be your guide ; 
And who that will my judgément withsay, 
Shall pay for all we spenden by the way.” 


Both propositions are accepted by the pilgrims with 
“fall glad heart, and they prayden him also” 


‘¢__ that he wouldé be our governor, 
And of our Talés judge and réporter, 
And set a supper at a certain price, 
Aud we would ruled be at his devise 
Tn high and low.” 


In the morning the pilgrims ride forth, and then the 
Host, reminding them of their engagenient, at once 
assumes the duties of his situation :—- 


“ Tet see who now shall tellé the first tale: 
As ever may I drinken wine and ale, 
Who so is rebel to my judgément 
Shall pay for all that by the way 1s spent. 
Now draweth cut or that ye further twinue,t 
He which that hath the shortest shall begin.” 


The “cut” or lot falls on the kmght, not without a 
sort of suspicion against our politic host of a little man- 
ceuvring, to ensure a priority desirable on account of 
the rank of the party, and to compass also what perhaps 
the host thought of more importance—a favourable 
commencement of his scheme. The knight begins 
with that noble tale so well known by Dryden’s ver- 
sion, of Palamon and Arcite. Such is the plan, and 
such the mode of commencement of the ‘ Canterbury 


Tales.’ 
* Lest,-—liked, pleased. 
‘+ Viage,—journey. 
¢ Twinune,—go. 


1841.) 


With wonderful strength and consistency, the cha- 
racter of the Host is kept up throughout the work. 
His undissembled delight at the close of the knight's 
tale— 

‘ Our hosté laugh'd and swore, So mote I gon, 
This go’th aright, unbuck’led is the mail: 
Let see now who shall tell another tale ;” 


his professional considerateness, when, having named 
the Monk as the next spokesman, the drunken Miller 
interposes, and insists upon first telling his tale, the 
host kindly says— 
“ Abidé, Robin, my levé* brother, 
Some better man shal] tell us first another: 
Abidé, and let us werken thriftily;” 


but finding him deaf to reason, bids him hastily ‘ tell 
ona devil way ;” his dislike to the Reve’s “ sermoning,”’ 
as he characterizes the latter’s moral reflections on his 
own past life; his humour when he reminds the Cook 
of the many a Jack of Dover (probably a species of 
pasty) he has sold 


‘ That hath been twies hot and twies cold ;” 


his scorn of the Franklin’s desire that his son should 
learn gentillesse— 


‘¢ Straw for your gentillessé, quod our host ;” 


his indignation at injustice, and his sympathy with its 
objects, as marked by his observations on the Doctor's 
tale (the popular story of Virginius); his ludicrous 
contempt for the Pardoner, who made a business of 
the exhibition of relics; and, lastly, his peculiarly 
tender and gallant manners towards the fair, as shown 
when he addresses the Prioress 
‘¢ As curteously as it had been a maid ;” 


all combine to form a picture of as true and genuine 
4 specimen of a good old English man as it would be 
possible to find m the entire range of literature. Our 
space will only allow us to notice one or two other 
interesting matters connected with the Host. The 
first concerns a piece of his domestic history which is 
furnished to us, and from which we find that his lady 
was somewhat of ashrew. He tells us a few parti- 
culars of her at the conclusion of the Merchant's tale, 
in which a lady plays a not very creditable part, but 
wisely remembering the possibility that what he was 
saying 
‘“¢ Should reported be 
And told to her of some of this company ;” 


he desists for the present; but when the subject is 
again brought home to him, by the contrast presented 
by the character of Prudence in the tale of Mehbeeus, 
he cannot help exclaiming | 
‘“ As Tam a faithful man, 

And by the precious corpus Madrian, 

I haddé lever than a barrell of ale 

That goodé lefe my wife had heard this tale.” 


And then follow some evidences of his spouse’s dispo- 
sition, which do not place her gentleness, &c. in a very 
favourable light. ‘“ But,” as he adds, “let us pass 
away from this matter.’ An mteresting illustration 
of the times in connection with religious matters arises 
from the Host’s propensity to swearing. 
*¢ Benedicite, exclaims the parson ; 

What aleth the man so sinfully for to swear: 

Our hosté answerd, O! Jankin, be ye there? 

Now good men, quod our host, heark’neth to me, 

I smell a Lollard in the wind, quod he. 

This Lollard here will prechen us somewhat.” 


So that to abstain from ribaldry and profane oaths in 
the time of Wickliffe, were proofs of heresy; as they 
were afterwards, in the reigus of Charles 1. and II., of 
disloyalty! 


* Levé,—dear 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


67 


We have only now to remark that Chaucer has 
put into the mouth of the Host—evidently a favourite 
character of his—a portrait of hunself. At the con- 
clusion of the Prioress’s tale, the Host’s eyes fall upon 
the poet :— 

‘¢ What man art thou? quod he. 
Thou lookest as thou wouldest find a hare, 
For ever upon the ground I see thee stare. 
«Approaché near, and look up merrily. 
Now ware you, sirs, aud let this man have place. 
He in the waist is shapen as well as I: 
This were a poppet in an armé to embrace 
For any woman smal] and fair of face. 
- He seemeth elvish by his countenance, 
For unto no wight doth he dalliance.” 


The Cook must form the subject of another paper. 


The Polyps.—‘ Sepia octopodia’ (the polyp of the ancients) is 
common in the Mediterranean, This dangerous species is fur- 
uished with eight tentacles, which are generally, on the coast of 
Greece, not more than twelve to eighteen inches long, becanse 
the animals are taken before they attain any age; some, however, 
are au ell in length. These tentacles have a tendinous con- 
sistence. The largest in the Mediterranean are near Naples, but 
the Kast Indian, and those in the bay of Mexico, attain an enor- 
mous size. One of these polyps is sufficient to hold a mau firmly, 
and this accident sometimes occurs to bathers. They move 
themselves in the water uncommouly fast, grasp whatever living 
thing comes in their way, and adhere firmly to it by means of 
suckers ou their tentacles, which form a vacuum and cause 
severe pain. In the middle of the circle from which the ten- 
tacles proceed, is a hard black beak, like that of the parrot, 
which protects the mouth and can be extended beyond its in- 
vesting membranes; it is principally used in preparing sea-crabs 
for digestion. The body of the animal is like an oval bladder. 
They are brought from the water, on the coast of Greece, prin- 
cipally by means of spearing ; they are then laid on a stone, that 
all the mucus may run off. To prepare them, when fresh, for 
eating, they are generally spitted with their long tentacles bound 
together, and roasted over coals, or steamed and eaten with 
lemon juice. They taste like crabs, but are not easy of digestion 
They may be dried, and, in that state, are brought to market. 
The Grecians prize these polyps very much; and, among the 
Romans, they were considered a luxury; we therefore often see 
them pictured on the walls of their dining-rooms.— E.wiract 
Jrom Fred/er's Reise durch Griechenland, in the Foreign Quar- 
terly Review. 


Fossil Rain. —Singular as may appear the notion that the im- 
pressions of rain should be recoginsable and be recogiised on the 
surfaces uf stratified rocks, the opimicn is held by some eminent 
ceologists, on the evidence of specimens of new red-sandstone 
taken from the Storeton quarries near Liverpool. In March, 
1839, Mr. Cmmingham, to whose researches in the Storeton 
quarries we are indebted for much of our knowledge of the foot- 
prints of Cheirotheria and other autient animals, communicated 
a paper on the subject to the Geological Society of London. 
‘‘In examining some of the slabs of stone extracted at the depth 
of above 30 feet, Mr. Cunningham observed that their under sur- 
face was thickly covered with minute hemisperical projections, 
or casts in relief, of circular pits in the immediately adjacent 
layers of clay. The origin of these marks, he is of opinion, mnst 
be ascribed to showers of rain, which fall upon an argillaceous 
beach exposed by the retiring tide, and their preservation to the 
filling up of the indentations by sand. On the same slabs are 
impressions of the feet of small reptiles, which appear to have 
passed over the clay previously to the shower, since the foot- 
marks are also indented with circular pits, but to a less degree, 
aud the difference Mr. Cunningham explains by the pressure of 
the animal having rendered there portions lees easily acted 
upon.” If these impressions on the clay he really the marks of 
rain or hail (a specimen is before us, and it certainly resembles 
such impressions ou clay), perhaps the easiest way of compre- 
hending the preservation of them is to suppose dry saud drifted 
by the wind to have swept over and filled up the foot. prnits, 
rain-pits, and hollows of every kind which the soft argillaceous 
surface had received.—Penny Cyclopedia, 





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[The Market-Cart.—Gainsoorough,, 


GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. 


“THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 


Sir JosHuA REYNOLDS, whose acute judgment as a 
critic was equal to, though it could not surpass, his 
profound knowledge of and consummate skill in the 
practice of painting, has said, in his fourteenth Acade- 
mical Discourse, of the painter from whose beautiful 
composition the above wood-engraving is taken—* If 
ever this nation should produce genius sufficient to 
acquire us the honourable distinction of an English 
school, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted 
to posterity in the history of the art, among the very 
first of that rising name.” A tribute of applause so un. 
qualified from a contemporary with whom thesubject of 
his eulogy had ved for a considerable period on terms 
of rivalry, is no less honourable to the good feeling and 
sagacity of its author, than it is remarkable for its in- 
nate modesty, since at the very time he delivered his 
sentiments he had himself become the founder of that 
school, the existence of which he contemplated asa 
then future contingency In quoting the opinion of 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, we have no wish to guide the 
judgment of the spectator by the authority of a by- 
gone dictum, but cite his observation simply to show 


‘ that Gainsborough was held in high estimation by one 


in every respect, both theoretically and practically, 
competent to arrive at a sound conclusion. 

Before speaking of the Market-Cart itself, and of 
the style adopted by its painter, it will add interest to 
this paper to give a short notice of his life. Thomas 
Gainsborough, the son of a clothier, was born at Sud- 
bury in Suffolk, in the year 1727, and evincing a strong 
natural talent for drawing, particularly in sketching 
all the picturesque scencry of his native county, was 
at fourteen years of age placed under the tuition of 
Francis Hayman, with whom he remained four years. 
After practising as a portrait painter at Ipswich and 
at Bath, he came to London in 1774, and obtained ex- 
tensive employment in that capacity, and soon attained 
high reputation in landscape composition. Shortly 
before his death he was reconciled to Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, between whom and himself a coolness had for 
some tine existed, and that eminent painter was with 
hin in his last moments. Gainsborough had just said, 
“We are all going to Heaven, and Vandyke 1s of the 
company,” when he suddenly expired. He died of 
cancer in the neck, on the 2nd of August, 1788. 

The Market-Cart is as excellent a specimen as we 
could cite in illustration of the scrupulcus fidelity with 


1841.] 


which Gainsborough planned his works, and the entire 
consistency of management he displayed throughout. 
‘The scene here intended is evidently the entrance to a 
wooded road, from which the spectator may be sup- 
posed to view the picture. The figurcs and the horse 
drawing the cart approach, and are at the moment 
chosen by the artist passing a break or opening amongst 
the trees, through which the pure morning sun-lght 
streams across the whole, illuminating in its progress 
the various objects which form the centre of the com- 
position. There are two exquisitely natural country- 
cirls in the cart, which is loaded with various samples 
of market produce. The figures present the perfection 
of rustic beauty—they are plain, simple, and unaffected. 
Over the front of the cart, above the haunches of the 
horse, a shadow is thrown which has the double effect 
of making the vehicle appear to recede, whilst it adds 
to the excellent appearance of foreshortening of the 
horse. The consistency so apparent arises from the 
careful manner in which all parts of the picture are 
made to receive light from one source. The touches 
of half-tint on the dark tree on the right,—the brilhant 
dash of red on the figure stooping down to pick up 
some sticks,—the beautiful illumination of the white 
cloud above, and the pure tone of light upon the sleepy 
dog which trudges by the side of the horse, all com- 
bine to satisfy the judgment in as greata degree as 
they fascinate the eyc. It should be noted in this 
picture, that although there are all the varieties of tint 
which the glow of morning can present, from the sun- 
heht of the foreground to the grey cool hue of the 
distance, there is but one touch of pure, that 1s, posi- 
tive colour in the whole composition, the piece of red 
before alluded to. It is the introduction of this which 
so powerfully conduces to the exactness of gradation 
we observe in the work, for it immediately carries the 
eye to the source whence the light is derived, in the 
same. manner as the brightness of the tints on the 
figures, horse, and dog, rivet the attention on that 
which the painter intended as the chief attraction of his 
picture. 

Homely English landscape was that in which Gatns- 
borough chiefly dehghted, and no artist has been more 
successful in itsdelineation. The rich foliage in some, 
and the variation of Ill and dale in others,—the 
serenity of woodland scenery, and the simplicity of 
rustic employment, appear in his pictures as purcly 
natural as they are entirely national. Other painters 
have invested our landscape views with a portion of 
their own poetic imagination, but Gainsborough was 
content to take nature as he found her, only exercis- 
ing his great natural sagacity in the fitting choice of 
his subject, and transferring to canvas the result of 
his observation, a process he has performed, as in the 
Market-Cart, with masterly skill. Simplhecity and 
nature are, therefore, the qualities to be sought for in 
the works of this artist, and not loftiness of conception 
or majesty of design. 

In viewing a landscape by Gainsborough it will not 
fail to occur to the spectator that there is in the 
Management of the lights and darks a resemblance to 
works of the same class by some of the Dutch and 
Flemish painters, yet in all other respects our country- 
ian differs from them. He is in no degree an imita- 
tor, nor is he a plagiarist. He formed his own style, 
though he shows that he was guided in this respect by 
the same principles as had rendered their names 
famous. This pomt of rescmblance is chiefly obscrv- 
able in the practice of making the dark masses pre- 
dominate over the light, which inevitably has the 
effect of guiding the cye at once to the chief point of 
the picture. The nice gradations of tint im the several 


distances prevent the contrasts between the hghtest | 
and the darkest parts of the composition from becoming | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


69 


violent. They by no means militate against a power- 
ful effect, but conduce to a harmonious whole. We 
are now speaking of such works of Gainsborough as 
that under notice, for there are others, consisting prin- 
cipally of a rustic figure or group, in which the land- 
scape 1s made subservient to the principal object; in 
these the balance of hght will be usually found to 
exceed the dark. 

The mode of execution 1s another point to which the 
reader’s attention may be profitably drawn. Provided 
that the effect which his judgment satisfied him was 
correct were obtained, Gainsborough was indifferent 
to the means by which it was produced. Hence we 
see, upon a near mspection of most of his works, an 
extraordinary collection of scrapes and scratches, of the 
value of which it is difficult to believe, particularly 
when it occurs amongst the foliage ; yet, upon receding 
to a proper distance, that is, so far as that the cye will 
conveniently embrace the whole surface of the canvas, - 
we cannot help being struck with the exact similitude 
presented to the appearance of nature. It 1s manifest 
from this that one important rule to follow in viewing 
his works is this, that the spectator should retire to 
the distance indicated above, before he forms his judg- 
ment of their merit. 

We are quite aware that it may be objected that the 
leafing of trees never forms itself in this manner, and 
the observation is undoubtedly just. Yet as painting 
is Intended to imitate the effects produced by nature, 
it matters not whether it be gained by a bold or dash- 
ing touch, by a multiplicity of dots or scratches, by a 
load of colour on the surface of the canvas, or a thin 
tint through which the canvas is apparent. By each 
and every of these modes an appearance of truth in 
landscape has been attained, and by whichever of 
them, or by any other means, he can succeed in his 
object, an artist is justified in resorting to it for his 
purpose. Though every leaf upon a tree has light, 
and middle-tint, and shade, yet when viewed at a dis- 
tance those various degrees are harmoniously blended, 
and present masses of forms in which light, and midale- 
tint, and shade are also apparent. It is:this harmony, 
this blending, this massing, which the landscape-painter 
endeavours to present to view, and not the minute par- 
ticles which combine to form it. If, then, his picture, 
beheld at such a distance as that the eye of the spec- 
tator can at one view compass its whole surface, yield 
a true idea or notion of a landscape, the space of which 
could also be cmbraced at a single glance, he has suc- 
ceeded in his effort at imitation, in an artistic sense, as 
much as 1f he had painted every leaf upon each tree 
and the hght upon every blade of grass within the 
limit of his subject. 

It isa truly gratifying addition to make, when speak- 
ing of the professional celebrity of Gainsborough, that 
he was as estimable in his private character as he was 
eminent in his vocation. As on one point we com- 
menced by quoting the words of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
so on the other we can do no better than cite his valu- 
able opinion. When speaking, in a lecture delivercd 
at the Royal Academy soon after the death of Gaims- 
borough, and referring to that artist, the accomplished 
President says, “‘ While we lament him as an artist, let 
us not pass over those virtues that were an honour to 
human nature; that generous heart, whose strongest 
propensities were to relieve the genuine claims of 
poverty. If he selected, for the exercise of his pencil, 
an infant from the cottage, the tenants of the humble 
roof generally participated the benevolence of the 
painter.” Were we may observe the natural proneness 
of a good man duly to estimate the moral worth of 
another, for Reynolds was hnmself as eminent for his 
charity as he was exalted im the practice of his art. 


jen 
4 


70 THE PENNY 


THOMAS BRITTON, THE MUSICAL SMALLI- 
COAL MAN. 


PERHAPS no biographies are more generally interest- 
ing than those which illustrate the power of superior 
niinds to rise above the uncongenial condition to which 
they were born; for no feeling is more universal than 
that which such biographies most strongly appeal to—the 
desire of improving our position in life. However 
little similitude there may be between our own minds 
and circumstances and those of the individual with 
whose fortunes we are for the moment occupied, we 
still feel an almost personal sympathy with his strug- 
eles, we experience an almost personal satisiaction 
when they at last terminate in complete success. Dif- 
ficulties of this nature must have strongly beset the 
early course of Thomas Britton, the subject of our pre- 
sent paper, but unfortunately the details have not been 
recorded. Another source of interest, however, 1s opened 
in his biography—one, too, infinitely more elevating. 
Ilis was no vulgar ambition.. His calling was very 
humble, but it made him independent, and had advan- 
tages which he knew how to use and appreciate ; ac- 
cordingly, when he had obtained his books, his music, 
and the distinguished society which his tastes, habit, 
and intellect required, he kept to that calling still ; 
none of the fretfulness which a less steady mind would 
have exhibited at the discrepancy between his morning 
and evening occupations—going his daily rounds with 
the cval-sack on his back in the one, and receiving 
and entertaining a brilliant company at his own house 
at Clerkenwell in the other,—troubled him. The popu- 
lar greeting with which he was often saluted in the 
streets, “ There goes the small-coal man, who 1s a 
lover of learning, a performer in music, and a com- 
panion for a gentleman,” remained altogether true to 
the latest day of his life. Britton’s modesty would 
have disclaimed the epithet of ‘ the philosopher,’ but 
surely this was philosophy ! 

He was born at or near Higham [errers in the 
county of Northampton, about the middle of the seven- 
teenth century. From this place he removed to London 
whilst a boy, and there apprenticed himself to a dealer 
in small-coal. At the expiration of his apprenticeship, 
Hearne theantiquary says, he received a sum of money 
from his master to go and set up in his native place, or, in 
other words, that he might not carry on the same busi- 
ness in London. He went to Higham Ferrers, but the 
money was spent without any useful result; so he de- 
termined to return to the metropolis, and commence 
business there. His character does not make this state- 
ment very prebable, and in the absence of conclusive 
testimony we may be allowed to disbelieve it. One of 
tus first acquaintances in London was an eininent 
chemist, Dr. Garaniere, who, seeing the interest Brit- 
ton took in his studies, admitted him to his laboratory. 
Here he improved his opportunities so well, that he 
constructed a ‘moving laboratory’ for himself, upon 
sO ingenious a plan, that a Welsh gentleman who saw 
it took him down to his house in Wales, in order that 
he ini@ht there construct a similar instrument. Britton 
eave perfect satisfaction, and received in return a very 
handsome gratuity. He now became a dihgent col- 
lector of all sorts of curiosities, more particularly in 
old books, manuscripts, music, drawings, prints, &c. 
His favourite literary subjects were chemistry, judicial 
astrology, magic, and mystic divinity; on these and 
on music he was perpetually on the watch, as he pur- 
sued his daily rounds, to acquire the scarcest, most 
ancient, and most valuable works. Every book-stall 
that lay in his way was searchingly examined. Some 
years before his death he sold a collection of old books 
and manuscripis, the very cataloeue of which, Hearne 


MAGAZINE. {Fepruary 20, 
A very interesting evidence of the taste, skill, and 
knowledge he lavished upon this matter 1s afforded by 
one of the anecdotes of Britton. About the commence- 
ment of the last century there was a fashion among per- 
sons of rank of buying up scarce old books and manu- 
scripts, which taste, then first spread amongst the upper 
classes, has been the foundation of many rich collections, 
some of which are now national property. The Duke of 
Devonshire and the Earls of Oxford, Pembroke, Sun- 
derland, and Winchelsea in particular, were accustomed 
to ramble through London for this purpose on the 
saturday mornings, when the houses of parliament did 
not generally meet. After their walk the party met in 
Paternoster Row, at the corner of Ave Maria Lane, at 
the house of a bookseller of the name of Bateman. 
Here, precisely at twelve o’clock, Britton, who most 
probably was employed toassist them in their researches, 
was accustomed to come in his blue frock, and laying 
down his coal-sack by the door, to join the titled per- 
sonages within, and chat with them for an hour or so 
upon the subjects of their search. 

But the most important feature of his life is his con- 
nection with music, which Sir John Hawkins thought 
of so much importance, that he devotes many pages of 
his ‘ History’ of that art to an account of Britton’s life. 
Sir John, indeed, considers that Britton’s musical meet- 
ings or concerts were the first things of the kind in 
Iingland, but that 1s denied in Chalmers’s ‘ Biogra- 
phical Dictionary ; the historian also adds that he was 
the undoubted parent of some of the most celebrated 
concerts of his (Sir John’s) day ; a statement he must 
have made on his personal knowledge, and therefore to 
be relied on. Britton’s meetmgs began in 1678, and 
among his earlest supporters was Sir Roger L’Es- 
trange. The place chosen was Britton’s own house in 
Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell. Here his visitors found 
on the ground-floor a coal-shed, and a very narrow and 
almost perpendicular staircase or ladder leading toa 
long low room above. ‘This was the concert-room. 
ifere Dr. Pepusch and sometimes Handel played the 
harpsichord: Woolaston the painter, who wasa good 
performer on the flute and violin; Hughes the poet ; 
Dubourg, who played here the first solo he ever played 
in public, and numerous distinguished public perfor- 
ners were among the other members. The reputation 
of the meetings spread, till the most distinguished 
ladies of the court condescended to visit the small-coal 
inan’s house, and enjoy his excellent entertainments. 
“A lady of the first rank in this kingdom, now living,” 
says Sir John Hawkins, referring to the Duchess of 
Queensberry, ‘“‘ one of the most celebrated beauties of 
her time, may yet remember that in the pleasure which 
she manifested at hearing Mr. Britton’s concert she 
seemed to have forgot the difficulty with which she 
ascended the steps that led to it.” At first the meet- 
ings were absolutely gratuitous, but ee many 
of the parties who shared in them felt that it was 
wrong to let the whole expense fall on their host; ulti- 
mately the subscription was fixed at 10s. a year, Brit- 
ton finding the instruments; and coffee was provided 
ata penny a dish. It 1s very probable, after all, that 
this arrangement was consequent on Britton’s renting 
a more convenient room for the purpose, and which he 
obtained in the adjoining house. 

Considering all this in contrast with Britton’s busi- 
ness occupation, we can hardly wonder at the many 
strange notions which got abroad concernme him. 
“Some,” says Walpole, ‘“ thought his musical assem}ly 
only a cover for seditious meetings ; others, for magical 
purposes. Ile was taken for an atheist, a Presbyterian, 
a Jesuit.” But ultimately it seems to have been wisely 
concluded, “‘ that Britton was a plain, simple, honest 
person, who only meant to amuse himself.” ‘The cir- 


says he looked at with no small surprise and wonder. | cumstances attending Britton’s death are as strange 


1S41.] 


and romantic as they are painful. One Honeyman, a 
ventriloquist, was introduced into his company by a 
Justice Robe, who played at the concerts; this man, 
making his voice appear to come from a distance, an- 
nounced to Britton his approaching dissolution, and 
bade him prepare himself by repeating the Lord’s 
Prayer on his knees. The poor man did so, and such 
an efieet had the affair altogether on his imagination, 
that he died ina few days, a victim to the miserable 
heartlessness which so commonly characterises the prac- 
tical joker. Britton’s death occurred in September, 
1714, when he was upwards of sixty years of age. He was 
buried on the Ist of October following, in Clerkenwell 
church-yard, and his corpse was followed to the grave 
by a great concourse of people. His books, manu- 
scripts, music, and musical instruments were sold for 
the benefit of his widow—the instruments alone pro- 
duced 80/. Many articles were purchased at the sale 
by Sir Hans Sloane. In person he was short and 
thick-set, with an Sincly honest, open, Ingenuous 
countenance. Woolaston painted two portraits of him, 
one under circwnstances worthy of notice, on account 
of the instructive modesty they show Britton to have 
possessed. Having emptied his sack earlier than usual 
one morning, he felt inclined to call on his friend the 
painter above named. But the difference betwecn the 
musician and the coal-man was for others to forget, 
not him, so that all that he could do was, he thought, 
to raise his well-known musical cry near Woolaston’s 
house. He did so, and Woolaston, to whom the cry 
was strange in that neighbourhood, hearing it, unme- 
diately threw up the sash of the window in the room 
where. he was sitting, and called Britton in. It was 
then that he painted one of the best known of the many 
portraits that used to be commonly scen in the print- 
shops,—Britton with his blue frock, and the small-coal 
mieasure in his hand. Beneath these portraits were 
generally inscribed the following lines by Hughes the 
poet, who, as we have already mentioned, was a mem- 
ber of the concerts; and with these we conclude our 
account of the cclebrated small-coal man :— 


“ Though mean thy rank, yet in thy humble cell 
Did gentle peace, and arts, unpurchased, dwell. 
Well pleased, Apollo thither led his train, 

And music warbled in her sweetest strain. 
Cyllenius so, as fables tell, and Jove, 

Came willing guests to poor Philemon’s grove. 
Let useless pomp behold, and blush to find 

So low a stationu,—such a liberal mind.” 


[a 


MUD-TURTLES, AND THE MANNER OF 
HUNTING THEM. 


[From a Correspondent,]} 


One of the greatest drawbacks upon a residence in 
our American colonies, to those who have been accus- 
tomed to enjoy the out-door amusements and recrea- 
tions to be met with in most parts of Great Britain, is 
the almost entire absence of the means of sumilar en- 
joyments. I have often thought of tlis when I have 
caught myself practising some unsportsinanlike species 
of fishing, such as that of capturing bull-frogs, cat-fish, 
or suckers; or when I have taken out my gun in pur- 
suit of game that I should have been ashamed of pur- 
suing in my own country. To be surc, it takes some 
tine to overcome one’s Imported prejudices; but after 
awhile the mind, ina great measure, becomes recon- 
ciled to that which cannot be remedied. Among the 
summer amusements, 1f amusements they may be 
called, is that of hunting the mnd-turtles. There are 
several varieties of the tortoise common to this part of 
North America, and no fewer than three or four, of 
different shapes and sizes, that frequent the ponds and 
the rivers, two distinct species among which are uni- 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. ral 
versaily denominated mud-turtles, owing to their renc- 
rally being found whiere the water is tolerably still, 
whether in pond or river, and where the bottom for the 
most part 1s muddy, amongst which mud they find the 
principal part of their food. One, however, is of a 
very small kind, only from four to six inches long, and 
is therefore but scldom hunted; whereas the larger 
species sometimes measures as much as fifteen or six- 
teen inches in length, or even still more, and its bod 

is bulky and heavy in proportion ; for I have met wit 

some of them that weighed between thirty and forty 
pounds. Some persons dress them and cat them after 
the manner of the green turtle of the West Indies, and 
pronounce the meat delicious; but they are by no 
means a favourite dish among any class of the inhabi- 
tants; so httle so, indeed, that not one-fourth part of 
those that are caught are used as food by the orcs 
species; nor do I remember any animal, either wild 
or domestic, that appeared to enjoya feast of mud- 
turtle. The fact is, though the flesh 1s very rich, it has 
a muddy and unpleasant flavour, at least so say the 
great majority of the persons 1 have ever known to 
taste it. This is also the case as regards the small 
land-tortoise, or terraphin, found in various parts of 
the United States, which some of the city epicures pro- 
fess to consider a great delicacy, but which the gene- 
rality of the people do not consider fit to be dressed 
and brought to table. The species of mud-turtle 
already spoken of may be seen in great numbers about 
the margins of the North American lakes and rivers ; 
and although they may probably be found in greatcr 
numbers in the solitudes of the forests, wherever there 
are shallow lakes with muddy buttoms, they also fre- 
quent the great fresh-water lakes, such as Erie and 
Ontario, and the larger rivers therewith connectcd ; 
nor do they disappear from their original haunts when 
the country becomes peopled, which, considering that 
they are shy animals, seems a thing lkely enough to 
occur; for in the oldest settlements in the Canadas, 
the inhabitants believe them to be as numerous at the 
present time as they were fifty or sixty years ago. 
Wherever there are prostrate trees, stretching from the 
shore toa considerable distance into some river or 
lake, they appear to be the favourite resorts of the mud- 
turtles when they quit their watery element, for many 
a time have I seen six or cight (of various sizes) upon 
a single tree; but if no such trees are at hand, but 
pieces of rock or the tops of large stones should show 
themselves above the surface, then these creatures 
crawl upon the stones, where they will bask in the sun- 
shine and sleep for several hours when the day 1s warm 
and sunny. But they are easily aroused; for unless 
silence and considerable caution are observed, whule 
those in pursuit of them are still at a considerable dis- 
tance, cither their sight or their hearing is so acute, 
that they detect the approach of an intruder, and in- 
stantly plunge headlong into the water. Along the 
northern shore of Lake Erie, and at the distance of 
about twenty miles from the outlet of that Jake, or the 
head of the Niagara river, a small settlement was 
commenced in the early part of the present century, 
where a sluggish stream of water falls into the lake. 
Since in all new settlements a grist-mull 1s a necessary 
establishment, an individual more enterprising than 
the rest put upa wooden building for this purpose near 
the mouth of the small creek ; but in order to establish 
the necessary head of water that was to put the ma- 
chinery in motion, he had to throw a dam across the 
stream. Though it was not necessary to raise the 
water within the dam more than nine or ten feet, in 
accomplishing this he found that he laid wider water 
above sixty acres of the adjomimng lands, a result he 
had not calculated upon, either not understanding the 
art of levelling, or not conceiving the fall in the waters 


(2 


of the creek so trifling as they evidently proved to have 
been. The consequence was, that at the expensc of 
losing about sixty acres of land, of no very great value 
in that part of the country, he gained such an extensive 
body of water, that his mill had a supply when many 
others were often left dry. Wherever: the water 1s 
inade to overflow the land in this way, all the timber 
dies within a year or two, which of course proved the 
ease with the trees that stood in this spacious reservoir. 
In the course ofa few years the trees began to decay ; 
and from that period a strong gale never passed over 
the adjoining lake without prostrating some of these 
old monarchs of the forest. Previous to the com- 
menceincnt of this settlement, a small bay at the mouth 
of the creck, full of large stones that showed themselves 
above the waters of the lake, had long been noted as 
abounding with mud-turtle; and by the time half of 
{he trees in the mill-dam had been prostrated, so nu- 
merous had the mud-turtles become in this newly- 
formed pond, that they became the wonder of the whole 
district. 

In the broad but clear waters of the Niagara river, 
several miles above the Falls, there are two or three 
large bays, formed by the winding course of this noble 
stream, where the current becomes comparatively 
slow, so that the mud-turtles appear to meet with little 
or no difficulty in stemming it; for if the sportsman 
will take the trouble of concealing himself im the ad- 
joining bank, where he may occasionally mect with 
bushes or underwood, or he anchored off in the stream 
at some distance ina small canoe, that looks more like 
a floating log of timber than a navigable craft, he will 
have opportunities of seeing thesc creatures rowing 
themselves from one part of the bay to another, for the 
purpose of finding some suitable stone, or stump, or 
prostrate tree, upon which to crawl for the purpose of 
taking a nap for afew hours. Many a time have J, 
accompanied by a Canadian friend, repaired to some 
of these bays in the river, particularly during the 
inonths of May and June, since at that season, the 
water of the river still continuing cold from the 
recent melting of the ice in the lake from which it 
issues, they leave their favourite element as much as 
possible, in order to enjoy the more congenial tempe- 
rature of the atmosphere, which has by that period be- 
come pretty warm. We used to reach the place we 
had fixed upon for a few hours’ diversion at an early 
hour in the morning, one of us ensconcing hunself on 
the river bank, and the other dropping gently down 
the stream, and anchoring within gun-shot distance 
from where we expected cur game to make their ap- 
pearance. We never attempted to shoot them with 
anything but rifle-ball, for the largest common shot 
would have harmlessly glanced off their shells, except 
they had been fired down upon: from a moderate height, 
and in nearly a perpendicular direction. If a ball 
struck one of them and wounded it severely, it most 
likely would tumble off its perch upon its back ; and 
while it was struggling and attempting to turn itself 
over, the person in the canoe would paddle up to it and 
haul it into his little vessel. But if not mortally 
wounded, and they managed to keep the right side up- 
wards, before the canoe could reach them they would 
have dived to the bottom, and might be seen—for the 
water was very clear—paddling along at a great speed 
to some place of security. When there are several 
upon the same log, provided those who fire at them 
can keep themselves hid and pertectly quiet, two or 
three may often be shot, one after the other, before the 


remainder of thein take the alarm and plunge heavily . 


into the water. 

I have known us capture nearly ascore in a favour- 
able morning, including all sizes; and, by way of 
excuse for not bemg considered wantonly cruel, we 


Rae BENNY 


MAGAZINE. [lf EBRUARY 20, 
took them home with us, and mvariably had some of 
them dressed; but though witha strong desire to do 
so, we never relished them much. Had we been near 
a comb-manuiactory, the shells of the large ones would 
have been worth a trifle; but that not bemg the case, 
they were utterly valueless. We had another plea for 
occasionally engaging in the destruction of these crea- 
tures, namely, the unfavourable reputation the farmers 
give them byasserting that they are great destroyers of 
both ducklings and goslings; and J afterwards lived to 
prove that at least the former part of the accusation 
was correct, for I have over and over again had duck- 
lings of my own carried off by mud-turtles within sight 
of my own dwelling. 


The Planetary Systen.—This beautiful system of sun, planets, 
and comets cau have its origin in no other way than by the pur- 
pose and. command of an intelligent and powerful Being. He 
governs all things, not as the sovereign of this world, but as the 
Lord of tle Universe. He is not only God, but Lord or Gover- 
nor. We know him only by his properties and attributes—by 
the wise and admirable structure of things around us. We admire 
Him on account of his perfections—we venerate and worship Him 
on account of His government.—Sir Isaae Newton. 


The True Screntifie Inqurer into Natural Philosophy.—His 
mind should always be awake to devotional feeling; and 1m con- 
templating the variety and beauty of the external world, and 
developing its scientific’ wonders, he will always refer to that 
Infinite Wisdom through whose beneficence he is permitted to 
enjoy kuowledge. In becoming wiser, he will become better; he 
will rise at once in the scale of intellectual and moral existeuce ; 
his increased sagacity will be subservient to a more exalted 
faith; and, in proportion as the veil becomes thimner through 
which he sees the causes of things, he will admire more the 
brightness of the Divine light by which they are rendered per- 
ceptible.—Szr Humphry Davy. 


Agricutiure of Modern Greece.—It is, in two words, almost 
patriarchal. The plough differs in no respect from that de- 
scribed by Hesiod; it has not been improved for three thousand 
years. ‘The earth is furrowed to the depth of about three inches, 
and the seed is sown: go far is well. A harrow to cover the 
grain evenly and carry off the roots and weeds dug up by the 
plough, rollers, &c. is unknown. My pioneers made the pea- 
sants a small model of a harrow; they at once perceived its 
value and prepared to adopt it, but many complained that they 
had no cattle, and must still, as before, use the hand-rake. 
October is the month for sowing; the field is so full of stones 
that they generally predominate over earth. The rains of winter 
come on; the plant appears above ground, In June is the har- 
vest ; the produce generally tenfold. The corn is cut down with 
sickles, bound in small sheaves, and carried home upon horses, 
much being lost on the road among the bushes, &c. It is next 
thrown on a round and even place which is solid and sometimes 
plastered ; here it is trodden by horses, less frequently oxen, 
driven in a circle—only in a few places, as Ajio Petrc in the 
Morea, the corn is threshed ; then, however, only by very clumsy 
instruments. The grain, thus trodden out, is purified by sift- 
ing; the short broken straw, Achera, is the usual food for horse 
and cattle. The corn is ground by water-mills; more fre- 
quently, however, windmills are employed. The millstones are 
light, and impart to the flour a quantity of their sand. The ad- 
dition of water to this flour, without acid, forms a dough, which 
is left to stand during the night, and baked on the following 
day. They often make a cake, a couple of inches thick, lay it 
on the hot part under a fire, and cover it with hot ashes; some- 
times it is baked in the same manner between two plates of iron. 
It is a great pleasure to them to eat this doughy cake as hot as 
possible. The greater part of the bread is made of barley; 
white wheaten bread, but always heavy and half baked, is found 
1 the monasteries. The best white bread was formerly obtained 
in Hydra and at Poros. Rye bread is rarely met with; the 
people do not like it. Whenever horses get better food than 
usual on their journeys, it is barley; oats are only very seldom 
to be procured.—Eatract from Fiedler’s Reise durch Griechen- 
land, in the Foreign Quarterly Review. 


S41. ] 


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THE CID.—No. Iv. 


“ Of the king right well beloved 
Was Rodngo of Bivar ; 
For his mighty deeds of valor 
Through the world renowned far.” 


Wat Bucephalus was to Alexander, Babieca was to 
the Cid—a faithful servant through a long course of 
difficulty and danger, and a sharer of his perils on 
many a battle-field. Like the Grecian steed, Babieca 
fell into the hands of his master when he was but a 
youth; but had the better fortune not only to survive 
his lord, tendering him good service even after his 
death, but to end a life of warfare in peace. The word 
Babicca signifies noodle, hooby—a strange cognomen 
for a beast which is said to have been “ more like a 
rational being than a brute ;’ but why he was thus 
called is explained by the Chronicle, which says that 
Rodrigo, when a youth, asked his god-father, Don 
Peyre Pringos, for a colt; and the worthy priest took 
him out into a paddock where his brood-mares were 
feeding, in order that he might make his choice; but 
Rodrigo “ suffered the mares and their colts to pass 
out and took none of them; and last of all came forth 
a inare with a colt nght ugly and scabby, and, said he, 
‘This colt will I have.’ But, said his god-father with 
wrath, ‘ Booby (Babieca), a bad choice hast thou made ? 
‘Nay, said Rodrigo, ‘a right good horse will this be.’ 
And Babieca was he henceforth called, and he was 
afterwards a good steed and a bold, and on his back did 
my Cid win many battle-fields.’” We have already 
seen that he stood Rodrigo in good stead in the affair 
of the five Moorish kings: we next find him acting 
the part of the Samaritan’s beast, and our hero in the 
novel character of a pilgrim. 


No. o/ l. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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Very soon after his marriage, Rodrigo made a pul- 
erimage to Compostela, to the shrine of Santiago, the 
patron saint of Spain. This was no wedding-trip, in 
the modern sense of the term; for instead of his bride, 
whom he left at home in the care of his mother,* 

“ Twenty young and brave hidalgos 
With him did Rodrigo take ; 
Alms on every side he scattered 
For God’s and Our Lady’s sake.” 


On the road he saw a leper in the midst of a slough, 
crying loudly for help. The generous youth on_ the 
instant dismounted and dragged him out; then, 
having seated him on his own beast, he Jed him to an 
inn, made him there sit down to supper with hin at 
the same table, to the great wrath of the twenty hidal- 
eos, and, finally, shared with him his bed. Atimdnight 
Rodrigo was awakened by a sharp and piercing blast 
blowing on his back. He started up in great alarm, 
and felt for the leper, but found him not in the bed. 
He sprung to his feet, and called fora light. A hght 
was brought, but no leper could he find. He agai lay 
down, when presently a figure, in robes of shining 
white, approached the bed, and thus spoke :— 


“ J Saint Lazarus am, Rodrigo; 
Somewhat would I say to thee— 


* In a former article it was stated that the romances make no 
mention of the Cid’s mother; it should have been said that they 
do not mention her name. 


VOLy. 7 


I the leper am to whom 
Thou hast shown such charity. 
: Thou of God art well beloved— 
He hath granted this to thee, 


That on whatsoe’er thou enterest, 
Be it war, or what 1t may, 
Thou shall end it to thme honor, 

Aud shall prosper day by day. 


To respect and pay thee reverence, 
Moor or Christian ne’er shall fail ; 
None of all thy fves shali ever 
Over thee in fight prevail. 


Life shall bring thee no dishonor— 
Thou shalt ever conqueror be; 
Death shall find thee still victorious, 

For God's blessing rests on thee.” 


With these prophetic words the saint vanished; the 
hero fell on his knees, and continued in thanksgiving 
to God and Holy Mary till the break of day, when he 
pursued his pilgrimage. 

From the shrine-at Compostela, Rodrigo turned his 
steps to Calahorra, a town on the frontiers of Castile 
and Aragon, the possession of which was coittested 
by the kings of those realms. To avoid war, the 
monarchs agreed to settle the dispute by single combat, 
each appointing a kmght to do battle im his name. 
Martin Gonzalez was chosen by Ramiro of Aragon, 
and our hero by King Fernando. On the first mecting 
of the combatants, Martin arrogantly boasted of his 
prowess and his certainty of victory: 


© Sore, Rodrigo, must thou tremble 
Now to meet me in the fight, 
Since thy head will soon be sever'd 
For a trophy of my might. 


Never more to thine own castle 
Wilt thou turn Babieca’s rein; 
Never will thy lov'd Ximena 
See thee at her side again.” 


Rodrigo replied : 


“ Thou mayst be right stout and valiant, 
But thy boastings prove it uot; 
Truce to words—we come to combat, 

Not with tongues, but swords, I wot. 


In the hands of God Almighty 
Doth the victory abide ; 

And He will on him bestow if 
Who hath right upon his side.” 


We have here an instance, and many such will be 
found in the romances of the Cid, of the belicf preva- 
lent in the chivalrous ages, that right and might were 
im certain cases identical, that God was peculiarly the 
God of batties, and that trial by combat was the most 
efficacious mode of exercising justice. 

After the prophecy above recounted, it were needless 
to say that the boasting knight was vanquished and 
slain, and that Calahorra was annexed to the kingdom 
of Castile. 

‘“ Lond to arms the trumpets sounded, 

Beat the drums the call to war,— 

Deadly strife, and fire, and slaughter, 
Were proclaimed wide aud far. 


Ruy my Cid his warmen gathering, 
Marshall’d them right speedily ; 
Then forth came Ximena Gomez, 
And all tearfully did cry, 
‘-King of my soul! lord of my besom! stay! 
Oh, whither go’st thou? leave me not, I pray!’ 


Moved by her sad complainings, 
Lo! the Cid his pain confest ; 

Weeping sore, he claspt Ximena, 
Claspt his lov’d one to his breast. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(FeBruary 27, 


* Weep not, lady dear,’ he whuspereth ; 
‘ Till I come back, dry thine eye! 
Stedfast still on him she gazeth, 
And still bitterly doth cry, 
‘ King of my soul! lord of my bosom! stay! 
Oh, whither go’st thou? leave me not, I pray!” 


On what warlike expedition Rodrigo was bound when 
this tender parting took place is not made evident by 
the romances ; but it was probable that he was hasten- 
ing to attack the Moors, “ great hosts” of whom about 
this time overran Estremadura. He overtook them, 
put them to flight, freed the captives they had made, 
slew so many of the infidels “ that the number could 
not be counted,” and returned to Bivar laden with 
spoil and glory. 

The city of Coimbra in Portugal had for seven years 
been invested by King Fernando, who was despairing 
of overcoming the resistance of the Moors, when St. 
James the apostle, in the guise of a kmight in white 
robes and burnished armour, and mounted on a snowy 
charger, delivered the city into the hands of the Chris- 
tians. On the mosque being consecrated as a church, 
our hero was therein created a knight; for it seems by 
the Chronicle, as well as by the romances, that up to 
this time he was nothing but an esquire. The king girt 
on the sword with his own hands, and kissed his lips 
as a knightly salutation; while, to testify his great 
respect for the young hero, he refrained from striking 
the customary blow on the neck.* The queen, to do 
him honour, brought him his horse, and the Infanta 
Urraca stooped to attach the golden spurs. The king 
then called upon him to exercise his newly acquired 
per of knighting others, and he accordingly 

ubbed nine valiant esquires before the altar. 

Whilst Rodrigo was with the king’s court in the city 
of Zamora, there caine to him messengers from the 
five Moorish kings he had conquered, bringing him 
tribute. This consisted of a hundred horses, all richly 
caparisoned : 


“ Twenty were of dapple grey, 
Tweuty were as ermine white, 
Thirty were of hardy sorrel, 
Thirty were as black as night;” 


together with many rare jewels for his lady Ximena, 
and chests of silken apparel for his attendant hidalgos. 
Kneeling at Rodrigo’s fect, the messengers offered him 
these gifts in token of the allegiance of their masters 
to him their Cid or lord. 


‘¢ Out then spake Rodrigo Diaz, 
‘ Friends, I wot, ye err in this; 
I am neither lord nor master 
Where the king Fernando is. 
All ye bring to him pertatneth— 
Nought can I, his vassal, claim.’ ” 


The king, charmed with the humility of so noble 
and doughty a knight, refused to accept any portion of 
the tribute, and replied to the messengers— 

«© Say ye to your lords, albeit 
This their Cid no crown doth wear, 
To no monarch 1s he second ; 
With myself he may coinpare. 


All my realm, my wealth, my power, 
To this knight's good sword I owe ; 
To possess so brave a vassal, — 
Well it pleaseth me, I trow.” 


Rodrigo sent back the messengers laden with pre- 


* Father Berganza, in his ‘ Antiquities of Spain,’ says that 
the buffet was given with the hand upon the neck, with the 
words, “ Awake, and sleep not in affairs of chivalry!” and that 
it was also usual to say, “* Be a good and faithful soldier of 
the realm!” but that Kime Fernando spared the buffet in this 
instance, as he knew the Cid needed not such exhortation, 


1841. ] 
sents; and “from that day forth,” says the romance 


“he was called the Cid, a name elven by the Moors to 
aman of valour and high estate.” 
















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HOW IS A STEAM-BOAT PROPELLED? 


[Continued from page 56.] 


Tne motion of a ship or boat on the surface of the 
water is brought about by means differing greatly from 
the tractive forces exhibited in land travelling, owing 
to the peculiar nature of the liquid medium through 
or on which the vessel moves. If we view the pro- 
gression of a vessel by canal, by tide or current, b 

sail, by oars, or by steam, we find that however muc 


these methods differ from each other, they differ still 


more from land travelling. On a canal we see a 
heavily-laden barge drawn along with comparative 
ease by a single horse: the resistance of the water to 
the progress of the barge is so small, compared with 
the friction of a common road, and the surface of the 
water is so perfectly level, that many tons weight are 
drawn by a single horse with little exertion. In the 
case of the ebb and flow of a tide in a river, or a cur- 
rent in the open sea, the material on which the vessel 
rests is itself in motion, and bears along the vessel 
with it, at a quicker or slower rate, according to the 
weight of the vessel and the power of the tide or 
current. 

When we come to consider the action of sails, we 
find a kind of reversal of the canal movement, the 
vessel being pushed along, stead of pulled. The horse 
is exchanged for the wind, the rope is exchanged for 
sails, a single point of attachment is exchanged for an 
extensive surface, and a tractive force in front is ex- 
changed for a propelling force from behind. But still 
the two kinds of motion are brought about by some- 
What analogous means, for in each case the moving 
force is above the surface of the water, and indepen- 
Ment of it. 

When, however, the action of an oar in an open 


boat is considered, we find it to depend on wholly | known long ago. 


THER PENNY MAGAZINE. i) 


different principles; and a little reflection will show, 
that however opposite this action may appear to 
that of paddles in a steam-vessel, the explanation of 
the one will serve also for the other. The canal-boat 
and the sailing-vessel move easily, because the resist- 
ance of the water issmall; the rowing-boat and the 
steam-boat move easily, because the resistance of the 
water is great; but this apparent anomaly is explained 
away when we view the matter a little more closely. 
A rowing-boat penetrates so little into the water, that 
it may almost be said to lie on the surface. Under 
these eireumstances the oar acts asa lever, of which 
the power is the boatman’s hand, the fulcrum appears 
to be the noteh in the edge of the boat, and the weight 
the water-moved by the blade of the oar. But this 
appearance does not represent the real fact; for white 
the boatman is working the oar as a lever, it 1s more 
easy for the boat to pass on the surface of the water in 
one direction, than for the blade of the oar to pass 
through the water in the opposite direction, on account 
of the resistance to the latter motion. Both of these 
motions occur in practice; but still the former so far 
predominates, as to give a progressive movement to 
the boat; and to constitute the oar a lever of that 
variety which mechanical philosophers term the second 
kind, that is, where the weight to be moved (the boat) 
is between the power (the hand) and the fulcrum (the 
blade of the oar). 

Now we shall find that the action of a steam-boat 
paddle very much resembles that of the oar. These 
paddies are large wheels, sometimes as much as thirty 
feet in diameter, attached to the side of the vessel, and 
set into rotation. Each wheel is provided with boards 
or floats, ranged parallel, or nearly parallel, with the 
axis, and is immersed in the water to a depth greater 
or less, according to cireumstanees, but always less 
than one-half, so that the larger portion shall be above 
water. When these float-boards, in the course of their 
revolution, dip into the water, what results? They 
must pass at various angles through the water, but 
this water must be moved in order to permit the pas- 
sage: aresistance to this motion is immediately ex- 
cited; and this resistance is so powerful, that the whole 
body of the steam-ship, however vast and weighty it 
may be, is propelled in the opposite direction to that 
in which the paddle-board strives to move. It is a 
recoil, a rebound, a reaction, such as occurs, with more 
or less modification, wherever motion 1s produced. 
The gases resulting from the ignition of gunpowder 
propel the cannon-ball in one direction, but they give 
the cannon itself a recoil in the opposite direction.: 
the explosive compound in a rocket sends a train of 
sparks in one dircetion, but also sends the rocket 
itself in another. So likewise with the oar and the 
paddle-board; each succeeds in passing through the 
water, but the resistance of the water to this motion 
causes the vessel to which the oar or the board 1s at- 
tached to advance in the opposite direction. 

When, therefore, a steam-boat passenger sees the 
complicated mechanism beneath the deck, he must not 
suppose that steam acts in the same manner as wind, 
by driving the vessel onward; but must first call 
to mind the action of an oar in an open boat, and then 
understand that the sole object of the mechanism is to 
rive a revolving motion to the paddle-wheels. If this 
motion could be equally well produced by other means 
than steam, then the steam-engine might be wholly 
dispensed with. 

It ought not to excite much surprise that the steam- 
engine, when- its value as a moving-power became 
known, should be regarded as a means whereby a 
vessel might be moved. That the rotation of wheels 
dipping in the water would propel a vesscl, was 
Wilham Bourne, in 1578, wrote 

L2 


76 


thus :—“ And furthermore, you may make a boat to go 
without oars or sail, by the placing of certain wheels 
on the outside of the boat, and so turning the wheels 
by some provision, and so the wheels shall make the 
boat go.” The Marquis of Worcester afterwards 
made some indistinct allusion to the employment of 
steam-power for such a purpose; and Savary also pro- 
posed to propel a vessel by raising water into an ele- 
vated cistern through the medium of his steam-engine, 
and then causing the water to fall upon the floats of a 
wheel. About acentury ago, Jonathan Hulls published 
a description of a boat with two paddle-wheels pro- 
jecting from the stern, and two steam (or rather, atmo- 
spheric) engines in the body of the boat: by the con- 
nection of pistons, ropes, and pulleys, he explained 
how the wheels might be made to revolve. From 
that time numerous attempts were made to apply 
steam-power to this purpose ; but none succeeded till 
1788, when Mr. Miller, a Scottish gentleman, had the 
pleasure of seeing a httle steam-boat passalong Dals- 
Winton Lake, at the rate of five miles an hour: two 
boats were fastened side to side; a boiler was placed 
in one, asmall steam-engine in the other, and a paddle- 
wheel was suspended between them. [rom this time, 
the gradual rise and progress of steam-navigation, the 
labours of Fulton and Stevens in America, of Bell and 
Napier at Edinburgh, and the development and com- 
bination of such powers as are exhibited in the 
“Great Western ” and “ President” steam-ships, form 
a large subject, into which we cannot here enter. 

We have recently explained the difference between 
a high-pressure and a low-pressure steam-engine. 
When, therefore, we say that most Enghsh steam- 
vessels are propelled by the latter kind, and American 
vessels by the former, the reader will understand how 
it is that steam-boiler explosions occur so much more 
frequently in America than in England, the steam em- 

loyed being of a far higher temperature and pressure. 
herever a high-pressure engine can be conveniently 
employed, a much smaller amount of mechanism is 
required than in a condensing-engine ; and this seems 
to have been one reason why the former class has been 
employed to a considerable extent in America. 

In the usual construction of Enghsh steam-boats 
we see various parts of the mechanism through open- 
ings in the deck; but we do not see anywhere that 
which corresponds to the beam or lever of a common 
steam-engine. At one part we sce a piston-rod work- 
ing up and down in a cylinder, and at another a pair 
of cranks working the axle of the paddle-wheel, but 
no appearance of the beam which connects the one 
with the other. The truth is, that the whole affair is 
turned upside down with respect to the position of the 
beam. There isa beam, but it occupies nearly the 
lowest position in the engine; and the connecting-rods 
between the beam and the crank at one end, and the 
piston at the other, proceed wpwards. The object of 
this 1s to keep the bulk and weight of the engine as 
low as possible in the hull of the vessel. 

At stated intervals the passenger espies three or four 
opened doors, through which a fierce fire is visible: 
these are the doors of the furnace, over which is a very 
long boiler containing water. [rom this boiler a me- 
tallic pipe, frequently coated with some non-conducting 
substance,.conveys steam to a small receptacle near 
the cylinder; and, by the action of valves, this steam is 
admitted to the cylinder alternately above and below 
the piston. The vertical motion of the piston-rod then 
ensues in the manner explained in a recent paper, 
by the aid of a condensing apparatus, which is gene- 
rally placed so low as to be out of view toa person on 
deck. The short piston-rod which meets the eye of 
the passenger is not that which connects it with the 
beam ; this connection is beneath the cylinder, where a | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[FEBRUARY 27, 


beam oscillates to and fro, as in a common land-engine. 
At the remote end of this beam we see, through a sepa- 
rate opening in the deck, the mechanism which trans- 
fers the motion, by means of a crank, to the axle of 
the paddle-wheels. This axis extends all across the 
vessel; and, in many instances, projects half way above 
the deck, where a semi-cylindrical case shields it from 
Injury or interruption. At each end of this axis a 
paddle-wheel is fixed; so that when the axis rotates, 
the wheel must rotate also. 

We have described these several parts as if they 
were all single, but almost every part of the marine 
eugine, with the exception of ‘the boiler and furnace, 
is double ; thus, there are two cylinders, two cranks, 
&c.; for it is found that the rcquired object is better 
attained by this arrangement, than by one larger as- 
semblage of mechanism. 

In most of the American steam-vessels the beam of 
the engine is uppermost, and the whole of the me- 
chanism is placed on the upper part of the vessel. The 
object of this seems to be that a larger space of cabin- 
room is thus procured within the body of the vessel. 
Most persons have probably seen representations of the 
vessels plying on the Mississippi, i which nearly the 
whole of the machinery is above the level of the water. 
This gives a less elegant appearance to the exterior of 
the vessel than that presented by English steamers, 
but it renders the interior much more commodious. 

To obtain, then, an idea of the philosophy of the 
motion of a steam-boat, we have to regard three things, 
viz. : the action of a common steam-engime in producing 
a reciprocating or up and down motion in a piston- 
rod; the rotation of a large paddle-wheel, by connect- 
ing it with this piston-rod; and the motion of the 
vessel, produced by a species of reaction or recoil, 
when this revolving wheel is partly immersed in the 
water. 


Mode of preparing Wine in Modern Greece.—In each vineyard 
is an oblong receiver, six feet by nine in length, and three feet by 
six in breadth, a couple of feet deep, and lined with cement to 
make it water-proof; on one of the narrow sides the floor is in- 
clined, that the expressed juice may flow through an opening 
into another receiver, generally circular, which is a few feet 
broad, and also made water-proof in the same manner as the 
upper one. At the time of vintage the ripe bunches are cut off, 
and thrown into the upper and larger receiver, where they are 
trodden by the naked feet of men and the oldest women. The 
juice runs off into the lower cistern, whence it 1s drawn off into 
Aokx.. ‘These are ‘rough goat-skins, turned with the hairy side 
inwards, and bound tightly together at the feet; the liquor is 
poured in at the neck, which is then tightly tied. One of these 
skins being tied on each side of the pack-saddle, it is thus car- 
ried home. Being then thrown into the owner's cask, perhaps 
he possesses but one, fermentation commences. The better kind 
of wine is sometimes put into large jugs. Already in the vine- 
yard, when with the husks, fermentation has commenced, and 
some of the husks pass into the lower receiver; but when at 
home, to assist its progress, a quarter part of water is added, 
often more, and as no one knows how long the whole ought to 
ferment, they wait until no more bubbles appear, and the small 
vinegar flies are found; the cask is then closed, soon after tapped, 
and the wine gradually drawn off, the dregs remaining. In 
order that the new wine may keep, a number of green pine 
cones, or else half fluid or grated resin, is thrown in. This is 
the resinate, or krassik, a word generally omitted. When no 
resin is put to the wine, they generally add, as soon as it com- 
mences to turn sour, a considerable quantity of burnt gypsum, 
which unites with the acid, forming an acetate of lime, that is 
mixed with the wine and makes it sweeter, but causes head- 
ache and illness. The resinous wine also at first causes head- 
ache, but the action of the turpentine causes it soon to pass 
away. he new wine is very thick, it induces colic and dis- 
ordered stomach.— Extract from Iiedler's Reise durch Griechen- 
land, in the Foreign Quarterly Review. 


1841.] 


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(a, Bull-dog; b, Mastiff; c, Ban-dog.1 


DOGS, WILD AND DOMESTIC. 
[Concluded from p. 59.] 


We now enter upon a group of dogs distinguished by 
the shortness of the muzzle and the breadth of the 
head, this latter character resulting not from a corre- 
sponding development of the brain, but from the mag- 
nitude of the temporal muscles, which are attached to 
a bony ridge passing down the median line of the 
skull. The expression of the eyes is lowering and 
ferocious; the jaws are very strong, the lips pendu- 
lous ; the general form is thick-set and robust; the limbs | 
are muscular. 

This group comprehends the Bull-dog, the Mastiff, 
and their allies. In sagacity and intelligenée the dogs 
of the present section are not to be compared to the 
Newfoundland dog, the spaniel, or the shepherd’s dog ; 
they surpass all, however, in determined courage and 
prowess m combat. In early times the English mas- 
tiff was celebrated for its strength and resolution, cha- 
racteristics which did not fail to attract the attention of 
the Romans when this island formed a part of their 
widely-spread empire. Toa people in whom a par- 
tiality for scenes of bloodshed and slaughter, and for 
the sanguinary games of the amphitheatre, was a rul- 
ing passion, dogs so fitted to gratify their taste were 
peculiarly acceptable, and accordingly we find that they 
were bred and reared by officers specially appointed, 
who selected such as were distinguished for combative 


qualities, and sent them to Rome for the service of the | 
amphitheatres, where they were matched in fight with) ing is very acute. 
Dr. Calus, a naturalist of the | kennel, and never suffered to wander about the pre- 


various beasts of prey. 


time of EKhzabeth, states that three were reckoned a 
match for a bear, and four for a lon. 

Stow, in his ‘ Annals,’ gives us the account of an 
engagement between three mastiffs and a lon, which 
took place in the presence of James I. The battle 
reminds us of a recent occurrence, excepting that the 
dogs which fought with Nero and Wallace were not 
mastiffs, but half-bred bull-dogs. ‘ One of the dogs,” 
says Stow, “ bemg put into the den, was soon disabled 
by the lion, which took it by the head and neck, and 
dragged it about. Another dog was then let loose, and 
served in the same manner; but the third, being put in, 
immediately seized the lion by the lip, and held him 
for a considerable time; till, being severely torn by his 
claws, the dog was obliged to quit its hold, and the 
hon, greatly exhausted in the conflict, refused to renew 
the engagement, but, taking a sudden leap over the 
dogs, fled into the interior part of his den. Two of the 
dogs soon died of their wounds; the last survived.” 
The mastiff is by far the most sagacious of the present 
section, and, of all other dogs, makes the best guardian 
of property. It is attached to its master, but towards 
strangers is fierce and suspicious. Its bark is deep 
and sonorous. 

Though the mastiff has by no means the keen sense 
of smell which the hound possesses, it seems to be (at 
least such is our opinion, and that not hastily formed) 
either an offset from that branch, or a cognate branch 
from the same root. The mastiff, however, bas a finer 
scent than persons are generally aware of, and its hear- 
A dog of this breed, chained to his 


78 


niises, nor treated asa friend and companion, affords 
but a poor example of what the animal really 1s. Con- 
finement spoils its temper and cramps the noble quali- 
ties of its mind. We knew a dog of this kind (as 
purely bred as most in the present day), which, possess- 
Ing immense strength and indomitable courage, was 
yet one of the gentlest of animals. He suffered the 
ehildren of the house and even strange children to 
pull him about as they pleased; they might sit upon 
him, or pull his ears, and roughly too, as children will, 
and yet he never manifested anger or impatience by 
volce or action, but submitted quietly and good 
humouredly ; small dogs might snarl and snap at him, 
but he bore their petulance unmoved. This animal 
was the guardian of a manufactory, and he knew every 
person on the establishment. He would permit 
strangers to come in during the day, merely regarding 
them with an attentive gaze, but offering them no mo- 
lestation. At night, when the gates of the premises 
were closed, he seemed to assume a new character: 
he was then as fierce as he had been gentle during the 
day; he would not allow even the ordinary workmen 
to enter the yard, and several times seized men who 
attempted, on the strength of knowing him, to pass 
through, holding them till succour arrived. 

A personal friend of the writer’s, some time since, on 
a visit at a gentleman’s house in the country, was 
taking a moonlight walk through the shrubbery and 
hci OL cheat when he was startled by a noise be- 
und him; on turning his head, he perceived a large 
nastiff, which was ordinarily let loose as evening 
closed, and which had tracked him through the 
grounds, The dog with a fierce growl roughly seized 
him ; our friend wisely deemed passive obedience and 
non-resistance the most prudent, 1f not the most coura- 
geous part for him to play, and was unceremoniously 
led back through the grounds to the hall-door; here he 
was relieved by the master of the house. Subsequently 
assured that he had no cause to fear, he repeated his 
walk; he found the dog again at his side, but the animal 
Walked quietly with him, and acknowledged in the 
usual way lis words of conciliation. On these instances 
of sagacity (sagacity of a kind very diiferent from that 
- displayed by the shepherd’s dog or the setter) there 
needs no comment. 

We have said that the mastiff is allied to the 
hound. The pendulous ear, not so large in the mastiff 
as in the hound, the thick hanging lips, the broad 
inoilst nose, the brindled markings, and the general 
figure attest the affinity. The mastiff is larger and 
stronger than the largest hound, and useless for thie 
chace. This inutility for the chace, however, is no 
proof of great diversity of origin. It must be remem- 
bered that particular instincts and qualities are ac- 
quired, and that the excellences of the hound are the 
result of long-continued and judicious culture. We 
do not say that the mastiff can be converted into the 
hound, but we say that two branches from the same 
root may be so cultured as to assume, to a given 
point, diverse characteristics. 

The Thibet mastiff belongs to the present section. 
This huge dog is kept by the natives of the Thibet 
range of hills as a guardian of their fiocks and their 
villages, It is very fierce, and its bark is loud and 
terrific; the colour is black. 

Spain presents us with a fine breed of mastiffs, of 
which kind are those brought from Cuba: both Spanish 
and Cuban mastiffs are to be seen in the gardens of 
Zovlogical Society. They are less in stature than the 
Iinglish mastiff, and of a reddish-brown colour, with 
black muzzles. They make excellent watch-dogs, and 
are very courageous, attacking the bull and the bear 
with determined resolution. 

The ban-dog appears to be a term given to any 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[FEBRUARY 27, 


of the fierce animals of the present section, which 
are, in ordinary cases, kept chained or secured in 
kennels. Bewick, however, expressly-apphes it to 
a dog of which he gives an excellent figure, and 
which he states to differ from the mastiff in being 
hghter, more active and vigilant, but not so large 
and powerful: its muzzle, besides, is not so heavy, 
and it possesses in some degree the scent of the 
hound. Its hair is described as being rather rough, 
and generally of a yellowish-grey, streaked with shades 
of a black or brown colour. It is ferocious, and full of 
energy. Bewick says that this dog is seldom to beseen 
in the present day. We have, however, more than once 
had occasion to notice varieties of the mastiff so closely 
agreeing with Bewick’s figure and description as to 
convince us that he took both these from nature. 

Once of the dogs of this kind which we knew, belonged 
to aman living near Manchester. It was intelligent, 
and very much attached to its master; but very savage, 
and not to be trusted by strangers. Its attack was 
sudden and impetuous; and once to offend it, was to 
make it an unforgiving foe. On one occasion its 
master, to show its attachment to hnnself and its courage 
in defending him, having secured it properly, asked us 
to pretend to strike him: we did so: the fury and the 
struggles of the dog to get at us may be conceived, 
but can scarcely be described, and dearly should we 
have paid for our presumption had it broken its fasten- 
ings. Previously to that time we had been on friendly 
terins with the animal; ever afterwards it strove to 
attack us, and we never ventured near the house 
without an assurance that the dog was chained up. 

Mr. Bell, in his ‘ History of British Quadrupeds,’ 
does not notice this breed; perhaps because it is not 
pure: the individual to which we have alluded ap- 
peared as if between the mastiff and bull-dog, crossed 
with the drover’s dog. This, however, 1s only a suppo- 
sition. Its master regarded: it as identical with Be- 
wick’s ban-dog, and certainly nothing could be closer 
than it was to the figure he has given. 

Of all the dogs of this section, none surpass in ob- 
stinacy and ferocity the bull-dog: this fierce creature 
seems to be peculiar to our island; or rather, perhaps, 
in no other country has the breed been so carefull 
cultivated. The bull-dog is smaller than the mastiff, 
but more compactly formed; the bust is broad, the 
chest deep, the loins narrow, the tail slender and arched 
up, and, with the exception of the head and neck, the 
figure approximates to that of the greyhound, the lhmbs 
being, however, shorter and more robust. The head 
is broad and thick, the muzzle short and deep, the jaws 
strong, and the lower jaw often advances, so that the 
inferior incisor teeth overshoot the upper. The ears 
are short and semi-erect, the nostrils distended, the 
eyes scowling, and the whole expression calculated to 
inspire terror. Of the brutal use to which this dog was 
formerly, nay, recently apphed, we shall say nothing: 
all have heard of the barbarous custom of bull-baiting, 
so common in some countries, and but lately abolished ; 
and all are aware of the manner in which this dog 
attacks his enemy, and how tenaciously he maintains 
his hold. 

In all its habits and propensities, the bull-dog is 
essentially gladiatorial—it is a fighting dog, and 
nothing else: its intelligence is very limited; and 
though we have known dogs of this breed attached to 
their masters, they exhibited, even in their feelings of 
attachment, an apathy, in perfect contrast to the New- 
foundland, the watch-dog, or the spaniel, These latter 
dogs delight to accompany their master in his walks, 
and scour the fields and lanes in the exuberance of 
delight; the bull-dog skulks at its master’s heels, and 
regards with a suspicious glance everything and every- 
body that passes by; nor indeed is it safe to approach 


1S41.] Fa, PEIN Y 
the animal, for it often attacks without the slightest 
provocation. 

A cross breed between the bull-dog and the terrier 
is celebrated for spirit and determination. 

It has been usual to consider the pug-dog as a de- 
eenerate variety of the bull-dog, but we doubt the 
correctness of this theory. It has indeed somewhat the 
aspect of the bull-dog, on a miniature scale; but the 
similarity 1s more in_ superficial appearance than 
reality. The pug is a little round-headed short-nosed 
dog, with a preternatural abbreviation of the muzzle, 
aud with a tightly twisted tail. Like the Gilloros 
trout, it is a specimen of hereditary malformation. 
Not so the bull-dog, in which the bones of the skull 
and the temporal muscles are finely developed, and in 
which the muzzle and head are in perfect harmony. 

The pug-dog is snarling and ill tempered; but 
cowardly, and by no means remarkable for intelligence. 
Formerly it was in great esteem asa pet, but is now 
little valued, and not often kept. 

From this cursory review of the principal breeds of 
dogs with which we are acquainted, let us return to 
our starting-point, the question at issue as to the ori- 
einal source of the domestic dog, This, notwithstand- 
ing the opinion of many eminent naturalists, we cannot 
admit to be the wolf. Mr. Bell indeed argues in 
favour of this theory; and. Dr. Richardson, that the 
Esquimaux dogs at least are derived from that animal. 
If, however, it be proved, which it really is not, that 
the wolf is the source whence the Esquimaux dog 
has sprung, does it follow as a consequence that all 
dogs have descended from the same origin? By no 
means. If then one breed has its own distmct origin, 
every other breed may have respectively theirs also: 
one may be derived from the Canis primevis, another 
from a lost-source, and so on; and thus we may come 
to the opinion of Pallas, that the domestic dog is not 
a species at all, but a factitious being, the production 
of several distinct but closely allied animals, capable 
of breeding inter se, and of producing a fertile pro- 
eeny. 

Such, then,*1s the obscurity in which the origm of 
the dog is involved. Itis asubject which has exercised 
the attention and called forth the theories of many able 
naturalists, but it remains still in the midst of diffi- 
cultics and perplexity. 


CHAUCER’S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 


THE COOK, 


THe next character that we shall introduce to our 
reader from this “ Comedy not intended for the Stage,” 
as Chaucer’s greatest work has been happily designated, 
is the Cook; and that he may be received with due 
respect, we prefix a few notices illustrative of his social 
importance in this country from a very early period. 
These notices must be necessarily indirect, as referring 
rather to his vocation than to him. Of the Cook, histor 

says little; of the banquets set forth by his skill before 
the highest and inightiest of the land, and on the most 
interesting and eventful occasions, it, on the contrary, 
furnishes many particulars not unworthy of more detail 
than our space or our object will here admit of. The 
art of cookery in this country may be dated from the 
Norman conquest: our Saxon ancestors appear to have 
distinguished themselves for the excess rather than 
for the quality of their food; whilst the Normans, as 
William of Malmsbury expressly states, were delicate 
in the choice of meats and drinks,—seldom exceeded 
the bounds of temperance, and whilst lving less ex- 
pensively, lived also with more elegance. John of 
Salisbury mentions that he was present at a great en- 
tertainment where there were served up the choicest 


MAGAZINE. 73 


luxuries of Babylon and Constantinople, of Palestine 
and Alexandria, of Tripoh, Syria, and Phoenicia. These 
delicacies of course could only be obtained ata great 
expenditure, and must have required cooks to do 
them justice. Such, no doubt, existed, and were so 
highly esteemed that estates were granted them to be 
held by the tenure of dressing a particular dish. One 
of the most striking evidences of the magnificence of 
the feasts of the Norman court is daily before ovr 
eyes In that finest of European halls, the one at West- 
minster: that hall, we are told by Stow, was built by 
Wilham Rufus for his dining-room. As we approach 
nearer to the period of the ‘Canterbury Tales’ (written 
towards the close of the fourteenth century), we find 
the love of display, or of hospitality, or of good living, 
or perhaps of all combined, more and more apparent 
in the banquets of the court and of many of the princi- 
pal nobles of the country. At the marriage feast of 
Richard, earl of Cornwall, in 1243, thirty thousand 
dishes were served up; and upon a similar occasion, 
the marriage of Lionel, duke of Clarence, the third 
son of Edward III., thirty courses were included 
in the bill of fare. But such enjoyments, if enjoy- 
ments they can be called, were no longer confined to 
the king or his nobles, or even to the lesser gentry of 
the country, for in the seventeenth year of Iidward’s 
reign rules were established forbidding any common man 
from having dainty dishes at his table, or costly drink. 
Cookery had indeed now become a most complicated 
and artificial system, as the details we possess clearly 
prove; and the cook himself a person of sufficient 
importance to be introduced as one of the pilgrims to 
Canterbury. Here is Chaucer’s description of him :— 
“ A Cook they hadden with them for the nones,* 
To boil the chickens, and the marrow bones, 
And poudre marchant tart, and galingale.+ 
Well could he know a draught of London ale, 
He couldé roast, and seethe, and broil, and fry, 
Maken mortrewés, and well bake a pie; 
x* % ¥% * % 
For blanc-manger that made he with the best.” 


In the dishes here enumerated we have doubtless an 
epitome of the taste of the middle, perhaps also of the 
higher classes at this period, in cookery, though of the 
nature of some of them—those specified in the third 
lhne—we are ignorant. Mortrewés, we find from a 
printed MS. of the Royal Society on ‘ Ancient Cookery,’ 
consisted of pork or other meat brayed in a mortar 
(Gin the French, une morireuse, and hence the 
name), mixed with milk, eggs, spices, &c., and 
coloured very deep with saffron. As to the blanc- 
manger, for which it seems the cook was particularly 
famous, we need only say that the following recipe for 


‘rhaking it, which we have found in a curious hittle 


volume in the British Museum bearing the title of ‘A 
Proper new Booke of Cookery,’ and dated 1575, will, 
we presume, be new to the culinary artists of the pre- 
sent day :— Take a capon and cut out the braune of 
him alive, and parboyle the braune tyll the flesh come 
from the boone, and then dry him as dry as you Can, 
inafayre clothe; then take a payre of Cardes, and card 
him as small as possible; and then take a pottell of 
inilke, and a pottell of creame, and haife a pound of 
rye flower, and your carded brawen of the capon, and 
put all into a panne, and styr it altogether, and set it 
upon the fyre, and when it beginneth to boyle put 
therto halfe a pound of beaten sugar, and a saucer full 
of roose water, and so let it boyle tyll 1t be very thycke ; 
then put it into a charger till it be colde,” &c. As 
it is remarked that our Cook is a thorough Judge of 
London ale, it should seem that the metropolitan 
breweries were in particular esteem, and the suppost- 


* For the occasion. + Sweet cypress, 


80 


tion 1s borne out by tne circumstance mentioned by 
Tyrwhitt, in his note on this passage, in his edition of 
the ‘Canterbury Tales,’ that in the accounts of the feast 
given by Archbishop Warham in 1504, London ale was 
then priced 5s. a barrel more than that of Kent. 

We should fear the Cook has not much enjoyed, even 
if he has at all listened to the glowing poetry of the 
knight’s tale; but the very free stories told by the 
Miller and the Reve, which immediately follow, are 
evidently greatly to his taste; the latter, indeed, has 
scarcely finished, before he marked his approval very 
significantly— _ 

“ He clawed [or clapped] him on the back ;” 
and imimediately offers, unasked, to tell a tale of 
“ A little jape* that fell in our city’ 3” 


and in the exhilaration of his spirits, threatens Harry 


a tale of ‘an hostelere. The tale he commences for 
the present is of a dissolute apprentice, but is left in 
Chaucer’s manuscripts unfinished. We must not omit 
to notice that the host’s banter furnishes us with two 
or three particulars as to the Cook’s position, name, 
&e. : 
‘© Many a Jack of Dover hast thou:sold 

That hath been twies hot and twies cold. 

Of many a pilgrim hast thou Christé’s curse, 

For of thy parsley yet fare they the worse, 

That they have eaten in thy stubble-goose,'} 

For in thy shop go'th many a flié loose. 

Now tell on, gentle Roger, by thy name,” &c. 


4 


The pilgrims continue their journey; the tales, now 
of the broadest humour, now of the deepest pathos, 
follow in regular succession; but intellectual enjoy- 
ments alone are far from satisfactory to the Cook. He 
accordingly applies himself to a much more accus- 
tomed, and, to him, more substantial pleasure; what 
that was, the ensuing extracts will show. ‘At the con- 
clusion of the Canon Yeoman’s tale, the Host, looking 
back, sees the Cook fast asleep upon his horse: 


“Then gan our host to japé and to play ; 
And saidé, Sirs, what? Dun is in the mire. 
Is there ne man for praierie ne for hire 
That will awaken our fellow behind ? 
A thef him might full lightly rob and bind: 
See how he nappeth, see, for cockés bones, 
As he would fallen from his horse at ones : 
Is that a cook of London?” &c. 


He is awakened, looking “ full pale,” and excuses 
nimself by saying, 


‘ There is fall’n on me such heaviness, 
Not I not why,t that me were lever sleep, 
Than the best: gallon wine that is in Cheap.” 


The Host has determined that he shall now tell a tale 
by way of penance; but the Manciple offers to under- 
take that task for him, saying, 


‘¢ See how he gapeth, lo, this drunken wight, 
As though he would us swallow anon right.” 


It is but too true,—the Cook is drunk; and at last, 
vexed by the jibes of the Manciple, and his own in- 
ability to answer him in his present state, “he gan nod 
fast,” and fell from his horse. Then 


‘“‘ There was great shoving bothé to and fro, 
To lift him up, and mochel care and woe.” 


The humorous Host now reminds the Manciple that 
the Cook, another day, will be revenged for this. “I 
mene,” he says, 


* To japé,—to jest or joke. 
t A goose fed upon stubble-grounds. 
t Nor know I not why, or, nor know I why, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


{Frs. 1841, 


“He speaken will of smallé things, 
As for to pinchen at thy reckonings,* 
Lhat were not honest if it came to proof.” 


The Manciple, it must be observed, was an officer 
who had the care of purchasing victuals for an imn of 
court; and there might consequently have been trans- 
actions between the Cook and the Manciple not very 
creditable to the latter if known. He is frightened, 
at all events,— 


“TY would not wrathen him, so mote I thrive,” 
and, with admirable judgment, makes peace by 
‘* A draught of wine, yea, of a ripé grape.” 


‘We cannot resist the temptation of appending to this 
picture of a cook of the fourteenth century, Ben Jon- 
son’s description of a more consummate artist, two 


“J | centuries later :— 
Bailly, the host, who has been bantering him, with } 


‘¢ A master cook! why, he is the man of men. 
For a professor; he designs, he draws, 
He paiuts, he carves, he builds, he fortifies, 
Makes citadels of curious fowl and fish. 
Some he dry-ditches, some motes round with broths, 
Mouuts marrow-bones, cuts fifty-angled custards, 
Rears bulwark pies ; and for his outer works, 
He raiseth ramparts of immortal crust, 
And teacheth all the tactics at one dimer— 
What ranks, what files, to put his dishes in, 
The whole art military! Then he knows 
The influence of the stars upon his meats, 
And all their seasons, tempers, qualities ; 
Aud so to fit his relishes and sauces. 
He has nature in a pot “bove all the chemists 
Or bare-breech'd brethren of the rosy cross. 
He is an architect, an engineer, 
‘A soldier, a physician, a philosopher, 
‘A general mathematician.” 


1 


Honey of the Hymetius.—This spot. was, certainly, at one 
time more abundantly supplied with flowers than at present; 
these, too, so strongly scented, that hounds, on that account, fre- 
quently lost trace of the game when hunting on these regions. 
But there 1s no land like Greece, in which, for centuries, the 
works not only of meu, but of nature also, have been, as far as 
possible, destroyed. Trees and shrubs were cut down, in the 
continued wars, without any thought of the consequence; ancl 
what the axe spared the shepherds bumed, in order to raise from 
the ashes, during the first year, a few blades of grass for their 
goats... . Were not the Grecian climate so favourable, the 
greatest part of the country must long since have become a bare, 
stony, and rocky wilderness. The Hymettus now has no better 
vegetation than the mountains of Attica. The honey of the 
Laurion mountains was much prized (Erica Mediterranea grows 
there in abundance). Throughout Greece honey is more agree- 
able aud aromatic than in other lands, owing to the heat being 
moderate, for which reason the juices of the plants are in a more 
concentrated state. ‘The honey of the Hymettus no longer pos- 
sesses its superiority ; it is, im other neighbourhoods, finer and 
more aromatic, e.g. in many of the Cyclades, especially in 
Sekino. The greatest quantity of honey is obtained from the 
monastery of Syrian to the north-east of the city ; it 1s delivered 
to the local archbishop. The shepherds at other parts of the 
Hymettus have also, most probably, bee-hives; and the honey 
from Pentelicon is also reckoned among the Hymettic. The 
number of hives on these mountains yielding honey has beeu 
averaged, of late years, at five thousand. The principal food of 
these bees is Satureia capitata (Saturei), then Lentiscus, Cistus, 
Salvia, Lavandula, and other herbs. Otherwise the Hymettus 
is very bare ; on its declivities and im some of the dales are wild 
olives, with shrubs of myrtle, laurel, and oleander. Pinus 
maritima grows on its summit very imperfectly, but near the 
monastery it is pretty. Besides this there grow ou the Hymettus 
hyacinths, Amaryllis lutea, dark violet crocus, &c.— Extract 
from Fiedler's Reise durch Griechenland, in the Foreign Quar- 
terly Review 





* That is to say, to discover flaws in the reckonings. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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[Glass-blowing Furnace} 


‘Ir might contribute to dispose us to a kinder regar 4 
fur the labours of one another, if we were to consider | 
from what unpromising beginnings the most useful | 
nee of art have probably arisen. Who, when 

e first saw the sand or ashes, by a casual intenseness 
of heat, melted into a metaliine form, rugged with 
excrescences and clouded with impurities, would have 
imagined that in this shapeless lump lay concealed so 
many conveniences of life as would, in time, constitute 
a great part of the happiness of the world! ? Arete 
some such fortuitous hquefaction was mankind taught 
to procure a body, at once, in a high degree, solid and 
transparent ; which might admit the light of the sun, 
and exelude the violence of the wind; which might 
extend the sight of the philosopher to new ranges S of 
existence, and charm him, at one time, with the un- 
bounded extent of material creation, and at another 
with the endless subordination of animal life; and, 
what is of yet more importance, might supply the de- 
cays of nature, and succour old age with subsidiary 
sight. Thus was the first artificer in glass employed, 
though without his knowledge or expectation. Iie 
was facilitating and prolonging the enjoyment of 
heht, enlarging the avenues of science, and conferring 
the highest and most lasting pleasures : he was en- 
abling the student to contemplate nature, and the 
beauty to behold herself.” 

A century has nearly elapsed sinee Dr. Johuson 
wrote this forcible and beautiful paragraph; and 
nothing has occurred, in the subsequent history of ma- 
nufactures, to lessen its truth or beauty. Many 
Opaque substances are capable of assuming a form ' 
more or less vitreous or glass-hke; such as earths, 


No. 0/72. 





some acids and salis, and metallic oxides. In porce 
lain we see an example of partial vitrification ; for the 
granular texture is exceedingly fie, and a shght 
translucency is produced. Bui complete vitrification 
never results until after the fusion or melting of the 
ingredients; and we know of no means by which 
porcelain clay or any other earth may be melted in its 
simple state. But when two kids of earth are mixed 
together, or, still better, when a siliceous earth is mixed 
with certain crystalline salts, perfect fusion may be pro- 
duced, and a nearer appr oach to tr ansparent glass may 
result. Again, ceriain metallic oxides may be made 
to assume a vitreous form, and, when mixed with 
silex, to produce a glass possessing valuable proper- 
ties. We may thence regard glass, generally speaking, 

as resulting from the mixture and fusion of these three 

kinds of ingredients ; and the purpose fulfilled by each 
may be thus understood :—the siliceous substance 1s the 
vitrifiable ingredient; the salt or alkali is the flux, 

by mixture w “ith which the silex becomes fusible ; > and 
the metallic oxide, besides acting as a flix, imparts 
certain qualities whereby one kind of glass is distin- 
euishable from another. 

Such is the nature of vitrification, a process which, 
if we may judge from the researches made within the 
last thirty or forty years in Isgypt, and the discovery 
of the mode of deciphering the hieroglyphics so pro- 
fusely displayed on Ike eyptian monuments, was known 
in very remote agcs. Sir J. G. Wilkinson (‘ Manners and 
Customs of the Ancient Ee oyptians’) adduces three dis- 
tinct proofs that the art of elass-working was known in 
Egypt before the exodus of the children of Israel from 
that land, three thousand five hundred years ago. At 


Von, X.—M 


Q> THE PENNY 
Beni-Hassan and at Thebes are paintings representing, 
ina very rude form, glass-blowers at work; and from the 
hieroglyphies accompanying thei, it 1s found that they 
were executed in the reign of a monarch who occupied 
the throne at about that period. Agaim: images of 
elazed pottery were common at the period under con- 
sideration, the vitrified quality of which is of the same 
quality as glass ; and therefore the mode of fusing, and 
the proper proportions of the ingredients for making 
elass, must have been already well known. Lastly, 
Sir J. G. Wilkinson adduces the instance of a glass bead 
about three-quarters of an inch m diameter, which 
Captain Henvey found at Thebes, and which contains 
in hieroglyphic characters the name of a monareh who 
lived fitteen hundred years before Christ. 

The knowledge of the manufacture probably tra- 
velled from Egypt to Greece, and thence to Rome and 
modern Europe; and successive improvements have 
not only brought the art to a high degrce of excellence, 
but have led to its subdivision ito several kinds, such 
as flint-glass, plate-glass, window-glass, and green or 
bottle-glass making. a 

Contining ourselves to flint-glass, we now invite 
the reader’s attention to the process of manufacture. 
The flint-glass works of Mr. Pellatt, which we have 
been permitted to visit for our present purpose, are 
situated in Holland Street, Blackfriars, and comprise 
the various buildings necessary for the production of 
flint-glass ware ; such asa horse-mill, for grinding old 
melting-pots, as one of the ingredients in the manu- 
facture of new ones; a room wherein ground or pow- 
dered clay is mixed and kneaded into a working state ; 
another in which the pots are made ; others for drying 
the manufactured pots; rooms for storing, washing, 
and preparing the alkaline salts; others for washing 
and drying the siliecous sand ; a mixing-room, wherein 
the sand, alkali, and oxides are combined ; two coking- 
ovens, or furnaces for converting coal into coke; the 
glass-house, with its working-furnaces, pot-furnace, 
and annealing-oven ; glass-cutting and glass-engraving 
shops; and others for subsidiary purposes: the whole 
occupying an area of about three-fourths of an acre. 
The routine of operations in these departinents will 
come successively under our notice. 

In describing the vitrifiable qualities of various 
materials, we used the most general terms, in order to 
include all kinds of glass within our remarks; but it 
is necessary now to state the restrictions which are re- 
quired in practice. Although most carthy substances 
may, by peculiar treatment, be wholly or partially 
vitrified, yet szlex, or flint, 1s that which possesses the 
most valuable qualities. Again, although many alka- 
line and saline substances might be used as fluxing 
materials, yet soda and potash, in one or other of their 
forms, are those generally employed by the glass-maker. 
Lastly, although many metallic oxides might be simi- 
larly vitrified, yet oxide of lead is that which is most 
frequently employed. This being premised, we may 
state that the materials for flint-glass are nearly as 
follow :—One part of alkali (carbonate and nitrate of 
potash), two parts of oxide of lead, three parts of sea- 
sand, and a minute portion of the oxides of manganese 
and arsenic. 

The term ‘flint-glass’ is given because flints were 
formerly employed as the siliceous material: they 
were made red-hot, and plunged into cold water, 
whereby they were so fractured and disintegrated as to 
be easily ground to powder. Sea-sand is, however, 
now found to answer the same purpose, at a less expen- 
diture of time and trouble. The sand employed is ob- 
tained from the sea-shore at Lynn in Norfolk, and at 
Alum Bay, Isle of Wight; the qualities brought from 
hence being superior to most others. A few years ago, 
a portion of sand brought from Australia as ballast 


-) ar é 


MAGAZINE. [Frr. 1841. 
was found to answer the purpose of Iinglish sand, and 
was indeed expected to be superior; we believe, how- 
ever, that the qnalities of the three kinds are now 
ranked nearly on a level. 

The sand, being impure when brought to the works, 
is conveyed to an upper room, and thrown into a trough 
containing water. This trough is capable of being 
closed, and is fixed on horizontal pivots, whereby a 
rocking motion can be given; and the sand, being 


thus driven from side to side in the water, and stirred 


with a spade, loses some of its impurities. The dirty 
water is emptied into a channel in the floor of the 
room; and the same process is repeated seven or 
eight times, until the sand becomes perfectly elcan. 
It is then placed in a trough over an oven, through 
holes in which it passes, when partially dried, into the 
oven beneath, and, when dried, leaves the oven in the 
state of fine, glittering, white particles. 

With regard to the alkali employed, there are rea- 
sons why potash, in the form of carbonate, is prefera- 
ble to other kinds; the carbonic acid being, however, 
dissipated during the melting, and leaving the potash 
in a pure state. The carbonate of potash is obtained 
from Canada and the United States, and requires a 
process of washing previous to use. It is conveyed to 
an underground apartment, in which are washing- 
bins, settling-pans, evaporating-pans, and other neces- 
sary apparatus. The state to which the carbonate is 
bronght by the process of cleansing, is that of fine 
white grains, differing but little, to an unpractised eye, 
from the prepared sand. | 

Oxide of lead, both in the form of ltharge and of 
minium, or red-lead, is employed in flint-glass for the 
following reasons :—it is a powerful flux, enabling the 
sand to melt more readily, and it gives the glass 
ereater density, greater power of refracting light, 
ereater lustre, greater resistance to fracture from 
sudden heat and cold, and greater duetility during the 
working. If there be too much of this material, the 
glass becomes neonveniently soft. 

The other ingredients in flint-glass, which are very 
small in quantity, are used as purifying and bleaching 
agents; and, as well as the oxide of lead, require but 
little preparation on the part of the glass-maker. 

Let us assume that these several ingredients are ina 
sufficiently prepared state. They are taken to the ‘ mix- 
ing-room, which contains several long bins or boxes; 
and after being weighed in proper proportions, the in- 
eredients are sifted, mixed in the bins, and brought to 
a State fit for the melting-furnace. Here we must leave 
thein for the present, remembering that the state in 
which the ingredicnts are put into the melting-pots 1s 
that of a salmon-coloured powder, the red tinge being 
given by the oxide of lead. 

The melting-pots, and their mode of preparation, 
now deserve our notice. The reader will not be sur- 

rised to hear that the manufacture, drying, and bak- 
ing of the glass-pots are important processes ; since 
one pot, when filled, contains sixteen hundredweight 
of glass, the preservation and proper melting of which 
are essential to the subsequent labours of the glass- 
worker. 

There is a particular kind of clay, brought from Stour- 
bridge in Worcestershire, which seems better calculated 
than any other asa material for the glass-pots, and 
which is dug from the soil in a hard state, ground fine, 
barrelled, and sent up to London. The broken or worn- 
out pots are likewise found to be useful when employed 
in combination with new clay; four parts of new clay 
being mixed with one part of old pots, ground by a 
horse-mill, and sifted to fine powder. The mixed ingre- 
dients then undergo a process so primitive, that one 
almost regrets to see it in this age of machinery. The 
powdered clay, being mixed with warm water in large 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


square leaden troughs, is trampled on with naked feet 
until thoroughly kneadcd into a stiff adhesive clay. The 
kneading of the dough for sea-biscuits at Deptford, 
which was formerly done by men’s fists and elbows, is 
now much better effected by machinery ; and we might 
suppose that a similar result would follow the apph- 
cation of machinery in the present case; but it appears 
that a machine, formerly employed at these works for 
this purpose, failed to produce the required effect, and 
the old method was again resumed. 

The services of the ‘pot-maker’ are now called for. 
The melting-pots for flint-glass are not moulded, but 
are built up piecemeal, each piece being rolled into a 
cylindrical form, and laid in a curve on preceding 
rolls. If we could imagine a boy’s grotto to be built 
of these clay rolls instcad of oyster-shells, we might 
form an idea of the potter’s operations, with this im- 
portant addition, that every roll of clayis so thoroughly 
pressed and squeezed as to expel all the air from be- 
tween the rolls, and to form a uniform and thick wall 
or crust. The manipulations of the potter are aided by 
a few simple tools; and, keeping four in progress at 
once, working a little on each in turn, he completes 
the four in six days. Few persons, probably, on hear- 
ing of a ‘melting-pot,’ would imagine the weight and 
bulk of those here alluded to. The weight of clay 
required for one pot is nearly one thousand pounds ; 
and the dimensions of the fimished vessel are about 


three feet in height, two and three-quarters in diameter, 


and from two to three inches thick. The shape 1s nearly 
cylindrical, with a hemispherical top and a flat base, 
and there is only one opening, about cight or ten inches 
in diameter, at the upper part of one side. 





The longer these pots can be left before they are 
used, the better ; consequently it 1s important to keep 
a considerable number on hand. We were struck with 
the singular appearance of a large dark room, the floor 
of which was studded with nearly a hundred of these 
dome-shaped vessels. A little stretch of imagination 
would have transformed the assemblage into Cassim 
Baba’s oil-jars, and have peopled then: with forty (or 
twice forty) thieves; but the damp odour of clay kept 
the thoughts from wandering from Blackfriars to Bag- 
dad. The pots are left in this room for-several months. 
The evaporation from the damp clay is considerable, and 
is allowed to go on very gradually, in order to ensure 
an equable state throughout the thickness of the pot. 
When the drying is effected, the pots are taken as 
wanted to an adjoining room, kept ata higher tem- 
mth and then, a door being opened into the glass- 
1ouse (of which more presently), each pot is lowered 
by a crane, and placed in the ‘ pot-arch.’ This arch is 
a sinall furnace capable of containing two or three 
pots; and the pots are there exposed for five days to 
a very litense heat. 

The ingredients are prepared; the melting-pots are 


(a 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


83 


made and hardened; and it is now time to visit the 
‘ glass-house ’ itself—the part of the building to which 
all the others are subsidiary, and to which the eye of 
an artist might be directed for some striking effects of 
light and shade. Imagine a large room, fifty or sixty 
feet square, with an earthen floor, bounded by brick 
walls, lofty and dimly lighted, and covered by an 
iron roof, the middle of which is probably fifty fect 
from the ground. This is the shell or crust, the 
kernel of which is the melting-furnace. In the middle 
of the room we sce four pillars, twelve or fourteen feet 
high, supporting the four corners of a great chimney, 
which passes through the middle of the roof, and rises 
to a height of about eighty feet. This chimney is 
quadrangular, tapering upwards; and a clear passage 
is left beneath it between the pillars. Built on the 
level of the ground, at two opposite sides of this chim- 
ney, are two furnaces, the smoke from each of which 
ascends by a bent flue into the great chimney. Such 
are the objects which first meet the eye through the 
dusky gloom of the place. 

As the two furnaces closely resemble each other, we 
will, for convenience of description, speak as if there 
were but one. ‘The furnace is a circular dome, about 
fifteen feet in diameter and the same in height; and 
its internal construction may be understood by sup- 
posing two basins, one shallow and the other deep, to 
be inverted and placed one on another, the shallower 













i 
| 


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Je 






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| Ha 
Ha 
Hitt HN 
iat! 
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a, the puts; 6, flues.) 


[Section of Melting-Pan. 


one underneath. The inner basin encloses a spacc 
containing the pots, the fuel, and the flame and smoke 
arising therefrom; this flame and smoke reverberate 
from the vaulted roof, and pass up through flues lito 
the cavity between the two basins, whence the sinoke 
passes, by a bent pipe, into the chimney. All 1s con- 
structed of brick, and lined with clay capable of resist- 
ing the fiercest heat. . & 

The fuel for this furnace js laid on an 1ron grating In 
the middle, in connection with which, and beneath the 
e'lass-house, is a series of passages running 1 various 
directions to the extent of some hundred feet, and in- 
tended to furnish the channels for a powerful draught, 
which, passing upwards through the grating, keeps the 
fuel in an intensely ignited state. The roof of the 
inner dome of the furnace is about five or six feet froin 
the ground; and the flaine and heated air, rever- 
berating from this roof, maintain a very high tempera- 
ture within the internal area. 

Formerly, the fucl employed used to be coal, but it 
isnow found that im London many advantages result 
from employing oven-burned coke instead. In a dis- 
tinct part of the building two Eee 0 been 

» 


84 THE PENNY 
erected, for the purpose of preparing the coke on the pre- 
mises. Into these ovens, which are nearly circular and 
very shallow, is put small coal, such as is brought from 
the pit-mouths in Northumberland; and after twenty- 
four hours’ burning or roasting, during which the in- 
flammable matters are driven off, the fuel is drawn out 
iu the form of coke. Twenty-one tons of coal per week 
are, on an average, required for the glass-house ; and 
this is converted into about fifteen tons of coke in the 
coking-oven, before being conveyed to the melting- 
furnace. 


mn ye 


Hl 





LGrround-Plan of Melting-Furnace. a, flues; 0b, seague or ground on 
which the pots, ¢, are placed; d, grate-burs.] 

The melting-pots being of large dimensions, open- 
ings, or arches, of sufficient size are left in the sides of 
the furnace, to allow of the pots being mtroduced; 
after which the openings are bricked up. A pot, when 
once introduced into the furnace, is seldom removed 
until worn out; but as the average duration of a pot 
is not more than two or three months, these removals 
frequently occur. The withdrawal of an old pot and 
replacing it with a new one is called ‘ setting a_ pot,’ 
and constitutes the most arduous and indeed fearful 
operation of the glass-house, and the one to which the 
men are wont to refer as proof of their power of heat- 
endurance. Jt frequently happens that the old pot 
breaks, and the pieces, becoming partially vitrified, 
adhere to the bottom of the furnace: in such case the 
men stand in front of the fiercely heated openings, and 
dig up and remove the broken fragments of pot by 
means of crow-bars and other instruments. While the 
removal of the old pot is in progress, the new one is 
kept at a white heat in the ‘ pot-arch, a pot-furnace 
within a few yards of the melting-furnace ; and when 
the transference is to take place, the door of the arch is 
opened, a low iron carnage is wheeled in and tilted so 
as to hft up and draw out the pot, and the latter, ata 
elowing white heat, is wheeled to the furnace, and there 
deposited in its proper place. When the adjustment 
is properly made, the opening is hmmediately bricked 
up. The temperature to which the men are exposed 
in this operation (which sometimes takes several hours) 
may be imperfectly imagined when we remember that 
the other pots in the furnace may at that time be at a 
perfectly white heat. 

In some kinds of glass manufacture, open meltine- 
pots are used, whereby the fusion of the ingredients is 
effected in a shorter time. But flint-glass is hable to 
be injured by the carbonaceous and gaseous matters 
arising from the fuel, and therefore the pots are covered 
in. [cach pot is so placed in the furnace, that the 
mouth shall be directed outwards; and this projecting 
mouth is so bricked and clayed round as to prevent the 


MAGAZINE. 


(Fes. 1841. 


escape of flame. By this arrangement, every part of 
the pot, except the mouth, 1s surrounded by a fierce 
heat; and although, ou looking through this orifice 
from without, a fiery whiteness is seen, yet this results 
from the interior of the pot, and not from the interior 
of the furnace itself, the latter bemg entirely shielded 
from view. 

Such is the melting-furnace, provided in this way 
with seven pots; and we now follow the routine ol 
processes connected with the melting. 

The management of a glass-house, in respect to 
time, 18 somewhat curious and worthy of note. The 
filling and emptying of a melting-pot are in general so 
managed as to occupy one week. On Friday morning, 
the necessary arrangements for filling commence. The 
mixed ingredients are brought to the furnace in 
wooden vessels, and then thrown into the pots by 
ineans of shovels, through the openings before alluded 
to. Aboutfour hundredweight is put to each pot; the 
mouth is closed; the fire kept burning strongly ; and 
the ingredients allowed to sink and melt. Three or 
four hours afterwards, the hole is again opened, 
another equal supply thrown in, and another equal 
space of time allowed to elapse. This is repeated four ~ 
times, until each pot contain its full quota of about 
sixteen hundredweight. When all the pots are 
filled, every orifice is stopped up, the fuel is urged 
to yivid combustion by increased draught from be- 
neath, and the ingredients remain throughout Satur- 
day and Sunday exposed to an intense heat. At stated 
intervals a small opening is made, and a little of the 
‘metal’ (as the glass is technically termed) 1s with- 
drawn to test its progress. In some glass-works, a 
considerable quantity of scum rises to the surface of 
the glass while melting; but there is not much in a 
flint-glass furnace, on account of the purity of the ma- 
terials, and this little is removed by’skimmmg. We 
may here obserye, that without any wish on the part 
of the proprietor to deviate from usual customs, a 
glass-house furnace must necessarily be kept heated 
on Sundays as well as other days; but the week is so 
apportioned as to leave as little as pagsille to be done 
on Sundays; nothing, indeed, but to watch the furnace: 
each man haying three Sundays ont of four at liberty. 

On Monday morning all ‘is ready for the glass 
workers; the pots are full of ‘metal,’ looking hke 
liquid fire, and a large party of workmen assemble 
round the furnace. The mouths are opened, so as to 
afford access to the melted glass; and smaller holes 
are opened also, at which the working-tools are heated. 

Fhnt-glass ware, such as drinking-glasses, cruets, 
decanters, lustres, lamp-shades, phials, &c., are made 
partly by blowing, partly by manual working, and, In 
a smaller degree, by moulding or casting, il a way 
which we will endeayour to describe. We first saw 
some four-sided perfumery bottles made. A man took 
a hollow iron tube, about five feet long and half an 
inch in diameter, and, dippmg one end into a pat of 
melted glass, collected a small quantity at the extre- 
mity. The glass appeared like a projecting lump of 
red-hot 1ron, and, from its consistence (between that of 
treacle and of putty), was just able to be retained on 
the tube. He then rolled the glass ona flat plate of 
iron, thereby giving it a cylindrical form, and pinched 
a part of it, by means of a small instrument, to form 
the neck of the bottle. He next inserted the end of the 
tube intoa small brass mould lying on the ground, shut 
up the two parts of which the mould consisted, and blew 
through the tube. This double operation produces 
a curious effect; for while the air from the lungs, - 
passing through the tube, makes the mass of glass hol- 
low, the mould at the same time imparts to it the ex- 
ternal form required. The mould being opened, the 
glass—now in the form of a bottle—was withdrawn, 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


still adhering to the end of the rod, and was detached 
by a shght touch with a piece of cold iron. All this 
was done in about half a minute; and during the 
latter part of the process, another workman was gather- 
ing and rolling a similar portion of glass, so that one 
mould served for both. As the bottles were severed 
from the tube, they were taken up on the cnd of a 
heated rod by a third workiman, who re-hcated them 
(for by this time they were below red-heat), and by 
means of a few simple tools finished the necks and 
mouths as fast as the other two could make the bottles. 
The lower of the two following cuts represents one 
form of mould used by the glass-worker, 








c ae a 
———— 


ote a 
A Thats woke 
( aor ddd 


So , 





A far more skilful operation was the production of 
a claret-jug, since no part whatevcr of this vessel was 
moulded. The workman, with a heayier tube than the 
ane before alluded to, gathered a considerable quan- 
tity of metal; whirled it twice or thrice round his 
head, to elongate the mass, rolled it on a flat iron 





plate; to give ita regular shape; and blew through 


‘he tube from the other end, to make the glass hollow. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 85 





three times, another workman received it, and sat down 
in a chair having two flat parallel arms sloping 
downwards. Then, resting the tube on these arms, 
he rolled it backwards and forwards, to keep the glass 
from bending; and a boy, stooping down at the other 
end, blew through the tube, whereby the mass of glass 
was maintained hollow. Gy the aid of an elastic in- 
strument, shaped nearly like sugar-tongs, the workinan 
brought the mass into form, rolling the tube continu- 
ally, and heating the glass frequently to preserve the 





proper consistence. Another workman, called the 
‘footer,’ then brought a little melted glass on the end 
of a rod, and apphed it to the end of the blown mass, to 
which it instantly adhered. ‘This was soon shaped ito 
a foot; and the whole was transferred from the tube to 
a rod called the ‘ punty,’ the latter being made to ad- 
here to the foot of the vessel by a little melted glass, 
and the tube heing detached by a touch with a piece 
of coldiron at its junction with the glass. The glass thus 
transferred, the making of the upper part of the vessel 
proceeded. With the aid of scissors, a piece of glow- 
ing glass was cut off, so as to allow of a depression for 
the lip of the jug, and the edge was bent and curved 
with a dexterity altogether beyond the scope of descrip- 
tion. Somctimes onc prong, sometimes both prongs of 
the tongs were insertcd in the mouth of the jug, and 
the internal cavity, as well as the external surface of 
the jug, were gradually modelled into shape. An at- 
tendant workman next brought a smaller mass of 
aren glass on the end of another rod, which was at- 
tached to the vessel, and curved in the form of a handle 
by a few delicate mancouvres. 

~ The rapidity with which these operations are effected 
almost baffles the eye of a spectator. The glass is in 
such a medium state between a sold and a liquid, that 


The rolling and blowing having been repeated two or | while, on the one hand, it would drop from the tube if 


&6 


not kept rotatory, it is, on the other, capable of being 
pulled, twisted, stretched, cut, pressed, and worked in 
various ways. No mould, stamp, or press was em- 
ployed in the manufacture of this jug, the whole beng 
effected by the manual dexterity and accurate eye of 
the workman, aided by a few of the most simple tools. 
Great, indeed, is the surprise excited at seeing such 
an elegantly-formed vessel manutactured in such a 
way in the space of ten or twelve inminutes: we here 
allude to the making only, for m the annexed figure the 


jug is represented in its finished or ‘cut’ state. The eye 





of the workman detects when the glass is becoming too 
cold for working, and he holds it for a few seconds at 
the ‘ working hole,—one of the pot-mouths. After 
every such re-heating, he sits down again, and rolls 
the tube in the ‘chair-arms,’ with the glass projecting 
over near his right hand. 

In all vessels provided with a leg and foot, such as 
wine-glasses, the leg is formed of one dip of glass, and 
the foot of another, each in turn being attached to the 
body of the vessel, and worked: into shape. In such 
articles as salvers, dishes, or shallow vessels rencrally, 
the workman, after having his mass of @lass hollowed 
by blowing, transfers it from the working tube to the 
punty: the hole left where the tube had been attached 
he gradually enlarges, by whirling, modelling, re-heat- 
ing, and bending, until the glass expands to the wide 
flat concave form required. In any vessel to be pro- 
vided with a handle, a lump of glass—if we call it 
glass putty, perhaps the reader will form a better idea 
of its consistence—is attached at one spot, drawn out, 
dexterously curved, and attached also at another spot, 
an operation nearly as surprising as any in the manu- 
facture, since the workman has no guide but the accu- 
racy of his eye in suddenly forming the handle. In 
such a production as a lamp or chandelier shade, the 
mass requires frequent re-heating, on account of the 
large size attained; and whenever the mass of glass 
has to be thus repeatedly heated, a constant rotation is 
given to the tube or rod, to preserve a circular form in 
the article attached to it. While re-heating at the fur- 
nace, this rotation is maintained as much as on the 
‘chair-arms,’ a resting-groove being placed in front of 
the furnace-mouth for the support of the rod while 
rotating. 

The ductility of the melted glass, or that property 
by which it is capable of being drawn out, is perhaps 
nowhere so strikingly shown as in the making of glass- 
tubes, such as are employed for thermometers, baro- 
meters, &c. A workman collects a quantity of glass 
on the end of a tube, rolls it on an iron plate into a 
cylindrical form, blows into it to form a cavity within, 
and holds it towards a second workman, who attaches 


THE PENN Y WRAGEEZIN ©. 


(Frn. 1841. 





a heated rod to the other end of the mass, to which it 
instantly adheres. The two men, standing opposite 
each other, then walk backwards, the glass elongating 
as they proceed, until a tube forty or fifty feet long 1s 
produced. This tube hangs down as it is formed, and 
rests on a ladder or frame laid along the floor of the 
glass-house ; and by the time all the mass of glass 1s 
thus drawn out, a tube almost perfectly equable im 
thickness is formed, with a bore or perforation running 
through its whole length. The preservation of this 
bore 1s one of the most singular parts of the process, 
the elongated tube acquiring a bore of the same form 
as 1s given to the cavity in the mass of glass, however 
much reduced in size. In most thermometers the 
mercurial column is seen to be flattened, so as to be 
scarcely visible when viewed laterally. This flattened 
shape represents the form of the bore of the tube ; and 
in order to produce it, the mass of glass, after having 
been blown hollow, is gently pressed on two opposite 
sides, whereby a flattening of the internal cavity is 
produced while the external surface 1s again imade 
cylindrical by re-dipping into the mcltmg-pot. This 
form, 7.e. flat within and circular without, 1s retained 
throughout the subsequent elongation, notwithstanding 
the vast diminution in the sectional area of the tube. 
Most kinds of glass-tubing, for meteorological, optical, 
or other purposes, are produced in a manner nearly 
analogous to that here described; the length of tubmg 
being afterwards cut into convenient portions. Most 
persons have probably seen or heard of “ Glass-working 
exhibitions,” in which trinkets and toys are made in a 
very delicate and neat manner out of melted or softened 
class; although the glass is, in these cases, melted at a 
blowpipe instead of a furnace, yet the principle by 
which the exhibitor is enabled to proceed is the same 
as that developed in tube-making, and calls for our 
assent to the remark that ‘flint-glass possesses, at the 
working heat, a degree of tenacity and ductility not to 
be found in any other substance in nature.’ 

Four thousand pounds weight of glass is weekly 
wrought into these various articles; and we imust 
now quit the melting-furnace, and watch the manu- 
factured articles in the process of ‘annealing.’ The 
object of this process is to render the glass less brit- 
tle, and less lable to fracture from sudden alter- 
nations of temperature. Ifa glass vessel, made at 
the high temperature necessary for working, were 
allowed at once to cool in the open air, the surfaces of 
the vessel would cool and contract more rapidly than 
the interior substance, whereby the glass would be in 
an unequable state of elasticity, and therefore lable to 
fracture. We have seen a piece of thick glass-tube, 
which had been plunged while hot into cold water: the 
interior surface was cracked to such a degree as to ap- 
pear like a surface covered with crystals. ‘There are 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


philosophical toys, known as ‘ Bologna phials’ and 
‘Prince Rupert’s Drops,’ which are similarly treated, 
by being plunged into cold water while yet hot: the 
exterior becomes cooled and fixed before the interior 
has time to contract in a corresponding degree; the 
eonsequence of which is,.that this unusual state of ten- 
sion causes the whole to be shattered to atoms when 
the smallest incision or scratch is made on the surface. 
To avoid such an inconvenience as this, glass-ware 1s 
suffered to cool by very slow degrees. 

This slow cooling takes place in an annealing-oven 
called a ‘leer; a name for whichit would not perhaps 
be easy to furnish a reason, unless it be an instance of 
the Anglicised foreign terms used in a glass-house, 
and of which the ‘ punty,’ or working rod, and the 
‘marver, or iron plate, furnish examples—these 
two terms being derived from the French ‘pontil?’ 
and ‘marbre.’ The arched entrance to the ‘leer’ 
is seen at one side of the glass-house, closed by iron 
doors; the oven having the form of a long flat arch, 
sixty feet in length or depth, five feet wide, and from 
one to two in height. Adjoining the door of the oven on 
each side isa furnace, by which a high temperature 1s 
maintained; butas there is no other heating-power, the 
oven experiences less and less of the heat as the dis- 
tance from the mouth is greater, until, at the remote 
extremity, the temperature is scarcely higher than that 
of the surrounding atmosphere. Along the floor of 
the oven is a miniature railway upon which two rows 
of iron trays, called ‘ leer-pans,’ travel. 

Such being the arrangement, and all the operations 
being in full play, the annealing proceeds as follows: 
—As soon as a glass vessel 1s formed, a boy carrics it, 
either on a wooden shovel or by means of a pronged 
fork, to the ‘leer,’ and places it in one of the pans. 
This continues until one pan is full; and the pan being 
then wheeled onward by means of a windlass, another 
is laid in its place, similarly filled, and similarly 
wheeled on; and so on, one pan after another. By 
this means, the pan first filled 1s drawn farther and 
farther from the heat, whereby the annealing or 
eradual cooling is effected. The time required for 
annealing varies from twelve to sixty hours according 
to the thickness of glass in the article manufactured ; 
and matters are so arranged as to have similar articles 
in the oven at one time, in order that the same routine 
inay be available for all ; or else to make the two rows 
of pans travel with different speed. There are some 
annealing-ovens in which the process is differently 
conducted: they are much shorter, and more equa- 
biy heated in the different paris; and after being 
filled with manufactured articles, the mouth 1s closed, 
and the fire allowed gradually to go out, whereby the 
whole oven loses its heat by slow degrees. The form 
first described is, however, found most advantagcous 
in the flint-glass manufacture. 

The order of processes now requires us to visit a 
room at the remote end of the annealing-oven. The 
key of this room is in the possession of an excise- 
officer, under whose supervision all the arrangements 
of the room are conducted. Were this the place, we 
might remark on the evils resulting to manufactures 
froin the mode in which excise duties are collected on 
the articles manufactured ; but we must take the case 
simply as we find it. The annealed vessels are removed 
from the pans, examined to see that they are perfect, 
and weighed; a duty being payable on such articles 
only as leave the annealing-oven in a perfect state. 
This restriction 1s necessary, for the vessels are fre- 
quently spoiled in the oven, either by being imperfectly 
annealed, or by being overheated near the furnace. 

Many articles of flint-glass ware are deemed finished 
when they leave the annealing-oven, and are accord- 
ingly warehoused; but the brillant display of a side- 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE 87 


board or dinner-table owes much of its attraction to 
the cut, or, if the term be allowable, sculptured forms 
of the glass vessels. This cutting 1s effected after the 
vessels are annealed, in a distinct part of the building, 
and by a process wholly different from those hitherto 
described. 

The glass-cutting room has a singular appearance 
A double work-bench extends along the room, divided 
into several compartments for an equal number of men. 
In front of each workman is a thin wheel revolving: 
on a horizontal axis; and above some of the wheels are 
vessels containing sand and water, which drop through 
2 sinall orifice in the bottom, and fall on the edge of 
the wheel. All the wheels are set in motion by steam- 
powe:, and each workman has the means of unfixing 
his wheel, and putting on another of a different kind. 
These wheels are of various sizes, and made of various 
substances, such as cast-iron, wrought-iron, Yorkshire 
stone, and willow-wood. The edge of the wheel 1s that 
part by which the grinding is effected; and different 
shapes and thicknesses are given to these edges, in 
order to produce different results. 


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The workman takes the glass, decanter, or other 
manufactured article, and holds it against the edge 
of the revolving wheel, by which the substance of 
the glass is ground down, and flat or curved surfaces 
produced. The vessel is held mm various positions, 
according to the pattern required ; accuracy of eye and 
steadiness of hand being indispensable in the work- 
man, The iren wheels, with sand and water, are used 
for grinding away the substance of the glass; the stone 
wheel, with clean water, for smoothing the scratched 
surfaces; and the wooden wheel, with rotten-stone 
and putty-powder, for polishing. 


88 


In a suparate rooin the stoppers or stopples for bot- 
tles are ground, and the necks of small bottles made 
truly circular by attaching them to a kiid of lathe, and 
applying small tools to the surface while revolving. 
The value of well-stoppled bottles to the chemist ren- 
ders this operation one of nicety and importance. 

In addition to the cut surfaccs of glass vcssels, 
whereby such a lustrous play of colours is produced, 
the more costly articles are engraved, that 1s, devices 
are cut on the surface more delicate than can be pro- 
duced by the cvtting-whccl. A separate apartinent 1s 
devoted to the operations of the glass-cngraver, who is 
seated at a betich before a small lathe; and to this 
lathe he attaches one of a series of little metallic disks 
or wheels, generally tnade of copper, and vai ying froin 
an eighth of an inch to two inches in diameter. The 
edge of the rotating disk he touches with a little 
emery moistened in oil, and then holds the glass vessel] 
against the cdge of the disk, by which very minute 
scratches or indentations are produced. By dexterous 
changes in the position of the glass, and in the forin 
and size of the disks employed, he conibines these in- 
dentations so as to produce beautiiul intaghos or 
sunken pictures. . 


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This is strictly a branch of the Fine Arts, and as such 
places the engraver on a different levél from. the other 
workmen. Taste, both natural atid cultivated, a 
knowledge of the external forms of natural objects, 
and a delicacy of eye and hand, are all required in this 
operation; and we vicwed with pleasure the labours 
of an intelligent workman engaged therein. <A 
laudable attempt is now being made in England to 
diffuse among workmen a more extensive knowledge 
of the Arts of Design than has yet been possessed. by 
them; and such operations as those of glass cutting 


and engraving afford an ample field for the display of 


this kind of knowledge. We believe that the proprie- 
tor of this establishment is himself one of the council 
in the new government School of Design. 

The most profitable and important articles of flint- 
glass are such as are largely employed and have a cur- 
rent sale ; but the costly and delicate articles occasion- 
ally produced call for great skill and inventive in- 
genuity. There is a kind of cut-glass in which the 
projecting parts of the pattern are coloured and the 
sunken parts colourless. These are produced in a 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE: 


[Fes. 1841. 


remarkable way; for after the working-tube has col- 
lected nearly sufficient colourless glass from one pot, 
the mass is dipped into another containing glass which 
is coloured by the addition of certain metallic oxides, 
by which an external coating of coloured glass is given 
to the mass. When the blowing and modelling are 
coinplcted, this exterior coating is, in the finishing 
process of cutting, ground away in some parts an 
left remaining in others, thus producing a singularly 
delicate effcct. _ 

Another kind of ornaincntal manufacture is the 
‘crystallo-cerainic,’ or glass-incrustation, patented by 
Mr. Pellatt some years ago, and consisting of an opaque 
substance imbedded in a mass of colourless glass. A 
medallion or bas-rciief, representing any device what- 
ever, is moulded ina peculiar kind of clay capable of 
resisting the heat of melted glass; and the medallion 
is enclosed between two picces of soft glass, or else is 
intreduced into a cavity in the glass, from whencé the 
air is afterwards extracted. The introduction of the 
mcdallion into the glass is the main difficulty in this 
process, and requires much skill and ingenuity, in 
order that no air-bubbles may exist bétween, the two 
substauces. When finished, and the ¢xternal surface 
of the glass cut to the required forim, thé appearance of 
the imbedded medallion is singularly chaste and Ccle- 
gant; for the white clay, seen within the clear and 
highly refractive glass, prescnts an appearance nearly 
resembling that of wiburnished silver. This branch 
of art, ze. the incrustation of clay devices, was in- 
vented by a Bohemian, about sixty years ago; at a later 
period some French manufacturers éncrusted medal- 
lions of Napolcon in this way, and,sold thein at an 
enormous price; but since the introduction of the art 
into England, under an improved form, a wide ¢cxtén- 
sion has been given to its applicabilty. _ Decanters, 
goblets, wine-glasses, lamps, girandoles, chinney-orna- 
ments, plates, door-handles, and other articles formed 
of flint-glass, have been ornamented in this way; the 
incrustations being arnis, ciphers, crests, mScrijtions, 
portraits, small busts, caryatides, or indeéd any small 
objects capable of being modclled or moulded in clay. 
The incrustation may be painted with metallic colours, 
which will remain uninjured by the heat required in 
the process. | 

There is a mode of incrusting Opaque ornainents or 
devices on the surface, instead of within the substance, 
of the glass. This is effected by adjusting the ornament 
in a brass inould, and blowing and moulding the glass 
to it;.the details requiring considerable skill, but 
the principle being nearly the same as in the other 
process. 

The astronomer and the optician obtain from the 
flint-glass manufacturer the materials froin which their 
lenses are made. It has been ascertained that there is 
a certain state of the fused glass which is best calcu- 
lated for optical purposes; and when the mass has 
attained this state, about seven pounds weight is taken 
up in a conical ladle and blown into the form of a hol- 
low cylinder. This cylinder is cut open, and flattened 
into a sheet twenty inches long by fourteen wide, and 
from two to three eighths of an inchin thickness. In 
this fori it passes into the hands of the optician, who 
cuts and grinds it to the shapes required for optical 
purposes. The masses of glass for large telescope 
lenses require a somewhat different proccss, and ex- 
traordinary care in the choice, preparation, mixing, 
and melting of the ingredients: indeed, the production 
of rood glass for this purpose is one of the most uncer- 
tain things in the whole glass-manufacture. 

We terminate our visit by alludmg to the elegan* 
show-rooms or galleries, in which the finished mate- 
rials, of all the various kinds above alluded to, consti- 
tute a brillant display. 


Marcu 6, 1S41.] 


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GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. 
THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 


From the revival of painting by Giovanni Cimabue, 
in the latter half of the thirteenth century, to its second 
declension under Carlo Maratti, in the conimencement 
of the eighteenth, no subject has so frequently exer- 
cised the painter’s skill as that of the Holy Family. It 
has been represented with all the sublimity of art by 
Raffaelle ; with tenderness and exquisite sweetness by 
Carlo Dolci; with familiarity by Rembrandt; and in 
our own day by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the picture 
before us, with a nuxture of the solemnity of the earlier 
schools and the domesticity of modern art, 

The chief beauty of this performance is the richness 
of its colourmeg and the excellent management of the 
lights and darks. In order to make the drapery of the 
Virgin combine with the colouring of the figure of the 
Infant Saviow’, and with the flesh of Mary herself, that 
drapery is painted of a light hue, and possesses a very 
small share of actual red, alihongh its general effect 
is to give a notion of that colour. In hke manner the 
ficure of Joseph isso managed that incidental shadows, 


No. D429. | 


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that is, shadows thrown into the picture from sub- 
stances not indicated within its limits, are seen upon 
the hands and the leg, which cause them to form masses 
in conjunction with the dark drapery he wears and the 
background of the composition ; thus the attention is 
at once and inevitably drawn to the chicf portion of 
the picture, the Infant Jesus, as well by the actual 
attraction of the light as by the contrast of the dark. 
It is this management of the masses of light and dark, 
or chiaro-’scuro, and the beauty of colouring, which have 
rendered the works of Reynolds so famous with his 
own countrymen, and which, though reluctantly, have 
wrung from foreigners expressions of their approba- 
tion, 

In a subject such as the Holy Family, the artist 
has to contend against two opposite difficulties ; he 
must give as much elevation of expression to his 
figures as will convey the feeling of supernatural ex- 
cellence, yet he must not divest lis work of those social 
attributes which render it understandable by the 
eeneral observer. 

In the glories of the Transfiguration, or the sublimity 
of the Assumption, all human feelings, all earthly con- 


Wo 


SO 


siderations are absorbed in the awful manifestations of 
the power of the Almighty. In the nativity and in the 
infancy of the Redeemer we are prepared to behold 
him as bearing the investment of humanity, and not 
asserting the divine majesty of the Godhead. In the 
former class, therefore, painters have properly endea- 
voured to excite the: loftier emotions of the soul; in the 
latter, they have, with equal justice, appealed to the ten- 
derest sympathies of our nature. In the Holy Family 
of Reynolds we must look for purity and simplicity, 
and in the person of the Virgin Mother that expression 
will be found; and though the Infant Saviour accords 
in bodily shape with his apparent age, still the face 
gives evidence of an intellect beyond the reach of 
mortality. With all this judicious management, the 
picture will be beheld as one of those works into which 
the artist has endeavoured to infuse a spirit of do- 
mestic feeling rather than a sensation of reverential 
distance. In short, the scene is presented to us as 
if we could form part of the group, instead of a 
transaction taking place ina situation into which our 
frail humanity can by no possibility intrude. 

We may conveniently take occasion here to correct 
an error which was inadvertently fallen into in the 
notice of the picture of St. John by Murillo.* — It was 
there said, “Though it should seem that Joh was 
about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age when he 
was called to follow Christ, painters have dehghted 
to imagine him as the early associate of lis Mas- 
ter.” This idea, which would have been inaccurate with 
regard to the Evangelist, may have been coryect as 
refers to the Baptist, who was the son of Zacharias 
and Iehsabeth, and who from his conception had been 
miraculously appointed (see Luke, chap. 1.) to preach 
the advent and kingdom of the Messiah; whilst the 
Apostle and Evangelist, the youngest, the gentlest, 
aud most affectionate of the disciples of Jesus, was 
destined but to tread in the steps of lis divine 
Master. 

The engraving at the head of the article is by Mr. 
Jackson, and isa copy of the picture of the Holy Family, 
painted by Reynolds, for Mr. Macklin’s edition of the 
Bible, and which has been engraved for that work by 
Sharp, in a very masterly manner. The original was 
purchased at the sale of Lord Gwydyr’s collection, 
ad liberally presented to the public, for the National 
Gallery, by the governors of the British, Institution. 

Before proceeding to comment on the exalted rank 
held by Reynolds, it will be sufficient to state of his 
history that he was one of eleven children of a clergy- 
man, who was head master of Plympton grammar- 
school, in Devonshire, and was born at that place, on 
the 16th of July, 1723. His early predilection for art 
induced his father to place him under the tuition of 
Hudson, the portrait painter, in London. He made 
rapid progress in his studies, visited Rome, and, on his 
return to England, in 1752, almost immediatelv ob- 
tained extensive employment. In 1768, on the foun- 
dation of the Royal Acadeiny, he was chosen its first 
president, a station he held, with but a short intermis- 
sion, for the space of twenty-two years. He died in 
London, on the 23rd of February, 1792, and, after 
lying in state at the Academy, was buricd in the vaults 
of St. Paul’s Cathedral, by the side of Sir Christopher 
Wren, the constructor of that edifice, and a statue to 
his memory, executed by Flaxman, has been erected 
in the church. Thus the most eminent architect and 
the most gifted sculptor that England has produced 
_have appropriately furnished a noble resting-place for 
the remains and a lasting memorial to the honour of 
the great founder of her school of painting. 

Betore the appearance of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 


> Alte, page 13, 


THE PENNY MAGHa7 Nes. 


{MARCH 6, 


excepting Hogarth in his peculiar and unapproached 
style, and Wilson in poetic landscape, any the re- 
motest approximation to a native school of art could 
not be said to exist in England. At one stride this 
eminent man reached the summit of professional 
distinchion, though it could be only by profound 
study that he achieved the rank he held amongst the 
colourists and chiaro-’scurists of Europe. In his career 
he was so universally sought for as a painter of por- 
traits, that it was not until the latter portion of his life 
he could devote his attention to historic or poetic com- 
position. Indeed so enthusiastic was the grave Dr. 
Johnson in favour of this pursuit of his friend, that he 
seems to have grudged the time given by Reynolds 
to the few works m these classes which he has left 
us. “It is in painting,” he says, “as in hfe, what is 
ereatest is not always best. J should grieve to see 
Reynolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to empty 
splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is now 
employed in diffusing friendship, in renewing tender- 
ness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and 
continuing the presence of the dead.” 

lortunately, Reynolds did not confine himself to 
this branch of art, but executed, in the words of Barry, 
‘a few expansive efforts of colouring and chiaro-’scuro, 
which would do honour to the first names in the re- 
cords of art.” In respect to these qualities the Pro- 
fessor might have referred to the Holy Family, for, 
although in colour it has in many parts become much 
deteriorated, still it remains a noble specimen cf the 
mastery which the painter held over those essentials 
of the art. But even supposing he had never executed 
ahy pictures but portraits, we ought not therefore to 
look upon Reynolds as less endowed with the true 
principles of painting. Itis a mistake, but too general, 
that the art of portraiture 1s governed by rules at vari- 
ance with those of historical composition. In each the aim 
is to imitate the effect of nature, and it matters not whe- 
ther the composition, so far as the management of the 
colour and light and dark 1s concerned, consists of 
one figure or of a group of twenty persons. ‘The at- 
traction of the attention to the principal point of one 
is as essential as to the chief action of the other 
The harmony and arrangement of both are to be pro- 
duced by thesame means. Dr. Johnson himself would 
appear, from the passage we have quoted, to have 
been unaware of this fact, for he alludes to the portraits 
by Reynolds only as likenesses, and 1s silent on their 
inerits as pictures. Mr. Burke, on the other hand, 
seems to have hada just appreciation of the distinction 
between an expert face-painter and a real artist, for 
he says that “his portraits remind the spectator of the 
invention of history and the amenity of landscape ;” 
nor has the eloquent statesman less truly observed of 
Reynolds, that “he possessed the theory as perfecily 
as the practice of his art. To be sucha painter, he was 
a profound and penetrating philosopher.” 

Entertaining a deep reverence tor the genius of Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, we are still quite ready to admit that 
in lis historical works he 1s more eminent for his 
colouring than for academic correctness in drawing. 
Ths own modesty and candour, indeed, render it 
scarcely necessary to do more than allude to the fact, 
for he admits that of all the main principles of art, that 
was the one to which he had least attended. Yet in 
his studies at Rome he devoted his time to the magni- 
ficence of Michael Angelo and to the divine purity of 
Rafiaelle, and recorded his devotion to the former by 
writing to Barry at Rome, urging him to study in the 
Capella Sistina, for that the wonders there were 
those things which alone rendered the Eternal City 
more profitable to an artist than any other place in the 
world, and he sealed that opinion by declaring from 
his chair, in his farewell address to the students of the 


1841. ] THE PENNY 
Royal Academy, that he should desire that the last 
words which he should pronounce in that place, and 
from the seat of 1ts president, might be the nanic of 
Michael Angclo. Here, too, we may refer to the cir- 
cumstance so obvious in most of the pictures of Rey- 
nolds, the great cracking and separation of the colours 
that has taken place. This arose from the constant habit 
in which he indulged, of adopting every experiment in 
his colouring materials that was suggested to him. An 
anxious Wish to discover the mode adopted by the 
artists of the Venetian school, and particularly Titian, 
led Reynolds to try the effect of every vehicle for 
painting that was proposed, and, as many of these were 
of a highly volatile nature, we sce the sad effect of 
his experimentalizing in the faded and defaced con- 
dition of his works. 

We have now only spacc left for a brief mention of 
the admirable professional writings of this distinguished 
artist’ and accomplished man. The ‘ Discourses’ of 
Reynolds origimated in the custom of his official de- 
livery of the premiums offered by the Academy for suc- 
cessful Siete by its students. The president 
thought that mere compliments might grow vapid by 
repetition. He, therefore, composed these ‘ Discourses,’ 
which have rendered his name as noted for his powcrs 
of criticism, profound thought, and varied literary 
acquirements, as his painting had previously. done for 
it as an artist. These compositions have been from 
time to time attributed both to Johnson and to Burke, 
but at the present day no tolerably well informed 
unprejudiced person doubts for a moment that they 
were the genuine productions of Sir Joshua’s hand 
and the true emanations of his bram. There is a 
sheht degree of hastiness discoverable in the style, 
which has given cause to cavillers to say that the pre- 
sident sometimes contradicts himself. To the candid 
reader, however, they contain a whole treasury of 
true maxims, and together form one of the most valu- 
able collections of remarks that has evcr been pub- 
lished on art, fully bearing out the eulogy of Sir 
Thomas Lawrence, who characterised them as ‘ golden 
precepts, which are now acknowledged as canons of 


universal taste.” ‘sh ent te 
IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS AND THEIR 
POPULATION. 


THE great branches of our national industry, while 
they are instrumental in producing and diffusing 
wealth, appear at first sight almost to involve the 
moral and physical degradation of the numerous masses 
of our workmg population who are ummediately en- 
gacred therein; and although a closer examination will 
show that this 1s by no means the case, we shall find 
that this class is undoubtedly suffering from evils of no 
common magnitude. The chief palhation of the guilt 
of neglect and delay in providing a remedy for the 
existing evils, is to be found in the rapidity with which 
they sprung forth. They had become of gigantic sta- 
ture before men were aware of thei existence, and 
then it seemed to be hopeless to contend with them. 
The changes which have taken place in the state of 
socicty m1 england during the present century were so 
different from the ordinary circumstances under which 
ereat social revolutions take place, that men’s atten- 
tion was not sufficiently directed to inquire into the 
new wants to which thcy gave birth. Numbers were 
drawn to the great scats of manufacturing industry 
from the surrounding rural districts, and from more 
distant quarters as the demand for ‘hands’ became 
more urgent; rows of cottages were hastily erected 
for the accommodation of the nnnugrants, and to pro- 
vide for the demands of a rapidly increasing popula- 


tion. In twenty or thirty years the population of the | 


MAGAZINIE 9} 
towns which becaine the scene of these changes was 
doubled, or perhaps trebled; but as for their physical, 
moral, and intellectual improvement, the mass of 
human beings thus suddenly congregated on a given 
spot, were in a state of as much destitution as are some 
hundreds of labourers employed for a few months on 
public works, and who are temporarily occupying rude 
huts erected close to the scene of their labours. One 
ereat want, therefore, of the large towns of modern 
erowth isan improved municipal organization directed 
to such objects of local interest as can be successfully 
accomplished by local means. No single remedy can 
be adapted to evuls which ramify into so many branches, 
and though no one can doubt the advantages which 
have been derived from Sunday-schools, savings’-banks, 
mechanics’ institutes, and reading-rooms, yet the 
inefficiency of these alone is now foreed upon our 
conviction, and we hope we are not mistaken 1n assum - 
ing that the condition of the labouring population, es- 
pecially in the large towns, will soon be treated as a 
whole, and that a series of practical measures will be 
deviscd for their benefit. 

As an instance of the various means by which the 
ereat object to be kept in view may be pronioted, we 
regard with much satisfaction the recent introduction 
of a measure to enforce a better system of drainage in. 
large towns. It is a step mm the right direction, and is 
avowedly taken with the object of directing attention 
to the condition of the poorer classes of the town popu- 
lation, so that it will naturally be followed by other 
plans of improvement, such as public walks, ceme- 
teries, &c., as A glance at one branch of the evils 
which the proposed measure is designed to remedy, 
will at once prove its value and necessity. Our facts 
are taken from the Report of a Statistical Committee 
of the Leeds Town Council upon.the condition of that 
town and its inhabitants, which contains information 
respecting the condition of the surface and subways 
of the streets; and we are assured that the state of 
things therein described will find a parallel in every 
one of our large towns of similar size. In Leeds there 
are extensive and populous districts without any sewers 
or means of drainage, and filth of every kind accumu- 
lates in masses and lodgcs in hollows on the surface 
until dissipated by the wind and sun. There were, in 
1839, three strects in Leeds containing one hundred 


- dwellings, and a population of 452 persons, for whose 


accommodation there were but two out-officcs, neither 
of which was fit for use; and other parts of the town 
were in scarcely a better condition. Some streets re- 
semble a field which has been cut up by loaded vehi- 
cles in wet weather, and the inhabitants vainly attempt 
to repair them with ashes or other refuse. In whole 
rows of cellar-dwellings the walls never cease to drip 
with moisture, and in some habitations of this class the 
inhabitants have been awakened in the might and 
literally found their beds floating. In other casés, 
where there are sewers, the want of arrangement 
amongst proprictors renders them incomplete and 1m- 
perfect. They become engorged, and. pour a flood of 
fetid matter into cellars and dwelling-rooms. Mal- 
aria then affects the inhabitants, and its influence 1s 
shown by the accelerated fatality of discase the dis- 
trict. In a case of this kind at Leeds, 1f appeared 
that while in other parts of the town there were two 
deaths to three births, the proportion in the flooded 
district was three deaths to two births. Dr. South- 
wood Smith has stated of the metropohs, that by taking 
a map of the sewers, and tracing the course of fever, 
+t would be found to run in a directly inverse ratio to 
the course of the sewers: where there were sewers, 
there no fever would be found. 

There are many other cvils in the physical state ot 
towns besides those arising from ears drainage, 

4 tad 


82 THE PENNY 
but the reader may be spared for the present the 
painful facts which show that large portions of our 
industrious fellow-countryinen are habitually living 
ainidst circumstances which degrade and brutalise the 
character, and all but extinguish the moral sense. It 
is more pleasing to notice the fact that attention 
is awakened to.these evils, and the conviction 1s 
raining ground that they must be removed ere the 
work of moral, religious, and intellectual improve- 
ment can commence upon a just foundation. How, 
for example, is it possible to give to individuals 
already morally degraded a sense or a taste for do- 
mestic comforts while they continue destitute of a 
home worthy of the name ? or can it be surprising that 
the damp and cheerless cellar, without a single do- 
mestic convenience, should exercise a less powerful 
influence and attraction than the gin-shop or the beer- 
shop? Those who have had opportunities of learning 
the condition of the working classes have not failed to 
notice that when the mechanic removes from a two- 
anl-sixpenny cottage to a three-and-sixpenmny cottage, 
a corresponding moral improvement has been visiole 
in his conduct and deportment; and the man who 
falls from a state of comfort into the hopeless degrada- 
tion of a miserable cellar-dwelling, sinks too often 
into a lower moral state as his physical condition be- 
comes depressed and unfavourable. Mr. Ashworth, 
the great manufacturer of Bolton, is so strongly im- 
pressed with the infiuence of comfortable habitations 
for the working classes upon their moral character, 
that every successive range of cottages erected by him 
for the last twenty years has been rendered more ex- 
pensive and has been more completely furnished with 
conveniences than the preceding lot; and the best 
cottages are at once the most expensive and the most 
sought after by his own work-people. Incottages of 
this class new desires are experienced; an effort is 
made to purchase appropriate furniture, to obtain 
which orderly and sober habits are necessary ; and 
cottages of this description encourage such habits, 
for here the artizan can spend his evenings in the en- 
joyment of domestic comforts, and need not resort for 
excitement or occupation to the gin-shop. 

The legislative measure to which we have alluded, 
is an attempt to give the poor a greater share of public 
comfort and convenience. It will protect them from 


the cupidity of the owners of small tenements ; for in | 


Inany instances they, and not the tenants, are to blaine 
for the scandalous violations of comfort and decency 
which are inevitable without this protection. While 
the inquiry at Leeds was proceeding, a deputation of 
women waited upon the Committee to beg an imme- 
diate remedy for a nuisance in their neighbourhood ; 
but owing to the indefinite meaning of the term 
“nuisance” in point of law, this object could not be 
accomplished without great trouble and expense ; and 
these impediments have in fact been the protection of 
many a nuisance, while a special general measure like 
the one in progress will go to the source of the evil. It 
may also be regarded as an encouragement to owners 
of tenements who are disposed to consult the comfort and 
convenience of their tenants. At Leeds, “in many 
instances, when the property of a strect is In many 
hands, one half of them or more originally completed 
their respective parts, as regards paving and sewering, 
but the cupidity, obstinacy, or poverty, or all com- 
bined, of other owners, or even of a single one, has 
prevented the improvement of the whole.” Lastly, 
the proposed measure will be one of justice to the 
small rate-payers. In the Leeds Report it is stated 
that “in a great measure the cottages are rated as a 
part and for the benefit of the whole community, but 
are mulcted of that proportion which ought to carry 
clean pavement to their own doors.” ; 


MAGAZINE. [ Marcu 6, 

FVhat England has done: IWhat tt has yet to do.—The earth- 
works on most of the great lines of railway in England are very 
extensive, In many cases averaging from 100,000 to 150,000 
cubic yards per mile. On the North Midland railway from 
Derby to Leeds, a distance of 723 miles, about 9,500,060 
yards of earth were moved, being more than 130,000 cubic yards 
per mile. During part of the time that the works were in pro- 
gress, from 9000 to 10,000 men, assisted by eighteen steam- 
engines, were employed, besides great nuunbers of norses. ‘Tem- 
porary stables were erected, and the agriculturists in the vicinity 
obtained large supplies of manure, an advantage from which 
they had previously been excluded on account of their distance 
from towns. The quantity of earth and stone removed in form- 
ing the London and Birmingham line was about 16,000,000 
ctibic yards, which, if formed into a belt three feet wide and 
one high, would more than encompass the earth at the equator. 
Looking at what has been effected in this country by the labour, 
ingenuity, and industry of man, we are reminded of a striking 
passage in one of the vivid rhapsodies of Mr. Carlyle: “ Who 
(lie asks) shall say what work and works this England has yet 
to do? For what purpose this land of Britain was created, set 
like a jewel in the encircling blue of ocean; and this tribe of 
Saxons was sent travelling hitherward? No man can say: it was 
for a work, and for works, incapable of announcement in words. 
Thou seest them there; part of them stand done, and visible to 
the eye 5 even these thou canst not ame: how much less the 
others still matter of prophecy only! They live and labour 
there, these twenty million Saxon men; they have been borne 
into this mystery of hfe out of the darkness of Past Time :— 
how changed now since the first Father and first Mother of them 
set forth, quitting the tribe of Theath, with passionate fare- 
well, under questionable auspices; on scanty bullock-cart, if 
they had even bullocks and a cart, with axe and hunting- 
spear, to subdue a portion of our common Planet! This Nation 
now has cities and seed-fields, has spring-vans, dray-wagous, 
Long-acre carriages, nay, railway trains; has coined money, 
exchange-bills, laws, books, war-fleets, spiiming-jemnies, ware- 
houses and West India Docks: see what it has built and done, 
what it can and will yet build and do! These umbrageous 
pleasure-woods, green meadows, shorn stubble-fields, smooth- 
sweeping roads; these high-domed cities, and what they hold and 
bear; this mild ‘ Good-morrow ’ which the stranger bids thee, 
equitable, nay forbearant if need were, judicially calm and law- 
observing towards thee a stranger,—what work has it not cost ? 
How many brawny arms, generation after generation, sank down 
wearied ; how many noble hearts, toiling while life lasted, and 
wise heads that wore themselves dim with scanning and discerning, 


before this waste White-cliff, Albion so called, became a British 


Empire !” 

Success and Lconomy .of Early Treatment in Insanity.—The 
Sixth Report of the Trustees of the Worcester Lunatic Asylum 
(United States) contains some valuable facts showing the success 
attending the early treatment of insanity, and demonstrating be- 
sides its importance as a matter of economy merely. The twelfth 
table of the Report shows that “ upon the proper and usual basis 
of computation, the proportion of cures at this hospital in recent 
cases—that 1s, in cases of less than one year’s duration at the time 
when received—is 94 per cent.: while the proportion of cures in 
cases of more than five. years’ duration has been only 124 per 
cent.; and in cases of more than 10 years’ duration, only 34 per 
cent. Or, to present the same fact in another striking point of 
view, the proportion of the old cases remaining at the end of this 
year is about 875 per cent., while the proportion of recent cases 
remaining at thesame time ts only 12! per cent.” Looking at the 
pecuniary results, the Report observes, that ‘the expense already 
incurred for taking care of twenty cases, which from neglect had 
been suffered to run on until they became incurable, has been 
more than thirty-two times greater than the expense of the same 
number for which early and proper provision was made.” 





Advantages of Commerce.—It is the great advantage of a trad- 
ing nation, that there are very few in itso dull and heavy, who 
may not be placed in stations of life which may give them an 
opportunity of making their fortunes. A well regulated com- 
merce is not, like law, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked 
with hands; but, on the contrary, flourishes by multitudes, and 
gives employment to all its professors. Fleets of merchantmen 
are so many squadrons of floating shops, that vend our wares 
aid manufactures in all the markets ef the werld, and find out 
chapmen under both the tropics——Spectator, No. 21. 


1841.) 








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(The Knight and the Squire.} 


CHAUCER'S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 


THE KNIGHT. 


ALTHOUGH We cannot trace the existence of chivalry 
backwards to so very remote a period as that referred 
toin the visions of Piers Plowmau,* where we find 
that David “ dubbed knights,” yet there 1s much rea- 
son to doubt the truth of the common opinion which 
ascribes its origin to the eleventh century, and con- 
siders that it was then first invented as a great moral 
antagonist to the deplorable evils of the time; for “a 
closely attentive as well as philosophical analysis of 
the history of European socicty in the middle ages 
proves this theory, or rather this supposition,.to be 
deceitful. It shows us that chivalry was not, in. the 
eleventh century, an innovation, an institution brought 
about by a special exigency which 1f was expressly 
adapted to meet. It arose much more simply, more 
naturally, and more silently ; it was but the develop- 
ment of material facts long before existing—the spon- 
taneous result of the Germanic manners and the feudal 
relations. It took its birth in the interior of the feudal 
mansions, without any set purpose beyond that of: de- 
claring, first, the admission of the young man to the 
rank and occupation of the warrior; secondly, the tie 
which bound him to his feudal superiov—his lord, who 
conferred upon him the arms of knighthood. . . 


* By Robert Langland; the most distinguished poetical work 
that had appeared before the productions of Gower aud Chaucer. 


? 


But when once the feudal society had acquired some 
degree of stability and confidence, the usages, the fcel- 
ings, the circumstances of every kind which attended 
the young man’s admission among the vassal warriors, 
came under two influences which soon gave them a 
fresh direction and impressed them with a novel cha- 
racter. Religion and imagination, poctry and the 
church, laid hold on chivalry, and used it as a powerful 
means of attaining the objects they had im view, of 
meeting the moral wants which it was their business 
to provide for.”* And the result was that character— 
of all characters, whether of romance or reality, the 
most popular for many ages—the knight ;—that strange 
incarnation of the most opposite qualitics of our na- 
ture ; whose gentleness in peace was no less remark- 
able than his ferocity in war, who was as plous In faith 
as he was not uncommonly irreligious in deed; who 
held such pure and lofty notions of womeu in the ab- 
stract, that they were to him women no longer, but a 
species of carthly goddesses, worthy of all reverence, 
and a life-long self-devotion to their service, yct whe 
at the same time but too often exhibited in his life the 
evossest sensuality, the most utter disregard of their 
true welfare or dignity. To such discrepancies be- 
tween the knight’s theory and practices in the matters 
of religion and love, doubtless there were many cx- 
ceptions; to that concerning his disposition in peace 
aud war there could be few or none. War was their 
* ¢Penny Cyclopedia,’ article ‘Chivalry,’ vol. vii., p 99. 


94 


“being’s end and aim.” “Take them,” says Godwin, 
“in the chamber of peace, it is impossible to figure to 
ourselves anything more humane. When_ occasion 
called to them to succour the oppressed, and raise the 
dejected, overwhelmed by some brutal or insulting 
foe, they appeared like Gods descending from Heaven 
for the consolation of mankind. But the garb of peace, 
however gracefully they wore it, they regarded as only 
an accident of their character. War was their profes- 
sion, their favourite scene, the sustenance of their life. 
If it did not offer itself to them at home, they would 
seek it to the ends of the earth, and sell themselves to 
any master rather than not find occasion to prove the 
intrepidity of their temper and the force of their arm. 
When they entered the field of battle, they regarded 
the business of war not as a matter of dire and tre- 
mendous necessity, but as their selected pleasure. 
Their hearts were then particularly alive, and all their 
pulses beat with joy.”* Froissart furnishes a happy 
illustration to this passage, in his account of the battle 
of Poitiers. ‘The prince of Wales (the Black Prince), 
who was as courageous aud cruel as a lion, took great 
pleasure this day in fighting and chasing his enemtes ;” 
yet, when the battle was over, and the French king 
made prisoner, the same prince waited upon his ulus- 
trious captive at supper, with a tenderness and de- 
licacy of respect, that it is impossible to read of 
unmoved, The period of Edward I[k and of his 
gallant son isindeed the period of the highest and most 
palmy state of chivalry ; it is also the period of Chau- 
cer, who, in “the Knight” and “the Squire,” has 
shown us the two great and clearly distinguishable 
phases of the knightly character. In the one, we see 
the young, loving, enthusiastic, poetical, and accom- 
plished aspirant for military honours; in the other, the 
azed veteran warrior, with whom the stern realities of 
life have sobered down much of its early romance: 
the first (“the Squire’) will form the subject of 
our next paper; the last we now present to our 
readers. 


A Knight there was, and that a worthy man, 
That from the timé that he first began 
To riden out, he lovéd chivalry, 
Truth and honéur, freedom and courtesy. 
Full worthy was he in his lordés war, 
And thereto had he ridden, no man farre.+ 
As wellin Christendom as in Heatheness : 
And ever honour'd for his worthiness. 

At Alisandref he was when it was won: 
Full often time he had the board begun§ 
Aboven allé natiéns in Prusse. 

In Lettowe || had he reysed,q and in Russe, 

No Christian man so oft of his degree. 

In Gernade ** at the siege eke had lhe be 

Of Algezir, 4nd ridden in Belmarie : +t 

At Layas was he, and at Satalie,++ 

Whien they were won; and in the Greaté Sea §§ 
At many a noble army had he be. 

At mortal battles had he been fifteen, 

And foughten for our faith at Tramissene }+ 

In listés thriés, and aye slain his foe. 


* Godwin's ‘ Life of Chaucer,’ vol. 2, p. 237. 

+ Farther. 

Alexandna, taken in 1365 by Pierre de Lusignan, king of 
Cyprus, but immediately abandoned. 

§ He hac been placed at the head of the table or board, as a 
compliment to his extraordinary merit. 

| Lithuania. «| Journeyed. 

** The city of Algezir, or Algeciras, was taken from the 
Moorish king of Granada in 1344. 

+} Supposed to refer to a place or kingdom of Africa. 

#{ Layas,a town in* Armenia, and Satalic, the ancient Attalia, 
were both taken by the king of Cyprus before mentioned ; the 
former in 1367, the latter in 1352. 

§§ Supposed to be the Mediterranean. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Marcu 6, 


This ilké worthy knight had been also 
Sometimé with the lord of Palatlne,* 
Against another heathen in Turkéy. 

And evermore he had a sovereigu prise. + 
And though that he was worthy, he was wise ; 
And of his port as meck as isa maid. 

He never yet no villainy } ne said 

Tn all his life unto no manner wight : 

He was a very perfect, gentle knight. 

But for to tellen you of lus array ; 

His horse was good, but he ne was not gay. 
Of fustian he weared a gipon$ 

All besmotter'dl| with his habergeon 5q 
Yor he was late ycome from his viage, 
Aud weuté for to do his pilgrimage.” 


In Leland’s Itinerary we find the epitaph of “ the 
noble and valiant knight Matthew de Gourney, who, in 
his life, was at the battle of Benamaryn (probably the 
Belmarie mentioned by Chaucer), and afterwards at 
the siege of Algezir against the Saracens, and also at 
the battles of L’Escluse, of Cressy, of Deyngenesse, of 
Peyteres (Poitiers), of Nazare, of Ozrey, and at several 
other battles and sieges, in which he gained great 
praise and honour.” This warrior, whose adventures 
so strikingly illustrate those of Chaucer’s knight, died 
in 1406, aged ninety-six years. It has been justly 
noticed asa peculiar feature of the times, that Chaucer 
does not bring Azs hero from Cressy and Poitiers, but 
from Alexandria and Lithuania; as though compara- 
tively slight.services against infidels were then thought 
of more importance than the most brilhant victories 
where Christians alone were concerned. It appears 
that it was usual in the fourteenth century for military 
men to go to Prussia, in order to serve with the 
knights of the Teutonic order, who were m a constant 
state of warfare with their then heathen neighbours, 
The youngest son of Edward IJII., Thomas, duke of 
Gloucester, and Henry, earl of Derby (Bolingbrcke), 
afterwards Henry IV., were among the other distin- 
guished men who shared in these expeditions. 

In a very interesting manuscript of the ‘ Canterbury 
Tales,’ written im the fifteenth century, which was 
bought at the Duke of Bridgewater’s sale at Ashridge, 
and 1s now in the possession of the Duke of Sutherland, 
there 1s, at the commencement of each tale, a pictorial 
representation of the relater. The figures, it is stated,** 
are drawn and coloured with great care, and present a 
very minute delineation of the dress and costume of 
Chaucer’s time. In the portrait of the knight, the 
countenance is highly expressive of sedateness and 
dignity. Huis folded head-covering is of a dark colour. 
His gipon is also dark, but his under coat red, which 
is discernible through the sleeves at his wrists. His 
legs are in armour, with gilt spurs. His dagger is in 
a red sheath by his side; and he wears little points or 
aiglets of red tipped with gold on his neck and shoulder. 

We have spoken of the knight’s romance being so- 
bered down, but it 1s only sobered down, not evaporated. 
With old and young the universal motto of the knight- 
hood of Europe during his time was, “ Tout Pamour, 
tout 4 Phonor;” and our knight is far from being 2 
recreant to the sentiments which gave to chivalry all 
its grace and glory. When, therefore, he is chosen to 
tell the first tale, he seems at once to have grown 
young again. Never certainly was a story more ad- 
mirably adapted to knightly theme—more sounding 
with chivalrous feats of arms, and no less chivalrous 
devotion to the fair, than that he tells—the well-known 
‘Palamon and Arcite.’ After its conclusion we do not 
hear much more of the knight, though what we do 


* Palathia ur Anatolia. + Praise. 

¢ © Anything unbecoming a gentleman.’ —Tyrwhitt. 

§ A short cassock. | Soiled. {] Coat of mail. 
** Todd's § Tlustrations of Gower and Chaneer,’ 


1S41.] 


hear is no less happily characteristic. The host's 
humorous but biting sarcasms against the Pardoner 
bring on a quarrel, which threatens serious conse- 
quences. The.knight however interferes : 
‘* No more of this. 

Sir Pardoner, be merry and glad of cheer ; 

And ye, Sir Host, that be to me so dear, 

I pray you that ye diss the Pardoner.” 


And so— 


« Anon they kissed and riden forth their way.” 
When the monk, who has said— 


“ T will bewail, nm manner of tragedy, 
The harm of them that stood im high degree,” 


proceeds accordingly with the most intolerable per- 
severance through the history of the respective cala- 
mities of Lucifer, Adam, Sampson, &c., down to 
Croesus, Peter of Spain, and Hugelin of Pisa, and for 
aught that is apparent, may still mntend to go on to the 
very end of the pilgrimage, the good knight’s patience 
fails ; 
“ Ho! quod the knight, good sire, no more of this: 

That, ye have said, it mght enough y wis, 

And mochel more; for little heaviness 

Is right enough to mochel folk, I guess, 

I say for me it isa great disease 

Where as men have been in great wealth and ease, 

To hearen of their sudden fall, alas! 

And the contrary 1s joy and great solace. 

As when a man hath been in poor estate, 

And climbeth up, and waxeth fortunate, 

And there abideth in prosperity ;— 

Such thing is gladsome, as it thinketh me ; 

And of such thing were goodly for to tell.” 


Doubtless the pilgrims agreed with him that “ dtile 
heaviness” was “nght enough;” and a very different 
kind of story therefore follows. 


MANUFACTURE OF POTASH, OR ‘ BLACK 
SALTS,” IN UPPER CANADA. 


[Prom a Correspondent.) — 


Many of the enterprising settlers in several of the dis- 
tricts of Upper Canada (the great local divisions of 
that country beng known under the name of Districts) 
have for many years been engaged in the rude manu- 
facture of an article wiversally known in that country 
under the name of ‘ Black Salts,——but which, in fact, 
is the ordinary potash in a crude and very impure 
state. It is not a litile singular that in scarcely 
anothcr British colony besides Upper Canada, either 
in North America or elsewhere, or, indeed, nearly 
throughout the whole territories of the United States, 
do the settlers devote much of their attention to this 
subject; although, in very many istances, there 1s no 
obstacle to their doing so with as great (and in some 
cases greater) probability of being amply repaid for 
their trouble, smce many other countries yield nearly 
or precisely the same species of forest-trees as the 
black salts of Canada are made from, and they have 
greater facilities for procuring the necessary pans and 
vessels to make it in. 

All who have ever entertained any pecuhar interest 
regarding new colonies, and their becoming peopled 
and the wilderness subdued, will be aware, I presume, 
that one of the chief and primary obstacles the first 
settlers have to encounter, is, that which the state of 
the primeval forest presents; for in many of our 
colonies, and our North American ones particwarly, 
the entire country, when first entered upon bya race of 
enterprising settlers, is one interminable wilderness of 
forest-trees. Now, until means be taken either to 
annihilate those trees by cutting them down and then 
burning them, or to destroy the vital principle in 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


95 


them, and so leave them standing for a season, bya 
process called ‘ girdlimg’—that is, by cutting a circular 
notch quite round the tree, and completely through 
both the outer and inner bark—afterwards leaving 
them standing until through absolute decay they fall 
of their own accord,—the land cannot possibly be made 
to produce any of the necessaries of life, nor sustenance 
for any description of farm-stock. Among the poorer 
and more indolent portion of the settlers, in some par- 
ticular districts, the system of girdling 1s practised to 
a considerable extent; but this certamly 1s a slovenly 
method of preparmeg the soil for crops of either grass 
or grain, and one which never ought to be adopted by 
such as possess the means of clearing off the timber ir 
a better and more Iegitimate way, namcly, by first 
cutting down all the trees, great and small, and after- 
wards having thein cut into convenient lengths to be 
drawn together by oxen or rolled together by the use 
of handspikes, preparatory to their being set fire to 
and burned, root and branch. 

The soil of Upper Canada being, for the most part, 
of a good quahty, many of the trees grow toa large 
size; and the usual phrase of the country employed to 
designate the forest with this large growth of timber 
upon it, is, ‘heavily timbered land.’ We are in the 
habit of hearing much said about the very low rate at 
which land of a pretty good quality may be bought 
in Upper Canada and elsewhere; but in many places 
where the fee-simple of the soil might be purchased 
for 10s. or 12s, sterling the acre, the cost of clearing 
off the timber will amount to four or five times as much, 
thus making the first cost fully 3/. per acre; and if 
I were to mclude the fencing, probably 10s. or 15s. 
more. But in scveral of the most floumshing settle- 
ments, from the Head (as 1t 1s called) of Lake Ontario, 
wesiward the whole length of Lake Erie, many of the 
more enterprising settlers, as I before remarked, are 
in the habit of turning the timber to account, ma way 
that used never to be thought of, or, at all events, 
never attempted, that is, by the manutacture of crude 
potash, or ‘ black salts,’ from the ashes of the burned 
timber; and since the process generally adopted by 
the Canadian settlers 1s a very simple one, and one that 
might be imtroduced mto some’ of the other British 
colonies to the decided advantage of those persons who 
undertake to subdue the native forests, I will proceed 
to explain it. 

Since it is not every species of forest-tree that con- 
tains alkaline salts, or at least in such quantitics as to 
be worth the while of any one to attempt to extract 
them for useful purposes, it has become a matter of 
some consideration with parties who calculate upon 
turning the ashes of the forest-trees to a profitable 
account, to have an eye to the kinds of timber the soil 
produces in the greatest abundance, when making a 
selection of lands in a state of nature, or what is 
eenerally called a wild state; for where a great por- 
tion of the: timber consists of resinous trees, there 1s 
httle likehhood of turning black-salt-making to any 
advantage. Many experiments have been made, from 
time to time, upon the ashes of the sundry varieties 
of timber (not very scientific or accurate ones, how- 
ever), for the purpose of ascertaining which sort yields 
the greatest quantity of alkaline salts; and it is now 
generally believed the species of elm, which is tolerably 
abundant in many parts of the forests of Upper Canada, 
yields rather more than any other sort of native tim- 
ber. Next to the elm they consider one or two species 
of ash—the red beech, the black birch, the black 
maple, and locust tree—among the favourite sorts of 
timber to employ in making potash; but nearly every 
other species of ‘ hard wood’ (a term uscd in contradis- 
tinction to all the varieties of pine, cedar, &c.) will 


answer to form part of a pile of logs that is intended 


96 THE PENNY 
to be burned, and black salts afterwards extracted from 
the ashes. . 
There is no particular time of the year sct apart for 
the making of black salts, but a dry scason 18 always 
the most advantageous, as it would not be advisable 
to allow the wood-ashes to become wet by rain or 
otherwise before they are collected and put into the 
vats. These vats arevery often cuts or sections from 
soine hollow tree, instead of vessels made by the 
cooper, and sometimes the owners do not even go 
to the expense of putting bottoms in these hollow 
logs (tops they do not want), but place them upright 
on the broad-topped stump of some mighty monarch 


of the forest, and so contrive some Ingenious means ‘Opp 


collecting the material (lye) from which potash is 
made. But this is a slovenly plan; because the vessel 
having no bottom to it, the water which 1s poured upon 
the ashes with which the tub is filled passes too quickly 
through them, and so fails in extracting the whole of 
the salts. The more skilful potash-makers use four or 
five large rude tubs, each containing twelve or sixteen 
bushels of ashes, and a couple of large iron kettles or 
caldrons that will boil froin thirty to forty gallons of 
lye each. As soon as practicable, after the pues of logs 
have been reduced to ashes, the ashes are carefully 
collected and taken to the vicinity of the ‘ boilng- 
camp; and when there happens to be more than the 
vessels will hold, the surplus has to be stowed away 
under cover to avoid exposure to the weather. When 
a very copious supply of water is popes into the vats, 
or whatever they may be called, that contain the dry 
ashes, the alkaline salts will be the sooner extracted, 
and a couple of days will suiiice to cxtract most part 
of the salts; but since very weak lye requires a great 
deal more evaporating (by boiling) in order to obtain 
a certain quantity of the black salts, the better mana- 
vers in these matters saturate the ashes no more than 
is just necessary to extract the salts; and by lettmeg 
the mass renin several days before the vents are 
opened for the liquor to escape by, a much stronger 
lye is produced, and hence the operation of boiling 1s 
much sooner over. To some this may seem of little 
consequence, whether-there should be a thousand gal- 
lons to evaporate or five hundred only, but it should 
be borne in wind that when once the boiling proccss 
conunnences, it ought to be continued mght and day 
until it is completed; for since (for the inost part) it 
takes place in the open air, when the kettles are large 
and the fires are permitted to go out and the hquor to 
cool, considerable extra trouble is necessary ; for vessels 
placed in the open air and over fires that are blown 
about by every breath of wind, require far more fuel 
to bring their contents to the boiling-point than if they 
had been placed in any ordinary apartment over a fire- 
place that was exactly adapted to the shape and size of 
the vessel. 

When the lye has been boiled down to a consistency 
approaching a semi-fluid form (but the settlers have 
several plans of ascertaming when it has been suffi- 
ciently reduced), the mass is allowed to cool in the bot- 
tom of the kettles, where it crystallizes and becomes 
a tolerably solid substance, but neither white nor ex- 
hibiting any transparency; since during the process 
dust and ashes and smoke have had access to the boil- 
ing liquid ; and this, in addition to the lye itself acquir- 
ing a dark colour from the mixed ashes, charcoal, and 
particles of soil, gives to the crude potash that dark ap- 
pearance from which it derives its name, and it 1s in 
this state that the farmers, or the parties employed in 
clearmg away the primeval forests of Upper Ca- 
nada, generally bring their produce into the market. 
Formerly mueh of the black salts was sent all 
the way to Montreal or Quebec in the state in 
which it was taken from the kettles of the settlers, 


MAGAZINE. [Marcu 6, 
and there sold to parties who were at no great deal 
of cost or trouble in converting it into marketable 
otashes; but in most of the older and more flourish- 
ing settlements there now are persons (principally 
storekeepers), who are ready to buy it from the 
settlers, and who have the requisite conveniences con- 
nected with their establishments for converting the 
black salts into either pot or pearl ashes, as may seem 
to be the best calculated to answer their purpose ; 
when it. is afterwards packed in proper casks for 
the foreign markets, but which it can only reach 
through the distant markets of the sea-ports above 
mentioned. 

I have known settlers clear twenty acres of land 
annually, and yet able to pay the whole of the expenses 
by the sale of their black salts; while the labour at- 
tending the manufacture of this article has been per- 
formed by the parties owning the land; but even if 
persons had been hired to perform it, the expense would 
not have exceeded a fourth part of the cost of clearme. 
To be sure, lands that will yield black salts to pay the 
cost of clearing, must. be well stocked onginally with 
the most favourable sorts of forest-trees for yielding 
salts; and since it is by no means hecessary that the 
wood-ashes should be spread upon the ground as a 
manure (the maiden et being sufficiently fertile— 
either naturally, or through additions of decayed leaves 
and other vegetable matter), they consequently are 
accounted of little or no value as regards the future 
crops the soil may be adapted to produce. Indeed this 
is frequently. so obviously the case, that it 1s quite a 
common thing to find settlers, in districts where they 
neglect making black salts (and yet such as have the 
reputation of being good managers generally), after re- 
ducing to ashes the large piles of timber upon the lands 
they are clearing, not even going to the trouble of 
spreading them over the surrounding surface in the 
immediate vicinity, but contenting themselves with 
letting the whole remain upon the very place where 
the logs had been piled together and consumed. 

I have been induced to dwell upon this subject ata 
ereater length than I otherwise should have done, 
with the view of making this source of profit to new 
settlements more generally known than 1t appears to 
be at present; and not only more known, but more 
generally practised; and what, to me, seems a matter 
quite unaccountable, is this,—that throughout theUnited 
States, among a people who are confessedly so prone to 
mix up with their farming pursuits, speculations of 
various sorts connected with trade, manufactures, and 
commerce, this plan of turning the clearing of wild 
land toa profitable account, or at least of reducing 
the expense to little or nothing, should continue almost 
universally neglected from one end of the Union to 
the other.* There are, it is true, what goes by the 
name of ‘asheries,’ in many of the inland country towns 
and villages of the United States, where both pot and 
pearl ashes are manufactured; but the owners of these 
establishments employ only dry and clean ashes, such 
in fact as are made in the dwelling-houses, which the 
manufacturers themselves collect in their own carts, 
from house to house, at 4d. or 5d. per bushel; or if 
delivered at the ashery by the settlers, a trifle more 1s 
usually given. 


Of all sights which can soften and humanise the heart of man, 
there is none that ought so surely to reach it as that of innocent 
children enjoying the happiness which is their proper and natural 
portion.— Southey. 





* The method of manufacturing potash from seaweed is de- 
scribed: in No. 474.  Potash-making is one of the secondary 
branches of industry practised by the peasantry in the forests of 


| Sweden. (See No, 490.) 





1S41.} 


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(Mirttron and his Locaniries. 


low Castle, from a view drawn in 1750. 3. C) 
. oi 5 ra H : j » : 
a Print in Ackermann’ 7 alfont, from a wood 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. 
Miuton. 


Ine popular feeling towards great men never shows 
itself more gracefully than in the traditions it delichts 
to preserve of the localities honoured by their pre- 
sence ; than when—with all the zeal of the devotee in 
Catholic countries displaying to some travel-worn but 
enthusiastic pilgrim the shrine towards which he has 
been so long journeying—it points out the house in 
which this great poet lived, or the tree that that philo- 
Sopher had planted. And most universal is the ye- 


No. 074. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 





97 


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1. The Portrait, from an etching by Cipriani, after a picture formerly in the possession of Jacob Johnson. 2, Lud- 
CC. On hal cut in a series of views of Poets’ residences. 4. Chiist’s College, Cambridge, from 
s* Cambridge.’ 5. St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, with part of the London Wall, from a view in Wilkinson’s ‘ Londiniana.’] 


| verence in which such feelings have their origin. With 


what pleasure we all trace the course of the lives of 
those illustrious men, step by step, from the house 
where they first saw the light, to that where, for the last 
time, their fading vision was cheered by its beams! 
With what gratification we busy ourselves in identify- 
ing any of the circumstances of those localities—the 
home—the scenery—the neighbourhood—with the 
growth and development of their minds, or with par- 
ticular passages of their writings. With what pecu- 
harly grateful delight we receive any fresh testimonies 
of their worth, any new evidences of their unswerving 


Von. X.—O 


98 THE PENNY 
constancy to the great principles they lived but to 
expound. Such considerations apply with peculiar 
torce to the great poet whose local memories we are 
here about to illustrate ; for in his case, party and sec- 
tarlan intolerance has done its worst to prevent or 
destroy such reverential respect; and with what 
effect >—-None, we may answer, of a permanent kind : 
—and as to the temporary,—had Milton required 
any other support than his own steady soul at all times 
furnished, he would have found it in the opinions of 
some of the best and purest men in his own country, 
in the general esteein and admiration in which he was 
held abroad. It is a matter suggestive of much useful 
reflection, that whilst foreigners of the most distin- 
euished European reputation were secking in the 
streets of the city for the birth-place of Milton, the 
man whom they thus honoured was in hourly danger 
of his life, and perhaps only avoided the scaffold by 
strict concealment. 

That birth-place (on Dec. 9, 1608) was in Bread Street, 
Cheapside, the house of his father, an eminent scrivener, 
and was distinguished bya sign representing the armo- 
rial ensign of the family—the Spread Eagle. ‘he house 
was left to the poet, but just at the period when its pos- 
session would have been most valuable to him, he lost it 
by fire: the great fire of London im 1666. There his 
education was sedulously commenced under ‘the care 
of a person named Young, afterwards master of Jesus 
College, Cambridge. He was next sent to St. Paul’s 
school, and from thence, at the age of fifteen, to Cam- 
bridge. Christ’s College, of which, in 1624, he became a 
member, was origimally founded in 1456, by Henry VLI., 
under the name of God’s House, but afterwards incor- 
porated into the present establishment and hbcerally 
endowed by the Lady Margaret, Countess of Rich- 
inond, a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, and 
the mother of Henry VII. The buildings consist of a 
handsome quadrangle or principal court (130 feet by 
120), and of a second court built on two sides, that 
next the garden and fields forming an elegant facade 
about 150 feet long. In the garden there is an inter- 
esting memorial of Milton, a mulberry-tree planted 
by his own hand, and which at once carries back the 
thoughts to the period when the young poet-student 
paced to and fro along its walks, book in hand, some- 
tines utterly wrapped in its contents, sometimes letting 
it fall listlessly by his side, to commune with a still 
ereater spint—his own sublime imagination! This 
earden was doubtless a favourite place; for he dis- 
hked the surrounding country, it was too level and 
unpicturesque; and, as he complained, had no soft 
shades to attract the Muse. Those scenes, however, 
have a tradition of their own im connection with Mil- 
ton, and one too that would be exceedingly interesting, 
if we could have more faith in its truth than the 
poet’s biographers seem to think we should have. The 
story first appeared in a newspaper published in the 
latter part of the last century :—‘“It 1s well known 
that in the bloom of youth, and when he pursued his 
studies at Cambridge, this poet was extremely beauti- 
ful.* Wandering one day, during the summer, far 
beyond the precincts of the University, into the coun- 
try, he became so heated and fatigued, that reclining’ 
himself at the foot of a tree to rest, he shortly fell 
asleep. Before he awoke, two ladies, who were fo- 
reigners, passed by in a carriage. Agrecably astonished 
at the loveliness of his appearance, they alighted, and 
having admired him (as they thought) unperceived, 
for some time, the youngest,-who was very handsome, 
drew a pencil from her pocket, and having written 
some lines upon a piece of paper, put 1t with her trem- 
bling hand into his own. Immediately afterwards they 


* He was called the ‘ Lady of his College ;’ a designation he | 


did not much relish, 


MAGAZINE. ([Marc# 13, 
proceeded on their journey. Some of his acquaintance, 
who were in search of him, had observed this silent 
adventure, but at too great a distance to discover that 
the highly favoured party in it was our illustrious 
bard. Approaching nearer, they saw their friend, to 
whom, being awakened, they mentioned what had hap- 
pened. Mhulton opened the paper, and, with surprise, 


read these verses from Guarini: *—‘ Ye eyes! ye 
human stars! ye authors of my liveliest pangs! If 


thus when shut, ye wound me, what must have proved 
the consequence had ye been open?’ Eager, from this 
moment, to find out the fair incognita, Milton travelled, 
but in vain, through every part of Italy.” 

At college Milton soon distinguished himself; and 
although Dr. Johnson, in a well known passage, says, 
he “is ashamed to relate, what he fears is true, that 
Milton was one of the last students in either university 
that suffered the public indignity of corporal correc- 
tion,” we have Milton’s own: grateful testimony to 
the kind and enlightened treatment he there met with. 
In answer to one of his slanderers, later in life, who 
had said that, “after an inordinate and riotous youth 
spent at the University,” he had been ‘at length vo- 
mited out thence,” Milton writes, ‘for which commo- 
dious lie, that he may be encouraged in the trade 
another time, I thank him; for it gives me_an apt 
occasion to acknowledge, publicly, with all grateful 
mind, that more than ordinary favour and respect 
which I found above any of my equals at the hands of 
those courteous and learned men, the fellows of the 
college,” &c. This statement appears to us perfectly 
decisive that Dr. Johnson was mistaken. 

From Cambridge Milton went into Buckingham- 
shire, where his father, now retired from business, had 
purchased an estate at Horton, near Colnebrook ; 
and where, in the parish church, his mother lies buried. 
lIere he is supposed to have written the ‘ Arcades,’ 
‘L’ Allegro,’ and ‘I] Penseroso,’ ‘ Lycidas,’ and ‘ Co- 
mus.’ The ‘Arcades’ was performed at Harefield 
Place, the seat of the Countess Dowager of Derby, and 
about ten or twelve miles from Horton; that lady’s 
children being the actors. The personal accomplish- 
ments of the Countess, and the woody scenery of Hare- 
field, are supposed to be referred to in the following 
lines from ‘ L’ Allegro ’— 

** Towers and battlements it sees 
Bosom’d high in tufted trees, 
Where, perhaps, some beauty hes, 
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.” 


The house at Horton was pulled down about the 
year 1798. Through his acquaintance with the Countess 
of Derby, Milton was most probably introduced to the 
Earl of Bridgewater, her relation; and perhaps first 
heard from her lips the incident which there is reason 
to believe formed the groundwork of ‘Comus.’ “I 
have been informed from a manuscript of Oldy’s,” 
says Warton, “that Lord Bridgewater, being appointed 
lord-president of Wales, entered upon his official resi- 
dence at Ludlow Castle with great solemnity. On this 
occasion he was attended by a large concourse of the 
neighbouring nobility and gentry. Among the rest 
came his children, in particular Lord Brackley, Mr. 
Thomas Igerton, and Lady Alice, 


‘To attend their father’s state 
And new intrusted sceptre.’ 


They had been ona visit at a house of their relations, 
the Egerton family, in Herefordshire; and, in passing 
through Heywood Forest, were benighted, and the 
Lady Alice was even lost for a short time. This acci- 
dent, which, in the end, was attended with no bad con- 
sequences, furnished the subject of a maske for a 


* We omit the original in Italian. 





1841. | THE PENNY 
Michaelmas festivity, and produced ‘ Comus.’” Lawes, 
also, the musician, who set the composition to music, 
dedicated the work to Lord Brackley, remarking that 
“the poem received its first occasion of birth from 
himself and others of his noble family.” It was in the 
autiunn of 1634 that ‘Comus’ was performed in the 
noble hall of Ludlow Castle, and by the very person- 
ages whose adventure had given rise to its production 
—Lord Brackley, his brother, and the Lady Alice. Both 
hall and castle are greatly changed since that day, 
though the latter still presents, in its bold and lofty 
site, 1ts massy ruins, and towering keep, in its em- 
battled wall, and imniense fosse (now forming a de- 
lightful promenade for the inhabitants of the town), 
the proofs of its former strength and grandeur. Of 
its history—with all the great sieges it has known 
(having been invested by King Stephen, Simon de 
Montfort, Henry VI., and at different periods of the 
parhamentary war), we must not stop tospeak. We 
quit Ludlow Castle, therefore, mérely remarking as 
we pass that in one of the towers of the castle, Butler, 
another great poet, composed several cantos of his 
‘Hudibras.’ On the death of his mother, in 1687, 
Milton travelled through Italy; but returned on hear- 
ing of the political troubles which broke out in this 
country about that time. He then lodged for a time 
in St. Bride’s Churchyard, Fleet Street, where he com- 
menced the education of his nephews, the Puilips’s, 
on anew system; but soon removed to a handsome 
house situated ina garden in Aldersgate Street. In 
1643 he married the daughter of a gentleman of Forest 
Mill, Oxfordshire. Sir William Jones has given* a 
long and interesting account of a visit to this place, 
where he states that Milton resided for some time; 
and he is supported in this statement by a tradition 
still current among the villagers, and by the undoubted 
fact that Milton was intimately acquainted with his 
wife’s family so early as 1627. The poet’s house, he 
states, was close to the church; the greater part of it 
however had been pulled down, and the remains then 
forming a part of an adjacent farm. This marriage 
wasat first unhappy; the lady went home to her father’s 
house professedly for a time only, but soon announced 
to Milton her determination to remain there entirely. 
Milton consequently repudiated her, and published 
several treatises in justification of his right to do so. 
He proceeded also to pay his addresses to a beautiful 
young lady, when his wife, either alarmed at that cir- 
cumstance, or at the misfortunes of her family, produced 
by their adherence to the king, met him unexpectedly 
one day at the house of a relation in St. Martin’s-le- 
Grand; and falling on her knees, conjured him to 
forgive her. Milton found that, in the words of his 
own ‘ Paradise Lost, where Eve is praying Adam’s 
forgiveness for the sin into which she had led himn,— 
‘Soon his heart relented 
Toward her, his life so late, and sole delight, 
Now at his feet submissive in distress.” 


He not only forgave her, but when her family was re- 
duced to utter distress by the ruin of the royal cause, re- 
ceived the whole—father, mother, brothers, and sisters— 
into his house to “ fevemmncn and free entertainment.” 
Before, however, he could accommodate so large a 
household, he had to obtain a much larger house; for 
his own father was now living with him, and his scho- 
lars had increased: accordingly he removed to Bar- 
bican. About this period was written the most splen- 
did of all his prose works, the ‘ Areopagitica, or a 
Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.’ After 
the death of his wife’s father, and the removal of the 
rest of the family, Milton went into a smaller house in 
Tolborn, the back part of which opened into Lincoln's 


* Letter to Lady Spencer, 1769. 


MAGAZINE. 


Inn Fields. This was in 16-!7. On the death of the 
king, two years later, Milton produced his tract on 
‘The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,’ proving that 
it is lawful to call to account a tyrant or wicked king, 
&c. The ability displayed in this and similar political 
productions doubtless recommended him to the Council 
of State of the Commonwealth, which, having de- 
termined to use the Latin language in all negociations 
with foreign nations, appointed Milton its Latin secre- 
tary. An official residence in Scotland Yard, then 
called Whitehall, was now provided for him; and it 
is said that here he used to hold a weekly table for the 
entertainment of foreign ministers and persons of 
learning, such especially as came from Protestant 
states. In 1651 Milton quitted Scotland Yard, in ac- 
cordance with the arrangement of the parliamentary 
commissioners connected with the management of 
Whitehall, and removed toa pretty garden-house in 
Petty France, Westminster,* where he remained until 
within a few weeks of the Restoration. Here his wife 
died in childbed in 1653: to the same house, three 
years later, he brought a second partner; and from 
the same house followed her, dying under similar cir- 
cumstances, also to the grave. Histwenty-third sonnet, 
that ‘On his deceased wife,’ shows how deeply her loss 
had sunk into his mind :— 
“ Methought I saw my late espoused saint 
Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, 
Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave, 
Rescued from death by force, though pale and fait. 
Mine, as when wash’d from spot of child-bed taint 
Purification in the old law did save, 
And such as yet once more IJ trust to have 
Full sight of her in Heav’n without restraint, 
Came, vested all in white, pure as her mind: 
Her face was veil’d, yet to my fancied sight, 
Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shin’d 
So clear as in no face with more delight. 
But oh, as to embrace me she inclin‘d, 
I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night.” 


To feel the full pathos of the last line, we must re- 
member that Milton was now blind. He had been 
warned by his physicians several years before, whilst 
engaged in one of his great political tracts, that he 
must desist, or he would lose his sight. His duty 
would not, he thought, permit him to desist; and so 
the prediction was verified. 

At the Restoration, Milton withdrew from the im- 
pending storm by taking shelter in secrecy with a 
friend in Bartholomew Close; and it is stated that a 
mock funeral was got up, so imminent was his danger 
considered. On the 27th of August, 1659, his books 
were burnt by the public hangman (an act im every 
way worthy of the prince who had Cromwell’s moulder- 
ing bones taken up and exposed on a scaffold): in three 
days after, however, the Act of Indemnity appeared, 
by which it was supposed that he was relieved from 
danger. Tf the fact were so, his appreliension after- 
wards might have been a matter of form only. At all 
events he was apprehended, but discharged on pay- 
ment of exorbitant fees. Milton referred to this period 
when he described himself as having fallen on evil 
days and evil tongues, and with darkness and with 
danger compass’d round: Richardson, indeed, says 
‘he lived under continual terror of assassination.” 
In the course of the next three or four years, Milton, | 
whose mind appears to have been somewhat changeable 
as regarded his residences, lived first in Holborn, near - 
Red Lion Fields; then in Jewin Street. where he 
married his third wife; and lastly in Artillery Walk, 
leading to Bunhill Fields, where he ended his “ mortal 


vo 


* Now Queen Square Place. Here also the late Jeremy Ben- 
tham lived for many years, and was accustomed to point out the 
garden, to visitors, as that in which Milton had frequently walked. 


O 2 


100 


When the plague begun in- London, in 


or. a 
yilgrimage. ! ( 
acted occasionally as 


1665, Elwood, the Quaker, who ac 
his secretary, took a house for him at Chalfont, i 
Buckinghamshire, “a pretty box,” as he called it. 
Here Elwood visited him one day; and “after some 
common discourses,” as he himself informs us, “ had 
passed between us, he called for a manuscript of his, 
which heing brought, he delivered to me, bidding me 
take it home with me, and read it at my leisure; and 
when I had so done, return it to him, with my judg- 
ment thereupon. When I came home, and set myself 
to read it, I found that it was that excellent poem 
which he entitled ‘ Paradise Lost.’” At Chalfont, also, 
‘Paradise Regained’ is supposed to have been entirely 
written. When the danger from infection had ceased, 
Milton returned to Bunhill Fields; and here he pub- 
lished his great poem. At the door of this house he 
used to sit in warm sunny weather, to enjoy the fresh 
air, clad in a coarse grey coat; and there, as well as in 
his rooms, receive the visits of the numerous distin- 
euished persons who came to see and converse with 
him. His domestic habits were still, as they had always 
been, “ those of asober and temperate student. Of wine 
or any strong liquors he drank little. In his dict he 
was rarely influenced by delicacy of choice ; illustrating 
his own admirable rule, 


The rule of § Not too much,’ by temperance taught, 
In what thou eat’st and drink’st; seeking from thence 
Due nourishment, not giuttonous delight. 


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[| Marcy 13, 


suits; but, after he was confined by age and blindness, 
he had a machine to swing in for the preservation of 
his health. In summer he rested in bed from nine to 
four; in winter to five. If at these hours he was not 
disposed to rise, he had a person by his bed-side to read 
tohim. When he first rose, he heard a chapter in the 
Webrew bible, and commonly studied till twelve; then 
used some exercise for an hour; then dined; atter- 
wards played on the organ or bass viol, and either 
sung himself or made his wife sing, who, he said, had 
a good voice, but no ear. It is related that when 
educating his nephews, he had made them songsters, 
and sing from the time they were with him. No poet, 
it may be observed, has more frequently or more 
powerfully commended the charms of music than 
Milton. He wished perhaps to rival, and he has suc- 
cessfully rivalled, the sweetest descriptions of a favourite 
bard, whom the melting voice appears to have often 
enchanted, the tender Petrarch. After his regular in- 
dulgence in musical relaxation, he studied till six; 
then entertained his visitors till eight; then enjoyed a 
hght supper; and after a pipe of tobacco and a glass 
of water, retired to bed.”* 

On Sunday, the 8th of November, 1674, the great 
poet died: so serene was his departure, that the atten- 
dants in the room at the time were unaware of the pre- 
cise moment. He was buried next to his father in 
the chancel of Cripplegate Church. A marble bust, 
by Bacon, with a tablet beneath, was erected in the 
middle aisle by the munificence of the late Mr. Whit- 
bread. The bed on which he died was presented to 
the poet Akenside, who, we need hardly say, treasured 
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BACKGAMMON. 


Tue period of the invention of this game, which was 
for many centuries one of the most popular of all our 
sedentary amusements, appears to be unknown; but 
it seems to have been intended, in common with Several] 
other gaines uniting chance and skill, to place players 
of unequal ability more on a level than Chess per- 
mitted. The name furnishes an interesting proof of 
its antiquity in England, being no other than a genuine 
Saxon compound, Bac, or baec, and gamen, meaning 
back-game, so called because the game essentially 


consists in the players bringing back their men from 
their antagonist’s tables into their own; or, because 
the pieces are sometimes taken up and obliged to go 
back, that is, re-enter at the table from which they 
came. During the Norman dominion the name was 
doubtless changed to that appellation under which we 
next find the game existing in this country, that 1s, 
Tables, a word derived directly from the French. The 
form of the backgammon-table at this period is shown 
ina beautifully illuminated manuscript of the thir- 


* Todd’s ‘ Life and Writings of Milton, p. 240, 


1841.] 


teenth century ; it 1s square, as at present, but has no 
division in the centre, the points on either side being 
contained in a single compartment. A century later 
the division was made, as we find bya MS. of the time; 
but the points are still undistinguished by colours, ac- 
eording to the present, “ and, indeed,” says Strutt, 
“ more ancient usage.” The principal differences in 
the mode of playing then and now were, first, im 
having three dice instead of two, or reckoning a certain 
number for the third when that was missing; and, 
second, in placing all the men within the antagonist’s 
table. Among the authors of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries we find various allusions to the game 
under this and other names. Thus, in Shakspere’s 
‘Love’s Labour’s Lost :’ 


“ This is the ape of form, Monsieur the nice, 
Who, when he plays at tables, chides the dice.” 


Ina curious collection of epigrams, epitaphs, &c., 
published in 1663 under the title of ‘ Wit’s Recreations,’ 
we find an epitaph on one John Crop, which is through- 
out a continued series of puns upon the different terms 
and peculiarities of the game, and which therefore 
will, we doubt not, be interesting to all those who, in 
spite of the dictates of fashion, still adhere to this fa- 
vourite old English sport :— 

“ Man's life’s a game at tables, and he may 

Mend his bad tortune by his wiser play ; 

Death plays against us, each disease and sore 

Are blots; if lit, the danger 1s the more 

To lose the game; but an old stander by 

Binds up the blots, and cures the malady, 

And so prolongs the game: John Crop was he, 
Death in a rage did challenge, for to see 

His play; the dice are thrown; when first he drinks, 
Casts, makes a blot, death hits bim with a cinque : 
He casts again, but all in vain, for Death 

By th’ after game did win the prize—his breath. 
What though his skill was good, his luck was bad, 
For never mortal man worse casting had. 

But did not Death play false to win from such 

As he? No doubt, he bare a man too much.” 


Burton, in his ‘ Anatomy of Melancholy,’ testifies as 
to the popularity of the game im his time. “ The or- 
dinary recreations which we have i winter, and in 
most solitary times busy our minds with, are cards, 
tables and dice, shovel-board, &c.” Whilst acknowledg- 
ine their utility, however, he points out the terrible mis- 
chief to which their abuse led: ‘“ which though they 
be honest recreations in themselves, yet may justly be 
otherwise excepted at, as they are often abused, and 
forbidden as things most pernicious.... For most part 
in these kind of disports, *tis not art, wit, or skill, but 
subtlety, coney-catching, knavery, chance and fortune 
carries allaway.... They labour most part not to pass 
their time in honest disport, but for filthy lucre, or 
covetousness of money.... A thing so common all over 
Europe at this day, and so generally abused, that many 
men are utterly undone by it, their means spent, pa- 
trionies consumed, they and their posterity beggared, 
besides swearing, wrangling, drinking, loss of time, 
and such inconveniences which are ordinary concomi- 
tants. So good things may be abused, and that which 
was first invented to refresh men’s weary spirits, when 
they come from other labour and studies, to exhilarate 
their mind, to entertain time and company, tedious 
otherwise, in these long solitary winter nights, and 
keep them from worse matters, an honest exercise is 
contrarily perverted.”* 

The other names to which we have alluded are 
trie-trac and tic-tack, the last being apparently a 
mere familiar abbreviation of the first; but Menage, 


* ¢ Anatomy of Melancholy,’ part 11., sec. 2, No. 4, Exercise 
rectified, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


10] 


a French philologist, considers tic-tack the more an- 
cient appellation, and states that the game is still so 
calledin Germany. The words are said to be derived 
“from touch and take, for if you touch a man you 
must play him, though to your loss.”* To the preced- 
ing allusions to the game im the writings of different 
authors, we may add the remark of Hall, an Epelish 
poet of the seventeenth century, that ‘“tick-iack sets a 
man’s intentions on their guard. Errors in this and 
war can be but once amended.’’? 

Strutt states, in his well known work on ‘ Sports 
and Pastimes’ (to which we are indebted for several 
of the facts contained in this sketch of the game), that 
at the commencement of the last century backgammon 
was a very favourite amusement, and pursued at Ici- 
sure times by most persons of opulence, and especially 
the clergy, which occasioned Dean Swift, when writ- 
ing to a friend of his in the country, sarcastically to 
ask the following question: “In what esteem are you 
with the vicar of the parish; can you play with him 
at backgammon?” Jn conclusion we may remark, 
that the history of this game adds one more proof 
to the immense amount of evidence that exists, to show 
how comparatively temporary after all were the effects 
of that most tremendous of revolutions—the Norman 
Conquest of England, in the way of de-nationalizing 
the country. The Saxon ‘backganimon’ was, as we have 
shown, the original name for the amusement, which 
was altered into ‘tables’ by the Normans; but cen- 
turies pass, gradually though silently the foreign appel- 
lation disappears, and the native resumes its sway. 
For a considerable period the game has been known 
as backgammon only, and so long as it shall exist for 
the future, will doubtless continue to be recognised 
by no other name. 





CHAUCER’S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE SQUIRE. 


As in the description of the Knight we have seen a 
full and complete development of that character which 
it was the object of the chivalric institutions to create, 
so in the Squire we perceive an intermediate stage in 
the process; the foundation, as it were, upon which 
the knightly character has been built. Thus whilst 
our knight fondly,-but not unreasonably anticipates, 
that what he is, his son (the Squire) shall one day be, 
he cannot but at the same time remember that that 
son, with all his youthful grace and enthusiasm, his 
mental and bodily accomplhshments, is but an epitome 
of his former self. And how exquisitely has Chaucer 
painted this young aspirant for military glories! The 
description, like the individual it celebrates, 1s “as fresh 
as is the month of May;” like the airs of that sweet 
season, it seems filled with the sense of new life—-of 
crowing vigorous beauty : 
‘ With him [the knight] there was Ins son, a young Sqmér, 

A lover and a lusty bachelor, 

With lockés curl’d as they were laid in press ; 

Of tweuty year of age he was, I guess. 

Of his statére he was of even length, 

And wonderly deliver,t and great of strength. 

And he had been some time in chevachiegd 

Ih Flanders, in Artois, and in Picardy ; 

And bore him well, as of so little space, 

In hope to standen in his lady's grace. 

Embroider’d was he, as it were a mead, 

All full of freshé flowrés,-white and red. 

Singing he was, or floyting|| all the day : 

He was as fresh as is the month of May. 

Short was his gown, witn sleevés long and wide. 

Well could he sit on horse, and farré ride. 


* ¢ Complete Gamester.’ + ©‘ Hore Vacive,’ 1646. 
' Active, nimble. § A military expediien. 
|| Playing on the fue. 


He couldé songés make, aud well indite, 

Joust, and eke dance, and well pourtray, and write. 
So hot he lovéd, that by nightertale* 

He slept 10 more than doth the nightingale. 
Courteous he was, lowly, and serviceable, 

And carv’d before his father at the table. 


To this description, and the engraving at the head 
of the preceding paper, we may add a few words ilus- 
trative of the miniature portrait of the Squire in the 
manuscript betore mentioned, His locks are there 
curiously curled, and give the idea of their having 
been “laid in press,” whilst his short vest, with his 
cloak fluttering in the wind, is embroidered so as to 
give something of the appearance of the “mead all 
full of freshé flowrés, white and red ;” the ground be- 
ing of a green colour, lined with red, on which are 
small white spots or ornaments. His pantaloons are 
white, the upper part adorned with ermine. He wears 
alight but high blue cap, embroidered in the front. 
His horse is on the gallop, and evidently under grace- 
ful as well as skilful management. Such was the 
Squire of the reign of Edward III. at the age of twenty 
years, or within a few months of the period when he 
would be admitted into the knight’s order. Let us now 
see what was the nature and what were the details of 
that education which produced such results. 

Up to his seventh year, the boy destined for the 
honours of the inilitary profession spent his time 
among the females of the family; he then entered upon 
the first stage of his career. He received the appella- 
tion of Page, or Valet, and was admitted to the society 
of his father, and of his father’s friends and visitors. 
If his family was sufficiently affluent, companions of 
his own age, and with similar views, but of more 
straitened circumstances, were educated with hin in 
the same house, who became his earliest friends and 
associates, arid who often remained through life his de- 
voted brethren in war. But if, on the contrary, his 
own family was comparatively poor, he then himself 
entered the house of some other nobleman or gentle- 
man to receive the requisite trainnmg. Among the 
very earliest lessons instilled into his mind was that of 
unbounded admiration for the knightly character, as it 
was continually pointed out to him in the persons of 
the most worthy and accomplished warriors of the time. 
Upon them therefore he looked with awe, wonder, and 
earnest love; they were the standards of excellence 
he set up in his own mind, by which he would con- 
stantly measure himself. The physical exercises cal- 
culated to strengthen his youthful frame were now 
begun. As he approached nearer to the period of the 
honours and duties of the Squire, “the love of God 
and the ladies,” in the irreverent but characteristic 
language of the time, was constantly cherished in him: 
he was taught, on the one hand, that no true votary of 
knighthood ever undertook any unportant adventure 
or entered into any serious engagement without pre- 
vious prayer and devotional exercise ; and on the other, 
that the kmght who thought or spoke of the female 
sex with familiarity or disrespect was a recreant to his 
order, a most ignoble member of a most noble profes- 
sion. Carrying out this principle, he was to consider 
it one of the highest privileges of his calling to be 
able to relicve their distress or avenge their wrong ; 
and lastly, he was to look upon their opinion as the 
ereat tribunal where all his actions were to be judged 
—where he was to be disgraced by censure, or honoured 
by applause. Godwin remarks that “it is the rem- 
nant of this sentiment which has given to the inter- 
course of the sexes, from the days of chivalry to the 
present time, a refinement and a spirit of sanctity and 
honour wholly unknown to the ancient world.”+ We 


* Night-time. t ‘Life of Chaucer,’ vol. i, p. 411. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Marcu 13, 


may add to this account of the education of the Page, 
that he was expected to select, even at this early period 
of youth, from among the virgins whose society he fre- 
quented, one, to whose service he was to devote him- 
self, towards whoin he might show the practical effects 
of the lessons so carefully inculcated. Thus passed his 
life until the fourteenth year. He was now raised to 
the dignity of Squire, and with ceremonies that imn- 
pressed still more deeply upon the mind of the excited 
youth his own sense of the importance of the occasion. 
THis father and mother, or two of his near relations, 
each holding a hghted taper, led him to the altar, 
upon which a sword and girdle had been previously 
laid. ‘These the ministering priest took up, and hay- 
ing pronounced a benediction over them, girt the youth 
with his first warlike insignia. He now entered upon 
a life involving many and peculiar duties. It was 
an essential principle of chivalry that no office was 
sordid if performed with a worthy object ; and so com- 
pletely was this principle carried into effect, that the 
candidates for knighthood were not merely willing, 
but proud to wait upon their superiors, and perform 
for them the most menial services. And truly the dig- 
nity of the person raised the employment and made it 
no longer menial; the spirit in which it was performed 
eave it even grace and lustre. Thus we find the Pages, 
but still more the Squires, spreading the table, carving 
the meat (Froissart particularly mentions that the young 
Count de Foix, like Chaucer’s Squure, carved before 
his tather at the table), attending to the guests, bring- 
ing them water to wash, and afterwards conducting 
them to their bedchambers. The Squire also cleansed 
and kept in repau the arms of his lord, helped to 
equip him for the field, and remained by his side ready 
to render assistance either there or in the tournament. 
It cannot be denied but that “there is an exquisite 
beauty in offices like these, not the growth of servitude, 
not rendered with unwillingness or constraint, but the 
spontaneous acts of reverence and affection performed 
by a servant of mind not less noble aud free than that 
of his honoured and illustrious master.’’* 

Durimg this period of probation for the highest 
office, the Squire spent a great part of each day in the 
open air, in exercises which conduced alike to the 
vigour of his body, the.suppleness of his limbs, and the 
precision both of his eye and arm. He dressed and 
trained his own horses ; he practised leaping, running, 
and mounting on horseback clad in all his armour ; 
he scaled walls with the assistance merely of his hands 
and feet; above all he paid the greatest attention to 
those sports which, as it were, prefigured the exploits 
of that grand arena, the tournament, in which he 
hoped one day to exhibit his prowess and knightly ac- 
complishments. ‘‘One of these was the Pel Gn Latin, 
palus), practised with a post, or the stump of a tree, 
about six feet in height, which the youth, armed at all 
points, attacked vigorously on foot; and while he 
struck or thrust at the diferent parts which were 
marked to represent the head, breast, shoulders, and 
legs of an antagonist, he was taught to cover himself 
carefully with his shield in the act of rising to the 
blow. Similar to this was the Quintain, where the 
attack was made on horseback. A pole or spear was 
set upright in the ground, with a shield strongly bound 
to it, and against this the youth tilted with his lance in 
full career, endeavouring to burst the ligatures of ihe 
shield, and bear it to the earth. A steady aim and a 
firm seat were acquired from this exercise, a severe 
fall being often the consequence of failure in the 
attempt to strike down the shield. This, however, at 
the best, was but a monotonous exercise, and there- 
fore the pole in process of time was supplanted by — 


** Godwin's ‘ Life of Chaucer,’ vol. i., p. 416. 





1841.] 


the more stimulating figure of a misbelieving Saracen, 
armed at all points, and brandishing a formidable 
wooden sabre. The puppet moved freely upon a pivot 
or spindle, so that unless it. was struck with the lance 
adroitly in the centre of the face or breast, it rapidly 
revolved, and the sword, in consequence, smote the 
back of the assailant in his career, amidst the laughter 
of the spectators. . . . In addition to these exer- 
eises, the young squires and pages were taught to 
career against each other with staves or canes; and 
sometimes a whole party exhibited on horseback the 
various evolutions of a battle, but without the blows 
or bloodshed of a tournament.”* Amidst all this pre- 
paration for the warfare that was to be the business of 
their lives, they did not forget to cultivate the gentler 
arts and accomplishments of peace. Like our young 
Sqnire, they learned to make ‘“songés,” to “ indite,” 
and “pourtray’ well, and “eke dance;” like him, 
they might often have been heard “singing” or “ floyt- 
ine all the day.” 

We must now follow our hero through the last and 
long wished-for ceremonies which are to make him a 
kaight, a member of that illustrious band whose glories 
have so dazzied his youthful vision. At the age of 
twenty-one he is eligible. Solemn and deeply impres- 
sive, even to the least imaginative of those concerned, 
were the rites attending the inauguration of the 
youthful warrior. He was first stripped of his gar- 
ments, and put into the bath; on leaving this he was 
clad in a white tunic, as the symbol of punty, in a red 
robe as an emblem of the blood he was to shed in the 
cause of the faith, and, lastly, in a blaek doublet, as a 
token of the dissolution which awaited him as well as 
the rest of mankind. Thus purified and clothed, he 
kept a rigorous fast for twenty-four hours. When 
evening came, he entered the church, and there spent 
the night in solitude and prayer. His arms were 
piled upon the altar before him, an object of con- 
tinual and fervent contemplation. Hus first act in 
the morning was confession, which it was expected 
should be more than usually strict and devotional ; 
he then received the solemn sacrament of the Eucha- 
vist. The massof the Holy Ghost was now performed, 
followed commonly by a sermon on the duties of 
a knight, and on the nature of the life opening upon 
the novice. His sponsors (certain approved knights) 
now accompanied him to the chancel or choir, and 
there pledged themselves for the rectitude of his 
future conduct. The priest then took the sword from 
the novice’s neck, where it hung, and having blessed 
it, once more attached it to his neck. But one thing 
now remained—the appearance before the hero or lord 
who was to confer the actual investiture of knighthood. 
To him, therefore, the Squire (soon to lose that title 
for ever) went, and, falling upon his knees, demanded 
the honour to which he aspired. ‘To what end,” 
inquired the lord, “do you desire to enter into this 
Order? If it isthat you may be rich, repose yourself, 
and be honoured without doing honour to knighthood, 
then you are unworthy of it, and would be to the 
knighthood you should receive what the simoniacal 
clergyman is to the prelacy.” <A modest but collected 
and dignified answer to this question was expected ; 
which given, the lord granted his request, and the 
proper oath was administered. Then came thronging 
round the young man knights, and frequently ladies, 
assisting him to arm; putting on first the spurs, then 
the hauberk, next the breastplate, the brassarts, or 
arm-pieces, and the gauntlets, and lastly the sword. 
Then he was dubbed, to use the modern Enelish ex- 
pression, derived from the French adoubé, or adopted. 
The lord rose from lis seat, went up to him, and 


* ¢ Pictorial History of England,’ vol. i. p. 649. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


103 


gave the accolade, or three strokes with the flat of his 
sword upon the shoulder or nape of the neck, adding, 
sometimes, a blow with the palm of the hand upon the 
cheek, saying, “In the name of God, Saint Michael, 
and Saint George, I make thee a knight;” and, 
occasionally, cencluding with “Be thou brave, bold, 
and loyal.” They now handed to the youthful knight 
his helmet, and brought him his horse, upon which 
he sprang, “vaulting like the feathered Mercury,” into 
the saddle, and, brandishing his sword and lance, ca- 
racolled his horse along the pavement. On quitting 
the church he exhibited his grace and dexterity in 
a similar manner to the populace outside, whom 
he found eagerly waiting for their share of the 
spectacle. 

_ The tale which was told by the Squire of Chaucer 
is described by Milton as 


The story of Cambuscan bold, 
Of Camball and of Algarsife, 
Aud who had Canace to wife, 
That owu'd the virtuous ring and glass; 
And of the wondrous horse of! brass 
Ou which the Tartar king did ride.” 


It is a tale of the very first order of imaginative 
romance, but, unhappily, left imperfect. 


Moderation is the silken string ruining through the pearl-chain 


of al] virtues.—Bishep Hall, 


He who saith there is no such thing as an honest man, yon 
may be sure is himself a knave.-—Bushop Berkeley. 


Envy.—The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which 
ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted ; 
and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those 
who are exempt from this passion, give the quickest pangs to per- 
sons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow- 
creatures are odious: youth, beauty, valour, and wisdoni are 
provocations of their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate 
state 1s this! To be offended with excellence, and to hate a man 
because we approve him! The condition of the envious mau is 
the most emphatically miscrable ; he is not only incapable of 
rejoicing in another's merit or success, but lives a world whercin 
all mankind are ina plot against his quiet, by studying their 
own happiness and advantage.—Addison (Spectator, No. 1%), 





THE DEER OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 


Tue order Rumimantia abounds far beyond any other 
with quadrupeds immediately useful to man. We 
need scarcely refer to the ox, the sheep, the goat, the 
deer, the antelope, the camel, and the Hama, as illus- 
trations in point. The flesh of all 1s esteemed as food, 
that of some being more highly valued than that of 
others; and many, as the eamel, llama, ox, buifalo, and 
yak, are used as beasts of draught and burden. 
Every portion of the earth has its mdigenous Rwni- 
nants, expressly adapted for the localities to which they 
are respectively allotted; so that—excepting, indeed, 
in the isles which stud the Pacific Ocean, or on the 1ce- 
bound shores of Greenland, where the sea is the park 
and chace, and where whales and seals are the herds 
and flocks of the fur-clad native—these animals are 
everywhere provided for the supply of the human 
race. ; 
Restricting our observations to the Rummantia of 
the British Islands, we find the ox, the sheep, the goat, 
and three species of deer, as tenants of our fields and 


erazine-grounds. ae | 
With respect to the ox, which is domesticated in 


every part of the world, we scarcely know whether to 


claim it as one of the indigenes of our island or the 
contrary. The relies of a wild race, once common, 
before our woods and forests were cleared, still exist 
in Chillingham Park ; but whether, like the wild cattle 


104 (Diver NIN’ 
of the Pampas of South America, this race be descended 
from a domestic stock, having under some circum- 
stances gained, at an early period, or soon after the 
introduction of its progenitors into England, its free- 
dom,—or whether it be the indigenous wild origin of 
our domestic ox, is still a matter of uncertainty. If 
the latter point be affirmed, a question opens, is it 
identical with that species of which the fossil bones 
are found in recent deposits, and the skulls of which 
are said by Cuvier to resemble those of the modern 
domestic breed ; and further, was this species identical 
with the Urus of the ancients? These are questions 
which involve much research, and, after all, are not 
perhaps capable of a satisfactory solution. 

With respect to the goat and the sheep, of which the 
wild origms yet remain in obscurity, we may safely 
conclude that they are naturalised importations, and 
that they were brought here in a state of domestication 
by man; perhaps by the first westward tide of colo- 
nizers who pushed their migrations to this “ ultima 
Thule.” 

The deer now remaim for our consideration, and ‘will 
form the subject of the present article. 

Three species of deer inhabit our island at the pre- 
sent day, and these three belong each to a distinct 
group or section of the Linnzan genus Cervus, or the 
family Cervidee of modern naturalists. 

The fallow-deer belongs to the platycerine section of 
Colonel Hamilton Smith, the red deer or stag to the 
elaphine, and the roe-deer to the capreoline section. 

_ Asa preliminary to the history of these animals, it 
is necessary to give a short exposition of the essential 
characters of the Cervide. The first diagnostic con- 
sists in the acquisition of deciduous bony antlers (often, 
but erroneously, called horns) by the males only, of 
every species excepting the remdeer, of which both 
sexes acquire them. These antlers, or horns, differ 


in form in the different sections, and it is chiefly upon | 


these differences that the sections are established. The 
horns of the ox and the antelope consist of processes 
of bone continued from the bones of the skull,. and 
sheathed with a case of horn; they are therefore per- 
sistent: they are nevershed. Notso those of the deer ; 
they are annually lost and renewed, and, to a certain 
period of hfe, each pair in succession becomes more 
aud more developed. To understand the process, we 
must place the skull of a deer before us. From the 
centre of each frontal bone (in the male) we see a 
bony protuberance rise, which, covered by the skin, is 
the foundation upon which the antlers are built asa 
superstructure. The days of nonage being passed, 
spring kindles the blood of the youthful deer; the 
arteries of the neck and head enlarge, and assume an 
increased action; and their ramifications, enveloping 
these frontal protuberances, now begin to deposit upon 
them layer after layer of osseous matter with astonish- 
ing rapidity; the antlers are growing, and as they 
grow the skin grows with them; while the arteries, 
enlarging and extending more and more, leave their 
course permanently impressed in furrows on the struc- 
ture they are building. In due time the work is 
finished, the development of the horns being in pro- 
mag to the age and vigour of the individual. Still, 
iowever, the skin envelops them, surrounding every 
part and every fork; it is highly vascular, soft, and 
velvety ; and is termed ‘ the velvet.’ This velvet has 
yet to be got rid of, for these antlers are weapons des- 
tined for combat. By a gradual process the arteries 
of the velvet must be compressed and obliterated ; for 
a sudden check to the flow of blood through them 
would turm the current with such violence upon the 
brain as to produce apoplexy. At the base of the horn, 
where it unites with the frontal protuberance, we ob- 


MAGAZINE. [Marcu 13, 
with notches, through which the great arteries pass. 
The arteries which formed this bu77 are the last to 
close their action, and their work 1s now to cause the 
notches, through which the vessels to the velvet pass, 
to contract more and more, the compression of the 
vessels taking place in an according ratio, till at last 
the obstruction is complete. The velvet now dries, 
shrivels, splits into shreds, and peels off, the animal 
assisting to remove it by rubbing the antlers against 
aUnOe, 

This process, as far as we have detailed it, occupies 
about ten weeks, and in that time a mass of phosphate 
of lime and gelatine, amounting to twenty pounds or 
more in the common stag, is elaborated from the blood 
of the system. In the extinct Irish elk, whose broad 
palmated horns measure from twelve to fifteen feet in 
their expanse, twice as much of this phosphate of lime 
as the rest of the skeleton contains was annually pro- 
duced, a fact as wonderful as the rapidity of its depo- 
sition. 

These horns, however, are only temporary, having 
ceased to have a vital connection with the skuli, to 
which they now only adhere, not grow ;. they remain 
during the winter, till spring again excites the circu- 
lation of the blood, and then begins a process of ab- 
sorption at the line of junction just below the buzz, 
where they join the frontal protuberances. This ab- 
sorption is continued until the union is so far dissolved 
that the least motion or the shghtest rub against a tree 
disengages them; the skin now closes over the pro- 
tuberances, and new antlers begim to be deposited. Of 
the annual increase of these antlers we shall speak 
when treating of each species separately. 

In addition to deciduous horns, we may notice as 
characters, the presence of lachrymal simuses,—of 
which the use is not known,—but which are also found 
in many of the antelopes. 

The limbs of the deer are slender but firm; the 
body is round and compact, the neck long, the eyes 
large, and the ears erect and pointed; their general 
form betokens strength and activity, and their move- 
ments are peculiarly light and graceful. Teats on the 


female four. 


The Fallow-deer (Cervus Dama, Linn.), which we 
shall first introduce, belongs, as stated, to the Platy- 
cerine section. The horns are divergent,—the upper 
part is flattened and palmate,—but the beam is round, 
with two antlers or branches directed forwards; the 
muzzle is naked. : - 

This beautiful species is common m the parks and 
forests of England ; on the Continent, however, at least 
in France, Germany, and Italy, it is rarely to be seen, 
—partly because less esteemed than in England, 
and because the practice of enclosing parks, and of at- 
tending to the animals, for the keep of which such 
enclosures are here expressly planned, is not there 
pursued. Fischer, speaking of the Fallow-deer, says, 
‘Tt is more scarce in Europe than the stag, though it 
abounds in the parks (iz vivarits) of England. It is 
found in Persia, China, and Abyssinia. In Denmark 
and Norway there is a variety to be regarded perhaps 
as a distinct species ;” this he terms, from its uniform 
dark-brown colour, Var. Maura. 

Desmarest says, “The Fallow-deer is peculiar to 
Europe, where, however, the species is less extensively 
spread than the Red-deer. It does not exist in Rus- 
sia, but it would seem that it inhabits Lithuania, Mol- 
davia, and Greece, the north of Persia and China, as 
well as Abyssinia; it is abundant im Jengland, but 
very scarce In France and Germany.” 

Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the above 
details: and the query opens upon us, of what country 
is the Fallow-deer an aboriginal? This mquiry we 


serve a rugged ring or burr, and this burr is perforated | shall shortly pursue. 





1841.1 













THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


105 






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(Group of Fallow-Deer.—From an original Drawing by W. Howiit.] 


DesmAreEstT regards the Fallow-deer as the Platyceros 
of Pliny, and the “spreading-horned deer” of Oppian 
CEXagoc edpuKepwe). | 

Myr. Bell, in his ‘ British Quadrupeds,’ observes, 
“Tt is probable that it (this'deer) was brought to this 
country from the South of Europe, or from the western 
parts of Asia, in which places it is found to attain to a 
larger size than in its semi-domesticated state in our 
parks. It is found, indeed, in a more severe climate 
than our own, but it is only the dark-brown variety 
(Var. Maura, Fischer ; Cervus Dama; Mauricus, Desm.), 
which is far more hardy than the usual one, and is 
well known to have been imported, on account of this 
quality, by James I. from Norway.” | — 

We suspect the true colour of this deer to be dark 
brown, like that of the Norway brecd ; and the spotted 
breed, as we mostly see it in our parks, to be a variety 
rather than a type of the species. Desmarest men- 
tions a deer found in Spain, nearly as large as a stag, 
and of a darker colour than our race, which is proba- 
bly to be referred to the present species. The young 
of the red-deer or Stag is spotted with white, and 
we inay easily conceive of a breed retaining these 
spottings, the specific characteristics of immatu- 
rity, through hfe, and transmitting the tendency to pre- 
serve such markings to their descendants. White 


No. D/O. 


varieties of the deer are animals in whieh the white 
spots have become confluent, and excluded the brown ; 
we see the same thing in various species of Coccinella 
(lady-birds), in which the yellow spots on the wing- 
cases (elytra) often spread so as to banish entirely the 
black ground-colour in whieh, in normal individuals, 
the yellow appears in little dots. If our view, then, be 
correct, the brown variety of the Fallow-deer, intro- 
duced by James I., was the true and genuine species, 
which, not having been influenced by cultivation in 
parks and a state of semi-domestication, retained its 
original hardiness and pristine vigour. It 1s to be ob- 
served that the term Fallow has no reference to spots ; 
it is from the Saxon ‘Falewe’ (Falepe), which sig- 
nifics of a reddish or brick colour. Having ventured 
it as our opinion that the dark-brown variety is the 
true breed of the Fallow-deer, we advance to the ques- 
tion as to whether it is one of the aboriginal natives of 
our island or not. We have already stated Mr. Bell’s 
opinion, and his observations respecting the Norway 
race. Highly as we esteem the acumen of this natu- 
ralist, we are strongly inelined im the present instance 
to differ from him. At the earliest period of English 
history we read of Fallow-deer existing wild in our 
forests ; together with wild oxen, boars, and red-deer. 
They tenanted the great forest which, in the time of 


Vor. X—P 


ba 


1Q6 


Henry IT., stretched northwards from London: Fitz- 
Stephen says, ‘“‘ Proximé patet foresta ingens,—saltus 
nemorosi ferarum,—latebre cervorum, damarum, apro- 
rum, et taurorum sylvestrum ;” that is, “a mighty 
forest next (to London) stretches out, the embowered 
abode of wild beasts; the covert of stags, deer, boars, 
and wild bulls.” 

Be it remembcred that deer are not tame animals, 
necessary to man, which he brings with him in his 
wanderings, when, nomadic in his habits, he traverses 
the earth in quest of pasturage and a settlement; of 
fresher springs and greener fields, on which to fix his 
tent and found an empire. The habits of the semi- 
barbarian, and indeed of the civilized, are to chase the 
wild, to drive them to a distance, and finally, to extir- 
pate them; and where pleasure or the fancied interest 
of the few does not incite to a direct preservation of 
such, they speedily disappear: witness the beaver, 
the wild boar, and the wolf in England; and were it 
not for the laws of feudal origin and feudal spirit, the 
fox, the fallow-deer, and the stag would long since have 
shared their fate. The monarchs and barons of England 
loved the chase ; it was their aim, therefore, to preserve 
the objects of it, and though some of these objects have 
been extirpated, as the march of civilization and the 
linprovement of the country increased, others, not ob- 
noxious from their destructive habits, have survived, 
becoming enclosed in parks, or restricted to wild and 
barren situations, where they cannot interfere with the 
agricultural labours of man. Hence, hke the wild ox, 
the fallow-deer has its range now limited, its freedom 
curtailed; while the excellence of its flesh as food, and 
its beauty, rendering it an ornament to the pleasure- 
vrounds of'the noble and wealthy, have contributed to 
its preservation. As we now see it, therefore, it is not 
wild; not truly free; but the semi-domesticated de- 
nizen ofthe park and chace. Less fleet and bold than 
the stag, and preferring rich grassy plains and glades 
instead of wild hills and extensive moorlands, it would 
naturally be the first of our British deer to succumb to 
man, and in fact to need his protection. The conver- 
sion of our parks into farms would be in effect to anni- 
hilate our fallow-deer. We conceive, then, that this 
species, originally of a brown colour, is one of our 
native animals ; that its spotting is the result of 
semi-domestication, and that with this was induced 
a delicacy of constitution rendering it necessary to 
have recourse again to the true wild breed still exist- 
ing in Norway, for the purpose of improving the 
race or of enabling it to endure our winters. 

It is interesting to watch the actions ofa herd of these 
elegant creatures as they quietly graze in their pas- 
turage. They are inquisitive, and, if not suddenly 
alarmed, wili often approach very close to their ob- 
server, gaze attentively at him, and then bound grace- 
fully away. Iixcept during the pairing season, when 
the bucks associate with the does, and during the 
winter, when the troops mingle promiscuously together, 
the males and females form separate herds. 

The female goes eight months with young, and she 
brings forth one, sometimes two at a birth, concealing 
them among the tall and thick fern, or the dense under- 
wood of the park; they afterwards associate with the 
herds of does. 

The bucks cast their horns about the end of February, 
and others begin to succeed them. It is, however, not 
until the second year that the young male has horns at 
all; and then they appear only as single snags; in the 
third year there are two branches produced, and the 
horn assumes a palmate form at the top; im the fourth 
year the palmation is more distinct; in the fifth the 
palmation is nearly at its maximum, and the two front 
branches are large; in the sixth year the horns arrive 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Marcu 20, 


added to the palmate portion. The buck acquires a 
different name in the language of ‘ venerie’ every 
year to the sixth. The first year he is a fawn; the 
second, when the simple horns appear, a pricket; the 
third, a sorrel ; the fourth, a soare ; the fifth, a buck of the 
jirst head; the sixth, a buck complete. In Shakspere’s 
play of ‘ Love's Labour’s Lost,’ the “ extemporal epitaph 
on the death of the deer,” in which Holofernes ‘‘ some- 
thing affects the letter,” and in which three of the above 
terms are employed, is familiar to all. 

Durimg the pairing season, which takes place at the 
end of summer or in autumn, the males continually 
utter a deep tremulous cry, and often engage with each 
other in obstinate battles, which are continued day after 
day till the mastery is completely established. They 
are not, however, dangerous to persons approaching 
near them, as is the red deer, at least we never knew an 
instance of their attacking any one; and we have our- 
selves passed at this time through herds of them with- 
out seeing the slightest cause for apprehension. 

M. Desmarest says, “They have a natural antipathy 
towards the red-deer, and retire from the localities oc- 
cupied by the latter.” How far this may be thé case 
where both species tenant extensive wilds at large, 
we cannot say, but we have seen small troops of red- 
deer, both in Windsor and Chatsworth Parks, certainly 
not mixed with the fallow-deer, but surrounded by 
several herds of them at no great. distance, and we 
could not perceive any tokens of dishke or animosity 
between them; it cannot be supposed that the two 
species seek each other’s society, but indifference is 
not antipathy. 

The delight with which deer and many other ani- 
mals listen to music is well known. Playford, in his 
‘Introduction to Music,’ says, “ Travelling some years 
since, I met on the road near Royston a herd of about 
twenty bucks, following a bagpipe and violin, which, 
while the music played, went forward ; when it ceased, 
they all stood still; and in this manner they were 
brought from Yorkshire to Hampton Court.” 

Mr. Bell, who quotes the above passage, adds, “‘A 
fondness for musical sounds is not confined to this 
animal ; there is more than poetical truth in the power 
of the lyre of Orpheus over the beasts of the field; and 
Shakspere avails himself of this predilection in cattle, 
to form one of his exquisitg illustrations. I have often, 
when a boy, tried the effect of the flute on cows and 
some other animals, and have always observed that it 
produced great apparent enjoyment.” 

We have many times noticed the fascination which 
music exercises upon mice and rats; it does so also 
upon the seal. Sir Walter Scott says,— 


‘Rude Heiskar’s seal through surges dark 
Will long pursue the minstrel’s bark.” 


And Laing, in his account of a voyage to Spitzbergen, 
states that a numerous auditory of seals would sur- 
round the vessel, and follow it for miles, when the 
violin was played on deck. 

The venison of the fallow-deer is far superior to 
that either of the stag or roe; its skin and horns are 
both useful, the one being prepared into a peculiarly 
soft leather, the other forming knife-handles and 
various things besides. , 

The fossil relics of a gigantic deer, commonly called 
the Irish elk, but in truth closely allied to the fallow- 
deer, are abundant in the bogs and marl-pits of Ire- 
land, and are also met with both in England and the 
os of Man, and, according to Cuvier, in France and 

taly. ) 
A figure of the skull and horns of this animal, ac- 
companying a paper on the subject, will be found in 
the ‘Penny Magazine’ for August 1, 1835 (vol. iv., 


at their complete stage, a few snags or advances being | page 299). 


1841.] 


THE RELATIVE QUANTITIES OF 
LAND AND WATER ON THE SURFACE OF 
THE GLOBE. 


A suicnr glance at a terrestrial globe will show that 
it is no easy matter to estimate the comparative quan- 
tities of land and water on the earth’s surface. If the 
various boundaries between the seas and countries 
were straight lines, or were curved in any regular 
manner, the comparison might be made with less difti- 
culty ; but the sea-coasts are in reality so tortuous, that 
the common modes of measuring or calculating are 
ineffectual. 

Dr. Halley, in order to determine the nuniber of 
acres of land in each county of England, procured a 
large map in six sheets; cut out the counties one froin 
another, by parting them at the boundary-lines by means 
of scissors or a penknife; and weighed each piece of 
paper separately. Supposing the paper on which the 
map was printed to have been equable in thickness in 
every part, and the scales to have been delicate, the 
comparative weights would have given the comparative 
area of the counties. But Dr. Halley was aware that 
this method could only give an approximation to cor- 
rectness. Dr. Long atterwards appled the same prin- 
ciple, varied somewhat in detail, for determining the 
relative quantities of land and water over the whole 
earth. The engraved surface of a terrestrial globe is 
put on in a number of separate pieces. Dr. Long, 
therefore, took the separate pieces belonging to a 16- 
inch globe, cut out the parts representing the land froin 
those representing the water, and weighed them sepa- 
rately; when he found that the former weighed 124 
erains, and the latter 349 grains, thus making the sur- 
face of the sea about three times as great as the surface 
of the dry land. 

Very little seems to have been done in this matter 
until recently, when Professor Rigaud of Cambridge 
mnade a very careful examination of the subject, using 
the printed paper surface for one of Cary’s 21-inch 
lobes, and also for one of Addison’s 36-inch globes. 
Dr. Halley was well aware of the obstacles which had 
to be overcome yn experiments of this kind, for he 
said :— The moisture of the air imbibed by the paper 
did very notably increase its weight, which made me 
very well dry the pieces before I weighed them, that 
so I might be assured there was no error upon the 
amount; and, in so doing, I found that ina very few 
minutes of time their weight would sensibly increase 
by their re-imbibing the humidity of the air.” He also 
observed :—“ The map consisting of several sheets of 
paper, they were found to be of different thicknesses 
or compactness, so as to make a sensible difference, 
which obliged me to examine the proportion between 
the weight and area in each sheet.” Professor Rigaud 
took the best precautions which he could devise to 
avoid these evils. He laid out the paper for some 
time ina large room, where there was no danger of 
much fluctuation in the state of the air, by which the 
substance attained a tolerably stationary condition as 
to saturation. To avoid the second evil, he caused a 
copy of the map to be prmted on paper. of very uni- 
form thickness. 

The surface of a 36-inch globe requires 40714 square 
inches of printed paper to cover it; and this paper 
may be concelved as being divided into twenty-four 
equal pieces, called gores, shaped like the profile of a 
double convex lens, the wide central part representing 
a portion of the equator, and the sharp ends terminating 
at the poles. Each piece represents 180° of latitude 
and 15° of longitude; so that when placed side by 
side, the twenty-four pieces exactly cover the surface 
of the globe. If, therefore the land be cut out from 
the water, in all these pieces, and weighed separately 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


107 


in two parcels, the comparative quantities of each 
might be ascertained. But Professor Rigaud deemed 
it advisable to proceed ona different plan. He cut 
up the gores into more than one hundred pieces, and 
weighed the land and water portions of each piece 
separately. The chief reason tor adopting this plan 
was, that if future discoveries should effect changes in 
the mode of delineating our maps, the particular part 
where the change occurred might be corrected without 
going over the computation in all its parts; also 
because by this means we ascertain the proportion of 
land and water, not only over the whole globe, but 
over any small part of it. These small parts are chosen 
with reference to certain distinct boundaries which 
never change. The equator passes round the earth 
equidistant from both poles: the tropics are parallel 
to the equator, and distant 233° from it northward and 
southward: the polar circles are also parallel to the 
equator, but distant 233° from the two poles respec- 
tively. Each gore was cut at these boundary lines, by 
which 1t was divided into six pieces or zones, viz. the 
arctic, the north temperate, the north tropical, the 
south tropical, the south temperate, and the antarctic. 

The printed paper, divided into more than one hun- 
dred portions thus well defined, was carefully weighed. 
Each zone or piece was weighed first; then the parts 
representing the land and water were carefully cut (an 
operation which, for the whole number, occupied seve- 
ral days) and separately weighed twice over, so as to 
obtain the utmost possible accuracy. The polar zones, 
the central parts of Africa and Southern Ainerica, and 
some parts of Asia and of New Holland, have been so 
little explored, that conjecture was unavoidably neces- 
sary in making a subdivision of land and water at those 
parts. Professor Rigaud considered it safe to rank 
the whole of the antarctic zone as sea, until further 
knowledge is obtained of that region. 

Every care was taken to separate the land and sea 
With accuracy. All the bays, estuaries, and indenta- 
tions were attended to, especially when the precise 
form of them appeared to indicate the representation 
of actual surveys. The several weights were taken 
to the tenth ofa grain, a quantity which was hkely to 
lead to as close an approximation to truth as the cir- 
cumstances of the experiment admitted. 

In order to ensure as much accuracy as possible, 
Professor Rigaud employed, as before observed, two 
different globe-surfaces, viz. that of Mr. Addison's 36- 
inch globe, and of Mr. Cary’s 21-inch globe; and in 
the account which he gives of the results obtained, 
although he refers to the larger globe, yet the two 
yielded results so nearly alike as to be deemed almost 
identical. The modes in which the printed surfaces 
were divided by the engravers, were different in the 
two cases. The gores of the larger globe were made 
each for 15° of longitude, and there were five di- 
visions of each for the zones (a sixth being made 
for the experiment, by cutting the torrid zone into two 
at the equator); whereas on the smaller globe, the 
gores were 20° wide, and extended from the equator 
to the pole. But these differences have no effect on 
the result of the experiment; because as all the sepa- 
rate pieces are made to join without overlapping, the 
total amount of paper suriace 1S the same, however it 
may be divided for the convemence of the workman 
who has to fix it to the globular shell. We may also 
remark, that as the paper was cut up into a vast num- 
ber of minute pieces, any slight inequalities of thick- 
ness would be likely to compensate each other, in 
taking the ratio of land and water. 

In order to establish a convenient mode of com- 
parison, Professor Rigaud conceived the whole surface 
of the globe to be divided into one thousand equal 
parts, of which each of the six zones apne, respec- 

yo, 


a 





108 THE PENNY 
tively, about 414, 259, 200, 200, 259, 413. He gives 
tabulated results of more than two hundred separate 
weights, arising from the relative quantities of land 
and water contained in each of the pieces into which 
every gore was divided. These tables are too long to 
be presented here, but we will select such parts of 
them as will convey to the reader a tolerably definite 
idea of the subject; for as this appears to be by far the 
most exact experiment ever made on the subject, the 
results may be deemed authoritative. Supposing the 
whole surface of the earth to be divided into 1000 
equal parts, then 


= 64°9137 water 18°0263 land 
fn 126°6308 __,, 
22°5488 _,, 


The two polar zones 
North temperate zone =132°5247 
South temperate zone =236°6060 __,, 


North torrid zone —= 146:SL6 28.45 SPAS Too Op 
South torrid zone == 15812 156s, 46°1592 ,, 


Or, dividing the whole surface into two hem1- 


spheres, 


Northern hemisphere =302°7846 water 197-2153 land 
Southern hemisphere =431°2916 __,, G8°7080 _—7, 


Out of 1000 equal portions of surface, 266, omitting 
fractions, are dry land, which are ‘distributed among 
the continents as follows, the islands being included in 
those continents to which they seem most nearly to 
belong :— ——— 


Europe ere OE 
ASide Oe eee 
Africa en. "OUT 
New Holland... . 153 


North America . . 502 
South America . . 





266 


We may remark that the correct determination of 
the ratio between the land and water on the earth’s 
surface, however obtained, is now becoming a matter 
of scientific importance; for the amount of daily eva- 
poration from the earth’s surface, which 1s obviously 
greatly dependent on the amount of liquid surface, is 
one of the most interesting Inquiries in meteorologi- 
cal science, with reference to rain, hail, dew, &c. 


Famine in India.—I never saw the ravages of famine so dread- 
fully displayed as at Cawnpore. ‘A great scarcity having oc- 
curred in the interior, tlie poor ryots, or farmers, were unable to 
support themselves and ‘their families: the multitude of beings 
who had been able to earn a scanty subsistence in the fields dur- 


ing other years, were at ‘this time thrown out of employment; 


provisions became extravagantly dear; the failure of so many 
crops deprived them of subsistence, and wretchedness succeeded : 
it was then that thousands of these poor creatures sought the 
towns, and were seen crowding every avenue to the cantonments. 
Cawnpore was filled with them ; those who had youth and health 


brought in their aged and infirm relatives—poor disabled crea-. 
tures who had for many years never left their hovels; disease | 


and famine rendered them scarcely able to crawl along the 


parched roads, under an almost vertical sun: and when arrived, 


they depended entirely upon charitable contributions for sup- 
port. Under every wall they assembled in crowds, taking up 
their position, and merely changing from one side of the road 
to the other, as the trifling shade afforded relief; and, thus es- 


tablished, they kept up-.a constant moaning and crying, or, as 


passengers drew near, raised an urgent clamour for alms; their 
miserable appearance setting forth a claim which few could re- 
sist. On three or four occasions we passed the dead and dying 
stretched on the roadside: their attenuated frames bore but too 
certain testimony of the immediate cause cf their destruction. 
One morning we saw a poor wretch on the public road who was 
still breathing, but so feebly that it was’ evident his troubles 
were nearly over: a few miserable rags hung around him; but 
no one had lingered to see life depart, or to pay the last sad 


MAGAZINE. 


[Marcx 20. 


offices to the dead : he was only about half a mile from the can- 
tonment, whither, doubtless, his fellow-travellers had passed 
forward totally unmindful of his condition, but anxious to ame- 
horate, if it were possible, their own misery. Another morning 
we saw a human body slung across a bamboo, which two men 
carried on their shoulders; the head and arms were dangling on 
one side, while the legs hung down on the other, and her long 
hair (for it was the body of a female) descended, filthy and 
matted, from her head. She was being conveyed to the river, 
into which the inanimate form would be carelessly thrown. On 
each occasion that we saw the dead or dying on the roads, Pariah 
dogs and birds of prey were lingering near: they were, however, 
scared away by those employed by the authorities to convey the 
corpses from public view; for none others would approach them, 
as only those of the lowest caste would touch the body of the 
poor emaciated wanderer.— Three Months’ March in India. 


a 


Exhibitions of Mechanics’ Institutes—We nave much pleasure 
in noticing the results of an Exhibition connected with the Me- 
chanics’ Institute at Derby, and which has proved not less suc- 
cessful than similar exhibitions at Leeds and Sheffield, an 
account of which was given in a former No. (507). The Derby 
Institute was established in March, 1825, and at its commence- 
ment was joined by 247 members; in 1832 premises were pur- 
chased for the sum of 1500/.; and in 1837, a lecture-hall was 
built. It is an elegant and spacious room, 75 feet long, 40 feet 
wide, and 35 feet high, and cost 20002., to raise which sum a 
mortgage of 1600/. was effected on the property of the institution. 
The Exhibition was proposed with a view of diminishing this 
burthen, and the nobility and gentry of the country were solicited 
for the loan of objects. This appeal was responded to in the 
most gratifymg manner by persons of every shade of opinion, 
and four hundred individuals contributed five thousand articles, 
comprising paintings by eminent masters; specimens of sculp- 
ture; splendid assortments of porcelain of Derby and foreign 
manufacture ; a great number of good models of various kinds ; 
valuable specimens in ornithology, entomology, mineralogy, and 
geology; together with an extensive collection of domestic and 
foreign curiosities. An insurance for 15,000/. was effected on 
the property thus generously confided to the managers of the 
institution. The Exhibition was at first intended to be open for 
a month, but at the end of that period the number of visitors 
was daily increasing, and it was not eventually closed until it 
had been open eighteen weeks. ‘The attractions of the Exhibi- 
tion were increased by philosophical experiments; the arts of 
printing, weaving, and modelling were illustrated and exhibited 
in visible operation; and the musical classes of the Institution 
gratified the visitors with their performances. The terms of ad- 
mission were fixed at 6d. each person, and tickets for the season were 
sold at 2s. 6Gd.: six thousand sixpenny catalogues were sold. The 
total number of persons admitted (the repeated visits of the 
holders of season-tickets being included) exceeded 96,000 ; the 
total receipts were 2119/. ; the expenses 763/., leaving a balance 
in favour of the Institution of 1355/7. The inmates of the alms- 
houses and of the union poorhouse, the police and the military 
of the town, were allowed to visit the Exhibition free of expense. 
The children of the Sunday and charity schools of Derby and of 
other towns were admitted at 2d. each; and not the slightest 
injury was done to any of the articles exhibited. The Exhibi- 
tion Committee remark, in their Report, that ‘if such Exhibi- 
tions were more frequent, if amusements and recreations of a 
similar nature were substituted for those debasing sports which un- 
fortunately prevail; judging from :the orderly conduct of those 
who frequented the late Exhibition, and from the interest it evi- 
dently excited, there can be little doubt that a mighty change 
would soon be effected in the character and habits of our Eng- 
lish population. Men (they remark) must have some kind of 
relaxation and amusement, which are necessary to the health 
both of body and of mind; and without some agreeable and in- 
nocent occupation for their leisure hours, it can occasion little 
surprise if they are driven to the baneful pleasures of the tavern 
and of the gin-shop.” Referring to our account of the Leeds 
and Sheffield Exhibitions, we may thus tabularize their results 
and compare them with those at Derby :— 


Receipts. Expenses. No. of Visits 
Leeds . , 84002. 14602. 183,913 
Sheffield : T3182. 6517, 70,000 
Derby . ‘ 21192. 1634 96,000 


iS41.] 


——F' = = 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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“ We, Hermina, like two artificial gods, 
Have with our neelds created both one flower, 
» ~ Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion.’’} 


' 


SHAKSPERE'S DELINEATIONS OF FEMALE 
ERIENDSHIP. 


We have before us a sketch by Mr. Severn, an En- 
glish artist of great celebrity residing at Rome, of 
which the above wood-engraving is, as far as possible, 
afac-simile. The engraving falls, however, somewhat 
short of the charming expression of the original draw- 
ing. The subject is one of those poetical creations of 
Shakspere of which we necessarily make a picture in 
our own minds as we read; but to the adequate repre- 
sentation of which, in the same degree, no effect of 
the sister art of painting, however successful, is alto- 
gether equal. The painter can only seize upon one 
point of view; the poet has the control of time and 
Space, and presents us a succession of images harmo- 
nizing with and strengthening the leading idea. The 
hnes which we have placed under Mr. Severn’s sketch 
tell the story of the friendship of Hermia and Helena, 
as far as can be shown in one action. But the poet 
gives us a succession of actions. The whole passage 
is to be found in the third act of ‘A Midsummer 
Night’s Dream; in which Helena, who fancies she 
has been injured by her friend Hermia, breaks out into 
the following most beautiful apostrophe :— 


‘ Tnjurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid! 
Have you conspir’d, have you with these contriv’d 
To bait me with this foul derision ? 
Is all the counsel that we two have shar’d, 
The sister’s yows, the hours that we have spent, | 


When we have chid the hasty-footed time 

For parting us,—O, and is all forgot ? 

All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence ? 
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, 

Have with our neelds created both one flower, 
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, 
Both warbling of oue song, both in one key ; 
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, . 
Had been incorporate. So we grew together, 
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted ; 

But yet a union in partition, 

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem : 

So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart ; 
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, 

Due but to one, and crowned with one crest. 
And will you rent our ancient love asunder, 
To join with men in scorning your poor friend ? 
It is not friendly, tis not maidenly : 

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it ; 
Though I alone do feel the injury.” 


What a simple picture is this of the every-day life 
of two maidens growing together in love and confi- 
dence, as thousands still grow ;—and yet how exqui- 
sitely poctical in its literal truth. The “counsel ” 
shared together ;—the little confidences graduaily 
ripening into the revealing of the mmost heart, and 
thus becoming ‘sisters’ vows ;’—the longing to mect, 
the dread to part ;—the common occupation, such as 
Mr. Severn has exhibited, but accompanied with that 
crowning circumstance— 

“ Both warbling of one song, both in one key.” 


110 THE PENNY 
He that wrote this charming description is, of all 
poets, the one who has left us the truest delineations 
of the tenderness, the constancy, the intrepidity, and 
the purity of woman. 

Rosalind and Celia, in ‘As you Like It,’ present a 
most attractrve dramatic exhibition of female friend- 
ship. Shakspere has again, with his imate know- 
ledge of human character, made the strength of the 
aifection of Celia for Rosalind depend upon habit 
and long companionship. She remonstrates against 
her father’s determination to banish Rosalind, in these 
words :— 

: “If she be a traitor, 
Why soamT; we still have slept together, 
Rose at an instant, learn’d, play’d, eat together ; 
And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans, 
Still we went coupled and inseparable.” 


Shakspere has painted the existence of friendship 
amongst men, as in the instance of Antonio and Bas- 
sanio, in the ‘Merchant of Venice;’ and in that most 
touching description of the deaths of York and Suffolk, 
in ‘Henry V.’ :— 

“Suffolk first died ; and York, all haggled over, 
Comes to him, where in gore he lay eusteep’d, 
And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes, 
That bloodily did yawn upon his face ; 

And cries aloud, ‘ Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk! 
My soul shall thine keep company to heaven ; 
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly a-breast ; 
As, in this glorious and well-foughten field, 
We kept together in our chivalry !” 

Upon these words I came, and cheer’d him up; 
He smil’d me in the face, cauglit me his hand, 
And, with a feeble gripe, says, ‘ Dear my lord, 
Commend my service to my sovereign.’ 

So did he turn, and over Suffolk’s neck 

He threw his wounded arm, and kiss’d his lips ; 
And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal’d 
A testament of noble-ending love.” 


But in this glorious picture there is high and heroic 
duty,—-the sternness as well as the tenderness of 
chivalry blending in the friendship of the heroes. 
It is a picture of the friendship of men, which is 
generally the strongest amongst those who are 
struggling over the same rough path of life. The 
friendship of mere companionship, without firmer 
ties, seldom lasts beyond the age of boyhood, and 
then we go our own selfish and solitary ways. Leontes 
and Polixenes, in the ‘ Winter’s Tale,’ were the friends 
of childhood :— 


“We were as twum’d lambs, that did frisk i’ the sun, 
And bleat the one at the other.” 


Yet the remembrance could not preserve them from 
deadly hatred and suspicion. 





THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 


However attractive the title of the present article 
might have proved two or three centuries ago, an his- 
torical point of view is the only one in which it is 
likely to interest readers of our own times. True 
science derives no support from mystery, and so far 
from having anything occult in her objects or pro- 
ceedings, she proclaims her views far and wide, and 
rejoices and prospers in proportion to the numbers and 
free intercommunication of her votaries. It is true 
that she has her difficultics, but then she frankly con- 
fesses them, well knowing that the first step towards 
the removal of obstacles to her progress is the free re-' 
cognition of their existence, 

The so-called occult sciences had for their object the 
supernaturally influencing present and_ predicting 
future events. The labours and proceedings of the 
magician, the astrologer, and the alchemist have all 


MAGAZINE. [Marcu 20 

had one or other of these ends more or less in view. 
The belief in magic and divination seems to have pre- 
vailed in all ages and in all countries, both in those to 
which we are accustomed to look back as the origina- 
tors of ancient civilization, and others plunged in the 


-grossest barbarism and darkness. 


Allusions to the practices of magic or divination 
abound in the Scriptures: the Jews, ever after their 
captivity in Egypt, seem to have become addicted to 
them, and were frequently and expressly forbidden to 
engage 1n proceedings which with them formed but a 
branch of that idolatry to which they were so obsti- 
nately prone. The Jewish Cabala is referred back to 
a very remote antiquity, but it was seen only in all ifs 
varieties during the middle ages, reflecting the re- 
ligious mysteries of Rabbinism. Cabala signifies tra- 
dition, and in its origin would seem to have been 
purely religious—a kind of secret theology endeavour- 
ing to explain the mysterious sense of the sacred writ~ 
ings ; but prior to the middle ages it had become the 
imaginary vehicle for communicating with the beings 
of another world. It was divided into two sections, 
one treating of the occult virtues concealed in the 
world, and the other of supernatural knowledge. An 
inferior description of Cabala consisted in the combi- 
nation of certain mysterious words, termed cabalistic 
words, which, carried about the person, afforded pro- 
tection from demons, sickness, &c.: the famous com- 
bination Abracadabra acquired an immense reputa- 
tion. Among the primitive Christians, and long since 
among the illiterate vulgar, texts of the New Testa- 
ment were in like manner supposed to be of great 
efficacy in the recovery of the sick, &c.: the first two 
or three verses of the Gospel of St. John were espe- 
cially esteemed for this purpose. The same cabalistic 
signs which could thus at one time avert disease and 
mischief, were employed under other circumstances to 
invoke demoniacal agency and work evil miraculously. 
In like manner the disposition of certain numbers has 
been considered as a principle involving the most 
wonderful power over futurity. The Hindoos, Egyp- 
tians, and Chinese, and the Europeans of the middle 
ages, have all entertained the highest opinion of the 
energy of magic squares and other cabalistic figures. 
The Greeks placed implicit faith in divination, so that, 
in the early period of their history, every action of im- 
portance was deterniined upon only after the observa- 
tion of the flight of birds, the inspection of their en- 
trails, of sacrifices, &c. Ata later period they consulted 
oracles, whoin they believed to be the direct interpre- - 
ters of the wills of their deities. The oracle of Apollo 
at Delpli acquired, by the skill and duplicity with 
which the responses were framed, an immense and du- 
rable reputation. The Romans practised augury most 
extensively: at one time it formed a part of the regu- - 
Jar system of instruction of their principal youth, some 
of whom were by a decree of the senate sent to each 
of the states of Etruria to be instructed in the art. 
The augurs, originally taken exclusively from the pa- 
trician class, but afterwards partially from the plebcian, 
were formed into a college, and held in the highest 
estimation: they possessed many privileges, and could 
not be deprived of their offices, however great the 
cries they may have committed. Their omens were 
derived from the appearance of the heavens, the sing- 
ing and flight of birds, the feeding of chickens, the 
examination of the entrails of victims, drawing lots, 
&ce., &c. Some of these were of a very ridiculous na- 
ture. It is remarkable that many of the profoundest 
observers of antiquity believed in this power of pre- 
dictine the future: but it must be recollected that 
among the ancients divination was associated more or 
less with the solemnities and mysteries of their reli- 
Nevertheless Cato expresses his surprise that 





1841.] 


the soothsayers could keep their countenances while 
consulting their omens. 

A tertile period of modern sorcery occurred when 
the northern tribes inundated and devastated the 
southern regions of Europe. The various nations of 
Huns, Goths, Allemanns, &c., all brought their tra- 
ditions of magicians, sorcerers, &c., differing from 
each other ; while those whom they conquered in their 
progress, oftentimes concealing themselves in the 
forests and caves, furnished yet further materials for 
legends of concealed dwarfs, sorcerers, &c. This was 
the case with the Finnish tribes overrun by the Swedes 
and Danes. Although the Celtic mythology yielded 
to the influence of Christianity, yet did it leave asa 
legaey its magicians and other supernatural beings. 
Thus we have the enehanter Merlin introdueed with 
the fables of King Arthur, and his renown has survived 
every change, and reached our own times, both in this 
country and in France. After the Crusades, the Eu- 
ropeans mingled with the sterner ideas of the North 
the brilliant fairy-land of the Arabs and Persians ; 
and from this source are derived many of our legends. 
The occupation of Spain by the Moers must have given 
great encouragement to the study of the occult 
sciences: they were at that time the best instructed 
people in Europe, and mueh addicted to this descrip- 
tion of pursuits. The Jews also (to whose cultivation 
of these studies we have already alluded), by reason of 
their wandering habits, must often have become a me- 
dium of communication of the knowledge of- the East 
to the West. During the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centurics, the belief in sorcery prevailed over entire 
Europe, and frequently gave rise to the most cruel 
persecutions. Professed in the persons of the charlatan, 
or the disordered and weakened in intellect, it had 
lost that solemn and important character which its con- 
nection with religious observances had invested it with 
in times of antiquity, and has gradually disappeared 
before the light of increasing civilization. 

It is humiliating to recall to mind how short is the 
period since the belicf in witchcraft was all but uni- 
versal; and the cruel persecutions instituted for its 
suppression form one of the too numerous dark spots in 
modern European history. It would be idle here to 
enter upon the discussion concerning the identity of 
the witches mentioned in Scripture, and those unfor- 
tunate bemgs who have been, distinguished by the 
appellation in more recent times. Svuffice it to say 
that texts intended for special and temporary applica- 
tion have been seized hold of as justifying a cruel and 
sanguinary persecution, originating in the grossest 
folly and credulity, and directed for the most part 
agzainst aged, feeble, and half-witted women, who, in 
Many instances, by the torments they endured and the 
general persuasion of those around them, were brought 
to confess toa communing with the evil one, and the 
derivation thence of a power ijurious to society. 
Some of the earliest accusations of this crime were, 
however, directed against different subjects, and veiled 
under the pretext of different objects: thus political 
enemies and heretical believers were frequently de- 
nounced as guilty of witchcraft. Who has not felt in- 
dignant at the mean vindictive charge of witehcraft 
brought by our anecstors against the noble and heroic 
Maid of Orieans? It is true that Joan of Arc believed 
herself inspired to the delivery of her country, when 
during her prayer for aidshe believed she hearda celestial 
voice exclaiming—“ Va, va, je seray 4 ton aide, va!” 
The accusation against the wife of the good Duke 
Humphrey ot Gloucester for the same crime, as also 
those numerous ones invented by Richard III., must 
be familiar to all readers of English history. In dif- 
ferent parts of Europe Commissions of Inquisition 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 111 
practised witchcraft; and it is from the statement of 
some of these inquisitors we learn the dreadful extent 
to which their cruelties were often carried. Pope In- 
nocent VIII. issued a bull, deploring the increase of 
witches, and exhorting the inquisitors to more ala- 
crity in their dreadful functions. The consequence 
was a bloody persecution spread over France, Italy, 
and Germany. j 

About 1485 Cumanus burned forty-one poor women 
in one year ; and about the same period another inqui- 
sitor burned a hundred persons in Piedmont. In 1515 
five hundred persons were exccuted at Geneva as 
“ Protestant witches ;” and Remigius, the inquisitor 
in Lorraine, boasts that in fifteen years he put to death 
nine hundred persons. In 1524 a thousand persons 
are said to have thus perished inComo. Witchcraft 
was made a frequent pretext for the persecution of the 
Albigenses in France, and that country continued the 
scene of the most cruel proceedings, until an edict of 
Louis XIV. forbidding further proeeedings on aceount 
of the crime, was the eause of its entire disappearance. 
So true is it that cruel persecution multiplies rather 
than diminishes the crime it is directed against. In 
Spain the Inquisition was most active in its proceed- 
ings against sorcery ; while in Sweden, in 1669, accord- 
ing to Dr. Horneck, more than fourscore persons lost 
their lives on the accusation of witcheraft, the only 
evidence against them being the reports of children. 

Britain has unfortunately kept pace with other coun- 
tries in these barbarous proeeedings. Prior to the 
reign of Elizabeth condemnations had occurred for 
witchcraft, or rather for political offences with which 
this was said to be mingled; but in 1558 we find 
Bishop Jewel thus addressmg her :—“ It may please 
your Grace to understand that witehes and sorcerers 
within the last four years are marvellously increased 
Within your Grace’s realm. Your Grace’s subjects 
pine away even to the death, their eolour fadeth, their 
flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are 
bereft. JI pray God they never practise further than 
the subject.” 

Statutes were passed against sorcery and witchcraft ; 
but, with some exceptions, the punishments resulting 
were neither severe nor frequent during the queen’s 
reign. Far otherwise in that of her successor. The 
pedantic James had, even before his accession to the 
English throne, published a work upon the subject ; 
and thus his fears of personal injury resulting to him- 
self from the diabolical agency of witchcraft, and his 
vanity as an author, instigated him to an aetive inves- 
tigation of the subject. He published a new edition of 
his ‘ Damonologie,’ in 1603. In it he deplores the 
manifold increase of the erime; enters into an clabo- 
rate disquisition concerning its varieties, its detection 
and punishment, adopting with implicit faith all the 
gross delusions and glaring absurdities current among 
the mass of the people. The book is written in the form 
of a dialogue. After death having been denounced, 
the question is asked, “ But ought no sexe, age, or 
ranke to be exempted?—None at al; for it 1s the 
highest point of idolatry, wherein no exception 1s ad- 
mitted by the law of God.” Speaking of the proofs of 
witeheraft, he says, “ And besides there are two other 
rood helpes that may be used for their triall: the one 
is the finding of their marke, and the trying the insen- 
sibleness thereof. The other is their fleeting in the 
water ; for, as in a secret murther, if the dead earkasse 
be at any time handled thereafter by the murtherer, it 
will gush out of bloud, as if the bloud were crying to 
heaven for revenge of the murtherer, God having 
appoynted the secret supernaturall signe for tryall of 
that secret unnaturall crime; so it appears that God 
hath appoynted that the water shall refuse to receive 


were appointed to search for and destroy all those who | them in her bosome that have shaken off them the 


112 THE PENNY 
sacred water of baptisme, and wilfully refused the 
benefite thereof. No, not so muchas their eles are 
able to shead teares (threaten and torture them as you 
please) while first they repent, albeit the women-kinde 
especially be able otherwaies to shead teares at every 
light occasion, when they will, yea, although it were 
dissemblingly like the crocodiles.” Numerous other 
writers supported the views of the monarch, and at that 
epoch Reginald Scott was the only writer 1n this country 
who courageously combated the popular delusions ; 
and in his ‘ Discoverie of Witchcraft’ fully exposed 
the utter absurdity of attributing this evil practice 
to these miserable victims of persecution, and the 
cruelty of the means employed for their condemnation. 
Ilis book was burned by the order of James, who also 
stigmatized the author in the preface to his ‘ Dzemon- 
ologie.’ Indeed, it required no little moral courage in 
those days to take the part which Scott did, as all. the 
early writers against the existence of witchcraft were 
looked upon as atheists. The statute of James declared 
witchcraft felony without benefit of clergy, and several 
individuals perished in consequence. But it-was 
during the civil wars, upon the predominance of the 
Presbyterian: party, that the greatest cruelties were 
ees against witches both in England and Scot- 
and. Wretches under the name of witch-finders were 
encouraged to traverse all parts of the country in quest 
of these victims of ignorance and credulity. . Evidence 
of the slightest, and often of the most absurd description, 
was received as all-sufficient: nay, the ‘mere surmise 
of an ill-affected neighbour, or the occurrence of some 
calamity in her neighbourhood, has hurried many a 
poor old woman to the stake. The witch-finder was per- 
mitted to submit the suspected person to various cruel 
trials or tests, out of which it was scarcely possible she 
should come unscathed, seeing that the pain she suf- 
fered often extorted confession (tor what will torture 
not extort ?); and when this was not the case, the by- 
standers almost always drew unfavourable conclusious 
from the mode in which she .went through her - trials. 
A brutal fellow, named Matthew Hopkins, acquired 
an immense reputation as a witch-finder; and in 1647 
published a pamphlet detailing the means he em- 
ployed. ; 
After the restoration of Charles II., these cruelties 
were but rarely practised, yet the statute of James [., 
which sanctioned them, was not repealed until the 9th 
of George IJ. One of the most extraordinary events 
which has been recorded in connection with popular 
delusions occurred in New England, when the colonists, 
themselves fleeing from oppressions at home, com- 
menced, in 1692, a most furious and unaccountable 
persecution against persons accused of witchcraft. In- 
dividuals of all conditions and ages became involved in 
the proscription, and those who did not save themselves 
by speedy flight were executed: young children suf- 
fered, and even a dog was among the condemned. This 
frenzy disappeared as suddenly as it had commenced ; 
many of the judges and jurors who had taken part in 
the horrid scenes publishing their penitence for the 
rashness of their conduct. 


Education.—It is a great art in the education of youth to find 
out pecuhar aptitudes, or, where none exist, to create inclina- 
tions which may serve as substitutes, Different minds are like 
different soils; some are suited only to particular cultivation ; 
other will mature almost anything; others, adapted to a round 
of ordinary products; and a few are wasted, unless they are re- 
served for what is most choice.—/Walker’s Original, 


ee re ere 


A companion that is cheerful, and free from swearing and 
Kcurrilous discourse, is worth gold. I love such mirth as does 
not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morn- 


MAGAZINE. [Marcw 20, 


ing; mor men, that cannot well bear it, to repent the money 
they spend when they be warmed with drink. And take this 
for a rule: you may pick out such times and such companions, 
that you may make yourselves merrier for a little than a great 
deal of money; ‘¢ "Tis the company, and not the charge, that 
makes the feast.”—Jzaak Walton. 


Town Gardens of the Japanese.—The front of the better class 
of houses 1s occupied by a large portico and entrance, where the 
palanquins, umbrellas, and ‘shoes of visitors are left, where ‘ser- 
vants and persons on business wait, &c. ; and which is connected 
with all the domestic offices. The back of the house is the part 
inhabited by the family ; and it projects into the garden trian- 
gularly, for the benefit of: more light and cheerfulness. These 
gardens, however diminutive, are always laid out in the land- 
scape-garden style, with rocks, mountains, lakes, waterfalls, and 
trees ; and uniformly contain a family chapel or oratory. Ab- 
surd as such would-be pleasure-grounds may seem, when con- 
fined in extent, as must be the garden even of a wealthy house- 
holder in. the heart of a city, this intermixture of verdure 
nevertheless contributes greatly to the airmess and gay aspect of 
the town’ itself. And we are told that the very smallest habita- 
tions possess similar gardens, yet more: in‘ miniature, sometimes 
consisting of what may be called the mere comers cut off from the 
triangular back of the house, with the trees in flower-pots.— 
Srebold'’s Manners and Customs of the! Japanese, 


A Gigantic Iceberg.—At twelve o'clock we went below; and 
had just got through dinner, when the cook. put his head down 
the scuttle, and told us to come.on deck and see the finest sight 
that we had ever seen. ‘“‘ Where away, cook ?” asked the first 
man who was up.: “On the larboard bow.” And there lay 
floating in the ocean, several miles off, an‘ immense irregular 
mass, its top and points covered with snow, and its centre of a 
deep indigo colour. This was an iceberg, and of the largest 
‘size, as one of our men said, who had been ithe Northern Ocean. 
As far as the eye could reach, the sea in every direction was of a 
deep blue colour; the waves running high and fresh, and spark- 
ling in the hght; and in the midst lay.this immense mountain- 
island, its cavities and valleys thrown into deep shade, and its 
peints and pinnacles glittering in the sun. All hands were soon 
on deck, looking at it, and admiring i various ways its beauty 
and grandeur. But no description cau give any idea of the 
strangeness, splendour, and, really, the sublimity of the sight. Its 
great size—for it must have been from two to three miles in cir- 
cumference, and several hundred feet in height ; its slow motion, 
us its base rose and sank in the water, and its high points nodded 
against the clouds; the dashing of the waves upon it, which, 
breaking high with foam, lned its base with a white crust; and 
the thundering sound of the cracking of the mass, and the break- 
ing and tumbling down of huge pieces; together with its near- 
ness and approach, which added a slight element of fear—all 
combined to give it the character of true sublimity. The main 
body of the mass was, as I have said, of an indigo colour, its 
base crusted with frozen foam; and as it grew thin and trans- 
parent towards the edges and top, its colour shaded off from a 
deep blue to the whiteness of snow. It seemed to be drifting 
slowly towards the north, so that we kept away and avoided it. 
It was in sight all the afternoon; and when we got to leeward of 
it, the wind died away, so that we lay-to quite near it for a 
greater part of the night. Unfortunately there was no moon; 
but it was a clear night, and we could plainly mark the long 
regular heaving of the stupendous mass as its edges moved slowly 
against the stars. Several times in our watch loud cracks were 
heard, which sounded as though they must have run through the 
whole length of the iceberg, and several pieces fell down with a 
thundering crash, plunging heavily into the sea. Towards morn- 
ig a strong breeze sprang up, and we filled away and left it 
astern, and at daylight it was out of sight. .....No pencil 
has ever yet given anything like the true effect of an iceberg. In 
a picture they are huge uncouth masses stuck in the sea; while 
their chief beauty and grandeur—their slow stately motion, the 
whirling of the snow about their summits, and the fearful groan- 
ing and cracking of their parts—-the picture cannot give. This 
is the large iceberg; while the small and distant islands, floating 
on the smooth sea in the light of a clear day, look like little 
floating fairy isles of sapphire.—7wo Years before the Mast. 


1841. | THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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THE CID.—No. VV. - 
“’m the Cid, Rodrigo Diaz, 
Honour of Castile and Spain ; 
Look unto my deeds of prowess ! 
Who could greater glory gain?” 

In the year 1055, Henry III., Emperor of Germany, com- 
plained to Vietor IJ., who sat in the chair of St. Peter, 
that Fernando of Castile alone, of all the potentatcs of 
Christendom, refused to acknowledge his superiority 
and pay him tribute. The holy father lent a favourable ad 
ear to his prayer, and despatched a messenger to Fer- 4 
nando, threatening a crusade against him unless he . ’ 
tendered his obedience; and this threat was seconded ae 

by many other sovereigns, whose letters 

accompanied the Pope's. Fernando, in, : _ 

great alarm, hastily called together a pee ‘e, Sle 

council for deliberation and advice. His “wi Seaabe’ sue 





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114 


nobles counselled him to submit, lest he should lose 
his kingdom. ‘The good Cid” was not present when 
the council commenced its deliberations, but he now 
entered the hall; and hearing what had passed, ‘it 
erieyed his heart sore,” and he thus broke forth :— 


‘ Woe the day thy mother bore thec! 
~ Woe were for Castile that day, 
Should thy realm, oh, King Fernando, 
This unwonted tribute pay ! 


Never yet have we done homage— 
Shall we to a stranger bow ? 

Great the honor God hath given us— 
Shall we lose that honor now ? 


He who would such counsel lend thee, 
Count him, king, to be thy fue; 
He against thy crown conspireth, 
And thy sceptre would o erthrow. 
Thy forefathers erst did rescuc 
This fair realm from Paynim sway ; 
Sore they bled, and long they struggted— 
None to aid them did essay. 
Sore they bled—my hfe Id forfeit 
Ere I'd wear the brand of shame, 
Ere I'd stoop to pay this tribute, 
Which none hath a right to claim. 


Send then to the Holy Father, 
Proudly thus to him reply— 

Thou, the king, and I, Rodrigo, 
Him and all his power defy.” 


Notwithstanding the daring boldness of this counsel, 
it pleased the king; and he sent back the messengers 
to the Pope, begging his Holiness not to interfere, and 
at the same time ehallenging the Emperor and all his 
tributary kings. Straightwaya host of eight thousand 
hine hundred men was gathered, and, commanded by 
the Cid and aceompanicd by the king, it erossed the 
Pyrenees, and met the Count of Savoy, “with a very 
ereat chivalry” (twenty thousand men, says the Chro- 
nicle), on the plains of France. The Kmpcror’s forces 
were routed and the Count made prisoner; but the 
Cid released hin on his giving up his daughter as 
a hostage. Rodrigo having in another battle defeated 
“the mightiest power of France,’ the alhed soye- 
reigns in alarm wrote to the Pope, besecching him to 
prevail upon the king of Castile to return to his own 
land, and they would ask no more for tribute, for none 
might withstand the power of the Cid. On these terms 
Fernando withdrew his forces. The Chronicle adds, 
that the Pope and the allied sovereigns made a solemn 
covenant with him that such a demand should never 
again be made upon Castile. 

In order that we may not withdraw the attention of 
our readers from what bears an immediate reference 
to the Cid, we pass over Ximena’s letter to the king, 
complaining of the long absence of her Jord, the king’s 
reply, the ceremony of her purification after her first 
delivery, the subsequent death-bed'scene of “ the good 
king” Fernando, and the distribution of his territories 
among his children—which things are recorded in 
inany romances full of interest—and we proceed to 
notice the next striking event in the hfe of our hero. 

Sancho []., who in 1065 sueceeded his father on the 
throne of Castile, went to Rome to attend a council 
convoked by the holy father. On his arrival, he was 
admitted to kiss the pope’s hand, which we are informed 
he did “with great courtesy,” as did also the Cid and 
the other kniehts in histrain, each in turn, according to 
lus rank. After this our Cid chanced to stray into the 
church of St. Peter, and there beheld seven marble 
seats set tor the Christian kines then in Rome; he re- 
inarked that that of the French king was placed next 
the papal throne, while that of his own lieze was on a 
Jower step. This fired his wrath, and he kicked the 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


Marcu 27, 


French king’s seat to the ground with such violence 
as to break it to pieces, and set his own lord’s chair 
in the place of honour. Hereon exclaimeda noble 
duke called the Savoyard, who stood by,— 


“ Cursed be thou, Dou Rodrigo! 
May the Pope’s ban on thee rest ; 
For thou bast. a king dishonour’d, 
Of all kings, I wot, the best.” 


The Cid replhed— 


Speak no more of kings, Sir Duke; 
If thou dost of wrong complain, 

{t shall straightway be redressed— 
Here are none beside us twain.” 


But the Duke did not scem inclined to fight, so the 
Cid stepped up to him, and gave a hard thrust,—a 
departure, it niust be confessed, from his wouted cour- 
tesy, but to be accounted for, if not excused, by the 
state of irritation in which he was at the moment. The 
Duke received the insultin silence, but made his com- 
plaint to the Pope, who immediately excommunicated 
the Cid. Rodrigo, whose wrath had now subsided, 
hereon fell prostrate before his Holiness, and besouglit 
absolution : 


“YT absolve thee, Don Ruy Diaz, 
I absolve thee cheerfully, 
If while at my court thou showest 
Due respect and courtesy.” 


Hardly had Sancho ascended the throne of Castile, 
when he souglit to wrest from his brothers, Alfonso, 
kine of Leon, and Garcia, king of Galicia, the domi- 
nions they had inherited from their father, and in both 
eases, owing to the wisdom and valour of the Cid, he 
was eminently successful. On his first encounter with 
Alfonso, Sancho had the worst of it, his troops beine 
put to the rout, but he was eheered by the counsel of 
the Cid :—*“ List, my hege! Thy brother’s hosts are 
now feasting and making merry in their tents, as is 
the wont of the Leonese and Galicians after a victory ; 
and soon will they be buried in slumber, neither hecd- 
ing nor fearing thee; but gather thou toecther as 
many of thine own men as may be, and at break of day 
fall on the foe maniully, and verily thou wilt have thy 
revenge.” This counsel was followed with great suc- 
cess, the men of Leon were overthrown, and Alfonso 
himself made prisoner, but his troops rallied, and in 
their tur captured Don Sancho. As he was being 
led off the field by fourteen knights, “the renowned 
one of Bivar’ eame up, and begged his release in 
exehange for their King Alfonso. They sternly re- 
plied— 

‘Mie thee hence, Rodrigo Diaz, 
An thou love thy hberty ; 
Lest, with this thy king, we take thee 
Into dire captivity.” 


At this, “ great wrath seized on the Cid,” and, regard- 
less of their numbers, he attacked them, and with his 
single arm routed them, and set his king at liberty. 

Our hero was equally instrumental in the conquest 
of Don Garcia, but we refrain from particulars, as it 
is not our intention to dwell so much on his warlike 
deeds as on the other events of his life, which will 
prove of more general interest. We pass then at once 
to the expedition against Zamora. 

Ifaving deprived his brothers of their kingdoms, and 
his sister Elvira of the town of Toro, her only inhe- 
ritance, Don Sancho marehed against Zamora, which 
the old king had bequeathed to his other daughter, 
Urraca, but wluch the new monarch considered his 
rightful inheritance, aud cagerly desired to possess, in 
order that his dominion might in no way be inferior to 
that of his predecessor. Tisarmy being encamped be- 
fore the town, the king rode out with the Cid, to re- 


1841.] 


connoitre the place, and thus expressed his admiration 
of its strength :-— 


“See! where on yon cliff Zamora 
Lifteth up her haughty brow, 
Walls of strength on high begird her, 
Duero swift and deep below. 


Troth ! how wondrous strong she seemeth 
In her panoply of towers ; 

She, L wot, might bid defiance 
To the world and all its powers! 


Wert she mine, that noble city, 
Spain itself were not so dear ; 

Cid, my sire did thee much honour, 
Great love eke to thee I bear. 


Wherefore charge I thee, Rodrigo, 
As a vassal loyal and true, 

Hie thee straight unto Zamora, 
This my bidding for to do.” 


He charged the Cid to tell his sister Urraca to de- 
liver up the city, either for a sum of gold or in ex- 
change for some other town, and promised to swear, 
with twelve of his vassals, that he would fulfil the 
asreement ; but as the strongest inducement for AEN: 
to accede to his demand, he added— 


‘<Tf she will do none of these, 
I will e’en by force possess it.” 


The Cid obeyed with great reluctance, for he had 
before endeavoured to dissuade the king from his un- 
righteous purpose, and had sworn that he would not 
himself take up arms against Zamora. As he ap- 
proached the walls, the Infanta Urraca calls out to 
him from the ramparts,— 


“ Back! begone with thee, Rodrigo! 
Proud Castilian, hence! away ! 
How canst thou thus dare assail me ? 
Hast forgot that happy day, 


When, at Santiago’s altar, 
Thou wast made a belted knight ? 

The king, my sire, was thy godfather, 
And put on thy armour bright ; 

My mother brought to thee thy charger, 
By my hands thy spurs were dight. 


Woe is me! I thought to wed thee ; 
Foudly did I love thee, Cid 5 
But my sins, alas! forbad it, 
Thou didst with Xinnena wed. 


With her thou hadst well-fill’d coffers, 
Honour wouldst have won with me ; 

Aud, if wealth be good, still better 
Rank and honour were to thee.”’* 


These words rendered the Cid very sorrowful, and 
he returned to the camp without having accomphshed 
the purpose of his embassy. But, according to another 
romance, which agrees with the ‘ Chronicle’. in this, as 
well as in omitting all notice of Urraca’s confession, 
he entered the city, and delivered his message. The 
Infanta heard it with many tears, and cried— 


* Though the romances make mention of but one Ximena, 1t 
may be doubted whether the Cid had not two wives of that 
uame. Father Berganza, who spared no pains to verify the 
events of our hero’s life, seems to regard his marriage with 
Ximena Gomez as fictitious, and thinks his true wife was Ximena 
Diaz, daughter of Don Diego, Count of the Astunas, and of the 
royal blood of Leon, and that he married her in the reign of 
Sancho If. Certain it is that on her tomb, which we have seen 
in San Pedro de Cardena, she is styled “ Ximena Diaz, grand- 
daughter of the King Alfonso V. of Leon.” Sandoval and 
Berganza give at length the marriage settlement of the Cid and 
Ximena Diaz, dated 1074, and. still preserved, it is said, in the 
archives of the cathedral at Burgos. Lest it should be supposed 
that she was so called trom the surname of her husband, we 
must observe that Spanish females do not lose their maiden 
names ou their marriage. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


“ Woe is me, a lonely woman! 
Woe is me, a maid forlorn! 
King, thy dying sire remember ; 


Be not Sancho still forsworn ! 


From thy brother Don Garcia 
Thou hast crown and kingdom ta’en ; 
Cast him eke into a dungeon, . 
Where he ruefully hath Jain. 


Next, thy brother Don Alfonso 

Thou didst drive him from his throne 5 
Fled he straight unto Toledo, 

Where he dwelleth woe-begone. 


From my sister, Dofa Elvira, 
Toro hast thou wrested, too ; 
Now of me thou would’st Zamora ; 
Woe is me! what shall I do?” 


Hereon arose Arias Gonzalo, an aged noble, who 
was the Infanta’s chief counsellor, and, to console her, 
he proposed that the sense of the citizens should be 
taken with regard to this matter. This was accordingly 
done, and— 


“Then did swear all her brave vassals 
In Zamora’s walls to che, 
Ere unto the king they'd yield it, 
And disgrace their chivalry.” 


When the Cid returned with this answer, the king 
was exceeding wrathful, and accused him of having 
suggested it, because he had been brought up m 
Zamora, and was ill affected towards the expedition. 
So wrathful was Don Sancho, that he exclaimed, 
“Were it not for the love my father bore thee, I would 
straightway have thee hanged; but I command thee 
to begone in nine days from this my realm of Castile. 
The Cid went his way to the Arab court of Toledo, 
but his exile was not of long duration, for the king, 
through the representations of his nobles, soon began 
to regret the loss of so valiant a hegeman, and sent to 
recal him. When he heard of his approach, 


“ Forth two leagues he went to meet him, 

With five hundred in his train ; 

When the Cid beheld the monarch, 
From his steed he sprung aman. 

Kneeling, the king’s hands he kissed, 
Lowly homage did he pay ; 

Then, with joy of all, uprising, 
Took he to thé camp his way.” 


One day during the siege of Zamora there came 
running from the city, hard pursued by the sons of 
Arias Gonzalo, one who made straight for the tent 
of the King Don Sancho. This fellow, whose name 
was Bellido Dolfos, said that he had been forced to 
fly for his life, for having advised Arias to surrender 
the city; he professed himsclf a warm partisan of 
the king, and offered to show him a postern through 
which he and his forces might enter Zamora. Though 
the king was warned by Arias Gonzalo trom the ram- 
parts,— 


‘© Ware thee! ware thee! King Don Sancho, 
List to my admonishment ! 
From Zamora’s walls a traitor 
Hath gone forth with foul intent,” 


he was imprudent enough to sally forth with Bellido 
alone, in order to sce this postern, and even handed to 
him, for a moment, the hunting-spear he bore in his 
hand. Dolfos, seeing him unprotected, raised himself 
in his stirrups, and with all his force hurled the spear 
into the King’s back. It passed completely through 
him, and he fell in the agonies of death. The traitor 
spurred away towards the town, but not alone, for the 
Cid had seen the deed, and, springing to his horse, 
ealloped after him; but not having buckled on his 


Q 2 


116 THE PENNY 


spurs, he was unable to overtake him before he reached > 
the gates. Then cried he in his wrath,— 


“Cursed be the wretch! and cursed 
He who mounteth without spur! 
Had I arm’d my heels with rowels, 
I had slain the treacherous cur.” 


The Castilian knights gathered around their dying 
king, and all flattered him with the hope of recovery, 
save the veteran Count of Cabra, who charged him to 
take no heed to his body, but to commend his soul to 
God without delay, for his end was at hand. While 
faltering out his thanks for this counsel, the hapless 
Don Sancho expired. 


“ Such-like fate awaiteth all 
Who in traitors put their trust.” 


~ Seeing without Sight.—Let a man have all the world can give 
him, he is still miserable, if he has a grovelling, unlettered, un- 
devout mind. Let him have his gardens, his fields, his woods, 
his lawns for grandeur, plenty, ornament, and _ gratification ; 
while at the same time God is not in all his thoughts. And let 
another man have neither field nor garden; let him look only at 
nature with an enlightened mind—a mind which can see and adore 
the Creator in his works, can consider them as demonstrations of 
his power, his wisdom, his goodness, and his truth; this man 1s 
greater, as well as happier, in his poverty, than the other in his 
riches. The one is but little higher than a beast, the other but a 
httle lower than an angel.—Jones of Nayland. 

Picture of a Savage.-—I observed a native on the opposite 
bank, and, without being seen by him, I stood awhile to watch 
the habits of a savage man at home. His hands were ready to 
seize, his teeth to eat any living thing; his step, light and sound- 
less as that of a shadow, gave no intimation of his approach; his 
walk suggested the idea of the prowling of a beast of prey; 
every little track or impression left on the earth by the lower 
animals caught his keen eye, but the trees overhead chiefly en- 
gaged his attention. Deep in the hollow heart of some of the 
upper hranches was still hidden, as it seemed, the opossum on 
which he was to dine. The wind blew cold and keenly through 
the lofty trees on the river margin, yet that brawny savage was 
entirely naked. Had I been unarmed, I had much rather have 
meta lion, than that sinewy biped; but I was on horseback, 
with pistol in my holsters, and the broad river was flowing be- 
tween us. I overlooked him from a high bank, and I ventured 
to disturb his meditations with a halloo. He then stood still, 
looked at me for about a minute, and then returned, with that 
easy bounding kind of step which may be termed a running-walk, 
exhibiting an unrestrained facility of movement, apparently in- 
compatible with dress of any kind. It is in bounding lightly 
at such a pace, that, with the additional aid of the waramerah 
(a shoit notched stick), the native can throw his spear with suffi- 
cient force and velocity to kill the emu or kangaroo, even when 
at its speed.—Mayor Afitchell’s Third Expedition into the Interior 
of Eastern Australa, 


A Finland Farm-house.—After leaving Ofvre Tornea there are 
no regular post-houses, but the peasants drive to a farm-house. 
Here is a description of one:—A large fire blazed, that made 
even the great room uncomfortably warm. Divers trades were 
going on in different parts of'1t: im one corner a man was finish- 
ing a set of harness; in another, the runners of asledge were re- 
ceiving the peculiar curve that distinguishes them in Finland ; 
and a number of lasses, with their shoulders troubled with very 
little clothing, were keeping half-a-dozen spinning-wheels in con- 
stant motion. As soon as they perceived that I wanted a relay, 
one of the girls put ona little jacket, and, without waiting to 
button it over her hreast, ran to a house a quarter of a mile off 
to fetch a horse. . . «. I entered a few houses where there 
were shelves on each side of the fire, bearing forty or fifty birch 
pans filled with cream an inchthick ; and they contrive to continue 
making butter the whole winter through. The houses are not dirty, 
though the rooms are generally darkened by smoke. In lieu of 
candles, they use laths of fir planted obliquely in a stand ; these 
give a cheerful but unsteady light, and require replacing every 
second minute. Although labouring under such disadvantages, 
both as regards soil and climate, their state is infinitely prefera- 


MAGAZINE. [Maren 27, 
ble to that of the Irish. Their habitations are roomy, built of 
wood, and furnished with glass windows; they themselves are 
comfortably clothed and industrious.—Dilon's Winter in Ice- 
land. 


Habits of the Greenlanders.—Like most other savage nations, 
among whom the gratification of the mere animal propensities is 
the only inducement to action, the Greenlanders are indolent and 
listless. Though good humoured, friendly, and sociable, they are 
seldom lively or inclined to indulge in mirth, and can scarcely 
be roused from their apathy either by curiosity or passion. They 
are accordingly little disposed to quarrel or fight; blows or even 
angry words are seldom exchanged, and they live in great har- 
mony, more influenced by kindness than by harsh treatment. 
Changeable to an extreme degree, their most favourite projects 
are resigned on the smallest unexpected obstacles. Indowed 
with little reach or extent of intellect, their thoughts and cares 
are almost entirely confined to the present; and they spend their 
limited stock of provisions without reflecting on future wants, or 
waste the best season of the year in hunting renideer for skins to 
gratify the vanity of their wives and daughters. Whe not com- 
pelled by absolute necessity, they pass whole days in sleep, or 
sit thoughtful and dejected ou some lofty eminence watching the 
changes of the sea and sky, or forecasting the toils and dangers of 
the chase. Vanity, both personal and national, seems their 
strongest passion; unable to estimate the advantages of others, 
they esteem no people equal to themselves, no title higher than 
to be a Greenlander. The most flattering compliment they can 
pay to a stranger is.to say, “ He is almost as well bred as we ;” 
or, ‘* He begins to be a man,” or “ Innuit,” that is, a Greenlander. 
A favourite amusement among them is to exhibit caricatured 


| imitations of the Kablunaet, or foreigners. Kxyven those who have 


been in Denmark prefer their naked sterile rocks to every other 
country, and still hardly confess that Europeans are so happy as 
they ; complaining that at Copenhagen there is not heaven 
enough, and no reasonable degree of cold.—dinburgh Cabinet 
Library. 


One Supreme Power in Japan.—The monarch de facto is called 
the Ziogoon; and Ais time is now occupied by ceremonies and 
receiving homage; but there is over him a monarch de gure, 
whose title is Mikado, and who is thus described :— 

‘This nominally supreme sovereign does, indeed, claim to 
reign by right divine, both as being descended in a direct line 
from the gods, and as being ina manner still identified with them, 
the spirit of the Sun goddess, the deity who rules the universe, 
gods and men included, Ama-terasu-oo-kami, being embodied in 
every reigning Mikado. Such a claim to despotic power was in- 
disputable and undisputed, as it still is; but some centuries ago, 
a military chief, rendering his own situation hereditary, possessed 
himself of the actual authority, under the title of Ziogoon, as 
vicegerent or deputy of the Mikado, to whom he left the nominal 
supreme sovereignty, and all his state, pomp, and dignity, a no- 
minal ministry included. In fact, it appears that the autocrat's 
dignity is now made the plea for depriving him of his power. 
Worldly affairs are represented to be so wholly undeserving the 
attention of the successor of the gods, that his bestowing a thought 
upon them would degrade him, even if it were not actual pro- 
fanation. Accordingly, no business is submitted to him, no act 
of sovereignty is performed by him that has not a religious cha- 
racter. He deifies or canonizes great men after death; the Zio- 
goon taking the trouble of pointing out the dead who are worthy 
of apotheosis. He confers the offices of his court, a real spiritual 
hierarchy, and, from their nominal dignity and sanctity, objects 
of ambition to the princes of the empire, to the Ziogoon’s minis- 
ters, and to the Ziogoon himself. He determines the days on 
which certain moveable religious festivals are to be celebrated, 
the colours appropriate to evil spirits, and the like: and one 
other govermng act, if act it may be called, he daily performs, 
which should prove him to be, in virtue of his partial identifica- 
tion with the Sun goddess, quite as much the patron divinity as 
the sovereign of Japan. He every day passes a certain number of 
hours upon his throne, immovable, lest by turning his head he 
should bring down ruin upon that part of the empire to or from 
which he should look; by this immobility maintaining the 
whole realm’s stability and tranquillity. When he has sat the 
requisite number of hours, he resigns his place to his crown, 
which continues upon the throne as his substitute during the 
remainder of the day and might.—sSvebold’s Alanners and Custome 
of the Japanese, 


1841.-] 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 


117 













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LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT EVENTS. 
MAGNA CHARTA. 


Ir there be one feature of our national history more 
important than any other, more worthy of our pride 
and unalloyed gratification, it is the growth of that 
constitutional liberty which, from a very distant pe- 
riod, occupies so large a portion of our annals. To 
take arms against oppression may be an act worthy of 
ail honour, and successes .in such a struggle are trea- 
sured up in the hearts of almost every people; but to 
have at the same time a clear 


ciples upon which these successes can alone be solidly 
based and rendered permanently valuable—to fight 
not against the tyrant, but his tyranny,—these are 
honours peculiarly our own, and are among the most 
interesting evidences of the penetration and solidity 
of the national character. Without attempting to in- 
vestigate the origin of this perception of the value of 
constitutional safeguards, we may say that there can 
be little doubt it first assumed a definite form in the 
hands of the mailed Norman-English barons of the 
thirteenth century, when the Great Charter was wrung 


perception of the prin- | from John; who thus by a spccies of poetical justice 


118 


obtained for our Saxon forefathers a new and more 
enduring liberty than that which the ancestors of those 
saine barons had destroyed in the memorable field of 
Ilastings. 

As we have already given in our publication a de- 
tailed Aistory of this great event, as wcll as a view of 
the chief provisions of the Charter,* we shall here 
confine onrselves strictly to the “memories” with which 
they are connected. And first, as to the great meeting 
at St. Edmund's Bury, or, as it is now called, Bury 5t. 
Iidimund’s. This town, named after King Iedmund 
the Martyr, who was crowned here on Christias-day, 
856, is pleasantly situated on the river Larke, im the 
western division of the county of Suffolk, at a distance 
of twenty-five miles from Ipswich and seventy-two 
from London. It presents in its general aspect—its 
<ood houses, clean streets, and beautiful promenades 
—as delightful a ‘specimen of a country town as one 
would desire tosee. To the antiquarian it presents 
additional objects of interest in the remains of its once 
magnificent abbey, built to commemorate the martyr- 
dom of Edmund, and which, for the grandeur of its 
buildings, the splendour of its decorations, and the 
great privileges and immunities it enjoyed, excceded 
every other religious establishment in this country, 
Glastonbury only excepted. The first stone church of 
the abbey was begun in 1065. In this edifice, which 
took twelve years to build, which measured no less 
than 505 feet in leneth, and from 212 feet in the tran- 
sept to 240 feet in the western front in breadth, met, 
on the 20th of November, 1214, the contfederated 
barons to arrange finally their plans with regard to 
the kine. John had but just returned from France, 
Where his troops and alles had been completely routed 
at the battle of Bouvines by the army of the French 
king Phuip. Defeat made him more ferocious than 
ever, Ins foreign mercenaries were once more let 
loose upon the country, to riot in the bloed and wealth 
of his English subjects. Every promise the barons 
had formerly obtained, no matter how solemn the cir- 
cumstance by which it had been attended, was now 
violated. Accordingly the barons met at St. Edmund's 
Bury, and determined to demand their nghts in a 
body, at the ensuing festival of Christmas. Up to the 
Inegh altar of the sacred edifice—so endearcd from its 
Saxon memories, and therefore so fitting a place for 
the Norman-descended barons to offer up their solemn 
vows to carry stedfastly forward the object they had in 
view for the benefit of universal England—didthe barons 
advance one by one, and in the order of their seniority, 
and then, laying their handsuponit,swear thatif the king 
refused the rights they claimed, they would withdraw 
their fealty, and make war upon him, till, by a Charter 
under lis own seal, he ould confirm their just 
petitions. They then parted to mect again at the Feast 
of the Nativity. 

Before we follow their progress any further, let us 
take a hasty glance at the persons and previous his- 
tories of the principal of those brave and enlightened 
warriors, to whom we owe so much. Robert Fitzwal- 
ter, their leader (and who, if we may judge from his 
portrait in the engraving at the head of this paper, 
bore that in his lineaments and bearing which stamped 
him as no ordinary man), was the grandson of Richard 
Trowbridgc, earl of Clare, to whom Henry [. had 
granted the barony of Dunmow in Essex, and the 
honour of Baynard’s Castle in the city of London. 
Ifis father, Walter, distinguished himself by his opposi- 
tion to John in his attempts to seize the crown during 
Richard's absence from England. His son and heir, 
who was destined still more strongly to excite John’s 
resentment, was called Fitz-Waltcr, that is to say, the 


son of Walter, being the first of his family who appears | 
| phany, the barons (who chose a holy day for every im- 


* Vol. ii, p. 228. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[ MARGE, 


to have assumed that name. There are two interest- 
ing circumstances connecting the personal history of 
Robert Fitzwalter with the king. In the fourteenth 
ycar of his reign, John, in revenge for the share Fitz- 
walter had taken in the opposition to his arbitrary mea- 
sures, destroyed Baynard’s Castle, and drove its owner 
and his family into exile. Some time after this, John, 
being present ata tournament in Normandy, was de- 
hghted with the success of one of the knights who 
fought there on the English side, and whose surprising 
gallantry was the general theme of admiration: “ By 
(xod’s teeth,” he exclaimed, “ he deserves to bea king 
who hath such a soldicr in his train,” and immediately 
sent to inquire his name; it was Robert Fitzwalter, 
John, with a grace and generosity not very common 
with him, hnmediately restored the barony, and gave 
hun leave to repair his castles. A still more interest- 
ing but less authentic circumstance is thus mentioned 
by Dugdale: “ Robert Fitzwalter having a very beauti- 
ful daughter, called Maud, residing at Dunmow, the 
king frequently solicited her chastity, but never pre- 
valling, grew so enraged that he caused her to be 
privately poisoned, and she was buried on the south 
side of the choir of Dunmow, between two pillars 
there.” is object in poisoning her is stated by other 
writers to have been to prevent her informing her 
father (then in France) of his conduct. Whether true 
or false, this story obtained extensive credence, and 
Drayton founded two of his heroical epistles upon it. 

Robert de Ros, or Furfan, another of the barons, 
early in hfe fell under the displeasure of Richard I., 
then in Normandy, who committed him to close con- 
finement under the charge of Hugh de Chaumont, with 
especial directions to keep him safe as his own life. 
Chaumont transferred the charge to William de Spiney, 
whom the prisoner bribed to allow him to escape from 
his castle of Bonville. De Ros escaped, but Richard 
made him pay a fine of 1200 marks; and as for William 
de Spiney, the incensed monarch caused him to be 
hung. This baron married the daughter of William 
the Lion of Scotland, and was therefore powerfully 
connected. ' For a short time he entered a religious 
house, giving up his houses and lands to another, but 
not lking the sohtudes of the cell and the cloister, or 
perhaps stirred by a noble ambition to aid in the great 
strugele then going on, he soon returned to the world, 
and resumed his property. Among the other eminent 
barons, were Gilbert de Clare, first earl of the united 
baronies of Hertford and Gloucester; Robert de Perey, 
head of the famous house of that name; Geoffrey de 
Mandeville, earl of Essex, to whom John had given 
in marriage his wife Isabel, when he repudiated her on 
the ground of consanguinity ; Henry Bohw, first car] 
of Hereford; Wilham de Malet, whose ancestor was 
deputed by the Conqueror, after the battle of Hastings, 
to sée the body of Harold decently interred; and 
Robert de Ros, whose family was so ancient that Leland 
deduced it from Noah, taking in Meleager, that slew 
the boar, and Diomedes, who was at the siege of Troy, 
by the way. Onths point we give our entire assent 
to the cautious doubt expressed by Banks: “ this 
renealogy appears to be founded on fancy more than 
truth.” De Vere’s brother, Aubrey, was on the oppo- 
site side, and achieved the not very honourable distinc- 
tion of being one of John’s chief counsellors in the 
disgraceful doings of that monarch. Such are a few 
only of the eminent men John saw arrayed against 
hun. 

On the Feast of the Nativity the barons set out to 
meet John at Worcester, but alarmed at the general 
aspect of affairs, he suddenly quitted that place, and 
coming to London, shut hinselfup in the strong house of 
the Knights Templars. Here, on the Feast of the Epi- 


1841.] 


portant step-—a striking proof of the solemn determined 
spirit that actuated them) presented themselves in such 
numbers that Jolin was obliged to adinit them to an 
audience. After vainly endeavouring to frighten them 
{rom their course, he turned pale, trembled, and 
changed his tone. “ Your petition,” said he, “ con- 
tains matter weighty and arduous. You must grant 
me tine till Faster, that with due dchberation I may 
be able to do justice to myself and satisfy the dignity 
of the crown.” ‘The barons ultimately agreed to this, 
and dispersed. John uscd the interval by courting the 
church, the people, and by sending a special mes- 
senger to the Pope, in which the barons imitated his 
Caauinple. 

At the appointed time the barons met at Stamford 
with great military pomp, attended by a retinue of two 
thousand knights, and a host of less important followers. 
From thence they marched to Brackley, within a few 
miles of Oxford, where the king was. Here they were 
met by a deputation from the king, to which they de- 
livered a schedule of the chief articles of their demand, 
saying, “these are our claims; and, if they are not 
instantly granted, our arms shall do us justice.” When 
John read the schedule, his rage knew no bounds: 
“but why do they not demand my crown also? By 
God’s teeth, I will not grant them liberties which will 
inake measlave.” The barons now proclaimed them- 
selves “ the army of God and of Holy Church,” and 
unanimously elected Robert Fitzwaliter to be their 
eencral. After an ineffectual attempt to take North-. 
anipton Castle (having no battering-enguies), they 
marched to Bedford, where the people threw open the 
eate to welcome them. ‘The same took place in Lon- 
don: aud now, in all parts of the country, the lords 
and knights quitted their castles to join the barons’ 
standard. John was stupified at the power and array 
he beheld, and at last sent to assure the barons that, 
for the good of peacc and the exaltation of lus reign, 
he was ready freely to grant all they desired, and 
wished them to name a day and a place of mecting. 
“Let the day,” replied the barons, “ be the 15th of 
June; the placc, Runnymede.” 

According to tradition, the barons met the preceding 
evening, to make all necessary preparations, at Reigate 
Castle, in the neighbourhood, which then belonged to 
William, Earl of Warren and Surrey, one of the king’s 
party. The precise spot to which the tradition 1s re- 
ferred is a cavern under the castle court, called for a 
long time, perhaps still, “ the Barons’ Cave.” 

On the following day, the ever memoravie 15th of 
June, the parties met in the meadow on the banks of 
the Thames, known, from time pnmemorial, as a place 
sacred to great naiional events, the nainc, Runnymede, 
signifying the Mead of Council.* The tents of the king, 
and of the few barons and great personages who ad- 
hered to him, were pitched upon one side, and those of 
the countless nobles, knights, &c., who were there to 
dictate terins to their humbled sovereign, on the otter. 
A scroll was then aud there presented to John, which 
he almost 1minediately signed. Securitics also were 
exacted; the foreign officers were to be sent out of the 
kingdom ; the City of London, for the next two montis, 
was to be held by the barons, and the Tower by their 
supporter Cardinal Langton: above all, the barons 
were to choose five and twenty of their number to act 
as guardians or conservators of the liberties of the 
kingdom, with power, in case of any breach of the 


* Much has been sail about the Charter being signed not at 
Runnymede, but in a neighbouring islaud, known as Charter 
Island. One would have thought the document itself was an 
unanswerable testimony as to the fact of the case. It concludes 
with the words, “Given under our hands... . m the meadow 
called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the Lth 
day of June, and in the 17th year of our reign.” 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


LS 


119 


Charter for which redress was not immediately given, 
to make war upon the king; to seize his castles and 
lands, always, however, saving harmless his person 
and the persons of his queen and family. So ended 
this great day. As soon as John found himself alone 
among his friends at Windsor Castle, he gave way to 
the now ungovernable rage and frenzy that possessed 
him. He cursed the day of his birth, gnashed his 
teeth, rolled his cyes, gnawed sticks and straws, and 
appeared to have utterly lost his senses. . His foreign 


adherents, however, soon raised his spirits ; messengers 


were despatched to hire adventurers to come and join 
the king’s standard. Into subsequent events we cannot 
enter at any length. John soon found hinself at the 
head of an army of foreign mercenaries, with whom he 
moved to and fro, burning and slaughtering his sub- 
jects and countrymen at every step. The barons, in 
despair of successfully coping with these savage hordes 
continually pouring into the country, offered the crown 
to the French king’s eldest son, Louis, who speedily 
landed at Sandwich with a numerous and well ap- 
pomted army. A few months after John died, and 
Lowis and the confederated barons were opposed by the 
noble Earl of Pembroke, who, having overthrown the 
latter at Lincoln, at the battle known as “ the Fair of 
Lincoln,” wisely used his victory in attaching the Ing- 
lish barons to the standard of the young king, Henry 
III., by full indemnity for the past. A principle of 
fidelity, indeed, to the man whom, though a foreigner, 
they had invited into Isngland, could have been the 
only motive that kept them so long from joining the 
royal standard ; for Pembroke, as Protector, had already 
shown his desire to meet their demands in a sincere 
spirit of concession. Most of the great barons we 
have before particularised were made prisoners in this 
battle. We need not follow their history farther than 
to mention that Fitzwalter subsequently went to the 
Holy Land; and having distinguished himself at the 
sicge of Damietta, returned to England, and was buried 
(1235) in the priory at Dunmow ;* and that Robert de 
Itos, after founding the castles of Hamlake in York- 
slire and Werke in Northumberland, became a Kimeht 
Templar, and now lies buried im the Temple church. 
Upon his tomb (a beautiful and very interesting me- 
morial) is a representation of a comely-looking knight 
in mail and flowing mantle with a kind of cowl; his 
hair is neatly curled at the sides, his legs are crossed, a 
loug sword is by his side, and a lion at his feet. 


THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 


Continued from p 112.) 
Aucurmy, or the imaginary art of converting the 
baser metals into gold and silver, 1s supposed, as 
the prefix al would seem to denote, to have been 
of Arabic origin. The means by which this trans- 
mutation was affected, was the substance termed the 
philosophex’s stone—the grand object of the re- 
scarch and manipulations of the chemical philosophers 
of the iwniddle ages. The possibility of its discovery 
vas implicitly believed by even some of the greatcst 
ecuiuses of the time, while its actual possession was 
boasted of by others of more doubtful reputation. It 
was a sorry circumstance that the possessor of this 
source of unlimited riches was but too often clothed 
in rags, and a mendicant for the necessarics of hfe ; 
so that with good reason the [talian proverb says, 
“Non ti fidiare al alchemista povero 0 medico amia- 
lato’ (do not place your trust in a poor alchemist or 


* This very same carl is, we believe, the founder of the 
famous custom at Dunmow of giving a flitch of bacon to any 
married couple who, after the space of a year, would swear they 
have never wished themselves unmarried. 


120 


a sick physician). In the thirteenth century alchemy 
was in a most flourishing condition, enumerating 
among its professors the names of Roger Bacon, Ray- 
mond Lully, and Albertus Magnus. Another object 
of research was the elixir of life, or universal medi- 
cine for the cure of all diseases. and the prolongation 
of life beyond its natural limits. ‘“ That medicine,” 
says Friar Bacon, “ which could remove all impun- 
ties of the baser metals, and change them into the 
finest gold and silver, could also remove all the cor- 
ruptions of the human body, to such a degree that life 
might be prolonged through many ages.” There 
arose in Germany a religious sect about the fourteenth 
century, which, by the distortion of certain passages of 
Scripture, gave them an alchemical application ; and 
constituted itself into an order of the Rosie Cross (four 
red roses arranged in a cross being its sign), and has 
since attracted much attention 11 Europe under the 
appellation of Rosicrucians. 

We have mentioned that many learned men of these 
comparatively dark periods were firm believers in the 
truths of alchemy, and passed great portions of their 
hives in the laborious studies and practices its study 
entailed. Besides Bacon and others, who, contem- 
— of the delusion, were the more likely to be 
ed astray by its promises, others in more recent times 
have professed their partial or entire belief in the nar- 
rations handed down to us: this is the case with Des- 
cartes, bergmann, and Van Helmont. The latter says, 
“I am constrained to believe in the making of gold 
and silver, though I know many exquisite chemists to 
have consumed their own and other men’s goods in 
search of this mystery; and to this day we see these 
unworthy and simple labourers cunningly deluded by 
a diabolical crew of gold-and-silver-sucking flies and 
leeches. But I know that many will contradict this 
truth: one says it is the work of the devil, and another 
that the sauce is dearer than the meat.” Helvetius 
published a detailed account of a transmutation he 
himself witnessed, performed at his house by a stranger 
of “ plebeick habit, honest gravity, and serious 
authority.” Hfe calls his book ‘The Brief of the 
Golden Calf: discovering the rarest miracle of nature, 
how by the smallest portion of the Philosopher’s 
Stone a great piece of common Lead was totally trans- 
muted into the purest transplendent Gold, at the 
Hague in 1666.” 

Holding out such brillant promises, the alchemists 
could not want protectors and patrons, and accordingly 
we find various sovereigns taking the greatest interest 
in their proceedings, nay, becoming operators them- 
selves. This was the case with Pope John XXII., at 
whose death were found eighteen million florins in 
gold and seven million in precious stones; while he 
declares, in his work upon the subject, that he had made 
two hundred ingots of gold, each weighing a hundred 
pounds. In our own country two of our greatest kings, 
I;dward I. and III., were great believers and patrons, 
and Raymond Lully is said to have furnished Edward 
I. with a great quantity of gold. In 1329 Edward III. 
issued the following curious proclamation: “ Know 
all men that we have been assured that John Rows and 
Wilham de Dalby know how to make silver by the art 
of alchymy; that they have made it in former times, 
and still continue to make it; and considering that 
these men, by their art, and by making that precious 
metal, may be profitable to us and to our kingdom, we 
have commanded our well-beloved Thomas Cary to ap- 
prehend the aforesaid John and William, wherever 
they can be found, and bring them to us, together with 
all the instruments of their art.” 

Alchemy was also much encouraged by Henry VI. 
In his reign many protections were ~iven to alchemists, to 
secure them from the penalties of an act of parliament 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Marcu 27. 


assed in 1403, and from the fury of the people, who 
bolae vil them to be aided by infernal spirits. After 
a long preamble stating the advantages and probabih- 
ties of success attendant upon the researches of the 
alchemists, one of these protections thus continues: 
“ We, therefore, confiding in the fidelity, circumspec- 
tion, profound learning, and extraordinary skill in the 
natural sciences, of these famous men, John Faucely, 
John Kirkely, and John Rayney, elect, assign, no~ 
minate, and license all and each of them, and of our 
certain knowledge, and by our authority and preroga- 
tive royal, we, by these presents, grant to all and each 
of them, hberty, warrant, power, and authority, to in- 
quire, investigate, begin, prosecute, and perfect the 
aforesaid medicine, according to their own discretion 
and the precepts of ancient sages, as also to transub- 
stantiate other metals into true gold and silver: the 
above statute or any other statute to the contrary not- 
withstanding. Further we hereby take the said John, 
John, and John, with all their servants and assistants. 
into our special tuition and protection.” This com- 
mission was confirmed by the parhament in 1456. 

Although many of the alchemists were the honest 
dupes of their own imaginations, yet others were rank 
lmpostors and charlatans; and the advancement ot 
modern chemical knowledge has brought to light many 
of the tricks and stratagems (several very Ingenious 1n 
their contrivance) they had recourse to in order to 
deceive. Occasionally, however, they were hardly dealt 
with, for various princes and nobles, whose cupidity 
was excited by their representations, imprisoned and 
tortured them in order to make them multiply gold or 
furnish the valuable powder for so doing. With how 
little success need not be mentioned. 


[To be Continued.} 





Greenland Fishing-Boats.—The only thing in wliich the Green- 
landers manifest much skill is inthe structure and management 
of their beats, the kayak, or boat for one man, and the oomiak, or 
women’s boat, both formed of a light framework of wood covered 
with seal-skin. The latter is usually about twenty-four fect 
lone and five or six wide, though some are built nearly a half 
larger. The covering consists of sixteen or twenty seal-skins 
saturated with blubber and thoroughly dried. Neither nails nor 
spikes are used in their construction, the whole being fastened 
together by the sinews of the seal, and their entire strength con- 
sists in their elasticity. They are flat-bottomed, and only fitted 
for a calm sea, as a stiff breeze or heavy swell is sure to capsize 
or destroy them. The ice is alsoapt to cut the skin by which ° 
they are covered, when the natives repair the damage by stuffing 
the hole with blubber, or draw them upon the shore and sew a 
patch on the place, which is soon accomplished, as two persons 
can easily carry one of them. ‘They are rowed by four or five 
women, and with a full cargo on board can accomplish thirty miles 
or more inaday, though on long voyages one cannot reckon on more 
than twenty or twenty-four on an average, as every fifth day the 
boat must be taken out of the sea, to allow the skin, now saturated 
with water, to dry. The former, the kayak, or man’s boat, is from 
twelve to fourteen feet long, about eighteen inches wide, and a 
foot deep, formed of wood and whalebone, covered above and 
below with skin, and seldom weighs more than twenty or thirty 
pounds. In the middle is an opening, surrounded by a hoop, 
into which the Esquimaux slips, and drawing his seal-skin cloak 
tight round it, renders the whole completely impervious to water. 
There is only one oar, six feet long, with a thin blade at each 
end fenced with bone. In this frarl bark he fears no storm, float- 
ing like a sea-bird on the top of the billows, or emerging from 
beneath the white waves that dash over his head. Even when 
upset, he rights himself by a stroke of his oar under the water ; 
but if this is lost or broken, he is certain to perish. Few Ku- 
ropeans ever learn to row the kayak, and many even of the 
natives can never attain sufficient skill to regain their equili-- 
brium when overturned.—dinburgh Cabinet Library. 


ee 


Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, 
use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.— 


Bacon. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 121 


A DAY AT A LONDON BREWERY. 


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THosEe dwellers in and visitors to the ‘ Great Mctro- ; the water, the bridge-road passes over a narrow street 


olis’”” who cross Southwark Bridge from the City to 
he Borough, can scarcely fail to have observed the 
vray of tall chimneys which meets the eye on either side 
if its southern extremity; each one serving as a kind of 
eacon or guide-post to some large manufacturing esta- 
ishment beneath—here a brewery, there a saw-mill, 
arther on a hat-factory, a distillery, a vinegar factory, 
nd numerous others. Indeed, Southwark 1s as distin- 
‘nishable at a distance for its numerous tall chimneys 
nd the clouds of smoke emitted by them, as London is 
or its thickly congregated church-spires. Let the 

eader, when next on “the br idge, single out from 
Mong these chimneys one more bulky, though not 
nore lofty than the rest; and this will point out the 
pot where one of those gigantic establishments—a 
ondon Brewery—is situated ; establishments which, 
vhether we regard the extent ‘of the buildings com- 
rising them, the amount of invested capital by which 
hey are maintained, or the systematic arrangements by 
vyhich the daily operations are conducted, rank among 
he first in the kingdom, or indeed in the world. With- 
mt entering into the chemical niceties which are in- 
‘olved in the process of brewing, or into a history of 
eer and malt liquors generally, we hope to convey to 
he reader some idea of the astonishing magnitude of 
he arrangements and the labour by which a « pint of 
vorter” is produced. We have recently, through the 
‘ourtesy of the proprictors, been permitted to visit the 
Brewery of Messrs. Barclay, Perkins, and Co.; and 
will endeavour to describe the objects and the processes 
ihere observed. 


On crossing Southwark Bridge to the Surrey side of | 


No. 77, 


running parallel with the river, to which we descend 
by a flight of stone steps; and on looking eastward 
along this street, we e observe lar gre ranges of buildings 
on either side, connected by a covered bridge or passage 
thirty feet from the ground. ‘These piles “of buildings 
form parts of the brewery; and on approaching the 
end oi the right-hand range, we arrive at another street 
leading southward, both sides of which are in like 
manner occupied by the brewery buildings, extending 
to a distance of several hundred feet. Proceeding: 
southward along this street, we pass under a light and 
elegant suspension-bridge, by which communication is 
established between the opposite sides; and beyond 
this we arrive at the entrance to the brewery, within 
which are two or three open yards or squares, sur- 
rounded by buildings of vast extent. The frontispiece 
at the head of this page represents some of the prin- 
cipal buildings of the brewery, together with the sus- 
pension-bridge, taken from a spot. nearly opposite the 
principal entrance. The entrance gate is large and 
elegant, and fronting it is a building appropriated 
as offices and counting-houses, where thirty or forty 
clerks are employed. 

Nearly in the middle of the premises is a building, 
called the ‘ tun-room,’ in which some of the processes 
connected with the brewing are conducted; and from 
the leaded roof of this building we obtained a pano- 
ramic view of nearly all the various parts of the 
brewery. Towards the north-east, on the river side, 
is a wharf, from whence beer is shipped for exporta- 
tion: to the north are two large ranges of malt-ware- 
houses, separated by the street first alluded to, and con- 


Vou, Se 


122 
nected by the covered bridge: westward 1s an open 
court, containing at various points in its circuit an 
enginc-house with all the steam-cngine apparatus, 
two watcr-reservoirs for the supply of the establish- 
ment, a cooperage, a building where casks are cleansed, 
sheds for containing cmpty casks, and various other 
buildings; southward is a most extensive range of 
storehouses, where the beer is kept in vats; and beyond 
these is a range of stables for the dray-horscs; to the 
south-east is the fining-house and some of the storc- 
houses; and, lastly, eastward are the porter and ale 
brewhouses, connected by the suspension-bridge pass- 
ing over a strect below. Such are the extensive ranges 
of buildings visible from the elevated roof of the ‘ tun- 
room ;’ the whole covering a space of ground eight or 
nine acres in area, and from a quarter to a third of a 
mile in circuit. 

The purposes to which these several buildings are 
applied will perhaps best be understood by following 
the processes in the order actually observed in the 
brewery; by tracing the water, malt, and hops through 
their successive changes, as fax at least as may be done 
without discussing the scientific details of the pro- 
cesses. 

The water used for brewing is that of the river 
Thames, pumped up by means of a stcam-engine 
through a large iron main; the main passing under 
the malt-warchouses, and leading to the reservoirs in 
the open court of the brewery. The appellation given to 
these cisterns reminds us of the fact that every manu- 
facture has its peculiar phrascology, not easily under- 
stood by strangers; for when we heard mention made 
of the ‘liquor-back,’ it required some explanation to 
show that this is but another name for ‘ water-reservoir;’ 
water, in the language of the brewhouse, being 
‘liquor,’ and a cistern or reservoir, a ‘back.’ The water, 
then, is conveyed to these cisterns ; and we have seldom 
seen a cast-iron structure present a finer combination 
of strength with elegance. Fifteen iron colunins, cach 
nearly half a yard in diaincter, are ranged in thrce 
rows of five cach; and on the top of these columns is 
the lower cistern, a cast-iron vessel about thirty-two 
feet long by twenty wide, and several fect deep. From 
this cistern rise the supports by which a second one, 
about the same size as the former, 1s upheld; and a 
light staircase leads up from the ground to the upper 
cistern. The whole structure, reaching an clevation 
probably of forty feet, is ade of cast-iron. 

By these means, then, the establishment 1s supplied 
with a reservoir of water for brewing, the water flow- 
ing into the various vessels from the cisterns by 
the usual kinds of apparatus; and the importance of 
these arrangements may be Judged from the fact that 
a hundred thousand gallons of water, on an average, 
are required for the services of the brewery cvery day. 
There is a well on the premises, not far from the cis- 
terns; but the watcr obtained thence is employed. 
principally, on account of its low temperature, to aid 
the cooling of the beer in hot weather. 

All the pumps by which the water is conveyed from 
the Thames to the cisterns and trom the cisterns to the 
brewing-vessels, as well as various machinery used in 
the brewhouse, are worked by a steam-engine situated 
near the water-cisterns. There are two engines; one 
of forty-five and the other of thirty horse-power, the 
Jarger one of which only was employed at the time of 
our visit, the other bemg used when the brewing 
operations are in less activity. The construction of 
these engines, and the mode in which power is com- 
municated from them to various parts of the establish- 
ment, resemble those generally observed in large fac- 
torics, and need not claim particular notice here. 

Our attention was next directed to the malt, and the 
means by which it 1s conveyed to the brewing build- 


THE RENNY 


MAGAZINE. [ Marcu, 1841. 
ings. ‘On looking from the great brewhouse towards 
the river, we were struck with the appearance of a 
string of sturdy porters, each carrymg a large sack on 
his back from a barge at the river side to the inalt- 
warehouses. These men followed cach other pretty 
closely, each one bringing his sack of malt, weighing 
about one and a half hundredweight, from the barge, 
depositing the contents in the warchouses, and return- 
ing to the barge with the empty sack. If the malt- 
warchouses extended to the river, the bags or quarters 
of malt would probably be hauled up by crane and 
pulley from the barge lying beneath; but premises 
unconnected with the brewery intervenc, and conse- 
quently the services of these malt-porters are neces- 
sary. Each man carries his bag of malt into the 
warehouse, up several flights of stairs, and emptics the 
contents into one of a serics of enormous bins or boxes. 
These bins, which are about two dozen in number, are 
of such extraordinary dimensions, especially im height, 
that we may say, without exaggeration, that an or- 
dinary three-storicd house,—roof, chimneys, and all,— 
might be contained and shut wp m one of them. They 
are formed entirely of wood, and are supphed with 
malt till full; the earlicr portions of the supply being 
iitroduced at a door halt-way up the bin, atterwards 
closed up. 

As the northern malt-warchouse is separated by a 
street from the brewery buildings, the malt originally 
deposited there is, when wanted, conveyed from the 
north to the south warehouse by an arrangement of a 
very curious kind. At the lower part of the front of 
each malt-bin 1s a little shding-door, eight or ten 
inches wide and rather more in height, which, when 
shd upwards, allows the malt to rush out with great 
quickness ; and at these doors another set of malt- 
porters, such as are represented in the subjoined cut, 
are employed whenever the malt is to be transferred 


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from the north to the south warehouse. Fach man 
brings a basket, covered with leather, and capable of 
holding about two bushels, to a shelf or stage beneath 
the sliding-door ; opens the latter ; fills his basket with 
malt; takes it on his back by means of a strap held 
in the hand, and carries it to a large funnel or ‘hop- 
per,’ into which he empties the malt. In this manner 


/each man will frequently carry four hundred loads in 


a day, of two bushels each, from the bins to the funnel; 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


and as all the men deposit their loads of malt in the 
same funnel, it was natural for us to look to this as the 
immediate channel of communication. Dipping into 
this funnel is an apparatus called, in the language of 
the brewhouse, a ‘ Jacob's ladder,’ consisting of an end- 


less leather band, passing round rollers at the top | 
and bottom, and carrying a series of tin buckets, each | 


capable of holding about two quarts. <As the band 
travels vertically up and down, each bucket in turn 
dips into the malt, becomes filled, travels upwards to 
the top of the building, and empties its contents ina 
canvas Cloth; the buckets are thus, in fact, substitutes 
for porters, each one in turn conveying its two quarts 
of malt up to the top of the building. 

The cloth on which the malt is emptied is stretched 
across the street from the north to the south malt- 
warehouse; and to understand its action, we must beg 
the reader (claiming pardon for the homceliness of the 
simile) to imagine a jack-towel passing horizontally 
across the street, and stretched over rollers at the two 
ends. Each httle bucket pours its contents on the upper 
stage of this towel or cloth, which is called a ‘carrier ;’ 
and the deposited heaps travel from the north to the 
south warehouses, the lower stage of the cloth at the 
saine time returning empty in the opposite direction. 
The covered passage containing this cloth or ‘ carrier’ 
is that which meets the eye when looking castward 
{rom the Southwark-bridge Road; and it was by this 
passage that we crossed from the north to the south 
malt-warehouse. 

Having thus traced the malJt in its progress froin 
oue warchouse to the other, we next watched iis pre- 
paration for the brewing processes. The malt which 
had been originally deposited in the bins of the 
southern warehouse, as well as that which is brought 
from the northern, is emptied into one common fun- 
nel or ‘hopper ;? the former being brought in baskets 
by another set of malt-men from the bins, and the 
Jatter flowing down a pipe from the endless ‘carrier ’ 
cloth. From this funnel the malt descends through a 
pipe into a lower receptacle in the mill or grinding- 
room, and is taken up by a second ‘Jacoh’s ladder’ to a 
hopper, or receptacle in the upper part of the mill- 
room, from which it descends into one or other of 
the grinding (or rather, crushing) machines repre- 
sented in the subjoined cut. Each of these machines 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


123 


contains a pair of steel rollers rotating nearly in con- 
tact, by passing between which the imalt becomes 
crushed mto the state called grist. This grist may 
have any degree of fineness suitable for the kind of 
malt-liquor to be produced, by regulating the distance 
between the rollers. 

A third ‘ Jacob’s ladder,’ much larger than either of 
the others, carries the grist from the grinding-room to 
a height of sixty or seventy feet in the middle of the 
great brewhouse and near its roof; where the grist js 
deposited in various channels, of which we shall have 
to speak presently. The stages or layers cof these 
‘Jacob’s ladders,’ or rather, the ascending and descend- 
ing ladder, are each enclosed in an iron trunk or case 
extending the whole length; the ascending ladder 
having the buckets full, while those of the descending 
ladder are empty. The subjoincd cut shows the ap- 





pearance of two or three of the buckets seen through 
an open door in the iron case. The buckeis and the 
endless leather band to which they are attached are 
set in motion by machinery connecied with one or both 
of the rollers at the ends of the ladder; and when we 
state that these buckets raise up, on an average of the 
whole year, more than two thousand two hundred 
quarters of malt per weck (for this is the quantity 
required for the brewery), it will be allowed that this 
‘ Jacob’s laddex’ is a most industrious porter. 

Of the great brewhouse itself, to which we have now 
arrived, it is no easy task to give a description. The 
first effect on the mind of a stranger is a state of be- 
wilderment, which is not removed till matters are 
viewed a little more in detail. The dimensions of the 
room are so vast, the brewing utensils reach to such a 
height, and the pumps, pipes, rods, and other apparatus 
are so thickly arranged on every side, that unless we 
follow the actual brewing processes in their regular 
order, the whole assemblage, to the mind of a visitor, 
vecomes a mass of confusion. 

In the first place the reader must imagine a room 
nearly equalling Westminster Hall in magnitude, 
built entirely of iron and brick, and unuiterrupted by 
distinct floors or partitions, so as to be open from the 
eround to the roof, except where stages and platforms 
occur in various parts and at varicus heights. The 
room is lighted by eight lofty windows on tle east 
side; and all round the walls just below the roof are 
openings for the exit of steam. The principal part of 
the room is occupied by ten enormous pilcs of brew- 
ing vessels, reaching from the ground to a great 
height. Without troubling ourselves 7 detailed 


124 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 





(Marcu, 1841. 





















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measurements, it will be sufficient to state the average 
diameters of all these vessels at about twenty feet; and 
the arrangement of them is as follows:—The piles of 
vessels are ranged in two rows of five each, occupying 
the greater part of the length of the room, parallel 
with the windows. Those nearest to the windows con- 
sist of a square iron vessel called an ‘ under-back’ (7.e. 
lower cistern) near the ground; above this a circular 
vessel called the ‘marsh-tun ; above this again a square 
wooden-box called a‘ malt-case; and, highest of all, 
a pipe to convey malt into this case. Tach one of the 
set farthest removed from the windows consists, near 
the bottom, of a large furnace; above this, a copper- 
boiler enclosed in brick-work, and capable of holding 
nearly twelve thousand gallons; above this again, 
a vessel called a ‘copper-pan;’ and at the top a ‘cop- 
per-back,’ for receiving the wort previous to its being 
boiled with the hops. These ten piles of vessels, as 
before stated, occupy the chief part of the brewhouse, 
but there is also, near each end, a very capacious 
square vessel, called a ‘hop-back,’ or ‘jack-back.’ The 
pumps, pipes, iron platforms, iron flights of stairs, &c. 
are very numerous, and distributed in various parts of 
the building; but they are altogether subsidiary to the 
large piles of vessels just alluded to. 

Let us now see how far it may be practicable to explain, 
in a brief manner, the purposes to which these huge 
vessels are applied. ‘To aid the description, we give, 
at the head of this page, a sectional representation of 
the principal vessels and working apparatus. The 
reader is supposed to be looking southward, with the 
windows on the left hand, and to have before him a 
vertical section of all the vessels in one of each of the 
five pairs alluded to above, together with the long 
‘Jacob's ladder,’ and the malt-crushing apparatus -in 
the building to the right of the great brewhouse. Most 
of the vessels and apparatus have the names attached, 
whereby the reader, by occasional reference to the cut, 
can follow the routine of processes. 

To begin at the beginning, Jet us suppose the fur- 
nace fires to be lighted. The door of each furnace is 
opposite the western wall of the building; and a pas- 
sage leads along the sides of the furnaces, with the 
furnace-doors on the one hand, and large cellars or 


30 40 60 69 


1 on i - 


receptacles for coals on the other, one in front of eacn 
Of the five furnaces. These cellars are supplied with 
coals in a very ingenious manner. The coals, when 
brought to the brewery, are placed ina coal-yard or 
court, and from thence are conveyed to another recep- 
tacle within the brewhouse. Here a box, capable of 
holding about two sacks, is filled with coals, drawn up 
by means of tackle, placed upon a very ingenious rail- 
way situated between the wall and the furnaces, paral- 
lel to both, and wheeled along till 1t comes over any 
one of the five coal-cellars, where it 1s emptied. The 
coals required for the brewery, about twenty tons per 
day, are thus conveyed opposite to the doors of all the 
furnaces with great ease. The form of each furnace, 
and the details of its arrangement, do not require par- 
ticular notice ; but itis worthy of remark, that the smoke 
from all the furnaces enters one large subterraneous 
flue, which conducts it to a chimney situated in_ the 
open court, detached from every other building. This 
chimney is a fine specimen of brickwork, rising to a 
height of a hundred and twenty feet, and being, from 
its bulky area, a conspicuous object from the bridge. 

The coppers, which are immediately over the fur- 
naces, are employed in the first place to heat water for 
extracting the saccharine matter from the malt, and 
afterwards to boil the malt-extract thus obtained. The 
water is brought from the large reservoirs in the open 
court, through pipes, to the ‘ copper-pan’ and also 
to the copper; and at certain times and in certain 
quantity is allowed to flow into the copper, where it 
evradually acquires the temperature proper for the 
process of ‘mashing,’ or that by which the extract 1s 
obtained from the malt. 

All kinds of malt liquor may be shortly characterised 
as being extracts of malt, boiled with hops, and then 
fermented ; so that the main processes are those of 
extracting, or ‘mashing,’ boiling, and fermenting. The 
water in the copper is for the first of these processes ; 
and while it is gradually heating, the malt is being 
conveyed to the ‘mash-tun.’ We have before stated, 
that the crushed malt, or ‘grist,’ 1s conveyed, by a 
long ‘ Jacob’s ladder,’ nearly to the top of the brew- 
house. Here the buckets deposit their contents into a 
sinall vessel, from which five pipes ramify, each pipe 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


leading to one of the ‘malt-cases.’ The top of cach 
pipe has a kind of shding door or portcullis drawn 
across it, by the management of which the grist may 
be made to descend whichever of the pipes may be 
desired. The malt-case is merely a receptacle to hold 
sufficient malt for one mashing, until such time as that 
process is to be conducted, and when this time arrives, 
four valves are opened in the bottom of the malt-case, 
Whereby the malt specdily falls into the ‘mash-tun.’ 
This last-named vessel is circular, and is provided with 
a double bottom, the upper one of which is pierced 
with very small holes; the space between the two 
bottoms 1s placed in communication with the copper 
by means of a pipe, and a few large holes, closed with 
plugs or taps, occur in the lower or true bottom. 

This being the arrangement, and the mash-tun being 
supphed with malt, a proper quantity of water is 
allowed to flow from the copper to the space be- 
tween the two bottoms of the tun; and, percolating 
upwards through the small holes, it mixes with the 
malt. The malt and the water are then stirred about 
by means of a mashing-machine set.in rotation by the 
steam-cngine; and after this has continued for a cer- 
tain length of time, the water, which now contains a 
large proportion of malt-extract, is allowed to flow 
from the tun into the square ‘under-back,’ the taps in 
the bottom being turned on for this purpose, and the 
holes in the false bottom being too small to allow any 
of the malt to pass. The lquor thus produced is 
called ‘ wort.’ 

A pump is next brought into requisition, to pump 
the wort from the ‘under-back’ into the copper. Here, 
for the first time, our attention is directed to the hops. 
Most persons are aware that it is the flower of the 
hop-plaut which goes by the general name of hops, 
and that this imparts a peculiar bitter, without which 
becr would not be recognised as such. The hop- 
flowers are pressed into large canvass bags, and in that 
state conveyed to the brewery, where they are ranged 
in large warehouses near the brewhouse till wanted. 
The bags are hauled up into the brewhouse, conveyed 
to the upper part of the copper, and the hops thrown 
in at a door in the copper called the ‘man-hole’ (this 
being the hole at which the men go in to clean the 
copper aiter each brewing). The wort and the hops 
are then boiled together, until the flavour of the latter 
is sufficiently imparted to the former, the hops being 
constantly stirred by a rotating machine called a 
prowscr.’ 

The boiled wort next descends, through a shoot or 
truuk, from the boiler to a very large square vessel, 
called a ‘hop-back’ (almost entirely hidden behind the 
mash-tun in our section), As the hops as well as tlic 
liquid descend through the shoot, the hop-back is pro- 
vided with a perforated false bottom, through which the 
wort flows, leaving the hops above the perforation. 
The capacity of this vessel cannot be less than four 
thousand cubic feet, and when filled with boiling wort 
aud hops, the clouds of steam rising from the open 
surface are, as may easily be imagined, most profuse. 

The wort is pumped from the hop-back into ‘coolers; 
but before we follow it in this process, it may be de- 
sirable to say a few more words respecting the great 
brewhouse. Three of the coppers and three of the 
mash-tuns, with the accompanying vessels, are em- 
ployed for the brewing of porter, while the others are 
for ale ; one hop-back, too, is for porter, and the other 
for ale. The fermentable matter obtained from the 
malt is not all extracted at one time; and, therefore, 
the ‘grist? is covered with hot water two or three 
times, the extract or infusion each time being called a 
‘mash.’ The hops, in like manner, do not lose all 
their valuable qualities by once boiling, and are, there- 
fore, used again, in fresh portions of boiling wort, In 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


125 


order to convey the drained hops back again to the 
copper, a number of men strip off their upper gar- 
ments, and gct into the hop-back, where they shovel 
the wet hops, still scalding hot, into a tub or bucket, 
which isdrawn up, wheeled along a stage, and emptied 
into the coppers. This operation has rather an ex- 
traordinary appearance, for the men are enveloped 
in steam, and are moreover liable to severe injury 
if any of the hot wet hops touch the upper and un- 
clothed parts of their bodies. The hops from the 
portcr-brewing are re-conveyed to the coppers in this 
way; but those from the ale-brewing are carried up 
by a ‘Jacob’s ladder,’ which dips at the lower end into 
the hop-back, and empties the hops into the boiler at 
the top. When the malt and the hops are thoroughly 
spent, they are thrown into the street, and thence 
carted away, the one under the name of ‘ grains,’ to 
be used as food for cattle and swine, and the other as 
manure. 

Adjoining the western side of the brewhouse are 
large ranges of buildings, through which the wort 
passes in the subsequent processes. The first process 
necessary after draining from the hops is a rapid cool- 
ing, which is effected in a manner somewhat striking 
toastranger. At the upper part of a lofty building 
are two spacious cooling-floors, one over another ; the 
sides of the rooms being open for the free access of air. 
Ivach floor is of immense extent, perfectly level, and 
perfectly clean, and exposes a surface of not less than 
ten thousand square feet. ‘The floor 1s divided into 
compartments by raised ledges a few inches in height, 
and into the compartments thus formed the hot beer 
or wort is pumped from the hop-back. ‘The surface 
of the stratum of beer being so very large in propor- 
tion to the depth, the air which is wafted over it from 
the open sides of the room cools the beer in a short 
space of time. In some particular states of the wea- 
ther, when the beer is not cooled with sufficient rapidity 
by these means, it is passed through a refrigerator, in 
which it is brought into close connection with cold 
spring water, thus effecting a rapid reduction of tem- 
perature. 

Our visit next led us into that part of the building 
where the process of fermentation is carried on. The 
cool beer or wort is allowed to flow into four cnormous 
square fermenting vessels, technically called ‘squares ;’ 
and in these wooden vessels, one of which will hold 
fifteen hundred barrels of beer, the liquid is fermented 
with yeast for a certain space of time. On ascending 
a ladder to look into one of these squares, we remarked 
the singular appearance of the thick masses of yeast 
covering the surface of the beer, and still more the 
suffocating fumes of the gas which emanated from it 
and hovered in a kind of mist over the suriace. 

We next visited a spacious room called the ‘tun- 
room,’ in the lower part of a building, of which the 
middle story is occupied as hop-lofts and the upper as 
the coolers just alluded to. ‘This tun-room contains 
nearly three hundred cylindrical vessels, ranged with 
creat regularity in about twenty rows of fifteen ma 
row, and each holding upwards of three hundred 
eallons. These vessels are called ‘rounds,’ and pipes 
and cocks are so arranged at the bottom of cach as to 
allow them to be filled with beer from the fermenting 
squares, at acertain stage in the process. Between 
the rows of vessels are long troughs, into which the 
yeast, worked off by the becr through a hole in the top 
of each vessel, is conducted along a sloping shoot or 
channel, a mode of arrangement represented in the 
subjoined cut. This process of working off the yeast 
is called ‘cleansing,’ and is important to the future 
quality of the beer; and although it is a process some- 
what dirty and unpleasant in small or domestic 
breweries, yet here all is clean, regular, and orderly ; 










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indeed this is not the only proot which such an esta- 
blishinent affords, that the large extent of the operations 
is the very circumstance which leads to cleanly and 
orderly arrangement, from the absolute necessity of 
economising room and time. 

Sunk in the floor of the tun-room, beneath the 
‘rounds,’ 1s an oblong tank lined throughout with 
white Dutch tiles, and intended for the occasional re- 
ception of beer. This tank would float a barge of no 
mean size, being ‘about a hundred fcet in length and 
twenty 1n breadth. 

On proceeding westward through the brewery from 
the main entrance, all the buildings which we have yet 
described are situated at the right hand; but we have 
now to cross to the southern range, separated from the 
other by an avenue, over which a large pipe crosses 
to convey the beer from the ‘rounds’ to the store vats. 
These vats are contained in a series of store-rooms, 
apparently almost intermimable; indeed all that we 
have hitherto said as to vastness 1s uch exceeded by 
the array which here meets the eye. On entering the 
store-buildings, we were struck with the silence which 
reigned throughout, so different from the bustle of the 
manufacturing departments. Ranges of buildings, 
branching out north, south, east, and west, are crammed 
as full of vats as the circular form of the vessels will 
permit; some larger than others, but all of such di- 
mensions as to baffle one’s common notions of ‘great’ 
and ‘small.’ Sometunes, walking on the earthen floor, 
we pass immediately under the ranges of vats (for 
none of them rest on the ground), and might then be 
sald to have a stratum of beer twenty or thirty feet in 
thickness over our heads; at another, we walk on a 
platform level with the bottom of the vats; or, by 
ascending steep ladders, we mount to the top, and 
obtain a kind of bird’s-eye view of these mighty mon- 
sters. Without a guide, it would be impossible to tell 
which way we are trending, through the labyrinth of 
buildings and lofts, surrounded on all sides by vats. 
At one small window we caught a ghiimpse of a church- 
yard, close without the wall of the storehouse; and, 
on further examination, we found that the buildings 
belonging to the brewery, principally the storerooms, 
have gradually but completely enclosed a small an- 
tique-looking churchyard, or rather burial-ground 
(tor it does not belong to any parochial church). In 
this spot many of the old hands belonging to the esta- 
blishment have found their last resting-place, literally 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(Marcu, 1841 


surrounded by the buildings in which they were em- 
ployed when hving. 

The space occupied as store-rooms may in some 
measure be judged, when we state that there are one 
hundred and fifty vats, the average capacity of each of 
which, large and small together, is upwards of thirty 
thousand gallons. The town of Heidelberg in Ger- 
many, has gained a sort of celebrity for possessing a 
tun of vast dimensions, capable of holding seven hun- 
dred hogsheads of wine; but there are several yats 
ainong those here mentioned, in each of which the 
Heidelberg tun would have “ample verge and space” 
to swim about. Subjoined is a sketch of one of these 
large vats, each of which contains about three thousand 
barrels, of thirty-six gallons each, and weighs, when 
full ef porter, about five hundred tons. 


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Leaving this array of vats—these silent giants of the 
brewery—we next visited the ale department, of which 
little has yet been said. The distinction between ale 
and beer is well known by the taste, but 1s not easily 
described in words: ale is of greater specific gravity, 
lighter coloured, more transparent, and less bitter than 
porter. Whether or not we assent to the dictum of 
Autolycus, in the ‘ Winter’s Tale,’ that a “quart of 
ale is a dish for a king,” it 1s certain that a malt liquor 
more or less resembling the ale of modern times was 
much in vogue among our forefathers centuries 
azo. 
Tt will be remembered that we stated two out of the 
five sets of brewing vessels are employed for the brew- 
ing of ale. These two are at the northern end of the 
brewhouse, and are used nearly in the same way as the 
porter vessels. The water is conveyed from the cistern 
to the copper, and there heated ; the crushed malt 1s 
introduced, first into the malt-case, and then into the 
mash-tun; hot water is allowed to flow to this malt 
from the boiler ; the mashing process follows, and the 
wort, when drained off from the malt into the under-back, 
is pumped into the boiler; the hops are introduced 
and boiled with the wort; and, lastly, the whole con- 
tents of the copper flow into the hop-back, where the 
wort is strained from the hops. All this nearly resem- 
bles the process followed in porter-brewing ; but the 
hot ale-wort travels by a very different route. We 
have alluded to an elegant iron suspension-bridge, 


- 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


which passes over a street from the great brewhouse to 
a building termed the ale-brewery. Along the bottom 
or floor of this bridge are laid three pipes, one to 
convey gas for lighting the ale-brewery, another for 
cold water from the cisterns, and a third for conveying 
the hot ale from the hop-back to the coolers in the ale 
department. This latter structure, nearly fire-proof, 
is built with much clegance, and consists of the neces- 
sary rooms for the completion of the ale-brewing. 
The hot ale-wort, passing from the hop-back over the 
suspension-bridge, 1s conveyed to the top of the ale- 
brewery, where it is spread out in two cooling-floors, 
separated, like those in the porter-brewery, into com- 
partments by means of raised ledges, and, hike them 
also, exposed to the free access of air on all sides. 
The cooling being effected by exposure on these floors, 
and afterwards by passing through a reingcerator, 
the ale-wort descends to the story containing the fer- 
Inenting vessels, which is on a level with the suspen- 
sion-bridge; and here, in various vessels, some square 
and others round, the wort fermenis, and assumes the 
state of ale. Again descending, the ale enters the 
‘tun-room,’ to undergo the process of .cleansing. 
About. three hundred and fifty cylindrical casks, or 
‘rounds,’ each containing about a hundred and fifty 
gallons, are ranged in great order throughout this 
large room ; and here the ale remains till in a fit state 
to be vatted. Once again descending, we arrive at the 
level of the street, where, passing through a dark 
spacious store-room, we see immediately over head an 
uninterrupted range of vats, into which the ale flows 
from the ‘ rounds.’ 

The water conveyed over the suspension-bridge 1s 
deposited in a cistern at the top of the ale-brewery, and 
from thence flows to the various stories as required. 
Adjoining the southern end of this building are large 
rauges of storehouses occupied by ale-vats. 

We now again cross to the principal range of build- 
ings, and offer a few remarks descriptive of the mode 
of filling the butts with beer. The butts in which the 
becr is conveyed to the publicans, and which are so 
well known in the streets of London, contain one 
hundred and eight gallons each. An India-rubber hose, 
similar in form to those which are attached to fire-en- 
gines, is connected at one end to a hole in one of the vats, 
and at the other to the bung-hole of the butt, the latter 
being placed on the ground with that hole uppermost. 
Then, by means of a tap or valve governed bya handle, 
the beer is made to flow from the vat, through the 
leatherhose, to the butt or barrel; and when one butt 
is in this way filled, the end of the hose is quickly 
transferred to the hole of a second butt, which 1s filled 
inasimilar manner. The subjoined cut represents a 
man engaged at this process of ‘ drawing-off, which 
is effected in eccllars on the level of the ground, of 
which there are several. Some of the store-vats are 
ranged round these cellars; while those which are at a 
ereater distance are placed in connection with the cel- 
lars by pipes and hose. 

Most persons perhaps are aware that malt liquors, 
after fermentation, require a process called ‘ fining,’ 
to render them more clear and transparent. The 
liquid with which this is effected is made at the 
brewery; and on, visiting the building where the 
manufacture takes place, we found that, small as is the 
quantity required for each butt of beer, the process is 
conducted on a considerable scale. The building is 
at the left hand of the principal entrance to the brewery, 
and consists of three or four stories or tiers, each filled 
with square vessels, in which the fining hquid (a 
solution of isinglass and other analogous substances) 
is prepared. A very small quantity of this hquid is 
used to every butt of beer. 

-, Westward of the main body of the brewery-buildings 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


123 







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is a large paved yard; looking across which towards 
the north-west, we espied such an array of butts, pune 
cheons, and barrels, as excited no small surprise. 
These were not filled with beer or ale, but had been 
brought empty from the cellars of the publicans, to be 
repaired and cleansed before again using. One of the 
most undeviating rules in these establishments,—the 
rolden rule, indced,—is to observe the greatest clean- 
lness in every part of the processes; nearly every 
vessel, large and small, however frequently it may be 
emptied and filled, and in whatever part of the opera- 
tions it may be employed, 1s cleansed after each time 
of using; according to the nature or condition of the 
liquid contained in the vessel, so is there a particular 
mede of cleansing adopted. The butts in which the 
beer is conveyed from the establishment are especially 
attended to in this respect. A chimney at the west 
end of the yard points out the spot where the cleansing 
or steaming house is situated, and in which the process 
is conducted in an ingenious manner. The butts or 
barrels to be cleansed are ranged, a certain number at 
a time, round the sides of the building, immediately 
over a horizontal ‘pipe containing steam from an 
adjacent boiler ; and a this pipe a number of jets 
or short pipes branch upwards, and pass into the bung- 
holes of the casks, one to each cask. 

But these casks are not only cleansed after every 
time of using, they are also inspected and measured, 
and if any leakages or injuries appear, the means of 
repair are at hand. Adjoiming the building where the 
cleansing is effected, a very large cooperage 18 seen, 
occupying three sides of a square court. Here we 
trod our way with some difficulty among casks, old 
and new,—iron hoops that had seen hard service, and 
others destined to replace them,—staves of various 
shapes and sizes,—and all the tools and working appa- 
ratus necessary for a cooperage oll a large scale, 

Under a range of sheds forming part of the circuit 
of the large open court, are the casks which have either 
been repaired and cleansed, or are waiting for those 
operations. There they he, side by side, one on another, 
one behind another, in a solid mass of extraordinary 
extent. Some idea of the nunber of casks lying here 
ready to be filled, may be formed from the fact that 
the whole number of butts, puncheons, barrels, and 


t 


rea 
; 


128 


similar vessels belonging to the establisnment is be- 
tween sixty and seventy thousand! 

It has not formed part of our object to detail the 
number of hours employed in each part of the brewing 
processes, nor the particular time of day at which they 
commence; but the reader will probably suppose that 
the operations are continued by night as well as by day. 
The coppers are almost uninterruptedly in use, and 
relays of workmen succeed each other to attend them. 
But not only within the brewhouse 1s activity dis- 
played betimes in the morning; in the open court, long 
before sleepy London has roused its head, the draymen 
are busy in hauling up the butts of beer, and placing 
them on the drays. So many butts are sent out from 
the establishment every day, and the advantage of con- 
veying them in drays through the metropolis at as early 
an hour as possible is so great, that by four o’cloeck in 
the morning all is bustle and activity; clerks and 
foremen superintending the operations, and men work- 
ing the cranes by which the butts are lifted from the 
cellars to the drays. The form of these drays, of which 
seventy or eighty are constantly at work, is familiar 
enough to every Londoner ; and we doubt not that the 
ears of many passers-by would be grateful for the ad- 
dition of springs or some other appendage to the drays, 
whereby their rattling, shaking, deafening progress 
over the paved streets might be in some degrce sub- 
dued: we believe that something of the kind has been 
already adopted. 

If the brewers’ drays are well known in London, 
what shall we say of brewers’ horses? Who ever mis- 
takes a brewer’s horse for any other? who, that has 
ever passed one day in the London streets, has failed 
to remark these noble but unwieldy creatures,—un- 
wieldy from very strength? And the draymen too: 
here are specimens of the “physical man!” the horses 
seem made for the men and the men for the horses ; 
and we can hardly fancy such horses driven, or ridden 
lady-wise, except by such men. In the course of our 
visit, we passed round the extensive stables where the 
horses belonging to the brewery, nearly two hundred 
in number, are kept. Here were marks of the same 
well-organized system, the same cleanliness and order, 
as so many other parts of the establishment present. 
southward of the little burial-ground and of the store- 
buildings is a very large paved court, around which 
are the stables and subsidiary offices ; here, a dwelling- 
house and laboratory for the veterinary surgeon, under 
whose care the health of the valuable stud is placed ; 
there, a blacksmith’s shop, provided with the necessary 
arrangements for shoeing horses ; farther on, a harness- 
maker’s shop, where necessary repairs to the harness 
are effected. But the principal of these buildings are, 
as may be supposed, the stables, one range of which 
extends nearly three hundred feet in length. A clear 
passage leads throughout from end to end, the horses 
being ranged on either side with great regularity; gal- 
leries or lofts for provender above them; and an open 
space for ventilation along the middle of the stables. 
At one end of the long stable is a building in which 
the provender is prepared for the horses: a small 
steam-engine, of five or six horse-power, works ma- 
chinery by which the oats are bruised or crushed be- 
fore being given to the horses (a modern practice, 
productive of much benefit to the health of the animal) ; 
and another machine by which the chaif is cut. By 
an ingenious arrangement, the waste steam irom this 
engine can be directed into a water-trough, whereby 
any desired temperature may be given to the water 
which the horses drink. 

In our ramble through the brewery, we came to a 
building where “ Barclay, Perkins, and Co.’s Entire” 


stared us in the face in all shapes, colours, and sizes; | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE 


(Marcu, 1841. 


tnan high ; some flat, some convex; some with gold 
letters on a green ground, others on red. These were 
the inscription-boards, so well known in the London 
streets, and so puzzling to strangers, who cannot con- 
ceive what the “Co.’s Entire” means. It appears that 
in by-gone times, becr-retailers were wont to sell a 
kind of liquor called half and half, that is, half ale and 
halt *‘twopenny,’ which had to be drawn from two 
casks. Afterwards a taste was gradually acquired for 
‘ three-threads,’ a compound of ale, beer, and two- 
penny, which the retailer was necessitated to draw from 
three casks; a process so troublesome, that it led to the 
brewing of a kind of beer which should combine the 
qualities of these three sorts, and which, being drawn 
entirely from one cask, obtained the name of entire 
butt beer. The circumstances under which the neces- 
sity arose have long since passed away; but the term is 
still retained. The inscription-boards, which inform us 
whose “ Entire” is sold by the publican, are made in 
the part of the establishment to which we allude above. 
One shop is devoted to the carpenters who prepare the 
boards, and another to the painters and gilders who 
finish them. 

Before concluding our necessarily hasty sketch of 
this vast establishment, we may observe that it is 
something more than a brewery; it is a memorial of 
past times, carrying us back to the period when the 
Globe theatre occupied part of the site, and, later, when 
Dr. Johnson was domiciled in an apartment over the 
entrance gate. In Boswell’s ‘ Life of Johnson’ there 
are numerous letters and reports of conversations 
relating more or less to the brewery; but without 
entering wpon these, we may briefly state how the 
great lexicographer became connected with this spot. 

It appears that in the early part of the last century, 
the brewery belonged to a Mr. Halsey, who reaped a 
fortune there, and upon the marriage of whose daugh- 
ter to Lord Cobham the brewery was sold to the elder 
My. Thrale. Thrale was an active and liberal man; 
became sheriff of the county, and’M.P. for the borough; 
and died in 1758, leaving his property to a son whom 
he had educated liberally. This son inarried a Welsh 
lady of good family, and, to use the words of Boswell, 
‘although in affluent circumstances, he had good sense 
enough to carry on his father’s trade, which was of such 
extent, that I remember he once told me he would not 
quit it for an annuity of ten thousand a year; ‘not,’ 
said he, ‘ that I get ten thousand a year by it, but it is 
an estate to my family.’ The beer brewed by Thrale 
at the period here alluded to was about thirty thousand 
barrels annually, not one-twelfth part of the quantity 
now brewed in the same establishment, which produces 
as much as the nine principal breweries did in 1760. 
In 1765 Dr. Johnson was introduced to Mr. and Mrs. 
Thrale by Malone; and from that time till the brewer’s 
death Johnson lived almost entirely in their houses, 
at the brewery and at Streatham. Before the fire at 
the brewery in 1832, the room was pointed out, near 
the gate, in which the Doctor wrote many of his most 
celebrated productions, more particularly his Dic- 
tionary. In 1781 Mr. Thrale died, and as he had 
no sons, the executors, of whom Dr. Johnson was one, 
deemed it desirable to dispose of the brewery. It was 
sold jointly to Mr. Barclay and Mr. Perkins, the latter 
of whom had been the superintendent of the brewery, 
for the enormous sum of one hundred and thirty-five 
thousand pounds. Boswell relates: ‘‘ When the sale 
of Thrale’s brewery was going on, Johnson appeared 
bustling about, with an ink-horn and pen in his 
button-hole, like an exciseman; and on beimg asked 
what he really considered to be the value of the pro- 
perty which was to be disposed of, said, ‘ We are not 
here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the poten- 


some boards higher than they were wide, others wider | tiality of growing rich beyond the dream of avarice. ” 


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ntre a portrait of Burke, from the picture by G. Romney, _At top, Westminster Hall, fitted up for the trial 
Burke is addressing the House, and stands at the bar, to the left. 


At bottom, Beaconsfield House, 


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Burke’s country residence; and Beaconsfield Church, in which he was buried.] 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. 
Burxr.* 


In reviewing the early associations of the life of this 
eminent man, one cannot but think that Nature had 
intended him to have achieved his reputation in the 
pleasant fields of poesy, rather than in the turbulent 
arena of politics; for not only was he related by the 
mother’s side to one of England’s greatest poets, whose 
Christian name he bore, but being removed at an early 
age from Dublin, where he was born in 1730, he was 


* For a sketch of his life, see vol. i., p. 383. 


No. 578, 


left to spend some of the sweetest years of his hfe at 
| Castle Roche, in the immediate neighbourhood of the 


old castle of Kileolman, the residence of that great 
relative during the period of the composition of the 
‘Fairy Queen,’ and in the very midst of the lovely scenes 
which that poem, by its scarcely less lovely descriptions, 
has made familiar to the world. And deep and per- 
manent, undoubtedly, were the effects of these associa- 
tions on his youthful mind; witness, his early poetical 
attempts, some of which exhibit more than ordinary 
ability. But, above all, we owe to those associations, 
most probably, that deep and powerful current o1 


‘VoL. X.—S 


130 THE PENNY 
poetical thought and emotion which, in after-life, so 
characterised all his speeches and writings. To this 
period and to those scenes, with all their memories 
and traditions, Burke ever delighted to refer; and 
among the poetical compositions to which we have al- 
luded was, according to his biographer Mr. Prior, 
some beautiful verses upon one of the most charming 
of the localities around Castle Roche, the river Black- 
water, which, in its progress to Youghall Bay, receives 
in its course the Molla or Mulla stream, well known 
to the readers of Spenser. These verses are lost, un- 
fortunately ; but we still possess one of his very earliest 
compositions, a translation of Virgil’s second Georgic, 
written in his sixteenth year. We transcribe a tew 
lines of this poem, which will give our readers a tole- 
rably good idea of the style and spirit of the whole :— 


“ Oh! happy swains! did they know how to prize 
The many blessings rural life supplies ; 
Where, in safe huts, from clattering arms afar, 
The pomp of cities, and the din of war, 
Tndulgent earth, to pay his labouring hand, 
Pours in his arms the blessings of the land ; 
Calm through the valleys flows along his life, 
He knows no anger, as he knows no strife. 
What, though no marble portals, rooms of state, 
Vomit the cringing torrent from his gate ; 
Though uo proud purple hang his stately halls, 
Nor lives the breathing brass along his walls ; 
Though the sheep clothe him without colour’s aid, 
Nor seeks he foreign luxury from trade ; 
Yet peace and honesty adorn his days 
With rural riches and a life of ease.” 


From Castle Roche, where he received the rudiments 
of his education (the ruins of the school-room used to 
be, and perhaps still are, pointed out to visitors), Burke 
went to Ballytore, in the county of Kildare, a village 
agreeably situated in the valley through which runs 
the river Griese, about twenty-three miles south of 
Dublin. The site of Ballytore was purchased soon 
after the commencement of the last century by two 
members of the Society of Friends, John Barcroft and 
Amos Strettel, for the purpose of founding a colony of 
persons of that persuasion. It was soon determined 
that a school of a very superior kind should be esta- 
blished here ; and an able and honest member, Abraham 
Shackleton, was brought from Yorkshire to superin- 
tend its foundation and subsequent operations. The 
reputation of the new school soon spread throughout 
Ireland, and from that time to the present day has 
made Ballytore an object of interest. The grand- 
daughter of Abraham Shackleton was Mrs. Mar 
Leadbeater, whose poems and other works have made 
her favourably known to the public. Burke was in 
his twelfth year when he entered Ballytore. In a 
debate in parliament on a proposal that no Papist should 
be permitted to educate a Protestant, Burke referred 
very effectively to his own personal history at Ballytore 
school, expressing at the same time in his happiest 
manner his gratitude to its master. “I have been 
educated,” he said, ‘‘ as a Protestant of the Church of 
England, by a dissenter, who was an honour to his 
sect, though that sect was one of the purest.” With 
Richard Shackleton, the son of the tounder, Burke 
formed a close and continuous friendship: the family 
still possess a series of letters written by him to Richard 
Shackleton trom the age of fifteen, when he left Bally- 
tore, up to within two months only of his death. No 
wonder then that this place was, ever afterwards, 
ereatly endeared to Burke; that one of his most 
cherished pleasures during the turmoil of political 
strife was an occasional visit to this “ happy valley” of 
his youth. 

He now (1744) entered Trinity College, Dublin, and 
began to study for degrees, relieving its tedium by 


| 


MAGAZINE. [APRIL 3, 
joining in the chief sports, intellectual or otherwise, of 
his fellow-collegians. Thus we find him one of that 
body of students who took so active a part in supporting 
sheridan (the father of the author of the ‘School for 
Scandal’), then manager of the Dublin theatre, in the 
theatrical riots of 1746, when the house was nearly de- 
stroyed, and its owner driven from the Irish stage. 
We find him also a member of a literary club esta- 
blished in Dublin in 1747, acting sometimes as its 
secretary, sometinies as its president. An extract from 
the original minutes of this association give us an 
interesting glimpse of the future orator :—“ Friday, 
June 5, 1747, Mr. Burke being ordered to speak the 
speech of Moloch (from the ‘ Paradise Lost’), receives 
applause for the delivery, it being in character.’ He 
attended also the meetings of the Historical Society, 
which was formed about this period, and became very 
famous. Many of Ireland's most distinguished men of 
the last century exhibited their talents here for the first 
time in public. It existed so late as 1815, when it was 
put down by the heads of the college, on account, it 1s 
supposed, of its attention to politics. In Dubhn, 
Burke wrote the poems we have referred to, and com- 
menced his well-known work, the ‘ Essay on the Origin 
of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Having 
been previously enrolled as a member of the Middle 
Temple, London, he removed thither from Dublin in 
1750, in order to keep his terms. But literature and 
politics soon began to occupy his mind, to the entire 
exclusion of law, though not to the exclusion of those 
social enjoyments which became still more attractive 
in London than in Dublin, as bringing him into con- 
tact with more important men. ‘The Grecian Coftee- 
House was at first a favourite place of resort ; where he 
became acquainted with Murphy, a dramatist and law 
student, by whom perhaps he was introduced to Mack- 
lin and Garrick. Some years later, when his own 
reputation was established by the publication of the 
‘ Essay,’ we find him one of the principal members of 
the Literary Club established by Johnson, and in- 
cluding, among its other members, Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds and Goldsmith. 

During the period of Burke’s London life, and prior 
to his entrance into parliament, he suffered much from 
ill-health, and on more than one occasion visited Bath 
and Bristol with a view to recovery. On the recur- 
rence of his malady, in 1757, Dr. Nugent, a fellow- 
countryman, a skilful physician, and a most amiable 
man, invited Burke to his house. Here he wooed, not 
health only, but a bride, Miss Nugent, the daughter of 
his kind host. They were married, and happily married. 
Burke used to say “every care vanished the moment 
he entered under his own roof.” On one of the anni- 
versaries of the marriage-day, he surprised her with a 
piece of prose-poetry descriptive of his idea of a per- 
fect wife, and which was headed —“ The Character 
of .’ is grateful and happy wife could be 
at no loss to fill up the blank. 

In 1761, Burke commenced his public hfe as assist- 
ant to Mr. Hamilton, commonly called Single-speech 
Hamilton, who had been appointed secretary to the 
lord-leutenant of [reland, and whom he accompanied 
to that country. Here Mr. and Mrs. Shackleton called 
on him one day at his apartments in the Castle, and, to 
their great enjoyment, found him on the carpet romp- 
ing with his two boys. It is pleasant to find how much 
of this playful simple spirit will exist in the minds of 
men where one would least expect to meet with it—in 
Statesmen, whose failing frames and premature grey 
hairs too often attest the severity of their mtellectual 
and bodily labours; and it is not unworthy of notice, 
that the higher and truer the genius of the men, the 
more keen is the zest for such innocent relaxations. 
some years after the period just referred to,a gentle- 








1841.] 


man wanderiug towards Harrow caine suddenly upon 
an interesting scene. On the green im the front of a 
sinall cottage was its owner, Richard Brinsley Sheri- 
dan, surrounded by Fox, Burke, Lords John Town- 
shend and William Russell, &c., all busily diverting 
themselves in the simplest manner. Among them 
Burke was the most conspicuous; he was rapidly 
wheeling round the green one of Sheridan’s boys in a 
small chaise, and it would be difficult to say which of 
the two enjoyed it the most. 

Burke entered parliament on the 14th of January, 
1766, having been previously appointed private secre- 
tary to the new premier, the Marquis of Rockingham ; 
and but a short time elapsed before he was looked 
upon as one of its most distinguished inembers. The 
greatest event in his political life, so far at least as 
coucerns the display of his own wonderful powers and 
the estimation in which he was held, was the trial of 
Warren Hastings. Westminster Hall presented on this 
occasion a most august scene. The king, with the pre- 
lates and the peers of parliament, sat on the judgment- 
seat. The Commons stood at the bar, headed by Burke, 
whom they had chosen to guide the prosecution. All 
the great functionaries of the state were present in 
their robes and insignia of office. And the accused— 
as the governor of sixty millions of people, and of a 
territory as large as HKurope—was not unworthy of 
all this solemn splendour. The trial really com- 
menced on the 15th of February, 1788, two days having 
been spent in mere preliminaries. Then Burke rose, 
saying, “he stood forth at the command of the Com- 
mons of Great Britain as the accuser of Warren Hast- 
ings.” He then paused for above a minute, before he 
commenced the first of that most magnificent series 
of addresses which electrified alike the judges, the 
accused, and the spectators, and which in particular 
parts, where for instance he was describing some of 
the atrocities perpetrated by Debi Sing, an alleged 
agent of Warren Hastings, excited the feelings of his 
auditors to a pitch that we, coldly reading the accounts, 
can scarcely credit, and so overpowered himself, that 
the Prince of Wales, for the relief of all parties, moved 
the adjournment of the House. Had not the trial been 
allowed to proceed so slowly (above seven years 
elapsed before it was brought to a conclusion), Warren 
Hastings could scarcely have escaped a conviction, so 
tremendous was the effect of these invectives. Pass 
we now to the last scene of all, Burke’s favourite resi- 
dence, the place where he loved to live, and to which 
he came contentedly to die. 

Beaconsfield is in the county of Berkshire, about 
twenty-three miles from London. The manor, we 
believe, still belongs to the descendants of the poet 
Waller, whose estate it was, and to whose memory 
there is a monument in the churchyard. Gregories, 
the seat of Burke, was purchased by him at an ex- 
pense of about £20,000, the Marquis of Rockingham 
assisting him to complete the payment. The name of 
Butler’s Court seems to have been given by Burke to 
the mansion. Here it was that Burke brought Crabbe, 
then a young man, whom he had relieved from the 
most absolute destitution in the metropolis, with no 
other recommendations than a letter, certainly one of 
the most pathetic ever written, and some poems, which 
to Burke foreshadowed the reputation of the author of 
the ‘Borough.’ Nor did he rest here; as he had 
already, by obtaining a publisher for the poems, se- 
cured Crabbe’s reputation, he now sought to fix 
his pecuniary fortunes on an equally solid basis. 
Ile succeeded in introducing the young poet into 
the church, and then in sending him back to his native 
place—him, the poor fisherman’s boy—with the ap- 


pointment of curate: an earnest merely of the higher | 


preferment that awaited him. But a few months 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 131 


ew) 


elapsed before he was appointed domestic chaplain to 
the Duke of Rutland, through the good offices of his 
in every sense great benefactor. In174 twice did the 
family grave open at Beaconsfield church—once for 
Burke’s brother, and once for his only remaining scn, 
Richard. Burke himself should then have died. It 
was a blow that utterly overwhelmed him. “ Z am 
alone,” said he, in one of his letters; ‘“ I have none to 
meet my enemies mn the gate.” He had hitherto much 
enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the neighbourhood, 
he had also taken much interest in farming operations. 
But all this was now at an end, he could not hence- 
forward bear the sight of the place which seemed to 
have robbed him of his son. A dreadful change took 
place in his appearance. Three years after, Beacons- 
field appeared to him under a different aspect, but he 
came then to join that beloved son; he expressly said 
in one of his letters, that he was going thither to die. 
Even the very day seemed to be known to him; for, 
some hours before his death, he busied himself in send- 
ing messages of affectionate remembrance to absent 
friends, in declaring his forgiveness of all who had in 
any manner injured hun, and desiring a similar for- 
giveness for himself. He then again reviewed the 
motives of his conduct in various public emergencies, 
expressed his thoughts on the then alarming state of 
the country, gave some private directions concerning 
his decease, and lastly, his entire business with the 
world being concluded, caused some of Addison’s papeis 
on the immortality of the soul to be read to him. He 
was thus engaged when the dread shadow passed over 
him ; after a brief struggle, he expired. Six days after, 
he was buried in Beaconsfield churchyard. Seldom 
has funeral been more magnificently attended. In 
his will he desired that no other memorial of him 
should be provided than a simple inscription on the 
flag-stone, or on a tablet to be erected on the wall of 
the sacred building. Such a tablet accordingly we 
find, and on it 1s inscribed, “ Near this place hes in- 
terred all that was mortal of the Right Honourable 
Edmund Burke, who died on the 9th July, 1797, aged 
68 years.” Mrs. Burke long survived him, continuing 
to reside here till her death in 1812. Some time prior 
to this she sold the estate for 38,500/., reserving its 
use for life. In the year following the house was acci- 
dentally burnt to the ground. We cannot better con- 
clude this paper than by a character of its object, which, 
though brief and ina shape not generally considered 
the most fitting for a summary of a great statesman’s 
life, remains to this hour unequalled for its truth and 
comprehensiveness, as well as for its wit: 


“ Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, 
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much ; 
Who, born for the universe, narrow’d his mind, 
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat 
To persuade Tommy ‘Townshend to lend him a vote ; 
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining : 
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit, 
Too nice for a stateman, too proud for a wit; 
For a patriot, too cool; for a drudge, disobedient; 
And too fond of the right, to pursue the expedient : 
In short, ’twas his fate, unemploy’d or in place, sir, 
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.” 


THE OCCULT SCIENCES 
(Concluded from p. 120.) 


Tue evil which has resulted fromthe pursuit of these 
‘occult sciences’ has not been entirely unmixed. Dis- 
coveries in astronomy have resulted from the observa- 
tions of the astrologers: from the search for the philo- 
sopher’s stone has resulted also the discovery of several 
valuable chemical compounds and the awa of 
9 


132 


much useful apparatus; while more than one useful 
medicine has been introduced by those who were search- 
ing for an imaginary elixir. But it must be remem- 
bered that any good which may have thus sprung from 
these researches is merely accidental, and that we can- 
not but congratulate ourselves that in our own day the 
attention, abilities, and time of philosophers are turned 
to objects less alluring to the imagination, but infinitely 
more certain in results. But we must not fiatier our- 
selves that belief in these matters 1s merely a matter of 
history. M. Denis states (in an excellent article in the 
‘France Littéraire,’ to which we have referred in pre- 
paring this paper), that so late as 1826, a woman was 
burned at Dax for witchcraft, while about the same 
period a venerable prelate was denied burial at Spires, 
because public report accused him of magic, In our 
own country and our own day, have we not seen mul- 
titudes pinning their faith to a new weather-prophet, 
and a city company employing a philosopher of no 
mean reputation to prevare astrological predictions. 
Is not a‘ wise man’ stil often consulted by our pea- 
santry in rural districts? Js not the horse-shoe still 
nailed up as a protection against the power of witches? 
Are not amulets still worn, and how many people are 
there yet who will never commence any wndertaking 
of the least importance ona Friday? ‘“ These things 
prove,” says M. Denis, “how much the minds of the 
people yet require to be enlightened, and what a bad 
effect the hawking hooks of fortunc-telling and witch- 
cratt produces in the provinces. Of all the means we 
can employ to remedy this state of things, the proper 
instruction of the lower orders is the most efficacious: 
elementary instruction m physics and physiology would 
indeed do much.” 

Judicial astrology, or the art of foretelling future 
events by the inspection of the stars, seems to have 
yeen practised from very remote antiquity. It is ge- 
uerally supposed to have originated with the Chal- 
deans, and to have been thence transmitted to the 
ligyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The Jews, after their 
captivity, became much addicted to it; while the Ro- 
mans, after they had conquered Egypt, conceived so 
passionate a love for the science of astrology, as to defy 
all the edicts of the senate issued against its profes- 
sors. Neither astrology nor astronomy seemed to have 
been known to the northern nations of Europe until 
introduced to its acquaintance by the Moors of Spain 
and the Crusaders. The Mohammedans have always 
been great astrologers. Once introduced into Europe, 
the study of and belief in the science spread rapidly 
and extensively, not merely among the illiterate and 
vulgar, but among some of the brightest spirits of 
their respective periods, who indeed usually pursued 
the study of astronoiny ouly inasmuch as it was sub- 
servient to the purposes of astrology. No important 
events were undertaken without consulting the astro- 
logers, and their predictions were looked to with hope 
or fear as the case might be, but never with doubt. 
Thus Catherine de’ Medici is said to have always con- 
sulted astrologers before any important undertaking ; 
and at one time there was scarcely a prince or even 
ereat baron in Europe who did not keep an astrologer 
in his retinue to cast the horoscopes of his children 
and foretell future events. The predictions of the 
astrologers were for the most part couched in artful 
and general terms, and when they ventured to be too 
precise, they brought sometimes great discredit on 
their art: thus, in 1186, all the great astrologers of 
Christendom agreed that on the 18th of September of 
that year a most dreadful storm would sweep away 
whole cities, and would be followed by pestilence and 
wars of a most destructive character. The Moorish 
astrologers of Spain, however, disputed the accuracy 
of the prediction. Baldwin, Archbishop of Canter- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(APRIL 3, 


bury, ordered a solemn fast for three days in order to 
prepare for the calamity. All Europe was in conster- 
nation; but on the arrival of the much-dreaded day, 
it proved unusually serene and calm, and the season 
which followed was mild and healthy: and there were 
no storms all that year (says Gervase of Canterbury) 
but what the archbishop raised in the church by his 
own turbulence. ‘Friar Bacon was a great adept and 
behever in astrology, and imputed the various calami- 
ties which befel Europe in 1264 to the neglect of its 
predictions. He says, ‘“‘Oh, how happy had it been for 
the church of God, and how many muischiefs would it 
have prevented, 1f the aspect and qualities of the 
heavenly bodies had been predicted by learned men, 
and known to the princes and prelates of those times! 
There would not have then been so great a slaughter 
of Christians, nor would so many miserable souls have 
been sent to hell.” Even down to the beginning and 
middle of the seventeenth century, almost numberless 
works upon the subject of astrology, some of them 
requiring great industry and patience for their pro- 
duction, continued to appear, although the influence 
they exerted became chicfly confined to the lower 
classes of the community. 


Economy.—Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and 
great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. Kco- 
nomy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in sayrig, but in 
selection.—/Valker’s Original. 


The Plains of Hiungary.—We had heard much of the dull 
aud monotonous character of the great plam of Hungary. We 
had now a veritable specimen of it before us: for many long and 
weary miles we drove, ere so much as a cottage made its appear- 
ance, and all the while the corn waved on either hand, rank and 
luxuriant. Yet, singular as to us this state of things appeared, 
it is but a copy, and an imperfect one, of what prevails elsewhere. 
There are parts of the country, especially in the great plain of 
the Theiss, where you may travel an entire day without encoun- 
tering either the houses or the faces of men: and all the wlule 
your route will be through fields loaded with abundant crops 
of wheat and rye. Moreover,' the customs of the people who 
occupy that plain are to the full as striking as the external 
appearance of the country, and it may be well if I describe 
them. The long and fierce wars which Hungary sustained with 
Turkey, and the exposure of these open districts to perpetual 
invasion, first induced the inhabitants to congregate ito’ heaps, 
aud the habits then contracted have never since been laid aside. 
Accordingly, there are no such things as villages and hamlets, 
far less detached dwellings, ‘to be seen airywhere; but, at re- 
mote intervals one from another, you come upon towns, towns 
of the veriest huts, where dwell six, eight, ten, and sometimes 
as many as thirty thousand peasants together. How they pre- 
serve order among themselves I do not know, for their magis- 
trates seem to possess little influence over them ; yet they do 
live peaceably enough; and though all are poor and squalid, and 
filthy to a degree, there seems to be a perfect indifference to 
the evils which poverty and squalor bring with them. They 
are to a mau agriculturists. It is by the labour of their hands 
that the boundless plains through which you have travelled 
are cultivated; and the process by which the mighty operation 
is performed is this :—Whioen the season for ploughing and sowing 
comes round, the males march m a body from their homes. 
They erect wigwams, or huts, here and there in the fields; and 
then setting to work, they toil from Monday till Saturday, living 
on the provisions which they may have brought with them, and 
sleeping at night in their bivouac. On Saturday they all return 
to the town, and do not leave it again till Monday. In this 
manner the first processes are carried through ; and when all the 
seed has been scattered, the people march back to their perma- 
uient habitations, there to abide in idleness and filth till some 
fresh operation besomes necessary. Finally, when harvest is 
ready, the bivouac is resumed, the women coming forth this 
time to assist in getting it in. And as the completion of the 
sowing season seut them back te town, so, when reaping ends, thie 
huts are abandoned.— Gleig’s Hungary. 











1841.] 


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[The Red Deer, or Stag, and the Foe-l eer 


THE DEER OF THE BRITISIT ISLANDS. 
[Coneluded from p. 106.) 


Tue red-deer, or stag (Cervus Elaphus, Linn.), belongs 
to the Elaphine section of Col. Hanulton Smith, and 
is to be distinguished from the fallow-deer, not only by 
its horns, which are very different in their form, but 
also by its superior stature. It 1s undoubtedly a native 
of the British Islands, and its range extends over the 
whole of Europe, the high northern latitudes excepted, 
and advances into the proximate districts of Asia. Des- 
marest says that it exists in the north of Africa, and 
he also gives Abyssinia as one of the native localities 
of the fallow-deer. Africa, as far as it is ascertained, 
presents us with only two species of deer: of these, one 
species, very different from the fallow-deer, is allied 
to the red-deer, but 1s at the same time distinct; it in- 
habits the northern line of coast (Barbary); the other 
is allied to the fallow-deer, and is perhaps identical 
With it. Cuvier says that he has received the fallow- 
deer wild (un daim sauvage), from the woods to the 
south of Tunis. We are not aware that either the red 
or the fallow deer has been seen by late travellers in 
Abyssinia. 

The stag delights in extensive forests and unen- 
closed hilly districts, where he can enjvy a vast range 
of pasturage. 


Hence there are only a few places in | 


the British Islands where this fine species wanders 
truly wild and unrestrained. These are the Grampian 
chain of moutains, and other paris of Scotland,—the 
New Forest in Hampshire, and various parts of Ire- 
land. In the Grampians they exist in numerous herds ; 
in the New Forest, however, which was made by 
devastating the country, in order that the red-dcer 
might multiply, very few are now to be seen. Wolimer 
Forest in Hampshire formerly abounded in red-deer, 


| and when Queen Anne visited it, as she was _journey- 


ing on the Portsmouth road, the keepers, as White 1 
his ‘ Natural History of Selborne’ tells us, drove a 
herd of five hundred head before her. During sub- 
sequent years they were reduccd to fifty head, and in 
White’s time the whole were caught and conveyed to 
Windsor Park. <A few red-deer, Mr. Bell informs us, 
existed in Epping Forest within the recollection of 
persons living, and in some parts of Gloucestershire 
the relics of once large herds are said still to linger. 
During the winter the males and females of this deer 
associate together, and form herds of variable numbers 
which wander in quest of pasturage. In February 
the males lose their horns, and shortly afterwards others 
begin to grow; they then retire from the general herd, 
and remam alone. The paring season is in August, and 
during this time, when two males mect, they engage m 
most furious contests; they utter a loud tremulous 


13+ 


bellowing, and attack persons wnwarily approaching 
their lair with great impetuosity. The throat or an- 
terior part of the neck of the stag at this epoch 1s 
singularly swollen, and the whole system is under the 
highest excitement. In quest of the himds they swim 
across broad rivers or lakes; and are said even to 
venture the passage from island to island along the 
coast of the Scottish Highlands. The female, or hind, 
goes with young eight months and a few days, and pro- 
duces only one ata birth. When about to bring forth, 
she retires from the herd, and selects a place of con- 
cealment, in which her progeny remains until able to 
follow her, when she joins the rest of the hinds, each 
of which is accompanied by her fawn or calf. The 
hind is bold in the defence of her offspring, and de- 
fends it with great courage against enemies: having 
no horns, she uses her fore-feet, and 1s capable of over- 
powering a dog, and perhaps even a single wolf. 
“Some fellows,” says White, “ suspecting that a calf 
new-fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick 
fern, went with a lurcher to surprise it; whicn the 
parent hind rushed out of the brake, and taking a vast 
spring with her feet close together, pitched upon the 
neck of the dog and broke it short in two.” 

The young remain with their parents during the 
whole of the summer; in the winter the stags Jom with 
them; in spring a general separation takes place, the 
young ones forming companies by themselves. 

The acquisition of horns by the male, or stag, 1s ana- 
logous to their acquisition by the fallow-deer. The 
first year produces no horns, but only the frontal pro- 
tuberances or bossets for their future support. These 
are merely rounded knobs. In the second year a simple 
stag or stem is produced. In the third year a longer 
stem is formed, and thisis garnished with a branch, 
or brow-antler. In the fourth year a still greater 
development takes place, and, in addition to the brow- 
antler, a second near the extremity of the shaft, and 
termed the bes-antler, is acquired. In the fifth year 
another antler, called the antler royal, is added. In 
the sixth year the crown, or surroyal, diverges, con- 
sisting of two or threc snags, and to these, in future 
years, others are added; the total number of branches 
often amounts to ten in a stag seven or eight years 
old, and sometimes even more. While young, and 
before the protuberances of the frontal bones have 
appeared, the male is called a cali,—as 1s also the 
young female. When the protuberances have grown, 
the male is termed a knobber. In the second year hie 
is called a brocket ; in the third year, a spayad; in the 
fourth, a staggard ; in the fifth, a stag; in the sixth, 
a hart, or a stag of ten. 

A stag, or, to use the language of the “ honourable 
science of veneric,” a hart, 1 the fulness of maturity, 
with his head carried high, and surmounted by finely- 
developed horns, is indeed a noble object. The ease 
and freedom of his movements, his proud bearing, and 
the animation which glances in his full dark eyes, his 
impatience of a rival, his boldness in the combats, the 
beauty of his form, lus strength and fleetness, combine 
to render hin worthy the pencil of a Landseer or the 
poetry of a Scott. 

That the stag should have been accounted the first 
and noblest of the ‘“ beasts of veneric” by our chace- 
loving ancestors, and by the barons of the teudal times, 
cannot surprise us: his swiftness and his gallant de- 
fence, when brought to bay ; his intrepid reception of 
the dogs; his sudden and impetuous rush upon his 
assailants, rendering the termination of the pursuit a 
welcome opportunity of displaying personal prowess,— 
grave him such favour in the eyes of the nobles, that it 
was deemed less criniinal in the peasant or man of low de- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[APRIL 3, 


and the recklessness with which they afforested whole 
districts,—villages, hamlets, cottages, and churches, 
being all demolished,—attest at the same time their 
passion for the pleasures of the exciting chase, and their 
indifference to the welfare of the peasant population of 
the land,—serfs and villains,—whose mterests or lives 
were not fora moment to weigh against the pleasures 
of a king. 

Desmarest says that the stags of mountain districts, 
where food is in less abundance, are always smaller 
than those tenanting the plains, which are covered with 
a fertile vegetation. ‘Thisobservation is confirmed by 
a remark of Dr. Johnson (‘Journey to the Western 
Highlands of Scotland’), who, in reference to these 
animals found in the Isle of Skye, says, “The stags of 
the mountains are less than those of our parks or 
forests, perhaps not bigger than our fallow-deer. Their 
flesh has no rankness, nor is inferior in flavour to our 
comimon venison.” 

The same learned writer adds, ‘“‘ These are not coun- 
tries for a regularchase. The deer arc not driven with 
horns and hounds. A sportsman with his gun in his 
hand watches the animal, and when he has wounded 
him, traces him by the blood. They have a race of 
brindled greyhounds, larger and stronger than those 
with which we course hares, and those are the only 
dogs used by them for the chase.” A more dry and 
prosaic description of Highland decr-stalking cannot 
be imagined. 

As, however, we are not of the class of sportsmen, 
and have never witnessed the scene, we shall not 
attempt its delineation. To most of our readers ani- 
mated descriptions of this kind of chase are familiar, 
and all are acquainted with the account of the great 
hunting-match in ‘ Waverley.’ 

A full-grown stag is about four feet in height at the 
shoulders; the general colour is reddish-brown in the 
summer, with a dark dorsal mark and pale haunches ; 
in winter, the general colour is-deep brown. ‘The du- 
ration of its life, which has been by many overstated, is 
from thirty to forty years. Desmarest and other riatu- 
ralists describe a small variety, peculiar to Corsica, 
with a thick body, short legs, anda brown fur. The 
stags of Ardennes are said to exceed insize the ordinary 
race, 
When England was less cultivated than at present, 
another beautiful deer tenanted the hilly parts and the 
wild mountain-ranges, whence it has long been 
banished. We allude to the roe-deer (Cervus capreo- 
lus, Linn.), a species very common in various parts of 
the Continent, but in our island now restricted to the 
mountains of Scotland. 

This deer, which belongs to the Capreoline section, 
is much sinaller than the fallow-deer, and its horns are 
very different to those in either the latter or the stag ; 


‘they rise perpendicularly from the head, and are short; 


they are forked at the tip, and have a small antler froin 
the main stem, directed forwards. There are no la- 
chrymal sinuses; the muzzle is naked; the tail ex- 
tremely short. 

The roe-deer is most gracefully formed, and is re- 
markable for its activity and fleetness. It delights in 
bold mountain districts, well covercd with heath, 
aimidst which it conceals itself from its enemies; and 
is Wary and cautious in the highest degree. So ex- 
qiusiie is its sense of smell, that it perceives a ian 
while yet at a great distance, and it is, consequently, 
dificult for the sportsman to approach it within gun- 
shot. When roused by the hunter, away it bounds, 
leaping among crags and rugged places, with the 
aeility and precision of the chamois of the Alps, or the 
klipspringer of the rocks of Southern Africa. It uses 


grec to commit murder, than to killastag. Theseverity } the most subtle artifices to elude pursuit, returns upon 
of the forest laws enacted by the carly Norman kings, | its steps, crouches among the heath or fcrn, listens and 


1841.] 


snufts the air, and again bounds away. A river is no 
impediment; the roe crosses it with ease, and, fa- 
voured by the difficulties of the locality, it seldom 
happens that it can be taken by dogs. 

These animals may, however, it 1s said, be deceived 
by the sportsman, if he quietly watch for them near 
their usual tracts with a piece of lighted peat, which 
prevents him from bemg perceived by the creature’s 
smell; while it produces no alarm, as the roe is aceus- 
tomed to it. “ The roe,” says Mr. Tytler, as quoted by 
Mr. Bell, “is never known to turn on its enemy when 
wounded; but bad wounds are sometimes received 
from its horns while it hes tossing its head in agony. 
It is very active, and I have seen one bound, without 
much apparent effort, across a road twenty feet wide. 
Their usual pace, unless when hard pressed, 1s a long 
and rather awkward canter ; but when closely hunted or 
suddenly startled, their bounds are the most rapid and 
beautiful that can be conceived. They often come 
down on the corn-fields and peas in the neighbourhood 
of their haunts, feeding entirely im the grey of the 
morning and evening. The usual method of killing 
them is to drive the wood with hounds and beaters, the 
shooters beg placed so as to command the tracks or 
passes; and caution is necessary to avoid the windward 
side, as the roe will not approaeh if it smell the enemy. 
This sport is very tiresome ; and a much more exciting 
mode is to walk quietly through their haunts in the 
earliest dawn, and endeavour to get within shot of 
them, which, however, is by no means easily effected.” 

The roe, in one of its habits, differs in the most re- 
markable manner both from the red and the fallow 
decr. The males of these, as 1s well known, attach 
themselves at certain seasons to several females, from 
which they afterwards separate; but the roe is strictly 
monogamous: a pair mate themselves together, and 
contmue associated during life, never separating from 
each other, and evincing great mutual attachment. 
The pairing season is November, and the female goes 
five months and a half with young, and brings forth 
one or two at a birth: when there are two, these are 
said to be male and female, and to mate themselves 
for life. The female conceals her young amidst the 
tangled herbage of brakes and thickets, and watches 
over them with the greatest solicitude: when able to 
follow her, which they do in about a fortnight, she joms 
her companion, and the family continue united till the 
ensuing November. Sometimes 1t would appear that 
two or three families, consisting of the parents and 
their young, unite ; for, according to Mr. Tytler, their 
couches, which are often found among the heather, 
indicate that a party of six or seven had lain there to- 
eether. They make their couch by scraping off the 
heather, and crouch. like hares, which animals they 
also resemble in keeping to the same tracks on their 
way to their feeding-places. They are also observed 
to stop occasionally and listen, especially if they hear 
any sudden noise, and then canter quickly onwards. 
The cry of the roe is frequently heard at night upon 
the hills where the animal is common: it 1s a short 
sharp note, between the bleat of a sheep and the bark 
of a dog. They are in the habit of answering each 
other; and, when all is still, they may be heard at a 
ereat distance. In Scotland the fox is their principal 
enemy, and destroys many of the fawns. On the Con- 
tinent, both the fox and the wolf prey upon them. 

The male roe loses his horns in autumn, and not, 
hke the stag, in spring; he regains them at the com- 
mencement of winter, their completion taking place 
before November, and more rapidly, as night be ex- 
pected from their small dimensions, than in the stag 
or fallow-deer. 

During the first year the fawn has only the small 
frontal prominences developed. The second year a 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZ\NE. 135 
single snag is produced. The third year brings an 
increase in the size of the horn, and the addition of a 
sharp branch which is directed forwards. In the fourth 

ear the horns are still larger, and fork at the top. 
The fifth and the sixth years add only to their size and 
their roughness. 

The roe lves twelve or fifteen years: its fur is sub- 
ject toa variation in colour, from a greyish or yellowish 
brown to a reddish-brown or dusky-black: the under 
parts are pale, or dirty-white; the haunch-mark, a spot 
on each side of the lips, and the chin are white; the 
ears are long, the inside is furnished with long white 
hairs. The height of the adult male at the shoulders 
is about two feet. 

The dusky-black variety is said to prevail at Lune- 
bourg in Saxony. 

The flesh of the roe is in little estimation; it is dry 
and insipid, and destitute of fat; it is, however, eaten 
on the Continent, where we have several times tasted 
it. How Bewick can say that it is fine and well fla- 
voured, is beyond our conjecture. 

The wildness and timidity of the roebuck renders the 
attempt to familiarise it difficult, even when the ani- 
mal is taken young. At this early age it is, moreover, 
extremely delicate: Dr. Johnson says that in the Isle 
of Raasay, which, unlike Skye, is destitute both of deer 
and roes, attempts had been made to introduce the 
latter, but without success, in consequence of the diffi- 
culty of rearmg the young, and the impossibility of 
taking the old alive, or without injuring them. 

The roe does not exist in Russia; an allied species, 
however, considerably superior in size, equalling, if 
not exceeding, the fallow-deer, inhabits the mountains 
of Russian Tartary, near the Volga, and is very simi- 
lar to our roe in its habits. 

In concluding our notice of the British deer, we 
may observe that the fallow-deer is the only existing 
species (granting Cuvier to be correct as to the animal 
from Tunis) with which we are acquainted ; but fossil 
relics prove that others inhabited Europe at a former 
period. Of the Elaphine group, besides our stag, we 
may number the wapite of America, the Barbary stag, 
and two or three species inhabiting the Nepal range of 
mountains. Of the Caprecline section, we only know 
the roe and the ‘ Chevrenil de Tartary,’ Cervus pay- 
gargus, Pallas. This group is represented in America 
by the brockets, or Mazama section, peculiar to that 
continent. 


FISH USED AS FOOD IN AMERICA..: 
[From a Correspondent.] 


isu, not fresh, but salted or dried, is an article of 
which the Americans seem to be peculiarly fond, if 
a correct opinion can be formed from the large quan- 
tities consumed, and from there scarcely being a family 
where fish does not form, at least during a great part 
of the year, no inconsiderable portion of their daily 
food; and in many familhes this is the case from one 
end of the year to the other. The fish that J am al- 
luding to in that country consists prineipally of salted 
(pickled) shad and mackerel, and dried cod, salt her- 
rings being scarcely ever seen or heard of, though 
they are sometimes caught along the Atlantic coast; 
and another sort of fish, called the fresh-water herring, 
abounds in the great lakes and the rivers communi- 
cating between them, though they are seldom eaten ex- 
cept during the spring months. Were salmon abun- 
dant, in a dried or piekled state, I doubt not but it 
would be a favourite; but for many years these fish 
have been getting scarcer in nearly all the rivers be- 
longing to the Umted States; and lence when any 
happen to be caught and brought to the city markets, 
they invariably command a price that precludes the 


136 THE PENNY 
possibility of their finding their way into the interior 
of the country, and to the tables of the working classes. 

Atthe period when the United States first became fre- 
quented by Europeans, many of the rivers abounded 
with salmon, but very few are now found, For In- 
stance, the Chesapeake Bay and the rivers therewith 
connected, scarcely more than a century ago could 
boast of an abundance of salmon; while a’ few of 
the rivers to the southward even of the Chesapeake 
were not wholly destitute of them. The Phila- 
delphia and New York rivers (the Delaware and 
Ifudson) were formerly well supplied with those fish, 
but this is by no means the case now; and the scanty 
supply of salmon in the markets of both these cities, 
for the most part is derived from the waters of the 
extreme north-castern part of the Union. Thus do 
these fish appear to have been receding northwards 
from river to river; but the rivers of our colonies, 
particularly the St. John’s river and the St. Lawrence, 
can still boast of a good supply of this prince of fishes. 

Regarding some of our own rivers, I am aware that 
circumstances have arisen, principally the introduction 
of steam and the establishing of various sorts of manu- 
factories, which tend to make those rivers no longer a 
favourite resort of salmon, as well as of several other 
sorts of fish. But in hardly a single instance has the 
same thing occurred to an cqual extent in America; 
for though it may be true that there are numerous 
steam-boats plymg upon several of their rivers, for the 
most part the rivers are of so great a breadth, that it is 
scarcely probable a few steam-boats daily passing up 
and down channels of so great a width would be suf- 
ficient to frighten the fish away from haunts to which 
they had’ long been accustomed. 

Shad, the Clupea Alosa, or large species of herring, 
in the absence of salmon, appears to be the favourite 
fish with the Americans, particularly with the people 
of the middle and eastern states; although black 
bass (when in season) is by some persons considered 
superior to shad, but being caught only in particular 
situations connected with the bays and inlets of the 
sea, 1ts greater scarcity, no doubt, enhances its value ; 
whereas shad, during the spring months, abounds in 
most of the rivers and creeks connected with the ocean. 
These fish leave the shallow parts of the sea near the 
mouths of the rivers early in spring; for after the first 
spring freshets (floods) have subsided, shad-fishing in 
the fresh waters immediately commences. ‘The fish 
are then in excellent condition, for at that time they 
are not quite ready to deposit their spawn; and the da 
they first make their appearance in the markets of the 
principal cities is so anxiously looked for, that exorbi- 
tant prices are frequently given. Of course the prices 
vary from year to year, being in a measure regulated 
by the quantity of fish early in the market; but in 
Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, two 
dollars (about 8s. 3d.) are frequently obtained for a shad 
of good size, that is, one weighing from four to five 
pounds; and, in the course of two or three weeks 
aiterwards, fish of similar size and quality may often 
be purchased for a sixth part of thatsum. The shad 
of Amcrica commonly range from three to six pounds, 
but the chief portion of those that are salted down in 
barrels average from three to four pounds. By the 
tume these fish have ascended far up the rivers, they 
lose much of the fine flavour and richness for which 
they are so esteemed on their first leaving the sea; 
nevertheless they are still held in high repute by the 
inhabitants of the inland parts of the country; and 
when they happen to be caught far inland in larger 
quantities than the people of the neighbouring towns 
and villages can consume, they are sent off in small 


light waggons, and peddled through the distant settle- | 


ments; and though they may not be found in the most 


MAGAZINE. [APRIL 3, 
perfect condition, yet shad is so exceedingly popular a 
fish with most Americans, that there is but little diffi- 
culty experienced in disposing of a few waggon-loads 
in almost any. populous settlement. It is, however, in 
the vicinity of the bays and estuaries that these fish are 
caught in very large quantities, and where the fisher- 
men make a business of curing them as an article 
destined for the internal commerce of the country. 
When they ascend far up the rivers, they are generally 
caught with hook and line; but where the rivers are 
large, nets and seines of different kinds are employed 
in fishing for shad. 

The finest shad that frequent the English rivers are 
universally admitted to be those caught in the Severn, 
some of which are larger than any J recollect having 
met with in any part of America. 

Mackerel, too, are found along the coasts of North 
America, and at one period of the year considerable 
attention is paid to mackerel-fishing ; yet very few of 
these fish are used fresh, but are salted and cured, like 
a portion of the shad, and transported in barrels to 
every section of the country. - The chief part of the 
consumption of both salt shad and mackerel] takes place 
in the inland parts of the country, where, during the 
greater portion of the year, there is hardly a village 
storekeeper who does not trade away (to make use of 
an American expression), among the settlers in his 
neighbourhood,’ more salt-fish than any other com- 
modity he dealsin. And here it should be remem- 
bered, this vast consumption of salt-fish takes place in 
a country where animal food is exceedingly cheap. 
It is not only at the tables of the mechanic, artisan, 
and tradesman that you daily meet with salt-fish 
at the breakfast-table—and frequently at the sup- 
per-table too—but also among the settlers generally, 
or among the class of persons that in England would 
be considered the agricultural portion of the popula- 
tion. Neither have religious fasts and observances 
anything to do with this almost universal use of salt- 
fish, since there are but comparatively few of the in- 
habitants, if we except a portion of that class of persons 
usually denominated the American-Irish, who are in 
the habit of denying themselves the use of animal food 
on feasts and fast-days. It must be admitted, however, 
that the backwoods farmer of America acknowledges 
one dish as equal, if not superior, to all the salt-fish in 
the universe, and that is pickled pork. But since 
pork is such a general and especial favourite nearly 
throughout the entire length and breadth of the coun- 
try, it frequently happens that the settler’s pork-tub 
becomes exhausted long before his next supply of hogs 
is ready to replenish it; when, instead of resorting to 
beef, mutton, and veal to supply the deficiency, salt 
shad, if he can afford it, or else salt mackerel (which is 
rather cheaper), in a great measure is made to supply 
the place of pork. 

At the village and roadside taverns the-same mode 
of living is pursued; and there a whole mackerel or 
the half of a shad is often found the leading article at 
the breakfast-table where two or three persons sit down 
in company. There are many other things to be found 
in the domestic economy of the Americans that differ 
as materially from our English household arrange- 
ments as the prevailing taste for salt-fish in America 
exceeds anything of the kind existing among ourselves, 
which can only be hinted at at present. But it ought 
to be borne in mind, that the peculiarities J have re- 
ferred to, and designated as American, are nearly as 
common in our own North American colonies as in 
the United States themselves, at least in most of the 
older settled parts, where 1t would often * an exceed- 
ingly difficult matter to draw a distinction betwcen the 
manners, tastes, and customs of our colonial subjects 
and those of the American nation. 


137 








THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 











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No. 0/9. 


138 THE PENNY 
a creature possessing a large fund of natural and exu- 
berant drollery. There is fun marked in every hne of 
his face, whilst the contrast afforded by the loutish 
looker-on serves to render still more prominent his 
exhaustless fund of animal spirits. 

The management of the picture is of that class which 
he adopted in the school of Juan del Castillo, namely, 
a large proportionate quantity of black and blue-black 
tints, the other darks consisting of deep rich brown, 
with very little or rather no unmixed colour, the flesh 
being painted with an exquisite fidelity to nature ; and, 
in order to afford a scale by which the propriety of the 
relative strength of the light and dark may be tested, 
the artist has introduced into two or three places very 
bright touches—for instance, on the bread protruding 
from the mouth of the standing figure, and on the teeth 
of his whimsical companion. 

Admitting that this class of painting is not the 
highest, though with a vast number of persons it will 
be the most attractive, it 1s impossible not to see that 
the work we are noticing is in all respects one of the 
most perfect examples of the class to which it does 
belong. The painter has, with a rare exercise of dis- 
crimination, afforded us a specimen of the lowest life, 
yet has offered nothing in it offensive to humanity or 
repugnant to good taste. In short, we are disposed to 
agree entirely with an anonymous writer on the Bour- 
eeois Collection, high as the praise he bestows un- 
doubtedly is, when he speaks of this picture as “a 
miracle of successful art, and as a work beyond all 
praise and price. . 

Of the history of the painter it is only necessary to 
say that he was born on the Ist of January, 1618, at 
seville, and not at Pilas, as stated by Palomino Ve- 
lasco. He showed an early inclination for painting, 
aud was placed under the care of a maternal uncle, 
Don Juan del Castillo, a painter of some eminence, 
who had established an acadeiny in Seville. After 
quitting the school of that master, he painted many 
pictures which were exposed for sale at the fair annu- 
ally held in his native city, and a great number of 
which were exported to Spanish America, a circum- 
stance that has induced some of his biographers to 
assert that he himself visited South America. Murillo 
had a great desire to travel to Rome, but on making a 
journey to Madrid he paid his court to Velasquez, 
then in the height of his reputation and influence, who 
found him ample employment in copying from the 
pictures of Titian, Rubens, and Vandyke, in the royal 
palaces. After remaining at Madrid three years, he 
returned to Seville, and immediately enjoyed a very 
great degree of fame. His first great work, in fresco, 
or, in other words, on undried plaster on the walls of 
the convent of San Francisco, or the Capuchins, esta- 
blished his reputation as an historical painter.. The 
work consists of sixteen compartments, the chief of 
which, and that which was considered by the painter 
hunself as his master-piece, isa representation of St. 
Thomas of Villanueva distributing alms to a group of 
poor people. He died at Seville, on the 3rd of April, 
1682, that event being accelerated by a fall from a 
scaffold whilst painting in the church of the Capuchins 
at Cadiz. In stating the dates of Murillo’s birth and 
death, we have adopted those given by M. Pérriés, in 
the ‘Biographie Universelle,’ though Mr. Bryan, 
following probably Velasco, states those events to have 
respectively happened in the years 1613 and 16835. 

Although it is manifest from the later works of 
Murillo that he deeply reflected on the principles 
which guided the great masters of the Italian schools 
of painting, there is in no single instance the slightest 
appearance of the servility of imitation. He has pre- 
eminent claims to be considered in all respects as the 


founder of an original style. In his imitation of nature | 


MAGAZINE. 


too, without abandoning a scrupulous fidelity of repre- 
sentation, he has so managed to invest his figures, in 
subjects such as the one before us, with a chasteness of 
expression which elevates the work in some degree 
into the class of poetic composition, without at the 
same time sacrificing the truth of history. In fact, 
when he depicts a Spanish beggar-boy he does not give 
us the mere portrait of one individual member of that 
class, but places before us in the individual represented 
a personification of the whole class itself. Such we 
conceive is his merit in the subject of which we have 
been speaking, but the converse in some degree of this 
view must be taken in relation to his Scripture sub- 
jects. In these he paints life as he sees it in Spain, not 
as it existed in Palestine. The Madonna, from his 
hand, appeals to us as a beautiful sample of Andalu- 
Sian nature, and not, like the sacred emanations of 
Raffaelle’s pencil, the very impersonation of divine 
purity. Still his style is in all respects distinguished 
by a close and lively imitation of nature, whilst his 
forms have a national peculiarity of air, habiliment, 
and countenance, It has been justly remarked that 
his features of the Virgin, his saints, and even his re- 
presentations of the Redeemer, are stamped with the 
features of his country, and a characteristic expression 
of the eye which is remarkable. 

It does not appear that he aimed at any great aca- 
demic truth in his drawing, but would rather seem to 
have been satisfied with such models as presented 
themselves to his notice, carefully, however, avoiding 
manifest defects, and never falling into the delineation 
of monstrosity or contortion, unless, as in his picture of 
St. Thomas of Villanueva, the subject imperatively 
called for such exhibition. ‘ His colouring,” observes 
Mr. Bryan, ‘1s clear, tender, and harmonious; and 
though it possesses the truth of Titian and the swect- 
ness of Vandyke, it has nothing of the servility of 1mi- 
tation. Though he sometimes adopts a beautiful ex- 
pression, there is usually a portrait-like simplicity in 
the airs of his heads, in which there is seidom anything 
of the ideal. His style may be said to hold a middle 
rank between the unpolished naturality of the I-lemish 
and the graceful and elegant taste of the Italian 
school.” Lye 


ft 
P 
é 


MANU- 


[Arriz 10, 


EXHIBITIONS OF MECHANISM AND 
FACTURED PRODUCTS. 


THE SOCIETY OF ARTS. 


THE pleasure which most persons experience in view- 
ing he portrait of a great man, of one who has made 
for himself a reputation by great thoughts or great 
deeds, may be traced to the association which is imme- 
diately established between the picture and the inerits 
of the person whose lineaments it represents. The per- 
sonal appearance of the individual, and the skill with 
which the painter has represented it, do indeed attract 
a certain share of our attention; but the mind invo- 
luntarily turns from the picture itself, to the thoughts 
or deeds with which the original is associated. 

So it is with models of machinery, when viewed in a 
right spirit. As mere collections of wheels and axles, 
levers and pinions, there is to most persons something 
irksome about them; but when regarded as memorials 
of social advancement, as engines of national wealth, as 
indices of the progress of scientific knowledge, they 
rise to the importance of historical monuments, by 
which future ages may test the rate of progress of the 
present and the past. 

If machinery be regarded in this light, there are 
many places in London where a profitable hour may 
be passed in the inspection of machines, engines, and 
tools whereby certain processes are effected, and of 
raw materials in certain stages of their progress. ‘The 


ae 


1841. | THE PENNY 
mechanic, who is practically engaged in any branch of 
art, may perchance reap advantage from the inspection 
of a machine different from those he employs; while 
the general visitor may gather much curious and inte- 
resting knowledge respecting the production of articles 
with which he is daily surrounded. 

The Museum of the Society of Arts is one of the 
places to witich we have alluded. This admirable 
Society was established about the middle of the last 
century, for the purpose of encouraging British art 
and manufactures by variousmeans. The funds of the 
Society are chiefly appropriated to the presentation of 
rewards or premiums to individuals who have pro- 
duced anything new or valuable in mechanical or 
agricultural processes, or in the instruments by which 
they are effected. An humble individual may make a 
useful discovery, but may not have the means of pro- 
fiting by it through the protection of a patent: to 
afford such a man the means of publicity for his in- 
vention, and to give him, under certain regulations, a 
small reward for his ingenuity, are among the objects 
of the Society. The models which the Society receives 
on many such occasions, as well as specimens of culture 
and of manufacture, models, and instruments received 
from other persons, have gradually accumulated toa 
considerable number, and form amuseum. The So- 
ciety’s house is in John Street, Adelphi; and the 
museum occupies one apartment on the ground-floor. 
No charge is made for admission to view these objects ; 
but still, for obvious reasons, a visitor is expected to 
bring an order from any one of the members (who are 
very numerous): with such an order a stranger may 
be admitted any week-day except Wednesday. 

There is nothing attractive in the appearance of the 
room which contains the models and machinery ; indeed 
—— unused to these subjects might deem it scarcely 

etter than a lumber-room; but a little steady atten- 
tion to the contents will show the liberal objects which 
the Society has had in view. Almost the first articles 
seen on entering the room are specimens of Leghorn 
plat deposited in a glass case. Our female readers 
who are conversant with the qualities of ‘ Leghorn,’ 
‘Tuscan,’ ‘Dunstable,’ and other materials for bonnets, 
well know how large a price has been generally paid 
for foreign plats, compared with English. Now the 
Society has paid great attention to this subject, with 
the view of improving, so far as their influence and 
encouragement can do so, the quality of the English 
straw used for this purpose, the permanence of the 
colour, and the mode of platting, in order to raise the 
quality of the home manufacture as nearly as possible 
to the level of that of Italy, and thereby provide em- 
ployment for the numerous families in the midland 
counties of England who are engaged in the straw-plat 
manufacture. In the glass case to which we allude 
are specimens of English ‘ Leghorn,’ in a great variety 
of forms, placed in juxta-position with an Italian plat. 
This is the fair and legitimate mode of maintaining a 
home manufacture—not by prohibiting the importation 
of foreign goods, but by improving our own; and to 
aid in this improvement is the enlightened object of 
the Society of Arts. 

In another case are specimens of hemp and flax of 
different qualities, resulting from attempts made to 
improve the culture of those valuable materials. We 
may observe that the Society has paid especial attention 
to the encouragement of those branches of agriculture 
and insect-rearing whereby the raw materials of manu- 
factures are produced both in England and in the 
colonies. As examples, we may mention that in one 
case are bottles containing different specimens of Assam 
tea, grown in the north-east district of Hindustan, as an 
attempt to show how far we could be supplied with tea 


from our own colonies; in another are specimens of | 


MAGAZINE. 139 
Assam silk, brought from the same country ; in a third 
are specimens of silk-worms’ cocoons, containing silk 
wholly produced in England. In all such instances as 
these, the commercial advantages or disadvantages 
hkely to result from the success of the respective 
attemyits are left to develop themselves at the proper 
time, the object being to ascertain, by the influence 
and encouragenient of the Society, whether, and by what 
means, such and such things can be cultivated, of good 
quality, in England or her dependencies. 

In different parts of the room are models of the ap- 
paratus whereby fibrous materials are worked up into 
cloth, as well as specimens of the cloth thus produced. 
Specimens of wool, taken from various kinds of oP 
and goats, are exhibited, as well as pieces of broad-cloth 
woven therefrom. Lace, made in the old method by 
hand, under the designation of ‘ pillow-lace,’ is placed 
In juxta-position with other specimens produced by 
other means. Then there are numerous models of 
looms for producing various kinds of woven fabrics, 
some of them almost obsolete in form, but still serving 
to mark the steps by which progress has been made. 
Indeed one of the chief points of interest in this museum 
arises from the contrast often exhibited between models 
of machines made in the last century and others of 
modern date: they are like facts in the history of a 
nation, showing how the present has been derived 
from the past. 

Among the models seen in the room are many re- 
lating to improvements in ship-building, such as 1n the 
formation and fixing of the rudder, and so forth. 
Others show us various forms of rafts which have been 
devised for the preservation of life in case of shipwreck ; 
and of fire-escapes, for use in the public streets : among 
the latter is a model of Mr. Wivell’s ingenious machine. 
A pair of scales and a set of weights, brought from 
Belgium, enable us to compare the forms of the 
weighing apparatus used in that country with the 
kinds employed in England. Wind-gauges, rain- 
gauges, tide-measures, and telegraphs, of some of the 
numerous forms devised, are represented by small 
models deposited here; as are also lathes and hand- 
tools of many kinds. 

Whatever is calculated to hghten or relieve human 
labour or human pain, by the substitution of me- 
chanism, is a prominent subject for the consideration 
of this Society. The substitution of machines for 
climbing-boys, in the process of cleansing chimneys, 1s 
an object which has led to the construction of many 
pieces of mechanism, specimens of some of which are 
to be seen here. There is another glass case, contain- 
ing some pieces of mechanism, which can scarcely be 
looked at without calling up a feeling of regret at the 
obstinacy with which injurious customs are sometimes 
adhered to: we allude to the magnetic mouth-pieces 
for needle-grinders. The men employed in grinding 
the points of needles are among the most short-lived 
of our artisans, on account of the fatal effects of the 
particles of steel inhaled by the lungs. To obviate 
this evil, an ingenious person contrived a sort of mag- 
netic shield for the mouth, by which the particles of 
steel were stopped and retained before they could reach 
the mouth. But the men refused to use this apparatus, 
lest, by making the occupation less injurious, more 
persons might embark in it, and the rate of wages 
(which is high) be diminished ! — 

Among the most pleasing picces of mechanism at 
the museum are those for teaching blind persons to 
read, to write, and to learn music. Tablets of different 
kinds are provided with pins and wires, the admixture 
and arrangement of which are made to denote the 
letters of the alphabet, the numerals, the notes of the 
geamut, &e. 

Models of agricultural machines are rather nume- 

fas 


140 


rous, and comprise various forms of ploughs, narrows, 
&e. For subjects more strictly mechanical, there are 
specimens of girders for roofs; presses for book- 
binders and other artizans; planes and other tools; 
sash-frames, and numerous others; all being models of 
machines containing some improvement, more or less 
important, on the usual forms. A few models of 
safety lamps show the principle on which Sir H. Davy 
founded his admirable contrivance, and the minor 1m- 
provements made by others. A collection of apparatus 
belonging to the associated sciences of clectricity, 
calvanism, and magnetism 1s interesting, not as show- 
ing the state to which they have now arrived, and 
which is far beyond the point which this apparatus in- 
dicates, but as cxemplifying the steps by which the 
progress has been made. | . 

The Society does not confine its operations to the 
encouragement of any art or manufacture im particu- 
lar, but to the advancement of productive industry 
generally, whether in the raw material to which manu- 
facturing art is afterwards to be applied, or to the 1m- 
plements or processes by which this manufacture 1s 
conducted. The preparation of pigments, of oils, of 
varnishes, of cements, and other substances used in 
the arts, comes therefore legitimately within the scope 
of the Socicty’s notice; and some of the cases in the 
museum contain bottles and packages exhibiting spe- 
cimens of such articles, distinguished cither for their 
excellence or for the improved mode in which they 
were prepared. 

These few paragraphs will serve briefly to show 
what are the objects for which the museum was esta- 
blished, and what is the general description of articles 
deposited there. A person who is either unacquainted 
with the nature of machinery and implements, or is 
indifferent to the processes of manufacturing industry, 
may perhaps fail to reap either pleasure or profit from 
such an exhibition ; but he who rightly appreciates the 
true sources of a nation’s greatness and wealth will 
feel a pleasure in viewing specimens of the apparently 
humble means by which that wealth and greatness have 
been principally acquired ; and will also duly respect 
those who by their influence and hberality have aided 
in improving those means. 


~ The true prop of good government is opimon; the perception, 
on the part of the subjects, of benefits resulting from-it;‘a set- 
tled conviction, in other words, of its being a public good. Now, 
nothing can produce or maintain that opinion but knowledge, 
since opinion is a form of knowledge. Of tyrannical and un- 
lawful governments, indeed, the support is fear, to which igno- 
rance is as congenial as it is abhorrent from the genius of a free 
people.—tobert Hall. 





Female Labour in Arabia.—I saw several females here 
literally performing the labour of bullocks—in plain English, 
they were yoked to the plough. One was a very comely lass, 
and she answered my inquiries laughingly, that they hired them- 
selves for the purpose, the remuneration being a small quantity 
of grain! The men at the same time were standing looking on, 
with spimnets in their hands. An odd transfer of duties this! 
The reader may recollect that Sir Thomas Munro relates, as a 
reason why an Indian should be exempted from paying his 
taxes, that he pleaded the late loss of his wife, who did as much 
work as two bullocks.—Welsted’s City of the Caliphs. 


The Mikado of Japan.— Everything about him must be in- 
cessantly new. No article of his dress is ever worn a second 
time; the plates and dishes in which his repasts are served, the 
cups or bowls out of which he drinks, must be new at every 
meal, as must the culinary utensils in which the meal is pre- 
re But none inherit Ins leavings. Whatever article of any 
cind has been hallowed by the Mikado’s use, even such remote 
use as cooking what he is to eat, is thereby so sanctified, that no 
human touch must be afterwards suffered to profane them. To | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


-| day. 


[AprRix 10, 


wear his cast clothes, to eat off his plates, cook in his saucepan, 
&c., or even to feed upon the broken victuals from his table, 
would call down the vengeance of heaven upon the sacrilegious 
offender. To prevent all risk of the kind, everything that has 
once been in any way employed in the service of the Mikado is 
immediately torn, broken, or otherwise destroyed ; his clothes, 
which are of a colour that no other person may wear, are burnt; 
aud hence arises the only drawback upon all this state. The 
Mikado is supported by the Ziogoon; and the allowances 
from Yedo not being as ample as might be wished, the heavy 
expense of renewing daily, almost hourly, whatever appertains 
to the Son of Heaven, is alleviated by supplying his wardrobe, 
table, kitchen, &c. with articles of the very cheapest, and, 


therefore, coarsest description.—Svebold’s Manners and Customs of 
the Japanese. 





A Hungarian Gentleman's Establishment. —The gentlemar: 
whiose guests we had thus unexpectedly become, belonged to that 
class in Hungarian society which corresponds, in respect to rank, 
with our untitled aristocracy—the proprietors of estates which 
have descended to them through.many generations. He inha- 
bited a couritry-house, which, im point of size and the general 
aspect of things m and around it, I can compare to nothing so 
aptly as the dwelling of a Highland laird. It was a long-fronted, 
two-storied, white-walled chateau, having before it a sort of 
court or grass-plot, round which ran a gravelled drive, that was 
fenced off from the road only by a hedge and paling. At the 
bottom of this court, again, and at right angles with the swing- 
gate by which we entered, stood a range of cottages, where dwelt 
the grooms and menials and hangers-on upon the family ; while 
just across the road were stables, coach-houses, sheds, barns, and 
a garden well stocked with fruit and vegetables. Of park, or 
paddock, or grounds purely ornamental, there was, however, uo 
trace. xcept where the green court lay (and it was not wholly 
ornamental, inasmuch as the draw-well stood exactly in the 
ceitre of it), every rood of land had been laid under the plough. 
Up to the very walls of the mansion the corn crops were grow- 
ing; and mm the hamlet where we and our host first met, the 
labourers or serfs by whom they were reared resided. It was 
not, however, m1 the outward appearance of things alone that I 
traced a close resemblance between the domicile of this Hun- 
garian gentleman and that of the Highland laird, rather, per- 
haps, as he was half a century ago, than as you now find him, 
except m rare cases. The family of Mr. Scultati (for so my 
young friend was called) appeared of countless extent. There 
was no end to the retainers, meu, women, and children, who went 
to and fro before his hall-door and thronged his kitchen. Eating 
and drinking, moreover, appeared to be a work which suffered 
small intermission; and the viands, though coarse perhaps, were 
most abundant. Then, again, I saw one woman arrive with 
several couples of fowls, another with a basket of eggs, a third 
with a jar of milk, a fourth with something else; and I learned 
that such were not so much the spontaneous offerings of a good- 
will, as the feudal perquisites which the chief claimed, and the 
cottar and small tenant paid. It is thus,” said my kind host, 
‘and thus only, that the hospitalities of such a household as 
mine could be kept up. These things are brought to me every 
What could I do with them, if I did not feed the people 
whom you consider so numerous ?”—Gileig’s Hungary. 


Indian Thieftakers.—The hired watchmen are generally of 
these castes (thieves), and are faithful and efficacious. Their 
presence alone is a protection against their own class; and their 
skill and vigilance against strangers. Guzerat is famous for one 
class of people of this sort, whose husiness it is to trace thieves 
by their footsteps. In a dry country a bare foot leaves little 
print to common eyes ; but one of these people will perceive all 
its peculiarities so as to recognise it in all circumstances, and 
will pursue a robber by these vestiges for a distance that seems 
incredible. One was employed to pursue a man who had car- 
ried off the plate belonging to a regimental mess at Caira: he 
tracked him to Ahmedabad, twelve or fourteen miles; lost him 
among the well-trodden streets of that city, but recovered his 
traces on reaching the opposite gate; and though long foiled by 
the fugitive’s running up the water of a rivulet, he at last came 
up with him, and recovered the property, after a chase of from 
twenty to thirty miles—Mr. Elphinstone’s History of India. 


When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be 
remembered is, how much has been escaped.— Dr. Johnson, 


1841.] 











THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


14] 














cs 
jl 


et 
—o 


“33 if iN Cac 
1 yi HY ihe , Be ae 
rt | i iH : 
“A h 


ee 





[Aleppo.] 


+ or ogy 7 gene cms WA ln @ 


Haxtres (commonly, but erroneously, called Aleppo), 
the capital of a pashalik of Asiatic Turkey of the same 
name, is situated in the north part of Syria, in 36° 11/ 
32 N. lat. (according to Niebuhr), and 37° 9’ E. long. 
It is one of the largest and most important towns in 
Western Asia. Tavernier, in 16/0, estimated the po- 
pulation at 258,000; D’Arvieux, in 1683, at about 
258,000; Russell, in the last century, at 235,000, of 
which 200,000 were Mohamimedans, 30,000 Christians, 
and 5000 Jews; Volney reduces the number to 100,000; 
but Rousseau, who lived for some time at Haleb as 
French consul, estimates it at 200,0C0. Rousseau also 
informs us that the town is built on four hills, called 
Djeleb beni el-Kaka, on one of which there is a forti- 
fied castle ; that it is surrounded by a stone wall, and 
has seven gates ;* that it contains 5 serais, or gover- 
nor’s palaces, 100 mosques, of which the most cele- 
brated is that of Zacharias; 50 mesjeds, or oratories, 
of which the most beautiful, called Helawie, is sup- 
posed by Pococke to have been formerly a Christian 
church built by Helena, mother of Constantine; 10 
or 12 public schools, 2 public hbraries, 5 mehkems, 
or courts of justice, 60 baths, 100 cotfee-houses, 40 or 
45 great bazaars, 31 khans, occupied principally by 
Franks or other strangers, 200 fountains, about 15 
wakfs, or religious institutions, a ‘mewla-khané, or 
college of dervishes, 5 Christian churches, a syna- 
gozue, and 40,000 houses. But the state of the city 
has becn greatly changed by an earthquake which 
happened in August, 1822, and which destroyed almost 
two-thirds of the buildings. The population is a mix- 
ture of Turks, Arabs, Christians, and Jews. The 
Christians principally belong to the Greek, Syrian, 
and Armenian churches: of these the Greeks are the 
most numerous and the richest. The small river Koik 
runs along the west side of the town. 

Before the earthquake of 1822, Haleb was supposed 
to possess 12,000 artisans, and was celebrated for its 
gold and silver lace, its manufactures of silk and 
cotton goods, shawls, &c., being, next to Smyrna, the 
most commercial town of Turkey in Asia; but its 
prosperity was chiefly owing to its situation, which 
rendered it one of the great commercial marts between 


'* In Nicbuhr’s plan, 1766, there are nine gates. 


ee nner 


Europe and Asia. It carries on a great caravan trade 
with Bagdad, Persia, and the eastern parts of Asia. 
The goods destined for the European market are 
shipped from the port of Latakia. Consuls from all 
the commercial states of Europe reside at Haleb. 

The ancient name of the town was Chaleb, or Cha- 
lybon, which was changed by Seleucus Nicator into 
Berca. It continued to be called by that name until 
its conquest by the Arabs under Abu Obeidah in 638, 
when its original name of Chaleb or Haleb was re- 
stored. It afterwards became the capital of an inde- 
pendent monarchy under the sultans of the race of 
Hamadan, under whose rule it appears to have enjoyed 
great prosperity. In the latter part of the tenth cen- 
tury Haleb was again united to the Greek cmpire by 
the conquests of Zimisces, emperor of Constantinople. 
During the crusades Haleb was subject to the Seljuke 
princes. In 1260 it was plundered by the Moguls, and 
again in 1401 by Timur. It was afterwards annexed 
to the dominions of the Mameluk sultans of egypt, 
but was conquered by Selim I., the Turkish sultan, 
and has since that time been subject to the sultans of 
Constantinople. It was, however, lately, for a few 
years, in the possession of the pasha of Egypt, but is 
now again restored to the dominion of the sultan. 

The pashalik of Aleppo is bounded on the west by 
the Mediterranean, on the east by the Euphrates, on 
the north by an imaginary line drawn from Scanderoon 
(the ancient Alexandria) on the coast to El Bir on the 
the Euphrates, and on the south by another line drawn 
from Billis to the Mediterranean, passing by Murrah 
and the bridge of Shogher. The northern part 1s oc- 
cupied by high mountains, known to the ancients under 
the name of Amanus, which is only a branch of Mount 
Taurus. The southern part is sterile and sandy; but 
the plains at the foot of the mountains are fertile, and 
afford good pasturage for the numerous flocks of the 
Arabs and Kurds, which graze upon them during the 
ereater part of the year. The inhabitants only culti- 
vate the land in the mountainous districts, which pro- 
duce wheat and other sorts of corn, melons, olives, 
cotton, tobacco, figs, &c.: the level parts of the coun- 
try are abandoned to the Kurds and Arabs. The heat 
of the climate is seldom oppressive, 1n consequence of 
the west winds which blow from the Mediterranean. 
The country is reckoned healthy; but the habitants 


142 


of Haleb are very subject to a disease which first ap- 
pears under the form of an eruption on the skin, and 
afterwards forms into a sort of boil: 1t dies away in 
about eight months from its appearance. Volney and 
many other travellers attribute the disease to the bad- 
ness of the water which the inhabitants drink. 

The pashalik of Haleb is watered by the Euphrates, 
the Orontes, and the Koik. The Koik rises near 
Aimtab in the north, and passing by Haleb, loses itself 
in a morass about sixteen miles south of the city. 

The pashalik contains no other towns of any 1mport- 
ance, with the exception of Haleb. Alexandria (Scan- 
deroon) and Antioch, which were once so celebrated, 
are now of little importance. 


THOMAS GENT, OF YORK, PRINTER. 


THomas Gent 1s known to students of the topography 
of the Northern Counties, especially Yorkshire, as the 
author of scveral works on local antiquities and local 
history ; and as being one of the chief master-printers 
out of London towards the middle of last century. 
Until within the last few years nothing was known of 
his personal history beyond afew names and dates, and 
the ineidental allusions to himself contained in his 
writings. In 1832 a thin octavo volume was published 
contaming “his Life,” or rather autobiography, printed 
from a manuscript in Gent’s hand-writing, discovered 
by Mr. Thorpe of Bedford Street in a collection of pa- 
pers received from Ireland. This document gives a 
minute but not uninteresting account of the life of its 
author until the age of fifty-six, the time when it was 
drawn up. It does not appear to have been resumed 
after that period. It is valuable as the simple naryra- 
tive of honest perseverance gradually surmounting 
very formidable obstacles, and as an illustrative re- 
cord of some of the events and customs of the time. 
Gent was the son of Irish parents, and appears to 
have been born in Dublin about the year 1691. When 
his autobiography commences (some of the first pages 
have been lost) we find him, at the age of sixteen or 
seventeen, abscondcd from his parents, and from his mas- 
ter, Mr. Powell, a printer in Dublin, and embarking 
for England. In a poetical narrative of his adven- 
tures, inserted in a subsequent part of the pamphlet, 
he tells us that the wanton tyranny of his master was 
the cause of this desertion. Arrived in England with 
an Irish shilling, and sixpence given to him by the 
captain of the vessel, he began to consider what course 
was most advisable under the circumstances. He tra- 
velled to Chester, ‘but no printing-press, as I could 
hear of, was set up in those parts ;” so he and his fellow- 
travellers “were obliged to push forward to London.” 
His companions he soon discovered were very disrepu- 
table charaeters. “At first,” says he, “ they called me 
Mr. Tommy; but when they found the title did not 
agree with my empty pockets, they imposed some of 
their heavy burdens on my wearied shoulders.” After 
being implicated by these vagrant friends in the un- 
lawful appropriation of a goose, and after narrowly 
cscaping 1mpressment by a party of soldiers whom he 
overtook on the road, he reached St. Alban’s, “ very 
lame and tired, and with but twopence in the world.” 
When and how he reached London we do not know, 
for there is unfortunately another lost page in the 
manuseript. When the story is resumed, he is in the 
einploy of Mr. Midwinter, a master-printer, as an ap- 
prentice for the remainder of the usual term of seven 
years. His hardships at this period of his life were 
more than ordinarily severe. He complains of being 
often “severely beaten,” and says, “I worked many 
times from five in the morning till twelve at night, and 
frequently without food from breakfast to five or six 
In the evening.” Jlis peaceful disposition, both here 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[APRIL 10, 


and in fact throughout his whole life, entailed upon 
him much annoyance by inviting the insults of his 
more audacious fellow-workmen. When grossly pro- 
voked, if his own statement may be trusted, he does 
not appear to have been deficient either in will or 
power to punish the aggressor. ; 

When he was about twenty years old, his master re- 
linquished all claim upon him as an apprentice, and 
began to treat him with great courtesy. We discover 
the immediate cause of this change in the clreumstance 
“of my writing Dr. Sacheverell’s sermon after his 
suspension, for which I waited from morning till even- 
ing to hear him, and my master cleared thirty pounds 
that week by it.” This incident proves that, under all 
his disadvantages, Gent had assiduously availed him- 
self of every chance of improvement, and it mmdicates 
the immense excitement caused by the proceedings 
against Sacheverell, and the manner in which the crav- 
ings of that excitement were supplied. -= 

His wholc stock of money at the time of his lhbera- 
tion was a single shilling, sixpence of which paid the 
postage of a letter from his parents at Dublin, and 
with the remaining sixpence he purchased Ayre’s 
‘Arythmetic’ at a book-stall. But his fortunes began to 
mend apace. He obtamed employment immediately 
with a Mr. Bradford. He describes an absurd cere- 
mony which the journeymen of his new shop compelled 
him to perform as indispensable to his imitiation among 
them, “besides having to pay what is called beer- 
money.” We hope the present generation of opera- 
tives estimate such practices at their proper value, 
He soon after engaged himself to Mr. White of York, 
“for eighteen pounds a year, besides board, washing, 
and lodging.” He offered twenty shillings to the car- 
rier who traded between the two cities for a place in 
his waggon, but the man would not take less than five 
and twenty, “so I was resolved to venture on foot.” 
Arrived at York, he says, “ the first house I entered to 
inquire for my new master was in a printer’s at Pe- 
tergate, the very dwelling that 1s now my own by pur- 
chase.” Mr. White was at dinner “by the fireside, 
sitting in a noble arm-chair with a good large pie be- 
fore him, and made me partake heartily with him.” 
He continues, “my master had plenty of business to 
employ several persons, there being few printers in 
England, at that time, except in London; none then, I 
am sure, at Chester, Whitehaven, Preston, Manchester, 
Kendal, and Leeds, as for the most part now abound.” 
This was written in 1746. Gent was engaged by- Mr. 
White in 1714. 

His situation at York soon became uncomfortable, 
and after “ having vented the diversity of my flowing 
passions ” in thirty-six stanzas of six lines each, more 
valuable as an epitome of his personal history than for 
any poetical excellence, he determined to visit his 
native country. He had already conceived an affection 
for “ Mrs. Alice Guy, upper maiden to Mrs.:- White, 
who, I was persuaded to believe, had the hke mutual 
kindness for me; she was the daughter of Mr. Richard 
Guy, schoolmastcr at Ingleton near Lancashire ; had 
very good natural parts, quick understanding, was of 
fine complexion, and very amiable in her features.” 
This young person ultimatcly became his wife. The 
prudence and disinterestedness he manifested by post- 
poning their marriage until he had a reasonable pros- 
pect of providing for a family, are among the most 
interesting portions of his simple story, and certainly 
not the least honourable distinctions of his conduct and 
character. —- 

After some delay, he found a vessel about to sail for 
Ireland. A storm compelled them to take shelter in 
Douglas harbour in the Isle of Man. They were de- 
tained here cleven days; but provisions were cheap. 
“T could buy,” be says, “a pullet for four-pence, anda 


{841.] THE PENNY 
quart of strong brandy for an English shilling, which 
went there for fourteen pence.” 

Ie did not stay long in Dublin, but again engaged 
himself to Mr. White, with whom he continued during 
the years 1715 and 1716. He then returned to London, 
to his first master, Mr. Midwinter. He mentions as 
taking place about this time the execution of two men 
for an alleged robbery, on the highway, of three half- 
pence ; which, he says, “neither of them had received.” 
The incident is a shocking exemplification of the 
savage state of our criminal jurisprudence at that time, 
and of the little value set on human life in judicial 
proceedings. 

In 1717 he was admitted a freeman of the Company 
of Stationers; and in October of the same year com- 
menced citizen of London at Guildhall. “We dined at 
a tavern that day, and my part of the treat, with other 
expenses, came to about three pounds.” He adds, “all 
this while I was as careful in saving what I earned as 
possible, but yet could not perceive a prospect of set- 
tlement whereby to maintain a wife as I judged she 
deserved, and I could not think of bringing her (Alice 
Guy) from a good situation without I could certainly 
make us both happy in a better.” After several vicis- 
situdes of employment, he was offered a very advan- 
tageous partnership at Norwich, but at the moment 
he was setting out to that place he received intelligence 
that his parents were in a very precarious state of 
health, and desired to see him for perhaps the last time. 
He at once relinquished the prospect before him, 
“taking care to recommend Mr. Robert Raikes ia my 
room, who is now settled master in Gloucester,’* and 
started tor Ireland. His affection for his father and 
mother, when age had rendered them unable to main- 
tain themselves, is beyond all praise. He appears to 
have considered their comfort paramount to every other 
motive. 

When he returned to London, he was employed by a 
Mr. Clifton, apparently a disguised Jesuit, who was in 
active communication with Dr. Atterbury, the Jacobite 
bishop of Rochester. After printing from a manu- 
script, of which he was not allowed to know the author- 
ship, ‘‘the papers were packed up and delivered to my 
care, and the same night, my master hiring a coach, we 
were driven to Westminster, where we entered into a 
large sort of monastic building. Soon we were ushered 
into a spacious hall, where we sat near a large table 
covered with an ancient carpet of curious work, and 
whereon was soon laid a bottle of wine for our enter- 
tainment. In a little time we were visited by a grave 
gentleman in a black lay habit, who entertained us with 
one pleasant discourse or other. He bid us be secret ; 
‘For, said he, ‘the imprisoned divine does not know 
who is his defender’ ” (the printed papers were a pamph- 
let in defence of a person under confinement). Gent 
of course assured the grave gentleman and his master 
that there was no fear of his disclosing anything he 
might know; but of this they had taken.pretty good 
care; for he admits that the “wine” presently made 
him so tipsy that he does not know by what means he 
Was conveyed home. He never seems to have sus- 
pected that what he swallowed was anything but the 
honest juice of the grape. One day afterwards he hap- 
pened to encounter a file of guards conveying a state 
prisoner to the Tower; and in Dr. Atterbury, the per- 
son under arrest, recognised the grave gentleman “ by 
Whom my master and | had been treated.” 

Some time after this he published ‘ Teague’s Ramble,’ 
a Satire ‘‘I had written on some of our profession, who 
richly deserved it for their unmerciful usage of me 
and others.” 

He then gives a long account of one Burridge, a 

* Was this the Mr. Robert Raikes who is so gratefully 
remembered as the founder of the first Sunday-school ? 


| 1740. 


MAGAZINE. 143 
penniless author, alias “ bookseller’s hack,” who “sold 
copies (2.e. pamphlets, &c.) for half-a-crown a-piece,”’ 
and spent his life, after the genuine Grub Street fashion, 
in alternate extravagance and starvation, sometimes at 
large, but oftener i prison, and always im a scrape, or 
beset by bailiffs. He then describes being sent as a 
reporter to Kingston assizes. He had now accumu- 
lated a respectable sum, and began to buy furniture, 
and type, and other things that would be useful when 
he started in business on lus own account. With many 
other printers, he was committed to Newgate on sus- 
picion of being concerned in the publication of some 
obnoxious pamphlets relative to the pending prosecu- 
tion of Dr. Atterbury, but as nothing could be proved 
against hin, he was presently liberated. He says, 
‘My stock of goods growing larger by my careful in- 
dustry, I moved into the next house, where I set up 
my press and letters, and here I published truly some 
things relating to the bishop, but while I pleased the 
people with an artful taking title, I strove to instil 
into them principles of loyalty, love, and obedience.” 
His facility of combing the occupations of author 
and printer had always been of service to him, for he 
says, “during my apprenticeship, Mrs. Midwinter, 
being fully satisfied of my genius at the pen, obliged 
me to turn author for them, in which office my harm- 
less style of relating occurrences that daily happened 
proved very acceptable to the public.” His business 
increased very satisfactorily, still he did not altogether 
abandon the humbler but more certain profits of 
journeyman’s employment. Twenty shillings per week 
appears to have been the maximum rate of printer’s 
wages at that time. 

At length, at the sober age of thirty-three, “being a 
citizen of several cities, free from debt, and possessed 
of two hundred pounds,” he ventured to propose mar- 
riage to the young person before alluded to. “TJ took 
leave,” he says, “of my friends at the Black Swan, in 
Holborn, where I paid my passage in the stage coach, 
which brought me to York in four days.” 

On the 10th of December, 1724, he became a hus- 
band, having previously entered upon his former inas- 
ter’s (Mr. White) business and premises. ‘ At York,” 
he says, “I found a newspaper printed, but utterly 
spoiled by being compiled by a mean-spirited seli- 
conceited Quaker, whom J discharged.” 

His marriage does not seem to have yielded the hap- 
piness he expected. His disappointment is rather in- 
dicated than expressed, but he complains loudly of 
treacherous servants and violent opposition in his trade. 
He again visited his parents, and narrowly escaped 
shipwreck. As be returned home, he overtook a 
countryman, who told him that on that day (3rd of 
November, 1725) “was to be hanged the greatest rogue 
in all England, called Jonathan Wild. I had seen 
that thief-catcher several times about the Old Bailey, 
and particularly took notice of him when he rode ti- 
Oe tant with pistols, before the criminals, whilst 
conveying to execution.” os 

In 1728, “the opposition still continuing against 
me,” he conceived the design of appearing before the 
miblic in a more imposing character than he had 
hitherto assuined; he projected a lustory of York. 
The work was published in 1730, under the title of 
‘The Aucient and Modern History of the Famous 
City of York, and in particular of its magnificent 
Cathedral, &c.; the whole diligently collected by T. G., 
York.’ The book isa faithful collection of data, but 
its accuracy is its most commendable quality. It 1s 
rather peevishly mentioned by Drake, in his ‘ Ebora- 
cum,” published six years later, we think without 
sufficient reason. Several works of standard value 
were printed at lus press between the years 1730 and 
His diligence, courtesy, and uprightness as a 


144 THE PENNY 
tradesman and a citizen, obtained for him the esteem 
of the whole neighbourhood, and when misfortune 
overtook him, his previous integrity was a constant 
and increasing source of consolation and sustenance. 
In 1733 he published his ‘ History of Ripon,’ with a 
notice of the antiquities in several other towns in the 
county; and this was followed, in 1736, by his ‘ History 
of Hull’ Although none of these works can pretend 
to first-rate excellence, still, as the production of the 
leisure hours of a self-dependent mechanic, acting in 
the different capacities of author, compiler, collector, 
printer, and publisher, they are highly creditable. It 
is to be feared that Gent’s fortunes did not increase 
with his reputation. When his narrative closed, in 
1746, he was already m difficulties, not, however, i- 
duced by his own misconduct, but by causes against 
which human foresight could raise no effectual bar- 
rier. He still continued to write occasional pieces, 
and give them to the world, but age and necessity con- 
spired to repress his perseverance and industry. At 
the age of seventy-one he published his ‘ History of 


MAGAZINE. (Aprix 10, 
pamphlet, in heroic couplets, entitled ‘Historical De- 
lights,’ ought, perhaps, to be referred to a still later 
period of his life. It is printed on the coarsest paper, 
and in the rudest manner, a melancholy contrast with 
the neat typography of his earlier works. It contains 
several passages of very creditable poetry. The con- 
cluding sentence expresses an important truth in a 
manner not unworthy of the subject :— 
‘But when deserted by ungrateful friends, 

Delightful studies make some small amends ; 

At least the mind from troubles disengage, 

And smooth the harsh severities of age, 

Enrich our souls for greater joys above, 

Where all is glory, ecstacy, and love.” 


A man who had long ago fulfilled his three score 
years and ten, and was afflicted by poverty and the 
ingratitude of friends, and could so nobly moralse on 
his condition, has surely some claim on the admiration 
and reverence of posterity. 

He died at York, on the 19th of May, 1778, 1n his 
eighty-seventh year, and was buried in the church of 


the East Window of York Minster ; and an octavo | St. Michacl-le-Belfrey. 











Qua fumpturt fumus benedicat trinus et vnus Aamen 





“Musical Knife in the Louvre.) 


MUSICAL KNIFE. 


THIS very curlous specimen of ancient musical taste 
is to be found among the miscellaneous collection of 
early French antiquities preserved in the Louvre. 
The blade of the knife 1s of steel, upon which is en- 
eraved the “ Blessing of the Table,” or Grace before 
Meat, which may be hterally translated thus :—“* What 
we are about to take, may Trinity in Unity bless. 
Amen.” This is accompanied by the musical notes of 
the bass part only, so that there must have been a set 
of four or five knives, upon each of which the other 
parts necessary to make the composition complete were 
engraved. 

From the character of the musical notes, and the 
general appearance of the ornamental work that em- 
bellishes it, we should be inclined to fix the date of 
this knife somewhere about the latter half of the six- 
teenth century, when a taste for music was so uni- 
versally felt, and its practical study so commonly 
exercised, that nearly every person with any pretension 
to respectability or a good education could play on 
some instrument, or at least bear a part in a madrigal 
or other composition. Not to be able to do so would 
imply the disgrace of ignorance, or a culpable neglect 
of the necessary accomplishments of good society. 
This relic is a curious confirmation of this fact, and 
of the extent to which such feeling was carried. 


We may just remark, in conclusion, that the orna- | 


mental portion of the blade is (like Mrs. Quickly’s 
eoblet) “ parcel-gilt ;’ that is, gilt on the raised parts 


of the work. The handle is of ivory, upon which is | 


carved a running sprig. 


Chemical Principles of the Rotation of Crops.—Those plants | 


ought to succeed each other which contain differeut chemical 
iugredients, so that the quantities of each which the soil at any 
given time contains may be absorbed in an equal ratio. Thus a 
productive crop of corn could not be obtained without the 
phosphates of lime and magnesia, which are present in the grain, 





nor without the silicate of potass, which gives stability to the 
stalks. It would be injudicious, therefore, to sow any plant 


' that required much of any of the above ingredients, immediately 


after having diminished the amount of them present i the soil 
by a crop of wheat or of any other kind of corn. But, on the 
other hand, leguminous plauits, such as beans, are well calculated 
to succeed to crops of corn, because they contain no free alkalis, 
and less than one per cent. of the pliosphates. They thrive, 
therefore, even where these ingredients have been withdrawn, 
and during their growth afford time for the ground to obtain a 
fresh supply of them by a further disintegration of the subjacent 
rock. For the same reason, wheat and tobacco may sometimes 
be reared in succession in a soil rich in potass, because the latter 
plant requires none of those phosphoric salts which are present 11 
wheat. In order, however, to proceed upon certain data, it 
would be requisite that an analysis of the plants most useful to 
man should be accomplished in the different stages of their 
growth, a labour which has hitherto been only partially under- 
taken. It is a cunous fact that the same plant differs in con- 
stitution when grown in different climates. Thus, in the beet- 
root, nitre takes the place of sugar when this plant is cultivated 
in the warmer parts of France. The explanation of this differ- 
ece is probably as follows :—Beet-root contains, as an essential 
ingredient, not only saccharine matter, but also nitrogen; and it 
is probable that the two are mutually so connected together in 
the vegetable tissue that the one cannot exist without the other. 
The nitrogen, being derived from the decomposition of ammonia, 
must be affected by any cause which diminishes the supply of 
the latter; and in proportion as this ingredient is wanting, the 
secretion of sugar will likewise fall off. Now, it has been shown 
by Liebig that the formation of nitric acid is owing to the de- 
composition of ammonia; and it is conceived by him that the 
last products of the decomposition of animal bodies present 
themselves in the form of ammonia in cold climates, and in that of 
nitric acid in warm ones. Hence, in proportion to the amount of 
nitric acid formed, and of nitre absorbed by the plant, that of 
the nitrogen, and, consequently, that of the saccharine matter 
present in it may be diminished.—Lectures on Agriculture, by 
Dr. Daubeny, Sibthorpian Professor of Rural Economy in the 
University of Oxford. . 


He that does not know those things which are of use and 
necessity for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he 
may know beside.—Zilotson. 


1841. } 


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4] 


[The Franklin and the Merchant.} 


CHAUCER’S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE FRANKLIN. 


Tue name of the class to which this luxurious respect- 
able old gentleman, this ‘“ Epicurus’ owen son,” be- 
longs, is derived from the word frank, free, that 1s to 
say, the Franklin was one who held his lands imme- 
diately from the king, paying homage, but free from 
all feudal services or payments. And a person of .con- 
siderable dignity and importance he must have been at 
and prior to the period of Chaucer. In the ‘ Metrical 
Chronicle’ of Robert de Brunne (thirteenth century), 
he is placed in very high companionship indeed: that 
learned monk writes, there 


‘¢ Was mad an other statute, that non erle, ne barotn, 
No other lord stoute, ne fraunkelyn of toun, 
Till holy kirke salle gyue tenement, rent, no lond,” &c. 


We necd not, therefore, be surprised to find Chaucer’s 
Franklin filling the distinguished offices of sheriff and 
knight of the shire; still less to find that he can afford to 
keep what, in modern parlance, might almost be called 
‘open house.” The dress of the Franklin, according to 
the duke of Sutherland’s manuscript, was a surcoat 
of red lined with blue, with bars or stripes of fringe 
or lace over it. He wore a small blue hat turned 
up, and black boots. For the rest, let Chaucer him- 
self speak : ) 


‘¢ White was his beard as is the dayesy. 
Of his complexién he was sanguine ; 
Well lov’d he by the morrow a sop in wine. 


No. 580. 


To liven in delight was ever his wone,* 
For he was Epicurus’ owen son; 

That held opinién that plam delight 

Was verilv felicity parfite. 

Aun householder, and that a great was he, 
Saint Julian he was in his countrée. 

His bread, his ale, was always after one, 

A better envyned} man was nowhere none. 
Withouten bak’d meat never was his house, 
Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous, 

It. snewed, in his house, of meat and drink, 
Of allé dainties that men could of think, 
After the sundry seasons of the year: 

So changéd he his meat and his suppér. 
Full many a fat partridge had he in mew, 
And many a bream, and many a lucef in stew. 
Woe was his cook, but if his saucé were 
Poignant and sharp, and ready all his gear. 
His table dormanté in his hall alway, 
Stood ready cover’d all the longé day. 

At sessi6ns there was he Jord and sire ; 
Full often time he was knight of the shire. 
An anlace,|| and a gipciere,@ all of silk, 
Hung at his girdle, white as morrow mik, 
A sheriff had he been, and a countour ; 
Was nowhere such a worthy vavasour.” 


145 


Saint Julian, to whom the poet has likened the 
Franklin, was a saint who enjoyed particular reputa- 


+ That 
t Pike. 


* Custom. 
is to say, a man having a better store of wize. 
§ Never moved, fixed. 


- || A kind of knife or dagger generally worn at the waist in 


Chauce7’s time. 


Purse. 


Vou. X.—U 


146 THE PENNY 
tion as an admirable caterer for his votaries in the 
matters of good living, good lodgings, and, in short, 
pood things of all kinds. In some of the old legends, 
Simon, the leper, at whose house our Saviour lodged 
in Bethany, is called “ Julian, the good herberow.’ 
In the ‘ Legend of Saint Julian,’ a manuscript of the 
sixteenth century, in the Bodleian Library, occur the 
following as the concluding Lines :— 


“ Therefore yet to this day they that over land wend, 
They biddeth Saint Julian anon that good herberw he them 
send 
And Saint Julian’s Pater-noster oft sayeth also, 
For his father’s soul, and his mother’s, that he them bnng 
thereto.” 


Travellers and their lodgings, indeed, appear to have 
enjoyed the saint’s especial protection,—to have formed 
the principal objects of his care; for in the tale of 
Beryn* he is invoked to revenge a traveller who had 
been treacherously used at the place where he had 
been staying. 

The last two lines-of Chaucer’s description have 
caused his commentators much perplexity. Contour 
has been supposed to mean coroner, and Warton, in 
his ‘History of Poetry, adopts that reading, and illus- 
trates 1t by remarking that it was an office “anciently 
executed by gentlemcn of the greatest respect and 
property.” The Chaucer MSS. all read countour or 
comptour, and this last reading appears to us to explain 
its meaning. Compteur is the French word for an ac- 
countant or reckoner. Robert of Gloucester, speaking 
of the summoning of a hundred court by the constable 
of Gloucester castle, says, 


“He held this hundred mid great folk and honour, 
And Adam of Arderne was his chief contour.” 


Chaucer’s Franklin was probably, hke Adam of 
Arderne, the “chief contour” or steward of the hun- 
dred to which he belonged, and officiated on all such 
‘great public occasions. The meaning of the word 
vavasour 1s also a matter of doubt. Tyrrwhitt con- 
siders it to mean the entire class of middling landlords, 
among which there was “nowhere such a worthy” man 
as our Franklin. 

From this period the class appears to have gradually 
sunk in rank and influence, though still distinguished 
for its wealth. A century later, Sir John Fortescue, 
the preceptor of Edward IV. and chancellor to Henry 
VI., writing during the reign of the former, states 
that “Iengland is so thick spread and filled with rich 
and landed men, that there is scarce a small village in 
which you may not find a knight, an esquire, or somc 
substantial householder, commonly called a frankleyne ; 
all men of considerable estates. Lastly, we may ob- 
serve that by the time of Elizabeth the Franklin must 
indeed have “fallen from his high estate,” for Shak- 
spere to have spoken disrespectfully of him; yet so it 
1S i— 

“Let Boors and Franklins say it, I'l) swear it,” 
exclaims the Clown, in the ‘ Winter’s Tale.’ 

‘“ Boors and Franklins!” Is it come to this! The 
“Saint Julian in his countrée,” the lord at sessions, and 
the knight in parhament, all degraded into such vile 
companionship! their very existence forgotten in the 
vile indistinguishable horde of “boors and franklins !” 
But worse was to follow. Two centuries and a half 
more have elapsed, and the very name sounds strange 
to us. “ Boors” yet flourish, but the franklins arc no- 
where to be found, except in the pages of Chaucer. 
Well, there at least they are insured an everlasting 
asylum. 


a One of the stories told by the travellers on their return 
from Canterbury, in a work written as a continuation of Chau- 
cers great work, by a poet of the fifteenth century. 


MAGAZINE. 


[ApRiL 17, 


KENDAL AND THE VALE OF KENT. 


In No. 453 of the ‘Penny Magazine’ some account 
was given of two very considerable valleys, those 
of the Eden and the Lune; the first-named river after- 
wards passing off towards the north-west through the 
entire extent of Cumberland, and the latter, aftcr tra- 
versing the northern part of Lancashire, afew miles 
below the ancicnt borough of Lancaster, falls into 
Morecambe Bay. Between these two rivers, as they 
respectively diverge to the right and to the left, les an 
extensive, wild, and mountainous region, interspersed, 
however, with some fine fruitful and interesting val- 
leys, among which, and by far thc most noted and ex- 
tensive one, 1s that of the Vale of Kent. 

This valley.is not, however, of any very large extent, 
neither is the rivcr which lends its name to it a large 
one, but it is that which falls into the head of More- 
cambe Bay (just within the southern confines of this 
county), and whose channel along this part of Miln- 
thorpe Sands forms a rather intricate navigation for 
small coasting vessels during spring-tides, the only 
sea-borne vessels that can approach the county of West- 
moreland.* 

The river Kent has its source in that lofty range of 
mountains which separates the waters which flow north- 
ward into the secluded lakes of Ulswater and Haws- 
water from those that flow fo the southward and form 
this river, as well as those that fall into the beautiful 
lake of Windermere ; this portion of the dividing ridge 
of mountain is known to the travellcr who climbs these 
lofty ascents in search of the picturesque, under the 
names of High Street, Kirkstone, and Harter Fcll. 
But from this lofty mountain-region, running east and 
west for many miles, commencing towards the east at 
Shap Fells, and thence contmuing westward until 
broken up into those pyramidal rocks called Langdale 
Pikes—several diverging spurs or ridgcs (like ribs 
from the spinal bone) project out either way, with deep 
narrow valleys shut in between them: and it is down 
one of these (Kentmere), and probably the longest of 
the whole, that this infant stream first receives the 
name of Kent. But though the whole of the valley is 
called Kentmere, as 1f embosomed within it slumbered 
some lake of considerable size, all that it can boast of 
in this way consists of a piece of water no larger than 
such as are frequently, in this part of the country, 
known by the less imposing name of farms, such a one 
being found midway down the valley. 

But what may be considered as the more legitimate 
river Kent—for these mountain-streams are little more 
than what are commonly called becks in some of the 
northern counties—commences but a mile or two north 
of the town of Kendal, and 1s formed by the junction of 
three respectable-sized streams—the Kentmere branch 
being the most westerly one ; the Mint, the one flowing 


* Milnthorpe is a small market-town, but in ancient writings 
usually denominated a sea-port. It is situated a mile from the 
head of the estuary, on a little river called the Bela, which, after 
entering the sands, soon falls mto the channel of the Kent. The 
coasting vessels plying from hence to Lancaster, Ulverston, 
Whitehaven, and Liverpoo), caunot approach the town, but un- 
load their cargoes into carts and waggons at low-water, whence 
they are carted to some small storehouses built along the shore, 
and called Sand-side, or, frequently without the trouble of un- 
loading, to their destination at once (the greater part being in- 
tended for Kendal); but the Lancaster canal, which has been 
completed as far as Kendal for upwards of twenty years, has 
greatly mterfered with the traffic of the few small trading vessels, 
the goods being shipped in larger vessels direct to Lancaster, and 
from thence sent by canal to Kendal. 

There is another small river, called the Lythe Beck, or some- 
times the Poo, which unites its waters with the Kent a little 
above the head of the estuary; but this, like the Bela, beccimes 
part of the Kent; the head of the bay bemg but from one to two 


| miles across. 


1841. ] THE PENNY 
farthest from the east; and Long Sleddale Beck form- 
ing the centre branch. The source of the first of these 
has been already mentioned; the most easterly branch 
rises in that dreary waste called Fawcett Forest; aud 
the third rises in the same range of mountains with the 
first, and waters a long narrow valley running parallel 
with Kentmere. There are some other small tributa- 
ries, the principal one watering the valley of Staveley, 
and rising within a mile or two of Windermere ; but 
the rest are of little importance. Indeed, after the junc- 
tion of the three branches already spoken of, there is not 
any other stream or beck worthy of notice until the river 
enters the head of Morecambe Bay, as already stated. 

Kendal—commonly written Kirkby-Kendale, that 1s, 
the church in the dale of the Ken or Kent (in the time 
of the Romans called Can)—although not the county 
town, is and has long been by far the most important 
place in Westmoreland. Under the Reform Bull, Ap- 
pleby, the county town, was deprived of its ancient 
privilege of returning members to parliament, and 
Kendal was enfranchised, and now returns one. The 
county lost one member by the passing of the afore- 
said bill; it formerly returned four, whereas it now 
only returns three. Kendal was among the ancient 
boroughs, enjoying corporate rights, and under the 
jurisdiction of a mayor and twelve aldermen; and 
has on several occasions given titles to persons of dis- 
tinction. It is not, nor does it appear ever to have 
been, a place capable of offering much resistance to an 
armed force; for, notwithstanding that the river Kent 
bounds it towards the east from one extremity of the 
town to the other, the ground rises abruptly all along 
the west side, leaving a narrow strip between the river 
and the hill (upon which the town stands), so that the 
town is overlooked and completely commanded by this 
high ground (called the Banks) from one extremity to 
the other. Notwithstanding its distance from “ the 
Borders,” it has often suffered from the incursions of the 
Border clans. It was visited, in November, 1715, and 
again in the same month in 1745, by the Scotch rebels; 
and on the latter occasion Prince Charles Edward 
Stuart and his adherents spent two nights here, the in- 
termediate day happening to be Sunday. 

It has long been a place of considerable trade, par- 
ticularly in the manutacture of coarse woollen goods, 
oddly enough known by the name of Kendal cottons. 
Linsey-woolseys, another peculiar sort of goods, were 
formerly manufactured here in considerable quantities, 
and worn almost universally by the female part of the 
peasantry of the surrounding country. So earlyas the 
reign of Edward IJII., a Flemish manufacturer of the 
name of Kemp came over and settled here; and 
shortly afterwards several weavers arrived from the 
same country and settled here also, Ever since that 
period, up to the present time, a more extensive trade 
has been carried on here in coarse woollen goods than 
in any other town of the four most northerly counties 
of England, Carlisle even not excepted ; and although, 
through the aid of improved machmery, the manufac- 
turers have been enabled to improve and in some 
degree vary their original line of business, yet it is 
still for the most part the coarse long wool, the pro- 
duce of the flocks of mountain sheep in the neighbour- 
ing districts, upon which the manufacturing part of 
the population is employed. Less than forty years ago 
vast numbers of the inhabitants of the surrounding 
dales and valleys, and parts of the country situated at 
the distance of fifteen or twenty miles, were employed 
by the Kendal wool-staplers and hosiers in knitting 
worsted stockings, when liberal wages were paid to the 
knitters; but for twenty years this business of stock- 
ing-knitting has been almost entirely laid aside, and 


MAGAZINE. 


147 


the West Indies, and Guernsey frocks for the use of 
the navy. Of later years a finer branch of manufac- 
ture has been introduced into Kendal, namely, Valentia 
waistcoating, which has already obtained a high repu- 
tation amongst that description of goods. During a 
considerable period the woollen cloths made here, and 
dyed green, maintained some celebrity; but at length 
more permanent greens were discovered, and -the 
Kendal greens fell into comparative neglect. How- 
ever, 1f the historians of past ages are to be depended 
upon, the Kendal archers were noted bowmen, and 
always clothed in the manufactures of the place; and 
at one period were clad in the snow-white cloths that 
were manufactured here. At the battle of Flodden 
Field the Kendal archers are spoken of as being clad 
in white ; as also appears to have been the case with 
them on other occasions where we find them mentioned. 

The appearance of the town is not very striking, 
from whatever point it is viewed. It consists of one 
long street running north and south, which is some- 
what curving as well as undulating, and hence the 
view is never very extensive. There are also several 
short streets and lanes, leading to the foot of the Banks 
on the one hand, and to the river on the other, besides 
a tolerably good street which branches off from the 
maim one towards the north-east, and along which is 
the route which leads the mail-coach road across the 
river Kent, and thence towards the north. There are 
three bridges across the river; until lately there was 
but a very small suburb on the opposite side, but for 
the last twenty years houses have been occasionally 
springing up; and till within a few years the parish 
church and a small chapel in the market-place 
were the only places of worship belonging to the 
Established Church; but two new churches have re- 
cently been added to the number. For the number of 
inhabitants, however, the different religious sects that 
have chapels or meeting-houses are very numerous; 
the Friends or Quakers constitute a leading sect in the 
town. The parish church is one of the largest build- 
ings of the same sort in England; and the parish itself 
is remarkably extensive, extending twelve or thirteen 
miles from north to south, and ten or eleven miles from 
east to west; and what is still more remarkable, there 
are thirteen or fourteen chapels-of-ease at a distance 
from the town, in various parts of the parish, to most 
of which small endowments are attached,. the vicar of 
Kendal having the presentation to the whole of them, 
with one or two exceptions. 

On the east side of the river, at the distance of three- 
quarters of a mile from the town, are the ruins of a 
strong castle named after the town. The site is a very 
remarkable one, for although a level plain surrounds 
it, the ruins occupy the summit of a hill of consider- 
able elevation, but so regularly shaped, bemg the 
longer segment of an ellipse, that 1t seems far more 
hke an artificial mound than a natural one. It was 
here that Catherine Parr, one of the wives of bluff 
King Henry VIII., was born; but the building has 
been in a state of decay for more than ‘wo centuries ; 
and the present ruins only indicate its original strength 
by the thickness of the wails that still remain; but the 
extent to which it may have reached at an early period 
may at present be more easily conjectured than deter- 
mined. On the opposite side of the town, upon the 
Banks, is an artificial mound called Castle How, but 
whether it is the remains of some old Roman fort, or 
a work of more recent date, seems never to have been 
satisfactorily decided; but that there was a Roman 
station, the Cancangium of the Notttia, about a mile 
from Kendal, at a place that now bears the name of 
Watercrook, 18 very certain; and some remains of 


the few persons who are now employed in knitting, | Roman military works are there still visible. 


knit coarse scarlet caps for the negro population of 


The houses are built of stone (limestone princi- 


148 THE PENNY 
pally), and covered with blue slate; and in the prin- 
cipal streets are substantial and respectable-looking 
buildings: the stones are quarried in the banks above 
the town, and the slate is found in the mountains to 
the west and the north, at a distance of from twelve to 
twenty miles. Though the size has increased within 
the last fifty or sixty years, the population has appa- 
rently increased still more. ‘Twenty-two years ago, 
the Lancaster canal was opened to this town, which 1s 
a source of great convenience both to the town and 
surrounding country; and the inhabitants are flatter- 
ing themselves at present with the hope that the rail- 
road, which has already reached Lancaster (twenty-two 
miles distant), will ultimately pass near to Kendal, in 
preference to crossing Morecambe Bay; but neither 
route seems as yet determined upon. In the year 1784 
the population was 7571; in 1811 it was 8759; and in 
1831 it amounted to 11,301. 

The vale or valley of Kent, properly so called, in 
the vicinity of Kendal, is little more than a mile across 
the bottom of it, and probably about five miles across 
from ridge to ridge. Following the valley downwards 
to the extreme head of Morecambe Bay, it is about 
eight miles; and here it opens out to a somewhat in- 
definite width, for the bounding hills are no longer of 
considerable elevation; and although it may not be 
the most fertile, it certainly is one of the best culti- 
vated districts in the county. No portion of the river 
is navigable until it enters the Sands; and although it 
may then be considered as having lost its original cha- 
racter, still down the bay to the distance of ten or 
twelve miles, the guide that pilots the traveller across 
the sands when the tide is out, points out to him a 
slowly stealing current, which has to be forded, as “ the 
channel of the Kent.” From Kendal to tide-water 
there 1s a very considerable descent, the river running 
with a lively current over a bright gravelly bottom ; 
but about four miles below the town it is hemmed in 
by immense shelving rocks, beneath some of which, 
for a space, it nearly disappears. A little below this 
place the rocks run obliquely across the whole channel 
of the stream, so that a cataract, not quite perpendi- 
cular, of twelve or fourteen feet, is: formed. It is, 
however, of so precipitous a nature as to prevent the 
salmon (which are found in Levens park, immediately 
below the waterfall, in great numbers) from getting 
farther up the river; and the writer of this article has 
many a time sat on the opposite bank watching their 
vain attempts to surmount the difficulty. 

There are several old manor-houses along this part 
of the valley, which in their time have been places 
of teresting consideration; but the only two that 
continue to attract the traveller’s notice are Sizergh 
Hall or Castle, belonging to Thomas Strickland, Esq., 
and Levens, the property of the Hon. Col. Howard. 
The former of these mansions is situated in a park 
west of the road leading from Kendal to Milnthorpe; 
and the latter, also on the west side of the same road, 
and almost immediately adjoining the river Kent, 
where it is crossed by a handsome ivy-bound bridge: 
the park, which is large and well stocked with deer, 
and containing some of the most splendid ornamental 
trees in the county, is situated on the contrary side of 
the high road, and through its entire length is divided 
into two parts by the river Kent. Levens, or Levens 
Hall, is a very antient mansion, and has evidently 
undergone alterations in its style of architecture from 
time to time, but it has never been materially mo- 
dernized. 

About a mile south cf Levens is the pretty little 
rural village of Heversham (the name of the parish in 
which both Levens and Milnthorpe are situated), and 
the site of a handsome country church. The village 
is situated along the lower extremity of a hill of mo- 


MAGAZINE. 


[APRIL 17, 


derate elevation, called Heversham Head, which 
standing alone in the lower section of the valley of the 
Kent, from its summit a view of every part of the 
valley is commanded, and even in some directions far 
beyond the range of its collateral branches. At about 
one-third of the ascent of the Head from the village 
stands a venerable building apart from any inhabited 
dwelling, and almost secluded from public gaze bya 
few wide-spreading sycamore trees. This building is 
the endowed grammar-school of Heversham, and 
though somewhat humble in appearance, it is tolerably 
well endowed ; and here have been educated several 
individuals of eminence in the different walks of lite- 
rature ; of those that are gone, a single instance need 
only to be mentioned—the late Bishop Watson, and, 
without. attempting a longer list of the living genera- 
tion, Professor Whewell, will suffice as an example. 
Still nearer to the head of Morecambe Bay, and near 
what may be considered the southern extremity of the 
Vale of Kent, is the beautiful modern mansion of 
Dallam Tower, the residence of George Wilson, Esq. 
It is situated on the tributary stream the Bela; and 
although the mansion stands rather low, some beautiful 
views are commanded from the various eminences 11n- 
mediately adjoining, in an extensive park that is well 
stocked with deer. , Near to this elegant residence are 
the woods in which a colony of rooks and another of 
herons once waged a remorseless war, but which now 
for many years have lived on excellent terms; for an 
account of which see ‘Penny Magazine,’ No. 511. 


A great means of happiness ‘is, a constant employment for a 
desirable end, and a consciousness of advancement towards that 
end, , 


Japanese uses of the Fan.—Neither men nor women wear hats, 
except as a protection against rain: the fan is deemed a suffi- 
cient guard from the sun; and perhaps nothing will more strike 
the newly-arrived European than this fan, which he will behold 
in the hand or the girdle of every human being. Soldiers and 
priests are no more to be seen without their fans than fine ladies, 
who make of theirs the use to which fans are put in other coun- 
tries. Amonst the men of Japan it serves a great variety of pur- 
poses: visitors receive the dainties offered them upon their fanis ; 
the beggar, imploring charity, holds out his fan for the alms his 
prayers may have obtained. The fan serves the dandy in heu 
of a whalebone switch; the pedagogue, instead of a ferule for 
the offending schoolboy’s knuckles; and, not to dwell too long 
upon the subject, a fan, presented upon a peculiar kind of 
salver to the high-born criminal, is said to be the form of an- 
nouncing his death-doom ; his head is struck off at the same 
moment as he stretches it towards the fan.—Svebold’s Manners 
and Customs of the Japanese. 


Charge of Indian Cavalry.—The most important part of the 
Hindu battles is now a cannonade. In this they greatly excel, 
and have occasioned heavy loss to us in all our battles with 
them: but the most characteristic mode of fighting (hesides 
skirmishing, which is a favourite sort of warfare) is a general 
charge of cavalry, which soon brings the battle to a crisis. No- 
thing can be more magnificent than this sort of charge. Even 
the slow advance of such a sea of horsemen has something in it 
more than usually impressive; and, when they move on at 
speed, the thunder of the ground, the flashing of their arms, the 
brandishing of their spears, the agitation of their banners rushing 
through the wind, and the rapid approach of such a countless 
multitude, produce sensations of grandeur which the imagina- 
tion cannot surpass. Their mode is to charge the front and the 
flanks at once; and the manner in which they perform this ma- 
nceuvre has sometimes called forth the admiration of European 
antagonists, and is certainly surprising in an undisciplined body. 
The whole appear to be coming on at full speed towards their 
adversary’s front, when, suddenly, those selected for the duty at 
once wheel inwards, bring their spears by one motion to the side 
nearest the enemy, and are in upon his flank before their inten- 
tion is suspected. ‘These charges, though grand, are ineffectual 
against regular troops, unless they catch them in a moment of 
confusion, or when they have been thinned by the fire of cannon 
—Mr. Elphinstone’s History of India. 


1841.] 














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[Cowrer and his Localities.—Cowper, from a Portrait engraved in Knight’s ‘Gallery of Portraits.” At the upper right-hand corner, a view of the 


Poet’s birth place, Berkhamstead; and above it, Ruins of Olney Church, and Cowper’s House in the Market-place, Olney. 


‘* Summer-house,” and the ‘‘ Three Leverets.’’| 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. 
COWPER. 


CowPenr, one of the most popular of English poets, and 
a most delightful letter-writer, was born at the rectory 
of Great Berkhamstead in Hertfordshire, on the 15th of 
November (old style), 1731. His father, Dr. Cowper, 
was chaplain to George IJ., and his grandfather, Spen- 
cer Cowper, one of the judges of the court of Common 


At the bottom, the 


Pleas. By the mother’s side Cowper was connected 
with the poet Donne’s family, and with the several 
noble houses of West, Knollys, Carey, Bullen, Howard, 
and Mowbray, and so by four different lines with Henry 
IIL, king of England. Berkhamstead, the poet's birth- 
place, is a town of considerable interest. The Mercian 
kings had a palace here, as had also the first of the 
Plantagenets, who granted to the inhabitants peculiar 
liberties and exemptions. In after-times two royal 


150 THE PENNY 
favourites possessed the honour and castle, which was 
attached to the earldom of Cornwall: Piers Gaveston, 
in the reign of Edward IJ., and Robert de Vere, in 
that of Richard IJ. During the last few years of her 
miserable life, Cicely, duchess of York, and the mother 
of the last of the Plantagenets, resided here. The 
poet’s recollections of this place were saddened by the 
loss of his mother, who died at Berkhamstead whilst 
he was yet but in his sixth year. One of the most 
beautiful of his minor poems records his feelings on 
that occasion. 

Nearly fifty years after her death, he writes—“ Nota 
week passes (perhaps I might with equal veracity say 
not a day) in which I do not think of her: such was 
the impression her tenderness made upon me, though 
the opportunity she had for showing it was so short.” 

Cowper was now placed at a boarding-school at 
Market Street in the same county, kept by a Dr. Pit- 
man, where he suffered much from the cruelty of an 
elder boy. His savage treatment, he says, impressed 
such a dread of his figure on his mind, that he was 
afraid to lift his eyes upon him higher than his knees ; 
and he knew him better by his shoe-buckles than by 
any other part of his dress! No inconsiderable portion 
of that frightful malady which in after-years so fre- 
quently made life intolerable to him, may probably be 
ascribed to this important era of the poet’s life. Two 
years were spent at this school, when, being threatened 
with blindness, he was removed to the house of an 
oculist, where he spent two years more ;'and although 
he remained through life lable to an occasional in- 
flammation of the eyes, they grew so much better, 
that he was enabled to enter Westminster School at the 
age of ten. Here he remained for eight years, during 
which time he acquired among his contemporaries the 
character of an accomplished scholar. Among those 
contemporaries he formed some close intimacies, and 
with men destined to acquire a poetical reputation 
only inferior to hisown. There was Lloyd, the author 
of the poem called ‘ The Actor,’ written with ease, 
vigour, and critical discrimimation; Colman, the 
author of the ‘ Jealous Wife,’ and of one of the 
best translations of Terence in the language; and 
Churchill, the satirist, and author of the ‘ Rosciad,’ a 
man of still higher power. On leaving Westmin- 
ster, Cowper was articled to a solicitor, in whose office 
he had for a fellow-clerk Thurlow, afterwards lord- 
chancellor. ‘“ There was I and the future lord- 
chancellor,” he says in a letter to his dear friend and 
cousin Lady Hesketh, ‘‘ constantly employed from 
morning to night in giggling and making giggle, in- 
stead of studying the law.” On leaving this office, he 
entered the Middle Temple; in 1754 he was called to 
the bar, and in 1759 received the appointment of a 
commissioner of bankrupts. Whilst here he fell in 
love with his cousin Theodora Cowper, the sister of 
Lady Hesketh, who reciprocated his affection. This 
circumstance forms one of the most interesting epi- 
sodes of Cowper’s history. The lady’s father appears 
to have first looked on with a favourable eye, .but 
afterwards to have peremptorily forbidden the con- 
nection, assigning no other reason than the impro- 
priety of marriage between persons so nearly related. 
In all probability he saw the incipient insanity which 
broke out shortly afterwards, and therefore was com- 
pelled to act as he did, and submit at the same time to 
the misconstruction which his conduct produced :—he 
could not tell Cowper what he feared. From that 
time the two cousins never met; although the affair 
left on her mind at least an ineffaceable impression. 
Many years afterwards, when his circumstances were 
not very good, he was accustomed to receive from time 
to time gifts from an anonymous correspondent; who 
that was, no one can doubt: Cowper himself playfully 


MAGAZINE. 


thanked Lady Hesketh (Theodora’s sister) for these 
gifts, on the ground that as it was “ painful to have 
nobody to thank,” he must constitute her his “ Thanks- 
receiver-general.”’ 

During his residence in the Temple he became a 
member of a club called the ‘ Nonsense Club,’ con- 
sisting entirely of men educated at Westminster School, 
and comprising Bonnell Thornton and Colman, the 
principal writers of the ‘ Connoisseur,’ to which Cowper 
contributed some papers, as well as Lloyd, and other 
distinguished men. 

In 1763 the offices of clerk of the journals, reading 
clerk, and clerk of the committees in the House of 
Lords, all became vacant, and Cowper was offered the 
two last by his cousin Major Cooper, “the patentee of 
these appointments.” They were hurriedly but grate- 
fully accepted ; and at the same moment he felt, as he 
states, that he had“ received a dagger in his heart.” 
The offices required that he should frequently appear 
before the House of Lords, which he felt was a matter 
of impossibility to one of his retired nervous excite- 
able temperament. So he begged his relative to give 
him, instead of these offices, the office of clerk of the 
journals, an appointment of much inferior value ; 
which was done. But some opposition had been raised 
from the first as to the right of nomination by Major 
Cooper; and, to his poor relative’s horror, it was de- 
cided that the latter should appear at the bar of the 
house to be examined as to fitness. From thismoment 
his state of mind was most pitiable: quiet, he says, 
forsook him by day and peace by night. He looked 
forwards with a sort of desperate satisfaction to the 
time when the ravages of the mental disease that was 
preying upon him should render it impossible for him 
to be subjected to the terrible examination; and at 
last, finding that event approach too slowly for his 
purpose, he made several attempts to commit suicide. 
There is nothing on record more painful in the history 
of any of our great men than in Cowper’s own account 
of these lamentable events. Ultimately the office was 
resigned on the very day appointed for the examina- 
tion, and Cowper was immediately removed to St. 
Alban’s, where he was placed under the care of Dr. 
Cotton. The form of Cowper’s madness was that of 
religious madness: he believed that he was cut off 
from all hope of “grace” in this world and salvation 
in the next. After astay of eighteen months at St. 
Alban’s, he was apparently cured; but from 1773 to 
1776, for half of the year 1787, and for a considerable 
portion of the last six years of his life, he again ex- 
perienced all the unutterable miseries of his awful 
malady. 

On leaving St. Alban’s, Cowper took up his resi- 
dence at Huntingdon, in order that he might be near 
to a younger brother then at Cambridge. This 1s the 
place praised by Henry of Huntingdon (who derived 
his name from it) for the convenience of the fens just 
by, and for its great advantages of fishing and hunting. 
“Tt surpassed,” he adds, “all the neighbouring towns 
in the pleasantness of its situation, and in its hand- 
someness and beauty.” Cowper gives a somewhat 
different account of it. ‘We have neither woods nor 
commons, nor pleasant prospects; all flat and insipid ; 
in the summer adorned with blue willows, and in the 
winter covered with a flood.” ‘ Yet,” says he else- 
where, “the longer I live here, the better I like the 
place, and the people who belong to it.” These last 
words explain the secret. He here met with the Unwin 
family, to a member of which, Mrs. Unwin, England 
is possibly indebted for one of its best poets. With 
them he took up his residence, and, on the death of 
Mr. Unwin, in 1767, removed with his widow to Olney 
in Buckinghamshire. In making that place their re- 
sidence, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin had been influenced 


[APRIL 17, 


1841. ] THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 151 


by their esteem for Mr. Newton, the then curate of 
Olney. Mr. Newton, a man of great moral worth and 
powerful mind, was of the class called Evangelical, and 
to his guidance Cowper gave himself almost entirely 
up. When we consider Mr. Newton’s own remark 
upon himself—“I believe my name is up about the 
country for preaching people mad!’—we need not 
wonder at the injurious consequences which Cowper 
derived from this “sincere but injudicious friend.”* 
The poet’s life for the next few years was spent in 
a state of almost continual religious excitement ; nor 
were matters improved when Mr. Newton induced him 
to join in the composition of the ‘Olney Hymns,’ which 
the former was then preparing, for in 1772 came on 
the second attack of insanity, which lasted no less than 
four years. About the expiration of that time, Mr. 
Newton removed from Olney ; and Cowper was induced 
by Mrs. Unwin to begin writing a poem, that lady 
giving him for a subject ‘The Progress of Error; and 
thus was produced his first important poem, and at 
the age of forty-five! ‘ Truth,’ ‘ Table-Talk,’ and ‘ Ex- 
postulation’ immediately followed. Of the ‘Table- 
Talk’ he says, in a letter to Mr. Newton, dated Feb- 
ruary 18, 1781, “It is a medley of many things; some 
that may be useful, and some that, for aught I know, 
may be very diverting. Iam merry that I may decoy 
people into my company, and grave that they may be 
the better for it. Now and then I put on the garb of 
a philosopher, and take the opportunity that disguise 
procures me to drop a word in favour of religion. In 
short, there is some froth, and here and there a bit of 
sweetmeat, which seems to entitle it justly to the name 
of a certain dish the ladies call a trifle. JI did not 
choose to be more facetious, lest I should consult the 
taste of my readers at the expense of my own appro- 
bation ; nor more serious than I have been, lest I should 
forfeit theirs. . . . . Whether all this manage- 
ment and contrivance be necessary I do not know, but 
am inclined to suspect that if my muse was to go 
forth clad in Quaker colour, without one bit of riband 
to enliven her-appearance, she might walk from one 
end of London to the other as little noticed as if she 
were one of the sisterhood indeed.” 

In another letter* Cowper thus describes his fa- 
vourite retreat at Olney, the place in which he com- 

osed a considerable portion of his poems :—‘‘I write 
ina nook that I call my boudoir. It is a summer- 
house, not much bigger than a sedan-chair, the door of 
which opens into the garden, that is now crowded with 
pinks, roses, and honey-suckles, and the window into 
my neighbour’s orchard. . . . Having hned it with 
rarden mats, and furnished it with a table and two 
chairs, here I write all that I write in summer-time, 
whether to my friends or to the public. It 1s secure 
from all noise, and a refuge from all intrusion.” Tere, 
too, when disinclined for literary labour, he was ac- 
customed to amuse himself with the freaks of three 
leverets, which he breught up with great care, and the 
last of which he lost only through old age, after twelve 
years’ companionship. He has immortalized these 
animals in prose and in poetry, English and Latin ; 
they have been represented in prints, and engraved on 
seals, and Cowper's account of them contains more in- 
teresting matter on the natural history of that timid 
but playful race than had ever before been contri- 
buted. 

The poems before mentioned, together with some 
others written subsequently, were published in 1782, 
and another voluine, containing the ‘Task,’ in 1785. 
This poem was, as is well known, commenced at the 
suggestion of another of Cowper's female friends; Lady 
Austen, to whom we are also indebted for the famous 


* Southey. + To J. Hill, Esq. 


| 


ballad of ‘John Gilpin.’ The translation of Homer was 
begun in 1784, and published in 1781. During its pro- 
gress, Cowper had changed his residence from Olney 
to Weston, a neighbouring village, where was the seat 
of Sir George and Lady Throckmorton, who paid ihe 
most marked attention to the poet. By thus time his 
reputation had become firmly established. An amus- 
ing proof that poets, if not prophets, are sometimes 
honoured in their own country, is furnished by one of 
Cowper’s delightful letters to Lady Hesketh :—“‘ On 
Monday morning last Sam brought me word that there 
was a man in the kitchen who desired to speak with me. 
I ordered him in. A plain, decent, elderly figure 
made its appearance, and, being desired to sit, spoke 
as follows :—‘Sir, I am clerk of the parish in All 
Saints, in Northampton, brother of Mr. Cox, the up- 
holsterer. It is customary for the person in my office 
to annex to a bill of mortality, which he publishes at 
Christinas, a copy of verses. You will do me a great 
favour, sir, if you will furnish me with one.’ To this 
I replied,— ‘ Mr. Cox, you have several men of genius 
in your town, why have you not applied to some of 
them? There is a namesake of yours, in particular, 
Cox, the statuary, who, every person knows, Is a first- 
rate maker of verses. He, surely, is the man of all 
the world for your purpose.’ ‘ Alas! sir, I have here- 
tofore borrowed help from him, but he is a gentleman 
of so much reading, that the people of our town cannot 
understand him !’ I confess to you, my dear, I felt all the 
force of the compliment implied in this speech, and was 
almost ready to answer, Perhaps, my good friend, they 
may find me unintelligible for the same reason. But, 
on asking him whether he had walked over to Weston 
on purpose to implore the assistance of my muse, and 
on his replying in the affirmative, I felt my mortified 
vanity a little consoled, and, pitying the poor man’s 
distress, which appeared to be considerable, promised 
to supply him. The waggon has accordingly gone this 
day to Northampton, loaded in part with my effusions 
in the mortuary style. A fig for poets who write 
epitaphs upon individuals. I have written one that 
serves two hundred persons.” 

Almost immediately after the completion of the 
translation of Homer, he undertook to superintend a 
new and splendid edition of Milton’s works. In 1792, 
for the first time for twenty years, he took a journey 
from home, in order to pay a visit to Hayley, at Kar- 
tham, in Sussex, a place of which Cowper says, “ I had, 
for my part, no conception that a poct could be the 
owner of such a paradise.” He was, however, soon 
elad to get home again. The symptoms of his disease 
were continually recurring, and in the beginning of 
1794 he was again afflicted with all its worst horrors. 
He removed from place to place, till he stayed at East 
Dereham, in Norfolk, where the faithful companion 
and most devoted nurse of so many years, Mrs. Unwin, 
died. Three dreary years followed, when Cowper 
followed her to the grave, on the 25th of April, 1800. 
He was buried in St. Edmund’s chapel, Dereham 
church; a very ancient collegiate edifice, of which 
Bonner was once the incumbent. . 

One of the most curious circumstances attending 
Cowper's malady was the unerring Judgment he ex- 
hibited on all matters unconnected with religion,—the 
continual stream of playful humour running through 
his correspondence, at all but the very darkest periods 
of his life. Thus, in 1793, whilst he was suitering 
both by day and by night from what he called his “ ex- 
perieuces” (which appear to have been insane dreams 
that possessed him between sleeping and waking), 
“such terrors as no language could express,” and no 
heart but his own ever knew, he wrote a letter 
to Hayley, in which he describes a dream of avery 
different kind, in the followmg exquisite manner :-— 


152 


“Oh, you rogue, what would you give to have such a 
dream about Milton as I had about a week since? I 
dreamed that, being in a house in the city, and with 
much company, looking towards the lower end of the 
room from the upper end of it, I descried a figure, 
which I immediately knew to be Milton's. He was 
very gravely but very neatly attired in the fashion of 
his day, and had a countenance which filled me with 
those feelings that an affectionate child has for a be- 
loved father ; such, for instance, as Tom has for you. 
My first thought was wonder where he could have been 
concealed so many years ; my second, a transport of Joy 
to find him still alive; my third, another transport: to 
find myself in his company; and my fourth, a resolu- 
tion to accost him. JI did so, and he received me with 
a complacence in which I saw equal sweetness and 
dignity. I spoke of his ‘ Paradise Lost’ as every man 
must who is worthy to speak of it at all, and told him 
a long story of the manner in which it affected me when 
I first discovered it, being at that time a school-boy. 
He answered me by a smile and a gentle inclination 
of his head. He then grasped my hand affectionately, 
and, with a smile that charmed me, said, ‘ Well, you 
for your part will do well also.’ At last recollecting 
his great age (for I understood him to be two hundred 
years old), I feared that I-might fatigue him by too 
much talking, I took my leave, and he took his, with 
an air of the most perfect good-breeding. His person, 
his features, his manner, were all so perfectly charac- 
teristic, that I am persuaded an apparition of him 
could not represent him more completely.” Who can 
read this, and resist the conclusion that judicious 
management of its author at an earlier period would 
have greatly lessened the miseries of his unhappy life, 
if it could not have altogether prevented them! 

Yet, “sad as Cowper’s story is, itis not altogether 
mournful,” says his admirable biographer, Southey ; 
‘““he had never to complain of injustice nor of injuries, 
nor even of neglect. Man had no part in bringing on 
his calamity, and to that very calamity which made 
him ‘ leave the herd’ like ‘a stricken deer’ it was 
owing that the genius which had consecrated his 
name, which has made him the most popular poet 
of his age, and secures that popularity from fading 
away, was developed in retirement; it would have 
been blighted had he continued in the course for which 
he was trained up. He would not have found the way 
to fame unless he had missed the way to fortune. He 
might have been happier in his generation, but he 
could never have been so useful; with that genera- 
tion his memory would have passed away, and he 
would have slept with his fathers, instead of livin 
with those who are the glory of their country and the 
benefactors of their kind.”* 


MUTUAL INTERESTS OF ENGLAND AND 
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


Out of every hundred foreign vessels which enter the 
ports of the United States of America, above eighty are 
from the United Kingdom and its dependencies, the 
number in 1836 having been 3510 (544,774 tonnage), 
and from all other countries 611. Nearly 1000 
vessels sail yearly direct from the United Kingdom 
to the United States, and about 800 arrive direct 
in our ports under their star-spangled banner. The 
ships from our shores are chiefly freighted with manu- 
factured goods, and the aggregate value of their car- 
goes 1s about 9,000,000/. annually. In 1838 the United 
States took more than any other country of our wool- 
lens, linens, silks, hardwares and cutlery, wrought and 
unwrought iron and steel, and several other articles; 


* ¢Life;” voliieene.o Lae 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[ApRiL 17, 


and we send them annually about one-sixth of our ex- 
ported produce and manufactures. On the other hand 
we are the best customers for their domestic produce. 
Above six-tenths of their exports consist of cotton and 
tobacco, and in 1840 we took from them 453,000,000 
bls. of the former and. about 28,000,000 lbs. of the 
latter. We should take a still larger proportion of 
their agricultural produce, if the importation of ‘ bread- 
stuffs’ were not prohibited except under conditions 
which render the. démand uncertain. 

In 1740 the imports of New York from Great Bri- 
tain. were 72,390/., and the exports amounted to 
171,0007.; but im 1836 the value of the imports in that 
city was estimated at 23,000,000/., of which, in that 
year, probably above 11,000,000. consisted of British 
manufactures and commodities. A century ago these 
States, which now contain a population of sixteen mil- 
hons, enjoying more abundantly than any other people 
the means of comfort and luxury, did not amount to 
one million ; and in 1860 there can be little doubt that 
their numbers will exceed thirty millions, for the wild 
lands of the ‘far west,’ consisting of the most fertile 
soil-in the world, admit of a vast increase of popula- 
tion; and until these lands are cultivated, the laws 
which limit the increase of the people in older coun- 
tries will-not be called into operation in the United 
States. These sixteen millions of our American 
brethren are already better customers for our manu- 
factures than France and Germany with a population 
of seventy millions, and as the latter countries are ap- 
proaching or have reached a state in which the pro- 
gress ‘of manufactures 1s more strikingly displayed 
than that of agriculture, they are becoming our rivals, 
while in the United States industry is most profitably 
employed in developing the resources of agriculture, 
and we, by our advancement in non-agricultural in- 
dustry and arts, may materially assist them in the 
rapid creation of wealth from the cultivation of the 
soll. No policy can be truer to the best interests of 
both countries than that which tends to encourage 
their mutual commercial dependence; but strong as 
are the ties which unite them, their intercourse might 
be on a still grander scale. The following facts show 
the proportions in which their commercial interests 
are blended :—1, In 1821 the proportion which the 
trade with England bore to the whole foreign trade of 
the United States was 35 per cent., and in 1835 it was 
41 percent. 2, The proportion which the trade with the 
United States bore to the whole foreign trade of Eng- 
land was 17 per cent. in 1821, and 22 per cent in 1835. 
In 1805 the proportion -was 28 per cent., but in the in- 
terval our aggregate trade with all other countries 
had increased in a greater ratio than that with the 
United States. 3, The proportion of British to 
American shipping which entered the ports of the 
United States averaged 94 per cent. annually from 
1822 to 1830, but from 1831 to 1836 the average was 
doF per cent. 

The suspension of friendly relations between these 
two great countries has recently been a topic of dis- 
cussion. Could anything be more absurd and wicked 
than a war between then? Whatever political mis- 
understandings may have arisen, let them be settled by 
the calm decision of reasonable men in both countries, 
aud not by a senseless destruction of property and 
resources, which, after exhausting the strength of both 
parties, would probably still leave the subject of quar- 
rel a bone of contention. We trust that both in Eng- 
land and America the silent influence of the friends of 
peace will put down the noisy clamour of what is 
called the ‘war party,’ which appears to consist of only 
a small number of braggadocios. 


1841. | THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 153 






































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THE CID.—No. VI. 


“ Dead the king Don Sancho heth,— 
Lo! where round his body kneel, 
Sorely wailing, knights and nobles, 
All the flower of Castille. 
But my Cid Rodrigo Diaz 
Most of all his loss doth feel. 


Tears adown his cheeks come trickling 
As he thus in grief doth say,— 

‘Woe is thee, my king, my lord! 
Woe! woe for Castille that day, 

When, in spite of me, Zamora 
Leaguer’d was with this array ! 





Neither God nor man he feared, 
Who to this did counsel thee; 
Who did urge thee thus to trespass 
"Gainst the laws of chivalry.’ ” 





Then, turning to the surrounding nobles, he 
proposed that a challenge should be sent to 
Zamora before the sun went down. This he, 
by reason of his oath, could not offer, but it 
was undertaken by Diego Ordonez, the flower of 
the renowned house of Lara, “who had been 
wont to lie at the king’s fect.” He rode up 
to the walls of the city, and cried with a loud 
voice,— 


‘ Le q 
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Hy 


Y 
NN Why 2 
Ws Ga 3 
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“‘¢ Lying hounds and traitors are ye, 
All who in Zamora live ; 
For within your walls protection 
To a traitor ye do give. 


No. O31. 





154 


Those who shelter lend to traitors, 
Traitors are themselves, I trow ; 

And as such I now impeach ye, 
And as such I curse ye now. 


Cursed be your wives and children! 
Cursed be your babes unborn! 
Cursed be your youth, your aged— 

All that joy, and all that mourn! 


Cursed eke be your forefathers, 
That they gave ye life and breath! 
Cursed be the bread, the water, 
Which such traitors nourisheth ! 


Cursed be men, women, children! 
Cursed be the great, the small! 

Cursed be the dead, the living— 
All within Zamora’s wali ! 


Lo! I come to prove ye traitors— 
Ready stand I on this plain 
Five to meet in single combat, 
As it is the wont in Spain.’ 


Out then spake the Count Gonzalo— 
Ye shall hear what he did say :— 

‘What wrong have our infants done ye ? 
What our babes unborn, I pray ? 


Wherefore curse ye thus our women ? 
Why our aged and our dead? 

Wherefore curse our cattle? wherefore 
All our fountains and our bread ? 


Know that for this foul impeachment 
Thou must. battle do with five ?’ 
Answer made he, ‘ Ye are traitors— 

All who in Zamora live? ” 


Then said Don Arias, ‘‘ Would I had never been 
born, if it be in truth as thou sayest; nevertheless, I 
accept thy challenge, to prove that itis not so.” Then, 
turning to the citizens, he said, “‘ Men of great honour 
and esteem, if there be among ye any who hath had 
aught to do with this treachery, let him speak out and 
confess it, and I will straightway quit this land, and go 
in exile to Africa, that I may not be conquered in 
battle as a traitor and a villain.” 

With one voice all replicd, 


“¢ Fire consume us, Count Gonzalo, 
If in this we guilty be! 
None of us within Zamora 
Of this deed had privity. 


Dolfos only is the traitor ; 

None but he the king did slay. 
Thou canst safely go to battle— 

God will be thy shield and stay.’ ”’ 


Though the Infanta with tears besought Don Arias 
to regard his hoary head, and forego so perilous an 
emprisc, he insisted that he and his four sons should 
accept the challenge, “because he had been called ‘a 
traitor.” 

<Deem it littie worth, my lady, 
That I go forth to the strife ; 


For unto his lord the vassal 
Oweth wealth, and fame, and life. 


The combat which ensued brings to mind the de- 
scription given by Sir Walter Scott, in his ‘ Fair Maid 
of Perth,’ of old Torquil and his sons im the battle be- 
tween the Highland clans Chattan and Quhele. We 
must not, however, omit to notice a romance which 
describes the knighting of Pedro, one of the sons of 
Don Arias, previous to the battle. It tells us that 
after he had watched his arms before the altar, mass 
was sung by the bishop, who also blessed each picce 
of armour cre it was donned, and that the young 
Squire was then dubbed by his father, who added some 
knightly counsel :— 


+99 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


| speaking their own languages, and retaining 


[APRIL 24, 


“ ¢Rise a knight, son of my bosom ! 
A knight of noble race thou art 5 
That God make thee all thou shouldst be, 
Is the fond wish of my heart. 


True and upright be to all men ; 
Traitors shun thou and despise ; 
Of thy friends be thou the bulwark— 

Terror of thine enemies; 


Firm in trial, bold in peril, 
Mighty in the battle-field. 

Smite not, son, thy vanquish’d foeman, 
When the steel he cannot wield ; 


But as long as in the combat 
He doth lance or sword oppose, 
Spare thou neither thrusts nor slashes, 
Be not niggard of thy blows.’ ” 


The “fond wishes” of the old Count were, alas! soon 
disappointed, for on the first encounter with Don 
Dicgo Ordonez, Pedro Arias was slain. Such was also 
the fate of his two brothers Diego and Hernan, but 
the latter, when mortally wounded, struck Don Dicgo’s 
charger, which, furious with pain carried his rider 
out of the lists, so that the umpires declared it to be a 
drawn battle. 

Bravely did the old Count bear up against his heavy 
loss, as is shown by a short but beautiful romance 
which describes the funeral procession of one of his 
sons. In the midst of a troop of three hundred horsc- 
men was borne the corpse, i a wooden coffin : 


‘‘ Five score noble damsels wail him, 
Of his kindred every one; 
Some an uncle, some a cousin, 
Some bewail a brother gone. 


But. the fair Urraca Hernando, 
Deepest is her grief, I ween.” 


This was probably his true love, or it might have 
been the Infanta herself, who was his foster-sister. 
“How well,” says the romance, “doth the old Arias 


Gonzalo comfort them !” 


“‘¢ Wherefore weep ye thus, my damsels ? 
Why so bitterly bemoan ? 
In no tavern-brawl he perish’d ; 
Wherefore then so woe-begone ? 


But he died before Zamora, 
Pure your honour to maintai ;— 
Died he as a knight should die, 
Died he on the battle-plain.’ ” 


It does not appear that Arias Gonzalo or his sons 
were in any way guilty of the treacherous murder of 
the king Don Sancho. Suspicion would rather attach 
to the Infanta Urraca, who, according to the Chronicle, 
had promised Bellido Dolfos whatever he might ask, 
if he would cause the siege to be raised. On the 
ultimate fate of this miscreant, further than that he 
was imprisoned by Don Arias, both Chronicle and 
romances are wholly silent. 


[ee 


THE SPRING FAIR AT PESTH, HUNGARY. . 
(From Spencer’s Travels in Circassia.] 


As I happened to be at Pesth during the great spring fair, I was 
not only provided with ample materials for amusement, but an 
opportunity of secing the motley population of natives and 
strangers which are usually attracted on this occasion; for 
though the Magyars, who have given their name to Hungary, 
are the greatest landed proprietors, and hold the reius of go- 
vernment, yet they are inferior in numerical force to the Sclavo- 
nians (or Totoks), the original inhabitants. These are divided 
into at least half'a dozen separate tribes, each speaking a different 
patois; and if to them we add the colomes of Germans, Walla- 
chiaus, Greeks, Armenians, French, Italians, Jews, aud Guipsies, 
heir uational man- 


1841. ] THE PENNY 


mers, customs, and religious, we may term Hungary a miniature 
picture of Europe. 

My first lounge was through the fair, which afforded as many 
groups for the painter as for the observer of life and manners. 
The Babel-like confusion of tongues was endless; and the cos- 
tume and appearance of the motley tribes could not have been 
equalled in variety by any other fair in Europe, or even by the 
most entertaiming maskers that ever trod the Piazza San Marco, 
or the Corso at Romine; because here each performed his natural 
character. The most prominent figures in the group were ever 
the proud Magyars, particularly those just arrived from the pro- 
vinces. The dress of some of these noblemen was indeed singu- 
lar, consisting of a tight sheep-skin coat, or mantle, the woolly 
side inwards; while the other was gaudily embroidered al] 
over with the gayest fiowers of the parterre, in coloured silk, 
among which the tulip was ever the most prominent. Those 
whose wealth permitted it, were to be seen habited in their half- 
military, half-civil costume; and you might in truth fancy from 
their haughty demeanour, that you were beholding a feudal lord 
of our own country of the middle ages, as, mounted on their fiery 
steeds, and armed with sword and pistols, they galloped through 
the parting multitude, upon whom, when the slightest interrup- 
tion occurred, they glanced with scorn and contempt. 

Among crowds of Jews, Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Tyroliaus, 
Germans, Sclavonians, Italians, and Hungarian peasants, were 
groups of gipsies, their black matted locks shading their wild 
sunburnt countenances, exhibiting their dancing-dogs, bears, and 
monkeys, or playing a lively tune for the amusemeut of the sur- 
rounding multitude, these itimerants being the popular musicians 
of Hungary. In another part of the fair, mountebanks on ele- 
vated platiorms were relating the exploits of the famous robber 
Schrubar in the great forest of Bakony; or the ravages com- 
mitted by the dreadful monster, half-serpent, halt-flying dragon, 
that lately rose out of the Balaton Lake, together with the most 
veritable history of the reappearance of the renowned Merman, 
who had inhabited, for the last two years, his own extensive do- 
main, the Hansag marshes. All these astonishing marvels, 
besides hundreds of others, were hstened to by the peasants not 
only with attentive ears, but open mouths, and were illustrated 
by paintings as large as life, depicting the extraordinary wonders, 
executed in a style which set all imitation at defiance. 

Bread, cakes, cheeses, vegetables, &c. were heaped on high in 
the streets, with the owners of each separate pile squatted in the 
midst. The savoury odour of frying sausages attracted some 
gourmands; whilst others feasted on the lighter refreshments of 
pastry which the accomplished cwsiziers were preparing for their 
gratification. But the popular viand was evidently the cray- 
fish, which all ranks, however otherwise engaged, were iices- 
santly consuming; nor did they in this manifest any deficiency 
in goiit, as the flavour of the little dainties was really excellent, 
aud J have rarely seen them exceeded in size. Indeed, to thread 
the mazes of this great Hungarian fair, so as to obtain a view of 
its rarities, was an undertaking of no little difficulty, on account 
of the immense pyramids of wool, hides, tobacco, and other raw 
materials, which ever stood in the way; and as these articles 
were most tempting bates to the cupidity of the Jewish traders, 
they might constantly be seen making use of all their cajoling 
eloquence, while prevailing upon the artless peasant to dispose 
of his wares at a price little more than nominal. When, how- 
ever, the case was reversed, and the gaudy merchandise of the 
Jew and Armenian traders induced the peasant to become a pur- 
chaser, the balance of trade was cousiderably against him. 

But, perhaps, of all the groups over which my eye wandered, 
none more strongly arrested my attention than the Saxon colo- 
nists: these were attired in the same costume in wluch their 
ancestors, some centuries gone by, had emigrated from their 
father-land, their blue eyes and heavy quiet countenances form- 
ing a striking contrast to the vivid glances of the half-Asiatic 
people around them. Nor were their moral traits less distinctly 
defined ; for the prudent German, well knowing he was in the 
society of some of the most accomplished pickpockets ou the 
Continent, wisely determined that they should uot prey upon 
him; he did not once remove his haud from his pocket, while 
his good woman never failed to keep watch behind, attended by 
her little ones, who, on the approach of the half-wild gipsy, 
titnidly covered their flaxen heads in the many folds of mam- 
ma’s cumbrous petticoat. 

I would, above all things, recommend every traveller who 
may visit Pesth during the spring fair, not to leave it without 
taking a morning’s ramble through the town. He will then see 
thousands of men, women, and children lying about the streets, 


MAGAZINE. 155 


beneath the piazzas, or in the numerous barks on the river, with 
no other covering save the canopy of Heaven and ‘hen own 
sheep-skin mantles: he will also, still more to his surprise, be- 
hold them anointing their persons with lard, in order to protect 
themselves during the day from the effect of heat, and the bites 
of vermin and insects. 





In wonder all philosophy began; in wonder it ends; and 
admiration fills up the interspace. But the first wonder is 
the offspring of ignorance; the last is the parent cf adoration, 
— Coleridge. 





Cottages of Bengal.—The cottage of Bengal, with its trim 
curved thatched roof and cane walls, is the best looking in In- 
dia, Those of Hindoostan are tiled, and built of clay or unburnt 
bricks; and though equally convenient, have less neatness of 
appearance, The mud or stone huts and terraced roofs of the 
Deccan village look as if they were mere uncovered ruins, and 
are the least pleasing to the eye of any. Farther south, though 
the material is the same, the execution is much better; and the 
walls, being painted in broad perpendicular streaks of white and 
red, have an appearance of neatness and clearmess,—Mr. Elphin- 
stone's History of India, 


Value of Thread for Lace.—The exquisitely fine thread which 
is made in Hainault and Brabant, for the purpose of being worked 
into lace, has occasionally attained a value almost incredible. 
A thousand to fifteen hundred francs is no unusual price for it by 
the pound; but some has actually been spun by hand of so ex- 
quisite a texture as to be sold at the rate of ten thousand francs, 
or upwards of 4002. for a single pound weight. Schools have 
been established to teach both the netting of the lace and draw- 
ing of designs by which to work it; and the trade at the preseut 
moment is stated to be in a more flourishing condition than it 
has ever been known before, even in the most palimy days of the 
Netherlands. —Mr. Kmerson Tennent’s Belgium. 


Game of Football, 1 Holborn or the Strand.—If the mob 
round the pillory was safely passed, there was another mob often 
to be encountered. Rushing along Cheapside, or Coveut Gar- 
den, or by the Maypole in the Strand, came the football players. 
It is scarcely conceivable, when London had settled into civili- 
zation, little more than a century ago—when we had our famed 
Augustan age of Addisons and Popes—when laced coats, and 
flowing wigs, and silver buckles ventured into the streets, and 
the beau prided himself on 

c The nice conduct of a clouded cane,—"’ 


that the great thoroughfare through which men now move “ in- 
tent on high designs” should be a field for football :— 
‘‘The prentice quits his shop to join the crew ; 
Increasing crowds the flying game pursue.” 
This is no poetical fiction. It was the same immediately after 
the Restoration. D’Avenant’s Frenchman thus complains of the 
streets of London :—“ I would now make a safe retreat, but that 
methinks I ain stopped by one of your heroic games, called 
football ; which I conceive (under your favour) uot very conve- 
niently civil in the streets, especially in such irregular and nar- 
row roads as Crooked Lane. Yet it argues your courage, much 
like your military pastime of throwing at cocks. But your 
mettle would be more maguified (since you have long allowed 
those two valiant exercises in the streets) to draw your archers 
from Finsbury, and during high market let them shoot at butts 
in Cheapside.” It was the saine in the days of Elizabeth. To 
this game went the sturdy apprentices, with all the train of 
idlers in a motley population; and, when their blood was up, 
as it generally was in this exercise, which Stubbes calls “a 
bloody and murthering practice, rather than a fellowly sport or 
pastime,” they had little heed to the passengers ni the streets, 
whether they were passing by— 
“nn velvet justice, with a long 
Great train of blue coats twelve or fourteen strong ;” 
or a gentle lady on her palfrey, wearing her “ visor made of 
velvet.” The courtier, described in Hall, had an awful chance 
to save his  periwinke ” in such an encounter, when, with his 
¢ bounet vail’d,” according to the “ courtesies’ of his time, 


“ Travelling in along London way” 
he has to recover his “auburn locks” from the “ ditch” that 
crosses the thoroughfare.—Londov. 
NS 9 
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156 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 





[APRIL 24, 


ee ee Se 


———— 
oS ne —— ee 
SS 





(Source of the Ravensbourne.) 


RAILWAY RAMBLES. 


THE RAVENSBOURNE RIVER. 


WEET, fresh, and balmy as are 








pee the breezes, fair the skies, and 

an, al a) ¢ +4" : = f 
mS RRC tender the foliage of the young- 
Ko =O Es est and gentlest of the seasons, 
TSS S Spring, yet how few of us seem 
fof: SWS to appreeiate its peculiar love- 

opt e 
nS Oras | liness; how few of us hurry 
Pe, SPT PRLP NV ae ° . ° 

Ea Ae Wy ‘\* forth to enjoy it where alone it 
WRG RAS Be can be enjoyed, by the green 
“sete Oy fields and hedgerows, or on the glorious 


» of the golden blossoms of the furze. The 
proverbial uncertainty of the season 1s 
probably the chief cause of its being so 
neglected ; in fact, it must be owned that 
Spring is sometimes little better than a 
name with us: to-day it 1s summer, come 






ria 


Sep before its time; to-morrow winter, still 
eee) lingering when we thought we had fairly 
cates eot rid of him for another year. But the 


less of the real spring we have, the more 
surely should we enjoy it when it is ours. Then let us 
not lose this bright morning, which seems to promise 
a beautiful day, but, leaving the town “ buried in 
smoke and sleep,” 
«“ Wander o’er the dewy fields, 
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops 
From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze 
Of sweetbriar hedges we pursue our walk.” 


The Ravensbourne rises on Keston Common, near 
the border of Surrey, and flows northward past the town 
of Bromley and the village of Lewisham, and between 
the towns of Greenwich and Deptford, into the Thames. 
It turns several mills, and supphes Greenwich and 
Deptford with water by means of waterworks. It is 
navigable for nearly a mile up to Deptford Bridge for 
lighters and other small craft. The whole length of 
the Ravensbourne is about ten miles. The head of the 
Ravensbourne shall be our starting-point ; its course 


from thence to the Thames at Deptford, our course: 
from Deptford we can return to the great town again 
by the Greenwich Railway, for we propose in these 
Rambles to use that magnificent mode of locomotion 
in whatever way may be most convenient to us, or to 
those who, interested in the scenes described, or the 
associations with which these scenes are connected, 
may honour us by personally wandering through the 
same routes. We therefore make no apology for com- 
mencing with a ramble zo the railway before-men- 
tioned, or in leaving the Elephant and Castle by the 
older, slower, but more picturesque conveyance. So 
the Tunbridge Wells coach sets us down by one of 
the lodge gates of Holwood Park, thirteen miles from 
London; from thence a road leads to Keston Cross, 
where there is a well-known inn, standing, it 1s sup- 
posed, on the site of some old cross, and which, with its 
host and ostler, has been commemorated by Hone in 
some of the rambles about London described in his 
‘Table-Book.” At Keston Cross we turn to the left, and 
pass along a road bordered by wild-looking park plan- 
tations, where the graceful and feathery birch 1s seen 
rising toa considerable height, its slender stems frosted 
as it were with silver. Atashort distance, the road, 
which has been gradually rising, opens upon a heath 
spreading away to a considerable distance on the right; 
on the left is Holwood Park, with the beautiful lodge, 
and in front the suminit of the eminence known as 
Holwood Hill. Just at the foot of this hill the heath 
opens into a long hollow, where first we find the source 
of the Ravensbourne, and then three large artificial 
ponds formed by its waters. Beyond the latter its 
stream 1s so small as to be imperceptible to the 
eye as it flows through some broad meadows par- 
tially screened by plantations. Among the other fea- 
tures of this beautiful place, we must not omit to 
notice one of those picturesque objects, so charac- 
teristic of an English landscape, the windmill on the 
heath on our left, and the distant hills, yet bathed 
in the purple light of the morning, of Norwood 
and Forest Hill, beside which the great metropolitan 
dome may be often seen in front, and Shooter’s Hill, 
Chisellurst, &c. to the mght. The history or tradition 


1841.] 


THE*PENNY MAGAZINE. 


157 


of the origin of the Ravensbourne is thus described by | near its top into a concealed trough, and then into the 


Hone :—‘* When Ceasar was encamped here, his troops | first of the ponds. 


eee | ea 
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LMill, Keston Common.] 


were in great need of water, and none could be found 
in the vicinity. Observing, however, that a raven fre- 
quently alighted near the camp, and conjecturing that 
it was for the purpose of quenching its thirst, he ordered 
the coming of the bird to be watched for, and the spot 
to be particularly noted. This was done, and the 
result was as he anticipated. The object of the raven’s 
resort was this little spring ; from thence Cesar derived 
asupply of water for the Roman legions; and from the 
circumstance of its discovery, the spring was called the 
Raven’s bourne or brook.” The water was formerly 
in great repute for its medicinal virtues, and was used 
to bathe in. Till about the commencement of the 
present century there was a bathing-house, overhung 
with some very beautiful trees. The spring and the 
heath then formed the great objects of attraction to the 
gentry and other residents of the neighbourhood for 
some miles round: ona bright summer day, Keston 
Common (as the heath is called) might often be seen 
dotted, as it were, with parties of people, the gay cos- 
tume of the ladies contrasted upon the brown heath, 
and the air ringing with the sounds of laughter and 
music. The crystal waters of the Ravensbourne now 
rise into the circular basin shown in our engraving, 
through small holes with which its bottom is entirely 
pierced : .from the basin they flow through an opening 


iy ye + 
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Mi dake eae 
= 1 Mh Se vera abe? ‘: a 


tat) a 


vextensive pleasure-grounds, and small cottages 


7 Cn-e.”: 





Jt never stops, never dries up; it 
flows to-day as it flowed two thousand years ago, when 
Cesar saw it bubbling up almost concealed in the 
brown heath. The Roman camp referred to in the 
tradition yet remains, for a part of its course, in excel- 
lent preservation. We pass towards it through Hol- 
wood Park, along a fine wild-looking dell known as the 
‘Vale of Thorns,” which leads up to the beautiful 
mansion of Holwood: before reaching the latter, how- 
ever, we turn off to the left, where we presently find 
ourselves upon the outer of the three banks or bastions 
of earth which defended it, all now surmounted by 
lines of trees. The shape was irregular, and appears 
to have followed the course of the ground, which here 
forms a large elevated terrace. There is httle doubt 
but this was the Roman station of Noviomagus. Ro- 
man bricks and tiles have been continually turned up 
by the plough, coms found, &c. Holwood House 
stands on the site of the mansion formerly inhabited 
by William Pitt, and in which, we have been informed, 
he had a room almost entirely hung round with the 
chief political caricatures of the day that had been 
levelled at him. An oak, with a short but immensely 
thick trunk, in the park, is known as Pitt’s Oak: its 
shade was a favourite spot with hin. The present 
mansion of Holwood is very handsome and large, and 
commands from its eastern front a most extensive and 
charming valley, bounded in the distance by the hills 
about Seven Oaks and Knowle. 

From Keston Common, on and near which we have 
been so long tarrying, we walk across the fields into the 
high road towards Hayes, which presently takes us 
through another heath, also glowing with golden blos- 
soms, and which some of the numerous flock of sheep 
interspersed abroad are nibbling off (dainty epicures) 
with a gusto that must gladden the heart ofa poet to 
behold. The heath is soon exchanged again for a 
high road, but it is a very pleasant one, and bordered 
by a luxuriant foliage most of the way, and 


“¢ Kvery copse 
Deep tangled, tree irregular, and bush 
Bending with dewy moisture o’er the headg 
Of the gay choristers that lodge within, 
Are prodigal of harmony.” 


their 
with 


Beautiful mansions too, here and there, with 


a Ns A 1 5 
teat aye © ie \ 


- 
* te 
sg tt nt 
> ee Fat 
« -"Shrt 
Be ei ay 
(Figee. 


fe ay 
of Fs wore 
at oe ? 
4 


(Yew-treé in Ifayes Churchyard.) 


158 


their little garden-plots in front, attract the eye, and 
remind us that summer monopolizes not all those 
beautiful tribe which form the poetry of the soil. 
Along the “blushing borders” we see— 


« The daisy, primrose, violet blue, 
And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes ; 
The yellow wall-flower, stauv’d with iron-brown, 
And lavish stock that scents the garden round ; 
From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed, 
Anemones; auriculas, enriched 
With shining meal, o’er all their velvet leaves ; 
And full ranunculus of glowing red.” 


The principal attraction of Hayes is its connection 
with the Pitt family, the elder having built the house, 
and the younger having been born here. Where they 
lived, the rooks, cawing so obstreperously in the trees 
Which overhang the lofty wall on our left, tell us 
plainly enough. So attached was the great Earl of 
Chatham to the place he had built and adorned, that 
having sold it in 1766, when some other estate came 
into his possession, he could not rest till he had re- 
purchased it, which he succeeded in doing in 1768. 
All the latter years of his life were spent here, the im- 
provement of Hayes forming his chief occupation. 
The church opposite is a curiously old and patched 
building—flints, bricks, and stone huddled together ; 
old windows closed up here, and new ones opened 
there. After Chatham’s funeral, the flags used on that 
occasion were set up in Hayes Church, and there left 
till they rotted away. No vestige of them, no tablet, 
no inscription, reminds you, as you walk through the 
church, of the distinguished man, who had doubtless so 
often worshipped in it. The churchyard is quite a 
model of the rustic old English burial-place, with its 
long luxuriant grass, and quiet-looking pleasant as- 
pect. In the corner is a magnificent yew, the entire 
body of which is gone, leaving but a mere shell split 
into two or three parts, yet putting forth a noble 
array of branches and leaves, as though it had but now 
reached its prime. Of its age we should not like to 
venture even a guess, it must be so very old. We 
have given a representation of this tree in the pre- 
ceding page. 


(To be concluded in an early number.} 


POST-OFFICE DISPATCH IN 1717 AND IN 
1841. 


THE RAILWAY POST-OFFICE. 


Tue General Post-Office in London, if viewed in rela- 
tion with the system of which it is the focus and centre, 
is one of the most interesting establishments in the 
metropolis. That system, directed and conducted 
within those extensive ranges of apartments and spa- 
cious offices, is so complete in its organization, that it 
maintains not only the means of communication with 
every part of the habitable globe, but also, when called 
upon, with any individual in any part of it, and that 
with a rapidity and certainty truly admirable. In a 
couple of weeks a letter committed to its care is safely 
delivered in New York, or, in six weeks, at Bombay ; 
and thus distant communities and individuals, separated 
from cach other by half the circumference of the globe, 
are assisted in their mutual co-operations, and may 
combine their efforts in the most advantageous manner 
in all those commercial undertakings which are so 
essential to the happiness and prosperity of civilized 
nan. : 

he machinery in daily operation in London for 
aifording the means of communication with other parts 
of the United Kinedom, could only perform its re- 


quired functions by great energy and activity and the | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(APRIL 24, 


most admirable division of labour. On a Saturday, 
when the number considerably excceds the average of 
other days, there are not far short of a hundred thou- 
sand letters and as many newspapers dispatched, and 
nearly the whole of them are received after five o'clock. 
They are collected from about two hundred and seventy 
receiving-houses, situated within a distance of three 
miles, and from above two hundred others beyond that 
distance, but within a circle of twelve miles of the 
Gencral Post-Office. The letters posted in the outer 
circle are brought in on horseback and in mail-gigs, 
and those from the inner circle by mail-carts, or by 
the letter-carriers, about two hundred and seventy in 
nunber, who go with a bell through their respective 
districts and collect the letters which were too late for 
the receiving-houses, and afterwards hurry off with 
them to the General Post-Office. There are several 
branch offices, centrically situated in different parts of 
the metropolis, which do not close until six, and the 
letters posted there do not reach the principal office 
until about twenty minutes past six. The boxes at the 
central office close also at six, but a very large number 
of letters are received from that hour until seven, on 
payment of one penny; and a small number from 
that time until half-past seven for the fee of six- 
pence. Thus the great exertions for effecting the 
dispatch of the mails are crowded into the two or three 
preceding hours, during which the Inland Office is a 
scene of extraordinary bustle and activity. The ap- 
pearance of the large hall through which the pubhe 
pass is lively and animated heyond description, and 
those who cannot obtain a sight of that which 1s pass- 
ing within the interior, will be interested by the scene 
which is presented without, especially at afew minutes 
before six, when files of newsvenders’ men and boys 
are incessantly arriving with their sacks, and the letter- 
boxes are still more numerously thronged. The mo- 
ment of closing the letter-boxes and newspaper window 
(except on payment of a fee) has only become “‘a scene” 
or “a sight” since the reduction of the stamp-duty on 
newspapers, in 1836, and the adoption of the uniform 
rate of postage. Since the former of these periods the 
circulation of the London newspapers (one-third of 
which are sent into the country) has increased 35 per 
cent., and the number of letters, since January, 1840, 
has increased above 150 per cent. 

Fach of the hundred thousand letters 3s, in the first 
instance, placed with the address uppermost, and is 
then stamped by hand at the rate of two hundred per 
minute. They are then sorted into masses, according 
to the great lines of road, at the rate of thirty per 
minute, and often three hundred persons are employed 
in afterwards sorting them for each of the seven hun- 
dred places for which bags are made up. The news- 
papers merely require to be faced and sorted, and the 
uniform rates of postage, instead of the complex system 
of charges by distances, have greatly facilitated the 
business connected with the dispatch of the mails, 
IXivery letter and newspapcr, however, passes more than 
once through the hands of the sorters; but, at the ap- 
pointed time, to the very minute, the work is finished, 
and the bags are sealed. They are placed im large lea- 
thern sacks, and, as the clock strikes eight, are dragged 
into the Post-Office yard, and put into the mails and 
mail-carts. Since so large a bulk of the correspondence 
of the kingdom has been conveyed by railway, the bags 
have been taken to the railway stations by omnibuses, 
and nine of these vehicles now stand on the spot where 
the old Edinburgh, the Glasgow, the Holyhead, the 
Manchester, Liverpool, and other “ crack” mails of the 
day once drew up with their gallant teams. The total 
weight of the newspapers and letters dispatched on a 
Saturday night, and including the bags, 1s above eight 
tons, and we should imagine that at least five tons 


1841.] 


arc dispatched by railway Each newspaper weighs, 
on an average, two ounces, and newspapers consti- 
tute between sixty and seventy per cent. of the total 
dispatches, the letters about tweuty per cent., and the 
bags make up the remainder of the weight. 

The north of England, the whole of Scotland, and 
the greater part of Ireland, with parts of Wales, are 
connected with London by means of the Birmingham 
Railway ; and four out of the nine omnibuses or post- 
office accelerators are loaded with the correspondence 
for those parts of the country and for Birmingham 
and intermediate and collateral places; three proceed 
to the station of the South-Western Railway, with the 
correspondence for all parts of Hants and the western 
counties ; and the correspondence for Bristol and in- 
termediate and surrounding places, also for South Wales 
and the south of Ireland, is conveyed in two omnibuses 
to the station of the Great Western Railway at Padding- 
ton. Two accelcrators await the arrival of the morning- 
mails at each of the three stations, and bring the bags, in 
the care of guards, to the General Post-Officc. The ac- 
celerators in connection with the Birmingham Railway 
proceed to the Euston Square station, which they reach 
in about eightcen minutes, and are driven into a part of 
the premiscs not accessible to the public, each being 
attended by a mail-guard, seated inside. The railway 
servants immediately carry the large sacks toa huge- 
looking machine, which, with an accompanying tender, 
is the last of a long train of carriages. This caravan 
is the Railway Post-office. In ten or twelve minutes 
the omnibuses are emptied of their contents, and the 
train of carriages is then wound up to the station at 
Camden Town, where the cngine 1s attached, and the 
Primrose Hill tunnel soon prevents us hearing the 
thunder of their rapid progress. 

The Railway Post-office is a carriage sixteen fect long, 
seven and a half feet wide, and six anda half feet Ingh, 
and is fitted up as a sorting-room, with counters and 
desks, and tiers of neatly-labelled boxes or pigeon- 
holes. While the train 1s moving at a rate which oc- 
casionally exceeds thirty miles an hour, two clerks 
are coolly engaged in sorting Icttcrs and arranging 
letter-bags, and while maintaining the same speed, 
letter-bags belonging to towns on or near the line are 
taken up by an ingenious contrivance, which is 
the invention of Mr. Ramsey, of the General Post- 
Office. The bags to be taken up are hung upon 
a bcam close upon the line, and on heing denice 
from it, as the train passes, fall into a nct spread out 
from the exterior of the Railway Post-office, while the 
bags to be delivered are simply dropped into the road. 
The letter-bag so taken up is opened, and its con- 
tents sorted. Thus a bag taken up at Watford may 
contain letters for Leighton Buzzard, or for other 
places northward. These letters are distributed in the 
boxes labelled with the names of the towns for which 
they are destined, before reaching which the letters are 
collected and put into the proper bag, which is left 
while at full speed at many of the stations. If the 
engine did not stand in necd of a supply of water, and 
passengers were not leaving the line at the different 
towns, the post-office business would scarcely require 
any stoppages. The time allowed cannot exceed three 
minutes at some of the stations, at some five, and at 
others ten minutes are allowed, but at Birmingham, 
which is so important a central point, the train stops 
half an hour. 

The correspondence for Leicester, Nottingham, 
Derby, eth an, Sheffield, Leeds, Hull, York, Dar- 
lington, and for the districts which surround each of 
these places; also for Edinburgh and thie east of Scot- 
jand, with intermediate places, is detached at Rugby, 
eighty-two miles from the Euston Square station, the 
lines of railway from thence being opencd to Dar- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


159 


lington, 264 miles from London, which is reached by 
aquarter past nme in the morning, or twelve hours 
and three-quarters after leaving London. This great 
north-eastern line has various branches, there being 
one to Nottingham, one to Sheffield, one to Leeds, and 
one to Hull. The letter-bags are under the care of 
euards, who leave and take up bags only where the 
train stops. 

The Railway Post-officc, with the clerks, continues 
its ronte to Birmingham; thence by the Grand Junc- 
tion Railway to Parkside, where the Liverpool and 
Manchester, and part of the Irish correspondence, 1s 
detached, and conveyed by the railway between those 
towns. From Parkside, which is on the Liverpool and 
Manchester Railway, the line northward 1s continued 
by the Nerth Union Railway to Preston, and thence by 
the Preston and Lancaster Railway to Lancaster, dis- 
tant 241 miles from London, and which is reached in 
eleven hours and a half, or before eight oclock in the 
morning. The clerks are occupied during the whole 
night in taking up and delivering bags, and in sorting 
their contents. At ten stations the bags are dropped 
or taken up by means of the bag-apparatus, at two this 
is effected by hand without stopping, and at nineteen 
others the train stops. The number of stations between 
London and Lancaster is thirty-one, and it 1s necessary 
to observe great regularity in the rate of travelling, to 
prevent confusion in the operations which are all the 
time going forward in the post-office. The distance 
between these stations averages about eight miles; one 
station is eighteen miles distant from any other, and one 
is only three miles and a quarter. Every twenty 
minutes, therefore, on an average, bags are to be leit 
and taken up, and extraordinary care and vigilance 
must be required to perform all the necessary opera- 
tions, and, under such circumstances, without failure 
and error. The number of clerks employed in the de- 
partment of the Railway Post-office is cightcen. Enght 
work between London and Birmingham, and ten 
between Birmingham and Lancaster. The night-work 
is performed by twelve clerks; and the correspondence 
by the day-mails not being so heavy, the services of six 
clerks only are required. Bags are made up in the 
night-office for above fifty different towns, and in the 
day-office for about forty. The gross number of bags 
received in one day by both offices is, we understand, 
nearly five hundred, containing on an average about 
wenty thousand letters. Both the day and night inails 
start respectively from London and Lancaster within 
two or three hours of each other, and should thérefore 
mect somewhere about midway between the two places ; 
and as the journey occupies twelve hours, there 1s con- 
sequently always one up and one down mail on the rail- 
road. The distance between London and Lancaster 1s 
performed in nine hours and a quarter, exclusive of 
stoppages. The railway here terminates, and the letter- 
bags for Glasgow and the west of Scotland and inter- 
mediate places, and for the north of Ireland, are con- 
veyed by the mail-coaches. 

The principle by which the charge for conveying the 
mails by the different railways should be determined, 
involved at first many difficult considerations. As 
the question has been settled, the Post-Office neither 
contributes towards the interest of the capital expended 
in the first construction of the railway nor its repair, 
nor towards any expenses connected with the heavy 
traffic. The amount of capital invested in the neces- 
sary buildings, engines, tools, &c. for the passenger 
and light goods traffic was ascertained, and allowance 
was made for a return of profit upon such capital to 
the amount of six per cent., to which one anda half 
per cent. was added for wear and tear. The sum thus 
obtained was next divided by the nuinber of trips 
annually required by the Post-Office, and the amount 


160 THE PENNY 
per trip again subdivided, so as to apportion to the 
Post-Office that part only of the expense which arose 
out of conveying the gross weight taken on its account, 
the calculation being made on the average weight of a 
passenger-train, exclusive of the engine and tender. 
The railway companies appear to have acted in a 
liberal spirit in coming to this arrangement, the result 
of which is that the Post-Office pays only for the weight 
of its own carriage and the contents. The weight of 
the Railway Post-office, with the tender, bags, clerks, 
&c., 1s stated by Mr. Wishaw, in his work on Railways, 
to be above nine tons. 

In a few years the transmission of the mails by the 
railways will have become so general, that scarcely a 
single mail-coach will be required from London. In 
1837 there were twenty-seven which left -nightly, 
travelling above 5500 miles in the aggregate before 
they reached their respective destinations. It is im- 
possible to have witnessed their disappearance one by 
one without a feeling of regret. There are but ten 
now left, two of which are only pair-horse mails; and 
several mails will be superseded before the summer is 
over. The number of miles travelled by the direct and 
cross-road mails, in 1837, was upwards of 6,500,000 
miles, or above 260 times the circumference of the 
globe. The English mail-coach was indicative of the 
national energy and spirit, and also of the taste of .a 
large number of our countrymen, in the gratification 
of which many were tempted to make exertions by 
which the public were the gainers rather than those 
who engaged in mail and stage coach speculations. 
The means of intercourse reached a state of perfection 
which we may safely assert will never be paralleled. 
Some of the mails travelled at the rate of twelve miles 
an hour exclusive of stoppages, and yet this headlong 
rapidity, which became inseparably associated with the 
transmission of letters, commenced only towards the 
close of the last century, previous to which the average 
progress of the mails did not amount to four miles an 
hour; and those from London, instead of starting to a 
minute, and being timed by chronometers, left at a 
period ranging from one to three o’clock in the morn- 
ing. Mr. Palmer was the means of reforming this lazy 
system. The obstacles which he ericountered are set 
forth in grave ‘ Parliamentary Reports,’ and at this 
day appear to us as inconceivable as they are amusing. 
The Post-Office authorities seem then to have been 
as anxious to put on the drag as their successors have 
been to render the mails punctual and rapid. One of 
the former, Mr. Hodgson, “ did not see why the post 
should be the swiftest conveyance in England.” This 
was in 1797. Mr. Draper, another gentleman employed 
i the Post-Office, declared that “the post cannot travel 
with the same expedition as chaises and diligences do, 
on account of the business necessary to be done at the 
office in each town through which it passes;” and he 
objected to coaches as travelling too fast. Mr. Palmer 
proposed to allow the guard a quarter of an hour. at 
the different post-towns; but this was not enough in 
Mr. Draper’s opinion, and half an hour would be re- 
quired in many places. Would that Mr. Draper could 
have taken his seat in the Travelling Post-office some 
night on‘itsjourney to Lancaster! Mr. Palmer’s theory 
of accelerating the mails appeared worthless in the eyes 
of Mr. Hodgson, because 1t was founded on an “ in- 
possibility,” which consisted in supposing “ that the 
Bath mail could be brought to London: im sixteen or 
eighteen hours.” These worthy gentlemen must have 
regretted most affectionately the good times when the 
mail conveyance, instead of being hurried at what in 
their day was the unparalleled rapidity of eight miles 
an hour, travelled at the leisurely rate shown by the 
following ‘time bill’ for the year 1717, when four miles 
an hour were performed, exclusive of stoppages. There 


MAGAZINE. [APRIL 24, 1841. 
was a notice at the head of this way-bill, signed by 
Lord Cornwallis, the postinaster-general, urging post- 
masters and others to use “all diligence and expe- 
dition.” 

“To the several postmasters betwixt London and 
East Grinstead. 

Haste, Haste, Post Haste! 


Miles. 
From the Letter-office in London, July 7th, 
1717, at half an hour past two im the 
morning. 
16 Received at Epsom, half an hour past six, 


and sent away three-quarters past. Alex. 
Findlater. 

3 Received at Leatherhead a quarter past 
seven, and sent away half an hour betore 
eight. Ed. Badcock. 

5 Received at Dorking half an hour after 
eight, and sent away at nine. Chas. 
Castleman. 

6 Received at Rygate half an hour past ten, 

' and sent away at eleven. John Bullock. 

Received at East Grinstead at half an hour 

aiter three in the afternoon. 


16 


=e 


46 

At the above rate, a letter dispatched from London 
on Monday night at eight o’clock, instead of reaching 
Lancaster at eight o’clock on Tuesday morning, would 
not arrive until Thursday afternoon ‘at four o’clock, 
A letter may now be written from London on one day, 
and an answer to it received from Lancaster on the 
following day. In 1717, and indeed long after that 
period, exactly a week would have been required before 
this desideratum could have been accomplished. 


Climate of Rome.—The temperature of Rome is generally 
mild and genial; frosts occur in January ; but the thermometer 
seldom descends lower than 26° of Fahrenheit, and the midday 
sun generally produces a thaw. The tramontana, or north 
wind, sometimes however blows cold and piercing for days 
together. Snow falls at times, but it seldom remains on the 
ground for more than a day. Orange-trees tlirive in the open 
air, but lemon-trees require covering during the winter months, 
Rains are frequent and heavy in November and December, but 
fogs are rare. In the summer months the heat is at times 
oppressive, especially when the scirocco, or south wind, blows. 
The hour which follows sunset is considered the most un- 
wholesome in summer, and people avoid exposure to the open 
air.——-Penny Cyclopedia. 


A Slavonian Village—We might have traversed a space of 
cight English miles, pausing from time to time to look round 
from the eminences that came in our way, when a Slavonian 
village, the first of the sort which we had seen, appeared in the 
distance. It reminded me more of the wigwams which I have 
see inhabited by slaves in Jamaica, than of any settlement of 
labourers in any quarter of civilized Europe. It was a mere 
hamlet; containing, perhaps, some twenty huts, all of them cir- 
cular in their form, and thatched over with straw; and as they 
stood apart one from another, there needed but a small stretch of 
the fancy to regard them as the dwelling-places of Negroes. But 
the figures which passed to and from them—how shall I describe 
these? Their loose trowsers and short cloaks, their hats, bread 
in the brim, yet sharp and high in the crown, came upon us at 
first with an effect so strange that I know not in what terms te 
define it. Had we been standing in any other situation than 
under the burning sun of a July day, I coutd have fancied that 
we had fallen suddenly among a body of Esquimaux. And 
then their tools—their three-pronged spades, with handles twelve 
fect long at the least; their rude litters for the conveyance of 
corn-sheaves, their rakes, their hoes, fabricated on the exact model 
of the classics—and their ploughs, mere beams of timber put 
together in the most unworkmanlike manner; all these were so 
different from the implements made use of elsewhere, as more 
and more to impress upon us an assurance that at length our 
craving after the novel in human society would be gratified.— 
Gleig’s Hungary. 


SUPPLEMENT’. | 


THis PENNY MAGAZINE. 


16] 


A DAY AT A SUGAR-REFINERY. 


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{Interior of a Sugar-Refinery. ] 


Ir it were allowable to personify the east and west 
ends of London, we might consider them as strangers 
who have occasionally heard of each other’s existence, 
but who, from the wide interval between them, 
have had little mutual acquaimtance. The dweller 
at the ‘court end’ of the town may, perhaps, have 
heard of ‘ Aldgate Pump,’ as a spot remotely east, 
beyond the regions of the Bank, the Exchange, and 
the Mansion-House; and may, without the aid of 
a map, be in some doubt as to what exists still farther 
eastward. But he who would form an adequate idea of 
the metropolis in all its length and breadth, must be 
prepared to hear of a vast population,—a very world 
of human beings,—beyond the point to which we 
allude. 

It is to this eastern district, and to one particular 
part of it, that we beg to direct the reader’s attention 
in the present article Most persons have heard of 
the occupation of a sugar-refiner,—often, though erro- 
neously, termed sugar-baker,—that is, one who pre- 
poms the white conical limps or loaves of crystal- 
ized sugar familiarly known as ‘ loaf-sugar.’ Now, 
the buildings or ‘refineries’ in which this opera- 
tion is carried on are not only situated in the east 
of London, but most of them are congregated within 
a circle of half a mile radius iminediately east- 
ward of Aldgate. Those who would seek for a reason 
why so many members of one trade or manufacture 
settle near each other, may be reminded that Onien- 
tal bazaars exemplify this custom to a remarkable 
extent, and that the object is principally to afford faci- 


other Eastern cities, eacn of the principal trades has 
its own bazaar,—one for jewellery, one for silks, one 
for spices, and so forth; and purchasers know at once 
what part of the city to visit when any commodity is 
required. In London, the admixture of trades and 
professions in most trading streets is now such, that 
the bazaar method is little observable; but still, who- 
ever notices the assemblage of sugar-refiners in the 
neighbourhood of Goodman’s Fields, the wool-combers 
in Bermondsey Street, the coach-makers in and near 
Long Acre, the watch-makers in Clerkenwell, the 
statuaries in the Paddington Road, and many similar 
instances, will not fail to observe indications of 
this custom, and to attribute it to some sufficient 
motive. Proximity to docks and warehouses furnishes 
a principal motive in the first-mentioned imstance. 
Whether the sugar-refineries have, ever since their 
introduction into England, been located in this district, 
we do not exactly know, but should deem it very pro- 
bable. Stow, in the following remark, does not make 
mention of any particular part of London :—* About 
the year 1544 refining of sugar was first used in Eng- 
land. Then there were but two sugar-houses ; and 
their profit was but little, by reason there were so 
many sugar-bakers in Antwerp, and sugar came 
thence better and cheaper than 1t could be afforded at 
London. And for the space of twenty years together 
these two sugar-houses served the whole realm, both 
to the commendation and profit of them that undertook 
the same.” 

Sugar-refineries have certain peculharities in their 


lities to purchasers. At Constantinople, Bagdad, and! external appearance, whereby they are distinguishable 


No. DS2. 


Von. X.—Y 


162 


from most other factories; they are very lofty, consist 
of an unusual number of floors or stories, and are 
lighted by rather small windows. In the sugar- 
refinery of Messrs. Fairrie, which we have recently 
Visited, these peculiarities are very observable. In 
making the circuit of the buildings we reckoned nearly 
two hundred windows, most of them small, and some at 
such a height as to have seven floors or storics between 
them and the ground. The interior, too, has something 
peculiar in its appearance, arising from the shallow- 
hess of the rooms compared with their great extent ; 
these rooms are very numerous, nearly square, and no 
higher than is absolutely necessary, since the chief 
desideratum in a sugar-refinery is a large extent of 
flooring. The greater part of this building is formed 
of iron, brick, and stone; a very necessary precaution 
against fire, on account of the inflammable nature of 
the substance prepared therein. 

Most readers are probably aware, that ‘lump’ or 
‘loaf’ sugar,—a holiday luxury to the middle classes, 
and, hitherto, an unattainable one to the humble,—is 
prepared from common brown sugar by a refining 

rocess, and that this process is conducted in the build- 
ings to which we have alluded. In describing the 
mode of operation, we shall not find it necessary 
to trace the history of sugar in its previous states; 
but still a few remarks thereon will aid the object in 
view, by showing the successive conditions or forms in 
which the sugar is presented. 

In our fourth number will be found a representation 
of the West Indian sugar-cane, from which the supply 
of sugar is obtained. “ A field of such canes,” says 
Mr. Beckford, “ when standing in the month of No- 
vember, when if is in arrow or full blossom, 1s one of 
the most beautiful productions that the pen or pencil 
can possibly describe. It commonly rises from three 
to eight feet or more in height, a difference of growth 
that very strongly marks the difference of soil-or the 
varieties of culture. It is, when ripe, of a bright and 
golden-yellow ; and where obvious to the sun, is in 
most parts very beautifully streaked with red. The 
top is of a darkish-green ; but the more dry it becomes, 
from either an excess of ripeness or a continuance of 
drought, it assumes a russet-yellow colour, with long 
and narrow leaves depending; from the centre of 
which shoots up an arrow, like a silver wand, from two 
to six feet in height, and from the summit of which 
grows out a plume of white feathers, which are deli- 
cately fringed with lilac dye, and indeed is, in its 
appearance, not much unlike the tuft that adorns this 
particular and elegant tree.” Such is the external 
appearance of the plant yielding the sugar-juice ; and 
in the article to which we refer above, will be found a 
bricf account of the mode in which the canes are cut 
and crushed, and of the subsequent transformation of 
the juice thence obtained into the form of moist or 
brown sugar, until it is finally packed in hogsheads 
and exported. Jt 1s first a juice expressed from the 
cane; then a kind of syrup, from which impurities 
have been removed; and lastly, a brown granulated 
substance, from which a considerable portion of mo- 
lasses, or uncrystallizable sugar, has been removed. 

The ponderous sugar-hogsheads which we notice at 
the shops of the retail grocers contain moist sugar 
soiewhat resembling in quality that which is imported 
by the refiner, but with a finer and softer grain. This 
sugar, as every housewife familiar with the qualities 
of ‘sevenpenny’ or ‘ eightpenny moist’ is aware, has 
various shades of brown colour, according to the 
quality; and the principal cause of this colour is, that 
a quantity of black molasses, or treacle, which formed 
part of the original cane-juice, is still mixed up with 
the crystallizable parts of the sugar,—not having been 
wholly removed by the processes to which the cane- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


{ApriL, 1841. 


juice is subjected before importation. The particles of 
sugar in their pure state are white; and to present 
them in this white crystalline form is the object of the 
sugar-refiner, who adopts means for expelling the 
molasses, and also certain impurities which are incor- 
porated with the brown or Muscovado sugar as ln- | 
ported in the hogsheads. 

It seems probable that the art of refining sugar was 
first introduced into Europe by the Venetians, and was 
practised in Venice some time before it was adopted in 
any other European country. The foul and black 
sugar brought from Egypt, at the end of the thirteenth 
century, was the first material upon which the art of 
the refiner was employed. The Venetians, in their first 
attempts, converted the dark moist sugar into sugar- 
candy ; but they soon sought to obtain refined or crys- 
tallized sugar by a quicker and more profitable pro- 
cess; which they at length effected by the use of conical 
moulds, such as have ever since been used. From 
Venice the art passed into various European countries ; 
and since America has been so fertile in the production 
of sugar, refineries have increased to a considerable 
extent in England and other countries. 

Let us suppose, then, that a hogshead of moist sugar, 
imported from abroad, is brought to a refinery, and let 
us follow it through the routine of processes till it 
assumes the form of a conical lump of white sugar. 
This will enable us to describe the uses of the various 
Inuldings and rooms forming a large sugar-refinery ; 
faking as our guide that of Messrs. Fairrie, Brothers, 
and Co., situated nearly behind Whitechapel Church, 
and which, through the hberality of the proprietors, 
we have been enabled to inspect. 

This refinery consists mainly of two ranges of build- 
ings, in the eastern of which the earlier and in the 
western the later processes are conducted. The hogs- 
heads of sugar, having been brought in waggons from 
the docks to the east side of the refinery, are’ hauled 
up by a crane, and drawn in at an open door to a large 
square room. This was the first part of the building 
which we visited, and a busy scene it presented; here, 
was a hogshead of sugar, suspended from the crane, 
and just on the point of being drawn into the ware- 
house; there, was another hogshead, deposited ona 
low iron carriage, and being wheeled farther inwards ; 
near it was a third, being weighed,—a process requir- 
ing tackle of no slight kind, since the hogsheads, when 
filled, vary from four to eighteen ewts. each; farther 
on was a man knocking out the head of a hogshead, 
and a party of others emptymg the contents on a 
boarded floor; while other hogsheads, some empty 
and others full, were lying around in various direc- 
tions. Our frontispiece represents the appearance of 
these objects 

The sugar, when about to be operated on, is trans- 
ferred from the hogsheads to a wooden floor, from 
whence it is shovelled into large circular vessels called 
‘blow-up cisterns.’ If we gave a literal acceptation to 
technical terms, we should sometimes smile, and at 
other times feel a little alarm: in the present case it 
appears that the name is given in allusion to the mode 
in which steam is admitted to the contents of the ves- 
sels. The cisterns are six or seven feet in diameter, 
and about five in height; and the purpose for which 
they are employed is to dissolve thesugar preparatory 
to the removal of earthy and other impurities with which 
it is contaminated. The reader must bear in mind 
that notwithstanding the purifying processes whereby 
cane-juice is converted into brown sugar, there are 
still three kinds of substances which require to be 
removed from this sugar before the white crystal- 
line state can be obtained, viz., earthy and other im- 
purities, colouring matter, and molasses; and that 
very distinct processes are resorted to in order to effect 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


the removal. To remove the impuritics is the first 
object. The sugar is, as before stated, thrown into 
the ‘blow-up cistern; and water is admitted to it 
from a cistern at the top of the house, which sup- 
lies every part of the establishment, and which 1s, 
in its turn, supphed from a well nearly two hundred 
feet deep, worked by a steam-engine. Into the cistern 
containing the sugar and water is pumped a small 
quantity of lime-water. Asteam-pipe, in communication 
with a boiler at the east side of the building, is enclosed 
within the ‘ blow-up cistern; and apertures being 
opened, steam 1s forced or ‘blown’ by its own pressure 
into the solution, by which the latter becomes heated 
in a very short space of time. This is one of the 
many imstances in modern manufactures illustrative 
of the advantages derived from the use of steam as a 
heating agent. The water in the ‘blow-up cistern,’ 
being heated by the steam, dissolves the sugar, aided by 
constant stirring by means of long poles or oars. The 
lime-water, which aids in this process, 1s brought from 
vessels situated in the eastern part of the premises: 
they are casks broader at the bottom than the top; 
and the lime being dissolved in water and stirred till 
a milk-like fluid is produced, the lime-water is pumped 
from them as wanted. 

This part of the process is one in which great im- 
provements have been made of late years: indeed the 
saime, to a certain extent, may be said of nearly all de- 
partmenis of the refining business. Under the old 
mode of proceeding, the sugar was dissolved in lime- 
water over an open fire, whereby it was subjected to a 
variable temperature injurious to the quality of the 
sugar; the clarification was effected by the admixture 
of a large quantity of bullock’s blood, and a scum 
several inches in thickness was allowed to collect on 
the surface of the vessel containing the sugar, and was 
thence removed by a broad skimmer. Asan illustration 
of the effect of the albuminous refining substance, 7.e. 
the blood, we may refer to the action of hot water on 
the white of an egg, which is almost pure albumen ; 
the white coagulates, or becomes sold, in two or 
three minutes. If any lquid contaming albumen 
be mixed in another hquid and heated, the albu- 
men, in the act of solidifying, collects together ina 
sort of film, and in so doing appears to entangle 
most of the solid impurities floating about in the 
hquid, removing them from the liquid generally. 
This having been repeated two or three times, the 
solution of sugar was allowed to flow through a 
wooden channel into an oblong basket covered with 
a blanket, through which it filtered into a cistern 
below, carrying a considerable portion of impurity 
with it. But im the process which we witnessed, the 
desired effect is produced in a much more efficacious 
manner; for the temperature of the solution is not 
ereater than that of boiling water, and the offensive 
clarifying ingredient is almost entirely dispensed with, 
the process of clarification, or the removal of inpurities, 
being principally effected in the next process. The 
saccharine solution,—called, in the language of the 
refinery, ‘liquor,’—is, in this case, not skimmed at 
all; but at a certain stage in the operation, it is al- 
lowed to flow from the ‘blow-up cistern’ into a range of 
filtering-vessels in a room beneath; into which filters 
it enters as a thick, opaque, blackish liquid, and leaves 
them in a beautifully transparent state, though co- 
loured of a reddish hue. The arrangement of these 
filters is exceedingly ingenious. Several cast-iron ves- 
sels about six feet high, each contain sixty cloth tubes, 
about three inches in diameter, attached to short 
metallic tubes which are screwed to circular holes 
in the upper part of the vessel, and hanging ver- 
tically downwards. Ifach tube contains a large bag, 
made of a close kind of cotton cloth, and coiled up so 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


163 


as to make the whole a compact mass of cloth; and the 
bags being cach two feet wide and six feet lone, 
it is easy to calculate that there are nearly fifteen 
hundred square feet of cloth comprised in each filter- 
ing-vessel. The ‘liquor,’ then, flows from the ‘blow- 
up cisterns’ into a shallow vessel to which these tubes 
are attached, and thence through the bags contained in 
the tubes. The bags being closed at the bottom, no 
outlet exists for the liquid except through the meshes 
or interstices of the cloth ; and as the cloth formin 
each bag is doubled and re-doubled in its tube, the 
liquid finds its way between the plies or folds of the 
cloth, and finally exudes in a transparent state. The 
whole of the impurities, with the exception of a little 
colouring matter, are retained by the bags and tubes, 
while the saccharine liquor passes through. 

It must be evident that the impurities left in the 
bags would soon clog the meshes if not removed. At 
intervals, therefore, the tubes are unscrewed, and taken 
out to a washing-yard, where the bags are drawn out, 
the impurities removed, and bags and tubes thoroughly 
washed. These impurities still contain a small portion 
of saccharine matter, which is subsequently extracted 
from them by boiling and other processes; and the 
spent residue is finally sold as manure, for which it 
possesses valuable qualities. 

The next point in our visit was to the rooms in 
which the process of decoloration is carried on. The 
reader will bear in mind that the state to which we 
have traced the sugar in its progress is that of a 
transparent liquid having a reddish tinge. To remove 
this tinge, without interfering with the transparency 
of the hquid, is the next object of attention, and char- 
coal is the agent which modern inquiry has shown to 
be best fitted for this purpose. It has been long known 
that common wood charcoal possesses the property of 
removing, more or less, the odour proceeding from 
animal and vegetable substances in a state of decom- 
position; but it was also discovered by the German 
chemist Lowitz, that the same substance will remove 
the colour from common vinegar and several other 
hquids: a fact which soon afterwards led to the em- 
ployment of charcoal in the clarification of various 
pharmaceutical preparations, and as ah auxiliary in the 
refining of sugar. About thirty years ago, M. Figure, 
of Montpellier, ascertained the additional important 
fact, that charcoal obtained from animal substances is 
not only equally efficacious when used in considerably 
sinaller proportion than vegetable charcoal, but that 1t 
is capable of decolourinmg many liquids on which the 
latter has no sensible effects whatever. The sugar- 
refiners immediately availed themselves of the know- 
ledge of this fact; and since that time many dliferent 
modes have been adopted of employing animal char- 
coal in refining. 

What is meant by animal charcoal is the earthy and 
carbonaceous portions of bones obtained by burning 
them in retorts; certain other ingredients im the bone 
are driven off by the heat, leaving an intimate mix- 
ture of phosphate and carbonate of lime with carbon, 
which then obtains the name of animal charcoal. It is 
not well known in what manner charcoal acts on the 
colouring particles of bodies; but Mr. Aikin, in one 
of his Lectures, makes the following remarks on the 
comparative action of vegetable and animal charcoal : 
“Tt is certain that the more finely divided any given 
weight of charcoal is, the more powertul is its deco- 
louring effect ; and thus the inferiority of those kinds of 
charcoal that break with a glossy fracture, when com- 
pared with those of a dull fracture, is accounted for: 
the particles of the former being assumed to be nearly 
solid, and those of the latter to be porous, or, in other 
words, more minutely divided. In bone or animal 
charcoal the carbonaceous particles are separated from 

Y 2 


164 THE PENNY 
each other by the large quantity of earth with which 
they are nixed; and hence the. superiority of this to 
vegetable charcoal resolves itself into a case of very 
minute division.” These points, however, are not yet 
settled. 

We return, then, to the operations on the sugar, 
which we had traced through the filtering-bags. Al 
the liquor, as it leaves the filters, flows through pipes 
into other parts of the building occupied by charcoal- 
cisterns, each of which is a square vessel, four or five 
feet in height, and provided with a double bottom, the 
upper one being perforated with small holes. On this 
perforated bottom a piece of cloth is laid, and on the 
cloth a layer of powdered animal charcoal, or ‘ bone- 
black,’ nearly three feet in thickness. The saccharine 
liquor flows on the surface of this charcoal bed, 
throngh which it slowly finds its way, percolating to 
the bottom, then through the meshes of the cloth, and 
lastly through the perforations into the vacant space 
beneath. The effect of this filtration 1s very striking ; 
for the liquor, which, though transparent, 1s of a red- 
dish colour when it flows into these cisterns, leaves 
them in a state of colourless transparency almost equal 
to that of pure water. Such a complete decoloration 
is the best proof of the success of the modern improve- 
ments in this branch of manufacture. The cloth bags, 
and the arrangements by which the liquor 1s made to 
flow through them, remove all the opaque impurities ; 
while the charcoal and the apparatus of which it forms 
a part, remove the colouring matters from the filtered 
liquor. 

In the eastern part of the premises is situated a 
retort-house, supphed with furnaces, retorts, and va- 
rious subsidiary arrangements. These, whose use 
might to a stranger appear rather inexplicable in a 
sugar-refinery, exemplify one of the most curious and 
valuable properties in the charcoal employed. When 
the process of decolouring the sugar has rendered the 
charcoal impure, water is poured through the mass in 
the cisterns, until all the soluble part of the saccharine 
impurities is removed; after which the charcoal is 
removed from the square cisterns, carried to the retort- 
house, put into iron retorts—of which there are a large 
number, each eight or ten feet long, and re-burned. 
The arrangeinents for this purpose are on a consider- 
able scale, and very complete; and the process is so 
conducted that the charcoal leaves the retorts in a state 
as fit for use as when it was first made; all the impuri- 
ties having been burned away, without any deteriora- 
tion in the decolouring qualities of the charcoal. Thus 
the same portions of charcoal may be used over and-over 
again. This decolouring process was first employed 
in this country on a large scale by Messrs. Fairrie ; 
who likewise adopted the mode here described of 
recovering the power of animal charcoal, several years 
before 1t became publicly known. 

Iivery one knows that ‘loaf’ sugar, as well as 
‘moist,’ possesses different degrees of whiteness and 
clearness of appearance. The mode in which these 
different qualities arise we shall presently state; but 
we may here remark, that it 1s only the finest qualities 
which present the pure and colourless appearance 
alluded to above, after passing through the charcoal. 
The inferior kinds retain a slight tinge of colour. 

We next visited that part of the building in which 
the most important of all the operations is carried on, 
viz. the boiling. If we were to attempt a description 
of all the inventions and contrivances which have been 
brought to bear on this process, it would not only ab- 
sorb all our remaining space, but would involve 
scientific details unsuited to our purpose: it must 
suffice to show how the method usually adopted at the 
present day differs from the old one, now almost 
obsolete. 


MAGAZINE. [APRIL, 18-1. 

The ‘liquor’ consists of sugar capable of assuming a 
crystalline form,—molasses, or uncrystallizable sugar, 
—and water; and the object of the boiling 1s to drive off 
a portion of the water in the form of steam, and to pre- 
pare the sugar for crystallizing. Under the old system 
the saccharine liquor was poured into a large copper 
vessel called a‘ pan,’ and there boiled over an open 
fire, at-a temperature gradually rising to 230° or 250°, 
until the evaporation had caused it to assume a degree of 
viscidity known by experience to be proper for the pur- 
pose. From the pan it was emptied into vessels called 
‘coolers,’ where it was beaten violently with an oar or 
staf, by the action of which the sugar was so far disen- 
tangled from the molasses as to be able to granulate, or 
become partially crystallized. It was found, however, 
that, independent of other evils, the sugar was.liable 
in that process to be injured by the high temperature 
at which it boiled; for there 1s a tendency to decom- 
position even at the temperature of boiling-water; and 
at a still greater heat the tendency is increased. These 
circumstances led to the happy suggestion, by Mr. 
Howard, of a method of boiling the sugar in vacuo. In 
the common operations with which we are familiar, 
boiling water is always nearly of one temperature, be- 
cause it 1s exposed to a tolerably uniform atmospheric 
pressure ; but if this pressure could be removed by the 
action of the air-puimp, or some other means, boiling 
would take place at a temperature so low that the 
hand could bear it with impunity. So lkewise in the 
case of sugar-liquor : if the pressure of the atmosphere 
could be removed, the process of boiling, which is 
nothing more than a very rapid evaporation, would 
take place at so low a temperature that the sugar 
would not be injured by it, viz. from 130° to 150°, that 
is, one hundred degrees lower than under the atmo- 
spheric pressure. Such were Mr. Howard's views; 
and few scientific suggestions have ever been attended 
with more complete success. Nearly all the prin- 
cipal sugar-refiners now boil sugar in vacuo, more or 
less perfect; each one adopting a form of apparatus 
Or a routine of processes best suited to the circum- 
stances under a he conducts his business. We 
shall presently make a few further remarks on the in- 
troduction of this plan ; but it will be desirable first to 
trace the sugar through the boiling process. . 

The pans which we saw at Messrs. Fairrie’s re- 
finery are circular, domed, copper vessels, from six to 
seven feet in diameter, and nearly the same in height. 
No fire is visible beneath them; indeed throughout 
the refinery we-saw scarcely a symptom of a fire: 
whether the purpose be to heat a vessel of water, to 
boil the sugar in vacuo, to heat a stoving-room, or to 
warm the buildings generally, the heating power is 
supplied by steam, which traverses almost every part 
of the premises in pipes. Each pan is completely 
covered in, air-tight; but there are many channels of 
communication with other vessels: one admitting 
liquid sugar to the pan, another furnishing a channel 
through which it may flow out; a third admitting 
steam for boiling the sugar; and a fourth serving 
as an exit for the air originally contained in the pan, 
and also for the steam evaporated from the sugar. 
Various pieces of mechanism are attached to each pan, 
whereby the temperature of the liquid, the quantity 
contained in the pan, &c., may be tested; but these 
need not be further particularized.. The external 
appearance of each pan, and the appendages belong- 
ing to it, are seen in the subjoined cut. 

The process, then, is briefly this:—the liquid sugar, 
after percolating through the charcoal, and being col- 
lected in a cistern several feet below the pans, is placed 
in communication with them by an ascending pipe; 
and the air being withdrawn from within each pan by 
means of an air-pump, the liquid sugar ascends the 


SUPPLEMENT. | 








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pipe into the vacuum by atmospheric pressure from 
without, on the same principle as the water ascends in 
acommon pump. Steam is then admitted to a vacant 
space below the sugar in the pan, and also through 
pipes traversing the interior; and by these means the 
sugar 1s brought to a boiling state while comparatively 
at a low temperature, on account of the tolerably per- 
fect vacuum existing above the surface of the liquor in 
the pan. As the evaporation proceeds, the vapour flows 
through a large iron pipe into an open court, where a 
cistern of cold water condenses it as fast as it is formed, 
and thus maintains a vacuum within the boiler. The 
sugar by this evaporation thickens and becomes par- 
tially granulated or crystallized ; and to ascertain how 
far this process has extended, a most ingenious instru- 
ment, called a ‘proof-rod,’ 1s used, by which a small 
quantity of sugar may be taken out without disturbing 
the vacuum in the pan. This ‘proof-rod’ may be re- 
garded as a key which unlocks a little valve in the 
body of the pan, draws out a sample of sugar, and locks 
the valve again. <A hollow tube is fixed in the pan, 
with the outer end exposed to the atmosphere, but the 
inner end immersed in the liquid sugar. This inner 
end is constructed with a socket and plug, hke the key 
of an ordinary liquor-cock, with two ‘apertures through 
which, when open, liquor may flow. The ‘ proof-rod’ 
is a Straight brass rod with a handle, having a key at 
the farther end, which, on being introduced into the 
tube and turned round, unlocks the socket and plug in 
the tube, and allows the liquid sugar to flow through 
the apertures of the socket and plug into a recess at 
the bottom of the key. The proof-rod being again 
turned, locks up the apertures in the tube, and on 
being withdrawn brings with it a small sample of 
liquid sugar. a? 

The attendant ‘boiler’ then tests the state of the 
sugar, by taking a little between the thumb and finger, 
and trying what degree of tenacity and granulation it 
has acquired. If the result is not satisfactory, the 
boiling is continued for some time longer; but if satis- 


factory,—and this is a matter that requires constant |: 
experience to determine,—a valve at the bottom of 


the pan is opened, and the sugar flows through a pipe 
into a room beneath, where vessels are placed for its 
reception. The sugar, as it flows through, appears to 
be much altered, for it is now a mass of crystals en- 
veloped in a dark-coloured syrup. All the pans are 
nearly alike in their mode of arrangement, and the 
reader will understand that the purpose to which they 
are applied is to drive off, in the form of vapour, so 
much of the water which has been mixed with the 
sugar as to enable the latter to crystallize, The steam 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


165 


employed as the heating agent is brought from a large 
boiler in the eastern part of the premises, which simi- 
larly supplies many other departments of the building. 

One of the most marived points of difference be- 
tween the old and the recent methods of boiling is this: 
—that under the old system, the temperature at which 
the concentration was carried on was so high that crys- 
tallization could not take place till a subsequent cool- 
ing had been effected; whereas under the system in- 
troduced by Mr. Howard, the crystallization actually 
takes place, to a considerable extent, in the boiler 
itself. It was nearly thirty years ago that Mr. Howard 
took out his first patent respecting sugar-refining ; 
but, hke many other improvements, it made its way 
slowly into favour among manufacturers. The experi- 
ments on which he grounded his plan were made with 
a small table apparatus; and when, through an arrange- 
ment with a refiner in a large way of business, the 
method was put into practical operation, it was found 
to produce indifferent sugar, with weak, soft, and 
small crystals. After many attempts, however, all the 
practical difficulties were overcome; pure, large, and 
bright crystals of.sugar were produced by the new 
method ; and many refiners, both in London and else- 
where, adopted the patent process, for the use of which 
they paid a stipulated annual premium. There were 
some years in which the premiums thus paid by several 
refiners collectively amounted to more than forty 
thousand pounds. 

We resume our description. After having witnessed 
the operations and apparatus connected with the boil- 
ing, we next followed the progress of the sugar to a 
room on the lower floor of the building, containing 
vessels called ‘heaters,’ into which the sugar flows 


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from the pans. It is a-curious circumstance, that 
under the old system the corresponding vessels were 
termed ‘ coolers,’ as being at a much lower tempera- 
ture than that at which the sugar was boiled in the 
pans; but they are now called by an opposite name, 
because the sugar is here raised toa temperature of 
about 180°, having previously been boiled at 135° or 
140°. While being raised to this higher temperature, 
the sugar is kept constantly stirred; and at a certain 
point in the process it has acquired a state which 
renders further heating unnecessary. The object of 
this process is not so much to crystallize the sugar (for 
that has already been effected in the pan), as to impart 
to it a consistence which facilitates the subsequent 
processes, and eives to the loaf of sugar a firmer tex- 


lure. 
Recalling to mind what has been already stated, it 


166 


will be seen that the sugar has been successively de- 
prived of its solid impurities, its colouring-matter, 
and of some of the water which had bcen mixed 
with it; but the molasses, or uncrystallizable parts of 
the sugar, still remain. To separate these, therefore, 
is the object of the next few processes, technically 
termed ‘ filling-out,’ ‘ washing,’ and ‘ netting.’ 

The ‘fill-house,’ the part of the refinery to which 
our visit next led us, presented a singular appearance. 
It is a very large square room, on the basement story, 
paved with stone, and having brick walls and ceiling. 
A considerable portion of the floor was covered with 
iron conical moulds, about two feet in height, and six 
inches in diameter at the largest part; each one placed 
With its apex downwards, and upheld by those with 
which it was surrounded. Hundreds, and probably 
thousands, of these moulds were thus ranged 1n close 
rank and file; some filled with sugar from the 
‘heaters,’ others in the act of being filled, and the rest 
empty, waiting to be filled at a subsequent part of the 
day’s operations. These were the moulds which give 
the well-known ‘sugar-loaf’ shape to the masses of 
white sugar seen at the shops of the grocers. Among 
the improvements which the business of sugar-refining 
has undergone, is the substitution of iron moulds for 
those made of clay; the latter used to be universally 
employed, but the former possess many advantages, 
and have almost superscded them. 

A busy scene presented itself in the ‘fill-nouse.’ 
A number of men, each stripped from the waist up- 
wards, were engaged in filling the moulds with liquid 
sugar from the ‘heaters,’ each man carrying before 
him a large copper basin shaped somewhat like a 
coal-scoop, and capable of holding above a hundred- 
weight of melted sugar. The men went to the ‘ heaters ’ 
fillcd their scoops with the hot viscid sugar, and walked, 
or rather ran, with a quick elastic motion, to the 
moulds, which they filled one after another with the 








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sugar. EZacn man, as soon as he had exhausted his 
cargo by filling three or four moulds, hastened back 
to the ‘heaters,’ filled his basin again, and returned to 
fill other moulds. Jn witnessing this operation, it ap- 
eared strange that the men were not scalded by the 
iability of the sugar being spilled from the vessels ; 
but practice enables them, by a peculiar spring of the 
body, to hasten along at a tolerably quick pace, without 
much personal inconvenience from the heated sugar. 
As itis important to have all the sugar poured into 
the moulds while in a certain state of tempcrature and 
granulation, a sufficient number of men is employed 
to ‘fill-out’ all the contents of one sugar-boiling in 
about half an hour. When the moulds are filled, and 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Aprit, 184]. 


the contents still in a fluid state, the surface is stirred 
and scraped round the edge of the sugar, to prevent 
any adhesion to the mould, and also to enable the small 
crystals which are forming to diffuse themselves cquably 
through the sugar. 

These moulds, then, contain sugar and syrup mixcd 
up together, in a heated and viscid statc ; and in the 
‘fill-house’ they remain tiil the following day, in order 
that two effects may be produced, viz., the solidifica- 
tion of the sugar in the act of cooling, and the partial 
separation of the syrup from it. When these objccts are 
to a certain degree effected, the moulds are taken, one 
by one, to a place called the ‘ pull-up hole,’ in order to 
be passed to the upper floors of the building. With the 
usual brevity of technical language, the term ‘ pull-up 
hole’ designates the mode of transfer. This hole is a 
vertical space, fifty or sixty feet high and four or five 
square, with ledges occurring at distances of every few 
feet in height, on which boards are placed, to serve as 
platforms. A door-way opens into this ‘ pull-up hole’ 
at every story ; and the moulds containing the sugar are 
handed up one by one through the hole, one man 
taking the moulds from the man next below him, and 
depositing them in some one of the upper rooms. The 
moulds differ greatly in size and capacity, the smallest, 
when filled with liquid sugar, weighing only twenty- 
five pounds, and the largest, for the inferior kinds of 
sugar, weighing as much as one hundred and fifty 
pounds; with the larger kinds, therefore, the weight 
is too great to allow the moulds to be handed up in 
this way, and they are hauled up by means of a rope. 

While the sugar is thus being conveycd to the upper 
stories, we will imagine ourselves to have ascended a 
spiral staircase which traverses the whole height of thie 
building, and to have entered the ‘ washing’ and ‘net- 
tinge’ rooms. An extraordinary area of flooring is ex- 
hibited by these rooms. We have said that most sugar 
refineries are lofty, and consist of a great number of 
stories, and wc are now in a condition to see the neces- 
sity for this. every mould full of sugar requires 
several days for its final completion ; and thus each 
mould is in use so long, that a very large number is 
required for the purposes of the establishment, and 
many separate stories are necessary to contain them. 
In going from room to room, and from floor to floor, 
we saw repetitions of the same arrangements, viz., 
moulds ranged nearly all over the floors of the apart- 
inents, as thickly as they could stand; there could not 
have been less than from fifteen to twenty thousand of 
them filled with sugar, besides those which were wait- 
ing to be filled. 

We proceed to describe the processes which the 
sugar undergoes in these upper rooms. A small open- 
ing being made in the apex of each mould, the mould 
is placed in an earthern jar, where it is left for some 
time. During this period, the syrup flows or drops 
out slowly, through the perforation, into the jar be- 
neath. When this draining has procecded to a certain 
extent, the mould is taken out of the jar, and the 
syrup, under the name of ‘ grcen syrup,’ is emptied 
from each jar into one common funnel or pipe, by 
which it is conveyed down to the boiling-house. As 
this syrup still contains a portion of crystallizable 
sugar, it 1s boiled over again, with raw sugar, to pro- 
duce lump sugar of a rather infcrior quality, and when 
all the crystallizable sugar is obtained from it, the resi- 
due becomes the well-known substance treacle. 

This draining, however, does not remove all the 
syrup from the sugar, a portion being still entangled 
among and coating the crystals; and to separate this 
portion, the sugar is ‘ washed’ in rather a pecuhar 
way. Formerly a process of ‘claying’ was adopted; 
a stratum of fine white clay diluted with water being 
laid on the surface of the sugar, the water percolated 


SUPPLEMENT. | THE PENNY 
through the sugar by its own weight, mixing with the 
syrup which yet remained in the body of the sugar, 
and washing it away through the orifice in the apex of 
the mould. By the modern improvements, this porous 
surface, or sponge, as it may be considered, 1s formed 
of sugar instead of clay. The rough and uneven sur- 
face of the sugar on the base of the mould is scraped 
off into a vessel, and there mixed with water to the 
state of a magma or mortar, which is again laid on 
the surface of the sugar. When this magma has ac- 
quired a certain degree of dryness, a clear solution 
of very fine sugar in water is poured on it, and 
allowed to remain. This solution, finding its way 
slowly through the mass of sugar beneath, carries with 
it the greater part of the syrup still remaining, together 
with a portion of good sugar whuch unavoidably accom- 
panies it. This richer syrup, technically called ‘second 
runnings,’ is emptied from the earthern jars into a 
funnel which conveys it to the boiling-house, again to 
be boiled for the separation of the sugar from the 
molasses. The solution of sugar is renewed from time 
to time, until the syrup is so thoroughly washed away 
as to leave the loaf of sugar in a beautifully white 
state; or if the sugar be of a cheaper quality, until a 
corresponding degree of purity has been attained. 
The substitution of sugar for clay as the sponge-like 
layer placed in the moulds, is one of the many im- 
provements introduced by Mr. Howard; and its im- 
portance is shown by the fact, that the process 1s now 
effected in one-fourth of the time which it used to 
occupy under the old system. 

A medium kind of sugar, called ‘ clayed,’ or Lisbon 
sugar, 1s much used in some foreign countries, and 
forms a link between moist and loaf sugar. “The 
brown cane-julce, at a certain stage of the process, in- 
stead of being put into hogsheads, is placed in conical 
pots, called by the French ‘ formes,’ with the points 
downwards, having a hole about half an inch in diame- 
ter at the bottom, temporarily closed with a peg. 
When the sugar in these pots is cool, the apex is 
opened, and the pots placed over jars. After this a 
‘claying’ process is pursued, nearly similar to that 
alluded to above. The result of this process is, that 
after remaining fifteen or twenty days in the moulds, 
the sugar assumes a form more white and pure than 
that of raw sugar, but less so than refined. But it 
would appear probable that this old method will not 
be much longer pursued. 

Returning to the refining processes, it will be evident 
that the quantity of syrup which drains from the apex of 
each mould is very considerable. In the first place, 
there is the ‘ green syrup,’ which flows as soon as the 
hole in the apex is opened; and afterwards there are the 
finer syrups, resulting from the solution of fine sugar 
which is poured on the loaf or lump in the mould, 
and which carries off a portion of good sugar to- 
rether with molasses. The subsequent boiling and 
preparation of those syrups, in order to obtain the 
crystallizable sugar from them, is almost as import- 
ant an affair as the refining of the original brown 
sugar. A curious scale of qualities 1s maintained in 
these circumstances. The finest syrup is mixed with 
other sugar to obtain refined sugar of the same quality 
as that from which the syrup was obtained ; the second 
quality of syrup assists in the preparation of sugar one 
degree lower in quality; while the coarsest, or ‘ grcen 
syrup,’ produces a kind two degrees lower. Thus the 
finest syrup from the finest sugar 1s almost as pure as 
the sugar itself; while the coarsest syrup from the 
coarsest sugar is so thoroughly exhausted of crystal- 
hizable particles, as to be dismissed from the refining 
processes, and sold as treacle. 

We return to the moulds. The face of the sugar in 
the moulds becomes rough and uneven, from the sub- 


MAGAZINE. 167 
sidence of the solid parts of the solution. When the 
‘washing’ or ‘netting’ (z.e., making the sugar net, 
neat, or pure), therefore, 1s completed, this face is made 
smooth. A man places the mould on its side across a 
stool, and scrapes the base or open surface of ihe 
sugar with a small instrument; a process which is 
called ‘ brushing-off,’ an odd term, considering that 


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no brush is employed. The sugar is then allowed to 
remain a day or two in the mould, in order that the 
base may acquire hardness and firmness. <A smart 
blow or two of the edge of the mould against a 
wooden post loosens the sugar within, and the loaf 
is turned out upon its base, after having lain in the 
mould for several days. We are then enabled to sce 
the effect of the cleansing processes which the sugar 
has undergone; the surface is hard, crystalline, and 
more or less white according to the quality; the finest 
quality which we saw having a degree of whiteness 
almost rivalling that of snow. Inno part of the ma- 
nufacture have the modern improvements produced 
more decided effects than in the purity of colour now 
obtained. The inferior kinds of sugar retain a tint 
more or less dark, probably from the nnpossibility cf 
expelling all the molasses from them. 

The loaves or lumps (in the language of the re- 
finery, ‘loaves’ are the finest quality, and ‘lumps’ 
somewhat inferior) of sugar are not, however, equally 
white all over when they leave the moulds, the parts 
near the apex being shghtly damp and discoloured at 
the surface. To remove this damp portion, an in- 


is 


Waal if 





168 


genious machine is employed. Three cutting knives 
or blades are ranged in a conical form, and made to 
rotate by the motion of a wheel; and the apex of the 
loaf of sugar being introduced into the cavity formed 
between these blades, the surface is shaved or sheared 
off, leaving the body of the loaf elean and smooth. 
Some of the larger and eoarser lumps of sugar are not 
treated in this careful manner; but the damp apex 1s 
merely chopped off, leaving the. lump as a truncated 
eone. ‘The operation of shearing the surfaces of the 
loaves is termed ‘turning off;’* and the waste sugar 
obtained thereby, as well as that whieh results from the 
process of ‘ brushing off,’ 1s melted and elarified, and 
converted into the fine elear solution which is poured 
on the sugar for the process of ‘ washing.’ 

After the loaves have been left several hours, ranged 
over the floors of large rooms, they are taken up one 
by one, wrapped iu paper, and placed in an oven or 
stoving-room. This oven is.one of the most singular 
parts of the building; the temperature maintained 
therein—about 140°—is too great to allow a stranger 
to remain long in it; but we saw sufficient. to show the 
ingenuity of the arrangement. It may be characterized 
as a room, about ten feet by eight, and sixty feet in 
height, provided with tiers of shelves at intervals of 
every two or three feet, and having several doors, one 
over another, in the side, each-door opening into one 
of the ranges or stories of ‘netting’ rooms. The lower 
part of this room or oven—for we may call it either— 
1s occupied by a mass of steam-pipes, so extremely nu- 
merous, that the united length of the whole would 
probably not be less than half a mile; and the heat 
which the steam comniunicates to these pipes, radiating 
from their surface, raises the temperature of the air in 
the room, and causes a current of heated air to ascend 
to the top. When a large quantity of sugar is to be 
put into this oven at one time, the temperature is 
lowered by opening the doors, so as to enable the men 
to remain in it; they stand on platforms placed aeross 
the space at various heights, and range the loaves on 
the surrounding shelves. 

Ju these ovens or stoving-rooms, of which there are 
three, all of great height, in different parts of the refinery, 
the loaves and lumps of sugar remain until they are 
thoroughly dried; after which they are taken out and 
wrapped in blue paper, in which state they may be 
deemed finished. 





An extraordinary quantity of pipes and tubes of 
varlous S1zes traverse the premises in every direction. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Arriz, 1841. 


Some eonvey water from the well to the reservoir on 
the top of the building; others re-convey it to cisterns 
and pans in different parts; some conduct steam 
from the large boilers at the east side of the preinises 
to the ‘blow-up cisterns,’ to the pans, to the ‘ heaters,’ 
to the ovens or stoving-rooms, and to other parts; 
while another series convey the sugar and syrup from 
vessel to vessel, in different stages of their progress. 

Thus have we rapidly gone over the routine of pro- 
cesses by which brown sugar is refined, and presented 
in the state of white crystalline sugar. In eonsidering 
the advantages which result from any improvements in 
machinery or manufacturing processes, the first con- 
sideration generally is, how far the manufacturer is 
benefited thereby. But itis by no means unimportant 
to earry our inquiries beyond this point, and see in 
what way the improvements influence the retail pur- 
ehaser. With regard to.the refining of sugar, it is 
found that this refining 1s as perfeetly effected by one 
series of processes under the modern system, as by a 
double series formerly; and the effeet to the public is 
shown thus, that whatever be the price of brown sugar 
(and the fluctuations in this price involve political con- 
siderations which we do not wish to discuss in this 
place), the price of refined sugar is now only about 
twenty per cent. greater, whereas in former tines it 
amounted to forty per cent. It is supposed that a 
saving of nearly a million and a half sterling per 
annum is effected in this country by these eircum- 
stances. 

We may -here perhaps briefly explain the mode of 
reducing sugar to the state called sugar-candy. The 
process 1s not eonducted at sugar-refineries, but is 
nearly ‘as follows:—When the eane-juice has been 
clarified and boiled, it is placed in old moulds, having 
their lower ends stopped with linen, and crossed at in- 
tervals with strings or small twigs, to retain the sugar 
as it crystallizes. The moulds are then deposited in a 
cool place ; and in proportion as the syrup cools, erys- 
tals are formed. Jn about nme or ten days the moulds 
are carried to the stove and placed in pots, and a small 
aperture made, through which the syrup can drop 
slowly. When the syrup has drained off, and the erys- 
tals of sugar-candy are beeome dry, the moulds are 
taken from the stove and broken in pieces to disengage 
the sugar, which adheres strongly to the sides of the 
moulds. By previously tinging the syrup with cochi- 
neal or some other colouring substance, the candy may 
be made to assume any desired hue. The arrangement 
of the utensils used in this process 1s generally some- 
what as follows:—A stove is set apart, the entrance 
into whieh is on the ground-floor, as near as possible to 
the pans: the top is usually from ten to fourteen feet 
above the ground, and covered like the top or crown 
of an oven. Beams are fastened into the wall, at a 
distance of about twenty-six inches from each other, 
and sufficient to bear a very large weight; upon which 
strong planks are laid when wanted. The eandy-pots 
are placed upon the planks, and remain there till the 
process is finished. The pots are usually made of thin 
copper, without feet, and are perforated round the 
lower part with numerous holes, the purpose of which 
is this:—a eoarse white thread is drawn by a needle 
through a hole in one side of the pot, carried across to 
a similar hole in the other side, brought back again 
through a third hole ; and so backwards and forwards 
till the lower part of the pot is traversed by several 
lines of thread; after which the holes are stopped. 
Each string forms a nueleus round which the eandy 
erystallizes; an effeet which used formerly to be pro- 
duced by the use of small twigs. 





May 1, 1841.] THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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[Drummond, from a Portrait by Cornclius Jansen; Hawthornden, from an Original Drawing.) 


169 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. Wilham Drummond was the son of Sir John Drum- 


DruMMOND or HLAWTHORNDEN, 


mond, and was born on the 13th of December, 
1585. Among his ancestry there was one name which 


SELDOM has poet enjoved a more poetical home than | he doubtless prized highly, Anabella Drummond, the 


he who forms the subject of the following paper; and | beautiful and accomplished wife of Robert III. of 


a 


still more seldom have the two been so appropriately | Scotland, and mother to the royal poet James I. 


He 


es nsly united. What Drummond borrowed from | was educaicd at Edinburgh, where he took the degree 
de Pe +, oem amidst which he was born, he | of M.A., and on leaving college was sent by his father 
eral ae a ’ vd Tyga 0 . recollections of himself, | to Bourges m France, to study the law. So little, how- 
theron .. oH a ora, u a and pathetic verses he | ever, was that to his taste, that when his father died, in 
ee tie. * pee rom that time the two names 1610, he entirely relinquished it, and devoted hunself to 
ei nm but as one,—-we cannot think of either but hterature and the muses. Nor was the inspiration which 
ih phrase Drummond of Hawthornden seems to rise | love is supposed to give wanting. The object of his 
ike a household word to the lips. attachment was the daughter of a neighbouring gentle- 


No. 83. Von. X.—~Z 


170 


man (Cunningham of Barnes), a lady possessing tastes 
and accomplishments peculiarly in harmony with his 
own. Beautifully has he described his feelings at 
this period :— 
“ Ah me, and I am now the man whose muse 
In happier times was wont to laugh at love, 
Aud those who suffer’d that blind boy abuse 
The noble gifts were given them from above. 
What metamorphose strange is this I prove ? 
Myself now scarce I find inyself to be, 
And think no fable Circe’s tyranny 
And all the tales are told of changed Jove. 
Virtue hath taught with her philosophy 
My imind unto a better course to move. 
Reason may chide her fill, aud oft reprove 
Affection’s power, but what is that to me, 
Who ever think and never think on aught 
But that bright Cherubim which thralls ny thought ?”’ 


Such a switor wooed not in vain; the lady returned 
his affection ; the wedding-day was fixed. On its eve she 
died. Our readers may imagine the sufferings Drum- 
inond must have experienced. When the first stupe- 
faction of is ertef passed off, he fled from Hawthornden 
and all the places linked with memortes of her, and 
undertook a tour on the Continent, which lasted for 
some years. The art which he had so assiduously cul- 
tivated, and which, by developing the finer capacities 
of his nature, had enhanced his sense of the calamity 
whieh had so bereaved him, now became “ its own ex- 
ceeding great reward” in the solace which it afforded 
him, even whilst she was the subject. There is an 
exquisite pathos in the following sonnet, yet one cannot 
nagme the poet to have been very miserable when it 
was written: the “ bitterness of death” was passed :— 

“Sweet soul, which in the April of thy years ; 
For to enrich the heaven made poor this round, 
And now with flaming rays of glory crown’d, 
Most blest abides above the sphere of spheres ; 

If heavenly laws, alas! have not thee bound 

From looking to this globe, which all upbears, 

If ruth and pity there above be found, 

O deign to lend a look wito these tears : 

Do not disdaim, dear ghost, this sacrifice ; 

And though I raise not pillars to thy praise, 

My offerings take, let this for me suflice, 

My heart a living pyramid I'}] raise : 
And whilst kings’ tombs with laurels flourish ereen, 
Thine shall with myrtles and these flowers be seen.” 


The first work which brought Drwnmond _ into 
notice was the elegy he published in 1613, on the death 
of Prince Henry, eldest son of James I., a youth who 
had endeared himself greatly to the nation by his early 
virtues and accomphshments. Drummond sent the 
poem to Jonson, who emphatically stamped the verses 
as “all good,” particularly the epitaph at its conclusion. 
Five years later Jonson gave a very remarkable proof 
of his estimation of the talents and character of the 
Scottish poet, by setting out on foot to visit him. Of 
their conversations at Hawthornden, Drummond has 
preserved some notes, which certainly do not paint the 
ereat dramatist in a very favourable point of view. 
Jonson’s biographer, Gntftord, consequently has not 
hesitated to impeach Drummond's veracity in what he 
says, and his honour for speaking at all. Among the 
most interesting of these notes are the passages refer- 
ring to Jonson’s own history; one of which, that refer- 
ring to his having slain a man in a duel, has been very 
recently confirmed. In Mr. Collier’s ‘ Life of Alleyn’ 
‘the actor, and founder of Dulwich College) there is 
a letter from Henslow, the manager, in which he 
says, “I have lost one of my company, which hurteth 
me greatly, that is Gabriel, for he is slain in Hox- 
ton Iields, by the hand of Benjamin Jonson, br7ck- 
layer.” Now if Jonson followed the oceupation here 
reierred to at the time of the duel, as it appears he did, 


me 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[May l, 


it is a new and interesting feature in his history. Jon- 
son stayed at Hawthornden about three weeks. 

In 1643, Drummond was aecidentally thrown in the 
way of Elzabeth Logan, granddaughter to Sir R. 
Logan of Restelrig, who bore so striking a resemblance 
to the lady he had loved and mourned, that he paid 
his addresses to and married her. He was now in his 
forty-fifth year. About this period he repaired the old 
building of Hawthornden, and put up an inscription in 
LLatm, to the following cffect: “ By divine favour, 
Wilham Drummond of Hawthornden, son of John, 
Knight, &c., that he might repose in honourable re- 
tirement, to himself and his successors restored this 
house.” 

When the civil war broke out, Drummond espoused 
the cause of the king, not in the field nor by the swora, 
but in the closet and with his pen; conscious, probably, 
that he could thus render the best service. He was 
consequently exposed to much hostilty and annoyance 
from the opposite party. It is to this cause, and not to 
the Presbyterians’ dishke of poets, that we should attr- 
bute the following circumstance :— “Drummond hap- 
pening, in the summer of the year 1645, to travel 
northward, he arrived, in the dusk of the evening, at 
Forfar, where he intended to pass the night. The in- 
habitants of Forfar were at that time a race of strict 
Presbyterians, and held all poets and rhymers of every 
degree in utter contempt. They had heard of Drum- 
mond’s approach to the town, and resolved to show 
no respect, or even to notice hun. Upon his arrival 
there. he found every door shut against him, includ- 
ing the inns and public houses of resort. Bit to the 
heart with vexation, and pursued by the cries of an 
antipoetical people, he found it necessary to go on- 
wards to Kirriemuir, ‘a bad road, rendered addition- 
ally painful by the darkness.’ The Kirriemuirians had 
received the intelligence of the poet’s welcome at Forfar, 
and, as a little broil was carrying on betwixt the rival 
towns, they determined to show him every respect.’* 
Drummond wrote a stanza on the occasion, not worth 
transcribing. But this was by no means the worst of 
the royalist poet’s annoyances. He found himself 
obliged to supply his quota of men to serve against the 
king. This circumstance, and the deep melancholy 
which possessed him after the death of Charles I. on 
the scaffold, shortened his days. On the 4th of Decein- 
ber, 1649, he died, where he was born, and where, for 
the most part of his life, he had lived, in his own 
beautiful place at Hawthornden. He was interred 
in the neighbouring church of Lasswade. 

For the ensuing description of Hawthornden we 
are indebted to the remembrances of a gentleman 
who visited it but a year or two ago, and who at 
the same time made the beautiful drawing which we 
have been permitted to copy for the engraving at the 
head of this paper. The house, he says, is very an- 
cient, with mullioned windows, clustered chimneys, and 
rable roofs. The interior contains nothing remarkable. 
The situation is exceedingly romantic, being on the 
edge of a tremendous cliff of limestone, overhanging: 
the river, which runs here between the cliff on which 
Hawthornden stands and one equally high on the op- 
posite side, both richly covered with woods. On leaving 
the house, we were conducted round the precipitous 
face of the rock, on a mere ledge, to a place where a 
shallow cavern has been hollowed out of it. Here we 
found an old table and a seat, and we were told that 
this was the poet’s favourite spot. He composed in it 
his ‘Cypress Grove,’ after recovering from a danger- 
ous fit of illness, and the cavern is still known by 
that name. No place could be better adapted for 
poetic reveries. In calm and sunny weather, the sigh- 


* Life of Drummond, prefixed to Cumingham’s edition of his 


| works, 


1841.] 


ing of the wind along the chasm, the murmurs of the 
Stream, the music of the birds above, around, and 
beneath, and the utter absence of any intimations of the 
busy world, must have often soothed the poet’s melan- 
choly, and, we may hope, sometimes brought him back 
the delightful views which had thrilled his youthful 
heart. There were other times and seasons when it 
must have becn indeed awful to have sat in that dark 
and desolate cavern ; when the storm, for instance, was 
rushing through the glen, when the forked lightning was 
every instant revealing its shaggy depths, and when the 
thunder seemed to strive to shake the very cliff itself 
with its reverberations, On leaving the cave we were 
requested to notice a well, with a hole on one side as 
though one of the stones had fallen out; this, it was 
sald, lighted a room. Appearing rather incredulous, 
we were taken round to a narrow aperture in another 
part of the rock, only large enough to admit one per- 
son at a time. Through this we thrust ourselves, 
when we found we were ima room excavated in the 
rock, of a square shape, and high enough for a tal] 
man to stand upright. In the walls were many square 
holes, from twelve to eighteen inches deep, which are 
supposed to have been used as cupboards. There are 
four of these rooms, two of which have not even the 
advantage of such a light as the hole in the well 
affords. No wonder that there are plenty of traditions 
connected with these places. The principal is that both 
Wallace and Bruce found an asylum among them on 
some of those occasions when their fortunes appeared 
more than usually desperate. No one should quit 
Hawthornden without descending to the banks of the 
river, a long and tortuous way; but the view that 
there greets us will repay a much more toilsome de- 
scent. The rock from which we have descended 1s on 
the same side of the river as Hawthornden, but a 
chasm has separated them, in which the river forms a 
pool strewed with great fragments of rock. On leav- 
ing this pool, the river becomes a shallow but brawling 
and impetuous stream, gliding rapidly between or 
bubbling over the masses of fallen rock which there 
also obstruct the passage. Above the river hangsa lofty 
ridge of white limestone rocks, with trees, bushes, and 
plants in every recess ; and the purple heath particu- 
larly conspicuous. Lastly, immediately in front rises 
abruptly from the water’s edge the bold promontory 
on which the house stands, bare or nearly so, and con- 
trasting finely with the luxuriant woods that crown 
its summit even to the very edge, and with the grey 
venerable building, which, 1f we may trust tradition, 
has sheltered some of Scotland’s noblest defenders, and 
which, at least, we know to have been the beloved home 
of one of the sweetest of her bards. 

Drummond gave the first and best example of a 
Scottish poet departing from the dialect of his country 
and composing his poems in pure and classic Iénglish. 
The resemblance between his versification and that of 
Milton in his minor poems, is often and justly referred 
to; but it isnot so often remembered that Drummond 
was the earlier writer. His ‘ Elegy on the Death of 
Prince Henry,’ which it has been said no one could 
read without being reminded of ‘ Lycidas,’ was written 
when Milton was but five years old: therefore it is 
the latter who has imitated, or, at least, unconsciously 
unbibed something of the spirit of the former. It 
would be difficult perhaps to say anything higher of 
Drummond’s genius than is implied in this circum- 
stance. We have in 2 former number given his sonnet 
to Silence, which is equal to most things of the kind in 
the language. This notice of him may be concluded 
with the following lines, which appear to show the love 
that had cost him so many bitter pangs, in a loftier and 
purer phase than in our previous extracts, and which, in 
all probability, was written not long before his death :— 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


17] 


“ Love, which is here a care 
That wit and will doth mar ; 
Uncertain truce, and a most certain war; 
A shrill tempestuous wind 
Which doth disturb the mind, 
And, like wild waves, all our designs commove ;— 
Among those powers above 
Which see their Maker’s face, 
It a contentment is, a quiet peace, 
A pleasure void of grief, a constant rest, 
Eternal joy, which nothing can molest.” 


CHAUCER'S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 


THE MERCHANT. 


As the increase of towns and the progress of commerce 
were the iminediate causes of that great event which 
so peculiarly distinguishes the thirteenth century—the 
rise of the Commons, or people of England, into po- 
litical power, so that very power of course naturally 
re-acted upon the influences which had developed it: 
under its watchful care commerce became less re- 
stricted by unnatural laws, charters for self-govern- 
ment were obtained, and powerful associations formed, 
to which the monarchs of the time could not refuse their 
sanction, although perhaps not altogether unaware of 
the bulwarks they were assisting to raise against their 
own arbitrary encroachments. Sorapid, consequently, 
was the progress of the principal towns of England 
after the first shock of the Conquest had passed away, 
that within about three centuries of that period our 
principal merchants rivalled in wealth and splendour, 
and in ostentatious but still genuine hospitality, the 
ancient barons of the country, to whose rank, indeed, 
their descendants sometimes successfully aspired. 
What with the wars, and what with the immense band 
of retainers always attached to the feudal estates, the 
value of the latter was continually decreasing ; hence 
arose pecuniary difficulties, then mortgages, and some- 
times sales of the broad lands, to the thriving and pros- 
perous merchants; who, as their assistance becaine 
more and more desiderated, grew more and more 
powerful and ambitious, and demanded higher re- 
wards for their services. Thus Michael de la Pole, 
Earl of Suffolk, and lord chancellor to Richard II., 
was the son of a merchant only, and owed the first and 
most difficult steps of his advancement to the loans 
which his father had advanced to the third Edward for 
the prosecution of the wars in France. And eminently 
worthy of respect and honour were these princely mer- 
chants of the fourteenthcentury! Among their mem- 
bers were some of the most distinguished men of the 
time. There was John Philpot, who, m the second 
year of Richard II.’s reign, when one Mercer, a Scotch- 
man, had fitted out a piratical fleet against the English, 
hired ships and a thousand soldiers at his own sole cost, 
and, putting to sea, attacked and took Merccr with all 
his prizes, and fifteen Spanish ships which he had 
drawn to his assistance. There was Henry Picard, 
vintner, or wine-merchant, mayor of London, who en- 
tertained four kings at dinner, the year following that 
in which the battle of Poitiers had been fought. They 
were—Edward, king of England; John, king of 
France, his prisoner; David, king of Scots; and the 
King of Cyprus. “ After dinner,” says the old chro- 
nicler Stow, “the said Henry Picard kept his hall 
against all comers whatsoever that were willing to 
play at dice and hazard. In like manner the lady 
Margaret, his wife, did also keep her chamber to the 
same intent. The King of Cyprus, playing with 
Henry Picard in his hall, did win of him fifty marks; 
but Henry being very skilful in that art, altering his 
hand, did after win of the same king the same fifty 
marks and fifty marks more, which, when the same 


L 2 


o-ap? | 


172 


king began to take im ill part, although he dissembled 
the same, Henry said unto him, ‘ My lord and king, be 
not aggrieved; I covet not your gold, but your play ; 
for I have not bid you hither that I might grieve you, 
but that, amongst other things, ] might try your play ; 
and (then) gave him his money again, plentifully be- 
stowing of his own amongst the retinue: besides he 
gave many rich gifts to the king and other nobles and 
knights which dined with him.” There was also 
Sir William -Walworth, who struck down Wat 
Tyler at the head of his men, an act which, how- 
ever it may be questioned for its morality, was per- 
haps as daring an act as was ever committed. Lastly, 
there was the famous Sir Richard Whittington, who 
must have expended so vast a fortune in his charities, 
that we need not wonder the popular mind called in 
the aid of romance to explain the mode of its accumu- 
lation. Besides the erection and endowment of the 
magnificent almshouses, still existing, he rebuilt, at 
his own expense, the gaol of Newgate, the hbrary of 
the Grey Friars, the hospital of Little St. Bartholomew, 
anda college near St. Paul's, called after his own name. 
‘These men were all merchants, and contemporaries of 
the great poct! 

With this introduction, explanatory of the rank and 
position of the merchants generally of Chaucer’s period, 
we introduce his individual portrait :— 


‘ A merchant was there with a forkéd beard ; 
In mottély, and high on horse he sat ; 
And on his head a flaundrish beaver hat. 
His bootés clapsed fair and fetisly. 
His reasons spake he fuil solemnély ; 
Sounding alway tl’ increase of his winniug ; 
He would the sea were kept for anything 
Betwixen Middleburgh aud Oréwell. 
Well could he in exchanges sliefdes* sell. 
This worthy man full well his wit beset, 
There wisté no wight that he was in debt; 
So steadfastly did he his goveranance, 
With his bargains, and with his chevisance.t 
Forsooth he was a worthy man withal. 


The “mottély”’ dress is explained by the manuscript 
so often referred to, where we find the merchant ha- 
bited in a garment of a bright red colour lined with 
blue, and figured with white and blue flowers, most 
probably the dress or livery of the company to which 
he belonged. In a beautifully illuminated initial 
letter of the charter granted by Henry VI., in 1444, 
to the Leather-sellers’ Company, 1s a coloured repre- 
sentation of the king handing the parchment scroll to 
some of the members, whose dress is of the same 
colours, red and blue, as that of the merchant in the 
manuscript. The incorporation of these great civic 
colipanies was, as we have incideutally before stated, 
a striking feature of the fourteenth century. Many of 
them had long existed previously as guilds and frater- 
nities, but now they were remodelled, and obtained 
much more extensive powers of administering the 
affairs of their respective crafts. The goldsmith, for 
instance, obtained the nght of assaying minerals, and 
the vintners that of gauging wines. A proof of the 
rapidity with which the commereial character now 
rose in public estimation is furnished by the fact that 
whilst in the reign of Edward III. there were but two 
earls and one bishop among the honorary members of 
the Merchant Taylors’ Company, that number had in- 
ereased by the following reign to four royal dukes, ten 
earls, ten barons, and five bishops. This sudden influx 
of royal and noble personages must be taken, however, 


* French crowns, which were called shields trom their having 
an one side the representation of a shield. 

+ “ The meaning of the passage is,;—so steadily did he order 
his bargains and agreements in borrowing money.’— Clarke. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE 


[May i. 


we presume, as evidencing simply the consciousness of 
the extent of the new power on the part of the court, 
coupled with the desire to direct it to 1ts own purposes, 
and not at all as evidencing any real sympathy with 
those pioneers of the future greatness of England. 
Those purposes were made sufficiently apparent in 
1384, when Richard having resumed the city's chartey, 
revoked its provisions, disannulled its lberties, and 
abrogated its laws, once more put forward his creature 
Sir Nicholas Brember as lord mayor. A strong oppo- 
sition, however, was raised; a new candidate, John of 
Northampton, brought forward in the popular cause ; 
and so much exeitement produced, that a riot took 
place, in which lives were lost. John of Northampton 
was seized and put in prison, and one of his principal 
supporters, Chaucer, escaped the same fate only by 
escaping to Zealand for atime, where he is said to 
have suffered inuch from distress. But he too, after a 
time, returning, in hope to live in secret, was disco- 
vered, and thrown into the Tower; from which he was 
not liberated till he had made some disclosures con- 
cerning his former partisans. :The nature of these 
disclosures, however, does not seem to have been at all 
of a dishonourable kind, for no one suffered by them. 
Chaucer says of his merchant, 


“ He would the sea were kept for anything 
Betwixen Middleburgh and Oréwell ;” 


which Tyrrwhitt illustrates by the remark, “ the old 
subsidy of tonnage and. poundage” was given to tlic 
king tor the saieguard and eustody of the sea, 12 
Edw. IV., c.3; without any further explanation. We 
may add, then, that our readers have seen a specunen 
of the dangers to which merchant ships were liable, 
during this period, in the circumstances connected 
with the piratical Scotchman, Mercer, and the conse- 
quent necessity for the seas beimg better “ kept” from 
“ Middleburgh” and “ Oréwell,” between which places, 
doubtless, flowed one of the great streams of com- 
mereial intercourse. Middleburgh js still a well- 
known port of the island of Walcheren in the Nether- 
lands, almost immediately opposite Harwich, beside 
which are the estuaries of the rivers Stoure and 
Orwell. This spot was formerly known as the port of 
Orwell or Orewell; in eficct 1t was the port of the 
wealthy and thriving town of Ipswich, situated but a 
short distance up the last-named river. There are 
some interesting recollections connected with the 
Orwell. Near its mouth a most important naval en- 
razvement took place between King Allred and the 
Danes in 880. Along its waters sailed the Danes on 
several of their fearful plundering expeditions into 
the interior of the country: Ipswich was pillaged no 
less than three times by them between the years 991 
and 1000. And, lastly, to come nearer to our owh 
times, and to recollections of a more pleasant nature, 
along the banks of this river Gainsborough was aecus- 
tomed to stray, and familiarise himself with those 
beautiful forms of rustic and landscape scenery, which 
he afterwards so beautifully reproduced for the enjoy- 
ment of his admiring countrymen. 

We conclude with a notice of the other principal 
features of the merchant’s portrait, as it exists im the 
illuminated manuseript. ‘ His bootés clapsed fair and 
{etisly” are carefully shown, and look, as Shakspere 
has expressed it, “very smooth, like unto the sign of 
the leg.” His stecd is on the gallop, and he wears 
spurs with enormous rowels, a fashionable trait of the 
tines, we presume. He looks in the prime of life, 
and his countenance is strikingly expressive of the 
mau of business, who 1s 


“ Sounding alway th’ increase of his winuing.” 





1841. ] Seer ON NY gia ZZ TINE. 173 


That in thy late brother’s death 
Thou hadst neither part nor share, 
That none of ye to his murder 
Privy or conseuting were.’ ”’ 
The king agreed to take this oath, and the public 
Hie are nema || | COL emomal was appointed to take place in the church 
| Pee ' aie H/| | of Santa Gadea at Burgos—once of those churches, says 
a lial i hes | | i Wee, vee aa | Father Berganza, which it was the custom in Aivae 
he | vy oe Hey Mca A days in Spain, as in other countries of Iurope, to set 
he ih a ua hey ns apart for the swearing of oaths, in order that the cere- 
eye Wie een. | | mony inight thus acquire greater awe and solemnity. 
ae es isd i ie i et The Cid himself administered the oath on “ the book 
Hai a al Hi ie 


" = == 
= = — ~ = = 
ee Se “= 
4 = == —— 
= ——— =— =e = —— 


— ——- 


= 5 = 
= 


of the Evangehsts,” and on a crucifix, or, as say other 


id 


[ aa lore ied | oF, romances, on a wooden cross-bow and iron bolt which 
eh aa ie Hay Oe ah Peat SIAL | ; had been plessed by the priest, and which the Cid held 
Ht i il TMs Ws st ce a tl it cil ha i 


to the king’s breast as he uttered these words: 





si 


*°¢ By this holy roof above us, 

i I do call on ye to swear, 
a ci Wi ee |? a Al lh Don Alfonso, and ye nobles, — 
¥ j | ue Mi 4 , 1 Bt il ie sail Ae - \a oe a a i) And of perjury beware ; 


aay! HHI 


a ee = : Sea ew eee oa 
: = ——- ae - 7 o ; = 
SAFES Cae E c = ae PEs: 
ms" : Cet mre : id z ; = =e =, *: 4 > = Iw 
=e. =S a0 = 32 . § See, —— 2 = , a 
= a= ke ee = _ f 4 a Sy - § ya 
‘ae 4 ALLS = a i. 3 < ° SE a 
\ ita = = = | - —— = ; li 3 = ——, 
— + Ay ae ren =— ——_ =a J — 
¥ 4 =D: 3 | —_ 2) en - a 2 => = af BE 
; yf d oe, a = ta: — ree Sm a —— tT. ; === 
po ete 3: 1 tae = LE a == Soe Ne ey — 
z= ee len : —- a a aoa = 
PS MED | EO.) See " camel / i a == oa === a3 f 
iS ag a, - Jfpae Pl) to 5 ————— = = = —_ a 
eS — Jf a [a : = —— = - z 
=~ = = — } == F —_ == 
= = = = 


AW 


Swear then—if ye to the murder 
" Of the king consenting were ; 
ie i ii Lg ve ‘il May ye die a villain’s death, 

ee ad ‘sf | If ye aught but truth declare! 
| i ii Hl fl i | 
Ben : "i 


De oe ee The king hesitated a moment, but one of his favourite 
vf "K _ oe At || | knights exclaimed : 
Hi. ie aa a a i 

nt at Nl i 


bi 
IM 


1 MM HI Lisl | ‘iy } i Hi itt , } Me oe an i | 


it 


i) | : 
J f 
‘ | \ 
‘ 
Ww , 
yet hs 
\ y : ‘Laas 
Thi na r ~ 
©) WSL 
pis 
J the 
4 


mt la 
ty TM |; TP 
' i | ! Yl | 
; il th | ‘ li iy | ii i, il ay ett ft ihe = i i i 
: j | I 4 . % ; 7 AM . 1 mT) 


— Nee 


= = 





eB fl i) Hi 


iG Hh | rane | 
i i i 9 i 











— = 


—— a= 
SSS 
=== 


I 
it" 


iH Mi 
ne 


“¢ Take the oath, good king, I pray thee, 
Thou no hindrance hast or let ; 
Pope was never interdicted— 
King was never traitor yet.’”’ 


On this the king took the oath, with his twelve 
nobles. Whether it was, as the Chronicle says, that 
Alfonso changed colour, or because it was agreeable to 
the ancient lay of Castile, the Cid insisted upon ad- 
ministering the oath three times, which so incensed the 
king that he exclaimed,— 








— a oo 
aS 

















““¢ Sore thou pressest me, Rodrigo ; 
Needless thy demand, I wiss. 

















































a mile apy 1 aks | i 
i aT ui mi ed le a aes Sd Though to-day thou mak’ s{ me swear, 
TTT TC THT ee SSS To-morrow thou my hand must kiss. 
By imy fay, I vow that on thee > Fe ae ~~ 
I will be aveng’d for this.’ - ~~ ¥. 4. nh 
Tie, GlLD.—INowr Viti. ‘ King and lord, do as it please thee,’ wee : contd. 
Thus the Cid in answer said ; Wie ts aia! ha 
“ One true and upright vassal better ‘Asa knight of truth and honor ( ( i) i | ee 
Than a thousand fawuers 1s ; I have duty’s hest obey’d.’ ” AY V eth ih f au 
For a king from many bad men 7 Ad Aig a a 
Cannot make oue good, I wiss.” According to one romance, \ i te “ : 
the king, no longer able to con- : fi MAS we ‘ 


IMMEDIATELY on the death of King Sancho, which | trol his wrath, rephed— 
happened a.p. 1073, Doha Urraca sent messengers to | «+ Out upon thee, knight disloyal! 
her brother Alfonso, then in exile at the Arab court of From my realm, O Cid, begone! 
Toledo, to inform him of his succession to the throne | And return not, I command thee, 
of Castile and Leon. He and his httle band of attend- Till a year away hath flown.’ 
ants escaped by letting themselves down by night from | Quoth the good Cid, « Kine, with 
the city-walls, and having taken the precaution of pleasure a. 
reversing the shoes on Bait horses’ feet, they eluded | it thy hest obey ; nay more, Wh al ae AS | sdf i 
pursut, ‘and reached Zainora in safety. Here the nobles | For one year thou dost ne banish, Ue a 
all paid homage to Alfonso as their king, save the Cid, | J will exile me for four.’ : 
who refused to kiss his hand till he had “publicl y Sworn | Away my good Cid then he goeth, 
that he had no part Whatever in the assassination of his Nor doth kiss the monarch’s hand ; 
brother. Full three hundred noble kuights 
Follow at the Cid’s command.” 


—— 
= =e 
so Sos Se ee 


“¢ Don Alfonso! Don Alfonso ! 





ae Sen 32 a> Fe, 













Thou art heir unto this throne ; ee Sere Shel, fies | 
None thy right would wish to question, See eps VT NT Ss — SETI WET 


None thy sovereignty disown. 
But the people sore suspect thee, 


That by thee this crime was done. -| WP MA 


Wi 
‘it 
a stihl Wa Md 
- ma = ~ still 
ba olathe 
y aly ‘ e ise 
Wherefore, if thou be but guiltless, 
Straight I pray of thee to swear, 
Thou aud twelve of these thy hegemen, 
Who with thie iu exile were, 


17-4 


Other romances agree with the Chronicle in stating 
that the Cid’s banishment was much subsequent to the 
day of swearing, though from that time forth the king 
bore him no good will. In truth, he was not enough 
of a courtier to gain the young monarch’s favour ; he 
was too sternly honest and too plain-spoken to give 
other than good and wholesome counsel, however un- 
palatable it might prove. He was one day with the 
king in the cloisters of San Pedro de Cardena, when 
Alfonso proposed to him to go and attack Cuenca, 
then held by the Moors. Rodrigo rephed,— 


‘¢ Thou a young king art, Alfonso— 
' New thy sceptre in the land; 
Stablish well at home thy power, 
Ere thou drawest forth the brand. 


Grievous ill doth ever happen 
To those kings who war espouse, 

When their new-gain’d crowus have scarcely 
‘Gan to warm upon their brows.’” 


One of the friars here took up the word for the king, 
aud made answer— 


© Art thou sick to see Ximena ? 
Dreadest thou the toils of war ? 
Leave unto the king th’ emprise— 
Back, Rodrigo, to Bivar! ” 


The Cid indignantly exclaimed, “ Who called thee, 
thou cowled one, to a council of war? Take thy cope, 
good friar, to the choir, and leave me to bear my pen- 
non to the border; 


“¢ Peril, war, fatigue, ne’er daunt me; 
Love on me no chiains hath tied. 
More, God wot, have I Tizona 
Than Ximena by my side.’ ” 


Rodrigo’s counsels and reproofs were in truth by no 
ineans as agreeable to the monarch as the flatteries of 
the sycophants who surrounded him, and who, jealous 
of the Cid’s great power and fame, did their utmost to 
foster the king’s resentment against him. Even his 
brilhant success in a campaign into Andalucia failed 
to conciliate Alfonso, and he lent a willing ear toa 
complaint made shortly after against the Cid by Al 
Maimon, the Arab king of Toledo, who charged him 
with having laid waste his territories, and taken 7000 
captives and much spoil. 

Though this foray had been provoked by the depre- 
dations of the Arabs, Alfonso chose to make it a cloak 
for his vengeance, and commanded Rodrigo to begone 
from Castile in nine days, confiscated all his lands 
aud goods, and even threatened to hang “ the Cid, the 
honor of his realm.” 

Nobly did the hero reply,— 


“¢T obey, O king Alfonso, 
Guilty though in nought I be, 
For it doth behove a vassal 
To obey his lord’s decree ; 
Prompter far am I to serve thee 
Than thou art to guerdon me. 


I do pray our Holy Lady 
Her protection to afford, 
That thou never may’st in battle 
Need the Cid’s right arm and sword. 


Well I wot at my departure 
Without sorrow thou canst smile ; 
Well I wot that envious spirits 
Noble bosoms can beguile : 
But time will show, for this can ne’er be hid, 
That they are women all, but I the Cid. 


These high-soul’d and valiant courtiers, 
Who are wont with thee to eat, ‘ 
Think ye that their lying counsel 
For a kingly ear is meet ? 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. — - 


tique locks. 


[May l, 


Prithee say, where were these gallauts, 
(Bold enough when far from blows, ) 

Where were they, when J, unaided, 
Rescued thee from thirteen foes ?* 


Where were then these palace-warriors, 
That for thee they drew no brand ? 
Verily, we all do know them, 
Quick of tongue, but slow of hand. 
Yea, time will show, for this can ne’er be hid, 
That they are women all, but I the Cid.’ ” 


As he passed through the streets of Burgos, Rodrigo 
was nict on every side by lamentations, for “all Castile 
mourned him as an orphan bewaileth his sire.”+ The 
women cried from the windows, “ God! what a good 
vassal were he, if he had but a good lord!” yet none 
dared to show him favour, nor even to supply him with 
provisions, for the king had forbidden it, under pain of 
loss of goods and eyesight. He found even the door of 
his own abode barred against him. THe went on to his 
Castle of Bivar, and, finding it utterly despoiled by 
his enemies, he was perplexed about the means for his 
journey into exile, for he had not even wherewithal to 
meet the expenses of the way :— 


‘Then two Jews of well-known substance 
To his board inviteth he, 
Aud of them a thousand florins 
Asketh with all courtesy. 


‘Lo! saith he, ‘these two large coffers, 
Laden all with plate they be ; 

Take them for the thousand florms— 
Take them for security. 

In one year, if I redeem not, 
That ye sell them, I agree.’ 


Trusting to the Cid’s great honor, 
Twice the sum he sought they lend ; 

To their hands he gave the coffers— 
Full were they of nought but sand!’ 


The romancist, in astonishment at this, the only base 
action recorded of the Cid, breaks forth— 


‘Oh, thou dire necessity ! 
Oh, how many a noble soul, 
To escape thy guawing fetters, 
Hath recourse to deeds as foul!” 


“The good Cid Campeador, whom God keep in 
health and safety!” before quitting his native land, 
made a vigil in the convent of San Pedro de Cardena ; 


for-— 


* The romance is in error here, for the reader will remember 
that it was Don Sancho whom the Cid rescued from fourteen of 
Alfonso’s knights, or rather thirteen, that being the number 
overcome by the Cid, one having taken to flight. It seems 
not improbable that this romance was originally written 
with a reference to the banishment of the Cid by Don Sancho, 
recorded in No. V. of this series of articles, and that in 
process of time it came to be applied to his second and much 
more important banishment by Don Alfouso, undergoing, 
in its course of oral tradition, such alteratious and additions as 
adapted it to the latter event, while the allusion to the rescue 
was ignorautly suffered to remain. 

+ It is with this part of the Cid’s history that the Poem 
begins. We shall in future trust to its guidance in preference 
to that of the Chronicle, as it 1s of greater antiquity, and accords 
better with the romanices. 

* One of these chests is to this day preserved in the cloisters 
of Burgos cathedral. The Poem of the Cid describes them as 
covered with red leather, and studded with gilt-headed nails ; 
but this covering, if such ever existed, has been stripped off, and 
you uow see a plain wooden chest, about four feet by two, 
strongly bound by ribs of iron, and fastened by three an- 
It is said to coutain certain musty documents 
relative to our hero, but we were not able to verify the report, as 
it is raised to the height of twenty feet or more from the ground, 
and supported by brackets against the wall. The wood is very 
rotten, aud, were the chest within the reach of pilferers, it would 
soon cease to exist. 

a 


é 


1841.] 


‘The Christian kinght it aye behoveth, 
Ere he putteth lance im rest, 
With the armour of the church 
Well to fortify his breast.” 


When mass had been sung, the abbot and monks 
blessed his pennon. Then said the Cid, holding the 
two ends of the pennon in his hands— 


«¢ Holy pennon! blessed pemon ! 
A Castilian beareth thee 
Far away to other lands, 
Bauish'd by his lord’s decree. 


Lying tongues of foul-mouth’d traitors— 
Heaven's curse upon them Jight !— 

With this ill the king have counsell’d 
My good service to requite. 


King Alfonso! King Alfonso! 
Rouse, bestir thee, rouse and think, 
These vain siren-songs which charm thee 
Lull thee to destruction’s brink, 


Sorely, God wot, hast thou wrong’d me, 
Yet I wish thee nought but good ; 
For to suffer wrongs with meekness 


Doth betoken noble blood.* 


I forgive thee,—yea, to prove it, 
I do swear to yield to thee 

All my own good sword may henceforth 
Conquer from the enemy.’ ” 


Then, with a parting embrace of Ximena and his 
two daughters, whom he commended to the care of 
the abbot of San Pedro, he tore himself from them ‘‘as 
the nail is torn from the flesh,” and went forth, leaving: 
them “drowned in tears and speechless woe.” Turn- 
ing to the band of knights who determined to follow 
his fortunes, he said, as they rode away,— 


*¢¢ Comrades, should it please high Heaven 
That we see Castile once more— 
Though we now go forth as outcasts, 
Sad, dishonor’d, homeless, poor-— 
We'll return with glory laden 
And the spoilngs of the Moor.’ ” 


‘TTe was resolved,” says the historian Maniana, “ to 
dispel by the splendour of his deeds the clouds of 
calumny with which his enemies had assailed him.” 


BRITISH SHEEP. 


Art what period the sheep was introduced to our island, 
and under what circumstances, will probably elude all 
inquiry. We cannot however doubt but that it existed 
in England previously to the conquest of the Romans, 
though they do not notice it in their accounts of the 
productions of this Ultima Thule. But as the Britons 
of Kent had long traded with the Gauls, who, we know, 

ossessed sheep, and used at an early period a sort of 
felted cloth, we cannot but conclude that flocks 
tenanted the hills of our country long before the arrival 
of Julius Caesar. But we have proof positive of the 
antiquity of sheep in the British Islands, though 
whether domesticated or not we can scarcely deter- 
mine. Hector Boéthius describes a wild breed in the 
island of St. Kilda, exceeding the largest goat in size, 
with heavy massive horns, longer than those of an ox, 
and as bulky, and with a tail hanging to the ground. 
Skulls of sheep, apparently belonging to this race, 
occur in peat-bogs ; two of these crania, one most pro- 


* The Cid must mean wrongs from his sovereign alone, for he 
was not the man meckly to put up with injury from his equals, 
and we have his own word for it that “those who have noble 
escutcheous cannot brook wrongs.” , 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 175 
bably that of a male, the other of a female, which were 
obtained in Ireland from the peat, were some time 
since exhibited to the Geological Society. Pennant 
remarks, that such an animal as Boéthius describes is 
figured on a bas-relief taken out of the wall of Anto- 
ninus near Glasgow. These animals, whether a tame 
breed of them ever existed or not, were certainly not 
identical with the Mouflon of Corsica (Ov7s musimon, 
Linn.), which most naturalists have been inclined to 
regard as the primitive stock of at least our European 
races of domestic sheep. This opinion, however, we 
do not subseribe to. We believe the wild type (if in- 
deed it can be referred to a single type, which is. 
doubtful) to be still undiscovered. We know of no 
wild species with the long pendent tail so invariable 
in our domestic raccs, wherever they exist, excepting: 
indeed in the Persian fat-rumped sheep, and the Kir- 
ehise breeds of the same kind which inhabit the 
plains of VTartary, and which no one who considers: 
them can ascribe to the same origin as that of our 
European races, whether they be or be not the Cor- 
sican Mouflon. 

As this subject is very interesting, we shall avail 
ourselves of an adnurable paper by Mr. Blyth, in the 
‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London’ for 
July, 1840, entitled an amended hst of the species of 
the genus Ovis, and which is full of information. OF 
the genus Ovis he there enumerates the following: 
species, of which some are new to science :— 

The Pamir sheep, or Rass (Ov7s Polv?, Blyth). “ In 
the narrative of the celebrated Venetian traveller 
Marco Polo, we read that upon the elevated plain of 
Pamir, eastward of Bokhara, and 16,000 feet above 
the sea-level, wild animals are met with in great 
numbers, particularly sheep of a large size, having 
horns three, four, and even six palms in length. 
The shepherds form ladles and vessels from them 
for holding their victuals. They also construct fences 
for enclosing their cattle and securing them against 
the wolves, and which hkewise destroy many of the 
wild sheep. More recently an animal called the Rasse 
was indicated, from report, in Sir A. Burnes’s ‘ Travels 
in Bokhara,’ and its horns have been since transmitted. 
to the Royal Asiatic Society by Lieut. Wood, of Sir A.. 
Burnes’s party, through the medium of G. I. Vigne, 
Isq.” This pair of horns was labelled Itass, or Roosh. 
Sir A. Burnes writes, “I have heard of an animal called 
Ross by the Kirghises, and Kooshgar by the natives of 
the low countries; but Lieut. Wood, in the narrative of 
his recent journey to the source of the Oxus, dis- 
tinguishes between the Ross and the Kutchgar, the 
former having straight spiral horns; and its dun-colour 
being of a reddish-tinge. Both are said to be peculiar 
to the Pamir. The same writer, speaking of the Kutch- 
ear, says it was a noble animal, standing as high asa 
two-year-old colt, with a venerable beard, and two 
splendid curling horns, which, with the head, were so 
heavy as to require considerable exertion to tft them. 
Though poor in condition, the carcass divested of its 
offal was a load for a baggage pony. The Kutchgar 
is gregarious, congregating in herds of several hun- 
dreds; they are of a dun-colour.” This traveller con- 
firms Marco Polo’s narrative: ‘ We saw,” he writes, 
‘ numbers of the horns strewed about in every direc-. 
tion, the spoils of the Kirghise hunter,” 9°* The vends: 
of the horns projecting over the snow, often indicated: 
the direction of the road, and wherever they were: 
heaped in large quantities, there our escort recognised: 
the site of a Kirghise ne The flesh is: 
much prized by these people, who shoot it (the animal): 
with arrows. “ The Rass is said to dehght in the 
coldest districts—a common sized individual will: 
require two horses to bear its flesh from the field.” 


!'The horns, following their curvature, are nearly five: 


176 THE PENNY 
fect in leneth. It would appear that the Kutchgar 
has yet to be added to the list of species. _ 

The Siberian Argali (Ovts Ammon). Thisnoblc sheep 
is described by Pallas. 

The Kamtchatkan Argali (Ovis nivicola). M. Esch- 
scholtz, who describes this species, states 1t to be very 
numerous on the mountains of Kamtchatka; in sum- 
mer it resides upon the snow-clad heights, but mn win- 
ter it descends to the lower regions. JKotzebue notices 
its agility. ) 

Aimerica presents us with two species very closely 
allied to the Siberian Argali—the Rocky-Mountain 
Argali (Ovis montana), and the Californian Argah (0. 
Californiana, Douglas). . 

The Nahoor, or Sna, of Thibet (Ovis Nahoor, Hodg- 
son), a native of the Kachar region of Nepal and the 
olaciers of the Himalaya. . 

The Burrhel (Ovis Burrhel, Blyth), a species allied 
to the latter, and inhabiting the highest ridges of the 
Himalayan chain, where it “bounds hghtly over the 
encrusted snows, at an altitude where its human pur- 
sners find it difficult to-breathe. It has the bleat of 
the domestic species, as indeed they all have, and is 
very shy and difficult of approach. [locks of ten or 
twenty have been observed conducted by an old male, 
which make for the snowy peaks upon alarm, while 
their leader scrainbles up some crag to reconnoitre, 
and if shot at, bounds off a few paces, and again stops 
to gaze. They pasture in deep and hollow grassy 
slens.” A specimen, in the Museum of the Zoological 
Society, was shot near the Boorendo Pass, at an alti- 
tude of about 17,000 feet. 

The Caucasian Argali (Ovis cylindricornis, Blyth), 
hitherto confounded with the Siberian Argali. 

The Armenian Argali (Ovis Gmelini?, Blyth). 
Specimens of this sheep, from Erzeroom, are living 
i the gardens of the Zoological Society. ‘ Accord- 
ing to Gmelin, this species is found only in the 
highest mountains of Persia. The males, he in- 
forms us, are very quarrelsome amongst each other, 
insomuch that he had been at one place where the 
sround had been strewed with horns that’ had been 
knocked off in their contests.” It is allied to the Cor- 
sican Mouflon. “Sir John McNeill informed me that 
‘it appears to be the common species of the mountains 
of Armenia; occurring likewise on the north-west of 
Persia;’ but the wild sheep of the central parts of Persia 
is evidently distinct, ‘having horns much more re- 
sembling those of the domestic ram, being spiral, and 
completing more than one spiral circle. I think I am 
not mistaken in supposing, continues Sir John, ‘ that 
I have also had females of this species brought to me 
by the huntsmen with small horns, resembling those of 
the ewes of some of our domestic sheep; but, on re- 
flection, I find that I cannot assert this positively, 
though J retain the general impression.’ It is highly 
probable that a wild type of O. aries is here adverted 
to, which would thus inhabit the same ranges of moun- 
tains as the wild common goat (C. egagrus); and 
with respect to the circumstance of horns in the female 
sex, I may here remark that this character is very apt 
to be inconstant throughout the present group.” 

The Sha (Ovis Vignet, Blyth), a Mouflon inhabiting 
the mountains of Little Thibet and the Sulimani range 
between India and IKhorassan. ‘ Vast numbers of this 
species are driven down by the snow in winter to the 
branches of the Indus, where the river breaks through 
the chain of the Himalaya.” The wild sheep of the 
Tiindoo Koosh mountains, described 1n the ‘ Journal 
Asiatic Soc. Beng.’ for 1840, is either this or a closely 
allied species. Its climbing powers are extraordinary. 

The Corsican Mouflon (Ovts musimon, Linn.), a 
native of Corsica and Sardinia. Speaking of this 


MAGAZINE. [May ], 
to me, however, that the specifical distinctness of the 
Mouflon is very obvious, and I doubt whether it has 
contributed at all to the origin of any tame race. That 
it interbreeds freely with the latter, under circum- 
stances of restraint, is well known; but we have no 
information of hybrids, or Umbri, as. they are called, 
being ever raised from wild Mouflons, though the 
flocks of the latter will occasionally graze in the same 
pasture with domestic sheep, and all but mingle among 
them. The male of this animal is denominated in 
Corsica Mufro, and the female Mufra, from which 
Buffon, as is well known, formed the word Mouw/lon. 
and in Sardinia the male is called Murvon?, and the 
female Murva, though it 1s not unusual to hear the 
peasants style both indiscriminately Mujfion, which (as 
Mr. Smyth remarks, in his description of that island) 
is a palpable corruption of the Greek Ophion. It is 
sometimes stated, but I do not ‘know upon what au- 
thority, that a few of these animals are still found upon 
the mountains of Murcia.” 

The Cyprian Mouflon, probably different from the 
preceding, and termed by Mr. Blyth O. Aphion. 

Leaving out of the question the I[xalos Probaton, 
Ogilby (of which a unique specimen exists in the 
museum of the Zoological Society, London, the history 
of which is obscure), and the Aoudad, or African goat- 
sheep (Ovis tragelaphus), we come to the: domestic 
sheep (Ovis aries, Linn.) ; and here we would ask why 
the Corsican Mouflon, so limited in its range, is sin- 
eled out as its wildoriginal. The fact is, that when that 
idea was first started, naturalists knew little (and much 
is yet to be learned) of the wild Argalis and Mouflons 
of the mountain ranges of the Old World; but now 
that so many species are added to the list, which is still 
far from complete, it will be more philosophical to 
wait before coming to a hasty conclusion, until we are 
assured that no species nearer the domestic race than 
any yet found exists; and then it will be time to en- 
deavour to search among those known for the types of 
the domestic races. One thing is clear—that we are 
not acquainted with the true wild sheep, the roots of 
our valuable ‘breeds. That the domestic sheep is 
rreatly modified in its external and more trivial cha- 
racters by tlie treatment of man, continued through a 
long series of ages, cannot be disputed; and in nothing 
is this more apparent than in the fleece or wool with 
which we see it clad. The Mouflons and Argalis, that 
is, the wild species of the genus Ovis, are covered with 
what appears to bea harsh kind of hair, having beneath 
it a short spiral wool, which in winter becomes longcr 
and fuller. This, however, is denied by Mr. Bell, who, 
in reference to the clothing of the Corsican Mouflon 
(which, we know not why, he regards as the origin of 
all our tame sheep), thus expresses himself :—“ It is said 
by naturalists who have written on the subject, that the 
pelt of the Mouflion consists of long hair, forming the 
apparent covering, and of short wool beneath, which 
is only visible when the former is removed. This, how- 
ever, is totally erroneous. ‘The longer hairs of the 
Moufion are m their structure as genuine wool as that 
of sheep; they are coarse and stiff, it is true, and 
nearly straight, but they possess the essential character 
of wool in the imbricated scaly surface, which gives to 
wool that remarkable felting property wpon which its 
peculiar utility in many cases depends. It is also some- 
what waved, and it requires no considerable change to 
convert such a filament as this into fine curly wool. 
On the contrary, the short soft felt which hes at the 
root of this is nothing more than extremcly fine hair, 
uniform and smooth over its whole surface, and not 
assuming the slightest appearance oi the woolly tex- 
ture. I have examined these two kinds of hair of the 
Mouflon from various parts of the animal, and have 


sheep, Mr, Blyth remarks—“ It has always appeared ; found no essential variations,” 


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Mr. Youatt, speaking of an Argali which died at the 
pardens of the Zoological Society, says, that “ being 
then confined with illness, I requested a very intell- 
gent and observant friend to examine the proportion 
of wool which grew among the hair. He reported 
there was not a particle of wool. The author was 
surprised at this,as the Argali was described as having 
a winter coat, at least, of fine woolly down; and he 
sent and requested a small portion of the pelt. The 
hair was long and coarse cnough, but at its base was 
an exceedingly small quantity of crisped wool. There 
was so little of it, that 1t could scarecly be detected on 
the pelt, but was clearly scen when a lock of hair was 
cut off close to the skin and held wp to the hght. This 
goes far to explain the accounts that have been occa- 


No. 5334, 


sionally given of perfectly hairy (domestic) sheep.” 
Here then we find Mr. Youatt regarding the ordinary 
clothing of these Argalis and Mouflons as hair, and the 
{ine undercoat as wool, contrary to the opimon of Mr. 
Bell; and to judge from the analogy presented by 
wool-bearing animals in gencral, as the beaver, the 
otter, the hare, &c., which have an outer garment of 
smooth hair and an inner onc of wool, we incline, not- 
withstanding the appearances notiecd by Mr. Bell, to 
the general opinion. Be this as it nay, excepting on 
the face, ears, and limbs, which are covered with true 
hair, the ordinary domestic sheep of Europe are wool- 
clad; this wool, however, in the more neglected breeds, 
being more or less mixed with long hairs, the lingering 
remains, so to speak, of their primitive clothing. 


VoL. X.—2A 


178 THE PENNY 
The causes which have rendered the fleece of the 
European sheep what we now find it, are involved 1m 
doubt; judging from what is usual, one would think 
that shelter and warmth would tend to the removal ot 
such a clothing, and to the substitution of a highter and 
cooler material. But such is not the case; witness 
the Merino sheep of Spain, originally imported from 
Ineland, and the flocks of Australia aud Southern 
Africa. Supposing the fleece of the primitive sheep 
to be composed of hair and wool, it seems clear that 
the shepherds in the carly ages of man’s history must 
have selected for breeding those individuals on which, 
from some cause or other, the wool predommated, the 
quantity of hair being smaller than usual; and that by 
others following up this plan, the sheep gradually 
attained to its present condition, a wool-bearing breed 
being at length permanently established. ‘This was 
perhaps sooner effected than we might suppose: we 
know, indeed, that at a very early period wool was 
used in the manufacturing of various articles; at first, 
as may be coneluded, by the sumple process of felting, 
afterwards by spinning aud weaving. Originally, 1t 
cannot be doubted, the sheep, then a wool-bearer and 
lone domesticated, was of a brown or rusty-black 
colour, a hue still lingering on the faces and lunbs of 
many of our breeds, and sometimes distinguishing 
individuals amidst a carefully-bred flock, by being 
their general colour; and thus they exhibit a consti- 
tutional tendency to return to their wild origin. 

As the primitive fleece of the sheep was a mixture 
of hair and wool, we cannot be surprised to find races 
domesticated in which the hair predominates over the 
wool, and that often so greatly, that they may with pro- 
priety be termed hairy. Sometimes this hair is like that 
of a spaniel dog, long and silky: many of the flocks of 
the Bucharian Tartarsare thus clothed : sometimes, as In 
varieties of the Guinea sheep, it is coarse and shaggy. 
Sir Joseph Banks is said to have imported three sheep 
from Spain, “ which were as smooth and sleek as a 
horse, and which never showed the least sign of wool 
or down, even in the most minute quantity.” Dr. 
Anderson (in ‘ American Philos. Trans.,’ vol. iv., p. 
149) states that on visiting a Danish East Indiaman 
which put into Leith Roads on her return home, he 
found on board “a very fine sheep, which was covered 
with a close coat of thick short hair, very smooth and 
sleek, like the coat of a well-dressed borse, but the 
hairs rather stiffer, and thicker set on the skin; the 
colour a fine nut-brown. It was told me that it was 
brought from the island of Madagascar, and that all 
the sheep found in the island were of the same sort.” 
The fat-rumped Persian sheep which we have seen are 
covered with short coarse wool mixed with hair. 

Confining our observations to the sheep of our own 
island, so important a source of wealth and industry, 
we may remind the reader that we possess several dif- 
ferent breeds, distinguished by different qualities both 
as it regards form and the characters of the wool: 
these breeds or varieties are the result of skilful treat- 
ment, of pasturage, and of judicious crossings. We 
may divide them into three groups, the short-woolled, 
the middle-woolled, and the long-woolled breeds. 

The short-woolled breed formerly included many 
varicties, now, from the improvement of their fleece, 
to be ranked under the second division, as the South- 
Down, Norfolk, and Cheviot sheep. It is at present, 
however, represented by the Anglo-Merino race, to 
which the sheep of New Holland and Van Diemen’s 
Land also belong. The average length of the wool is 
about two inches anda half, and its texture is pecu- 
liarly fine, soft, and even silky. Short wool is used in 
the manufacture of delicate and beautiful fabrics ; it is, 
however, generally mixed with wool of a longer staple. 


The Saxony wool, so valued for its fineness, comes | 


MAGAZINEE (May 8, 
under the present division ; it 1s shorter and finer than 
the Australian wool, but less silky, the serrations of 
the fibre being more numerous, and disposing it to felt 
more closely. Wence Saxony wool is the most valuable 
in the manufacture of fine broad-cloth. 

The average weight of the fleece of the Australian 
short-woolled sheep is from three pounds to three and 
a half, soinetimes it amounts to five. ‘There is no 
wool,” says Mr. Hughes, “ which spins so wellas the 
Australian ;’ large importations are annually sent to 
the British market, at an average of 2s. Gd. per pound. 
In 1833 the quantity imported from New South Wales 
and Van Diemen’s Land amounted to 3,516,869 
pounds. 

It has been the object of the British sheep-farmer to 
convert the short-woolled breeds into a race with wool 
which, while its length is increased, preserves its 
onginal fineness and delicacy. Thus we have now, in 
place of the old short-woolled breeds, a middle-woolled 
race, of great value, and of which the fleece is in the 
highest request. The cut at the head of the present 
article gives as examples of this middle-woolled race, 
the Welsh mountain-shecp, the black-faced of Scot- 
land, the Norfolk and the Dorset breeds, with the South- 
Down and Ryland. 


EXHIBITIONS OF MECHANISM AND MANU- 
FACTURED PRODUCTS. 


THE .POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION. 


WE recently offered a few remarks on the nature and 
objects of the Museum belonging to the Socicty of 
Arts. Onthe present occasion our attention will be 
directed to the mechanical and manufacturing depart- 
ments of the Polytechnic Institution. 

This Institution, which holds its meetings in Regent 
Street, is a joint-stock undertaking, established a few 
years ago, for the purpose of “ educating the eye” in 
matters of science and art, and of “ affording to the 
inquirer the means of obtaining a general knowledge 
of the processes by which the wonders of artand manu- 
facture are produced.” These objects are carried out 
by various means, among which are lectures on chemi- 
cal and scientific subjects, the exhibition of models of 
machinery, and specimens to illustrate the progress of 
manufactures. It is to the two latter of these features 
that our remarks will principally apply. The exhibi- 
tion of machinery and models is not a gratuitous one; 
but a visitor may, in the course of an hour’s visit, 
‘“ educate the eye” to an extent fully adequate to the 
charge made. 

On entering the building from Regent Street, we 
find ourselves in the “ Hall of Manufactures,” a room 
about forty feet square, occupied in rather a miscel- 
laneous manner. At the right-hand side are lathes 
and turning-engines of various kinds, the action of 
which is explained to any inquiring visitor by the 
attendants. Near these are two specimens of looms; 
one, the old Dutch machine, and the other a modern 
power-loom worked by steam. At these looms a 
weaver 1s generally at work; and as the action of the 
machines can be minutely inspected, the nature of the 
weaving process can be learned much more quickly 
by an inspection of them than by reading any descrip- 
tion. Ingenious working models of braiding and 
twisting machines, set in action occasionally during 
the day, show the manner in which many small haber- 
dashery wares are manufactured. In our Supplement 
on the glass-manufacture, we had oecasion to allude 
to the tenacity and ductility of glass in a melted state : 
these qualities may be witnessed by watching the 
operations of a glass-blower im the hall; the articles 
which he manntactures are, it 1s true, mere toys; but 
the processes are nearly the same in principle. 


1841. | 


There are other objects in this hall, but none that 
call for notice here excepta steam-engine. This engine, 
situated at the north-west corner of the hall, is, though 
sinall, of elegant construction ; but the point for which 
we mention it is to show how well it illustrates the 


communication of mechanical power from one part of 


a building to another. In most.of our great manufac- 
tories, machinery, placed in different and often widely 
separated apartments, 1s set in motion by one engine ; 
and the mode in which this motion is transferred fron 
Place to place is beautifully shown in the instance 
before us. A fly-wheel attached to the engine acts as 
a reservoir of mechanical power, which, by means of 
endless bands passing over wheels, of shafts, and of 
toothed-wheels, is communicated to a very large num- 
ber of models in the Great Hall, an apartment several 
yards from the steam-engine. 
Into this great hall, a room about a hundred and 
twenty fect long, we next pass; and, abstracting our 
attention from the mere elegancies or ornamental 
articles deposited there, we shall notice the objects 
belonging more particularly to the manufacturing 
arts. There is one feature which we look upon as of 
considerable importance, viz. series of specimens illus- 
trative of the different stages through which an article 
passes in the progress of manufacture: a feature which 
might, we think, be advantageously carried out to a 
much greater extent. These specimens are not placed 
so prommently before the view of the visitor as they 
ought to be ; and it 1s probable that many persons pass 
by them without knowing their nature or object. One 
series illustrates the porcelain manufacture: speci- 
mens of the clays and earths in their crude form; 
afterwards in their mixed form; a plate made from 
them ; the same plate printed in blue colours, but not 
glazed; the materials of which vitrifiable glaze are 
formed; a plate after it has been glazed; porcelain 
before and after it has been glazed. Specimens illus- 
trative of the hat-manufacture: wool and fur in their 
simple states; the same combined into a triangular 
‘batt;’ the batt felted into a conical cap; the cap ina 
state of transition to the form of a hat; and finally, a 
hat in its blocked shape. Another series illustrates the 
manufacture of fine cutlery: the crude iron; the 
modified appearances which it afterwards presents ; 
the manufactured steel; the shapes imto which it is 
cut ; and the finished razor produced therefrom. The 
‘glass’ illustrations are incomplete, for they consist 
only of manufactured articles, beautiful, it is true, but 
not illustrating the stages of manufacture: there 
ought to be specimens of the sand, the alkah, and the 
oxide of lead, in their simple slates; then in their 
mixed state ; then fused into.a mass; and lastly, in the 
state just previous to working. One glass-case con- 
tains specimens of woven and twisted fabrics of brass, 
iron, aud copper wire ; and another, of similar articles 
made from the fibres of the cocoa-nut; both of which 
are interesting, as showing how extensively a thread of 
any substance, whether vegetable or mineral, may be 
worked up intoa useful form. Another series illustrates 
the production of nsefi articles from caoutchouc, or 
India-rubber: the gum is here shown in all its varions 
states, from the time it is formed on the tree, through its 
various stages—sometimes a solution, and at others a 
thread—initil it assumes one of a numerous variety of 
forms. We repeat oir opinion that this department 
might be made one of the most valuable in the exhibi- 
tion, by extending the series, and by labelling every 
specimen in a conspicuons and readable manner. 
Models of steam-engines are placed near the en- 
trance to this hall, most of them being, to a partial 
extent, set in action by power brought from the acting 
steani-engine in the entrance-hall. N ear here, also, is 
one of Mr. Hall’s hydraulic belts, machines intended 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 179 
to drain marshes and fens, by drawing up water through 
the snetion or absorptive agency of a belt or web: the 
model here exlubited draws up water to the height of 
twenty or thirty feet, by the vertical motion of an 
endless belt, dipping into water below. Numerous 
specimens of agricultural nnplements, garden-eneines, 
fire-escapes, carriages, mangles, and other machines 
lie around in various places. Occasionally we mect 
with an odd juxtaposition of objects,—a model of the 
Venetian Bucentaure, with a steam-engine boiler on 
one side, and a box of preserved mutton, brought by 
Captain Ross from the wreck of the Fury, on the 
other; but these are discrepancies which inay be over- 
looked. 

The diving-bell 1s one of the “lions” of the place, 
and is certainly an excellent way of illustrating the law 
of pneumatics relating to the pressure of air. A little 
philosophy will suffice to show the visitor the action of 
this machine :—As the bell descends into the water, 
the air within it becomes pressed into a smaller space, 
but still it continues to occupy a certain portion of 
rooin which the water cannot reach; and the living 
inmate, though exposed to air of great density, is un- 
touched by the water. An air-pump is employed to 
force a constant supply of fresh air into the bell, to 
replace that which 1s contaminated by respiration. 

The reservoir of water into which the bell descends 
is also the scene of operation of a man who, clothed in 
a water-tight dress, remains below the surface of the 
water several minutes, and manages a piece of pte 
ratus intended to illustrate the raising of sunken slips 
by clectricalagency. But, confining ourselves more par- 
ticularly to pieces of mechanism, we may allude to a 
small coining-press, showing the method of comme at 
the Mint. The press, however, is too far from the eye to 
ake its mode of action clear to persons unacquainted 
with it. On different parts of two canals running on 
either side of this coining-press are various models of 
slips, boats, paddle-wheels, propellers, locks, dais, 
and other specimens of hydranlic engineering.  Build- 
ing-docks, dry-docks, launching-slips, piers, &c. are 
also among the objects represented by models. 

In one part of the building is a machine which is 
principally interesting as showing how easily people 
are sometimes deceived, when they are ignorant of the 
principles of physical science. ‘Time was wher all 
the world went to sce the “Invisible Girl;” but there 
she lies—or rather the wooden representative of her— 
almost unnoticed. The “Invisible Girl” is an acous- 
tical deception, which once brought a harvest to its 
proprictor; but it is now placed in this exhibition 
with the very proper view of explaining away the ap- 
parent magic, and pointing out the manner—by no 
ineans deficient in ingenuity —in which it acted. | 

There is one glass-case in the Gallery which 1s 
somewhat important. It contains specimens of all the 
strata bored through in sinking a well near London to 
a great depth. ‘The specimens are ranged in_ the 
order in which they occurred, and form a useful in- 
dex to the nature of the subsoil on which London is 
built. Nuinerous other specimens, derived from 
various quarters, and illustrative of various geological 
features, are distributed in glass-cases round the room. 

A pneumatic telegraph, an anemometer, a _Yrain- 
eauge ; an orrery, intended to show, as far as such me- 
chanisin can do, the relative sizes of the planetary 
bodies ; and various other machines, more or less We- 
longing to the mechanical sciences, are to be found in 
considerable number; but to them we have not space 
particularly to allude, nor to sich small matters as the 
“self-acting candle-extinguisher,’ &c. Our object 
has been to speak of those departments of the exhibi- 
tion which illustrate the progress of arts and inanw. 
factures in an instructive and interesting mM 

2A 2 


130 TLE PENNY MAGAZINE. [May 8, 








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ee = - a ns a ULE ~ ot Jee een A ay 
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SSS —— eS 


{ Modern Shadoofs. } 


. ; seed can germinate nor the plant receive nourishment 
IRRIGATION IN THE BAST. without mite, In niet climates, when the peri- 
ARTIFICIAL irrigation, as a means of promoting the | odical rains occur, even the desert becomes blooming 
fertility of the soil, is comparatively but little attended | and covered with ver dure; but soon after they have 
to in our agricultural system. The moistness of the | ceased, the constant evaporation soon drys up the mois- 
climate and the fi equent showers dropping fatness | ture, and it again assumes its arid and lifeless appear- 
upon the land, will sufficiently account for this neglect, ance. The warmer the climate, and the more rapid 
though it is probable that these natural advantages are | the evaporation, the more luxuriant is the vegetation, 
not for the future hkely to preclude that Weontion to | provided there be an abundant supply of water. * Our 
the subject of artificial irrigation which it deserves.* | agriculturalists who emigrate to New South Wales 
The rich water-meadows on the banks of some of our Fad Australia would Aina | it advantageous to study the 
rivers afford proofs of the utility and profit which | agriculture of those regions which have an analogous 
result from irrigation, if conducted according to the climate to that of New South Wales, as they will then 
rules dictated by experience or science. The meadows | learn something of those processes which the experl- 
on the Wiltshire Avon, for mstance, which are so | ence of ages has proved to be suitable to the circwn- 
remarkable for their productiveness, are on a bed of | stance of their new couniry, and thus be able to coun- 
shingle and pebbles matted together by the roots of the | teract its great defects,—aridity, and the deficiency of 
prass, and if they were not fertilised by the water of | rivers and streams. ‘“ It seems (says the writer of; the 
the river being judiciously made to flow over them, | article ‘ Irrigation,’ in the ‘ Cyclopedia’) that where 
they would be as barren as Bagshot Heath. The agri- | there is ereat hes in the air, water alone will supply 
culturalist who has paid attention to chemistry and | the necessary food for the growth of plants. It is pro- 
botanical physiology knows that water is the most | bable that the component parts of the atmosphere are 
essential element of vegetation, and that neither the | more easily separated, and made to enter into new 
* In vol. i, p. 359, of the ‘ Journal of the Agricultural So- combinations with those of water, ina high tempera- 
ciety of England,’ eee is an account of the Duke of Portland’s | ture, than in a lower ; or that the leaves and srech par {s 
Water-meadows ott Clipstone Park, by J. Evelyn Denison, Esq. of vegetables imbibe water in a state of solution in air, 
The land occupied by these meadows was at one time partly a | and that in this state it is more easily decomposed. 
rabbit-warren, over which a few sheep wandered, and a swamp | Atmospheric air and water contain all the principal 
haunted by wild ducks and snipes; but, chiefly by means of irri- | elements of vegetables, namely, oxygen, hydrogen, 
gation, the produce is now very great, c exceeding all anticipa- 
tion.” * < Penny Cyclopedia,’ art. ‘ Irrigation, 


1841.] 


THE PENNY 


carbon, and nilrogen: the remainder are either found | 


in the soil or diffused through the water. Manures 
seem to act principally as stimulants or re-agents, aud 
are themselves composed of the same elements.” To 
these prineiples, therefore, are to be referred the im- 
portance of irrigation in all dry and hot eountries, 
where no expense is spared to obtain a supply of water, 
and ingenuity is taxed to the utmost to distribute it 
over as large an area as possible, for beyond the limits 
of irrigation the soil is comparatively unproductive. | 

Eeypt, Syria, and Western Asia, where rain 1s dis- 
continued throughout the summer, and where, in eoli- 
sequenee of that and of the extreme heat, all the 
smaller streams are dried up, will furnish us with the 
inost antient practices of irrigation, and they are those 
which still prevail in those countries. | | 

When the water was near at hand, as 1n a reservolr 
upon the grounds, the plan was sufficiently simple, and 
the sculptures of antient Egypt eontain figures of men 
with a yoke upon their shoulders bearing water-pots. 
When the river is high, or the banks low, two men are 
employed to raise the water by their united aetion, In 
a single vessel (ealled chutweh). ‘They stand opposite 
each other on the different banks, and holding a vessel 
by ropes, they let it deseend into the water, and on its 
being filled raise it to the surface, and pour the eon- 
tents into a trench whieh conduets it to the gardens or 
other grounds where it is required. 

It is, however, in sueh cases, more usual to raise the 
bucket by means of the Shadoof, which is the most 
common and simple of the maehines used in the East 
(or raising water, whether from rivers or from wells. 
It is thus deseribed by Mr. Lane :—*“ It consists of two 
posts or pillars of wood, or of mud and canes or rushes, 
about five feet in height, and less than three feet apart, 
with a horizontal pieee extending from top to top, to 
which is suspended a slender lever, formed of a branch 
of a tree, having at one end a weight chiefly eomposed 
of mud, and at the other, suspended from two long 
palm-stieks, a vessel in the forin of a bowl, made of 
basket-work, or of a hoop and piece of woollen stuff or 
leather: with this vessel the water is threwn up to the 


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MAGAZINIE. 18] 
height of about eight feet, into a trough hollowed out 
for its reeeption.* This mode of raising water is seulp- 
tured on the monuments of antient Egypt. 

When the river is too low, or its banks too high for 
shadoofs on the same level to raise the water to the 
surface of the soul, a series of four or five shadoofs is 
rendered necessary. The water is then raised from the 
river by shadoofs, and discharged into a trench, from 
which it is taken by other shadoofs, and discharged into 
another trench above, and so on from trench to trench, 
as represented in the cut, until it is raised to the levex 
of the fields. 

Another machine, mueh used for the same purpose 
as the shadoof, not only on the banks of the Nile, but 
on those of the Euphrates, Tigris, and all the principal 
rivers of Western Asia, is the Sacktyeh, and which is 
usually in all cases called ‘the Persian Wheel,’ in 
whieh country it is very largely employed for the irri- 
gation of gardens and other eultivated grounds. The 
example exhibited in the eut is one of the most ‘perfect 
of the kind, being used for the irrigation of the gardens 
of one of the old beys, on the banks of the eanal by 
Whieh Cairo is traversed. The following is Mr. Lane’s 
deseription of this maehine:—The Saekiyeh ‘“ mainly 
eonsists of a vertieal wheel, which raises the water in 
earthen-pots attached to cords, and forming a eontinu- 
ous series; a seeond vertical wheel fixed to the same 
axis with cogs; anda large horizontal eogged wheel, 
which, being turned by a pair of eows or bullocks, or 
by asingle beast, puts in motion the two former wheels 
and the pots. ‘The eonstruction of the machine is 
usually of a very rude kind; and its motion produecs 
a disagreeable eroaking noise.”*+ The revolution of 
the wheels takes down the string of buekets on one 
side, and brings them up full on the other. On reach- 
ing the top, they are reverted by the eontinued action 
of the wheel, and pour forth their contents into a trough 
which conducts it to a reservoir, whence it is distri- 
buted im rills over the garden. It is by the wheel and 
string of buekets that water is usually raised from 

* ¢ Modern Egyptians,’ vol. i, p. 24. 
7 Litem, Lic. 20. 


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182 


wells in Syria, although the shadoof is sometimes em- 
ployed. A contrivance similar to the shadoof 1s occa- 
sionally used for wells in some parts of Great Britam, 
and may be frequently seen in the north aud east of 
Europe, and in the United States of America and 
in Canada. = 

There is another machine used for the irrigation of 
lands, when it is only necessary to raise the water a 
few fect. This is called the Taboot, and Mr. Lane 
describes it as somewhat resembling the sackiyeh, ‘“ the 
chief difference being that, instead of the wheel with 
pots, it has a large wheel with hollow jaunts, or fellies, 
in which the water is raised.” 

Grounds requiring to be artificially watered are 
divided into small squares by ridges of earth or by fur- 
rows: and the water, flowing from the machine or 
cistern into a narrow gutter, is admitted into one 
square or furrow after another by the gardener, who 
is always ready, as occasion requires, to stop and direct 
the torrent, by turning the earth against it with his 
foot, and opening at the same time with his mattock a 
new trench to reccive it. This mode of distributing 
water over a land rarely refreshed with rain 1s more 
than once alluded to in the Scriptures; and imdeed a 
distinction is founded upon it between Egypt and the 
Land of Canaan (Deut., x1. 10, 11). 


THE ROAD AND TRAVELLING IN THE 
OLDEN TIME. 


rom Southampton, on the southern coast of England, 
the traveller may now procced by railway as far north- 
ward as Lancaster or Darlington, the railway lines 
from Rugby being continucd to the latter place, and 
those from Birmingham to the former one. Thus, in 
the space of a summer’s day we may traverse over 
parts of England which once constituted the inde- 
pendent Saxon kmgdoms of Wessex, Essex, Mercia, 
and Northumbria, but which, partly by reason of im- 
proved means of communication, have become so 
united in interest and national feeling as to be com- 
parable only to the mdividualization of a single mind. 
While such rapid changes in the facilities of inter- 
course are going on, 1t may be interesting as well as 
useful to glance backward to the locomotive facilities 
of former times. 

Yor several years previous to the opening of the 
great lines of railway our system of travelling had 
reached perfection. Neither skill, nor capital, nor 
enterprise could render it more admirable. 
cellence of the roads, the quality and training of the 
horses, and the division of labour carried to its greatest 
efficacy, could alone enable the public of Edinburgh 
or Glasgow to calculate the arrival of the mails to a 
few minutes after a journey of four hundred miles 
performed in forty-two hours, including stoppages, 
which were necessarily limited to the shortest possible 
space of time. The ‘long stages’ and the mails, which, 
to the number of sixty or seventy, daily travelled along 
the great highways, and imparted so much animation 
to the small country town, no longer rattle along its 
streets or dash through the villages, and greater must 
be the contrast on account of the suddenness with 
which they have now vanished. Even the small vil- 
lave road-side inn grew into importance, and while 
‘ changing horses,’ passengers entered it fora moment 
to partake of the comforts for which it had a more 
than local reputation. Perhaps the palmiest time for 
inns was in the days of “ merry England,” when the 
roads were so thoroughly bad as to be impracticable or 
nearly so for wheel-carriages, and journeys were per- 
formed on horseback. Judges of assize, the learned 
members of the bar, and their clerks rode the circuit, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


Thegex—| 


[Mav & 


Churchmen, from right reverend prelates to sleek and 
well-fed abbots with the humbler lay-brothers of their 
order proceeded in picturesque array, attended by their 
suinptuary animals with their “ chappell and wardrobe 
stuff.’ Of the abbot, in Chancer, 1t 1s said— 


‘¢ Full many a daintie horse had he m stable ; 
And when he rode, men might his bridle hear, 
Gingeling in a whistling wind as clear, 

Aud eke as loud, as doth the chapel] bell.” 


Gentle dames and fair damsels took the road on their 
paltreys. Chaucer’s ‘ Wiie of Bath’ is spoken of as 
‘© Girt with a pair of sporres sharpe, 
Upon an ambler easily she, sat.” 


Then there was the court making progresses from one 
royal manor or castle to another, or mecting parlia- 
ments at York, Leicester, Lincoln, and other an- 
cient towns; also the nobles removing to and from 
their different castles, or travelling up to London to 
court with their trains of attendants; and the smele 
horseman riding a distance of a hundred miles or more 
to London or elsewhere with a letter, before posts were 
established, would join these parties, whose numbers 
would be swelled by dealers and others going to the 
different fairs to buy and sell, and by companies of 
pilgrims riding to some favourite shrme. The roads 
were not therefore so dull in those days. 

The arrival of anumerous company atthe ‘ hostelrie ’ 
where they were to spend the mght would occasion 
preparations very different from those which were re- 
quired when the mailcoach-passengers of later times 
alighted and were allowed twenty minutes or half an 
hour for supper, after which they were again hurried 
on to their destination. The inns of the olden time 
must have been extensive establishments, combinmeg 
within themselves the means of comfort aud abun- 
dance if not of luxury. Harrison, who wrote in the 
tune of Queen Elizabeth, says—‘“ Our inns are very 
well furnished with naperie, bedding, and tapisterie, 
especiallie with naperie.” Of the host of these days 
Sir Walter Scott has given us a description m the 
opening chapter of ‘ Kemlworth :’— ‘The guests,” he 
says, “ were in some sort not merely the inmates but 
the messmates and temporary companions of mine 
host, who was usually a personage of privileged frec- 
dom, comely presence, and good humour.” The guests 
themselves were men of weight, rank, and mfluence, 
and the host rose into a position of increased dignity 
by entertaining them. He would derive some in- 
portance too from his acquaintance with the news of 
the country obtained from the travellers who lodged 
with him, or refreshed themselves at his house during 
their journey; and with the opportunities which his 
situation afforded for studying life and character, we 
may easily believe that not a little shrewdness and 
humour would be mingled with the joviality of his 
calling. After riding all day, the guests also would 
be disposed to give the rein to cheerfulness and mer- 
riment under circumstances so well caleulated to ex- 
cite hospitable feelings and sympathy in individuals 
even of the least genial nature. Although we have 
quoted Harrison’s encomium, yet there is a passage in 
one of the letters of the Earl of Shrewsbury, written 
in 1582, which shows that in his journey from Win- 
field Manor-house, near Alfreton, to Lonslon, he was 
accompanied by carriages which contamed “ bedding ” 
for himself and “ pallets for some of his folks;” but 
this may be explained by the largeness of his retinue, 
“T thynke,” says he, addressing his agent, “my com- 
pany will be xx gentylnen and xx yemen, besid?s 
their men and my horse-keepers. I thynke to set for- 
wards, about the 11th of September, from Wynfield to 
Lester to ny bedde, and so make but four days’ journey 


18-40. | THE PENNY 
to London.” The railroad will now convey a traveller 

from London to within half a mile of the ruined 

manor-house at Winficld in about seven hours. Sixty 

years before, namely in 1526, Henry Clifford, Earl of 
Cuniberland, rode from Skipton to London, with thirty- 

three servants, at an expense of 7/. 15s. ld. The earls 

of Northumberland, in the same age (1512), when they 

removed from Alnwick to Wressle, or any of their 

other castles, appear to have been accompanied by 

thirty-six horsemen, and no less than seventeen ve- 

hicles or long waggons filled with household things. 

They carried with them to their different places of 
residence bedding, hangings, and furniture, leaving 

the walls of the one which they had just left bare, as 

the arras was equally required to conceal the naked- 

ness of that to which they were proceeding. One 

of the vehicles is termed, in the ‘ Northumberland 

Household Book,’ a ‘chariot,’ but it was simply a large 

waggon drawn by six or seven large ‘ trotting horses,’ 

the chariotmen riding on a nag by the side. 

Above a century later (1640), we find the wife of 
Henry, the last Earl of Cumberland, journeying from 
London to Landesborough, with thirty-two horsemen 
in her train, the cavalcade being eleven days on the 
road ; but prices had altered, and the costs of the journey 
amounted to G87. 18s. In the privy-purse expenses of 
the Le Stranges, an ancient family settled at Hunstan- 
ton in Norfolk, where they had a manor, and which 
is about 113 miles from London, there are various 
entries which show the cost of travelling. On August 
15th, 1520, four of their servants rode on horseback into 
Staffordshire. On the first day the cost of their dinners 
at Lynn was 7d., and for “horsemete there” 5d. They 
arrived at Wisbeach to supper, for which they paid 
ls. 1d., and for breakfast next morning 4d., the cost of 
their horses being 1s. 4d. For one man, the “costs in 
ryding to London” and back to Hunstanton were 6s. 2d. 
Ife paid 2d. for his dinner each day, and 2d. for his 
supper, and performed the journcy in three days. The 
baiting of his horse for the mght was 10d., at New- 
market (a large sum), 6d. at Ware, in going, and 8d. 
on his return. For “horsemcte” in London on Sunday 
night, Monday, and until Tuesday at noon, he paid Is., 
and his own expenses were lld. At Brandon Ferry he 
paid one penny for “dryncke:” ale was 1d. a quart. 
The accounts of another journey “to Londonward, the 
Fryday after Seynt Peter,’ commence with the follow- 
ing entry :—‘“Imp. at Castleacre for dryncke, 1d.” 
The two following entries show that 1t was no uncom- 
mon thing to send a man from Hunstanton to London 
with a letter. Thus Lady Le Strange makes an entry 
of 9s. 3d. “ for cost of riding up to London with a letter 
to my son Nycholas;’ and there is an entry by a 
servant of 7s. Gd. for costs of riding to the same place 
“with your letter for Mr. Southell;” Richard Le 
Strauge’s expenses for “riding to the Prior of Lewes ”’ 
were 26s. 8d.; a servant is paid 7s. as his “ costs ryding 
to the abbot of Welbeck, Nottynghamsyre ;” and an- 
other 5s. “when he rode into Warwyckshire for gre- 
hounds.” Ina journey made to London by one of the 
Le Stranges, in 1520, the accounts kept by one of the 
attendants contain the following items, under the head 
of * Rewards to Londonward :”—*“ Item, to a mynstrell 
at Newmarket, 4d.; to a harmyte between Barkwaye 
and Ware, ld.; to a freer at Ware, 2d. These “her- 
mits’ occupied cells, and haunted the public roads, 
and the “freers” had begging licences, but they seein 
to have been in no great repute at this time, judging 
from the sums they obtained. In the household ex- 
penses of another family, under the dates of 1572 
and 1574, we find, in the expenses of a journey to 
London, the sum of 4d. paid “amongst the poor folk 
by the way ;” and ls. “to the blind harper at Ware.” 


Wien LN Ic. 183 
those times, as, ina similar journey, in 1574, the sum 
of 3s. was paid “to the musicians at Ware.” 

From thirty to fifty miles seems to have been the usual 
rate of a day’s journey on horseback during the 1Gth 
century. In one mstance the journey from London to 
Tunstanton (113 miles) 1s performed in two days. The 
travellers dined at Newmarket, and lodged at Bark- 
way, and on the second day dined at Ware, and supped 
in London. When the state of the roads is considered, 
this rate of travelling was very rapid. Two centuries 
later, namely, in 1739, the great North Road north of 
Grantham is described as consisting of a narrow paved 
causeway for horses, with an unmade road on each side 
of it. The paved part of the road was traversed by 
strings of pack-horses thirty or forty in number, the 
foremost carrying a bell, to give warning to travellers, 
who were compelled to leave the causeway to allow 
them to pass. 

Our ancestors must have been men of greater powers 
of bodily endurance than the present generation, to 
have been capable of undergoing, as they were accus- 
tomed to do, a journey on horseback along such roads 
from Glasgow or Edinburgh to London. In the 
thirteenth century, when the roads were doubtless in 
a still worse condition than they were five centuries 


afterwards, the number of miles travelled in a day’s 


journey was also much greater than would have 
been thought possible. From ‘A Table of the Move- 
ments of the Court of John, King of England, from 
his Coronation on the 27th of May, 1199, to the end of 
his reign in 1216,’ prepared with great industry, by 
Mr. Hardy, of the Record Office in the Tower, it ap- 
pears “that the court very constantly travelled be- 
tween thirty-five and forty miles a day, and on par- 
ticular occasions a distance of fifty miles was traversed.” 
In one year King John changed his residence one hun- 
dred and fifty times, visiting religious houses and his 
castles and manors, In some cases consuming in kind 


the rents due to the crown, and in others impoverish- 


ing the country by the rapacity of his purveyors. 
Suitors were necessarily compelled to follow the pro- 
gress of the court. In 1566, the messenger dispatched 
from Edinburgh with the intelhgence of the birth of a 
young prince (afterwards James [.) reached London on 
the fourth day. 

Thoresby, the Yorkshire antiquary, has given, in 
his ‘ Diary,’ a minute account of a “ London journey,” 
on which he set out on horseback, in company with 
his friend Alderman Miller of Leeds, on the 27th 
of December, 1708. On the first day they reached 
Barnby Moor, a distance of forty-one miles, and he 
plously ejaculates, “ Blessed be God, we found the 
ways much better than expectation.” 

On the 28th the travellers “found some of the ways 
very bad,” especially near Tuxford, “ where the ice 
breaking in, it was both troublesome and dangerous.” 
They escaped what Thoresby terms “ several imminent 
dangers,’ which he enumerates, first, ‘in passing the 
Trent, which we were forced to ferry over, as also 
over several meadows, and ride over others for above 
a mile together, very decp to the saddle skirts fre- 
quently, and dangerous, especially upon a long cause- 
way, which the guide was forced to plumb every step, 
because, if we had slipped off upon either side, we had 
been plunged in a considerable depth of waters.” 
They lodged this evening at Grantham (thirty-eight 
miles), where he had a Scotch physician, also travelling 
to London, as his “chamber-fellow.” 

On the 29th they again sect forward, but snow having 
fallen in the night, they only reached Stamford, a dis- 
tance of twenty-two miles. In this part of the road 
Thoresby notices with eratitude the number of ‘hors- 
ing stones, each of three steps, placed by the road-side 


Ware secms to have been a very musical place in| for the convenience of travellers by a benevolent m- 


184 


dividual whose name he records. On the 30th and 
31st of December, and Ist and 2nd January, the travel- 
lers were weather-bound at Stamford. 

On the 3rd of January, “ having the encouragement 
of some of the Scotch gentry, who must of necessity be 
at the parliament at the time appointed, we ventured 
upon our journey, being fourteen In company,” and 
though their guide refused to proceed on account of 
ihe state the roads were in, yet they reached Hunting- 
don in safety, a distance of twenty-seven miles. 

On the 4th the travellers proceeded through Royston 
to Puckeridge, “ where we lodged comfortably.” On 
the 5th Thoresby and his friend “ overtook the Scotch 
posters and got before them to London, though at En- 
field had the misfortune to be plunged almost belly 
deep, by the breaking in of the ice, that the water run 
in at my pockets and stained my papers.” Thoresby 
spent the evening with a friend in the Temple after 
this journey of ten days (now performed in as many 
hours), aud which, not reckoning the four days at Stam- 
ford, occupied six days constant travelling. 

On Monday, February 14, Thoresby and the Alder- 
men began their journey from London to Leeds, “ in 
company with some Hull gentlemen.” They “ baited 
at Ware and reached Royston in good time,” being 
thirty-seven miles. Next day they began their journey 
“by six in a cold morning,” and reached Stamford in 
rood time, having accompHshed forty-eight miles. On 
the 16th they “ rose very early.” The roads in some 
places were “rougher than a ploughed field,” and 
‘the ice breaking, we were often forced to dismount.” 
They reached Leeds on Friday, having been five days 
on the road. 3 

The practice of taking long journeys on horseback 
continued until the roads had become so much im- 
proved that the public conveyances were enabled to 
outstrip the horseman, and then economy of time as 
well as money decided the public in their favour. 
There appear to have been some public conveyances 
estabhshed in the sixteenth century. Stow speaks of 
them as “long wagons,” afterwards called ‘* caravans,” 
and says that they usually carried twenty or twenty- 
five passengers. The gentry and persons of considera- 
tion frequently travelled by them, taking with them 
their servants, plate, &c. Sir William Dugdale notices 
in his ‘ Diary,’ in 1660, that his “ daughter went to- 
wards London by waggon.” On tne 2nd of May, 
1659, he himself “ set forwards toward London b 
Coventre coach,” probably a lghter vehicle than the 
‘waggon.’ The slowness of travelling is noticed by 
several writers of this period. Anthony 4 Wood had 
never visited London until he was thirty-five years old, 
but in 1666 he set out from Oxford by coach, and was 
two days travelling to town. A coach was after- 
wards established by which the journey between these 
two places was performed in thirteen hours in the 
summer season, but according to a notice dated 1692, the 
time occupied in winter still continued to be two days. 

Thoresby’s ‘ Diary’ contains an account of several 
of his ‘ London journeys’ by coach. On August 26th, 
1712, he left London for Leeds by coach, and passed 
over Enfield Chace, “ which yet abounds with deer,” 
then by Barnet and Hatfield to Welwyn, ‘a town of 
food inns,” and Stevenage, where they spent the night. 
The next day they reached Northampton, but it was so 
dark when they arrived, that after narrowly escaping 
being overturned, the passengers alighted and walked 
into the town. The modern stage-coach journeying all 
light at the same rapid pace as during the day, lighted 
by four brilliant patent lamps, one each at the hin- 
der and front ‘ boot,’ and: one on each side of the driv- 
ing-box, would have astonished our worthy antiquary. 
On the 28th they only procceded as far as Leicester ; 
but on the 29th, to make amends for this slow travel- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[ MAY &; 


ling, they started early and “ reached Nottingham in 
so great time that we hoped to have got to Mansfield, 
but the coach wanting some repair detained us.” From 
Leicester to Mansficld would have been a journey of 
forty miles. On the 30th they lodged at Doncaster, 
and on the 3lst Thoresby arrived at York, where he 
had business. The number of miles travelled on each 
of the six days was as follows :—lst day, thirty-two 
miles; second, forty ; third, thirty-two ; fourth, twenty- 
six; fifth, thirty-two; and sixth, thirty-seven miles. 
Before the Edinburgh mail was taken “ off the road” 
the journey from London to York was performed in 
less than twenty-three hours. 

In 1714 Thoresby again visited London, and intend- 
ing to start from Leeds on Monday by coach, he received 
on Sunday a message from Wakefield that “ the coach 
could liot reach this town” (Leeds). At this period, and 
even still later, the coaches started only when they had 
obtained a part,of their complement of passengers, 
and their departure was of course very irregular. 
Thoresby sct out_on horseback to meet the coach at 
Wakefield, on May 3. The passengers dined at Gran- 
tham, where Thoresby remarks they “ had the annual 
solemnity (this being the first time the coach passed 
the road in May) of the coachman and horses being 
dressed with ribbons and flowers, the town inusic and 
young people in couples before us.” This ‘solemnity’ 
is still observed in many parts of the country, though 
with bated splendour, and even the omnibuses of Lon- 
don display May-day tokens. On the third day of their 
journey they werc joined by other passengers, “ which, 
though females, were more chargeable in wine and 
brandy than the former part of the journey, wherein 
we had neither, but the next day (he ungallantly says) 
we gave them leave to'treat themselves.” The practise 
here alluded to would add rather inconveniently to the 
costs of the journey. They reached London in four 
days after leaving Wakefield. In March, 1723, at 
which time the roads probably were not so good, he 
made the same journey in five days, and on his return 
in June in four days. There were now many public 
vehicles for passengers on the North Road, and on 
reaching Barnby-Moor on his present journey, there 
‘were so many coaches that some were 11] put to it for 
lodging.” 

The time occupied in stoppages may be estimated by 
several of Thoresby’s notices. In one case he attended 
prayers in the parish church at Grantham, and heard 
the sermon, resuming his journey after he and the rest 
of the passengers had dined. At another time he left 
the coach “to seek for fossil shells and formed stones ;” 
and in a journey to York from Leeds, while the horses 
were probably baiting at Tadcaster (for relays were 
not frequent), he “ visited old Mrs. Morley to inquire 
for autographs.” While in London in 1714, he went 
to Cambridge by coach, and the journey only occupied 
one day, but great exertion both of passengers and 
horses was required for this rapid rate of travelling. 
Thoresby says :— After a weary night, rose by three, 
and walked to Bishopgate Street to take coach.” 
such was the exertion made to get to Cambridge by 
the evening, that he complains he “ had not time” to 
visit some objects of curiosity on the road. 


Influence of Tables-@ Hote on the Continent. —To the prevalence 
of tables-d’hote ur every town and village of the Continent, must 
no doubt be ascribed much of that social feeling and easy car- 
riage which characterize the people of almost every country in 
Europe except our own. Being frequented by persons of all 
ranks, they lead to au assimilation of manners and of taste, which 
must be conducive to general refinement ; and by an imterchange 
of opinions and a diffusion of intelligence durmg the two or 
three hours of daily intercourse, they must contribute to a dif- 
fusion of information and a better understanding between all 
classes.—JMr. Emerson Tennent’s Belgium. 


1841.] 


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[Phe Sergeant-at-Law and the Doctor of Medicine.] 


CHAUCER'S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE SERGEANT-AT-LAW. 


A very characteristic feature of old times in Eng- 
land is shown to us inthe ‘Canterbury Tales,’ where 
the members of so many dificrent classes of society, 
being brought together by a common object, mingle 
freely together ; the rich and the proud undeterred by 
any of that feverish desire to stand aloof from their 
fellow-men; and the poor and humble, by any of 
that chilling sense of dependence which too often mark 
the relations of those classes in our own day, What 
motive of an equally powerful nature to that which 
induced our ancestors to go on pilgrimages to so many 
different shrines (could such a motive be found) would 
now suffice to bring the sergeant-at-law and “justice 
full often at assize” into intimate companionship with 
the ploughman, the miller, the host? Yet there is no 
reason to doubt Chaucer’s fidelity: he only painted 
what in all probability he had frequently seen ; whilst 
at the same time it must be observed that sergeants-at- 
law were then personages of still greater importance 
thannow. They acted, it appears, as judges ; and they 
were chosen only from among the most opulent as well 
as most learned members of the profession. It would 
have been highly unreasonable indeed to have done 
otherwise, considering the great expenses that at- 
tended their investiture with the sergeant’s robes and 
coif. They were bound to give a“ great dinner lke to 
the feast of a king’s coronation,” which was to ‘ con- 


tinue and last for the space of seven days;” and it was ex- | 


No. 585. 


pressly provided, says our authority,* “that none of 
those elected should defray the charges growing to him 
about the costs of the solemnity with less expenses 
than the sum of 400 marks :” an immense sum in those 
days. The chief items, next to the dinner, were the 
2old rings, one of which was given toevery important 
personage present at the ceremony of creation, from 
the prince down to the “officers and other notable 
men in the king’s courts;” and the countless suits or 
liveries of cloth that were expected from the newly 
made sergeant-at-law by the members of his household, 
by his friends, and by acquaintances. As several 
sergeants were generally created at the same time, it 
was found most convenient for them to join in giving 
one common feast, which accordingly became a most 
magnificent affair, and was generally held in one of the 
chief palaces of London. The eleven sergeants made 
by Henry VIIL., in 1531, kept their feast at Ely-house, 
Holboru, when the king himself, with his consort 
Katherine, honoured them, on the principal of the five 
days the feast then lasted, with his presence. They sat, 
Stow has remarked, in “two chambers,” that 1s to say, 
apart from each other (they were divorced within the 
next eighteen months); and the foreign ambassadors 
occupied a third. “In the hall, at the high table, sat 
Sir Nicholas Lambard, mayor of London, the Judges, 
the barons of the exchequer, with certain aldermen of 
the city. At the board on the south side sate the master 
of the rolls, the master of the chancery, and worship- 


* Dugdale’s § Origine Judiciales.’ 


VoL. X.—2 B 


186 THE PENNY 
ful citizens. On the north side of the hall, certain 
aldermen began the board, and then followed mer- 
chants of the city. In the cloister, chapel, and gallery, 
knights, esquires, and gentlemen were placed. In the 
halls, the erafts of London. The sergeants-at-law and 
their wives keptin their own chambers. It were tedious 
to set down the preparation of fish, flesh, and other 
victuals spent in this feast, and would seem almost 
incredible.” He ends by confirming Dugdale’s remark, 
‘‘it wanted little of a feast at a coronation.” We must 
add to this account from Stow, that minstrels and trum- 
peters were stationed without the hall the whole time, 
playing at every course. With such extraordinary ex- 
penses to meet, on their initiation into the new office, 
we need not be surprised to find that it was sometimes 
necessary to summon persons by writ to take it, even 
although at the same time there was no “man of law 
throughout the universal world, which by reason of 
his office gained so much as one of these sergeants.’”* 
Such were the rank and importance of this member 
of the law, at the time the poet introduced him into 
the Canterbury pilgrimage. 
“ A Sergeant of the law, wary and wise, 
That often had ybeen at the Parvise, 
There was also, full rich of excellence. 
Discreet he was and of great reverence ; 
He seeméd such, his wordes were so wise: 
Justice he was full often in assize, 
By patent and by plemet commission. 
For his sciénee, and for his high renown, 
Of fees and robés nad he many one. 
So great a purchaser was no where nouce ; 
All was fee-simple to him in effect, 
His purchasing might not be in suspect ; 
Nowhere so busy a man as he there was, 
And yet he seemed busier than he u’as. 
In termés had he case and domés all, 
That from the time of king Will weren fall. 
Thereto he could endite, and make a thing 
That couldé no wight pinch at his writing ; 
And every statute could be plain by rote. 
He rode but homely in a medley coat, 
Girt with a seint$ of silk, with barres small. 


Warton, speaking of the word Parvis, says that it is 
supposed to be derived from Paradise, which deriva- 
tion Richardson adopts in his Dictionary. Many of 
our old religious houses had a place called the Para- 
dise; hence, perhaps, the name came to be applied to 
the porticos of churches. 

We find in Chaucer's translation from the ‘ Roman 


de la Rose’ the following passage :— 


‘There was no wight in all Paris 
Before Our Lady|| at Parvis, 
That they ne might the booké buy :” 








and Warton says that in the year 1300 children were 
taught to read and sing in the Parvis of St. Martin’s 
church at Norwich. The same word was also used in 
connection with the schools of “Sophistry” formerly 
existing in Oxford, which consisted of academic exer- 
cises, principally in logic, held in the afternoon. The 
Parvis to which Chaucer’s Sergeant-at-Law “ often had 
ybeen,”’ stood in the same relation to the law that the 
Oxford schools did to logic. . ‘ Here not only young 
lawyers repaired to learn, but old sergeants to teach 
and show their cunning.” 4] Some suppose the Parvis of 
the Metropolis to have been in Old Palace Yard, before 
Westminster Hall; others, with more probability, on 


* Dugdale. + Pleine—full. 

; That is to say, he was thoroughly acquainted with all the 
cases, and dooms, or decisions, which had been given from the 
time of the Conqueror. 

9 Cinct, or girdle. l| Notre Dime. 

€) Waterhouse’s Commentary on Fortescue. 


MAGAZINE. 


[May 15, 


account of its vicinity to the Inns of Court, name St. 
Paws. There can be little doubt but that the latter 
was the place, as Dugdale speaks of the ‘ Pervyse of 
Paules.” 

Our Sergeant, it appears, had received many “ fees 
and robés;” another eustoin, as regards the robes, peeu- 
har to ancient England, when all the officers of the 
superior courts of law received from the king’s ward- 
robe such clothing both for summer and winter. Of 
the dress of the Sergeant in the fourteenth century, the 
visions of Piers Plowman give us some idea. We 
read there,— 


Shall no Sergeant for his service wear no silk hood 
Nor pelure on his cloak for pleading at the bar.” 


In the Sutherland manuscript he wears a scarlet 
habit, with open sleeves, faced with blue, and orna- 
mented with small bars or stripes. His white furred 
hood is upon his shoulders, and he wears the charac- 
teristic distinction of the Sergeant, the coif upon his 
head. This “medley” dress continued to be worn even 
in Dugdale’s time. The robes were then of three 
colours, murrey (or dark red), black furred with white, 
and scarlet. We may observe, in conclusion, that 
among the exquisite touches of satirieal deseription 
with which the Canterbury Tales abound, there are 
none happier than that which paints one of the little 
affectations of the eminent lawyer: 


‘No where so busy a man as he there was, 
And yet he seemed busier than he was.’ 


~ 


AMERICAN GROUSE. 


[From a Correspondent.] 


The two varieties of grouse most generally known of 
any belonging to the continent of North Aimerica are the 
pinnated grouse ( Tetrao cupido) and the rufied grouse 
(T. umbellus). The former is by no means so common 
as the latter, and this comparative scarcity no doubt 
tends to enhance its merits and the value attached to it. 
The pinnated grouse, or heath-hen, as it is frequently 
ealled, in size, shape, and habits bears a strong resem- 
blance to our red grouse; but the plumage is not at 
all alike, for the former is of a,peculiar gray or dark 
ash-colour, without the dusky-red of the latter. Per- 
haps the heath-hen may be a little the larger of the two, 
but the difference, if any, is undoubtedly very trifling. 
The flavour of its flesh much resembles that of our own 
grouse, but the colour of it is scarcely so dark. These 
birds are found for the most part in those wild and 
elevated situations where, either from the sterility of 
the soil or the very considerable altitude, no forest- 
trees are found, the only vegetation being two or three 
sorts of heath and a little alpine moss; and hence the 
American name of barrens seems very significantly 
applied to localities of such extreme desolation. The 
subsistence of these birds is therefore exclusively con- 
fined to the young shoots of alpine plants or the berries 
they produce ; for during the rigours of a North Ame- 
rican winter they are never known to migrate to more © 
sheltered and milder regions, or indeed to any situa- 
tions which do not yield their favourite food. 

They are chiefly found among the Green Mountains 
of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, 
and occasionally among some of the other mountain- 
ranges of the Eastern states, as well as in the adjacent 
British colonies. But they are not confined to the 
Eastern states, for in many of the various spurs of the 
Alleghany Mountains, throughout the entire distance 
from the Hudson, or North River, to the southern boun- 
dary of Virginia, comprehending portions of the states 
of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
Virginia—wherever these lofty barren wastes present 


themselves, the pimnated grouse is found in greater or 





1841.] 


smaller numbers. They are said also to inhabit the 
regions in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains. As 
they are only to be shot on the wing, which is but little 
practised by American hunters, as they are called, they 
are somewhat rare in the markets, and will occasionally 
fetch six shillings a brace. 

The ruffed grouse, or drumming partridge, as this 
bird is commonly called in the Eastern states, or the 
Pennsylvania pheasant, as it is usually named in the 
Middle states, is nearly of the same size as the pinnated 
erouse, but altogether of a different character as 
regards its habits and general appearance. Unlike 
the former, these birds are bred in and continue to 
frequent the forests, even after large extents of the 
timber are cleared away by the woodman’s axe, though 
they occasionally wander a short distance into the ad- 
joing pastures or corn-fields, but more particularly 
im quest of wild summer fruit and berries than in 
search of grain or other farm produce. When flushed, 
whether in an open clearing or in the woods, they in- 
variably perch upon the limbs of some forest-tree; for 
notwithstanding I have sometimes known them to 
ramble to the distance of half a mile or more from the 
nearest part of the forest (though only in the summer 
season), Whenever they happened to be put to flight 
they were sure not to alight until they had reached the 
fastnesses of their favourite woods. 

They for the most part keep in coveys of eight or ten 
until the young ones are full-grown; and afterwards, 
though occasionally found single, they are more com- 
nonly met within pairs. When alighting on the limb 
of a tree, for the most part at a considerable elevation, 
this bird exhibits more sagacity than most other birds, 
or, indeed, than any of the other varieties of the grouse 
family. It selects a pretty stout limb for its perch, 
and places itself in an almost upright position, so that 
the hunter often finds it difficult to discover the exact 
spot; for although it may place its head ma position 
tc look down with one eye upon its enemy, the head of 
the bird bemg small, the sportsman can seldom dis- 
cover it at so great an elevation. The barking of a 
dog, traimed to the business, will often put it off its 
euard; for its whole attention being bestowed upon 
the quadruped, the hunter takes advantage of the first 
exposure of its body to his sight. 

This bird evidently takes the name rvuffed from the 
tufts of feathers on each side of the lower part of the 
neck, which, when excited in any way, it erects at 
pleasure. They are, however, peculiar to the male, 
since the female has no ruff to set off her charms; 
neither is her general plumage nearly so beautiful as 
that of the male. The feathers covering the body are 
not dissimilar to those of our hen pheasant; but the 
back and necl« feathers of the male bird, though not so 
deeply tinted as those that clothe our male pheasant, 
are beautifully shaded with hues of green, orange, and 
purple; and hence, in all probability, it has acquired 
the name of Pennsylvania pheasant. The tail, which 
is fan-like, adds greatly to the elegant appearance of 
this bird, for it 1s composed of feathers beautifully 
barred with rich brown and black ; and, like the turkey, 
it has the power of moving its tail when so erected to 
the right or to the left to suit its convenience or some 
capricious feeling: the ruff and the tail are usually 
erected at the same time. During the summer and 
autumn these birds feed upon the wild berries which 
they find in the woods or in the vicinity of their out- 
skirts; but they also crop the young buds and shoots, 
though they rarely meddle with any species of grain or 
pulse or other productions that the farmer’s garden 
may produce. In extremely severe winters I have 
known them, in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 


driven to crop the green leaves and berries of the 
narrow-leaved laurel; and although but few of them | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


187 


appear to have died, yet their flesh has been rendered 
so unwholesome, that all persons who have partaken of 
it under such circumstances have felt themselves 
severely affected. 

American ornithologists have not omitted, when re- 
ferring to the ruffed grouse, to notice the peculiar 
drumming noise that it makes by striking its wings 
against the sides of some fallen tree upon which it takes 
its stand, which it practises during both spring and 
autumn, but particularly during the former season. 
This drumming is indeed a very curious charac- 
teristic of those birds, being altogether unlike the sound 
produced by any other tribe of the feathered race. In 
most cases a good-sized tree, but one that has been 
stretched upon the ground for many years, and which 
has become partially hollow and decayed, 1s selected 
todrum upon; and if the rough bark has decayed and 
fallen off, so much the better. The bird, having se- 
lected a tree of this sort, will mount and walk along it 
from end to end; and then returning, it will select a 
favourable place, take its stand, spread out its wings, 
and commence striking the tree with the hardest part 
of them, repeating the blows witha measured, but an 
increasing degree of quickness, until the blows become 
so quick that it is impossible for the ear to count them. 
A tew of the first strokes are nearly a second apart; 
towards the conclusion, ten or twelve times that num- 
ber are given in the same space of time, the entire ope- 
ration not occupying more than eight or ten seconds. 
This drumming 1s not repeated immediately; some- 
times the bird will wait half a minute, sometimes a 
whole one, and occasionally several minutes, before it 
recommences the same motion with its wings; and in 
this way it will often amuse, at least employ itself, for 
several hours in the day. When the fallen log or tree 
upon which one of these birds takes its stand 1s pe- 
culiarly favourable for eliciting a loud noise, this druin- 
ming, ona calm day, in the perfect stillness of the 
forest, may be heard at the distance of nearly a mile; 
and when heard at a considerable distance, 1t somewhat 
resembles the dying rumbling sound of a distant peal 
of thunder, and far from unfrequently I have known it 
mistaken for such. The drumming I have here de- 
scribed very commonly brings upon the drummer its 
own destruction ; for the hunter, being attracted to the 
spot by the well-known noise, has little difficulty im 
approaching within gun-shot distance, and shooting 
down his unwary victim. To an unpractised ear, how- 
ever, it is difficult to fix the spot from whence the drum- 
ming proceeds, and the sportsman sometimes comes 
upon his game before he is aware, and scares It away. 

The flesh of these birds is white, delicate, and well- 
flavoured, and is much esteemed where they are scarce. 
But the rural population of America do not seem to 
set much store by scarcely any species of game their 
country supplies them with; and in proof of this ob- 
servation I will remark that in many of the new settle- 
ments where the pinnated grouse are pretty abundant, 
I have, during the winter season, many a ume known 
the hunters bring these birds to me for sale or for barter, 
and a sixteenth part of a dollar (very little more than 
three-pence) was the price per head in money, and in 
the way of barter a pound of pork would command the 
largest and plumpest of them. As regards the estima- 
tion im which venison is held in the same country, I 
have frequently known it sold ata penny a pound by 
the quarter, or three halftpence for ithe saddlie,"ou SIX 
pounds of venison bartered for one pound of salt pork. 





We ought, in humanity, no more to despise a man for the 
misfortunes of the mind than for those of the body, when they 
are such as he camot help; were this thoroughly considered, 
we should no more laugh at a man for having his brains cracked 


ring his head broke.—Pope. 
than for having his head bro p as 


188 





THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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[Bromley Church; 


RAILWAY RAMBLES. 
THE RAVENSBOURNE RIVER. 
[Concluded from page 158.} 


Between Hayes and Bromley, at a place called Hayes’ 
Ford, the high road crosses the Ravensbourne, which 
here increases somewhat in size, and advances with a 
little more rapidity: the tiniest of streams has changed 
into one of the smallest of rivers. Leaving it, a little 
on our left, to wind round the base of Bromley hill, we 
take a shorter path through the fields towards a delight- 
ful green lane which runs over the brow of an em}- 
neuce opposite that on which Bromley is situated, and 
so reach that very clean, agreeable-looking town. Its 
name is derived from Brom-leag, a field or heath where 
broom grows ; an etymology confirmed by the present 
aspect of the neighbourhood. Bromley dates its his- 
tory irom no less remote a time than that when the 
county had its own monarchs; one of whom, Ethelbert, 
in the eighth century, gave Bromley to the bishops of 
Rochester, who appear to have ever since made it 
their residence. One of them, Bishop Ford, was mur- 
dered here in 1261. The existing palace is a plain 
unassuming edifice of brick. In its gardens we find a 
well, formerly much resorted to for its admirable me- 
dicinal qualities, and from the fact that there was an 
oratory attached to it, with indulgences for all who 
came Inther to worship. The oratory long ago sank 
into ruin, and the well itself was forgotten and lost 
sight of, till the year 1754, when it was repaired and a 
picturesque-looking covering or roof on wooden pil- 
lars placed over it to sheltcr those who came to drink 
of its healing waters. Itis now again much decayed. 
Bromley is also distinguished for a very magnificent 
charitable institution. As we pass along the town 
towards the London extremity, we see on the right a 
very stately manorial-looking building of brick, with 
wines projecting forward a little from each end, and a 
handsome doorway and flight of steps in the centre ; 
the whole surrounded by beautiful and extensive 
srounds. This is Bromley College, founded by Dr. 
Warner, bishop of Rochester, who died in 1666, for 


the widows of clergymen (to the number of twenty) of 


the established church who might be left in distressed 


Cd 


circumstances. Subsequent bencfactions have doubled 
the number. The inmates receive 30/. 10s. each per 
annum. Five additional houses have also just been 
built by Mrs. Sheppard for the daughters of such ladies 
as, dying in the college, have left their children desti- 
tute. The church of Bromley is an interesting struc- 
ture, aud would amply repay us for a closer inspection 
than we can now make. It has a lofty square tower 
with a turret at one of the corners, which secn from 
a distance makes one anticipate the finding of the 
keep of some old fortress still frowning defiance over 
the broad valley extending below, rather than a house 
of God stilling the very neighbourhood around by 
its air of ‘exceeding peace.” Hither Dr. Johnson 
brought the remains of his beloved wife, and placed 
over her the Latin inscription that now meets our gaze. 
In his despair at the misery he saw impending, he had 
but three days before finally discontinued his ‘Ram- 
bler” Dr. Hawkesworth, the author of the ‘ Adven- 
turer,’ and of ‘ Almoran and Hamet,’ and the translator 
of * Telemachus,’ also Hes here. There are some intc- 
resting monuments to different bishops of Rochester. 
But an inscription ona stone “ erected by voluntary con- 
tribution ” on the outside of the church, more strongly 
arrested our attention than anything else in or about 


‘the edifice. It is to the memory of Elizabeth Monk, the 


wife of a blacksmith, who was herself childless ; but it 
appears that “an infant to whom and to whose father 
and mother she had been nurse (such is the uncertainty 
of temporal prospects) became dependent upon stran- 
eers for the necessaries of life: to him she afforded the 
protection of a mother. Her parental charity was 
returned with filial affection, and she was supported in 
the feebleness of age by him whom she had cherished 
in the helplessness of infancy.” The inscription is 
from the pen of Dr. Hawkesworth. The entrance into 
the churchyard les beneath one of those curious cano- 


ples antiently called Lich-gates, from the Saxon /vch, 


a corpse. Although the name appears to be here 
lost, we were gratified to find that the purpose of the 
porch is still remembered. An old man sitting on one 
of the graves said that they used to bring all the 
corpses through it, and set them down awhile under its 
cover. This gate, however, has been restored or rebuilt 


1841.] 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


189 


at no very distant period; and having heard that an | bourne, but of the ornamental waters of the park into 
older onc existed at the neighbouring village of | it, filling the air with its delightful sound. Along the 
Beckenham, we walked over to see it. Our readers | banks are a great variety and profusion of flowers ; 


have here a representation of the Lach-gate at Becken- 
ham. 





Returning towards the southern extremity of Brom- 
ley, we find a lane which leads us directly down to the 
Ravensbourne; and here, on the left, are the remains 
of an old moated manor-house called Simpson’s Place. 
The site belonged to John de Banquel in 1302; from 
his descendants it passed into the possession of a family 
named Clark. William Clark, im the reign of Henry 
V., obtained a licence from that monarch to erect “a 
strong little pile of lime and stone,” with an embattled 
wall and deep encircling moat. It was purchased in 
the following reign by John Simpson, who much 1m- 
proved the mansion, and gave his name to it. The 
moat (with water) yet remains on two sides; a part of 
the buttress at the south-east corner is also standing. 
Between the interstices of the ancient walls trees have 
struck root in various parts, and grown toa consider- 
able size, so that the ruin has a very picturesque ap- 
pearance. Leaving Simpson’s Place and following 
the course of the river, we soon reach the spot here 
shown. 


iit uV La iy pli bae Hg ew 
rit Hf Waly Tet PUES If ; ult it ai ! 
: Att tH tte He ‘ ii 4 cette 1 Redeleadayt if ‘i * 
= ayn " 





[Water-gate, Bromley.] 


Beyond Bromley the Ravensbourne proceeds through 
some broad meadows towards a thick plantation; where 
its banks are fringed by alders and willows, through 
which one can with but difficulty make way, and where 
the occasional whirr of the partridge as it starts suddenly 
from the ground beside us, or of the pheasant mounting 
heavily upwards, speaks of the solitude that generally 


reigns over the place. As the river enters the park of 


Holwood-Hill Place, it widens and becomes very in- 
teresting. Here there isa waterfall, not of thc Ravens- 


the beds of primroses in particular are of the freshest 
nue, largest size, and most delicate perfume we ever 
met with. In different parts of its course, the tall and 
luxuriant foliage which has sprung up from the roots 
of the old trees, laid bare at some tine almost to the 
surface of the ground, mect from bank to bank over 
the river; their mingling and arching branches re- 
flected in all their picturesque intricacics of form in 
the translucent waters between. Rustic seats, placed 
here and there so as to command the most delightful 
views of the Ravensbourne and of the park, intimate 
that the beauty of the place is not unapprcciated. 
The beds of plants floating in the river are very rich 
and luxuriant, presenting frequently interesting pecu- 
haritics of form, and almost always a vivid freshness 
of colour. ~The extremely sinuous course of the 
Ravensbourne adds greatly to its picturesque character. 
It 1s scarcely possible to find a dozen yards of it 
straight. This “river” does indeed wind “ at its own 
swect will,” and a most vagrant will it is. 
Bromley-Hill Place, the beautiful seat of Colonel 
Long, stands upon the summit of an eminence which 
slopes for a considerable distance regularly down to 
the Ravensbourne. On leaving the park, the river 
soon swells out into a fine shect of water by the road 
side at South End, having in its centre a little sum- 
mer-house almost hidden in fohage. From this place 
on its way towards Lewisham it turns various mills. 
AtCatsford Bridge, near Rushy Green, it receives into 
its channel the small river Chaflinch, and after crossing 
Brockley Lane, the waters from the Lady-Wel. also, 






‘ 


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‘The Lady-Well.] 


which is supposed to be the great spring mentioned 
by Kilburn as newly breaking out of the earth in 1472. 
In its properties it 1s said to resemble the Cheltenham 
waters. Queen Elizabeth was very partial to this spot 
and neighbourhood ; on a hill near the well there was 
formerly an oak under which the “ fair vestal throned 
by the West” dined on one of her “ Maying” visits to 
Lewisham. When the tree decayed, another was 
planted in its room, to preserve the memory of the 1n- 
cident. The principal stream of the Ravensbourne 
flows on to the left of Lewisham towards the bridge, 
and thence along a pleasant valley to Deptiord. But 
a branch of the river goes through Lewisham. We 
find this branch issumg from a covered channel 
near the commencement of the town, and thence con- 
tinuing its rapid course through almost the entire 
length of Lewisham. This and the lofty trees which on 
one side or the other extend all along the road, give 
it an agreeable country aspect. Almshouses appear to 
be numerous here; and some of more than ordinary 
pretensions have just been built by J. Thackeray, Iisq. 
They have quite a splendid appearance, with their 
light-coloured bricks sct off by red round the win- 
dows, their large Saxon doorway in the centre, their 
gable roofs at each extremity, and the nicely-paved 


190 


court, and low handsome wall extending along the 
front. ‘The interior does not disappoimt the expecta- 
tion which the exterior has raised: each house has a 
capital parlour, a bed-room with double windows above, 
and a little kitchen opening into a court behind. The 
poor widows who reside here are allowed, by the 
eenerous founder, four shillings a week, and a ton of 
coals yearly. The church contaims several fine monu- 
ments, among which are one by Banks and another 
by Flaximan. This last has an inscription by Hayley. 
Here Dermody the poet was buried, at the age of 
twenty-eight. His depraved habits had previously 
reduced him to the most deplorable distress ; and it 
was under such circumstances that he was discovered 
at Percy Slough, near Sydenham, by some friends, who 
used every exertion for his recovery. He died, how- 
ever, almost immediately afterwards. Huis epitaph is 
a quotation from one of his own works, entitled the 
‘Tate of Genius,’ and cominences thus :— 


“No titled birth had he to boast, 
Son of the desert, Fortune's child, 
Yet not by frowning Fortune cross’d, 
The Muses on his cradle smil’d.” 


In its progress from Lewisham to the Thames, the 
Ravensbourne supplies the great Kent waterworks, 
as well as various mills. Before we follow it any 
farther, let us rest one moment upon the bridge of 
Lewisham, and enjoy the picturesque scene before us. 
The Ravensbourne, as 1t comes through the arches, 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. [May 15, 
to a considerable breadth, and the front curves round 
a bank, half orchard, half garden, apparently, on its 
top, some of its lofty trees overshading the river. The 
sunlight is glancing among the leaves, and dancing 
brightly on the waters, where a graceful swan is arch- 
ing its stately neck, and which, hike Wordsworth’s 
‘Swan, on fair St. Mary’s lake, 
Floats double, swan and shadow.” 


Our picture is not, however, complete without the 
return-chaise and the two poor jaded and dusty horses 
which the postboy is driving through the broad stream 
instead of over the bridge, to the exquisite delight 
of the poor animals, who have stood fast in the middle, 
determined to enjoy themselves while they can. 

As soon as the Ravensbourne reaches Deptford (so 
called from the deep ford by which the river was there 
crossed), 1t loses its picturesque character, and flows, 
through a muddy and broad channel (when the tide is 
low), ito Deptford Creek. Just before it reaches this 
place it 1s spanned by a noble bridge of three arches. 
Deptford Creek formed the harbour of the Danish 
fleets when they invaded Kent, some nine or ten cen- 
turies ago, and they lay here for a considerable time. 
What a contrast between their strange-looking ships, 
the naked shore, and the fierce half-barbarian soldiers 
wandermg about, of that time, to the vessels, the 
buildings, which almost conceal the sight of the noble 
river beyond, and the general appearances of peaceful 
industry which now meet the eye in the self-same 


extends itself on either side along the line of the bridge, | place. 
















































































































































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Deptford Creek.” 


EXHIBITIONS OF MECHANISM AND MANU- 
FACTURED PRODUCTS. | 


THE ADELAIDE GALLERY. 


A RECENT article on the Polytechnic Institution, de- 
voted to that portion of the exhibition which more par- 
ticularly illustrates the ‘arts and manufactures, may 
fittingly be followed by a notice of another institution 
somewhat similar in its objects, and also, like it, open 
to the pubhe at a certain charge. 

The exhibition in Adelaide Street, West Strand, be- 





| 


longs to a Society for the Illustration and Encourage- 
meut of Practical Science, one of whose objects is to 
receive for exhibition models, specimens of new inven- 
tions, and works of general interest, whether intended 
for sale or otherwise. It was assumed by the founders 
of the Society that the public display of such produc- 
tions could not fail to encourage the exertions of in- 
dividuals engaged in the manufacturing arts, and whose 
talents, from the waut of being publicly known, are 
frequently lost both to themselves and to others; and 
in accordance with this view, such models and speci- 


1841. ] 


mens are received free of charge, and exhibited, gene- 
rally with the inventor’s name attached, in as conspl- 
cuous a manner as possible. Thus a large number of 
objects has been collected and formed into a public 
exhibition, the utility of which has been enhanced by 
the delivery of lectures on various branches of science 
and art, illustrating the uses of many of the inodels and 
instruments exhibited. These objects are nearly iden- 
tical with those of the Polytechnic Institution, and there 
can be but little doubt that if judiciously managed there 
is ample room for both institutions. 

The Gallery in Adelaide Street contains a miscella- 
neous collection of objects, some of which, we presume, 
for the purpose of blending amusement and elegance 
with practical utility, are but little connected with the 
main purport of the cstablishment. These, however, 
as well as the lectures, we do not intend to touch upon 
here; our purpose being to notice briefly the models, 
implements, and products illustrative of the manufac- 
turing arts. 

The objects exhibited are ranged on the floor, and in 
two encircling galleries of a large room called the Long 
Room, and in two or three smaller apartments. The 
floor or ground tier of the Long Room is occupied 
chiefly by models of steam and other engines, and by 
electrical apparatus. Near the door is a model of a 
machine for facilitating the operations of miners, by 
drawing up the ore or other mineral, and by lowering 
the miners to the required depth in the shaft. On ad- 
vancing farther into the room models of steam-engines 
of various kinds are ranged around, some condensing, 
some high-pressure, others rotatory; some working 
models, and others merely painted. If the size of these 
models permitted such an arrangement, the utility of 
their exhibition would be increased by attaching the 
names of the more important parts, suclias the cylinder, 
the air-pump, the governor, the parallel-motion, &c. 
We have so frequently heard inquiries made by visitors 
on such points as these, that we should venture to sug- 
gest the more extensive employment of labels and in- 
scriptions. 

Among the machines at the end of the room nearcst 
to the cntrance are a steam-gun, an apparatus for the 
combustion of steel, and another for the compression of 
water; on each of which we may say a few words. The 
steain-gun is an invention by Mr. Perkins, for showing 
the expansive force of high-pressure steam. Small 
leaden balls are dropped through an upright tube into 
a gun-barrel, through which they are propelled bya jet 
of steam from a boiler or boilers ; the connection be- 
tween the barrel and the upright tube being closcd 
before the steam is admitted to act upon the bullets. 
The bullets are shot out with such force as to be flat- 
tened on an iron target at the other end of the room; 
and the adjustinent is such that the succcssive bullets 
can be discharged at the rate of four hundred per 
minute. The combustion of steel is an exhibition 
illustrative of a striking difference between motion and 
rest in certain mechanical effects. A circular disc or 
plate of soft iron, about a foot in diameter, is connected 
with a steam-enginc in sueh a manner as to rotate with 
the great velocity of five thousand times in a minute. 
Whule thus rotating, a file or other piece of hard steel 
is applied to the edge, and is cut or notched instantly, 
the steel flying off in a train of brilliant sparks, while 
the comparatively sott iron is scarcely abraded. This 
remarkable effect is due wholly to the great veloeity of 
the softer body; an cxplanation which will avail also 
for the fact that a candle may be fired.from a musket 
through a deal board. Thc compression of water is a 
problem which engaged much attention among scien- 
tifie men in the last century, some deeming the liquid 
absolutely incompressible. 
other experimenters, showed that watcr can be reduced 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


Mr. Canton, however, and | 


19] 


in bulk by grcat pressure; and an apparatus in this 
Gallery, invented, like the two just alluded to, by Mr. 
Perkins, 1s intended to show within a small compass 
the possibility of effecting this. To understand the 
action of the apparatus, however, requires a little 
knowledge of the hydrostatic press and of hydrostatics 
Seneraily. 

The remark just made may be extended in some 
sense to other parts of the cxhibition, viz. the electro- 
magnetic apparatus, of which there is rather an exten- 
sive collection. Ifowever praiscworthy may be the 
purpose for which this apparatus is placed there, it is 
certain that not one visitor in twenty understands its 
mode of operation. A shock may be sent through a 
number of persons, causing a momentary mirth and 
cxeitement; a magnet may be made to rotate and to 
yield sparks; the gymnotus, or electrical eel, may 
give forth sparks, and thus prove his claim to be ranked 
as an electrical apparatus ; but very little real instruc- 
tion can be gained from the inspection of sueh machines 
without a previous attention to the science to which 
they relate. Lectures are frequently given on these 
subjects in the institution, and individual inquiries are, 
as far as practicable, answered by the attendants: but 
these aids are of limited extent unless accompanied by 
some little study on the part of the visitor. 

On a canal or reservoir of water are scen a few 
models of ships and other nautical apparatus; and in 
various parts of the floor of the room are other models, 
intended in most cases to illustrate some new prin- 
ciple or practice in ship-building. Here too are depo- 
sited several specimens of Delbruck’s soldered metals, 
that is, pieces of metal which have been soldered by 
mctal of the same kind as themselves. Those who are 
at allacquainted with manufactures in metal are aware 
that two pieces of metal are generally soldered toge- 
ther with anothcr metal or solder more fusible than 
themselves ; but a method has recently been disco- 
vered in France whereby the surfaces of two pieces of 
metal are partially melted by the flame of hydrogen 
gas, and united while in that state. 

The upper gallery which surrounds the Long Room 
is chiefly noticeable for specimens of geological strata, 
fossil fuel, fossil plants, shclls, and crystals, ranged in 
glass cases in a convenient position for inspection. 
There is also a glass case containing a large number 
of specimens of wood used in ship-building and for 
ornamental purposes. This is a very interesting series, 
for cach specimen, squared and made perfectly smooth, 
is labelled, and in many instances the purposes to which 
such. wood is applied are mentioned ; such as the keel, 
the timbers, the knees, &c. of ships. This is one of 
the features which we deem to belong peculiarly to 
an institution of this kind, and to be worthy of ex- 
tension. 

The lower gallery 1s occupied by articles partaking 
more of an ornamental than of a practical character. 
We will therefore omit an enumeration of its contents, 
and proceed to speak of two or three smaller rooms 
cormected with the two ends of the Long Room. These 
smaller rooms contain objects more practical perhaps 
than most other parts of the Jixhibition, viz. serics 
illustrative of the progressive states which a manufac- 
tured article assumes. Among these illustrative series 
are those relating to a knife, a fork, a file, a flask, a 
metal button, a candlestick, a tea-pot, a ncedle, hooks 
and eyes, combs, hats, glass, earthenwarc, silk, cotton, 
woollen, caoutchoue, asbestos, &c. 

The object held in view in presenting these series is 
similar to that which we mentioned 1m allusion to the 
Polytechnic Institution, viz. to impart that kind of 
knowledge of manuiacturing processes which may be 
acquired by witnessing the succcssive states which the 
raw material assumes. A brief explanation will show 


192 


how this is effected. A knife is represented in eight or 
nine different stages, from the rough bar of steel till it 
assumes its ultimate form of a polished knife. A fork 
is represented in a still greater number of forms, on 
account of the peculiar manner in which the prongs are 
produced. A bution, such as those attached to suits of 
livery, is represented in about as many different states, 
from the plain blank forming the foundation, through 
the processes of placing and soldering the shank, fitting 
on the plated facing, &c. A flask, a candlestick, and a 
tea-pot are severally shown ina dissected form, by which 
ihe separate pieces of which each 1s built up may be 
seen, and the mode of manufacturing each in some de- 
eree explained. A needle is still more remarkable as 
showing the division of labour and the succession of 
processes involved in the manufacture: no less than 
nineteen specimens are ranged side by side, showing 
ihe same number of states or stages which a piece of 
steel wire assumes before it finally leaves the manuiac- 
tory in the form of a needle: states which are produced 
by manipulative operation as curious as any in the 
whole range of manufacture. Hooks and cyes are 
similarly exhibited in the various steps which their 
manufacture involves. The materials for a hat, such 
as the beaver, hare, musquash, and other furs, the wool 
&c., are shown, first in the crude state, then as a ‘ batt,’ 
then as a felted cap, and lastly, m the beavered or 
‘ruffed’ state. Glass and carthenware are to a limited 
extent illustrated by specimens of the oxides, sands, 
clays, &c. employed in their production. The series 
illustrative of the cotton,woollen, and silk manufactures 
are very complete and interesting. Silk, wool, and 
cotton of a great variety of growths and produce are 
shown in their raw state, the various kinds laid in juxta- 
position for facilitatng comparison; they are then 
presented in their partially manufactured states, the 
cotton in the forms of lapps, drawings, rovings, yarn, 
&c., and the silk and wool in the parallel or analogous 
conditions. These last-mentioned specimens are very 
favourably placed for inspection; and we would ven- 
ture to suggest that the various series illustrative 
of the manufactures in metal should, 1f practicable, 
be as conspicuously placed, which they are not at 
present. 

In our No. 485 will be found an account of asbestos, 
a peculiar mineral susceptible of conversion into fire- 
proof cloth. A series illustrative of the various ap- 
pearances of this substance 1s deposited in one of 
the rooms; and in another is a similar exemplifica- 
tion of the various uses to which caouichouc 1s now 
apphed. 

We have thus briefly noticed the principal objects 
which seem most particularly connected with the views 
of the institution as regards the manufacturing arts, to 
which we may add a mention of the silk-looms, which 
are in practical operation in one of the rooms. To 
those parts of the exhibition which are devoted to 


elezgancies or amusements it 1s not our purpose to 
allude. 


Iinprovement of Poor Sand-Land.—TYhe poor sandy heaths 
which have been converted ito productive farms evince the in- 
defatigable industry and perseverance of the Flemings. It is 
highly iteresting to follow, step by step, the progress of improve- 
ment. Here you see a cottage and rude cowshed erected on a 
spot of the most unpromising aspect, where the loose white sand, 
blown into irregular mounds, is only kept together by the roots 
of the heath. Trenching and levelling the surface is always the 
first operation. A sinall spot only is first cultivated; but gra- 
dually the whole is reclaimed from its wild state, by the aid of 
unremitting industry, and above all by the dung and compost 
heap, and Ly the urine of animals. If there is no manure at 
hand, the only thing that can be sown on poor sand at first is 
broom; this grows in the most barren soils; and in three years it 


is fit to cut, and produces some return in faggots for the bakers | 


THE PENNY: MAGAZINE. 


| May 15, 


and brickmakers. The leaves which have fallen have somewhat. 
enriched the soil, and the fibres of the roots have given a certain 
(legree of compactuess. It may now be ploughed and sown with 
buckwheat, or even with rye, without manure. By the time tluis 
is reaped some manure may have been collected, and a regular 
course of cropping may begin. As soon as clover and potatoes 
enable the farmer to keep cows and make manure, the unprove- 
inent goes on rapidly; 1m a few years the soil undergoes a com- 
plete change: 1t becomes mellow and retentive of moisture, and 
enriched by the vegetable matter afforded by the decomposition 
of the roots of clover and other plants. If about twenty small 
cart-loads of dung can be brought on each acre of the newly 
trenched ground, the progress is much more rapid. Potatoes are 
then the first crop, and generally give a good return. The same 
quantity of dung is required for the next crop, which is rye, m 
which clover is sown in the succeeding spring; and a small por- 
tion is sown with carrots, of which they have a white sort, which 
is very productive aud large in good ground, and which, even in 
the poor soil, gives a tolerable supply of food to the cows in 
winter. Should the clover fail, which sometimes happens, the 
ground is ploughed in spring, and sown with oats and clover 
again. But if the clover comes up well amongst. the rye-stubble, 
it is cut twice, after having been dressed with Dutch ashes early 
in spring. It is mostly consumed in the greeu state. The clo- 
ver ley is manured with ten cart-loads of dung to the acre, and 
rye sown again, but not clover. After the rye comes buckwheat 
without any manure; then potatoes again, manured as at first, 
and the same rotation of crops follows. It is found that the poor 
land gradually improves at each rotation from the quantity of 
dung used. For want of sufficient manure, broom-sced 1s some- 
times sown with the rye and clover. The rye isreaped, and the 
broom continues in the ground two years longer. It is then cut 
for fuel. The green tops are sometimes used for litter for the 
cows, and thus converted into manure. It is also occasionally 
ploughed in, when young aud green, to enrich the land. Oats, 
clover, and broom are occasionally sown together. The oats are 
reaped the first year; the-clover and young broom-tops the next ; 
aud the broom cut in the third. This is a curious practice, and 
its adva™tages appear rather prolilematical. All these various 
methods or bringing poor sands into cultivation show that no de- 
Vice is omitted which ingenuity can suggest to supply the want 
of manure. After the land has been gradually brought into a 
good state, and is cultivated in a regular manner, there appears 
much less difference between the soils which have been originally 
good and those which have been made so by labour and tndustry. 
At least the crops in both appear more nearly alike at harvest 
than is the case in soils of different qualities in other countries. 
This is a great proof of the excellence of the Flemish system ; for 
it shows that the land is in a constant state of improvement, and 
that the deficiency of the soil 1s compensated by greater attention 
to tillage and manuring, especially the Jatter. The maxim of 
the Flemish farmer is, that “without manure there is no corn; 
without cattle there is no manure; and without green ercps and 
roots cattle cannot be kept.” Every farmer calculates how much 
manure is required for his land every year. If it camnot be pur- 
chased, it must be made on the farm. A portion of land must be 
devoted to feed stock, which will make sufficient for the re- 
maitider ; for he thinks it better to keep half the farm only in 
productive crops well manured, than double the amount of acres 
sown on badly prepared land. Hence also he does not reckon 
what the value would be of the food given to the cattle, if sold in 
the market, but how much labour it costs him to raise it, and 
what will be the increase of his crops from the manure collected. 
The Jand is never allowed to be idle so long as the season will 
permit any thing to grow. If it 1s not stirred by the plough and 
harrows to clear it of weeds, some useful crop or other is growig 
in it. Hence the practice of sowing different seeds amongst 
growing crops, such as clover and carrots amongst corn or flax ; 
and those which grow rapidly, between the reapmg of one crop 
and the sowing of another, such as spurrey or turnips, imme- 
diately after the rye is cut, to be taken off before wheat-sowing. 
These crops seem sometimes scarcely worth the labour of plough- 
ing and sowing; but the ploughing is useful to the next crop, so 
that the seed and sowing are the only expenses; and while a 
useful crop is growing, weeds are kept dowu.—fev. IV. L. Rham’s 
Flemish Husbandry. 





Cheerfulness.—Persons who are always innocently cheerful 
and good humoured, are very useful in the world; they main- 
tain peace and happiness, aud spread a thankiul temper amongst 
all who live around them.—Jiss Talbot. 





THE PENNY MAGAZINE 












































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GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. 


DULWICH COLLEGE 


Or that very eminent artist Albert Cuyp or Kuyp so 
little is known, that, save the date and place of his birth, 
nothing appears to have been recorded. He was the 
son of Jacob Gerutze Kuyp, a landscape-painter of 
considerable eminence at Dort, and a pupil of Abraham 
Bloemart. Jacob was famous for having founded in 
that city, in conjunction with J. Van Hasselt, Cor- 
nelius Tegelberg, and J. Grief, the Academy of Paint- 
ing of St. Luke, in the year 1642. Albert was born at 
Dort in 1606, and received his early instructions from 
lus father, but the style,of painting he adopted differs 
111 many most essential respects from that of the elder 
Cuyp. Nor do their choice of subjects less vary, for 
whilst those of the father are almost exclusively de- 
voted to landscape composition in its most strict and 
confined sense, the pictures of the son afford us repre- 
sentations of nearly all the several shades of familiar 
life. The interiors of stables, of farriers’ shops and 
riding-houses, views of market-places and other loca- 
lities of public resort, landscapes with buildings, sea- 
pieces, and occasionally some compositions consisting 
chiefly of human figures, are among the productions of 
his pencil. The most frequent choice of subject in 
which he indulged was that wherein he could show 
his intimate knowledge of animal life. as in the in- 
stance at the head of this paper, which consists of a 
sroup of cattle reposing in the rich glow of the set- 
ting sun. 

Description of the subject of Mr. Jackson’s.engrav- 
ing is needless, although the principle of composition 


No. 80. 


| 
| 


adopted by the painter may be very usefully com- 
mented on. In the greater number of the paintings af 
Cuyp, he aims at and most triumphantly attains. to a 
breadth and splendour of effect unaided by strong con- 
trast of light and shade. In this work, however, he 
proceeds upon a very different method, for he has 
thrown the whole foreground under the effect of inci- 
dental shadow, and rendered it entirely distinct from 
the middle and extreme distance. There is nothing 
more difficult of attainment than a bold relief of light 
and shade in landscape composition, without any appa- 
rent violation of the obvious rules of nature. . Yet 
here we have a picture severed as it were into two dis- 
tinct parts, and so skilfully managed that the mind is 
at once convinced of its unswerving truth. This inci- 
dental shadow to which we allude arises from a cloud 
intervening between the source of light and the object 
represented, that cloud not bemg seen within the 
limits of the picture itself. The use of this means of 
attaining effect is more generally used by the Dutch, 
the Flemish, and the English landscape-painters, than 
by those of any other schools. Indeed there are not 
wanting critics who will not allow that its adoption 1s 
within the legitimate limits of artistic management. 
Yet we think it would be difficult to find any one who 
has enjoyed the true pleasure of viewing an extensive 
prospect who has not again and again witnessed the 
exact effect which is here so admirably produced by 
Cuyp in the picture under notice. Nor can there be 
many who, having beheld that effect, are at a loss to 
understand the real value of its delineation. 

The terms of admiration in which writers of all 


| classes at the present day indulge when speaking ot 


Vou. X.—2 C 


194 


the paintings of Cuyp, sufficiently prove the estimation 
in which he is held as anartist. Yet strange as it may 
seem, it is no less true that it is but a comparatively 
recent taste that has distinguished his extraordinary 
merit. In his own country his labours were held at 
the lowest estimate in market value, and it was not 
until an English amateur, struck with the wondertul 
faithfulness of the artist’s pencil, became the pur- 
chaser of many of his pictures, that the dealers in Hol- 
land thought it worth their while to send them as com- 
odities to a foreign pictorial market. 
apathy arose from the fact that his subjects were genc- 
rally those which were daily familiar to the eye of a 
Dutchman, or whether from a want of perception of 
the astonishing power of the painter, it 1s perhaps as 
difficult to guess as it would be unprofitable to inquire. 
We do know that the consequence has been that in his 
own country his pictures are comparatively rare, while 
in England they abound; and although there are some 
of his splendid performances in the collections of her 
Majesty, of the Marquis of Westminster, of Lord 
Francis Egerton, of the Duke of Bedford, and other 
eminent amateurs, there is no gallery which pos- 
sesses a greater store of them than that of Dulwich 
College. . 

A close, arduous, and vigilant attention to the 
changes of nature enabled Cuyp to represent her under 
all her varieties of aspect, and in all the vicissitudes of 
season and temperature. The freshness of spring, the 
warmth of summer, the giow oi autumn, and the chilly 
discomfort of winter were alike delineated with ease 
and truth. The first blush of morning, the sultry heat 
ot the mid-day sun, and the dewy eves appear rather to 
be reflected on his canvas than transferred by his hand. 
In all, whether we consider the season of the year or 
the period of the day he would represent, we observe 
how truly he has mastered all the difficulties which 
surrounded him. The homely landscape of his native 
country was sufficient for him, and he did not think it 
necessary to invest 1t with any adventitious aids. The 
sedgy banks of the Maes inspired him with a feeling of 
nature, and he only required to add those peculiar 
effects of hght and dark to make his compositions 
such as he knew were most fitting for the artist’s 
choice. 

We can do no better than transfer to this place the 
judicious remarks of Dr. Waagen on the merits of 
Albert Cuyp. “ The pictures of this master,” he ob- 
serves, ‘are the most.splendid proofs that the charm of 
a work of art les far more in a profound and pure 
feeling of nature, in the knowledge and masterly use 
of the means of representation which art supplies, than 
in the subject itself; for otherwise how would it be 
possible from such monotonous natural scenery as 
Holland affords, where the extensive green levels are 
breken only by single trees and ordinary houses, and 
intersected by canals, to produce such attractive varicty 
as their pictures offer? How could it happen that so 
many pictures, even of eminent masters, such as J. 
Both and Pynaker, who represent the rich and varied 
scenery of Italy, have less power to touch our feelings 
than those of Kuyp, Ruysdael, and Hobbima? In ele- 
vation of conception, knowledge of aérial perspective, 
with the greatest glow and warmth ef the serene atmo- 
sphere. Kuyp stands unrivalled, and may justly be 
called the Dutch Claude.” No doubt this profound 
critic limits his appellation of the Dutch Claude in 
respect to the magnificent effects of atmosphere in 
which Cuyp indulged ; for there can certainly be found 
no two painters of landscape who more vary in the 
comparative elevation of their compositions. Claude 
invests his subjects, majestic as they are by nature, with 
a veil of natural simplicity ; whilst, on the other hand, 
Cuyp elevates them by the natural tints of his pencil, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


Whether this. 


[May Ue) 


and by the judicious selection of the aerial effects under 
which he thinks fit that his composition shall be 
viewed. 


THE BAROMETER. 


THE principal means whereby the familar but com- 
prehensive subject of “ weather’ is studied, are derived 
from the indications of certain meteorological instru- 
ments; such as the Barometer, the Thermometer, and 
the Hygrometer, which measure respectively the pres- 
sure, temperature, and humidity of the atmosphere ; 
the Pluviometer, or rain-gauge, which measures thie 
quantity of rain fallen in a given time; and the Ane- 
mometer, or wind-gauge, which indicates the force and 
direction of the wind. The principles on which these 
instruments act, and the degree of dependence that 


‘may be placed on their indications, will successively 


occupy our attention. Beginning with the barometer, 
we find that its object is such as to require a brief 
consideration of the atmosphere, the pressure of which 
the instrument measures. 

We are accustomed to consider the air as one of the 
lightest and most immaterial of nature’s productions ; 
insomuch, that whatever we disregard most, is deemed a 
“trifle light as air.” But when we find that death will 
ensue if we are deprived of that air which we can neither 
see, nor feel, nor taste, nor smell; that the fire which 
warms us, and the candle which illuminates our apart- 
ment, are dependent on it; that the whole vegetable, 
as well as the whole animal world, equally depend on 
the air for their continued existence and support; that 
without the air no sound could be heard, and no light 
diffused ; that a hurricane is nothing more than this air 
in motion; and finally, that air presses on the human 
body with a weight of many tons,—we must then cease 
to regard the air as a “ trifle.” 

The chemical constitution of the atmosphere need 
not engage much of our attention ; but 1t will suffice to 
say that atmospheric air is composed chiefly of two ex- 
pansible gases, oxygen and nitrogen, in the proportion of 
one part of the former to four of the latter. These are the 
two main ingredients without which air never exists ; but 


there are several subsidiary bodies found more or less 


suspended or dissolved in the air. Among these, vapour 
of water exists in considerable quantity. To a much 
smaller extent carbonic acid is also found, resulting 
from respiration, combustion, and fermentation. The 
properties of these component ingredients are very dif- 
ferent. Oxygen is a powerful supporter both of hfe 
and of combustion; and, besides existing in air, is 
abundantly diffused throughout all nature. Nitrogen 
is altogether inert, supporting neither life nor com- 
bustion; and its use, as we at present understand it, 
seems to be to dilute the oxygen, and thus modify the 
exceedingly active properties ef the latter. Carbonic 
acid will support neither life nor combustion; and 
hence the quantity of it which is constantly being pro- 
duced by respiration and combustion would be fatal to 
us, but for a beautiful provision whereby this gas is 
soluble in water, and capable of being absorbed by 
plants, which give out pure oxygen, and thus tend to 
purify the air. 

Although the particles of air are so far repelled from 
one another as to give to the whole a transparent 
acriform state, yet they are all attracted by the earth in 
conformity with the law of gravitation—they all pos- 
sess weight, which is but another name for one of the 
effects of gravitation. As we ascend from the surface 
of the earth, this force diminishes, and the air becomes 
more and more rare, wntil at the height of forty or fifty 
miles its presence is supposed to cease. It may be 
asked how we know that air possesses weight, since the 
common modes of determining weight are here of no 
avail? To this it may be answered, that if a thin ves- 


1841.] 


sel be first weighcd when full of air, then taken to 
the air-pump and exhausted of its air, and afterwards 
again placed in the balance, it will weigh less the 
second time than the first. The difference is small— 
one hundred cubic inches of air weighing only thirty- 
one grains—but still it 1s sufficient to lead to impor- 
tant consequences. It is found that a column of arr, 
1esting on the surface of one square inch at the level 
of the sea, weighs no less than fitteen pounds ; and this 
is the weight which actually presscs upon every square 
inch of surface on the earth, as well as upon all ani- 
mals and bodies moving on the earth. This pressure, 
too, is the more remarkable and important, in being 
manifested in every direction, upwards, downwards, 
and laterally. Indeed, it is this circumstance which 
prevents the human body from being crushed by the 
enormous pressure, for there is a counter pressure 
excrted by the air and othcr fluids occupying the 
ilumerous cavities of the body. 

The discovery of these important facts respecting the 
weight of the air was so closely connected with the inven- 
tion of the barometcr, that we may regard them as al- 
most simultaneous. The circumstances are said to have 
been these :—Some Itahan pump-makers, finding that 
water would not rise higher than thirty-three fect when 
the air was exhausted from the pipe or barrel, apphed 
to Galileo for an explanation of the cause. Galileo’s 
mind was pre-occupied with some confused notions 
respecting nature’s “abhorrence of a vacuum,” and he 
save an answer in conformity with those notions. Tor- 
ricelli, however, imagined that the weight of the air 
might possibly act as a counterbalance to the water in 
the purap, enabling it to risc to a certain height and no 
higher ; and in order to test the truth of this opinion, 
he filled a tube about three feet long with mercury, 
then placing his finger on the open end of the tube to 
prevent the escape of the mercury, he inverted it, and 
placed the open end in a vessel containing mercury. 
On removing his finger, the mercury in the tube, after 
a few oscillations, sank until it presented a column 
about twenty-cight inches im height. 

Now what is the just inference from this experi- 
inent? Mercury we know to be about fourteen times 
as heavy as water; so that twenty-eight inches of the 
former are cqual in weight to about thirty-three feet of 
the latter, the diameters being equal; and as thirty- 
three feet was the height to which the water rose 
in the pumps in question, Torricelli rightly concluded 
that the same cause, 7.e. the pressure of the atmo- 
sphere, determined the height both of the mer- 
curial and of the aqueous columns. A column of air 
reaching to the upper stratum of the atmosphere was 
hence deemed to be equal in weight to a column of 
water thirty-three feet high, or a column of mercury 
twenty-eight imches high, the diameters being all 
equal. 

Thus did Torricell construct a baromcter and make 
an unportant scicntific discovery by the same experi- 
inent; and the barometer which hc made is undoubt- 
edly the simplest form of the instrument. No one but 
a skilful philosophical-instrument maker can make a 
barometer fit for service; but a long glass tube and 
a bottle of mercury will enable any one to show the 
principle oa which a barometer acts. It is simply this: 
—While the tube is apparently empty, it is really filled 
with air, but on pouring mercury into the tube, most 
of the air is driven out; the tube then beimg inverted 
into a cup of mercury (the open end being stopped 
during the imvertion), the mercury does not smk en- 
tirely into the cup, but remains to a ccrtain height in 
the tube. The atmosphere 1s pressing on the mercury 
in the cup, tending to force it up the tube, while the 
very small portion of air existing im the upper part of 
the tube exerts but a feeble downward prcssure. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


If a} 


195 


perfect vacuum existed above the mercury in the tube 
(which is impossible in such a rough experiment), the 
column of mercury would be, on an average, about 
thirty inches high at the level of the sea, and this co- 
lumn would decrease according as there was more air 
in the upper part of the tube. 

In order to determine still more clearly the influence 
of the atmosphere in counterbalancing the weight of 
the mercurial column, Pascal carried a barometer to 
the mountain of Puy de Déme, in Auvergne. At the 
foot of this mountain, the mercury stood at a height of 
twenty-six and one-fourth (French) inches; and Pascal 
imagined that the height ought to be less when the in- 
strument was taken to the top of the mountain, on 
account of the shortening of the column of air. The 
mercury, in accordance with this opmion, sank to 
twenty-three and one-sixth inches, thus showing that 
the pressure of the airis less as we attain a greater 
altitude. 

When the barometer was thus established as a mea- 
surer of the weight of the air, attempts were made to 
convert it into an index of the weather, by observing 
how far the rise or fall of the mercury in the tube was 
connected with any particular state of the weather. 
In the well-known wheel-barometer, or weather-glass, the 
tube is bent round at the bottom, so as to form a siphon 
with two unequal legs, the longer of which is closed, 
and the other open. When the atmospheric pressure 
is great, it depresscs the mercury in the shorter leg of 
the siphon, and thereby drives it up the longer, and a 
small float, which is placed on the open surface of the’ 
mercury in the smaller tube, is depressed. This float 
is connected with the index-hand on the dial face of the 
barometer, and turns it round to the right or left, as thes 
case may be. The dial-plate is graduated to inches and 
parts of an inch; and it is so arranged that the mdeéx- 
hand shall point to that graduated division which ex- 
presses the height of the mercurial column. 5o far all 
is well ; but when we come to the words “ rain,” “ fair,” 
“set fair,” &c., engraven on the dial-plate, we are 
taught to expect that rain, &c. are nevcr-failing ac- 
companiments of these particular indications on the 
barometer. Now this assumption is very fallacious, 
for fine weather may occur at a time when “ rain” 
is indicated on the barometer; and, moreover, a 
change of altitude in the place of observation will 
change the height of the barometric column without 
the action of any of those causes which produce rain. 
The real truth is, that so far as the oscillations of the 
barometer are indicative of changes of weather, we 
must look at the tendency of the mercury to rise and 
fall, and not to the particular height at which it stands ; 
without an attention to temperature, likewise, all baro- 
metrical indications are very doubttul. 7 

Most persons are now aware that the “ weather-glass 
is not a weather-glass in the proper sense of the term. 
Many “rules” for using the barometer have been given, 
among which are those by Patrick and by Halley. These 
rules nearly agree with popular opinion on the matter, 
and are in substance as follow :—A fall in the mercury 
rencrally indicates approaching rain, snow, high winds, 
or thunder. A very high wind, whether accompanied 
by rain or not, is frequently counected with the lowest 
state of the barometer ; but of the various winds in this 
country, the north-cast causes the least depression. 
When the mercury cither rises or falls pretty steadily 
for two or three days together, a long continuance of 
settled weather frequently follows—fine and dry in the 
former case, and rainy in the latter; and, on the con- 
trary, frequent fluctuations in its height are incompa- 
tible with an equable state of the weather. 

There is undoubtedly some truth in these rules, but 
they must be received with caution; for the time has 
not yet come for predicting with certainty peak of 


196 THE PENNY 


weather which will follow from a certain change in the 
barometer. One of the most singular phenomena 
connected with barometric indications is, that during 
what we call heavy, rainy weather, the air appears to be 
lighter than at other times, since it will not support so 
high a column of mercury. This we shall have occa- 
sion to advert to when treating of the moisture in the 
air, in connection with the hygrometer. The use of the 
barometer is more valuable at sea than on land, pro- 
bably on account of the absence of the disturbing in- 
fluence of islands, mountains, &c. The marine barometer 
is a really valuable instrument to the marmer, as, from 
a sudden fall in the mercury, he may infer the approach 
of a storm, and may make the necessary arrangements 
before the storm comeson. Dr. Arnott vividly describes 
a scene at sea, where the crew of a vessel were sur- 
prised at receiving orders to make preparations for a 
coming storm, at a time when the atmosphere was 
beautifully clear and brilliant. The captain had no- 
ticed an extraordinary fall m the barometer, whence 


MAGAZINE. [May 22, 


he inferred the approach of a storm; and the result 
fully justified the precautions he had taken. 

While, therefore, we guard against the fallacies of 
the common weather-glass, we must fully admit the 
importance of the barometer, when taken in conjunc- 
tion with other instruments, as an aid in meteorological 
inquiry ; and it is to increase this utility that barome- 
trical observations are made and registers kept in 
various parts of the world. It is hoped that from a 
large mass of such registered observations philoso- 
phers may one day deduce the laws whereby the pres- 
sure of the atmosphere fluctuates; meanwhile, the 

rough rules given above may serve approximately to 


show what kind of weather seems lhkely to result from 
a particular state of the barometric column, whatever 
may be the unexplained causes of that state. 

The barometric averages, in the monthly supple- 
ments to our last volume, indicate the average heights 
of the barometer, for the month mentioned, at London, 
derived from the experience of past years. 

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_Long-Woolled Sheep.} 


BRITISH SHEEP. 
(Concluded from page 178.] 


Taz middle-woolled sheep include the South-Down> 
the Dorset, the Norfolk, the Suffolk, and the Cheviot 
breeds, together with several others, and which were 
formerly short-woolled. The length of the staple is 
on the average three and a half or four inches. 

_ That the improvement of the old short-woolled sheep 
into a middle-woolled race is an advantage in every 
sense, especially as the short wool used.exclusively in 


the manufacture of fine cloths is abundantly supplied 
from foreign ‘ growers’ (as the term is), no one can 
doubt. Of this race, one of the first is the improved 
South-Down breed depasturing on the long range of 
chalky hills extending from the sea-coast of the Isle 
of Thanet and the cliffs of Dover through Kent and 
Sussex. Formerly, this breed, as Mr. Ellman states 
(Libr. of Agricult. Knowledge), was of small size, far 
from possessing a good shape, and late before they 
were capable of being fattened; now, however, the 

| are greatly improved both m shape and constitution 


1841. | 


«They are smaller in bone, cqually hardy, with a 
greater disposition to fatten, and. much heavicr in car- 
cass when fat. They used seldom to fatten till they 
were four years old, but it would be a rare sight to sce 
a pen of South-Down wethers at markct more than 
two years old, and many are killed before they reach 
that age.” The South-Down sheep 1s in fact the model 
of what a hill sheep ought to be, and the flesh in fine- 
ness of grain and flavour is peculiarly cxceellent. The 
wool is of a very useful quality, but is both larger in 
fibre and less numerously serrated than the short 
Saxony, and does not thercfore posscss such a felting 
power; hence, it is rarely used in the manufacture of 
fine broad-cloths. Still, from its fineness and feltin 
powers compared with the wool of many other middle- 
woolled breeds, it is highly esteemed,—and for flannels 
and worsted goods in general 1s extensively employed. 
In Surrey, Hampshire, and Berkshire, the South-Downs 
have either superseded or been blended with the old 
short-woolled sheep. 

Dorsetshire possesses its own breed, encroached 
upon, however, by the South-Downs. The males have 
large spirally twisted horns, and the females have also 
horns, but much smaller than those of the male. 
Neither the wool nor the flesh equals that of the South- 
Down breed. The old Norfolk breed of middle- 
woolled sheep is very valuable, but it is rapidly giving 
way to the South-Down. The rams are distinguished 
by long spiral horns, those of the ewes and wethers 
being smaller; the flesh is remarkably fine, and the 
wool delicate and felts well. The figure of these sheep 
is tall and slender ; the legs are long, and the face and 
limbs black or mottled. The gencral aspect is wild 
and animated. This breed thrives on the coarsest pas- 
turage. The wool is not used in fine broad-cloths, 
but is used in such as are of inferior quality, and in 
woollen stufis gencrally. 

In Suffolk the South-Down breed prevails. The 
black-faced and horned sheep of Westmoreland, 
Cumberland, and various parts of Scotland, as Lanark- 
shire, belong to the middle-woolled section. With 
respect to their wool, these sheep do not rank high; it 
exceeds in length that of the middle-woolled brecds 
generally, but is harsh and coarse; to compensate for 
this, these shecp are very hardy, have an admirable 
contour, and the fiesh in fineness of grain and delicacy 
of flavour equals either the South-Down or the Welsh 
mutton. 

The Cheviot breed is very distinct from the common 
mountain or black-faced race, with which it is on 
all sides immediately surrounded, these two races 
dividing the north between them. 

The Cheviot breed is hornless, and the general con- 
tour is execllent,—the shoulders: are ful, the body 
round and long, and the limbs small-boned. The 
mutton is in great esteem; and the wethers average 
sixteen, cightecn, or'even twenty pounds weight per 
quarter. It appears from the testimony of practical 
farmers, that the attention paid to the improvement 
of this breed, in reference to the condition of the car- 
cass, has been followed by a deterioration in the 
quality of the wool, which is said to have been formerly 
capable of entering into the manufacture of fine cloths. 
Still, however, the wool is good, though inferior to 
that of the South-Downs. It far surpasses that of the 
black-faced breed, and as the Cheviot racc is equally 
hardy and as capable of sustaining cold as the former, 
and is content with the alpine plants of the bleak hills 
and mountains, it will soon supersede the black-faced 
breed, as it has already done im the forest of Ettrick 
and the whole of Selkirkshire, and even Sutherland. 
The foreknowledge which these sheep possess of 
approaching storms, and the assiduity with which, 


while the shepherd dreains of no impending evil, thicy | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


197 


will seck a place of shelter and security, are curious 
traits in their history. It is thus that they often warn 
the shepherd, by the display of this instinet, wisely 
implanted within them, and lead him to add his pre- 
cautions to those which they have themsclves adopted. 
In spite, however, of the vigilance of the shepherd and 
the instinet of the sheep, many often perish, buried 
beneath towering: snow-drifts, and sometimes whole 
flocks are lost. It often happens that sufficient 
shelter cannot be obtained, the flock crowd together 
for the purpose of mutual warmth, and are soon 
covered beneath the snow. If this does not occur, the 
lambs, unable to endure the severity of the storm, 
perish, and the mothcrs, bewildered, wander about 
secking their offspring, till they themselves sink ex- 
hausted with their efforts and distress. With but httle 
food, sheep can remain for many days buried beneath 
the snow, but where this cannot be obtained, the period 
of endurance is proportioned to the strength or: the 
animal’s constitution and the intensity of the cold. In 
the winter of 1800, a sheep near Kendal was buried 
in the snow for thirty-three days and nights, without 
the possibility of moving, and yet survived; and a 
sheep in Cumberland was buried for thirty-eight days. 
When extricated, it was found to have eaten the wool 
off both its shoulders, and its frame was reduced almost 
toa skeleton. By due attention, however, 1t gradually 
recovered: 

Having thus specified some of the more important 
of the middle-woolled breeds of sheep in our island, 
most of them, or all, derived from the old short-woolled 
breeds by a system of judicious management, we shall 
now take a hasty survey of the long-woolled breeds, of 
which the plate at the head of this article gives an ap- 
propriate illustration. 

As we have already stated, the middle wool varies, 
in different breeds, in fmencss and in its power of 
felting. Long wool is much more uniform, and for 
this reason, that it is the produce of the Leicester race, 
and of races with which the Leicester race has become 
completely intermingled. ‘‘ All long-woolled shecp,” 
says Mr. Youatt, “both in appearance and in fleece, ' 
are becoming one family.” Long wool, which has 
lately very much improved, it being the aim of the 
breeder to render it finer (at the expense of its length, 
which it will bear), is characterized by strength and 
transparency, but it is deficient in the power of felting. 
Its average length is about eight inches. ‘This applies 
more particularly to that sort called the long-combing 
wool; there is, however, a variety of long wool which 
approximates to the middle wool, and termed the short- 
combing wool, which is somewhat shorter than the 
other, finer, and morc disposed to felt. The long- 
combing wool is used in the manufacture of hard yarn, 
and for purposes in which length and firmness are 
essential; the other for stuffs of a softer texture, and 
for hosiery goods. We have alluded to the Leicester 
breed as the typical example of the long-fleceed races, 
but it is to be observed that this breed 1s an 1mprove- 
ment upon a heavy, ill-made, and_coarse-woolled race, 
formerly spread over all our midland counties. Lin- 
colnshire also had a breed of sheep celebrated for their 
fine long wool; but this breed, defective in form, and 
yielding mutton of an inferior quality, 1s now greatly 
improved, and in fact is blended with the new Leicester 
shcep. 

It is not within our province to follow out the changes 
which have already taken and are still taking place 
among the long-woolled breeds of sheep, for which Ou: 
island is expressly eelebrated, and in which neither 
France nor Belgium can at all compete with the 
English sheep-graziers. To those who wish to gain an 
acquaintance with this part of the subject, we recom- 
mend Mr. Youatt’s valuable work on shecp, where he 


198 THE PENNA 
will find much information and abundant reference 
to various writers on agricultural topics. 

There is, however, one question which suggests itseli, 
and which we cannot omit to notice. As far as records 
serve us, it would seem that a long-woolled and a 
short-woolled ‘now middle-woolled) race of sheep have 
tenauted ourisland from the earliest times. Now to what 
are we to attribuie this original difference? Are the two 
races descended from different primitive sources, or 
have food and soil gradually produced the differences 
which have been so long maintained? No one, we 
think, will hesitate to say the latter ; impossible as it 
may be to follow step by step the progress of the 
change, or to determine the modus operand: of the 
causes contributing to effect it. It 1s, however, very 
remarkable that it is only in animals which have been 
so long domesticated that we cannot tell their primeval 
origin, and which there is reason to think are factitious 
beings (that is, the produce of different, but still 
closely allied species comminghng together), that these 
extreme variations as to size, figure, and length and 
quality of fur are most decidedly observable. We see 
these varieties in the dog; from the silky long-haired 
spaniel of Spanish race, to the close-haired old setter 
of the same country; from the woolly French poodle, 
to the mitin; from the rough English water-dog, to 
the imastiff: so in the sheep we find a short-fleeced 
breed, with the filaments of the wool peculiarly fine 
and numerously serrated; a still longer fleeced breed, 
again subdivided into many minor varieties, having the 
wool fine, and more or less capable of felting, or, in 
other words, more or less numerously serrated; anda 
Jong-woolled race of old standing, in which the wool, 
but thinly serrated, is inferior in felting properties, 
but of great value to the woolcomber. But further, 
as the mixture of along and silky-haired breed of 
dogs with one of close hair does not improve the coat, 
the young resembling, some the male, some the fe- 
male, but not equalling them im their excellences; so 
the crossing of long-woolled aid short-woolled sheep 
leads to no good results; and, as with dogs, the im- 
provement of each breed depends on a judicious ‘and 
careiul selection of the best and purest of that breed, 
by which the properties distinguishing it may be de- 
veloped to their maximum in their progeny. 

In England the sheep is now only valuable for the 
sake of its wool and flesh, but in various parts of 
both Europe and Asia the milk of the ewe has been 
used from the earlest times, either pure or curdled, 
as an article of diet. Formerly, in many parts of Eng- 
land, cheese was made from the milk of the ewe, and 
the ewes, to the injury of the lambs, were milked regu- 
larly, as described in the ‘Odyssey,’ and, at a later 
era, by Virgil :— 


“‘He next betakes him to his evening cares, 
And sitting down, to milk his ewes prepares 5 
Of half their udders eases first the dams, 
Then to the mothers’ teats submits the lambs. 
Half the white stream to hardening cheese he press’d, 
And high in wicker baskets heap’d; the rest, 
Reserved in bowls, supplied the mighty feast.” 
Pope, * Odyss.,’ lib. ix. 


To the process of shearing we need scarcely allude ; 
all are familiar with the manner in which the removal 
of the fleece ‘is effected, and it would seem that in the 
earhest patriarchal ages the same process was in use. 
Among the Romans, however (and the practice has 
been but lately discontinued in the Orkney Islands, 
and is, perhaps, still prevalent in Iceland), the wool 
was torn off the animals, and, as Pliny states, they 
were kept for three days previously without food, in 
order that the wool might be the more easily detached, 


their bodics being exhausted. In his time, however, | being the nature of the Northumberland coast, it has 


Wea AM INE. [| Mave 
the practice of shearing had begun to supersede this 
cruel and unjustifiable method. It gave, however, 
origin to the word vellus (fleece), from vello (to pull 
away), and the hill termed Velleia was the ancient 
spot on which this cruelty was perpetrated. 

With us the season of sheep-shearing is a season of 
rejoicing, and the manner im which the important 
work is conducted, and the dexterity of the shearers, 
are, to those not accustomed to rural life, replete with 
interest and amusement. It is, indeed, a pleasing 
spectacle to see a large flock of snow-white sheep col- 
lected together, and in turn losing their soft fleece, 
rolled into an unbroken and well-arranged whole, be- 
neath the shears of the shearer: the picture 1s full of 
poetry, and he must be destitute alike of taste and 
patriotism that can look coldly upon it. 

To enter into a disquisition on the commercial un- 
portance of the sheep, its connection with national 
prosperity and international relationships, is not our 
place. We leave this to the political economist. 

Before we close, let us again revert to our starting 
point—the question as to the origin of the domestic 
sheep. It is clear that we cannot identify it with any 
Wild species with which we are yet acquainted. If 
such exists, it is most probably to be found on the 
mountains of Armenia,—but this is problematical,— 
and there is some ground for supposing that, though 
the sheep of every region intermingle with each 
other, they have descended from different primitive 
origins. The subject is full of obscurity. It is in- 
deed strange that while history teems with the ac- 
counts of battles, massacres, invasions, the reigns and 
the crimes of kings, it throws no light upon thie do- 
mestic anunals which man has reclaimed. The motives 
which led man to attempt this important work, the 
manner in which he accomplished it, the characters 
and native abodes of the species selected, are buried 
in silence. The subject was too mean for history,— 
the actors too humble to be noticed; but thus it ever 
is, that the glare of mighty deeds effaces the record of 
the useful, the beneficent, and the truly great. 


THE FARNE ISLANDS. 


THESE islands are situated on the coast of Northumber- 
land, from five to seven miles to the south-east of Lin- 
disfarne, or Holy Island; and to those who are acquainted 
with that portion of the great north road which traverses 
the county of Northumberland, the following remarks 
might be particularly addressed, viz.: that from the 
town of Alnwick these islands he due north, at a dis- 
tance of fifteen or sixteen miles; from Belford their 
situation is due east, and the distance five or six miles; 
and from Berwick-upon-Tweed their position is south- 
east (in the same direction with Holy Island), and the 
distance is about the same as that trom these islands to 
Alnwick. 

These islands, which consist, exclusive of many de- 
tached rocks, of seventeen in all, are generally classed 
under two heads, namely, the group nearest to the 
shore being named the Farne Islands, while the more 
distant group is known by the name of the Staples. 
But before entering upon a short account of the most 
noted of the islands in question, it may not be out of 
place to observe, that in nearly the whole extent of sea- 
coast along Northumberland, from the mouth of the 
Tyne to the mouth of the Tweed, clusters of rocks or 
rocky islets frequently occur; and there is no port or 
harbour of any magnitude— Blyth, a small town at 
the mouth of the httle river of the same name, and 
Alnmouth, another village at the mouth of the 
river Aln, being the chief places of this description 
between Shields and Berwick-upon-Iweed. Such 





iS. | 


acquired a bad reputation among sea-faring people ; 
for although vessels commonly keep well out to sea, 
when strong gales happen to come on from the east and 
north-east 1t 1s not always practicable to steer clear of 
the dangerous rocks and islets, and many are the ship- 
wrecks and disasters that have taken place from one ex- 
tremity of this line of coast to the other. 

The loss of the Forfarshire steam-vessel, which took 
place but a few years ago, upon one of the Farne 
Islands, and the courageous and praiseworthy exertions 
of the family (the Darlings) who had charge of the 
lighthouse and resided on the lone island, in rescuing 
a number of the passengers from a watery grave, 
cannot but be fresh in the memories of most of our 
readers; and notwithstanding these islands, from 
yarlous reasons, some of which shall hereafter be 
explamed, have for centuries past been considcred 
among the ‘lions’ of this quarter of the United 
Kingdom, since the shipwreck above referred to oc- 
curred the name of Grace Darling (old Darlng’s 
daughter, without whose assistance the boat could not 
have been worked by which so many livcs were saved 
when the Forfarshire was wrecked) has attracted many 
strangers hither who otherwise probably would never 
have felt any interest in visiting them at all. 

The distance of the islands from the mainland, that 
is, from that part of the coast upon which the village 
and castle of Bambrough are situated, is from two to 
seven miles. In the group lying nearer the coast, the 
largest of them, the name of which is House Island, 
containing about twelve acres of land, is situated; and 
from the clevated situation of some of the cliffs along 
this part of the shore, on a clear day a distinct view is 
not only had of the mner group, but the outline of 
several of the more distant ones may be pretty cor- 
rectly traced. This island has received the appellation 
of ‘ House’ from its having been the residence for some 
years of the famous Bishop Cuthbert, afterwards ca- 
nonized and kuown as St. Cuthbert; and at the prescnt 
day there are still visible the remains of some build- 
ings, including those of a small church, which are sup- 
posed to point out the spot where this austere anchorite 
shut himself out from the world and all intercourse 
with his fellow-men, nor could be prevailed upon 
to return to his episcopal duties until King Eetrid 
had repaired to his retreat, aud upon his bended knees, 
with tears of supplication, conjured him to undertake 
once more those duties he was so eminently qualified 
to fulfil. During his residence in this lone island, tra- 
ditionary reports set forth that he had several combats 
with the devil, and some of them were of ‘such a fierce 
and terrible character, that in the tremendous strug- 
eles between the resolute combatants the devil found 
it necessary to excrt himself so much that his feet 
indented the solid rock; and at the present day, 
when the fishermen or other habitants of the neigh- 
bouring villages along this part of the coast undertake 
to ferry strangers to this and the rest of the islands, 
they never omit pointing out “his satanic majesty’s foot- 
marks” alone the bare rocks of House Island; and so 
serious 1s their demeanour while doing so, that their 
firm belhef in the combats above alluded to can scarcely 
for a moment be doubted. But in fact the memory of 
ot. Cuthbert is still so much venerated by the inhabi- 
tants of these parts, that to discredit almost anything 
which redounds to the honour or credit of this their 
patron saint would, even in a perfect stranger, be 
looked upon as qtte unpardonable. Among the 
other curiosities of tlis same island is a rude stone 
coffin, said to be the one in which the remains of St. 
Cuthbert were first deposited; but after his death, 
which took place here (for he relinquished his see a 
second time, and retired to his former retreat on this 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 199 
body, for greater security, was brought to Holy Island, 
where it was interred with much poinp and ceremony. 
But it was aiterwards, in consequence of maraudine 
excursions of the Danes and Norwegians, removed 
farther inland, from place to place, until the morta] 
remains of this popular saint of the north reached Dur- 
ham, where they were permitted to rest. There is also 
a spring of water, and a chasm in the rocks, called ‘the 
churn,’ where the beating of the waves causes a ereat 
surging of the water, which sometimes rises to the 
height of fifty or sixty feet. 

St, Cuthbert, it 1s said, had such a horror of women, 
from the conduct of the nuns and monks of some of the 
adjoming rehgious houses, that he would not tolerate 
them in his presence, and had a small chapel set 
apart for them in the monastery of Lindisfarne. Among 
the many stories related of this pious but singular 
man, the following 1s duly authenticated by several 
eminent writers and historians, and is thus related: 
—‘ Once, when St. Cuthbert was preaching in a 
certain village to a crowded audience, the alarm 
was givei that there was one of the cottages on fire ; 
this drew a number of people from the sermon to ex- 
tinguish it, which was Just what Satan proposed. The 
more water they threw on it, the more fiercely it 
seemed to burn, and all cfforts to put it out seemed 
ineffectual. The saint, missing many of his auditors, 
inquired the cause; when leaving off his preaching and 
repairing to the scene of action, he perccived it was 
all illusion, and ordered a few drops of holy water to 
be sprinkled on it, on which the devil sneaked off, and 
the fire disappeared.” 

House Island and one or two others among the two 
eroups afford a little scanty pasturage during the 
summer months; but except the person in charge of 
the lighthouse situated on one of the Staples has oc- 
casionally been known to take over a cow or two, 
when he has had a family, and a supply of milk was 
desirable, the pasturagc is of so little value that it is 
seldom looked after. The islands do, however, pro- 
duce something that 1s considered of more value than 
the scanty grass, that is, Immense numbers of wild- 
fowl of various sorts, the eggs of which, as well as 
some of the birds themselves, are turned to a profitable 
account; they also produce a little kelp, and some few 
seals are occasionally met with. But the eggs and 
feathers of the aquatic tribes are considered by the 
owner of the islands the principal articles of value, 
and it is mainly in consideration of these that they are 
rented by some person or other residing upon the 
contiguous coast. Among the varieties of birds fre- 
quenting these islands in vast numbers, particularly 
during the breeding season, may be mentioned cor- 
morants, auks, guillemots (of which there are two or 
three varieties), eidcr-ducks, gulls of several sorts, 
terns, sca-swallows, sea-larks, rock-larks, &c. 

To persons unacquainted with the natural history of 
the various different tribes of the birds in question, a 
visit to the Farne Islands, particularly in the breeding 
season, can hardly fail of proving both highly instructive 
and interesting; for although they may probably have 
met with, somewhere or another, single specimens or 
small flocks of most of the kinds that colonise these 
rocky islets, the way in which they wil here see the 
different tribes separating themsclves into distinct co- 
lonies, and the immense numbers that congregate upon 
some of the small rocky islands, cam scarcely be con- 
ceived without being seen. The first in point of value 
to the parties who rent the islands 1s the eider-duck 
(called St. Cuthbert’s duck by the inhabitants of this 
part of the coast); but it 1s the down of this bird, rather 
than its flesh, that 1s accounted a luxury. Ience, if 
the former can be procured without destroying the 


island, in which he died two months afterwards), his | bird, so much the better for those who turn them toa 


200 


profitable account. These birds lay their eggs in little 
hollows among the moss-covered stones that have at 
some time been thrown upon the margin of the httle 
island by the raging of the waves of the North Sea, or 
in grassy tufts, where a few such happen to be found ; 
but they are not contented with forming their nests 
with sea-weed, moss, or the other materials that the 
islands may chance to produce, but they actually pull 
a large quantity of the finest down from their own 
bodies, with which they give their nests an inner lining. 
As their nests are upon ground quite accessible to 
those who frequent the islands, considerable quantities 
of down are extracted froin them; and when the supply 
af old birds is considered plentiful, the eggs as well as 
the down will be taken away in order that the females 
may presently commence laying a-fresh, and thus be 
induced a second time to deprive their bodies of a 
portion of its warm and valuable covering. These 
birds are so tame that they sometimes suffer themselves 
to be caught upon their nests. 

One of the outer group is named the Pinnacles, from 
the numerous rocks rising to the height of forty or fifty 
feet; and it is here that the gmMemois assemble and 
breed in great numbers. Here, along the ledges of 
rock, at various heights above the chafing of the ever- 
restless waves, these singular-looking birds arrange 
themselves in compact rows, and from their dark 
plumage interspersed with a little white, their ranks 
present a very curious appearance. These birds lay 
their eggs in the interstices of the rocks, but since there 
are but few situations connected with this their favour- 
ite island that cannot be approached by those who 
make a business of robbing them of their eggs, but 
comparatively a small portion of the colonists succeed 
in rearing their young. The sea-larks and sea-swallows 
are found by thousands on some of the sinmaller islands, 
that appear exclusively appropriated to themselves ; 
and so crowded together are their nests, that during 
the months of May and June, when they are laying 
their eggs and hatching them, it 1s often very difficult 
to walk twenty yards without treading upon the eggs 
or the unfiedged young. During the spring and early 
part of summer (except in stormy weather) these islands 
are visited every two or three days, so that the eggs 
may be gathered while fresh and marketable. The 
owners or the parties renting them find a difficulty in 
keeping off intruders and depredators ; for during the 
moonlight nights, and at such times as the authorised 
varties are known or expected to be absent from the 
islands, the sort of persons alluded to will make ex- 
cursions In some round-about way Crequently dropping 
down from Wioly Island, distant in a north-westerly 
direction five or six miles), and not only pilfer the 
eggs, down, and such young broods as may be con- 
sidered of any value, but will sometimes wantonly de- 
stroy the old birds, and trample upon the unfiedged 
young ones, and the eggs that are under a state of in- 
cubation. In short, like most other poachers and de- 
predators, they do not seem contented with carrying off 
whatever plunder they are able to obtain, but appear 
bent upon domg as much injury as possible to those 
whom they are robbing of their property. 

In calm weather, particularly during the summer 
season, this part of the eastern coast 1s very subject to 
thick fogs, which greatly increase the dangers of a 
rocky shore; and notwithstanding there is a sufficient 
depth of water for coasting vessels in most of the chan- 
nels separating these islands one froin another, great 
danger is to be apprehended from sunken rocks, some 
of which show themselves at low water, while others, 
equally dangerous, lurk just beneath the surface, but 
never show their tops at all. Owing also to the pecu- 
har position of some of the islands, the current of the 
tides 1s so strong, at certain periods of the ebb and 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[May 22, 


flow, that the navigation is rendered not only difficult, 
but exceedingly dangerous, under the most favourable 
circulnstances. 


Emigrants in Canada,—From pretty close observation during 
the past cight years, I have come to the conclusion that the 
Scotch are the best and most successful of all emigrants. Come 
they with or without money, come they with great working sons 
or with only hitle useless girls, it is all the same: the Scotch- 
man 1s sure to better his condition, and this very silently, and 
almost without a complaimt. Of all the sons poor Scotchmen 
bring out with them, scarcely any become servants. I observe 
they work with and for ‘their parents, till the latter are well 
stocked in and securely provided for, when these young men 
betake themselves to land on their own account. This 1s worthy 
of notice, and should be imitated by others, as the greatest ad- 
vantages are derived from the family having a head in good cir- 
cumstances, and ready with its assistance in times of need. The 
industry, frugality, and sobriety of the Scotch mainly contribute 
to their success; and such habits are absolutely necessary to be 
rigidly followed by poor settlers on first entermg the “bush.” i 
have carefully watched the progress and result of the Scotch, 
Irish, and English emigrants, in the race to the goal desired by 
all, namely, to obtain a deed for their land, and find that where all 
have appeared to me to be equally well mounted, and had pre- 
cisely the same course to go over and the same hills of difficulty 
to ascend, the Scotchman is generally first in at the winming-post. 
Next to the Scotch, I am of opinion that the Englishman comes 
in for his meed of praise; but it is infimtely more difficult to 
speak of him than of his Scotch and Irish neighbours, as every 
shade and grade of character, conduct, and success is to be 
found amongst the English in this place and the neighbouring 
townships : sufhee it to say, that were it not for a considerable 
number of good men from Yorkslire and Nottinghamshire, wlio 
are prospering in this part of Canada, I must have left my own 
countrymen to be noticed last. Generally speaking, English 
families do not hold together loug enough to ensure success; the 
sons of poor English emigrants leave their parents, and become 
servants at the usual Ingh wages, and, instead of saving money 
to purchase land, the same is squandered away in fine clothes 
and at the numerous country balls, &. This course is followed 
up by taking a wife, becoming a common Jabourer, and |iring 
a smart house in the town, where he is determined his wife shall 
wear as rich asilk dress on a Sunday as any lady in the place. 
The lowest characters we have in Guelph, and pests they are, 
turn out to be English drunkards. I do not intend to make 
any attempts to deprive our Irishmen of their well-earned and 
well-known forte mm making, occasionally, more noise than any 
other men when a little “high;” but, in common, I find them 
more at ther farms, or at their respective callings, than the 
English are. The English “ gentleman farmer,” who lost, in a 
very Jew years, in the old country, nearly all he possessed on 
starting m1 life; and thus, by living beyond his means, neglect- 
ig his farm, and too hotly and constantly pursuing the hounds, 
comes to Canada a very unlikely man to succeed; such a man 
grumbles dreadfully at first, curses his hard fate, then the coun- 
try, then the government, than the Canada Company, and every 
man who ever wrote a line or said a word in favour of Canada, 
Onward, however, he goes, by fits and starts, now determined to 
try, again to give up; but, after a few years, we hear less and 
see more of this man, because his mind 1s sobered down, and he 
looks upon things as they really are; he sees and feels that he 
is domg well m spite of himself; that he has an estate ‘ot’ his 
own, has no dread of “ rent-day,” nor landlord; has no tithe to 
pay, no poor-rate, and almost uo taxes of any kind. Should 
crops fail, or prices be very low, we never see a farmer “ break ” 
or “fail” in this neighbourhood; and the reason is, because the 
outgoimgs of a farm are very small, and the farmer can easily 
reduce thei to any extent he pleases till things go better. ; 
- . The rapid strides made by the plain, sober, hard-working 
English labourer or small jarmer of the old country are truly 
worthy of our admiration and regard; with these men, capital 
seems not to be essentially necessary to their suceess.x—Dr. #. 
Alling, Emugration Agent at Guelph. 








ee 


Truth will ever be unpalatable to those who are determined not 
to relinquish error, but can never give offence to the honest and 
well-meaning; for the plain-dealing remonstrances of a friend 
differ as widely from the rancour of an enemy, as the friendly 
probe of a physician from the dagger of am assassin.—/. W. 
Montague. 





aG4].] THE PENNY, MAGAZINE 901 













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THE CID.—No. Vill. 


“Then strike, my knights, with joyous hearts! be | NITTIARSH \, 1) ARiM, 1, 
valiant in the war, a ee |) Raa —-—~ 
For I'm Rodrigo of Bivar, the Cid Campeador !” Raia os eval) 3 \ VAUD AEM RS» 





Poem of the Cid, 


Ir were a tedious task to follow the Cid 1 
his long and unremitting course of hostilities 
arainst the Moslems after his exile from Cas- 
tilte. The romances indeed omit all mention 
of many of the exploits he performed during 
this period, as recoided by the Poem and ihe 
Chronicle. Yet we must not pass them over 
in utter silence. In the short space of three 
weeks he won two strongholds from the Moors, 
and defeated a powerful “foree sent a@alnst him 
from Valencia. Thirty horses, part of the 
spoil, each with a scimitar hanging at the 
saddle-bow, he sent as a present ‘to Kane 
Alfonso, w he received the @ift, and gave Der 
mission to any of his knights to join “the Cid's 

standard, but thought it “yet too carly to grant 
~aheeliaPn pardon. Rodrigo continued his forays 
| into the Arab territory, ravaged it far and 
wide, laid many of the principal cities in the 
east of Spain under tribute, and gained ereat 
spoil and greater glory. He even extended his 
s | imceursions as far south as Alicant. Nor was it 
<3] . the Moors alone with whom he had to contend: 


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ji yl i Ses | for he signally defeated and captured Ramon, 
Reger: weet =) Fee! count of Barcelona, and won from him the 
8, = = | )-) tantous ‘sword Colada, “werth more than a 
yo + -, S| thousand marks of silver.” He also worsted - 
ee a, Wi J 2Nvs| Don Pedro, king of Aragon, who on one occa- 
‘iigt i [1 Qo | sion sent one hundred and fifty horsemen to ‘ 
\¢ Hed / 


a || surprise lim as he was riding attended by only }s.. 2380. — “Spe-e> 


No S7, Vou. X.—2 D 


a dozen knights; but the hero’s individual prowess 
saved him, and he routed the Aragonese and captured 
seven of their number, whom, with his wonted gene- 
rosity, he immediately sect at hberty. 

The fortress of Rueda had been wrested from the 
Castillhans by the Moors, who had also treacherously 
slain Ramiro, the son of Don Alfonso. This monarch 
thereon recalled the Cid from banishment, and prayed 
him to march against Rueda and reduce it. Rodrigo 
kissed the royal hand, but refused to accept the offered 
pardon, unless the king would pledge his word that 
thenceforth every hidalgo under sentence of banish- 
ment should have thirty days allowed him before going 
into exile, to prove, if possible, his innocence ; for, said 
he, 

«“ ¢Ne’er should be a vassal hamsh’d 

Without time to plead his cause ; 

Ne’er should king his people's rights 
Trample on and break the laws ; 

Ne’er should he his hegemen punish 
More than to their crimes is due, 

Lest they rise into rebellion— 
That day sorely would ne rue.’ 


1? 


The king pledged his word to this, and the Cid 
marched against Rueda, wasas usual victorious, and on 
his return was received with all hononr by his grateful 
sovereign. This took place a.p. 108]. 

- We next find “the good one of Bibar” captain- 
geeneral of the Christian torce before Toledo, which for 
some years had been besieged by Don Alionso; and 
on its surrender, in 1085, the Cid was appointed its 
eovernor. The ill-will of the king towards him was 
not, however, entirely removed, but being kept alive 
by the malicious representations of the Cid’s enemies, 
a pretext was soon found for a renewed sentence of 
banishment. He pursued his former course of hos- 
tilities against the Moors, and with the like suecess, 
and ere long had carried his victorious arms to the 
gates of Valencia, which city he resolved to make his 
own, and therefore sent heralds through Castille, 
Aragon, and Navarre, proclaiming that all who loved 
a merry life and a glorious might join his standard, but 
they must come out of pure love of blows. Adven- 
turers flocked to his camp from all quarters, and his 
force soon amounted to three thousand six hundred 
men. He then laid siege to the city. 

In his eamp was an Asturian knight, named Martin 
Pelaez, of stout and powerful frame, but of a weak 
and craven spirit. When the Cid and his followers 
were one day engaged in deadly combat with the Pay- 
nims, this Pelaez left the fight and returned secretly 
to his tent, where he remained concealed till the battle 
was over, and the Christians, weary with the work of 
slaughter, returned to refresh themselves in the camp. 


“ The Cid he sat lim down fo cat, 
With him of his knights sat none, 
For it was his daily wont 
At his board to sit alone. 
At another sat his kiights, 
All who were of high renown.” 


For so did the good Cid ordain, that their valour 
might be made known to all, and that the rest might 
strive to emulate them in the field. 


« Thinking that my Cid Rodrigo 
Had not witnessed his shame, 
In came Martin, neat and cleansed, 
Straight uuto the board he came ; 
Where did sit Don Alvar Fatiez 
With Ins mighty men of fame. 


Up the good Cid then arose, 
Seiz’'d his arm, and whisper’d low, 
* Friend, to eat with these great warriors 
Is not meet for such as thou, 


> THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[May 2a, 


These are kniglits of proved valor, 
Better men than we are they ; 
Sit thee then at this my table, 
Of my viands eat, I jnay.’ 
Down then sat he with Rodrigo, 
At. Ins board with him dil eat ; 
Thus the Cid with wondrous mildness 
Did rebuke him, as was meet.” 


After the meal, the Cid, with the same considerate 
gentleness, took him aside, aud in plain terms up- 
braided him with his cowardice. “Is it possible,” said 
he, “that a man nobly born as thou art, can fly through 
terror of the strife? Knowest thou not that it is ho- 
norable to die on the battle-field? Better hadst thou 
turn monk ; peradventure thou mayest be able to serve 
God in the cloister, though thou canst not in the war 
Nathless, try once more; go forth this evening to the 
fight, place thyself at my side, and let me see what 
spirit thou canst show.” 

Deeply did Martin feel this rebuke, and grievous 
was his shame. He resolved to go forth to the field, 
and strive to redeem his character. Accordingly, the 
next day, when the Cid and his host rode up to the 
very fates at Valencian 

‘© Marti was the first that rushed 
Headloug on the coming foe ; 
No fear then, I wot, he proved, 
W oidrous valor he did show ; 
His right arm wrought grievous slaughter, ' 
Many Payimuns he laid low. 
As they fell right fast before him, 
‘Whence this furious fiend?’ they cried : 
‘Ne’er have we beheld such valor; 
None his ouset can abide.’ ” 


The Saracens were driven back into the eity, and 
Martin returned to the camp, his arms bathed in blood 
up to the elbows. The Cid stood awaiting him, and 
warmly embracing him, said, “ Friend Martin, thou 
art verily a good and doughty knight. No longer must 
thou eat with me at table; henceforth thou shalt sit 
with Alvar Fahez, my cousin-german, and my other 
knights of highest valor and renown.” From that 
day forth Martin Pelaez proved himself a right valiant 
knight, and thus, says the romance, was exemplified the 
proverb— 

¢ Who to a good tree betakes him, 
Shelter good he there will find.” 


The Valencians being hard beset and hopeless of 
succour, an aged prophet ascended a lofty tower on 
the ramparts, and when he beheld the city so fair and 
beautiful, and the camp of her enemies pitched against 
her, lis heart smote him sore, and he sighed forth this 
lament :— 


* ¢QOh Valencia! my Valencia! 
Worthy thou to rule for aye; 
But if Site do not pity, 
Soon thy glory must decay. 


Lo! I see thy mighty ramparts 
Shake and totter to their fall. 
Yea, thy proud and lofty towers, 
And thy snowy turrets all, 


Which thy sons rejoic’d to gaze on, 
As they glitter’d from afar, 
Woe! I see them sink and crumble— 
Ruin doth their beauty mar. 
See, thy fertilizing river 
Now hath stray'd from out its bed; 
All thy springs and gushing fountains 
Now are dried up at their head. 


Green thy fields and fair thy flowers 
As they once i beauty shone ; 
Now their beauty is defiled, 
All their bloom and odour gone, 


1841.] 


Yonder broad and noble strand, 
Once thy pride and ouce thy boast, 
Now by foot of foe is trampled— 
By Castilla’s robber host. 
Rapine, death, and desolation, 
Ou thy Jand these Chnstians pour ; 
Yea, the smoke of yonder bunungs 
All the landscape doth obscure. 
Goue are all the charms which made thee 
To thy children so divine. 
Could these walls but weep and wail thee, 
They would add their tears tou nine. 
Oh Valencia! my Valencia! 
Allah quickly succour thee! 
Olt have I foretold what uow 
Sore it grievetl: me to sec.’ 


After a siege of ten months the Cid gained posses- 
sion of the city, A.p. 1094, and, says the pcem— 
“ Right joyful was the Perfect One, with all his men of 
might, 
To see upon Valencia’s keep his baimer waving bright. 
All who were squires were dubbed knights for their deeds’ 
sake that day ; 
How much of gold each soldicr won, I prithee, wlio can 
say 2" 


9% 


According to the romances, he made a mild and 
renerous use of his victory. He gave orders that the 
dead should be buried and the sick and wounded 
attended to, and cheered the citizens by assuring them 
that respeet should be paid to their persons and pro- 
perty, for that though fierce and mighty in war, he was 
inild and gentle in peace. But the Moorish chroniclers 
tell a different tale, and relate the cruclties inflicted 
upon the unhappy governor of Valencia by the tyrant 
Cambitor (Campeador), “ Allah curse lim!’ — Ro- 
drigo’s earliest care was to appoint a Christian bishop 
to his newly-won city—‘ God! how all Christendom 
did rejoice!” JTlis next, to despatch Alvar Fancz to 
Burgos to pray the king Alfonso for the company of 
Xinena and his two daughters, whom he had left in 
the care of the abbot of S. Pedro de Cardena. He 
told Don Alvar to take with him thirty marks of gold 
for the expenses of their journey to Valencia, and as 
many of silver for the abbot. ° 


“¢Ty the worthy Jews two hundred 
Marks of gold bear with all speed, 
With as many more of silver, 
Which they lent me in my necd, 


In my kuightly honor trusting ; 
But I basely did acceive, 

Au: in pledge thereof two coffers 
Full of nought but sand did give. 


Pray ye of them, for my solace, 
Pray them now to pardoit me, 
Sith with sorrow great I did it 
Of my hard necessity. 
Say, albeit within the coffers 
Nought but sand they can espy, 
That the pure gold of my truth 
Deep beneath that sand doth Jie.” 
Ile sent also to the king Alfonso, “ his own good 
and liege lod,” a rich gift of captives, horses, and trea- 
sures, and instructed Don Alvar what to say: 


“¢Say, friend, to the king Alfonso, 

May it please him now to take 

This unworthy gift and offering 
Which a Lanish'd lord doth make ; 

Yea, unworthy all in value, 
But some favour in his eyes 

It may gain when that ye tell hnn 
"Tis of Christian bicod the price. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


203 


In two ycars with my good faulchion, 

I have won more land thai he 
Did inherit from jis father ; 

(May he now iu glory be!) 
Tell him, all this Jand and treasure, 

All [ve won with my good sword, 
I do hold of him in fief, 

as a vassal of his lord. 
Yea, I pray God that my prowess 

To lis wealth may inercase y:cld, 
While my heel can strike Babieca, 

While wy hand Tizona wicld. 
One boon only I do ask lhim— 

‘Can I crave this boon iu vain? 
That he send my lov’d Ximena, 

And my tender daughters twain, 
Dearest treasures of my bosom, 

To relieve my lonely pain.’ ” 


Alvar Fatiez faithfully executed his mission, and 
repeated his lord’s words in the presence of the king 
at Burgos. Wiaidly had he ceased speaking, when a 
certain count, one of the Cid’s enemies, arose, and 
varned the king to beware of deceit, and give no credit 
to what he had heard. “ Perchance the Cid meaneth 
to follow his gift, and beard thee to thy face on the 
morrow.” Alvar Fanez plucked his bonnet from his 
brows, and replied, all stammering with rage, 


“ ¢ Let none stir, upon his peril ! 
Speak not! noue of ye—take heed 
That the Cid himself is prescnt, 
For I stand here in his stead ! 


Who will dare to utter falschoods— 
Foul and lying words declare ? 
In the Cid’s name, I do warn lnm, 

Let him of lus head have care?” 


Then remembering in whose presence he had spoken, 
Don Alvar, as a loyal kmght, asked pardon of the 
king, without however retracting aught that he had 
uttered. The result of his mission was that he carried 
back to Valencia Ximena and her two daughters, to 
the great joy of the Cid. 

Soon after this, the great Miramamolin, king of 
Tunis, landed on the Spanish shore, with 50,000 horse 
and a countless host of foot, to wrest Valencia froim 
the hands of the Christians. Rodrigo took Ximena 
and his two daughters to the roof of the highest tower 
in the Aleazar, or citadel, and showed them tls vast 
armament, 


“ Toward the sea they cast their eyes— 
Foes did swarm along the coast; 
Round about the town they looked— 
Kyverywhere a mighty host. 

Tents were piiching, trenches digging, 
All to battle did prepare ; 

Shouts of men, and war-steeds neighing, 
Drums and trumpets rent the air.” 


The ladies were terrified at this novel sight, but 
the Cid, stroking his long beard, cheered then. 


‘¢¢ Fear not thou, my lov'd Ximena, 
Fear not ye, my daughters dear, 
While I live to wield Tizona, 


Ye, I wot, have nought to fear.’ ”’ 


“See ye not,’ he added, “ that the more numerous 
the foe, the richer will be the spoil, and the larger your 
dowries, my daughters?” Verily my heart swelteth 
now that ye are present !”’* Perceiving then that some 
of the Moors had: entered the orchards near the city, 


* This saying of the Cid, “ The more Moors, the more gain,” 
| became proverbial iu Spain, and continues so at the present day. 


2D2 


204 TNE PENRY 
he despatched Don Alvar Salvadores with two hundred 
horse to drive them out, and make a slaughter of the 
pagan dogs for the gratification of the ladics. Thus 
was done, the Moors were driven out, but Don Alvar, 
too eager in the pursuit of the flying foe, was taken 
prisoner. 

On the morrow, “ he who in a lucky hour girt the 
sword,” as the Poem frequently terms the Cid, made a 
general sally against the Moors, the bishop of Valencia, 
who, like many of the ecclesiastics of that day, was as 
expert with the sword as with the mass-book, march- 
ing in complete armour at the head of the troops. The 
small band of Christians soon found themselves in 
imminent danger of being hemmed in by the over- 
whelming hosts of the foe: : 


‘“ But my good Cid, this perceiving, 
Rushed on the enemy ; 
’Gainst their ranks he spurr'd Babieca, 
Shoutmg loud Ins battle-cry, 


‘Aid us, God and Santiago? 
Many a Paynim he laid low ; 

To despatch a foe he iever 
Neecled to repeat his blow. 


Well it pleas’d the Cid to fizut him 
Mounted on his steed once more, 

With his right arm to the elbow 
Crinsen'd all with Moorish gore.” 


The Moors took to flight and were pursued with 
ereat slaughter by the Clirisians, who took the Moslem 
camp, where they found Don Alvar Salvadores, with a 
vast booty in gold and horses, “ and the mchest tent 
ever seen in Christendom,” which the Cid sent, toge- 
ther witn part of the spoil, to “ Alfonso the Castillian.” 
The king, overcome by the Cid’s noble forgetfulness of 
wrongs, thereon granted him pardon and restored him 
to favour. 


ee 


Law and Intevest-—A member of a sick club sued the stew- 
arils for one pound eight ehillings, four weeks’ pay. They de- 
clared he was not a member. It appeared by their articles, 
which ought to be the criterion of right, that the club assembled 
once a week; that every abseut member forfeited a certain 
siun, and by non-attendatce for six mghts he forfeited an ac- 
cumulated suin of about seven shillings, and his right to 
membership. When this mau had absented himself till the ar- 
rears swelled to eleven slnilings, he apphed to the club, solicited 
to be taken im, and agreed with the members present that he 
should be reinstated, paying all arrears. Being im health, it was 
their interest to keep him. Elevated with ale and prosperity, 
which often raise aiman above hinself, instead of paying his 
arrears, he d d the club, and declared he would leave them. 
He was immediately taken ill, and, applying to the club, in- 
sisted upon his right of membership; but the scale was uow 
turned: it was their mterest to shake him off, and his to ad- 
here to them. As he was likely to become burdensome to 
the parish, the overseers interested themselves in his favour, 
offered to pay the arrears, and wrote to the bench. Court.— 
‘“‘ Every society of men is governed by a body of laws of their own; 
nay, it is that body which constitutes them a society ; you must 
act and we must try by these laws. It does not appear that a 
member can by absence contract a debt of more than seven 
shillings. When this happens, all connection ceases. Though 
the members in full assembly may, by their majority, make 
bye-laws for the good government of ther body, yet they can- 
not make one new or abrogate one old law without the couseut 
of every individual. If this was allowed, a cabal might be 
very mischievous in voting away a man's right or property. In 
the wor:ls king, lords, and commons is comprehenled every per- 
son in the kingdom. They can, by their joint conseut, alter, 
form new, or anuthilate old Jaws, but uo alteration can take 
place without the’ consent of the whole.boly. The king aud the 
commons can make none withont the lords, nor the lords and the 
commons without the king. Fach can make bye-laws for their 





own goo:l government, but no fundamentals cau be created with- | 


MAGAZINE (May 29, 
out the whole. As every law affects somebody, it cannot be 
carried without.the consent of that somebody. As this man has 
forfeited his right by non-attendance, his share of the fund be- 
caine the joint property of every 1nember; consequently the 
consent of every member was necessary toreimstate him. EKach 
inan might give back his own, but no man could give another's ; 
it follows, his being re-voted into the club by a majority, and 
lis d g himself out, no way affect the case; he had lost 
his nght prior to either. Justead of a claim upon them, they 
have a just demand upon him for seven slullings, as arrears for 
uou-payment.—Anight's Miscellanies :—Life of IW. Hutton: 
Decisions of Court of Requests. 


London Stone—stood ancicntly on the south side of Cannon 
Street, pitched upright, near the channel or kennel, according to 
Stow, who adds, that it was “fixed in the ground very deep, 
fastened with bars of iron, and otherwise so strongly set, that, if 
carts do run against it through negligence, the wheels be broken, 
aud the stone itself unshaken.”’ Possibly the cart-whecls were 
made stronger afterwards, the better to stand the perils to which 
they were thus exposed; for it is pretty evident that the old 
stone has not always had the best of it im such e1counters. It is 
now reduced, judging from what may be seen of it, to a frag- 
ment not a great deal larger than a man’s head. Still, even ths 
relic of so ancient and venerable a monument is interesting and 
precious; and we ought not to omit the name of the worthy 
citizen to whom we owe its preservatioin—Mr. Thomas Maiden, 
of Sherbourn Lane, printer, who, it is said, when St. Swithin’s 

hurch was about to undergo a repair, in 1798, prevailed on the 
parish officers to consent that the stone should be placed where 
it still remains, after it had been doomed to destruction as a 
nuisance. For before this it stood close to the edge of the kerb- 
ston:, ou the same side of the street, to which, it seems, it had 
been removed from its original position on tle opposite side, in 
December, 1742. Its foundatious were uncovered in the course 
of the operations that took place after the great fire, and were 
fund to be so extensive, that Wren, who does not appear to have 
doubted that they were Roman, was inclmed to think that they 
must have supported some more considerable monument than 
even the central milliarium. “In the adjoming ground to the 
south, upon digging for altars,’ we are told in the Parentaha, 
‘were discovered some tessellated pavements, and other extensive 
remains of Roman workmanship and buildings.” Probably,” 
adds the account, “this might in some degree bave imitated the 
Milliarium Aureum at Constantinople, which was not in the form 
ofa pillar, as at Rome, but an emment building ; for under its 
roof, according to Cedrenus and Suidas, stood the statues of 
Constantine and Helena, Trajan, ‘an equestrian statue of Hadrian, 
a statue of Fortune, and many other figures and decorations.” 
The recorded history of London Stone, we may add, reaches be- 
youd the Conquest. Stow found it mentioned asa land-mark 
ina list of rents belonging to Christ’s Church in Canterbury, at 
the end of “a fair-written Gospel-book ” given to that founda- 
‘ion by the West Saxon king Athelstane, who reigned trom 925 
to 941.—London, No. 9. 




















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Aviznon, with the old Roman bridge, and Vaucluse, from lithographs by Lemercier. 


Tomb at Arqua, from a print by Turner.] 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. 
PETRARCH.* 


Durine one of the journeys of this great poet, after 
he had achieved the reputation which still makes his 
memory so deservedly dear to his countrymen, he 
passed through Arezzo, the place of his birth. At his 
departure, the principal persons of the town waited 


* Wor the various quotations from Petrarch ’s writings inter- 
spersed through the following paper, we must express our ac- 
knowledgments to the very interesting Life of the poet just pub- 
lished by our own distinguished bard, the author of the ‘Pleasures 
of Hope,’ Thomas Campbell. 





upon him to pay their respects, and to point out the 
house in which he had first breathed. “It was a small 
house,” says Petrarch, “ befitting an exile, as my father 
was.” He was informed that the owners had been about 
to make some alterations in it; but the authorities 
interfered, and caused the whole to be preserved, as it 
was on the cireumstance which had given to Arezzo its 
chief claim to the agreeable remembrances of posterity. 
That eveut oceurred in the mght between the 19th and 
20th of July, 13804; and was attended by two memor- 
able incidents. Jiis mother was in nnminent danger of 


her life in giving birth to him, and his father Petracco 


who had been banished from Florence with Dante and 


206 


other eminent men, was alimost at the same hour en- 
raced with his party (one of the two factions, the 
blacks and the whites, or, as they called themselves, 
the Neri-and the Bianchi,* into which the Florep- 
tines were divided) in an unsuccessful attack upon 
their native city. The troubled circumstances that 
tbus surrounded the earliest years of Petrarch, were 
but types of the wretched staie of things he was to 
witness through his entire life in connection with his 
beloved country, torn from one end to the other by 
factions aud families. After the defeat of the white 
party, to which Petracco belonged, he was obliged to 
sever himself from his wife and cluld; he wandering 
about from place to place, doing as he best could, and his 
wife and infant son, to whom the sentence of banishment 
did not extend, removing to a small property the family 
possessed at Ancisa near Florence. In their way they 
crossed the Arno; and the guide, a robust peasant, 
carried the child hung in a swaddling-cloth over his 
shoulder. Whilst they were in the deep part of the 
river, the guide's horse fell; and amidst his own and the 
mother’s frantic efforts to raise it, the whole party had 
nearly perished. After seven years spent in this un- 
happy way. Petracco took his family to Pisa; and 
thence, in 1313, to Avignon, when once more the 
young poet's history had been well meh brought to a 
summary conclusion by the threatened shipwreck of 
their vessel off Marscilles. One of the carliest indica- 
tions of the future tastes and genius of Petrarch may 
perhaps be tound in his remark, when taken to see the 
lovely landscape around the fountain of Vaucluse, a 
few leagues from Avignon. ‘ There now,” he cried 
rapturously, “is a retirement suited to my taste, and 
preferable in my eyes to the greatest and most splendid 
cities.” Of the permanency of the impression Vau- 
cluse made upon him, we shall find a sufficient testi- 
mony some twenty years later. t Avignon, then the 
seat of the luxurious papal court, Petracco found 
everything too expensive for his reduced circum- 
stances; so, 10 1315, he removed to the small town of 
Carpentras. Tlere Petrarch learned grammar and 
logic from one Convennole de Prato, a man of meagre 
attainments, but with sufficient intelligence to appre- 
ciate his pupil’s character and abilities. Petrarch ex- 
hibited, long afterwards, lus gratitude for the kindness 
and respect with which ke had been treated; when De 
Prato, being very old and very poor, received consider- 
able assistance from the poets scanty income. At the 
aze of fifteen, Petracco sent his son to Montpelier, and 
afterwards to Bologna, to study the law; but, like 
several other poets similarly destined, young Petrarch 
found it much more dehghtful to seek and make 
acquaintance with the choicest passages in‘his favourite 
authors, than to busy himself in the subtilties of legal 
lore. Petracco on one occasion came to Bologna, in 
the hope of checking lis son’s growing passion for 
literature. The latter, aware of his approach, hid his 
Virgil, Cicero, and such other few books as a student 
with small means could obtain before the intreduction 
of printing; but Petracco discovered the hidden trea- 
sures, and threw them upon the fire. J1is son’s agony 
at the loss was however too much for the parental 
heart: Petracco rescued Virgil and Cicero from their 
purgatory, and returning them to the poet, said, 
“Virgil will console you for the loss of your other 
manuscripts, and Cicero will prepare you for the study 
of the law.” The death of both his parents in 1326, 
however, left his future career entireiy at his own 


* The Neri and Bianchi were the names of two branches of 
the Cancellicri family at Pistoia, who, on being expelled from 
that town, carried theiv feuds and their designations into Florence. 
Both, however, were Guelphs, although, from the Bianchi having 


subsequently joined the Guibelines, they have been sometimes | touching as the sound of her voice. 


confounded with them. 


THE PENN Y Wie £. 


[\iay 29, 


disposal. We and his brother now entered the 
church, having first settled the family afiairs, which 
they found much disordered by the dishonesty of tne 
executors. But Petrarch tells us, with great gratifica- 
tion, that, in their ignorance, they had Ieft him what he 
esteeined as the most valuable part of his pa‘rimony, 
a manuscript Cicero, highly prized by his father. He 
was now but twenty-two years old, when he settled 
with his brother in the licentious and profligate city of 
Avignon; and we need not therefore wonder that he 
did not pass through the temptations that there sur- 
rounded him with entire safety. THis person, voice, 
and manners were all of an unusually seductive cha- 
racter ; and he was in no slight degree vain of them. 
“Do you remember,” he writes to his brother \ata 


{ime when all such follies had passed away), ‘ how much 


care we employed in the lure of dressing our persons” 
When we traversed the streets, with what attention did 
we not avoid every breath of wind which might dis- 
compose our air; and with what caution did we not 
prevent the least speck of dirt from soiling our gar- 
ments.” This attention to lis person, at the same 
tine, was not allowed to interfere with the great’ busi- 
ness of his hfe, the cultivation of his mind. Ife 
studied earnestly, and transcribed the works of every 
valuable writer that came in his way. Such was the 
only and most un-“royal’ road to learning in those 
days. Petrarch’s first compositions were in Latin; but 
he was wise enough to perceive carly the advantages 
of writing in his native “ vulgar tongue,” as the Italian 
was then called. And certainly he found that tongue 
very different from the state. in which he leftif. The 
improvement Dante had commenced, Petrarch may be 
said to have almost finished: wnder his cultivation it 
acauired a new clegance and richness. Among the 
numerous friends and patrons which the manners, 
abilities, and general and increasing reputation for 
learning of the poet attracted, were John of Florence 
and Janies Colonna. ‘The former was one of the pope's 
secretaries, and to him Petrarch entrusted all the anxie- 
ties caused by a sense of his own faults, by his desnes 
to approve himself worthy of the vocation to which, in 
common with all other great men, he felt himself to 
be called, and by his keen sensibility to the distracted 
state of Italy; and, in return, he received such appro 
priate advice and sympathy, that he says he never left 
him without finding himself more calm and composed, 
and more animated forstudy. James Colonna was the 
third son of the nobleman of the same name, a mem- 
ber of one of the most ancient and illustrious familes 
of the country. Petrarch, avytie seem iie i nee seen 
eloquent passage descriptive of hisadimirable qualities, 
says, “Ile gained the first place in my _ affections, 
which he ever afterwards retained.” We arrive now 
at that ereat event in the poct’s personal history, which 
has certainly, by its romantic character and conse- 
quences, assisted in no slight degree to make Petrarch 
one of the most popular of writers. 

Petrarch relates that exactly at the first hour of 
the 6th of April, he saw Laura, in the church of the 
monastery of St. Clair, at Avignon, where neither ihe 
sacredness of ihe place nor the selemnity of the day 
(Good Friday, probably) could prevent him from being 
smitten for life with human love. He saw a lady, a 
few years younger than himself, in a green mantle 
sprinkled with violets. ‘“ Her faee, her air, her gait, 
were to him superhuman. Her person was delicate, 
her eyes were tender and sparkling, and her eyebrows 
black as ebony. Golden locks waved over her 
shoulders, whiter than snow, and the ringlets were in- 
terwoven by the fingers of leve.. . Nothing 
was so soft as her looks, so modest as her carriage, so 
An ar of gaiety 
aud tenderness breathed around her, but so pure and 





Omi. j 


happily tempered as to uispire every beholder with 
‘the sentiment of virtue, for she was chaste as the dew- 
drop of the morn. ‘uch, says Petrarch, was the 
amiable Laura.”* The most accurate writer the world 
has ever known, where the “facts” concern the human 
heart, has taught us, in his ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ what a 
first love may be in those delicious southern skies— 
sudden but permanent; and of this character was 
Petrarch’s unhappy attachment. Laura was already 
the wife of another. In our own country and tine we 
should justly attach something criminal to the love 
that not only survived a discovery of that nature, but 
eloried in proclaiming its existence: it would, how- 
ever, be wrong to measure Petrarch by such a standard. 
The customs of Italy, as well as the licence generally 
allowed to poets, justified him in offermg and Laura in 
accepting his respectful attentions and adimiration ; 
and whatever pain the acquaintance brought to either, 
it was not embittered by remorse. On one occasion, 
Petrarch appearing to presume upon Laura's favour 
too far, she said to him, with a tone and manner of 
extreme severity, “I am not what you take me for.” 


(To be concluded in our next.) 


THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S MUSEUM. 


Tue exhibitions open gratuitously to the pubhc in 
London are not so numerous as those in many other 
Icuropean capitals ; buta feeling in favour of the more 
liberal extension of this system 1s spreading, and we 
may not unreasonably look forward to increased faci- 
hties in this respect. 

Among the exhibitions of this character in the me- 
tropolis 1s that of the Museum belonging to the East 
India Company, at their house in Leadenhall Street. 
In our notice of this great commercial body, in the 
fourth vohune of the Magazine, the museum ts alluded 
to as an exhibition well worthy of a visit, but requiring 
an order to a director for the adinission of a visitor. 
We do not exactly know at what period a change has 
been made in this respect, but at the present time the 
Museum is thrown open to the public between the 
hours of twelve and three o'clock on Saturdays. We 
will endeavour to convey a general idea of the princi- 
pal objects there deposited. 

The extraordinary series of events by which the East 
India Company obtained such gigantic power, brought 
the agents and officers of the Company in frequent 
communication with various Asiatic princes, both 
within the territories of Hindostan and in the adjacent 
countries; and, in the course of these communications, 
many opportunities offered for collecting objects or 
specimens illustrative, in different degrees and In va- 
rious modes, of the manners, customs, arts, and natural 
history of the Oriental countries. These objects, having 
been from time to time presented to the Hast India 
Company, or cousigned to their keeping, by right of 
conquest or by treaty, have accumulated to a consider- 
able number, and a suite of apartments in the East 
India House has been apprepriated to their reception. 

On passing into the hall at the principal entrance, in 
Leadenhall Street, we turn to the left hand, and go 
throuzh two or three passages to the foot of a staircase. 
Then, ascending about forty stairs, we arrive at a kind 
of corridor, the walls of which are lined with pictures 
relating to Oriental subjects, and at each end of which 
is a door leading to several apartments. An inscrip- 
tion-board directs the visitor to the right hand as the 
way to the Museum, and the left hand to the Library, 
the foriner of which we will describe first, and the 
latter afterwards. A few stairs at the right-hand end 
of the corridor lead to a long passage, having a range 
of doors—mostly belonging to private apartments, not 

* Campbeli’s ‘ Life,’ vol, 11, p. 386, 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 207 
available to the visitor—on the left hand, and a range 
of windows on the right. This passage contains a tew 
paintings, prints, and drawings, illustrative of Indian 
scenery and buildings; also models of nautical vessels 
used in the ast, such as a Chinese war-junk, a Suma- 
tran proa, &c., together with a few natural objects, 
such as dried skins of remarkable animals, speciinens 
of bamboo, &c. At the end of this long passage we 
come to three small ante-rooms, or lobbies, one within 
another, and the inner one opening into a room of 
larger dimensions. The first of these ante-rooms con- 
tains, near the window, a curious Burmese musical in- 
strument, shaped somewhat like a boat, and having: a 
vertical range of nearly horizontal strings, which were 
probably played by means of a plectrum, or wooden 
peg. Opposite this instrument 1s a case containing 
models of unplements illustrative of the arts and 
manuiactures in India, such as looms, ploughs, mills, 
smiths’ bellows, coaches and other vehicles, windlass, 
pestle and mortar, and numerous others; and on the 
two remaining sides of this room are various small 
specimens, some illustrating the natural history and 
others the manufacturing processes of the Oriental na- 
tions. In the second or intddle ante-room are nume- 
rous specimens of dried and stuffed snakes, fishes, &c. 
such as are found in India. From the second ante- 
room we turn to the right, into the third, where we 
find, beneath a window, a very curious Burmese 
musical instrument, consisting of twenty-three flattish 
pieces of wood, from ten to fifteen inches in length and 
about an inch and a half in width;- these bars are 
strung together so as to yield dull and subdued mu- 
sical notes when struck with a cork hammer; and 
their sizes are so adjusted as to furnish tones forming 
about three octaves in the diatonic seale. Whether 
the weekly exercise to which these bars are subjected 
by visitors has influenced their tones, we do not know, 
but the notes of the gamut are not now remarkable 
for accuracy. 

From this last ante-room we enter a tolerably large 
square room, hghted by six windows, three on each of 
two opposite sides. This room is surrounded by glass 
cases, between the doors and windows, containing ob- 
jects chiefly illustrative of Asiatic natural history. 
Those on the right-hand side are occupied by stuffed 
specimens of Sumatran mammalia. On the side op- 
posite the entrance are Indian mammalia and birds, 


such as the tapir, the tiger, the ee &ec. The 
left-hand side is occupied principally by Siamese birds, 


and the entrance side by Javanese birds. On various 
parts of the floor of this room are isolated glass cases, 
one occupied by specimens of [astern shells, another 
by butterflies, moths, and beetles, and others by birds. 
2eturning from this room, along the passage before 
alluded to, we see an open door at the nght hand, 
leading to a small room containing a few objects of 
interest. There is a model of a raft, another of a 
Chinese house-barge, and another, of very elaborate 
workmanship, representing an Eastern temple. A 
petticoat and mantle, belonging to a female of a canni- 
bal race in the Eastern seas, are here deposited, and 
furnish a curious example of ingenuity and love of 
ornament among those who are deficient 1n one of the 
most prominent attributes of humanity. In an adjoin- 
ing case are various objects, brought from Java, ap- 
parently intended to serve in some kind of theatrical 
exhibition among that people. In other parts of the 
same room are sabres, daggers, hunting-knives, pipes, 
bowls, models of musical instruments, and various 
other sinall matters, brought principally from the 
islands of Java and Sumatra, and serving to illustrate 
some of the usages of the inhabitants of those places. 
We have now glanced through that range of apart- 


| ments which is designated the Museu, and will next, 


208 TAME PERCY 
ina similar manner, notice the contents of the three 
rooms designated the Library. From the corridor 
separating the two departments a few stairs on the left 
hand lead to a handsome square room, partly occupied 
by books, and partly by Oriental cnriosities. The 
books here deposited are, of cowrse, not intended for 
the perusal of visitors, and it would be a very un- 
worthy return for the liberality of the Company, 1 
attention were not paid to the rule that these books are 
not to be touched by visitors. On entering this room, 
an attendant desires the visitor to give his name and 
address, which are entered in a book; one entry, we 
believe, will avail for a party of visitors. This pre- 
liminary form, which used also to be observed at the 
British Museum, having been gone through, we pro- 
ceed to glance round the room. On the entrance side 
are many specimens of painted tiles, such as are used 
in the East for walls, floors, ceilings, &c. Over and 
at the left of the fireplace are various idols, such as 
are worshipped by the Buddhists of Burmah and other 
nations beyond India, some made of white marble, 
some of dark stone, and others of metal or wood. The 
next side of the room, on the right, is occupied by 
pieces of stone, once forming parts of Buddhic shrines, 
thrones, and idols, sculptured with imscriptions, pro- 
cessions, &c. The side opposite to the entrance is 
occupied partly by books, relating chiefly to Oriental 
subjects, and partly by idols, beads, trinkets, and 
reliques of the Buddhic religion, among which is a 
very lofty dark-coloured idol, representing one of the 
Buddhic divinities. The fourth side of the room is 
occupied almost wholly by books, and does not, there- 
fore, call for remark, except in relation to a singular 
document which is framed and hung up against the 
wall. This is the original petition presented by the 
vast India merchants to Oluver Cromwell, praying that 
he would send a ship of war to the Bay of Biscay, as 
a protection to a fleet of merchantmen expected to 
arrive from India, in consequence of a threatened 
attack by the Spaniards. The petition is signed by 
about thirty merchants belonging to the Fast India 
Company, and on another part of it 1s the answer, in 
Cromwell's hand-writing, directing the Commissioners 
of the Admiralty to take measures in conformity with 
the prayer of the petition. 

Various parts of the middle or floor of this room are 
occupied by objects more or less interesting. There 
are three cases containing very claborate models of 
Chinese villas, made of ivory, mother-of-pearl, and 
other costly materials; and from the middle of the 
ceiling issuspended a Chinese lantern, of large dimen- 
sions, made principally of thin sheets of horn, and 
highly decorated. Three or four glass cases contain 
varlous small articles, brought from India and China, 
such as an abacus, or Chinese counting-machine, 
Chinese lnplements and materials for writing, for 
drawing, for engraving on wood, and for printing; 
the often-described miniature shoe of a Chinese lady, 
Chinese weighing and measuring instruments, Oriental 
weapons, models of palanquins and other carriages, 
specnnens of tea in various stages of its preparation, 
a Chinese compass, and trinkets of various kinds. On 
the floor of this room is also placed a piece of me- 
chanism which gives us some insight into the modes 
in which Eastern princes amuse themselves. This is 
an “emblematic organ,” once belonging to Tippoo 
Sultan, and consisting of a tiger trampling on a pros- 
trate man, whom he is just about to seize with his 
teeth. The interior contains pipes and other mechanism, 
which, when wound up by a key, cause the figure of 
the man to utter cries, —intended, we presume, for 
cries Of distress,—and the tiger to roar. Intellectual 
amusement, this, for a prince ! * 


* See “Penny Magazine, vol. iv.. No. 216, Be $19, 


MAGAZINE (May 29, 1841. 

From this room we pass, through an ante-room, or 
small apartment, into another room, which may more 
particularly be called the Library. The ante-room is 
chiefly oceupied by a splendid howdah, or throne, 
adapted for the back of an elephant, in which Onental 
princes are wont to travel from place to place. A 
considerable portion of this a is made of solid 
silver, and the various decorations are of a costly 
character. It was taken by Lord Combermere, at 
Bhuripoor, and by him presented to the Museum. 
The walls of this small apartment are covered with 
swords, daggers, and other arms of Oriental construc- 
tion, together with a few other objects not calling for 
particular remark. 

Passing from thence we find ourselves in the last 
room belonging to the suite thrown open to the 
pubhe. The meht-hand side of the room, opposite 
the windows, is filled wholly with books and maps, the 
latter fixed on rollers and deposited in cases. The 
farther side is in like manner occupied; but a few 
cases beneath the windows, on the third side, contain 
objects of curious interest, especially to those who 
have any acquaintance with Oriental languages. These 
are manuscripts and books, written-on the kind of 
paper, or substitute for paper, common im India, Bur- 
unah, &c., and in the native language of the conntry. 
Among these is Tippoo Sultan’s ‘ Register of Dreams,’ 
with his interpretation of them, in his own hand- 
writing. The copy of the Koran belonging to Tippoo 
is also deposited here. 

Those who are acquainted with the general contents 
of the British Museum will perceive, from the above 
details, that the curiosities deposited in the India 
House are of a different character, on account of their 
peculiar relation to Asiatic countries. The British 
Museum is by no means largely supplied with Oriental 
curiosities and rarities, and on that account the Museum 
to which this article relates is well worthy of a visit. 


An Etruscan Tomb.—On opening the door, the torches illami- 
nated a chamber nineteen or twenty feet square, with a ledge all 
round it, on which were laid with great regularity ten or a dozen 
sarcophagi. They were covered with their lids, each having a 
well-executed figure of nenfrite or terra cotta as large as life, 
and sometimes of a size almost colossal, representing eifher mci 
of grave and substantial appearance, with torques round the neck, 
and ring on the finger, holding in their hand a patera for liba- 
tions; or of elegant and richly dressed ladies, their heads 
adorned with ivy and myrtle wreaths, their ears with graceful 


‘pendants, their necks encircled with chains, and their arms with 


bracelets. Behind each figure was a 1unmber of vases piled up 
In irregular heaps, and some of them hanging above them by 
bronze nails on the wall. . . A larger sarcophagus than any of 
the others stood in the middle of the chamber. It was uncovered, 
and contained what remained of the skeleton and armour of the 
head of the family of Velthuri. There he lay, with his helmet, 
his greaves, and his two spears, after the fashion of classicat an- 
tiquity 3; and all around him in the coffin there was the strangest 
assemblage of little odds and ends that ever I saw. If we may 
be permitted to judge of the old warriors tastes by the things 
which were buried with him, he must, in his day and genera- 
tion, have been a passionate lover of vococo, with very little dis- 
crimination ; in short, a collector of trash. . . There were quan- 
tities of little pieces of enamel, and transparent-coloured pastas ; 
clear stones or compositions, some like topaz, and others like 
amethyst; balls of perfume; utensils of bronze, of all sorts. 
shapes, aud sizes, and all manner of usclessness. And lastly, | 
pulled out what gave me rather an unpleasant insight into Sig- 
nor Velthuri’s character, and a bad idea of the employment ot 
his highter hours—a pair of dice, which, if my memory fails me 
not, were /oaded. . . Another and more awful consideration was 
forced upon us by a closer inspection of this large sarcophagus. 
On both sides of it there is unequivocally represented a human 
sacrifice. Whether this relates to any act of Velthuri'’s life, I 
will not imdertake to decide. . But the subjects of the 


| bassi-rilievi of sarcophagi have often no relation to the individual, 


but are national and historical.—J/rs. Gray's Tour to the Se- 


pulchres of Etruria, 





SUPPLEMENT, | 


Tih PENNYIS MAGAZINE 


269 


Ae DAY lT Ae aTPeYaAR.P. 





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sulp on the Stocks, build 


To the inhabitants of a sea-girt country, such as Eng- 
land, a ship must ever be an object of interest and 
admiration, whether regarded as the substitute, the 
inore than substitute, for stone-walls as a defenee, or as 
the channel whereby commerce 18 carned on with 
forcign countries. Asa work of art, too, a ship has at 
all times and in nearly all countries called forth ex- 
pressions of wonder. We may or may not, as we 
please, give eredence to the opmion expressed in Dry- 
cen’s lines :— ; 


“ By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid, Art, 
Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow ; 
Thus fishes first to shipping did impart, 

- Their tail the rudder and their head the prow ;” 


but certain it 1s that, whether fishes were or were not 
the first ship-draughtsmen, the art of constructing 


barks capable to a greater or less degree of contending - 


. 


with the winds and waves, has been known from a very 
remote period. Mh « | 

The steps by which excellence in this art has been 
attained, tle countries in which the art has been most 
fully developed, and the present state in which it exists 
in foreign countries, form colleetively the materials for 
a history of naval architecture, a vast subjeet, into 
whieh it is not proposed here to enter. Neither does 
naval warfare, with its combined miseries and triumphs, 
fall within the scope of this article. We propose to 
eive a description, derived from personal observation, 
6t an esiablishment which ranks, we believe, at the 
head of the private ship-building yards im_ this 


No 038. 


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and SIup in Dock for repairs.” 


country ; to convey-an idea of the general nature of the 
operations condueted in sueh establishments ; and to 
trace, as far as the necessary limitations of popular 
language will admit, the order of processes by whieh 
the more important parts of a ship are construcied and 
put together. 

The ship-yard to which we allude is that belonging 
to Messrs. Green, Wigrams, and Greens, to whose 
courtesy we owe the facilities for working out the plan 
of this number. The locality of the yard is somewhat 
remarkable, occupying, as 1t does, a nook on the banks 
of the Thames at the eastern extremity of the metro- 
polis. We hardly know whether to place it in 
London or in the country, for the smoke of the one 
and the green fields of-the other almost meet at this 
spot. Leaving this matter, however, as one of no un- 
portance, we will take an imaginary trp down the 
river to Blackwall, in order to indicate the position of 
this yard relatively to what is termed the ‘ port’ of 
‘London generally. | , 

In proceeding. eastward from London Bridge, past 
the Custom-house, the Tower, the St. Katherine’s Docks. 
and the London Docks, we find the northern shore of the 
river occupied chiefly by wharis and by traders engaged 
more or less in matters connected with inaritime 
affairs; but it is not.till we arrive somewhat farther 
down the river that ship-bwilding yards, properly so 
called, are seen. A northerly bend in the river, fron 
nearly opposite the London Docks, constitutes that 
part whieh is called ‘ the Pool,’ and which brings us to 
Limehouse. Here we find a remarkable curve in the 
river towards the south, and near this spot are the 


210 


yards of Messrs. Curling and Young, and other ship- 
builders, some for ships generally, some for 1ron steain- 
boats, &e. The river, for the next three miles of its 
course, is so tortuous that it almost encircles and en- 
closes a tongue of land called the Isle of Dogs; a 
curvature which comprises within its hmits Limehouse 
Reach, Greenwich Reach, and Blackwall Reach,-- 
Reach being a term which watermen and others apply 
to particular parts of the river. Whether or not it 1s 
true, as old Stow tells us, that one of our carly kings 
kept his hounds in this neck of land, and that their 
constant barking procured for it the name of the Isle 
of Dogs, is a problem which we will not wait-to solve, 
but will proceed onward to the eastern extremity of 
this little peninsula, passing a few smaller ship-yards 
In our way. Here we come to the eastern boundary of 
the West Thidia Docks, which stretch nearly across the 
narrowest part of the Isle of Dogs; and a short distance 
onwards brings us to the yard and docks of Messrs.Green, 
Wigrams, and Greens, occupying a river-frontage of a 
quarter or from that to a third of a mile. Beyond this 
we arrive at the quay or wharf in front of the eastern 
terminus of the London and Blackwall Railway; with 
the Brunswick Hotel on the left, the entrance to the 
Feast India Docks on the right, and the well-known 
mast-house (a tall red building of which we shall have 
more to say presently) in the rear, together with nu- 
merous ships in the East India Docks. Asa general 
statement, thereforc, we may say that this dock-yard occu- 
pies the principal part of the tract of ground separating 
the East India from the West India Docks, opposite to 
that part of the Kentish coast called Bugsby’s Marshes, 
between Greenwich and Woolwich. 

_ With regard to the position of this yard on the land 
side, little nced be said. High Street, Poplar, leads 
down to the immediate ncighbourhood of the yard; 
and the Blackwall Railway, for a part of its distance, 
skirts it on the north; indeed the railway passes through 
a portion of ground once belonging to the yard. The 
lofty chimney belonging to the railway is very near the 
mast-house, and both are separated from the yard by 
the railway itself. 

Sucn, then, is: the locality of these premises. The 
srivate history of commercial establishments does not 
In general fall within the scope of our articles: -but 
there are circumstances connected with the past history 
of this yard which are not only interesting in them- 
selves, but serve to explain a certain link of connec- 
tion betwcen the yard and the East India Docks. 

The existence and active operations of this ship- 
building yard extend back through a period of a hun- 
dred and ninety years; for we find that during the 
Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the yard was in the 
possession of Sir Henry Johnson, a liberal man, who 
seems to have contributed much to the improvement 
and benefit of the neighbouring hamlet of Poplar. 
During the Commonwealth, and the reigns of Charles 
{{., James II., and William and Mary, Sir Henry 
Johnson and his son, who was also knighted, appear to 
have been much engaged in building the government 
ships; for there are records still left of about fifteen 
men-of-war, of from 50 to 70 guns each, built in the 
yard before the reign of Queen Anne. Strype, in his 
edition of Stow’s ‘ Survey,’ makes frequent mention of 
the two Sir Henry Johnsons, one or both of whom 
existed in his time; and also gives us a few quaint 
anecdotes and details relating to the yard or to its 
neighbourhood, which, however, are of too trifling a 
nature to be quoted here. The history of the yard 
during the early part of the last century is not very 
clearly to be traced; but Lysons, in his ‘ Environs of 
London,’ states that the elder Sir Henry Johnson died 
In 1683; that the second Sir Henry succeeded to the 
property; and that on the marriage of the daughter of 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(May. JS41. 


the latter to the Earl of Strafford, the possessorship of 
all the estates and property passed into the Strafford 
family. 

Justa century ago, the name of Mr. Perry first appcars 
as the owncr of the yard; and in the family of the Perrys 
it remained for abouthalfa century, during which period 
many of the men-of-war employed in the American 
war, and in the carlier stages of the revolutionary war, 
were built for the government at this yard. About 
the year 1789, we first hear of a commercial dock built 
in immediate conncction with the yard. Tver since 

‘the great fire of 1666, the port of London had remained 
almost unaltered with respect to docks or havens for 
shipping ; and the merchants began to experience great 
inconvenience from the limited facilities afforded in 
thisrespect. Under these circumstances Mr. Perry 
constructed a dock which. he called the ‘ Brunswick 
Dock, adjoining the north-cast boundary of his building- 
yard. This dock was a commodious quadrangular 
basin, capable of containing at one time twenty-cight 
East Indiamen and fifty or sixty ships of smaller bur- 
den. On the southern quay, which was eleven hundred 
feet in length, were cranes for landing guns and heavy 
stores; on the east quay were conveniences for re- 
celving blubber from the whale-ships, as well as cop- 
pers for boiling, and warehouses for storing the whale- 
bone; on the west quay was erected the mast-house, 
which still remains a conspicuous object from the river, 
and the purpose of which, as we shall hereafter more 
fully explain, was to provide a more convenient appa- 
ratus for masting ships than that which is generally 
employed. 

Such was Perry’s ‘ Brunswick Dock,’ which appears 
to have becn employed as well for government as for 
private coinmercial purposes; for cavalry were often 
embarked from the quays of this dock during the war- 
like transactions in the latter part of the last century. 
But the Brunswick Dock did not long remain private 
property, as the time soon approached when it became 
part of the East India Docks. Up to the year 1800, 
not one of the splendid public docks now situated on 
the northern bank of the river was in existence; but a 
spirit had sprung up and gone abroad which speedily 
led to the formation of these conveniences for maritime 
traffic. A company of West India merchants opened, 
in the year 1802, the West India Docks, across the 
northern part of the Isle of Dogs, from Blackwall to 
Limehouse; about the same time the Corporation of 
London opened the City Canal, also across the Isle of 
Dogs; two years later another company of merchants 
opened the London Docks, between the Tower and 
Shadwell; and lastly, in 1806, a company of vast India 
merchants opened the East India Docks, including, as 
a component part, the Bruuswick Dock, which the 
Company purchased of Mr. Perry. The East India 
Docks consist of an import and an export dock, the 
latter of which was the Brunswick Dock. By this ar- 
rangement the mast-house, situated on the western 
quay, became likewise the property of the East India 
Dock Company, in whose possession it still remains. 

These transactions relative to the Brunswick Dock 
did not disturb the regular progress of ship-building 
in the adjoining yard; for it appears that throughout 
the war the building-slips were constantly occupied 
with war vesselsand East Indiamen. Indeed so active 
were the exertions at one time, that in the year 1813 
no less than ten ships of war and one East India- 
man were launched from the yard within twelve 
months. As we have wished to touch upon these mat- 
ters only so far as they elucidate a few important points 
in the past history of the port of London, it will be 
unnecessary to allude to the changes of proprietorship 
in the yard since the time of Mr. Perry, farther than 
to observe that the accession of Mr. Green, and after- 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


wards of Sir Robert Wigram to the firm, placed the 
proprietorship in the famihes of those gentlemen, in 
whom it still remains, wnder the names of Messrs. 
Green, Wigrams, and Greens. 

We have to apologise to the reader for keeping him 
waiting so long outside the gate of the ship-yard ; but we 
have thought that the preceding details, by explaining 
some of the external relations of the yard, will render 
what is to follow better understood. We will suppose 
the reader, then, to have accompanied us on the Black- 
wall Railway (for the great world of London is almost 
too far westward to admit of the excursion on foot), 
and to have been set down at the Poplar station, within 
three or four minutes’ walk of the yard. In Bruns- 
wick Street, on the eastern side of the way, we perceive 
the gateway leading to the yard, over and on the left 
of which is an old family mansion, once, we believe, 
the residence of Sir Henry Johnson, and, in all proba- 
bility, constantly occupied since his time by one or 
other of the partners in the firm. 

On proceeding within the entrance gates, past a por- 
ter’s lodge, the dwelling-house just alluded to lies on 
the left hand, while the offices and counting-houses, to- 
ecther with another dwelling-house, le on the right. 
We soon get past these, and then find ourselves in the 
open yard of the premises, a large expanse of ground, 
occupying not less than thirteen acres. Here a 
multitude of objects all crowd upon the eye at once, 
presenting a scene of uncommon bustle and liveliness. 
Immediately on the night is a range of buildings ap- 
parently occupied as warehouses. Beyond these is 
the river, glistening in the sunshine, that is, if the 
weather be kind enough to admit the sun to peep 
through the clouds. Between the river and the eye, 
at short intervals, and along a great extent of shore, 
are seen ships of various sizes, and in all the various 
stazes of construction, from the small steamer, to the 
large Kast Indiaman—from the mere shell of frame- 
timbers, to the majestic ship just about to be launched ; 
and also old ships undergoing repairs. Between these 
ships and the spot where we suppose ourselves to be 
standing near the entrance, the ground is occupied, 
here and there, with enormous piles of timbers, some 
cut to the forms required by the shipwrights, others 
partially sawed and hewn, and others in a rougher 
state Glancing the eye round towards the left, we 
caich sight of a building in which a large clock serves 
as a imonitor to all the workmen, and on the left of 
which is ashed where some of the timbers are cut. In 
the background, and towards the northern boundary of 
the yard, are numerous large buildings, separated from 
one another by tracts of ground covered in most parts 
by piles of wood. A third dwelling-house, occupied by 
one of the partners in the firm, is seen also in this di- 
rection ; and the mast-house, the lofty chimney belong- 
ing to the Railway, and the shipping in the East India 
Docks, appear to skirt the wall of the yard. 

A living scene is also presented to the eye at this 
spot, for on all sides are seen workmen plying the in- 
genious hand, and the lusty arm too, in the operation 
of shp-bwilding; some standing on scaffolds at the 
sides of the slips; some ‘ converting’ the timbers, 
that is, sawing them to the required shapes; some con- 
veying or superintending the conveyance of timbers 
from one place to another; some stripping off the old 
copper from ships under repair; some bringing new 
sheets of copper to supply its place; smiths in this 
spot, mast-makers m that; and scores of others which 
we should find it no easy matter to enumerate. But 
when one o’clock strikes: here 1s achange! It is 
almost worth a dinner to see the hive of workmen 
flocking out to their dinner. We happened to be near 
the entrance at such a moment, and could not help 
remarking the striking change in the appearance of 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE ye 1 


ond 


the yard after four or five hundred workmen had thus 
left 1t 1n the course of a few minutes. All becaine 
perfectly silent and lifeless, and the huge ships had a 
temporary respite from the beating and battering to 
which they had just been subject. As two o’clock ap- 
proaches, straggling workmen come in by ones, twos, 
and threes; and byafew minutes after two, the streain 
of industry is pouring back again to the ships. 

Such is the general aspect which the yard presents 
to the first view of a visitor. We will now, therefore, 
in company with the reader, ramble through the nu- 
inerous departments of the establishment, noticing the 
varlous purposes to ‘which the different parts of the 
yard are appropriated. 

After entering at the outer gate, and passing the 
counting-house, we will turn to the right, and visit the 
range of workshops and store-rooms, extending from 
thence to the river. The first room which need ke 
enumerated is the office of the ship-draughtsman, who 
isa kind of architect, employed in drawing the plans 
and arranging the forms and dimensions of ships, pre- 
paratory to the operations of the shipwrights. In this 
room are a few small models of ships, together with 
the necessary apparatus and drawing instruments for 
preparing the plans on paper. The operations of the 
ship-draughtsman are, as we shall explain presenily, 
much more of a mental than a mechanical charactex, 
and, therefore, the room in which he is engaged pre- 
sents little peculiar to attract our notice. 

From the draughtsman’s room we passed into a large 
and singular-looking room, called the mould-loft, or 
moulding-loft. Itis about a hundred feet long and 
forty or fifty wide, rather shallow, and lighted by about 
twenty windows, ten on each side. The floor of this 
room is remarkably flat, smooth, and clean, and is 
chalked in every imaginable direction with lnes, some 
straight and others curved, intersecting each other at 
angles of different degrees. A part of this floor, free 
from chalk lines, is separated from the rest by a ledge, 
and on this part are fixed carpenters’ benches and 
stools, with the necessary arrangements for sawing and 
preparing wood-work. It is evident, at a first glance, 
that the chalked floor is a kind of sanctum, a place not 
to be defiled by the tread of dirty shoes. Over head is 
seen, resting on cross-beams, a large assemblage of 
pieces of thin wood, in most cases Jong, narrow, and 
curved. The operations carried on in this room are 
midway between that of preparmg the drawing and 
that of actually building the ships. The purposes of 
the chalk marks on the floor and of the thin picces of 
wood will be explained farther on. 

Beneath the mould-loft we entered, among other 
rooms, one in which a number of little boys were busily 





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engaged in ‘spinning oakum,’a processrespecting whieh 
we nay say a few words. When the various eables, 
stays, shrouds, ropes, &c. belonging to a ship have 
gone through their term of service, and are no longer 
strong enough to be used, they are cut up into pleees, 
and then pulled asunder, all the hempen threads being 
loosened and disentangled one from another. In this 
state the hempen threads are called oakum, which 1s of 
different qualties, according as the original rope was 
or was not tarred. This oakuim is sent to the yard m 
bundles or hanks, and boys are then employed to roll 
—or, as it is termed in the yard, ‘spin’—it into loose 
portions called ‘threads.’ A small bundle of fibres is 
rolled by the hand on a sloping board, till it assumes 
the form of a loose irregular kind of rope, averag- 
ing probably about au inch in thiekness. These 
‘threads’ of oakum are subsequently driven into the 
crevices or scams in the outside of a ship, to prevent 
the entrance of sea-water. 

Adjoining the oakum-shop is a capstan-shop, a plaee 
where the ponderous capstans for ships are made. 
Here we saw an elegant-looking mahogany capstan, 
intended for the quarter-deck of a vessel then in pro- 
gress. The capstan, being intended for moving heavy 
weights, must neeessarily be of great strength, while 
its position on the quarter-deck leads to the desire 
of giving it somewhat of an ornamental character. 
It therefore constitutes a separate kind of work 
both from that of the shipwright and that of the ship- 
joiner, and is carried on in a distinct shop. Near this 
spot 1s also the copper warehouse, in whieh the sheets, 
bolts, and other articles of eopper are stored away, 
under the care of the foreman of the copper depart- 
inent. In the course of building a ship, a great nuin- 
ber of copper bolts, varying from half an inch to an 
inch and a half in diameter, are employed; these 
are cut to the proper lengths from bars kept in the 
eopper warehouse. Patent alloyed metals, composed 
of copper and zinc, are sometimes used in parts of the 
ship, and these, as well as artieles of eopper only, are 
served out to the workmen from this warehouse. 

Over the copper warehouse is a sail-maker’s shop, 
where the canvass and necessary apparatus tor making 
sails are deposited. In front of all these warerooms 
and shops the ground of the yard is occupied with 
heaps of wood, intended for different purposes, some to 
be employed in various departments of ship-building, 
and some—useless in other respects—intended as billet 
or fire-wood to be used at sea. 

Proceeding onward towards the river, we fell in 
with some workmen making trenails, or tree-nails, and 





4 


wedges. <A trenail isa wooden substitute for a bolt or 
nail, and 1s regarded as a-thimg of much importance in 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE: 


(May, 1841. 


ship-building. The frame-timbers of a ship, forming 
its skeleton, are, as we shall hereafier explain, covered 
inside and out with thick planks, and these planks are 
fastened to the timbers almost wholly by trenails, the 
copper bolts’employed being comparatively few in 
number. These trenails, so far from being made of 
any odd pieces of waste wood, are formed of the 
soundest oak, whose grain is straight and regular. 
They vary in size from a foot and a half to three feet 
in length, and from one to two inches in diameter, ac- 
cording to the size of the vessel, or to the part where 
they are to be employed. The pieces of oak which 
may be selected‘ for this purpose are first sawn to the 
proper length; the trenail-makers then rip each piece 
into a number of smaller pieces, and finally reduce 
them to a tolerably cyhndrical shape by means of 
spoke-shaves, occasionally passmg a ring-over each 
plece to regulate the diameter. These trenails are 
eenerally kept for many months, to season, before they 
are employed in the ship. Those pieces of oak whose 
shape or direction of grain does not qualify them for tre- 
nails, are cut into wedges, for the use of the shipwrights 
in various parts of their operations ; and those which 
will not be available even as wedges are consigned to 
the billet-heap. 

Near the spot which we have just passed are the 
buildings connected with the smithery. First we meet 
with the coal-house, filled with the fuel necessary for 
the operations of the smiths ; and next to it the building 
where the swarthy sons of Vulean are at work in an 
atmosphere by no means enviable. The articles made 
in this shop do not comprise either the ships’ anchors 
or the chain cables, for the making of these are distinct 
trades, never, we believe, carried on in a private ship- 
building yard; but they consist of the numerous other 
pieces of iron-work used in the construction of a ship. , 
The most important of these, perhaps, are the iron 
knees, which connect the beams beneath the deek of a 
ship with the sides, and which area kind of bracket, 
with branches extending in horizontal and vertieal di- 
rections, perforated for the reception of bolts. These 
knees are made of iron bars or plates welded together 
to the proper thickness and width, and fashioned to the 
required shape. Smaller articles, in great number 
and variety, are made in a similar manner, the opera- 
tions being conducted almost in precisely the same 
way as in a common smith’s shop, but on a larger 
scale. The fierce fires of small-eoal built upon the 
eround, the bellows for exciting the heat, the anvils, 
the huge sledge-hammers—some weighing nearly thirty 
pounds,—all are seen here, on a scale which seems to 
rank midway between that of a common smithery and 
of an anchor-smith’s shop. A separate shop, behind the 
other, is devoted to the casting of such articles as are 
formed of cast-metal, and to the cutting, turning, &c. of 
others in which neatness of appearance is required. 
It need hardly be observed, that these shops are black, 
smoky, and hot, a necessary result of the operations 
earried on there. 

Adjoining the smithery is an ironmonger'’s shop, 
stored with all kinds of ironmongery for the use of the 
yard. The circumstanee generally strikes a stranger 
on visiting large establishments of this kind, that the 
whole is divided into departments as distinct from one 
another as if they were under different proprietors. 
In this yard, for instance, the copper and iron stores, 
however similar they may seem to be in their nature, 
are in two distinct departments, kept in distinct build- 
ings, and placed under the controi of different foremen, 
each of whom is responsible for the disposal! of the pro- 
perty placed under his care. It is evident that, were 
some such plan as this not adopted, great confusion 
and uncertainty would prevail, involving frequently a 


serious misuse of materials. In the ironmonger’s shop 





SUPPLEMENT. | 


not only bolts, nails, screws, &c. are kept, but also tools, 
such as saws, axes, adzes, hammers, augurs, shovels, &c. 

By scrambling over timbers and planks, at the im- 
minent danger of our shins, we next reached the last 
building in this range, appropriated to the reception 
and storing of rigging; and beyond this is a small 
wharf or shed, where articles may be landed from the 
W cee 

We have now reached the river side, and find our- 
selves in view of a very pretty bend in the river, pre- 
senting Greenwich Hospital and the surrounding 
objects in one direction, and the course to Woolwich 
in the other. The river-frontage of the yard stretches 
nearly in a direction south-west and north-east ; and 
as we are now at the extreme south-west corner, we 
will continue our ramble to the north-east extremity, 
keeping as close to the river as we can. 

Within a few yards of the south-west corner, we 
came to a building-shp,-where the frame-work belong- 
ing to a vessel of three or four hundred tons burden 
was being set up. It may perhaps be as well to ex- 
plain here what is meant-by a ‘ building-slip.’ Whena 
ship is about to be built, it is necessary to select a spot 
of ground from whence the vessel, when finished, may 
be readily passed into the water. For this purpose, a 
sloping tract of ground is dug or prepared, larger 
than the full dimensions of a ship, and at right-angles 
to the river. This channel is level with the ground at 
the upper end, but is several feet beneath that level at 
the lower end, and open to the water. On this inclined 
slip of ground a ship is built; and ata certain stage in 
the progress, the gates, which’ had shut out the water 
from below, are opened, and the ship launched into the 
river. Such then 1s the nature of a building-slip. The 
one to which we allude is probably about a hundred and 
thirty feet long by thirty broad ; and on it was the rude 
skeleton of a vessel, formed of curved oak timbers, 
and supported by shores, poles, and other mechanism. 

We then passed overa platform placed across the 
mouth of the slip, toa kind of quay or wharf on the 
Other side, occupied chiefly by timbers, planks, and 
other materials for building. This narrow strip of 
Sround occupies the space between the slip just de- 
scribed and a large well-built dry dock nearly three 
hundred feet long and about twenty in depth. This 
dock is different, both in shape and purpose, from the 
building-slip. It is an excavation entirely below the 
level of the ground from end to end, slightly inclined 
towards the river, and open to it at the lower end, 
where folding gates shut off the communication 
when required. Docks of this kind are not employed 
for building ships, but for repairmg them; and the 
arrangements for docking are as follow :—When a ship 
is about to be brought into dock, a row of blocks are 
laid along the bottom of the dock; and the gates are 
opened at or about the time of low water. As the tide 
rises, 1t flows into the dock to the same level as the 
river; and when there is a sufficiency of water in the 
dock, the ship is floated into it, and guided as nearly as 
can be into the centre. While the tide is going down 
again, the water flows gradually out of the dock, and 
the ship sinks deeper in consequence ; so that by the 
time low-water has again arrived, the dock is nearly 
emptied of water, and the keel of the vessel rests on 
the blocks beneath. In the mean time preparations 
have been making for securing the ship in her proper 
position, by shores, ropes, &c., so that she shall stand 
vertically on her keel; and at or about low-water the 
gates are shut, not again to be opened until the repairs 
of the vessel are finished. In this way a ship is dry- 
docked, and workmen can then descend into the dock, 
and examine every part of the ship's bottom down to 
the keel. The dry-dock of which we are now speak- 


+ 


Ing 1s a double dock ; that is, the length is sufficient to 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 213 
receive two large vessels at the same time. Here 


we saw two vessels, one an East Indiaman under- 
feoing the process of re-coppering, and the other a 
smaller vessel in course of repair. In the former, 
tiers of stages were built round the hull of the vessel ; 
and men were busily engaged in stripping off, by 
means of a kind of adze, the old aud worn copper from 
the planking, in order to replace it with new, 
separated from this large dock by a narrow piece of 
ground is another: dry-dock, smaller in size, but con- 
structed in a similar manner. Here was another Fast 
Indiaman undergoing repairs of a very extensive kind, 
on which a number of men were employed; some 
re-trenailing the outer planks, some repairing masts, &e, 

Next to this dock is a building-shp, from which, 
about the middle of April last, the steam-vessel 
Princess Royal, of 700 tons burden, was launched, 
After a ship has been once launched, she is brought 
back to one of the dry-docks, where the finishing 
operations are conducted. <A building-slip, after a 
launch, remains unoccupied until arrangements are 
made for laying down a new ship, when the ground is 
cleared, and the blocks laid for the keel of the new 
vessel. At afew yards eastward of this slip isa third 
dry-dock, similar in every respect to the one on 
the opposite side of the slip, and, like it, occupied 
by a three-masted vessel in course of repair. But 
the next dock we come to 1s of a different kind, being 
a wet-dock. Here barges and boats, laden with timber 
and other stores for the use of the yard, enter from the 
Thames, and proceed to a kind of basin in the centre 
of the yard, round which are quays where the goods 
may be landed, and the water of which serves as a 
mast-pond in which masts are kept. 

On crossing this wet-dock, we came to another slip, 
on which an East Indiaman is in course of building. 
This fine vessel, which is called the Agincourt, is of 
about a thousand tons burden, and will probably be 
launched before this number makes its appearance. 
Shipwrights and ship-jomers were busily engaged 
upon it; the former driving the trenails through the 
planks and timbers (a process. which is not done until the 
trenail holes, made withan augur, have been well aired 
and seasoned) or caulking the seams with oakum; and 
the latter putting wp the interior fittings of the vessel. 

Proceeding eastward from the Agincourt we came 
to a large space of ground filled with an enormous 
quantity of oak in the rough state. Whole trunks of 
trees, portions of trunks, and large branches, some of 
the most tortuous shapes, were heaped up to a height of 
twelve or fifteen feet, just in the state they lett the 
forest. These were British oak-trees, landed on the 
quay of the yard, and waiting to be converted into 
fraine-timbers, beams, &c. for ships. Adjoining this 
timber-quay, and farther within the yard, are sheds and 
saw-pits wherein the trees are cut up to the desired 
forms and sizes. 

Our progress eastward next brought us to another 
building-shp, where was another East Indiaman, the 
Southampton, precisely equal and sumlar to the 
Agincourt, and, like it, advancing rapidly toward 
completion. This part of the yard appeared the most 
busy and life-like of all, for the saw-pits and sheds, and 
the yards belonging to them, are bounded on either 
side by the two slips on which the large vessels were in 
course of construction. 

When we come to speak of the process of building 
ships, we shall illustrate many of our remarks by re- 
ference to these two vessels, which we have seen in 
different stages of their progress, and the fine propor- 
tions of which render them conspicuous objects in the 
yard. 

" Next to this was another slip, unoccupied at that 
| time ; but beyond it was one In which a steamer of nine 


214 


hundred tons burden was in progress. This steamer 
was somewhat farther advanced than the vessel at the 
west extremity of the yard having some of the plank- 
ing laid on; but not so far advanced as the Agincourt 
and the Southampton. Beyond this slip was a fourth 
dry-dock, the most eastward of the whole; and in this, 
as in the others, was a large three-masted vessel under- 
roing repair. This dock is bounded by another quay, 
filled with oak timber in the same manner as the one 
between the two new, slips, and contiguous to another 
range of saw-pits. And after having passed this we 
arrive at the eastern extreinity of the yard, separated 
only bya public road from Lovegrove's Brunswick hotel. 

We have now traced the whole extent of the pre- 
mises on the water-side, and have next to notice the 
buildings in the middle and on the northern side of the 
yard. The yard is somewhat of a triangular shape, 
of which the two sides already traced are tolerably 
straight, while the third one is somewhat curved. 
In rcturning from the eastern extremity along this 
curved boundary, we come to a coal-house and a smith’s 
shop, similar to those in the western range of buildings, 
and more contiguous to the vessels in the eastern part 
of the yard. Farther on are the buildings occupied by 
the boat-builders and the ship-joiners. In various 
parts of the space between the ships and the northern 
boundary of the yard are buildings devoted to several 
different purposes. One is the mastmaker’s shop, a large 
building where masts, yards, bowsprits, &c. are made. 
A second is a steaming-house, where planks are steamed 


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‘ane isk (nye ss ager 





————e a= _— 


preparatory to being laid outside the timbers of a ship ; 
the steaming is effected in square wooden trunks, 
about thirty feet long, provided with iron doors at one 
end, which are lifted up by balance weights, and on the 
opening of which planks are slid into the trunks, to be 
afterwards exposed to the action of steam. A third build- 
ing contains a range of saw-pits, similar in arrange- 
ment and in purpose to those already mentioned. The 
open spaces between these several buildings are occu- 
pied with heaps of wood—here trees waiting to be 
squared—there prepared timbers ready for the ship- 
wrights—at another place planks and deals—and at 
another several thonsand trenails placcd on a stage 
to get seasoned. We wander between and among 
those heaps of wood, and at length arrive at the 
entrance from whence we started, having visited in our 
journey pretty nearly all the different parts of the yard. 

Thus far have we endeavoured to convey to the 
reader an idea of the mode in which a large ship-build- 
lng establishment is arranged. But we hope to be able 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(May, 1841. 


to do something more than this. We propose to fol- 
low, in a cursory and popular manner, the routine of 
processes by which a large ship is built, so far as to 
show the relative dependcnce of one department on 
another. The art of ship-building involves some of 
the most intricate considerations which any of our 
manufacturing arts present; and therefore anything 
hike an exposition of its mathematical principles is 
wholly foreign to our present object, which is to give 
a few plain details that a plain man may understand. 

In the first place, then, let ussnppose that a merchant 
orders a ship, intended for a particular line and kind of 
traffic, to be built by a ship-builder. The mode of mea- 
surement, by which an agrecment is made between the 
parties, is rather singular, and is by no means easily 
understood by those who are not familar with the ge- 
neral details of shipping. It is by tonnage, and is sup- 
posed to represent the number of tons of cargo which 
the proposed vessel will carry. Tonnage is estimated 
somctimes by bulk, but more generally by weight; a 
ton by bulk being equal to forty cubic ieet; and a ton by 
weight equalling twenty cwts. There are certain: for- 
mule employed by ship-builders, whereby the tonnage 
is calculated from the length, breadth, and depth of the - 
vessel; but these formule seldom give the real ton- 
nage, that is, the real amount of cargo which the ves- 
sel will carry; becausc two vessels exactly equal in 
length, breadth, and depth—measured as those dimen- 
sions usually are—may have very different intcrnal 
capacity, owing to different curvatures of the hull. A 
ship will sometimes carry more cargo than her ‘ ton- 
nage’ indicates; sometiines less; and therefore the 
word tonnage is to be regarded only as a rough approxi- 
mation to the burden which the vessel will carry. 

Still, however, the ‘tonnage’ is always one of the 
items of agrecment between the builder and the owner, 
partly from the circumstance that when a vessel 1s re- 
eistered, the tonnage is made to indicate its rank or 
class. Jn addition to this, the dimensions of the vessel 
about to be built are agreed upon, as well as the thick- 
ness and quality of the more important timbers, the 
thickness of the planks laid on the outside of the tim- 
bers, and other details of a more minute kind. 

The specification of the vessel being thus drawn up, 


‘the ship-draughtsman commences his labours, which 


are of a pa nature to those of an architect in com- 
non building. He prepares drawings of the vessel in 
various points of view, so as to represent the dimensions 
not only of the vessel itself, but also of the principal 
timbers composing it, and also the curvatures of those 
tinbers. 

The draughtsman having prepared these working 
drawings, generally on a scale of about a quarter of 
an inch to the foot, the next thing is to prepare a work- 
ing mould of the ship, as large as the ship itself, in the 
mould-loft. The mould-loft floor is in most instances 
large enough to receive half the length of the intended 
vessel, with the whole height; and on this floor the 
draughtsman chalks a large number of lines, derived 
from the working drawings, but enlarged to the full 
dimensions of the vessel. These lines, generally speak- 
ing, represent the exact dimensions and curvatures of 
the timbers required to form the vessel; and when all 
the lines necessary for one-half the length of the vessel 
are laid down, say the bow end, another series is then 
laid down, on the same floor, for the stern end; the 
two series intersecting and mingling among each other 
in every part. Practice enables the draughtsman to 
distinguish one series from the other, and thus obviate 
the necessity of having a mould-loft floor equal to the 
length of a large ship. When these lines, which amount 
to a large number, and present nothing but a confused 
assemblage to the eye of a stranger, are laid down, 


| thin pieces of American deal, about three-quarters of 


SUPPLEMENT. } 


an inch in thickness, are cut and adjusted to the 
curvatures of the lives, different picces being joined 
eud to end to produce the requisite lengths. These 
pieces of deal, which are called moulds, assist the 
sawyers in cutting the oak to the required sizes and 
curvatures for the diffcrent timbers of a ship; and 
there are certain marks on each piece which further 
this object. Let us suppose that one of the curved 
timbers is to be twelve feet in length, one foot thick, 
one foot wide, and so tortuous in form that its curva- 
ture is not circular, and noue of its angles are right 
angles : in sueh case the piece of pine which forms the 
mould will give the curvature of the timber, while 
ccrtain marks on its surface indicate the places whicre 
bevellings and angles are to be made from directions 
given on another board. On these principles the con- 
struction of the moulds proceeds, until a sufficicnt 
nuimber of pieces is prepared to guide the sawyer in 
cutting all the timbers of the ship. For a large East 
Indiaman the number of moulding-pieces thus re- 
quired is more than a hundred, each of which is marked 
and numbered in various ways. 

The mould of the ship being thus prepared, the next 
operation is to cut up the oak and elm trunks to the 
proper dimensions for the various parts of the ship. 
This 1s called ‘ converting,’ and is a process requiring 
great art and judgement; for the wood must be selected 
not only with a view to avoid waste, but also that the 
grain of the wood, in .preparing a curved timber, may 
be cut crosswise as little as possible, sincc such a mode 
of cutting would greatly weaken the timber. It is, 
therefore, desirable that a crooked trunk be selected 
for preparing a curved timber, and that the crooked- 
ness of the one correspond as nearly as may be with 
the curvature of the other. The superintendence of 
this department is in a person possessing much experi- 
ence aud knowiedge of the quality of diiferent woods, 
and of their relative fitness for the several timbers of a 
ship. When this supermtendant or ‘ converter’ has 
sclected the proper wood, the operation of sawing pro- 
ceeds ncarly as‘in a common saw-pit. The trunk of 
the tree is laid across a frame-work in the usual man- 
ner, and two men, one above and the other below, cut 
the wood by means of a long saw. The thin deal mould 
is used as a constant guide in cutting; the curvature, 
the breadth, the thickness, and the angles, all being 
regulated either by the mould itself or by the marks 
and directions chalked or painted on it. In a place 
where so much timber is used as in a ship-building 
yard, it might at first thought be imagined that ma- 
chine-worked saws would be used ; but the curvatures 
and anglcs of the timbers are so extremely varied, not 
only in different timbers, but also in different parts of 
‘he same timber, that the precision and regularity of 
machinery would be here thrown away, and indeed 
unavailable. 

So far, then, we may suppose the principal timbers 
to be cut. This opcration is cffected in saw-pits 
covered by shcds, of which thcre are three in various 
parts of the yard to which our attention has been 
directed. As the timbers are wanted, they are con- 
veyed to the building-slip, or that spot of ground on 
which the construction of the ship takes place. When 
the timbers are thus removed, they pass from the con- 
trol of the ‘converter’ to that of another superinten- 
dant or foreman, who is the ship-builder or ship- 
wright properly so-called. 

The building-slip is prepared for the operations im 
the following manner:—The ground having been 
cleared and made tolerably clean, a row of blocks is 
laid down from end to end of the slip, the length of the 
blocks being transverse to or across the slip. The 


blocks are of oak, placed one upon another, to the | 


height of three or four feet, and secured together. 


THI PENNY MAGAZINE. 


215 


These piles of blocks are ranged along the slip, at 
distances of about five or six feet apart, and the uppcr 
surfaces of all the blocks are so adjusted that they shall 
be in one straight line, but inclining slightly down- 
wards towards the river, the inclination being about 
five-eighths of an inch to a foot of length. Grcat care 
is taken in laying down these blocks, as they form the 
support,—the work-bench, in fact,—on which the whole 
ship is afterwards built, the keel being laid down im- 
mediately upon the blocks. 

In order to understand the succession in which the 
parts of a ship are put together, it is useful to notice 
certain points of comparison betwecn a ship and the 
human skeleton. The kcel is the back-bone of a ship, 
and the frame-timbers are the ribs; the ribs forming 
an arched exterior to the whole of the body or hull, 
and the keel forming the longitudinal column to which 
the ribs or timbers are attached. The keel is, thcre- 
fore, the principal part of the vesscl, and the one above 
all others whose strength and security are indispensable 
to the safety of the vessel. From this circumstance, 
and from the position of the keel at the lowest part of 
the vessel, it constitutes the first part of a ship laid 
down onthe shp. The keel is made of clm, and is of 
such length, cxcept in small vessels, that no single 
tree will form it; and, therefore, two or more picces 
are joined together, or, as it is termed, scarfed, end to 
end, until the required length is produced. This 
scarfing isa kind of overlapping, the under part of 
one piece and the upper part of the other, or the nght 
side of onc and the left side of the other, being cut 
away near the ends, and the cut or scarfed surtaces 
bolted together. For an East Indiaman of a thousand 
tons burden, such as the Agincourt and the Southainp- 
ton, of which we before spoke, the keel is about a hun- 
dred and forty feet long, fourteen inches wide, and 
fifteen deep. For a steamer of the same burden the 
length is several fect greater, since steamers are 
generally longcr and narrower than sailing vessels of 
equal burden. 

The sides and the ends of the keel are grooved and 
cut in various ways, to receive the different timbers 
and pieces of wood forming the hull of the vessel. 
Of these timbers two, which form the main supports 
of the two cnds of the vessel, are the stem and the 
sternpost, of which the former curves upwards from 
the higher end of the keel, and the latter riscs almost 
perpendicularly from the lower end (for a ship is 
built with the stern-end towards the river, and 1s con- 
sequently launched stern foremost). Both are formed 
of oak, and are attached to the ends of the keel in a 
very substantial manner. To the sternpost are at- 
tached various pieces of wood, called transous, fashion- 
pieces, &c., the contour of which, when fixed in their 
places, is such as to give the elegantly-curved form to 
the hindcr part of the vessel; while to the stem are 
attached various pieces, some of which fit 1t more se- 
curely to the keel, some serve to counect it with the 
timbers and planks afterwards to form the sides of the 
vessel, and others form a receptacle or support for 
the end of the bowsprit. The heavy pieces of timber 
erected thus on the two ends of the keel are hauled 
up to their proper positions by pulleys and tackle, and 
then shored up by poles irom the ground, to prevent 
them from sinking. 

Along the keel, nearly from end to end, are fixed 
stout timbers, called floor-timbers, at right angles 
with the length of the kecl, and slightly concave on 
their upper surface. They are placed a few inches 
apart, and constitute, as the name imports, the floor of 
the ship. As there isa general upward curvature of 
the ship towards each end, the floor rises in a similar 
manner, and would thus leave a vacancy betwcen the 
end floor-timbers and the keel; but this vacancy 1s 


216 THE PENNY 
filled up with solid wood, called dead-wood, constitut- 
ing a firm foundation. ! 7 
regarded as the lower part of the ribs of the ship ; 
and above them spring up the various pieces forming 
the remainder or vertical parts of the ribs. No wood 
can be found so large, so curved, or so strong as to 
form the whole curved rib; and, therefore, each rib 
is built up of separate pieces, the general name of 
which is futiocks ; thus we have the first, second, third, 
and perhaps fourth futtock, each bemg a distinct piece 
of timber, but all collectively ferming one rib, or one 
‘frame of timbers.’ .These pieces are placed, some 
end to end, and others side to side, in such a manner 
that the jointof two ends of timber may have a sup- 
port of solid timber at its side. Various means are 
adopted for joining the pieces end to end, but those 
which are placed side by side are bolted together with 
bolts. 

As the various futtocks curve more and more up- 
wards, till the upper one, or ‘ top timber,’ reaches to the 
top of the hull of the ship,.1t must be evident that all 
the pieces forming one rib or ‘frame of timbers’ are 
very ponderous, especially 1f the vessel be large. 
The arraugements, therefore, are regulated according 
to the dimensions of the. vessel. If it be large, the 
pieces, after being fitted together on the ground, are 


MAGAZINE. 


The floor-timbers may be: 


[May, 1841. 


raised up singly, or perhaps two bolted together ; but 
if it be small, three or four pieces may be bolted to- 
gether on the ground, and raised as one piece. But 
in whatever way this part of the matter be arranged, 
the other operations are nearly alike. All the pleces 
to form one rib are adjusted and fitted to each other on 
the ground, and are lifted from the ground by strong 
tackle. ‘Phe curvature and weight of the pieces is 
such, that after being raised and adjusted: to their 
places, they must be secured from falling either in- 
wards or outwards; for the former of which purposes 
planks called cross-spalls are nailed to the upper ends 
of the timbers, at right angles to the keel, and stretch- 
ing across from one side to the other; and for the lat- 
ter, planks called 7b-bands are placed nearly horizontal 
round the outside of the ribs at various heiglits, and 
are shored up by poles fixed in the ground beneath. 
In this manner the ribs or frames of timbers are raised 
one after another, from end to end of the vessel, the 
two halves of each frame, that is, the two parts springing 
from opposite sides of the keei, being raised nearly at 
the same time, so as to maintain the top timbers at the 
proper breadth across the vessel. In this stage of the 
proceedings, the interior shell of the vessel presents 
the appearance represented in our concluding cui. We 
have given an interior sketch, because it shows more 





{Vrame-Timbers of a West India Trader (400 tons ).] 


clearly the relative position of the parts. - At’ the bot- 
tom, Just above the kcel, are the floor timbers, ranged 
at right angles to it, and projecting soiue distance be- 
yond it on either side. At the ends of these timbers 
are the various pieces or futtocks forming the ribs, 
jointed and bolted together at different parts of their 
neights. The ribs rise to different and irregular heights, 
aiterwards to be adjusted; and acréss, from the upper 
part of the timbers on one side to the upper part on 
the other, are the spalls, the temporary wooden braces 
which keep 


the opposite sides at their proper distances. | 


But six o’clock has arrivea, and our “ day’ is ended. 
All are leaving their work. The shipwrights, the 
mast-inakers, the boat-builders, the joiners, the smiths, 
the caulkers, the trenail-makers, the oakum-spinners 
—all have finished their day’s labour, and the busy huin 
of active industry is about to be stilled. One day is too 
short for the building of our ship. We will therefore 
leave the rough frame-work, the skeleton, the assem- 
blage of back-bone and ribs, for the present ; and will 
on a future occasion invite the reader to’ spend with us 
a second ‘day at a ship-yard.” 





JUNE 5, 1841.) 


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(The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. —Gnuido. . 


GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. 
DULWICH COLLEGE 


One of the greatest difficulties with which the practice 
of the art of painting is surrounded, and therefore one 
of those aaah when overcome shows that an artist has 
attained to excellence in a great quality of his pro- 
fession, is the true delineation of expression. The im- 
portance of this-quality is too obvious to be insisted on 
at any length, since it is only by the appropriateness of 
expression to the situations in which the objects de- 
picted are placed, that we can feel assured that the 
interest of the beholder will be duly aroused to the 
full appreciation of the subject before hun. | 
The greatest artists since the revival of painting are 
those who most successfully delineated expression. 
Leonardo da Vinci, in his celebrated Last Supper, in 
the Refectory of the Dominican Convent at Milan— 


No. 589. 





Michae! Angelo, in his immortal works in the Sistine 
Chapel—Raffaelle, in his Cartoons at Hampton Court, 
and in his Transfiguration, are, amongst others, in- 
stances of this truth ; and so far as the head of his pre- 
sent subject is concerned, Guido Reni may be enume- 
rated in the same list. Although we have there placed 
him, it must be remembered that he is usually held to 
be an artist ranking high only among the second class 
of painters, and indeed we carefully limit our admira- 
tion, generally speaking, of his power of depicting 
expression to that which is shown in his heads, although, 
as we shall hereafter proceed to point out, there are 
other parts of the subject above, engraved by Mr. Jack- 
gon, in which he has been no less successful in infusing 
a sense of that quality. 

Before commenting on that work, we will give a 
short history of the painter: Guido Reni was born at 
Bologna in the year 1574. He was the son of a pro- 


Vou. X.—2 F 


218 THE PENNY 
fessor of music, and had made some progress in the 
study of that science when he turned his attention to 
painting. He became a scholar of Denis Calvert, 
under whom his progress was so rapid that his master, 
after slightly retouching his pictures, disposed of them 
as his own. At twenty years of age he quitted the 
school of Calvert to enter that of the Caracci, in which 
he became the favourite pupil of Ludovico. He had 
already given proof of his ability in some performances 
in the Palazzo Bonfigliuoli, where some pictures of 
Michael Angelo Caravaggio excited his notice, and 
their vigorous opposition of ight and dark astonished 
and pleased him. Guido, for a time, adopted the same 
principle, but the remonstrances of the Caracci 1n- 
duced him to abandon it. Instead of the contrasts of 
Caravaggio, he gave to his pictures the breadth and 
clearness of open day-light; tenderness and suavity 
were made to take the place of that which the Caracci 
did not scruple to designate as crudeness and violence 
of tone. Still the aspiring painter had not overcome 
all his difficulties, for no sooner did he show that he 
was able to carry into practical effect the precepts of 
his instructors, than they upbraided him with presump- 
tion for endeavouring to found a new style of art. 
Iixpelled from their academy, he soon became their 
rival as an artist, and though wounded in vanity by 
their sarcasms, he could not forget the debt of grati- 
tude that was due to them for their able instruction. 
On visiting Rome, he renewed his acquaintance with 
Annibale, then employed in the Farnese Gallery, but 
their friendship did not long continue. <A jealousy of 
his ability seems to have estranged the good feelings of 
all his brother artists, for we find that Albano, Cara- 
vageio, and all the three Caracci were bitter in their 
animosity against him. Pope Paul V., however, and 
the Cardinal Borghese, engaged him to paint important 
subjects, and his pictures soon decorated the walls of 
the Sampieri, the Rospigliosi, the Campidogh, the 
Spada, the Barberini, and other palaces. He returned 
to his native city, disgusted by the intrigues of Rome, 
having exccuted works for the church of St. Ambrogio 
at Genoa and for the cathedral of Modena. A fatal 
habit of gaming, in which Reni indulged, dissipated all 
his gains, and he struggled in vain against its infatuat- 
ing influence. He died of a fever said to have been 
brought on by anxiety of mind, at the age of sixty-eight 
years, 

The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian is one of the most 
powerful pictures, both in regard to expression and in 
respect of strong contrast, that is to be met with in 


English collections, and would appear to have been’ 


executed at the period when Guido had adopted the 
style of Caravaggio. St. Sebastian is represented 
having received an arrow in the body, which still 
quivers in the living flesh. The arms are tightly 
bound behind the back, whilst the head is thrown back 
with a powerful expression of bodily pain. The face 
presents tous all the usual characteristics of Reni’s 
style—a mixture of mental anguish and corporeal 
agony. His heads of the crucified Redeemer, and: of 
the Virgin Mary, are all of this class; but, generally 
speaking, with that, and a careful yet easy drawing of 
the drapery, their claims to admiration end. In the 
st. Sebastian, on the contrary, the whole figure is as 
expressive as the head. The contraction of the muscles 
of the body denotes that the arrow has but just inflicted 
its wound, and the general action of the upper part of 
the figure, the projection of the shoulders, and the 
heaving expansion of the chest, denote that the body 
and the spirit of the saint are alike impatient for a 
release from earthly bondage. Of the executive part 
of this picture, namely, the handling, it will not fail to 
be observed that it is more free, and the touch more 


MAGAZINE. (JUNE 5, 
bold than are usually observable im this artist’s works. 
These are the qualities which have recommended this 
performance to our notice as of a higher class than 
others by his hand. Correctness of design we usuatliy 
find, and mostly accuracy of anatomical detail, but 
his labours rather please us for their grace and elc- 
gance of contour, than for vigorous coneeption or 
powerful execution. His figures of men frequentls 
want strength, though those of his women generally 
enchant by the softness and delicacy of their forms. 
The criticism of Mr. Fuseli is peculiarly apt, though 
the work under notice must form an exception to it 
‘His attitudes,” observes that acute eritic, “seldon: 
elevate themselves to the fine expression and peaceful 
simplicity of the face: the grace of Guido is the grace 
of the theatre; the mode, not the motive, determines 
the action: his Magdalens weep to be seen, his Hero 
throws herself over Leander, Herodias holds the head 
of her victim, his Lucretias stab themselves, with the 
studied airs and ambitious postures of buskined he- 
roines: it would, however, be unjust not to alow 
there are exceptions from this affectation in his works.” 
The St. Sebastian of the Bourgeois collection is exactly 
one of those which the excellent Fuseli would have 
held to be exempt from the affectation of which he 
complains. The head possesses all that can be desired 
of expression, and the body harmonises exactly with 
that expression, both in attitude and in anatomical 
drawing. | 

In every point of view. we are disposed to consider 
this work as one of high art; for it does not depend 
on the number of figures introduced into. a picture 
Whether it holds that place or not. The subject is 
erand and impressive: it delineates it in true bodily 
suffering, but the feeling engendered is not that of 
disgust, because the object for which that representa- 
tion is made, or at least its effect, is to recall toa our 
minds the constancy of the martyr, whilst we sympa- 
thise with the agony of the man. L-hDert’ @&) 

: Cnt | 


THE VALUE OF A BONE. 


THat “nothing is lost,” 1s a truth which becomes more 
arid more evident to us in proportion as eur knowledge 
of natural phenomena increases; but it is perhaps still 
more important, 1n a practical point of view, to observe 
that “nothing is valueless.” To illustrate this remark, we 
might select from an abundance of instances; but per- 
haps we could not select a more familiar example than 
a bone, an object which is too often regarded as yalue- 
less. 

Unless the bone which once formed the nucleus of a 
joint of meat be actually burned, we may rest assured 
that it will be applied to more useful purposes ; for if 
it be consigned to the dust-heap, it 1s afterwards sepa- 
rated froni other refuse by the dust-contractor; if it 
be thrown into the street, there are itinerant collecters 
who will deem it not unworthy of a place in their all- 
devouring bag; or 1f it be sold with others, at the rate 
of sco much per peck, to the dealer in “ marine stores,” 
it is afterwards sold at a profit to other parties. A Lan- 
don Directory furnishes us with the names of more thar 
a dozen “ bone-dealers,” that is, persons whose avoca- 
tion is to purchase benes, principally from the smait 
dealers just alluded to, and, in most cases, to boil or 
crush them, preparatory to the employment of the 
bones in some useful manner. We will take a brief 
elance at afew of these uses. 

In the first place, bones may be made to yield nutri- 
ment; Papin, Boyle, D’Arcet, and others, having ob- 
tained a gelatinous kind of soup from bones by various 
processes. Papin used a-vessel called a digester, con- 
sisting of a boiler closed everywhere except a small 


firm, and that the drawing is in every respect more ! hole in the top, which was loaded with a saiety-valve, 


- 1841.] 


In this vessel water was made to boil at a much higher 
temperature than under ordinary circumstances; and 
the valve was so regulated as to open and allow the 
steam to flow out when the pressure had attained 
such a point as to endanger the safety of the vessel. 
When crushed bones were boiled in this vessel ata 
dngh temperature, a quantity of gelatine was extracted 
drom them, sufficient to form a jelly when cold. Mr. 
Boyle obtained a curious kind of food from bones: he 
placed a cow-heel, without water, ina perfectly close 
vessel, and exposed it to a moderate heat for four hours, 
at the end of which time he found the entire bone so 
thoroughly softened, that he could cut it with a knife 
and eat it; thus proving, as it. would appear, that the 
softer parts of the bone furnished moisture by which 
the harder parts became edible. Mr. Aikin eaused the 
leg-bone of an ox to be sawed longitudinally and boiled 
for three or four hours, at the end of which time the 
Whole ot the fat and mucus, and some of the jelly, had 
been extracted; but the cellular parts of the bone re- 
mained, even after another long boiling, nearly full of 
selatinous substance ; thus showing that the ordinar 
heat of boiling-water is not sufficient to obtain all the 
gelatine from the bone. The knowledge of the fact 
that much gelatine exists in bone, that it cannot all be 
extracted by boiling-water at the ordinary temperature, 
but that it may be extracted at a higher temperature, 
led to the adoption of Papin’s mode of preparing bone- 
soup in some of the hospitals and military head-quarters 
of France; and memoirs have been written in advocacy 
of the collecting of .bones as an article of food fora 
besieged garrison. Admitting, however, that in cases 
of extremity soups thus obtained may be most valuable, 
yet it isstated thata very unpleasant burnt flavour in- 
variably accompanies such soup. Another plan has 
therefore been suggested and put into operation, which 
is as follows :—The bones, having been boiled for some 
hours to extract the fat, are placed in very dilute mu- 
riatic acid, by which the earthy basis of the bone is 
zradually dissolved, leaving the cartilage and much of 
ihe gelatine in the form of a flexible semi-transparent 
substance retaining the original shape of the’ bone. 
‘These masses are thoroughly washed, to free them from 
the acid and the earthy. particles; then dried, and 
kept in bags for use. Wheu required for preparing 
soup, a portion of this cartilaginous substance is boiled 
in forty times its weight of water, whereby it becomes 
completely dissolved. The solution on eooling forms 
a jelly, which by subsequent evaporation is thickened, 
and is then preserved as portable soup. 
by re-dissolving and seasoning, becomes an article of 
food. Such are the modes inwhich scientific men have 
proposed to extract nutriment from bones. So long 
as a nation maintains a state of tolerable prosperity, it 
is not prebable that such plans will be acted on to any 
ereat extent; .but in times of scarcity or distress, both 
bone-soup and sawdust-bread may possibly be found 
worthy of a thought. . 
In the next place, bones form a most valuable 
manure. ‘The period is not very remote when this kind 
of manure was almost unknown; but by a careful ob- 
servation of the effects which they produee when ju- 
diciously employed, their value on poor and dry soils 
has become so important, that not only are shiploads 
sent from London to the eastern parts of England, but 
cargoes are also imported from Germany, Belgium, 
and Holland. After the bones have been collected in 
London and other large towns, they are picked; and the 
best having been selected for purposes of which we shall 
presently speak, the remainder are either crushed by 


the dealers, or are shipped off at once to Hull and other | 


towns near the agricultural districts, undergoing a 
partial decomposition on the voyage, which probably 
facilitates their subsequent crushing. 


This soup, | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 





219 


niuill consists of two 1ron cylinders, grooved round the 
circumference, the projeetions being eut into the form 
of-teeth: these eylinders turn upon one another by 
means of maehinery, so that the teeth of one run into 
the grooves between the teeth of the other; and the 
bones, being allowed to fall upon their surfaces, are 
drawn in between them and crushed. The bones are 
crushed to three different sizes for different purposes, 
and are known as “inch bones,” “ hali-inch bones,” 
and “dust bones.” They are used principally as a top- 
dressing to grass-land, or are drilled with turnip-seed. 

Bone, as a substitute for wood, having more hard- 
ness than that substance, and less brittleness than stone, 
is very valuable in the arts. The spinous bones in 
the back, fins, and tails of many fishes, and the serrated 
teeth of sharks, furnish examples of the mode in which 
rude nations avail themselves of such a substance for 
the fabrication of offensive weapons, such as arrows, 
darts, and spears. . 

he extent to whieh the finer kinds of bone, such as 
the teeth or tusks of the. elephant, the us, 
the walrus, the narwahl, &c., have been employed for 
ornamental purposes, is known to most persons :—some- 
times earved or sculptured into tasteful forms; some- 
times turned in a lathe; sometimes used in sheets to 
cover colossal statues; and at other tines as an inlaying 
material. Ivory and the analogous kinds of bone were 
very largely employed by the ancients. In modern 
times, and in this eountry, purposes of utility rather than 
of ornament are sought to be obtained from bone. Tooth 
and nail brushes, handles of knives, combs, paper- 
knives, and a variety of small objects are turned in the 
lathe, or are fashioned by means of other tools, out of 
ivory and bone; the former being the more costly, but 
the latter the more useful of the two, all things con- 
sidered. 

The circumstance that bone will yield a considerable 
portion of gelatinous matter when boiled, has led to 
the useful employment even of the merest shavings 
resulting from the production of manufactured articles. 
The scrapings, shavings, and sawdust of bones are used 
by pastrycooks as a material for jelly, which it yields 
the more readily on aceount of the attenuated state to 
which it is reduced. The jelly thus produced 1s said 
to be nearly as good as calf’s-foot jelly; and the shav- 
ings, when dry, have this advantage over ealf’s-foot, 
that they may be kept for a long time without any de- 
terioration of quality. The shavings of bone are also 
usefully employed in case-hardening steel. 

By the combustion of bones in close vessels, various 
chemical products are obtained, by the decomposition 
of the component parts. Ammonia results from the 
hydrogen and the mitrogen contained in the bones ; and 
when the other gaseous elements are removed by pe- 


' culiar means, there results an earthy residue, which 1s 


then ealled animal charcoal. When this charcoal 1s 
obtained from bone, it goes by the name of bone-black, 
and when from ivory, ivory-black; the difierence be- 
tween the two kinds being a rather finer texture and 
colour in the latier. Ivory-black 1s used as a pigment 
or colouring substance by artists; and bone-black is a 
very valuable bleaching or clarifying ingredient, in the 
refining of sugar. | 

Even the bone-ash, which results when every other 
part is burnt away, has many valuable ingredients. 
Ground to fine powder, it is employed as a material for 
making cnpels for gold and silver assayers; when 
washed and cleansed, it forms a useful polishing- 
powder; when treated in a certain manner, it yields 
phosphorus. | 

It will thus be seen that a bone may be applied to a 
very large range of useful purposes. All must acknow- 
ledge, therefore, that the ‘value of a bone” is by no 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 





[JUNE 5, 

















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(Tireshing by the Sledge.) 


MODES OF THRESHING CORN IN THE EAST. 


Besipes the usual effects of climate on the wild as 
well as cultivated productions of different countries, 
its influence is of course very important on all the 
ordinary branches of agricultural industry. Those who 
are engaged in such pursuits cannot fail to be in- 
terested in studying the different modes by which all 
accomplish the same ultimate end, whatever may be 
the diversities of soil and climate; and this kind of 
knowledge may not unfrequently prove useful to the 
practical farmer, by affording hints which he may 
turn to profitable account. The most careless observer 
may draw some inferences, of wider and more exten- 
sive signification than might be first imagined, by at- 
tentively considering the causes which have given rise 
to modifications in those practices of husbandry to 
which he has been accustomed. In a country which 
las not yet been settled, it is said—with some little 
degree of exaggeration, perhaps—that it is cheaper to 
rear a herd of cattle than a brood of chickens, for the 
one picks up a subsistence with scarcely any labour on 
the part of the owner, while the latter must be fed 
with the produce of cultivated land; and so simple a 
fact as this, 1f pursued to its causes, will unfold not a 
few of the circumstances which constitute the differ- 
ence between a country that has been fully peopled for 
azes, and one in which the virgin soil was only stirred 
yesterday. We may take another example of the 
value of noticing not only differences but their causes : 
—The traveller who passes through the countnes of 
the northern and north-eastern parts of Europe will be 
apt to ascribe to them the possession of greater wealth 
than they really enjoy. . The farm-houses are sur- 
rounded with extensive outbuildings, which to an 
untravelled native of England appear to be only the 
result of capital accumulated ina form calculated to 
ensure a large proportion of physical comfort. But 
the climate renders it necessary to provide buildings 
to contain all the live-stock, and all the hay, corn, and 
provender for their support during a considerable por- 
tion of the year. Besides the house occupied by the 
owner of the land, it is surrounded by the cottages of 


his labourers, ranges of barns, stables, cowhouses, | 


sheephouses, granaries, cartsheds, stables, and harness- 
rooms, to an extent, according to Mr. Jacob, “ more 
than five times as great as would be required in Eng- 
land for the same extent of land.” The climate of this 


country is neither so rigorous as to prevent live-stock 
continuing in the open air throughout the winter, nor 
to prevent green food remaining on the land for them 
while this season lasts; and thus there is a Saving in 
the erection of outbuildings which the agriculturist 
in the more northern parts of Europe finds it neces- 
sary to provide. As our account of the modes of 
threshing adopted in the East will be short, the preced- 
ing remarks may, perhaps, be pardoned. 

In Syria, Palestine, Western Asia generally, and 
various other parts of the world, the threshing-floor is 
in the open air, and is sucha level and hard piece of 
ground as can be found nearest the harvest-field. Ii 
on the top of a hill, it is preferred, for the advantage of 
the subsequent winnowing. For use as the regular 
threshing-floor of the estate, this spot is often prepared 
by the removal of about six inches deep of the soil, and 
filling up the vacancy with a firm compost made of 
cow-dung and clay. Such threshing-floors were com- 
mon almost everywhere, being only covered in those 
countries where showers are frequent in the time of 
harvest. 

In such floors the separation of the grain from the 
straw was effected by the different processes which 
remain to be described. 1. By the treading of cattle. 
—This appears to have been the most ancient practice 
for the larger grains, of wheat, barley, and rye. It is 
in fact the only process of threshing to which allusion 
is made in the books of Moses, as in the precept, “ Thou 
shalt not muzzle the ox that ¢readeth out the corn,” an 
injunction conformable to the existing practice of all 
the nations of the East, none of whom, whatever be 
the mode of threshing, muzzle the animals which 
labour init. Threshing by the feet of cattle was also 
the practice in ancient Egypt. Homer mentions no 
other mode of threshing than by driving oxen over the 
corn. He compares the slaughter made by the horses 
and chariot of Achilles to the beating out of grain by 
the trampling of oxen. It was also one of the modes 
in use among the Romans. Among them, however, 
horses were preferred to oxen for this work, and there 
can be no doubt of their superior adaptation to it; but 
the Hebrews for many ages had no horses, and when 
they had, did not soon learn to employ them in any 
agricultural labour. Neither did the Egyptians. But 
horses appear to have been employed for threshing in 
the time of Isaiah. 

At the present time the custom of.tnreshing by the 


1841.} 


treading of animals is common in Northern Africa 
and several parts of the East; but horses are more 
employed than oxen. In this case a strong post is 
planted in‘the centre of the threshing-floor, with a 
moveable wooden ring at top, through which passes the 
cord that yokes the animals, and whichcan be lengthened 
or shortened at pleasure, so as to make them move 
rouud in a wider or narrower compass. So Shaw, in 
describing the practice of the Moors and Arabs of Bar- 
bary, states: “ These nations continue to tread out their 
corn after the primitive custom of the East. Instead of 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 


9 


221 
ner as they are placed and prepared by us for threshing. 
This, indeed, is a much quicker way than ours, though 
less cleanly; for as it 1s performed in the open air, 
upon any round level plot of ground daubed over 
with cow-dung to prevent as much as possible the 
earth, sand, or gravel from rising, a great quantity 
of these, notwithstanding this precaution, must be 
unavoidably taken up with the grain. At the same 
time the straw, which has been taken notice of as their 


/chief and only fodder, 1s hereby shattered to pieces, 


beeves, they frequently make use of mules and horses, 


by tyimg, in like manner, by the neck, three or four 
of them together, and whipping them afterwards round 
about the nedders, as they call the threshing-floors, where 
the sheaves lie open and expanded, in the same man- 





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a circumstance very pertinently alluded to in 2 Kings, 
xii. 7, where the King of Syria is said to have made 
the Israehtes ‘like the dust by threshing.’ ” 

2. Another kind of threshing ts by the drag, being a 
strong frame of planks, ora large block of wood, armed 
and roughened at the bottom with flints or pieces of 










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{Threshing by the Drag.} 


iron, and drawn by oxen, mules, or horses over the 
corn-sheaves spread on the floor, the driver sitting 
upon it when its form allowed him todoso. This cor- 
responds with the notice which Varro takes of the 
tribuium, and he says that when the driver did not sit 
on the machine, a weight was placed upon it. This 
very simple machine is evidently that which Laborde 
saw actually in use in Syria, and of which he gives the 
representation which we have copied in the preceding 
engraving. A corn-drag, somewhat less rude than 
this, is now generally used in Syria and Asia Minor. 
A figure of it is given in the recent work on that 
country by Mr. Fellowes, who describes it as de- 
signed for the joimt purpose of threshing and of 
cutting the straw: “ It is very primitive and cu- 
rious, consisting of a thick plank of timber, flat 
on the ground, with another smaller one inclining up- 
wards, to which the animal is attached for the purpose 
of dragging it over the corn, which is spread-out on 
the hard rocky ground; the flat under-side is stuck 
full of fiints or hard cutting stones, arranged in the form 


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¢ palate or rough tongue of the cow. The roller 
is the trunk of a tree. often weighted by the driver 
riding on it. It is dragged over the ground, but does 
not revolve.” Dr. Wilde, who travelled in Palestine 
too early to see the act of threshing, notices a similar 
machine which he saw in a vaulted granary near Tyre. 
Both these travellers identify this, very mghtly, with 
the threshing instrument mentioned by Isaiah, xh. 15, 
and the tribulum of Virgil. 

3, A third mode of threshing was by what is called 
in Scripture “ihe wain,” more properly “the sledge,” 
and which is still employed in Egypt and some parts 
of Western Asia. This sledge is fixed upon two or 
three wooden rollers, armed with several iron rings, 
with serrated edges, so sharp as to cut the straw. This 
machine, which is drawn by oxen, mules, or asses, is 
easily driven by a man seated on the sledge, and as it 
passes round in a circle over the corn spread beneath, 
the grain, by repeated operation, is trodden out, while 
the straw is chopped by the iron rings. Tus corre- 
sponds to a variety of the trdbudwm mentioned by Varro, 


———~ me —- —— 


ony emt, 


Threshing by Fc rses. 


fae 


and which he described as “a plank with Little 
rollers in place of teeth.” He adds, “Iu Hither Spain 
(Hispania Crteriore) and other places, a man sits upon 
this machine, and drives the cattle that draw it.” He 
says this was called the posiesdum Poentcum, or Cartha- 
ginian wain; and as the Carthaginians, doubtless, de- 
rived it from their Phoenician or Canaanitish ancestors, 
a very proximate origin is found for it. It was un- 
doubtedly in use among the Jews. 4 
4. The flail is and has been only used in ancient 
times, and still in Eastern parts, with grains of those 
sorts in which the ears only are reaped, or when the 
separation of the grain from the ear 1s the sole object 
desired. We find from the Scriptures,* that the flail 
was confined, among the ancient Hebrews, to the 
threshing of the sinaller grains, such as vetches, dill, or 
cummin, in which no operation upon the stalk was de- 
sired. The passage of Scripture to which we have 
just referred contains distinct allusions to add the pro- 
cesses of threshing which have been described, and 
may here be adduced, as given in the improved trans- 
lation of Bishop Lowth :— 
“The dill is not beaten out with ¢he corn drag ; 

Nor is the wheel of the wain made to turn upou the cummin. 

But the dill is beaten out with the staf; 

And the cummin with the flail: but 

The bread-corn with the threshing wain : 

And not for ever will he continue thus to thresh it ; 

Nor to vex it with the wheel of his wain; 

Nor to bruise it with the hoofs of his cattle.” 


It 1s seen how clearly the preceding statements 
apply to and illustrate this interesting passage of 
Scripture. 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. 


PETRARCH. 
[Concluded from page 207.} 
PETRARCH’S passion, however, continuing not merely 
unabated from the hour of their first meeting, but 
growing in intensity, he sought more than once to re- 
lieve his mind by travel; but, as his biographer happily 
observes, he always returned, “like the moth to the 
candle” that consumcd*him. In 1336 he went to that 
beautiful valley which had never ceased to haunt his 
mind with the remembrance of its loveliness from the 
hour when, as a boy, he first saw it, and there bought 
a little cottage and an adjoining field. Vaucluse, or 
Vallis Clusa (the shut-up valley), is watered by the 
windings of the river Sorgne, along one side of which 
extend verdant plains, and along the other corn-fields 
and vineyards. It terminates in a stupendous semi- 
circle of rocks, rising perpendicularly upwards, and 
having at the foot of one of them an immense cavern. 
Within this rises the Sorgne. Petrarch has himself 
given us a most interesting account of his modes of 
life here, and of some of the principal features of the 
place. . “ Here,” he says, “I make war upon my senses, 
and treat them as my enemies. My eyes, which have 
drawn ine into a thousand difficulties, see no longer 
either gold or precious stones, or ivory, or purple ; 
they behold nothing save the water, the firmament, and 
the rocks. The only female who comes within their 
sight 1s a swarthy old woman, dry and parched as the 
Libyan deserts. My ears are’no longer courted by 
those harmonious instruments and voices which have 
so often transported my soul: they hear nothing but 
the lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep, the warbling 
of birds, and the murmurs of the river. I keepsilence 
from morn till night. There is no one to converse 
with ; for the good people employed in spreading their 
nets, or tending their vines and orchards, are no great 
adepts at conversation. I often content myself with 
* Isaiah, xxviii. 27, 28. 


iis Pic IN 


a Sy Spy SSeS 


MAGAZINE: [JUNE 5, 
the brown bread of the fisherman, and even eat it with 
pleasure. Nay, Ialinost prefer 1t to white bread... - 
But still I have my luxuries,—figs, raisins, nuts, and 
almonds. Jam fond of the fish with which this stream 
abounds, and J sometimes amuse myself with spreading 
the nets. As to my dress, there is an entire change ; you 
would take me for a labourer or a shepherd. My man- 
sion resembles that of Cato or Fabricius. My whole 
house-establishment consists of myself, my old fisher- 
man and his wife, anda dog. My fisherman’s cottage 
is contiguous to mine; when J want him, I call; when J 
no longer need him, he returns to his cottage..... 
One of these two gardens (made by himself) is shady 
formed for contemplation, and sacred to Apollo. It 
overhangs the source of the river, and is terminated by 
rocks and by places accessible only to birds. The 
other is nearer mny cottage, of an aspect less severe, 
and devoted to Bacchus; and, what is,extremely 
singular, it is in the midst of a rapid river. The ap- 
proach toit 1s over a bridge of rocks, and there is a 
natural grotto under the rocks, which gives them the 
appearance of a mystic bridge. Into this grotto the 
rays of the sun never penetrate..... Hither J re- 
treat during the noontide hours; my mornings are 
engaged upon the hills, or in the.garden sacred to 
Apollo.” In this wildly beautiful solitude, Petrarch 
meditated or wrote his most important compositions, 
among others his gigantic undertaking, the ‘ History 
of Rome,’ from Romulus down to Vespasian, which he 
did not live to finish. 

In spite of the closeness of his literary application, he 
was too near to Avignon, and the solitude was too 
complete to allow him to forget Laura. He met her 
one day in the streets of the former place, when she 
said unto him, “ Petrarch, you are tired of loving me.” 
This incident produced the following sonnet :— 

“Tired, did you say, of loving you? Oh, no! 
I ne’er shall tire of the unwearying flame. 
But I am weary, kind and cruel dame, 
With tears that uselessly and ceaseless flow. 
Scorning myself, and scorn’d by you, I long 
For death: but let no gravestone hold in view 
Our names conjoiu’d; nor tell my passion stroug 
Upon the dust that glow’d through life for you. 
And yet this heart of amorous faith demands, 
Deserves, a better boon; but cruel, hard 
As is my fortune, I will bless Love’s bands 
For ever, if you give me this reward.” 


This was about1339. Eight years later, when he was 
about to quit the neighbourhood, he went to take leave 
of her. ‘‘She was seated,” he says, “‘ among those ladics 
who are generally her companions, and appeared like 
a beautiful rose surrounded with flowers smaller and 
less blooming. Her air was more touching than usual. 
She was dressed perfectly plain, and without pearls or 
gvarlands or any gay colour. Though she was not 
melancholy, she did not appear to have her wented 
cheerfulness, but was serious and thoughtful. She 
did not sing as usual, nor speak with that voice 
which used to charm every one. She had the air of a 
person who fears an: evil not yet arrived.” This was 
their last meeting. In the terrible plague which deso- 
lated Italy, Laura was smitten and died. In the margin 
of his copy of Virgil, Petrarch wrote, on hearing the 
news :—‘ Laura, illustrious for her virtues, and for a 
long time celebrated in my verses, for the first time 
appeared to my eyes on the Gth of April, 1827, in 
the church of St. Clara, at the firsteenoumeemi nie 
day. JI was then in my youth. In the same city, 
and at the same hour, in the year 1348, this lumi- 
nary disappeared froin our world. J was then at 
Verona, ignorant of my wretched situation. Her 
chaste and beautiful body was buried the same day, 
aiter Vespers, in the church of mie” Cordencrs. “Tier 


1841.) 


soul returned to its native mansion in heaven. I have 
Written this with a pleasure mixed with bitterness, to 
retrace the melancholy remembrance of my -great 
loss. This loss convinces me that I have nothing now 
left worth living for, since the strongest cord of my 
life is broken. By the grace of God, I shall easily re- 
nounce a world where my hopes have been vain and 
perishing. It is time for me to fly from Babylon, when 
the knet that bound me is untied.” 

When Petrarch, in the bitterness of his grief on 
hearing of the death of Laura, said he had nothing left 
to live for, he felt as all lovers of his tender and pas- 
signate nature must have felt; but not the less, when 
the severity of the shock passed away, did he:act as all 
men should act in whom the sense of duty is firmly 
implanted. Love remained, but its character was 
materially changed ; if it still left the poet a dreamer, 
the patriot appeared with new lustre, invigorated by 
the concentration of mind which naturally took place 
when all his earthly hopes and anxieties in connection 
with Laura were set at rest, and elevated and purified 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 223 


— 


of the ancient Romans. ,The people testified their 
approbation by shouts of applause, erying, ‘Long 
flourish the Capitol and the poet!’ ‘The friends cf 
Petrarch shed tears ot joy, and Stefano Colonna, his 
favourite hero, addressed the assembly in his honour.”** 

Petrarch’s political principles were essentially re- 
publican; but above all, whether as a republic, a 
kingdom, or an empire, he yearned for the greatness 
and glory of Rome. ‘This it was that produced from 
him so many eloquent epistles to the popes, in the 
hope’ of inducing them to remove the papal see from 
Avignon to Rome. This it was that made hira look 
with the deepest interest and sympathy on the early 
endeavours of the great tribune Rienzi. Lasily, this 
it was that, after Rienzi’s fall, caused him to expose 
himself to the charge of inconsistency by beseeching 
the emperor Charles to assume the real sovereignty 
ci the country, which as yet only nominally belonged 
to him as the elected king of the Romans. <A striking 
illustration of Petrarch’s boldness of character, and 
the respect in which he was held by the emperor, 


by the religious sentiment now growing stronger and 
stronger every day of his life. In heaven he felt that 
Laura might yet be his. We finally quit this part of 
his history with the following exquisitely tender lamen- 
tation, ms appears to have been written not long 
after her death :— 


“The eyes I prais'd so warmly, and the face, 
And arms, and hands, aid feet, whose beauty drew 
My spirit from myself at thelr sweet view, 
And made me strange among my fellow race ; 
These crisped locks that shone with golden grace, 
the angelic mirth that with enchanting glow 
Was wont to make a paradise below, 
Fill now, unconscious <lust, their narrow space. 
And yet I live; oh! life too hardly horne! 

*Reft of the light I loved so well and long, 

‘hiv weary bark in stormy waves 1s torn. 

Be here an end of all my amorous song: 

My vein of inspiration is out-worn, 

2And nought around my lyre but notes of anguish throng.”* 


in common with all the distinguished men of the 
time, is given in the poet’s account of his interview 
with Charles at Mantua, in 1354 :—“ He spoke to me 
about my works, and expressed a great desire te sec 
them, particularly my treatise on illustrious men. JI 
told him that I had not yet put my last hand to if, 
and that before I could doso J required to have leisure 
and repose. He gave me to understand that he should 
be very glad to see 1t appear under his own patronage, 
that is to say, dedicated to himself. I said to him, with 
that freedom of speech which nature has given me, and 
which years have fortified, ‘Great prince, for this 
purpose nothing more is necessary than virtue on 
your part and leisure on mine.’ He was struck by the 
{reedom of my speech, and asked me to explain myself. 
I said to him, ‘I must have time for a work of this 
nature, in which I propose to include great things in 
asmall space. On your part, labour to deserve that 
your name should appear at the head of my book. For 
this end it 1s not enough that you wear a crown anda 
erand title ; your virtnes and great actions must place 
you among the great men whose portraits I have de- 
lineated. Jive in such a manner, that after reading 
the lives of your illustrious predecessors, you may feel 
assured that your own life shall deserve to be read by 
posterity.’ ” 
A briefrecord of some of the principal affairs in which 
Petrarch was engaged will show the estimation in which 
he was held. In 1342 he was sent to Clement VI. by 
the noblesand people of Rome, to express their earnest 
desire that the pontiff would remove his court from 
Avignon to the imperial city: in this mission he was 
joined by Cola di Rienzi. In 1343, on the death of 
Robert, king of Naples, he was commissioned by Cle- 
ment to go to that city, and obtain accurate information 
as to the state of affairs in that extraordinary period of 
Neapolitan history, when Giovanna, the young queen, 
whose life in so many respects reminds us of that of 
Mary of Scotland, had been but recently married to her 
brutal cousin Prince Andrew of Hungary. In 135+ 
Petrarch was placed at the head of an embassy sent by 
John Visconti, lord of Milan, to Andrea Dandolo, doge 
of Venice, in order to induce that state to make peace 
with their neighbours the Genoese. Lastly, in 1361, 
he went, at the desire of the same powerful family, to 
congratulate King Jolin of France on his return from 
captivity in England alter his terrible defeat at Poi- 
tiers. In short, he was intimate with all the most emi- 
nent personages of his country and time: he was con- 
sulted by all, employed by all. These and the other 
various missions in which ke was engaged afforded him 
opportunities, that he knew how to improve to the 
"| ee toler., pec0o: 


Betlone we spéak of his political life, we must tran- 
scribe his biographer’s picturesque account of the 
chief event that occurred in connection with his cha- 
yacter as a poet,—we allude to his being crowned at 
Rome. Laura had the gratification of hearing all the 
particulars of this splendid ceremony, which took place 
‘same years before her death. ‘“‘ The morning of the 8th 
of April, 1841, was ushered in by the sound of trumn- 
‘pets:; and the people, ever fond of a show, came from 
‘all quagters to see the ceremony. ‘Twelve youths, 
selected from the best families of Rome, and clothed 
in searlet, opened the procession, repeating, as they 
went, some verses, composed by the poet, in honour of 
‘the Roman people. They were followed by six citl- 
‘zens of Rome, clothed in green, and bearing crowns 
-wreathed with different flowers: Petrarch walked in 
ithe midst of them; after him came the senator, ac- 
vcecompanied by the first men of the council. The 
‘streets were strewed with flowers, and the windows 
‘filled with ladies dressed in the most splendid man- 
ner, who showered perfumed waters profusely on the 
‘poet. He all the time wore the robe that had been 
‘presented to hin by the King of Naples. When they 
‘reached the Capitol,:the trumpets were silent, and 
‘Petrarch, having imade a short speech, in which he 
quoted a verse from Virgil, cried out three times, 
‘Lone live the Roman people! long live the senators! 
anay God preserve their liberty.’ At the conclusion 
cof these words he knelt before the senator Orso, who, 
taking a crown of laurel from his own head, placed it 
on that of Petrarch, saying, ‘ This crown is the reward 
wf virtue.’ The poet then repeated a sonnet in praise 


* Translated by T. H. Sealy, in £ Life,’ vol. u1., p. v7, 


224 THE PENNY 


utmost, of collecting the rare works of antiquity lying 
about in the libraries of the few learned men that Italy 
then possessed, or in the nooks and corners of old mo- 
nasteries, where their very existence was forgotten. 
At Arezzo, Petrarch discovered Quintilian’s ‘ Institu- 
tions ;?> at Verona, Cicero’s ‘ Famihar Letters;’ and 
other works of the immortal orator at Liége, &c. 

In the summer of 1357, the poet took up his resi- 
dence at a village called Garignano, on the banks of the 
Adda, near Milan. “ It stands,” he says, “on a shght 
elevation in the midst of a plain, surrounded on all 
sides by springs and streams, not rapid and noisy, like 
those of Vaucluse, but clear and modest. They wind 
in such a manner, that you know not whither they are 
going or whence they have come. As if to imitate the 
dances of the nymphs, they approach, they retire, they 
unite, and they separate alternately. At last, after 
having formed a kind of labyrinth, they all meet, and 
poor themselves into the same reservoir. The chief 
temptation the spot contained for Petrarch was a Car- 
thusian monastery, in which he would have lodged, but 
for the fear of disturbing the monks with his servants 
and horses, which he had no desire to dispense with. 
It was in this agreeable solitude that he wrote the letter 
containing the fine passage, “Like a traveller, I am 
quickening my steps in proportion as I approach the 
term of my course. I read and write night and day ; 
the one occupation refreshes me from the fatigue of the 
other. These are my employments—these are my 
pleasures. My tasks increase upon my hands; one 
begets another; and I am dismayed when I look at 
what I have undertaken to accomphsh In so short a 
space as the remainder of my hfe. God, who knows 
my good intentions, will assist me, if it be necessary for 
the good of my soul. Meanwhile I watch, and find 
delight in the midst of the difficulties I encounter... . 
I desire that posterity may know me, and approve of 
me. If] should-not succeed in that ambition, I shall 
at least have been known to my age and iriends.’* 

An interesting trait of the simple tastes and kind- 
ness of heart which Petrarch preserved amidst all the 
splendours of his fame and the “troops” of sovereign, 
noble, and distinguished friends by which he ap- 
peared to be environed, is afforded by the following 
anecdote: There was a jeweller of Bergamo, named 
Enrico Capri, “a man of great natural talents, who 
would have taken a good station in literature if 
he had applied himself early enough to study. 
But though advanced in years more than in learn- 
ing, he cherished a passionate admiration for the 
learned, and above all for Petrarch, whose acquaint- 
ance he wished to make. Petrarch met his approacher 
kindly. The jeweller was out of his wits at his con- 
descension ; he spent a great part of his fortune in dis- 
playing everywhere the name and arms of our poet, 
whose likeness was pictured or statued in every room 
of hishouse. Hehad copies made, at a great expense, 
of everything that came from his pen. The passion for 
literature grew so much upon him that he shut up his 
lucrative shop, and frequented only schools of science 
and the society of learned men, of whom there was a 
considerable nuinber at Bergamo. Petrarch candidly 
told him that it was too late in life to devote himself 
exclusively to letters. The man of jewels listened to 
him like an oracle on all other subjects, but persisted 
in shutting up his shop. He implored Petrarch to 
come and see him at Bergamo. ‘If he honours my 
household gods,’ he said, ‘but for a single day with 
his presence, I shall be happy all my life, and famous 
through all futurity.’ Petrarch consented to visit him 
on the 13th of October, 1358. Enrico Capri came to 
take him at his word, and to bring him to Milan. The 
governor of the country and the chief men cf the city 

* Lifes voletinape <0e- 


MAGAZINE. 


[Junez 5, 


received him with the highest honours, and wished 
him to lodge in some palace; but Petrarch adhered to 
his jeweller, and would not take any other lodging but 
with his friend.”* 

Between this period and the time of his death Pe 
trarch resided successively at Padua; at Venice, where 
he presented his books to the church of St. Mark, and 
thus founded that celebrated library ; and lastly, at the 
pleasant village of Arqua, among the Euganean hills, 
where Petrarch died, on the 18th of June, 13874. He 
was found by his people in a sitting posture, with his 
head reclining on a book, in his library, and, as they 
thought, asleep. But it was the last sleep which had 
thus peacefully seized him. He was magnificently 
buried in a chapel of his own erection, in the parish 
church of the same place. Honours of all kinds were 
paid to his memory by his mourning countrymen ; who 
exhibited in this, as in every other part of their conduct 
towards Petrarch, the estimation in which they held 
the man who had added so much lustre to their beloved 
Italy, not only by his poems and political conduct, but 
by his great and successful labours in the revival of 
literature,—a result more owing to his industry, learn- 
ing, and genius than to those of any other individual. 


London in the Time of the Britons.—The London of the Britons 
could only have been what Caesar, and Strabo after him, have 
described every British town as being, a collection of huts set 
down on a dry spot in the midst of the marshes, or in a cleared 
space within a wood, and encompassed, in addition to these na- 
tural protections, by the artificial defences of a mound and a 
ditch. Within these inclosures, Strabo tells us, the inhabitants 
were accustomed to stall as many cattle as sufficed for a few 
months’ consumption ; and Cesar relates, that when the town or 
fastness of Cassivellaunus fell into his hands, he found in it a 
ereat number of cattle, which he intimates had been brought 
thither by the people when they came from all parts to take 
refuge in that chief stronghold. It is probable that most of the 
cattle, in which we are informed the island abounded, still roamed 
wild and unappropriated through the woods and pastures—divid- 
ing the country with the infinite multitude (efinita multitudo) 
of human beings, by which, as Ceesar notes, it was already 
peopled. Whether there were any herds regarded as belonging 
either to individuals or to the various villages and other com- 
munities, does not appear. But the southern Britons, we know, 
practised agriculture, and wore cloth : that is implied in Cesar’s 
statement, that the ruder tribes of the interior, for the most part, 
sowed no corn, and were dressed only in skins. The couutry, 
therefore, was not all woodland and marsh. No doubt, the 
southern coast presented already, not only many patches of cul- 
tivation, but some considerable tracts brought under the plough. 
As for London, however, we know that at a date many centuries 
later a vast forest still covered the country all round it only a 
few miles back from the river, and that a fen or lake of great-ex- 
tent, whence the part of the metropolis now called Finsbury de- 
rives its name, lay on the north-east, close to the city wall; 
When it was a British town, it probably occupied ouly the face 
and summit of the first natural elevation ascending from the. 
river, stretching from between Billingsgate and the Tower, on the 
one hand, to Dowgate on the other, and going back no far- 
ther than to the line of the present Lombard Street and Fen- 
church Street. The Wall Brook and the Sher Bourne, on 
the west, and the Lang Bourne on the north,—though their 
straggling waters had not yet become known to fame by these 
or perhaps by any other names,—and to the east the wide- 
spread marsh, which long after continued to cover the low 
grounds now occupied by the suburb of Wapping, furnished 
such natural boundaries as were usually sought for by the 
founders of these rude settlements. A little to the north of the 
Lang Boume, a highway may have passed nearly along the 
course of Leadenhall Street and Cornhill, prolonging itself along 
Cheapside, Newgate Street, and Holborn to the west ;—Casar 
does not describe his march as if it had been performed through 
a country without roads;—but immediately beyond this the fen 
may be supposed to have closed in the town on the one side, and 
the primeval forest on the other.—London, No. 9. 


* ¢ Life,’ vol. ii., p. 220. 


1841.] THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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(a, Welsh Pony; 8, Shetland Pony; ¢, CarteHorse; d, Hunter; e, Racer.) 


ed it only in warfare, camels and asses 
BRITISH HORSES. ane he a iin of burden. ‘i o— es 
THE primitive origin of the domestic horse 1s unknown ; | observed that the opinion in se Se ri Scrie 
probably does not exist. The troops of wild horses | circumstance of the horse he 7 axcllisuneleaemmd 
which scour the deserts of Tartary are regarded by |ture as a domestic animal in Egyp ane ell ae 
naturalists, and with justice, as the descendants of a/from the fact that at a subsequent a id eee 
domesticated stock ; and the herds of horses which feed Solomon with horses; but at Ww a pe moat t 
in the plains of South America are confessedly derived people it may be that the bore was ar ’ snare 
from horses introduced by the Spaniards, according to pai agg song mee comin th period, probably 
Azara, in 1535. | istricts of Airica ; aS / 
‘The circumstances attending the subjugation of the} by the Celtic tribes age Awe thelr 
wild horse, and the epoch at which this was accom- | ward course, it peeened ac h es, he was op- 
plished, are equally obscure. When Julius Cesar BP me S pi oe a, 
It is generally supposed that the Egyptians were the posed not only by mfanti Ys ~ “ seas we 
first who reclaimed this animal: they appear, however, | teers; and the skill with which tne 


axe 6 
No. 59Q. Von. X 


PR 
excited admiration, a circumstance sufficicut to prove 
a long acquaintance with thisauimal. Historians have 
called the Celtic natives of Britain barbarians, and re- 
presented them as being as low in the scale of civilization 
as the natives of New Zealand before European enter- 
prise and philanthropy had attempted their ainelioration. 
But the possession if flocks and herds, of trained horses, 
some for carrying arined men, others for drawing war- 
chariots, and in’ both cases managed with the utmost 
address, proves, independently of other considerations, 
that the Britons in Cesar’s time were considerably 
advanced in social refinement. 

We do not know with certainty the characters of the 
aucient British horse; yet, from the rapid movements 
of the cavalry, and the manner in which the charioteers 
dashed along, we may readily conjecture that the horses 
were both light and strong, docile and spirited. Pro- 
bably they were not of very large size, yet they were 
highly valued, and were unported, together with British 
miastiffs, to Rome. 

During the doninion of the Romans in Britam, it is 
ae that the origmal characters of the British 
1orse became modified by the imterinixture of the race 
with other breeds imported by the conquerors from 
Italy, Gaul, and Spain; but to what extent this adnux- 
ture took place we have no means of ascertaining. 
After the departure of the Romans, the disturbed state 
of Britain would forbid any attempts at improving the 
horse, or maintaining a pure and high-spirited breed 
distinguished above others; yet that such a brecd ex- 
isted there can be little doubt, since Athelstane (a.p. 
930) forbade the exportation of horses under any pre- 
tence, except as presents to monarchs, a circumstance 
which suffices to prove that the British, or rather Ene- 
lish horse, was then valued on the Continent. Itwould 
appear also that in addition to the desire of Athelsitane to 
preserve the native breed, he endeayoured to improve 
if; and we are informed that he received several German 
running horses, that is, horses formed for speed, from 
Hugh Canet of France. The Saxons indeed held the 
horse in high estimation, and the banner of the King 
of Kent displayed a white horse as the royal cog- 
nizance. 

The Norman couquest was productive of changes in 
our English breed, resulting from the introduction of 
the Spanish horse by some of the barons upon the estates 
which they had acquired by the right of the sword. 

The Crusades brought the Enghsh into contact with 
the noble horses of Arabia and Syria; and there is little 
doubt but that many of these were brought to our 
country to the further improvement of our breeds. 
Two horses of Eastern origin, and purchased at Cyprus, 
were possessed by Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and are cele- 
brated as unequalled for swiftness. In the reign of 
Johu, who, as Rapin observes, possessed scarcely “ one 
valuable qualification,” chosen horses were introduced 
by his direction from Flanders, for the purpose of im- 
proving the breed of draught-horses ; and that monarch 
himself accumulated an extensive stud of the most 
superb horses to be found. 

During subsequent reigns, Spanish barbs, Lombardy 
war-horses, and heavy Flanders horses were obtained. 
Thus gradually three sets or breeds of horses became 
established, exclusive of the pony, which from time 
ininemorial nas inhabited the districts of Wales, the 
mountain parts of Scotland, and the Shetland Isles. 

Of these breeds one was appropriated for war. Be- 
fore the invention and ordinary use of fire-arms, knights 
aud horse-soldiers were clad in heavy mail, oppressive 
to the wearer, but more so to the horse, which was also 
to a great degree protected in the same manner, espe- 
cially on the head, neck, and chest. The principal re- 
quisite of the war-horse was strength, not however to 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[June a2, 


old war-horse, therefore, was a powerful bony animal, 
of greai spirit, and capable of enduring fatigue; that 
his figure and action were noble, we have abundant 
testimony. 

Besides this stalwart breed, there was evidently a 
lighter race, fitted for ordmary purposes—a race of 
moderate stature, and in which fleetness and strength 
were more equally combined. Horses of this kind were 
termed running horses; they were used as hackneys, 
and also for runing races—a sport practised at Smith- 
field as early as the time of Henry IT., though racing 
was not then what it is in modern days. 

The third breed was heavier and slower than the 
war-horse, and was used for the purpose of draught. 
This breed, overlooked by the nobles, would neces- 
sanly vary in its qualities as circumstances might in- 
fluence it; but im proportion as the war-horse and 
hackney improved, so this breed would in an indirect 
INanner partake of the improvement. It 1s to the in- 
troduction of the heavy Flanders horse that its perfec- 
tion is attributed. 

We have alluded to a rude trial of the speed of horses 
practised at Sinithfield as early as the tine of Henry 
I]., and 1t is probable that similar trials were periodi- 
cally conducted at other places. In the reign of Henry 
VITT., and especially of Elizabeth, regular race mect- 
ings were established at Chester, Stamford, and else- 
Where, but we are not to suppose the horses to have 
been anything like the racers of the present day. They 
were merely active and fleet hackneys; and the 
rules and regulations of the turf, as now mstituted, 
were unknown, The passion for this sport, however, 
gradually increased. In the reign of James J., who 
encouraged racing both in England and Scotland, it as- 
sumed a more definite character, and became guided 
by rules, to which those who entered into the sport sub- 
scribed. To Jaines I. is due the introduction of the 
Arab horse for the specitic object of improving the 
racer; and one which he purchased from a merchant 
of the name of Markham, for the then enormous sun 
of £00/., has been highly celebrated. 

In the time of Charles I. Turkish and Barbary horses 
of great value were introduced, nor was the racing stud 
altogether neglected by Cromwell. 

Under Charles IT. a new nnpulse was given to the 
sport, aud many Barbary and Turkish horses were ac- 
quired for the purpose of still further improving the 
racer. And in the reign of Anne, the introduction of 
the celebrated Arabian horse, by Mr. Darley (and 
hence called the Darley Arabian), contributed to the 
establishment of a breed of horses of pure blood and. 
unequalled ficetness. 

The Darley Arabian was bred in the deserts of Pal- 
myra, and from him, as their sire, have sprung the best 
and inost celebrated of our modern racing stock. He was 
the parent of the Flying Childers, Bartlett’s Childers, 
Almanzor, &c., and from these again have descended 
various branches, all excellent, traceable to the Darley 
Arabian. Subsequently to the introduction of the Darley 
Arabian, Lord Godolphin became possessed of a Barb 
(called the Godolphin Arabian), celebrated not only 
for its excellence, but for its friendship with a cat. 
From this horse descended a celebrated stock, to which 
other Eastern horses, as the Wellesley Arabian, &c., 
have also contributed. Such then is the origin of the 
English racer; and in no part of the world can horses 
be found of equal spirit, power, and flectness. 

The modern hunter, which combines the qualifica- 
tions of speed and endurance, is a remove from the 
oure-blood racer in the first degree ; a first-rate hwuter 
is generally three-fourths bred, as it 1s termed. The 
product of a superior Cleveland mare (a strong useful 
breed for “all work’) and a thorough-bred horse, or 


the exclusion of a certain degree of fleetness. The] racer, or even a three-fourths bred horse, will often 


1841.] 


prove a fair hunter; but the product again of this anda 
pure-blood horse, we apprehend to constitute the hunter 
par excellence. The eagerness with which this noble 
animal enters into the exciting sport of the chase, and 
its strength and power of endurance, are well known. 

The road-horse, or hackney, formerly constituted a 
race by itself, allied to the hunter, and not destitute 
of some of the hunter’s blood, but of more compact 
form and more robustly built. In the present day, 
however, long journeys on horseback are seldom at- 
teinpted, and a light half-bred horse is generally pre- 
{erred for the saddle. The coach-horse and the best 
breeds for hght carriages and chaises are a product of 
the Cleveland and the hunter of high blood. 

If England is celebrated for its racers, hunters, and 
useful horses for the saddle and light-dranght, it-is no 
less so for its heavy-draught horses. Of these the 
lightest, but one of the strongest, is the Cleveland bay. 
This race is confined principally to Durham and York- 
shire. Another valuable stock is the Suffolk punch, 
now nearly extinct, or rather crossed with others. The 
heavy Lincolnshire black is also celebrated, and ex- 
ceeds all in size. It is of animals of this breed that the 
teams in the brewers’ and distillers’ carts in London 
are chiefly composed ; and no one can behold them with- 
out being struck with their noble appearance. Their 
strength is prodigious; but, from their great weight, 
their action 1s slow, and at hard and continued work 
they would be beaten by well-built muscular horses of 
less size. Most of these horses exceed seventeen hands 
in height. Both the Suffolk and the Lincolnshire 
breeds have been of late years much crossed by the 
Flanders breed, —to the improvement of both, cer- 
tainly of the latter. In this cross, the size and bulk 
of the original Lincolnshire is still retained, but the 
fore-hand, as Mr. Youatt observes, has been raised, the 
legs flattened and deepened, and much consequently 
gained in activity. ‘The slow heavy black, with his 
two miles and a half an hour, has been changed into a 
hehter but still exceedingly powerful horse, who will 
step four miles in the saine time with perfect ease, and 
has considerably more endurance.” 

From these elephantine horses, to the Welsh and 
Shetland ponies, the transition with respect to size is 
so creat, that we are almost startled by the comparison, 
and wonder that such a difference can exist between 
two individuals of the same species. 

Wales and the Shetland Isles have been ever cele- 
brated for miniature horses, of great beauty, spirit, 
strength, and hardiness. 

The Welsh pony is often a model: a small head, 
high withers, a deep yet round body, short joints, flat 
legs, and small round hoofs characterise him ; his ears 
are small, his eye is full and animated, and his actions 
are free and vigorous. The Shetland pony is still less 
in size than the Welsh, and is often very handsome, 
but the shoulders are usually low and _ thick, the 
limbs, however, are well knit, and the strength of the 
aulimalin proportion to its size is astonishing. Mr. 
Youatt states that one of these little creatures, only 
nine hands high, carried a man of twelve stone forty 
miles in one day. 

Some years since (June, 1831) we measured a pony 
of the Shetland breed, of very small dimensions, but 
very beautiful. Its height, at the shoulders, was only 
thirty-four inches. Its length, from between the ears to 
the insertion of the tail, following the curve of the 
neck and back, four feet two inches. 

Ponies of different degrees of value range the New 
Forest, Exmoor, and the Highlands of Scotland. A 
beautiful Galloway (or large pony, about thirteen or 
fourteen hands high), said to be of Spanish extraction, 
Was once common in the south of Scotland, bordering 
Sey Prith: it is, however, greatly degenexa.ed, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


227 


Wales and Hampshire, Galloways are still bred, but of 
late years this intermediate race has been neglected. 

To enter into all the breeds and crosses of the dif- 
ferent stecks into which the English horse seems 
primarily resolvable is impossible. They are as nu- 
merous as the fancy and ‘the judgment of the breeder 
can make them. 

The group at the head of this article represents the 
Shetland and the Welsh pony, the draught horse, the 
hunter, and the racer. 


Nuremberg.—Nuremberg, with its long, narrow, winding, in- 
volved streets, its precipitous asceuts aud descents, its completely 
Gothic physiognomy, is by far the strangest old‘city I ever be- 
held; it has retained in every part the aspect of the middle 
ages. No two houses resemble each other; yet differing in form, 
in colour, in height, in ornament, all have a family likeness ; 
and with their peaked aud carved gables, and projectiug central 
balconies and painted frouts, stand up in a row, like so many 
tall, gaunt, stately old maids, with the toques and stomachers of 
the last century. The buildings are so ancient, the fashions of 
society so antiquated, the people so penetrated with veneration 
for themselves and their city, that in the few days I spent there, 
I began to feel quite old too—my mind was wrinkled up, as it 
were, with a reverence for the past. I wendered that people 
condescended to talk of any event more recent than the Thirty 
Years’ War ancl the defeiice of Gustavus Adolphus. Nuremberg 
was the Gothic Athens; it was uever the seat of government ; 
but as a free imperial city it was independent and self-governed, 
aud took the lead in arts aud literature. Here it was that 
clocks and watches, maps and musical instruments, were manu- 
factured for all Germany; here were music, poetry, aud painting 
at once honoured as sciences and cultivated as handicrafts, each 
having its guild, or corporation, duly chartered, like the other 
trades of this flourishing city, and requiring, by the institution 
of the magistrates, a regular appreuticeship. It was here that, 
on the first discovery of printing, a literary barber and meister- 
suger (Hans Foltz) set up a printing-press im his own house; 
and it was but the natural consequeiice of all this industry, 
mental activity, and social cultivation, that Nuremberg should 
lave been one of the first cities which declared for the Reforma- 
tion. But what is most curious and striking im this old city 1s tosee 
it stationafy, while time and change are working such miraeles and 
transformations everywhere else. The house where Martin Behaiin, 
four centuries ago, inveuted the sphere, and drew the first geo- 
graphical chart, is still the house ot a mapseller. Thi the house 
where cards were first manufactured, cards are now sold. In 
the very shops where clocks aud watches were first seen, you 
may still buy’clocks and watches. The same families have in- 
habited the same mansions from one generation to another, for 
four or five centuries. The great manufactories of those toys 
called Dutch toys are at Nuremberg. The enormous scale on 
which this commerce is conducted, the hundreds of waggou- 
loads and ship-loads of these trifles and gimcracks which find 
their way to every part of the known world, miust interest a 
thinking mind. A Nuremberger complained to me most seriously 
of the falling off in the trade of pill-boxes! he said that since 
the fashionable people of London and Paris had taken to papir 
pill-boxes, the millions of wooden or chip boxes which used to 
be annually sent from Nuremberg to all parts of Enrope were 
no longer required; and he computed the consequent falling off 
of the profits at many thousand florins. The extraordinary 
cemetery of Nuremberg is as unlike every other cemetery as 
Nuremberg is untike every other city. Imagine, upon a rising 
ground, an open space of abont four acres, completely covered 
with enormous slabs, about a foot and a half in thickness, seven 
feet in length, aud four in breadth, laid horizontally, and just 
allowing space for a single person to move between them. The 
name and the armorial bearings of the dead, in rich sculpture, 
or sometimes cast in bronze, decorated these tombs. I remember 
one to the meraory of a beautiful girl, who was killed, as she 
lay asleep in her father’s garden, by a lizard creeping into her 
mouth. The story is represented in bronze bas-rehef, and the 
lizard is so constructed as to move when touched. From this I 
shrunk with disgust, and turned to the sepulchre of a famous 
worthy, who measured the distance from Nuremberg to the Holy 
Sepulchre with his garter: the implemeut of his pious enterprise, 
twisted into a sort of true-love knot, is carved on lis tomb.— 


In | Fusits and Sketches at Home and slbroad, by Mrs; Jameson, 


2 Gad 


228 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. (June 12, 





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jiuterlor of the Bodleian Library.” 


THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. 


SiR THoMAS BopLey, from whoin the Bodleian or 
Public Library at Oxford takes its name, was the eldest 
son of Mr. John Bodley of Exeter, by Joan, daughter 
and heiress of Robert Home, Esq., of Ottery St. Mary. 
He was born at Exeter, March 2, 1544. He was about 
twelve years of age when his father, being obliged to 
leave England on account of religion, settled with his 
family at Geneva, where he lived a voluntary exile 
during the reign of Queen Mary. Upon the accession 
of Queen Elizabeth, im 1558, he returned to England 
with his father and family, who settled in London, and 
was soon aiter sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, 
where he was placed uner the tuition of Dr. Hum- 
phrey, afterwards president of that society. In 1563 
he took the degree of B.A., was chosen probationer of 
Merton College the same year, and the year following 
was admitted fellow. In 1566 he took the degree of 
M.A., and inthe same year read natural philosophy 
in the public schools. In 1569 he was elected one of 
the proctors of the University, and after that, for a con- 
siderable time, supplied the place of University orator. 
In 1576, being desirous to improve himself in the mo- 
dern languages, and to qualify himself for public busi- 
ness, he began his travels, and passed nearly four years 
in visiting France, Germany, and Italy. Afterwards, 
returning to his college, he applied himself to the 
study of history and politics. In 1583 he was made 
gentleman usher to Queen Elizabeth, and 1n 1585 mar- 
ried Anne, daughter of Mr. Carew of Bristol, and 
widow of Mr. Ball, a lady, as Wood informs us, of con- 
siderable fortune. Soon after, he was employed by 
Queen Elizabeth in several embassies to Frederic, 
king of Denmark, Julius, duke of Brunswick, Wil- 
liam, landgrave of Hesse, and other German princes, 
to engage them to join their forces with those of the 
Enghsh for the assistance of the king of Navarre, 
afterwards Henri IV. of France; and having dis- 
charged that commission, he was sent to King Henri 


' TII., at the time when that 





rince was forced by the 
Duke of Guise to quit Paris. In 1588 Mr. Bodley 
was sent to the Hague to manage the queen’s affairs in 
the United Provinces, where, according to an agree- 
ment between the queen and the States, he was ad- 
mitted one of the Council of State, and took his place 
next to Count Maurice, giving his vote in every pro- 
position made to that assembly. In this station he be- 
haved greatly to the satisfaction of his royal mistress 
and the advancement of the public service. After 
nearly five years’ residence in Holland, Mr. Bodley 
obtained leave to return into England to look after his 
private affairs, but was shortly afterwards remanded 
back to the Hague. At length, having succeeded in 
all his negotiations, he obtained his final recall in 
1597. After his return, finding his advancement at 
court obstructed by the jealousies and intrigues of the 
ereat men, he retired from it and from all public busi- 
ness, and never could be prevailed upon to return or 
to accept any new employment. In the same year he 
set about the noble work of restoring, or rather, found- 
ing anew the public library at Oxford, which was com- 
pleted in 1599. Atter King James’s accession to the 
throne, Sir Thomas Bodley received the honour of 
knighthood. He died the 28th of January, 1612, and 
was buried with great solemnity at the upper end of 
Merton College choir. | 

The first public hbrary in Oxford was established 
in what was then called Durham (since Trinity) Col- 
lege, by Richard de Bury, or Aungerville, bishop of 
Durham and lord treasurer of England, in the time of 
Edward JI. He died in 1345, and left his books to 
the students of Durham College, who preserved them 
in chests, until the time that Thomas de Hatfield, his 
successor in the see of Durham, built the library in 
1370 

The next we read of was called Cobham’s Library, 
which would have been the first, if Thomas Cobham, 
bishop of Worcester, had lived to have executed his 
own purpose. About the year 1320 he began to make 


1841.] 


some preparations for a library over the old Congrega- 
tion-House, in the north church-yard of St. Mary’s; 
but, dying soon after, little progress was made in the 
work till 1367, when his books were deposited in it, 
and the scholars permitted to consult them on certain 
conditions. But the property of the site being con- 
tended between the University and Oriel College, the 
dispute was not finally determined till 1409, when the 
room was fitted up with desks, windows, &c., by the 
benefactions of King Henry IV., of his four sons 
Henry, Thomas, John, and Humphrey, of Thomas 
Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, Philip Repindon, 
bishop of Lincoln, Edmund, earl of March, and 
Richard Courtney, chancellor of the University, in 
whose time it was completed, about the year 1411. 
This appears to have been the first public hbrary, 
and continued in use until 1480, when the books were 
added to Duke Humphrey’s collection, for the recep- 
tion of which a library-room had deen completed. 

Humphrey, surnamed the Good Duke of Gloucester, 
a man superior to the age in which he lived, was the 
real founder of the library which was afterwards 
restored and refounded by Sir Thomas Bodley. The 
number of books given by Duke Humphrey is va- 
riously represented. Wood (Hist. and Antiq. of the 
Oma, of “Omyora, voli ii., pt. u., 4to., Oxford, 1796, p. 
715) says the different treatises amounted to six hun- 
dred: one only specimen at present remains, a nanu- 
script, in folio, of Valerius Maximus, enriched with the 
most elegant decorations, and written in Duke Hum- 
phrey’s age, evidently with the design of being placed 
in his sumptuous collection. The rest of the books, 
which, like this, being highly ornamented, and looking 
like missals, were supposed to convey ideas of Popish 
superstition, were destroyed or removed by the visitors 
of the University in the time of Edward VI., whose 
zeal was equalled only by their ignorance. A manu- 
script commentary on Genesis, by John Capgrave, be- 
longing to Duke Humphrey’s brary, is still preserved 
in that of Oriel College, Oxford ; and one if not more 
manuscripts formerly belonging to the collection are 
in the British Museum; most of them, at the end, 
had usually this imscription written im the Duke’s 
own hand: “ C’est livre est a moy Huimfrey Duc de 
Gloucestre.” Before the year 1555 thc Duke of 
Gloucester’s Library was totally despoiled of its con- 
tents, and the desks and benches ordered to be sold; 
the room continued empty until restored by Sir Thomas 
Bodley. ; 

It was in 1597 that, as Camden justly observes, Sir 
Thomas Bodley set himself a task which would have 
suited the character of a crowned head—the restora- 
tion of the Public Library. With this view he sent a 
letter from London to the vice-chancellor Dr. Ravis, 
dean of Christ Church, offering to restore the building 
and settle a fund for the purchase of books, as well as 
the maintenance of proper officers. This offer being 
gladly accepted, he commenced his undertaking by 
presenting a large collection of books purchased on the 
Continent, and valued at £10,000. Other collections 
and contributions were sent in, by his example and 
persuasions, from various noblemen, clergymen, and 
others, to such an amount, that the old building was no 
longer sufficient to contain them. He then proposed 
to enlarge the building; and the first stone of the new 
foundation was laid with great solemnity, July 17, 
1610, and so amply promoted by his liberality, as well 
as by the benefactions of many eminent persons, that 
the University was enabled to add three other sides, 
forming the quadrangle and rooms for the schools, &c. 
He did not, however, live to see the whole com- 
pleted, as the time of his death, already recorded, will 
explain. 


When Sir Thomas Bodley had succeeded in enrich- | 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE 229 


ing his collection, probably far beyond liis expectation, 
he drew up a body of statutes, which have been since 
incorporated with those of the University. According 
to them, the hbrarian is to be a graduate, unmarried, 
and without cure of souls; and to be allowed deputies 
or assistants. One or two points in these regulations 
have been since altered; the librarian is allowed to 
marry, and he can hold parochial preferment with his 
hbrarianship. The revenues for the maintenance of 
the library are intrusted to the vice-chancellor and 
proctors for the time being; and the vice-chancellor 
and proctors, the three professors of divinity, law, and 
physic, and the two regius professors of Greek and 
Hebrew are appointed visitors. 

Several catalogues of the books in the library have 
been published; the last general catalogue in 1738 ; 
but from the immense increase of the collection it has 
become but of httle use. Another was undertaken a 
few years ago, and had proceeded, under the direction 
of the present librarian, Dr. Bandinel, to some extent 
in the printing ; but we are informed that the publica- 
tion has been since abandoned. A few catalogues of 
particular portions of the Bodleian collections have 
also been published at different times. The curators 
of the Bodleian have for many years published, or 
rather printed and distributed, and continue to print 
and distribute, annual alphabetical catalogues of its 
acquisitions in the department of printed books, for 
the information of the University. 

An annual speech in praise of Sir Thomas Bodley 
was founded in 1681, by Dr. John Morris, canon of 
Christ Church; the speaker to be nomimated by the 
dean of Christ Church, and confirmed by the vice- 
chancellor. These speeches are delivered at the visita- 
tion-day of the library, November the 8th. 

It would require a volume to enumerate the many 
important additions, in books and manuscripts, made 
to this hbrary by its numerous benefactors, or to give 
even a superficial sketch of its ample contents In every 
branch of science and learning. Among the earhesi 
benefactors were Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, 
Thomas Sackville, lord Buckhurst and earl of Dorset, 
Robert Sidney, lord Sidney of Penshurst, viscount 
Lisle and earl of Leicester, &c. &c. The most exten- 
sive and important collections, however, are those of 
the Earl of Pembroke, the celebrated Mr. John Selden, 
Archbishop Laud, Sir Thomas Roe, Sir Kenelm Digby, 
General Fairfax, Dr. Marshall, Dr. Barlow, bishop of 
Lincoln, Dr. Richard Rawlinson, Mr. St. Amand, 
Bishop Tanner, Browne Willis, Thomas Hearne, Mr. 
Nathaniel Crynes, and Mr. Godwin. The library be- 
queathed by Richard Gough, Esq,., which came to the 
Bodleian in 1812 (the catalogue of which has been 
already noticed), is perhaps the most perfect serics of 
English topographical works ever formed, and is par- 
ticularly rich in topographical manuscripts, prints, 
drawings, and books illustrated by the manuscript 
notes of eminent antiquaries. The last collections of 
ereat importance bequeathed to the Bodleian have 
been those of Edmond Malone, Esq., in 1812, and of 
Francis Douce, Esq., in 1834. 

The Bodleian Library was first opened to the public 
on November 8th, 1602, and by the charter of mort- 
main obtained of King James, Sir Thomas, then lately 
knighted by him, was declared founder ; and, in 1605, 
Lord Buckhurst, earl of Dorset, and chancellor of the 
University, placed the bust of Sir Thomas in the 
hbrary. , 

Since the year 1780 a fund of more than £400 a year 
has been established for the purchase of books. This 
arises from a small addition to the matriculation fees, 
and a moderate contribution annually from such mem- 
bers of the University as are adinitted to the use of the 
library, or on their taking their first degrees; to 


230 


which is to be added the privilege claimed as a 
matter of right, under the Copyright Act, of a 
copy of every beok printed in Great Britain and 
Treland. 

All members of the University who have taken a 
degree are admitted to study in the hbrary; no books 
have ever beeu suffered to be taken from it. Literary 
persons, either native or foreign, are also allowed, on 
being properly recommended, to read and take ex- 
tracts fae the books in this collection. By the pro- 
visions of a statute promulgated and confirmed in full 
convocation, December 2, 1813, the officers of the 
library were increased to a principal hbrarian, two 
under-librarians, with the degrees of M.A. or B.C.L. at 
least, and two assistants, either B.A. or under-gra- 
duates. The library is open between Lady-day and 
Michaelmas, from nine in the morning till four in the 
afternoon ; and during the other half-year from ten till 
three. It is closed on Sundays and state holidays; 
froin Christmas-eve to the Ist of January inclusively ; 
on the feast of the Epiphany; from Good Friday to 
Faster Tuesday inclusively; on the days of Enczenia 
and commemoration; seven days immediately fol- 
lowing the ist of September; and eight days pre- 
ceding the visitation of the library. On all other 
holidays it is opened immediately after the University 
sermon. 

Sir Thomas Bodley wrote his own life to the year 
1609, which, together with the first draft of his 
statutes for his library, and a collection of his letters, 
were published from the originals in the Bodleian by 
Thonias Hearne, under the title of ‘Reliquize Bod- 
Ieianz, or some genuine Remains of Sir Thomas 
Bodley,’ Svo., Lond., 1703. The Life alone had been 
previously published in 4to., Oxford, 1647. 

Materials exist for an extended Life of Sir Thomas 


Bodley in his public capacity, in several of our libra- 


ries, more especially in the Cottonian and Harleian 
collections of manuscripts in the British Museum, and 
among the Bacon papers in the Archiepiscopal Library 
at Lambeth. 


CHAUCER'S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE DOCTOR OF PHYSIC. 


In the elaborate portrait which the poet has given us 
of this member of the Canterbury pilgrimage, we have 
a striking exemplification of the state of medical 
science in the fourteenth century, and of the qua- 
lifications requisite for the attainment of eminence in 
the profession. It is said of this— 


¢ ——_————— Doctor of physic, 
In all this world ne was there none him like 
To speak of physic and of surgery ; 
For he was grounded in astronomy. 
He kept his patiént a full great deal 
In hourés by his magic natural. 
Well could he fortunen* the ascendant 
Of his images for his patiént. 


By “astronomy” we must rather understand astrology, 
the two being more or less confounded in the history 
of science down even to a much later period than that 
of Chaucer. In astrology, then, the heavens were 
divided into twelve parts or houses: of these the most 
important was the first, containing the part of thie 
heavens about to rise, hence called the ascendant, and 
Which had influence on all matters concerning life, 
According to the planet which came into conjunction 
with the “ascendant” at the time of any particular 
crisis in the “patient’s ” disease, depended the latter's 
chance of recovery. If we understand Chaucer rightly, 
therefore, the ‘ magic natural” was brought in by the 


* Fortunen—determine the good or kad fortune of, 


THE PENNY Dies. 


[JUNE 12, 


physician to enable him to choose the most favourable 
‘“houres” for bringing on that crisis, and for the 
adoption of whatever means were thought most de- 
sirable. a 

The art of medicine, if art it might be called at this 
time in England, was borrowed from ancient Greece, 
with such improvements only as may have been made 
in it by the Arabs, who translated the principal Grecian 
writers into their language, and became during the 
seventh and five following centuries the most eminent 
practitioners in the world. As an evidence of their 
preat reputation it may be observed that Sancho the 
Fat, king of Leon, went in person, in 956, to Cordova, 
the then great capital of Moorish Spain, to be cured of 
an illness. Not long before Chaucer’s time the works 
of the principal Greek and Arabic writers, having been 
translated into Latin, found their way into this country, 
and so formed the basis of that art which now (cleared 
of the superstitions in which it was formerly embedded) 
stands pre-eminently forward as one of the greatest 
blesses of civilization. About the period of the 
‘Canterbury Tales, these superstitions existed in full 
vigour. A physician who was no astronomer would 
then have been looked upon, we presume, as a quack 
of modern days ; ignorance, in both cases, of the know- 
ledge indispensable to the successful cultivation of the 
art being presumed. Thus we find that Hugo de 
Evesham (of Worcestershire), who studied not only at 
both the universities of England, but subsequently at 
those of France and Italy also, and who became the 
most famous physician of his day—he too, we find it 
recorded, was scarcely less distinguished for his ma- 
thematics and astronomy. Again, his great contempo- 
rary Roger Bacon, far-sighted, and singularly unpre- 
Judiced to existing opinions as he was, remarks, in his 
‘Opus Major,’ that astronomy is the better part of me- 
dicine. Charles V. of France, who directed his every 
movement by the advice of his astrologers, established 
a college of medicine and astrology in the univeisity 
of Paris. In the continuation of the ‘Canterbury 
Tales,’ before referred to, under the title of the ‘ Tale 
of Beryn,’ we find a surgical operation on the eyes 
performed by the assistance of the occult sciences. 


“ The whole science of all surgery 
Was undyd, or the chaunge was made of hoth eye 
With many sotill euchantours and eke negrymauncers 
That sent were for the nonis,* maistris and scoleris.” 


Lastly, we may observe that Persia, even to this day, 
abounds with physicians and astrologers; and a Per- 
sian rarely follows the prescriptions of the one class 
without first ascertaining from the other that the con- 
stellations are favourable to the proposed remedy. Yet 
we must not suppose, aiter all, that our ancient phy- 
sicians relied on the virtue of these heavenly in- 
fluences, to the neglect of more substantial medical 
knowledge or skill. Chaucer’s ‘ Doctor of Physic,’ for 
instance, besides being so well ‘ grounded in astro- 
nomy ’— 


“ Knew the cause of every malady, 
Were it of coid or hot, or moist or dry, 
And where engendered and of what humoZr: 
He was a very perfect practisour. 
The cause yknow,} and of his harm the rote 
Anon he gave to the sick man his bote.?t 
Full ready had he his apothecaries 
To send him druggés and his lectuaries ; 
For each of them made other for to win: 
Their friendship was not newé to begin.” 


Dr. Freind, in his ‘History of Physic,’ gives still 
more einphatic testimony to the same effect. He says, 
“Though we find the people of that age had great faith 

* Nones—occasion, — - 


+ Known, ; Remedy, 


1841.] 


in charms and other empirical applications, yet the 
general practice was carried on chicfly in the rational 
way, as 1t had been delivered down from the Grecks.” 
Ts subject receives further illustration from the de- 
scription Chaucer gives us of the doctor’s library : 


“ Well knew he the old Esculapius, 
And Dioscorides, and eke Rufus; 
Old Hippocras, Hali, and Gallien, 
Serapion, Rhasis, and Avicen, 
Averroes, Damascene, and Constantine, 
Bernard, and Gatisden, and Gilbertine.” 


Of these authors, we need say nothing respecting 
old Esculapius, Hippocrates, Galen, or Dioscorides; 
as to the others, Warton, in his ‘History of Poetry,’ 
aud Dr. Freind, furnish some not uninteresting parti- 
culars. Rufus, a physician of Ephesus, wrote in Greek, 
about the tine of Trajan. Haly was a famous Arabic 
astronomer, andacommentator on Galen, in the cleventh 
century, which produced so many famous Arabian 
physicians, among others John Serapion, who wrote 
on the practice of physic, and Avicen, the most emi- 
neut of the number. Rhasis, an Asiatic physician, 
practised at Cordova in Spain, where he diced in the 
tenth century. Averroes, as the Asiatic schools de- 
cayed by the indolence of the caliphs, was one of those 
philosophers who adorned the Moorish schools erected 
in Africa and Spain. He wasa professor in the- uni- 
versity of Morocco. John Damascene was secretary 
to one of the caliphs; he wrote on various scicnces 
before the Arabians had entered Europe, and had seen 
the Grecian philosophers. Constantinus A fer, a monk of 
Cassino in Italy, was one of the Saracen physicians who 
brought medicine into Europe, aud formed the Salerni- 
tan school (the first of the kind established in Europe), 
chiefly by translating various Arabian and Greeian 
medical books into Latin. His history is peculiarly 
interesting. He was born at Carthage, and learned 
grammar, logic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and 
natural plilosophy of the Chaldees, Arabians, Persians, 
Saracens, Egyptians, and Indians, in the schools of 
Bagdad. Being thus completely accomplished in these 
sciences, after thirty-nine years of study he returned 
into Africa, where an aitempt was formed against his 
life. Constantine, having fortunately discovered this 
design, privately took ship, and came to Salerno in 
Italy, where he lurked some time in disguise. But he 
was recognised by the Caliph’s brother, then at Sa- 
lerno, who recommended him as a scholar universally 
skilled in the learning of all nations, to the notice of 
Robert, duke of Normandy. Robert entertained him 
with the highest marks of respect ; and Constantine, by 
the advice of his patron, retired to the monastery of 
Cassino, where, being kindly received by the Abbot 
Desiderius, he translated in that learned society the 
books above mentioned, inost of which he first imported 
into Hurope. These versions are said to be still ex- 
tant. We flourished about the year 1086. 

Bernard, or Bernardus Gordonius, appears to have 
been Chaucer's contemporatory. He was a Professor 
of Medicine at Montpelier, and wrote many treatises 
on the art. ¥5 

John Gatisden was a fellow of Merton College, 
where Chaucer was cducated, about the year 1320. 
Dr. Freind gives an interesting account of him.* He 
was the author ofa famous medical work called ‘ Rosa 
Anglia; and though, to confess the truth, he was not 
much better than an empiric, yet he scems to be one of 
the best in that way, and manages his affairs with ereat 
address. Ife was, as it appears from his own writings, 
ingenious enough to see through the foibles of human 
nature; he could form a good judgment how far nian- 


* Vol. ii, p. 277-292. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


231 


kind could be imposed upon, and never failed to make 
his advantage of their credulity. He is very artful in 
laying baits for the delicate, for the ladies, for the rich. 
For the former he has such a tenderness that he eon- 
descends to instruct them even in perfumes and washes, 
especially some to dye their hair; and such a respect 
for the latter, that he 1s always studying to invent some 
of the most select and dearest medicines for them.” 
He was also a poet. Scarce a page of his works but 
he quotes the verses of others or inserts his own. He 
was the first Englishman employed at court as a pliy- 
sician, and had the care of the king’sson (a son of either 
Edward I, or Edward IT.) in the small-pox. Here he 
played his game very well; and to show his skill in in- 
flammatory disorders, he, with a proper formality and 
a countenance of much importance, ordered the pa- 
tient to be wrapped in scarlet, and everything about 
the bed to be red; no doubt the room was hung In the 
same manner. This he says made him recover, with- 
out so much as leaving one mark upon his face. When- 
ever a scrofulous case does not submit to the sovereign 
remedies, such as the blood of a weazle or doves’-dung, 
he exhorts the person immediately to apply to the king 
for the royal touch. Ie acquaints us with his great 
skill in physiognoiny; and did design, if God would 
geive him life and leisure, to write a treatise of chiro- 
mancy, or fortune-telling. 

“Gilbertine, I suppose,” says Warson, “is Gilbertus 
Anglicus, who flourished in the thirteenth century, and 
wrote a popular compendium of the art, and was the 
first of his countrymen who enjoyed any repute in that 
way.” 

The distinction of the three regular orders into which 
the profession is now divided, was also known in 
Chaucer’s time, as we percelve froin the preceding 
pasgages, where it 1s stated that there were none lke 
his doctor in the world to speak of physic or of surgery, 
and that he had his apothecartes full ready to send hun 
his drugs. His very title also shows that degrees were 
eranted thus early to proficients in medical education. 
That of Bachelor of Physic appears to have been con- 
ferred in Oxford soon after the Conquest. The re- 
mainder of Chaucer’s description is occupied with 
those personal traits which exlibit the individual, as 
well as the class, so vividly, that it 1s impossible to 
avoid coming to the conclusion that Chaucer, hke all 
other great painters, drew to a certain extent from the 
life. Could that sly bit of-satire, ‘his study was but 
little in the Bible,” have crept into the place it occupies, 
but that the fact caught the poet's eye as he glanced 
over the habits and person of the lving Doctor of 
Physic, who stood before him unsuspicious of the 1m- 
mortality that awaited him? 

“ Of his ciét neasfrable was he, 
For it was of no superfluity, 
But of great nourishing, and digestible. 
His study was but little in the Bible. 
In sanguine and in perse he clad was all, 
Lined with taffeta and eke sandal; 
And yet he was but easy of dispence, 
He kepté that he won im the pestilence : 
For gold in physic is a cordial ; 
Therefore he loved gold in special.” 


The wit of this last couplet is enhanced by our know- 
ledge of the truth of the notion on which it 1s founded. 
The great philosopher before mentioned, Bacon, gives 
broad hints, in his work ‘ On the Accidents of Old Age,’ 
about a tincture of gold which might contribute greatly 
to prolong life; and he recites a remarkable story of 
an old Sicilian ploughman, who, by drinking greedily 
of a yellowish stream (which our author suspects was 
impregnated with gold), grew young again, and lived 
many years in full vigour. 

The dress of “sanguine” and ‘“perse” is illustrated 


232 


in the Sutherland manuscript by a surcoat of bright 
purple, and a blue hood covering the head and extend- 
ing low down upon the shoulders, deeply furred with 
white. His stoekings are also of bright purple. The 
Doctor is here represented as pondering over the con- 
tents of a large phial. 





THE THERMOMETER. 


In the Monthly Supplements of our Jast year’s volume, 
among the meteorological phenomena recorded in the 
almanac, are the average indications of the thermome- 
ter for each month; thus, in October, we find 1t stated 
that the mean temperature 1s 42°9°, the highest 62°, and 
the lowest 23°. We will endeavour to give a popular 
account of the phenomena involved in these indica- 
tions of the thermometer; in the same manner as we 
lately did with respect to the barometer. 

It may naturally be supposed, that before we can un- 
derstand the action of a heat-measurer (which is the 
precise meaning of the word ‘ thermometer’), we ought 
to be familiar with the nature of the thing measured. 
But the truth is, that notwithstanding the investiga- 
tions and experiments made by men of science, we 
know but little respecting heat except by its effects. 
Some think that it is a very subtle and attenuated 
fluid, capable of passing out of one substance into 
another; while others suppose it to be merely a vibra- 
tion or intestinal motion among the particles of which 
bodies consist. We may therefore at once pass over 
this matter, as one still in dispute, with the remark 
that so far as popular notions are concerned, it seems 
inost convenient to deem heat a fluid capable of trans- 
ference from body to body. 

Of the various effects which heat exerts on ordinary 
substances, some are familiar to us m our every-day 
experience, and others are only manifested by the 
careful experiments of philosophers; but the only 
effect which need be considered 11 this article is that 
of expansion,or that property by which a body enlarges 
in bulk according as its temperature becomes higher, 
or, iN common parlance, according as 1t has more heat 
init. This 1s the property on which the action of the 
thermometer depends. 

If we have a small cylinder of metal which, when 
cold, precisely fits imto a hole in another piece of 
metal, the cylinder, when heated, will no longer enter 
the hole or tube, the diameter having been increased 
by the process of heating. Or if we have an iron ball 
which, when cold, will just pass through a ring, the 
ball will not do so when heated. The extent of expan- 
sion 1s very small, so as not to be perceived unless the 
apparatus be accurately made ; but, so far as it goes, 
it 18 an wnerring and inevitable effect. How it is 
brought about we do not know; but it would appear 
that the particles of metal are driven farther asunder 
by the accession of heat. If we have a bar of cast-iron 
at the temperature of the freezing-point, or 32°, and 
then heat 1t to the temperature of boiling water, @.e. 
212°, its length will be inereased about one-thousandth 
part of the whole; if it were of silver, the elongation 
would be about a five-hundredth part; and if of lead, 
a three-hundred and fiftieth; different metals pos- 
as different expansive powers by the effect of 
leat. 

But when we come to the case of liquids, we find 
that, not only do they expand by heat, but that they do 
so toa much greater extent than solids. Thus, mer- 
cury, when raised from 32° to 212°, expands about a 
fiftieth part, or fifty parts become fifty-one by the 
effect of the increase of heat; water expands about a 
twenty-eighth part; and alcohol about a ninth part. 
The last is a very extraordinary example, indicating 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[June 12, 


that nine pints (or any other measure) of alcohol be- 
come ten by this increase of temperature. 

Now it is found that, other things being equal, any 
given substance, say a piece of iron, will resume Its 
former dimensions when the additional amount of 
heat which has been imparted to it is withdrawn; and 
this proceeds on such an invariable rule, that the 
enlargement of bulk in a heated body. becomes an In- 
dex of the increase of temperature to which it has been 
exposed. If the body be a liquid, the change of bulk, 
being larger in ratio, is more perceptible. The way 
in which this property becomes useful to man may be 
thus illustrated. Suppose that in the process of brew- 
ing it be found that fermentation goes on more favour- 
ably at one degree of heat than at any other either 
higher or lower. The brewer wishes to take a note, to 
make a memorandum, by which he may produce that 
same favourable temperature at a future brewing. 
How is he to effect this? The colour, the odour, the 
weight, if influenced at all, would be so to an extent 
too slight for his purpose. But let us imagine that he 
has a piece of any substance, say asmetal rod, so sus- _ 
ceptible to the influence of heat, that the length would 
be sensibly increased by the addition of a little of that 
agent. He might devise means for ascertaining Its 
length when immersed in water at the freezmg tem- 
perature, and also at the boiling temperature; and 
likewise when immersed in the fermentmg hquor at a 
medium temperature; and might thenceforward use 
the metal rod as an indicator of the fermenting tem- 
perature ; inferring that when the malt lquor 1s so 
heated as to give such and such a length to the iron 
rod immersed in it, that heat is the proper one for the 
process of fermentation. | 

We may suppose some such ideas as these to have 
passed through the mind of the philosopher who first 
constructed a thermometer; and that, knowing the 
superior expansibility of liquids, he next thought of 
using a liquid as the heat-measuring instrument. In 
the beginning of the seventeenth century, we hear of 
a thermometer being made, not indeed of liquid,- but 
of air confined in a glass tube. Air, in being heated 
from 32° to 212°, increases its bulk about 37% per cent., 
and therefore furnishes a still more conspicuous 1n- 
stance of expansion than liquids; but there are various 
rcasons why air is not suited for such a purpose. 

The first successful attempt to make a thermometer 
in which the expansible body should be a hquid, seems 
to have emanated from the Florentine academicians, 
who employed spirits of wine in the following manner : 
—A tube connected with a bulb was heated so as 
to expel a portion of air; and the open end of the 
tube was immersed in spirits of wine, which, as the 
bulb cooled, was forced up by atmospheric pressure 
into the stem and bulb. The bulb was then held 
downwards, and a flame applied to it, so as to boil the 
spirits and drive the remaining air from the tube. 
While the vapour was issuing from the end of the tube, 
the flame of a blow-pipe was applied to it, by which 
the glass was fused, and the end closed. The bulb and 
part of the tube were thus filled with spirits of wine, 
the upper portion of the tube being nearly a vacuum. 
Whenever, then, this glass vessel was exposed to va- 
rious heats, either in liquids or in the open air, the 
spirit enlarged or contracted its bulk, as the case 
might be, and therefore occupied a greater or less 
height than before in the tube. The constructors made — 
a mark to indicate the height to which the spirit rose 
when exposed to the cold of snow, and another mark, 
higher up, when exposed to the summer heat of }lo- 
rence; and these two marks thus served in some mea- 
sure as a guide. 

FTo be continued.) 





1841.} 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


233 


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At top—View of Worcester, from an old print. The battle was fought on the foreground “meadows. 
Parliamentary Soldiers; designed from various contemporary vortraits of Charles I., Harrison, Lilburne, Bradshaw, and others. 
old wooden house, in the Corn-Market, Worcester, in which Charies lodged, 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT EVENTS. 


BATTLE OF WORCESTER. 


Tue battle of Worcester, gained by Cromwell, Sep- 
tember 3, 1651, 1s one of those points in English his- 
tory from which may be conveniently taken a view 
both retrospective and prospective of a period of the 
very highest interest and importance. Looking to the 
events anterior to but connected with the Battle of 
Worcester, we find Charles I., who succeeded his 
father in 1625, attempting to govern without the aid 
of parliaments, and in 1634 he issued writs, directing 
the sheriffs of the different counties to collect from 
each of the inhabitants, according to their means, a 


No. DY]. 





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In the centre, the flight of Charles before the 
At the bottom, the 


sum of money for the equipment of ships for the king's 
service. This tax, known by the name of ship-money, 
was at first generally paid, though known to be illegal. 
John Hampden, a gentleman of fortune and good 
family in Buckinghamshire, an earnest lover of liberty 
and a true patriot, he alone brought the question be- 
fore the courts of law. The judges were weak enough 
to assert that the king could, by his own royal autho- 
rity, levy that or any other tax. The question was 
heneeforth to be decided in the field. The royalists 
were beaten at Edge Hill, in 1642; at Marston Moor, 
in 1644; and lastly, at Naseby, in 1645. In England 
they never rallied in the field after the flight froin 
Naseby: and in less than five years, namely, on the 


Wood, eal 


2o-t 


30th of January, 1649, the king was beheaded at 
Whitehall. | 

Charles II. was residing at the IIague at the period 
of his father’s execution. His friends in Eugland 
were suffering under confiscations and imprison- 
ment, and the royalist party, which had engaged with 
such high spirit in the cause of the late king, was 
broken and subdued. Many an antient family which 
had lived peacefully in the enjoyment of its broad pos- 
sessions since the wars of the Roses, was now, as 
Clarendon states, glad to compound for one half of 
their estates by giving up the other half, The young 
kine was, however, proclaimed in Scotland and in 
Treland. In the latter country a rebellion was excited 
against the authority of the parhament, which was put 
down in the spring of 1650 by Cromwell. The state 
of parties in Scotland led to some important move- 
ments on behalf of the royal exule. They had pro- 
claimed his accession as soon as his father’s death was 
known, but it was not until June, 1650, that he landed 
in Scotland. An army was raised in Scotland, which 
prepared to march over the border. On the 3rd of 
September, Cromwell defeated the Scots army at Dun- 
har, and the king was forced to withdraw into the 
Hiechlands. Charles and his adherents again col- 
lected an army, and took up a strong position near 
Stirling, receiving supplies from the Highlands; but 
Cromwell laid siege to Perth, intending to prevent 
the Highlanders sending supplies either of men or 
provisions to Stirling. The king, with the advice of 
us council, now determined upon the bold step of 
marching into England, and this resolution was exe- 
cuted withso much secrecy and expedition, that Charles, 
who was previously so much nearer England, had 
marched a whole day without Cromwell being able to 
understand the nature of his movements. When he 
did see their object, it was difficult to determine the 
course to be pursued. “ If he tollowed with his whole 
army, all the advantages he had got 1n Scotland would 
be presently lost. . . ‘If he followed but with 
part, he might be too weak when he overtook the king; 
whose army, he knew, would bear the fatigne of a long 
march better than his could do so.”* His situation 
Was a critical one, but his resolution was quickl 
taken. He despatched an express to the Parliament 
to prevent their being surprised with the news of 
Charles’s advance; Lambert, the Parliamentary gene- 
ral, was 1mmediately despatched with a body of horse, 
with directions to hang on the rear of the king’s army 
and to disturb and harass it; and Monk being leit with 
some troops to keep things quiet in Scotland, Crom- 
well began his own march three days after the king was 
fone. 

Both armies advanced with the greatest rapidity. 
The king, on approaching Shrewsbury, summoned 1i 
to surrender, but this demand being firmly denied, the 
army marched towards Worcester, a city which had 
been well affected to the late king, and was one of the 
last to surrender to the Parhament. The principal 
eentry of the county were at the time prisoners in the 
‘ity, but on the king’s approach all those who were 
employed by the Parliament fled, and the gates of the 
city were opened to Charles by his friends, who were 
now restored to their liberty. Here the wants of the 
army were relieved, and good quarters provided for 
them after the fatigue of so long and harassing a 
march. Cromwell had proceeded by the nearest way 
towards London, and the two armies were about an 
equal distance from the capital. Clarendon thus speaks 
of the advantages of Worcester in that day as a mili- 
tary position :—‘ It was avery good post, seated almost 
in the middle of the kingdom, and in as fruitful a 
country a3 any part of it; a good city, served by the 

* Clarendon, book xiil., p. 535. 


city 


THE PERANY 


MAGAZINE. [June 19, 
river of Severn from all the adjacent counties; Wales 
behind it, from whence levies might be made of great 
numbers of stout men: it was a place where the king's 
friends might repair, if they had the affections they 
pretended to have; and it was a place where he mignt 
defend himself, if the cnemy would attack him, with 
many advantages, and could not be compelled to en- 
gaee his army in a battle till Cromwell had got men 
enough to encompass him on all sides; and then the 
king might choose on which side to fight, since the 
enemy must be on both sides the river, and could not 
come suddenly to relieve each other, and the straiten- 
ing the king to this degree would require much time, 
in which there might be an opportunity for several in 
surrections in the kingdom, if they were so weary of 
the present tyranny and so solicitous to be restored to 
the king’s government as they were conceived to be: 
for nobody could ever hope ior a more secure season 
to manifest their loyalty than when the king was in the 
heart of the kingdom, with a formed army of about 
fifteen thousand men, horse and foot (for so they might 
be accounted to be), with which he might relieve those 
who were in danger to be oppressed by a more power- 
ful party. These considerations produced the resolu- 
tion to provide in the best manner to expect Cromwell 
there; and a hope that he might be delayed by other 
diversions: and there was like to be time enough to 
cast np such works upon the hill before the town as 
might keep the enemy at a distance, and their own 
quarters from being suddenly straitened: all which 
were recommended to General Lesley to take care of, 
and to take such a perfect view of the ground that no 
advantage might be lost when the time required it.” 

Few or none of the English gentry rallied round the 
royal standard. There was at the same time little 
unanimity between the officers of the royal army; and 
news had been received of the deieat of the Earl of 
Derby, who had remained to recruit the king’s forces 
in Cheshire and Lancashire. These reverses, and any 
other untoward circumstances, instead of rendering the 
royalist generals more united, and more urgent in 
establishing order amongst their troops quartered in 
the city and in raising the necessary works for its de- 
fence, seem rather to have paralysed them, so that 
little was done to improve the natural advantages of 
their position. 

The king had been several days in Worcester when 
Cromwell was known to be within less than half a 
day’s march. His army was increased by large rein- 
forcements, particularly of cavalry and the militia of 
different counties. He did not trouble himself to be- 
siege the place, but, as Clarendon says, “ marched on 
directly as to a prey,” and quickly made himself master 
of all the strong points which commanded the city, m 
which he met with very little opposition. On the 3rd 
of September he directed his troops to fall on in all 
places at once; the royalists were soon in confusion ; 
the resistance which was attempted by some of thei, 
however gallant, being totally ineffectual. They were 
in fact thoroughly defeated, and it was with the greatest 
difficulty that the king made his escape. The account 
of his concealment at Boscobel House, and some par- 
ficulars relating to his adventures while he remained 
a fugitive in the kingdom, will be found in a former 
Number (522). He never visited England again until 
his Restoration. 

The battle of Worcester, which Cromwell, in the 
language of that day, termed his “ crowning mercy,” 
was fought on the anniversary of bis victory at Dunbar. 
From this period he advanced to the supreme power 
by overcoming the factions into which the anti-royahst 
party itself was divided. On the 20th of April, 1653, 
he dissolved the Long Parliament, and took the govern- 
-ment into his own hands. 


1841 ] 


de DISSEMINATION OFTHE SEEDS OF 
7PLANT®S. 


Aw early volume (the fourth) of Brande’s ‘ Quarterly 
Journal of Science’ contains an interesting article, by 
M. Mirbel, upon the modes in which the spontaneous 
dissemination of plants is accomplished: a few re- 
marks upon this subject, taken from that paper, and 
froma other sources, will probably prove interesting to 
our readers. 

The beautiful processes going on within the floral 
envelope of a plant for the maturation of its seeds 
would often seem objectless, unless adequate means 
for their dispersion existed. That this is effected, the 
constant and regular re-appearance of the countless 
races of the vegetable world attest; but since spon- 
taneous movements have been denied to plants, and 
man’s Immediate agency is but very limited, other 
causes of extensive operation must exist. Of these 
one of the most prominent is the wonderful fecundity 
of plants. Ray counted 32,000 seeds in the heads of 
one poppy-plant, and 360,000 on one tobacco-plant. 
Dodort ‘mentions an elm which produced 529,000 
Seeds. Yet none of these vegetables are among the 
foremost in degree of fecundity. The number of seeds 
borne by a plant of Begonia or Vanilla, but above all 
by a fern, confounds calculation. But, as Linneeus 
observes, supposing any annual plant produced only 
two seeds yearly, even of this, after twenty years, there 
would be 1,048,576 individuals. The great longevity 
of many seeds tends to the same end, for although 
some descriptions soon spoil, and hence require to be 
sown as soon as ripe, the greater proportion will pre- 
serve the germinating faculty for years, and even for 
ages. Professor Lindley observes that this would 
seem chiefly to depend on the degree of protection the 
integuinents of the seed afford it; for, as gardeners 
well know, it is impossible to preserve very delicate 
seeds with thinskins more than a few weeks or months, 
so, on the other hand, hard horny seeds will germinate 
after the lapse of a very long portion of time. ‘“ When 
land is cleared, or ancient ditches emptied, or earth 
broken up to a considerable depth, as in well-digging, 
it not unfrequently happens that plants spring from 
the mould, whose seeds must have been buried for 
many years or ages.” Horne sowed with success 
barley that had been gathered a hundred and fifty 
years. Wheat has been discovered in subterraneous 
hoards, which had been lost and forgotten for time out 
of mind, in as perfect a state as the day it was reaped. 
Melon seeds have grown after forty-one years, Indian 
wheat after thirty years, rye after forty years, sensitive 
plants after sixty years, and kidney beans taken from 
Tournefort’s Herbarium a hundred years after they 
were gathered. 

Seeds thus abundantly produced and securely pre- 
served are scattered abroad by various agencies, not 
only in this manner filling up voids which would 
otherwise exist, but also preventing that barrenness 
and impoverishment which occur when they are accu- 
mulated in great numbers within too narrow a com- 
pass. 1. The force of, the air or wind is a principal 
one among such agencies, and several circumstances 
in the structure of plants favour its operation: thus 
they are elevated and as it were exposed to its action 
upon stalks, while the seed-capsules open usually at 
the apex. And as to the seeds themselves, many of 
them are almost as fine and as volatile as the pollen or 
dust of the anther itself, and thus no place can be closed 
to the access of the fungi producing mouldiness, trans- 
ported by the winds. Heavier seeds are supported by 
Wines, which also waft them along. The sced-vessel 
of the elm 1s surrounded by a circular membranous 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 235 


long. ‘The seed-vesseis of the maple have two large 
side-wings ; those of the fir, the cedar, and the larch 
are furnished with a wing of great fineness. The 
seeds of syngeneseous plants are furnished with a 
feathery crown or aigrette, and look like small shuttle- 
eocks. The separate threads that compose this aigrette 
distending as they dry, serve as levers to lift the seed 
from the involucre that holds it, and, when out, asa 
parachute to prevent it coming to the ground, and to 
buoy itin the air. A famihar and beautiful example 
presents itself in the seeds of the thistle and dandelion 
sailing along supported by their little tufts. Linnaeus 
suspects that the Erigeron Canadense came through 
the air from America to Europe. The little cord 
which attaches the seeds of the dog’s-bane, swallow- 
wort, periploca, &c. to their receptacles, and the calyx 
of several of the valerians and scabies, form elegant 
algrettes. Sceds may be carried by eddies of wind 
very far from the spot where they originally grew. 
Whirlwinds have been known to scatter over the 
southern coast of Spain those that had ripened on the 
northern coasts of Africa. . 

2. The waters are another great means for the trans- 
portation of seeds. Those of them whose capsules are 
firmly closed may be carried immense distances by 
torrents and rivers, or by the sea itself. Cocoa-nuis, 
cashew-nuts, and the pods of the mimosa scandens, 
sometimes of the length of two yards, with many other 
fruits of the tropical regions, are cast upon the shores 
of Norway, in a state to vegetate did the climate 
permit. Regular currents transport the large double 
cocoa-nut of the Sechelles to the coast of Malabar, at 
the distance of four hundred leagues from whence it 
was produced. Fruits brought by the sea have some- 
times discovered the existence of unknown lands to 
the windward. By such tokens Columbus, in the 
search for the American continent, was apprised that 
he was not far distant from the land of which he had 
prognosticated the existence. Linnzeus has some in- 
teresting observations upon this subject. “In Lap- 
land we see the most evident proofs how far rivers 
contribute to deposit the seeds of plants. I have seen 
Alpine plants growing on the shores frequently 
thirty-six miles distant from the Alps...... The cen- 
taury is a German plant, whose seeds being carried by 
the wind into the sea, the waves landed this foreigner 
upon the coasts of Sweden... .. Many have imagined, 
but erroneously, that seed corrupts in water, and loses 
its principle of vegetation. Water at the bottom of 
the sea is seldom warm enough to destroy seeds ;. we 
have seen water cover the surface of a field for a whole 
winter, while the seed which it contained remained 
unhurt, unless at the beginning of spring the waters 
were let down so low by drains that the warmth of the 
sun-beams reached to the bottom ; then the seeds ger- 
inated, but presently became putrescent; so that for 
the rest of the year the earth remains naked and 
barren. Rain and showers carry seeds into the cracks 
of the earth; streams and rivers, which last, convey- 
ing them to a distance from their native places, plant 


them in a foreign soul.” 


3. Animals co-operate in an extensive degree in the 
dispersion of the seeds of plants. The squirrel and 
cross-bill are both very fond of the seed of the fir; to 
open the scales of the cones, they strike them against 
stones, and thus set free and disperse the seed. Birds 
swallow the berries, of which they digest only the pulp, 
but void the stones entire and ready to germinate. 
It is thus that the thrush and other birds deposit the 
seed of the misletoe on the trees where it is found; 
and indeed, destitute as this is of wings or aigrettes, it 
could not be disseminated in any other way, for it will 
not grow on the ground. The pocan or poke of Vir- 


Wing; that of the ash is terminated by one that is ob- | ginia (Phytolacea decandra), which was introduced by 


2rl 2 


236 THE PENNY 
the monks of Corbonnieux into the neighbourhood of 
Bordeaux, for the sake of colouring the wine, has been 
since disseminated by the birds throughout the south- 
ern departments of France and in the deepest valleys 
of the Pyrenees. The Dutch, with the view of mo- 
nopolising the trade of nutmegs, extirpated the trees 
on those islands which they could not watch so nar- 
rowly as the rest; but in a short time these very 
islands were re-stocked with nutmeg-trees by the 
birds, as if nature refused to ‘admit of such an encroach- 
ment on her rights. Granivorous quadrupeds disse- 
ininate the seeds they do not digest. The newly manur- 
ing a field will cause innumerable weeds to spring up, 
which did not exist there before. The hoards of fruits 
or seeds (for fruits are but the envelopes of seeds) 
which various animals make, such as crows, rats, 
dormice, &c., are frequently forgotten, or, by the 
destruction of the animal, neglected and lying dormant 
where they were placed during the winter, germinate 
inthe spring. The fruit of the prickly-seeded scor- 
pion-grass, of clovers or goose-grass, of the wood-sa- 
nicle, are all provided with small hooks by which they 
lay hold of the fleeces of sheep, cattle, &c., and are 
thus carried with them. Linnzus enumerates no less 
than fifty genera armed in this way. 

There are particular plants, such as the pellitory of 
the wall, the nettle, and the sorrel, that may be said to. 
seek the society of man, and actually to haunt his 
footsteps. They spring up along the wall of the vil- 
lage, and even in the streets of the city; they follow 
the shepherd, and chmb the loftiest mountain with 
him. ‘“ When young,” says M. Mirbel, “I accom- 
paiied M. Ramond in his excursions in the Pyrenees, 
where that learned naturalist more than once pointed 
out to me these deserters from the plains below ; they 
grew onthe remains of ruined hovels, where they 
kept their station in spite of the severity of the win- 
ters, and remained as memorials to attest the former 
presence of man and his flocks.” 

4. Seeds often assist as 1t were in their own dis- 
persion. In the balsam, the catchfly, fraxinella, sand- 
box-tree, &c., the valves of the seed-vessels open with 
a spring that projects the contents to a distance from 
the parent plant. The gourd of the squirting cucum- 
ber, by a contraction which takes place at the moment 
of its fall, darts out the seed along with a corrosive 
fluid by a vent formed as it quits the stalk. The pouch 
which contains the seed of the wood-sorrel, on the ter- 
mination of its growth, bursts, and shoots out the seeds 
by an elastic movement. Among the mushroom tribes, 
some of the species of peziza impart a vibratory mo- 
tion to the cap or cover which bears their seed when 
thatis ripe. Puff-balls burst at the top like the crater 
ofa volcano ; and the seed is in such quantity,and so 
fine, that when it escapes it has the appearance of a 
voliune of smoke. The capsules of ferns, contracted 
while ripening, open with a spring. A like cause 
gives motion to the cilia or inner fringe which sur- 
rounds the urns or seed-vessels of mosses. Linnaeus 
enumerates fifty genera whose seeds are dispersed by 
some of the means to which we have just alluded. 
Ife also mentions another very remarkable mode in 
which they sometimes assist their projection. “The 
crupina, a species of centaury, has its seeds covered 
with erect bristles, by whose ‘assistance it creeps and 
moves about in such a manner, that it is by no means 
to be kept in the hand. If the bearded-oat after har- 
vest be left with other grains in the barn, it extricates 
itseHt from the glume. Hence the Dalecarlian, after 
he has cut and carried it into the barn, in a few days 
finds all the glumes empty, and the oats separate from 
them ; the spiral arista or beard of the oat is contracted 
in wet and extended in dry weather ; when it is con- 


tracted, it drags the oat along with it, for as this is| 


MAGAZINE. [ J uae. 
bearded with minute hairs pointing downward, the 
grain necessarily follows it. The seeds of the equisetum 
or fern, viewed upon paper through a microscope, 


‘seem to be endowed with a description of leaping 


movement.” 

Distances, chains of mountains, rivers, the sea itself, 
are unavailing barriers to the migration of seed. 
Climate alone can set bounds to the dispersion of the 
vegetable races. In process of time it is probable 
that most of the plants which grow within the same 
parallel of latitude will be common to all the coun- 
tries comprised’ in the entire zone of it; an event 
which would be one of the great blessings resulting 
from the industry and persevering intercourse of 
civilised nations. “But no human power will ever 
force the vegetable of the tropics to endure the climate 
of the poles, nor vice versi. Here nature is too strong 
for man. Species cannot spontaneously spread them- 
selves from one pole to the other, the intermediate dif- 
ferences of temperature preventing such progress; 
but we may assist in transporting them, as we have 
done successfully in various instances. We have 
already transplanted the eucalypti, the metrosidera, 
the mimosas, the casuarinz, and other plants of Aus- 
tralia into our own soil, while the gardens of Botany 
Bay are stocked with the fruit-trees of Europe. A 
similar mutual interchange of the vegetable produc- 
tions always promotes the progress of that civilization 
of which it 1s one of the effects. 

M. Mirbel concludes his paper with the following 
passage :— 

“The dissemination of seeds completes the round ot 
vegetation. The shrub and the tree are bared of their 
foliage: the herb is dried up, and returns to the earth 
from which it came. That earth appears to us as if 
stripped for ever of her gay attire, yet countless germs 
await but the stated season to re-adorn her with verdure 
and bloom. Such is the prodigal fertilty of nature, 
that a surface a thousand times the extent of that of 
our whole globe would not suffice for the seed-harvest 
of a single year, provided the whole was suffered to 
re-appear; but the destruction of seed is endless, and 
only a small portion escapes to rise again. In no way 
in our view are the power of nature and the immuta- 
bility of its laws more strikingly displayed than in the 
successive resurrections of the types of bygone gene- 
tions.” | ; / 


Beauty of Shells—We admit that shells are beautiful, and 
that they are admirably adapted to the exigences of the wearers ; 
but how shall we account for the eudless diversity of shades ancl 
colours, varying from the sober coating of the garden snail, to 
the delicate and glowing tints which are diffused over some of 
the finer species, in the infinite profusion of undulations, clouds 
and spots, bands and reticulated figures, with which these ad- 
mirable architects enrich the walls of their beautiful receptacles. 
The means of producing them must be sought for in the animals 
themselves. Their necks are furnished with pores replete with 
colouring fluid, which blends insensibly with the calcareous ex- 
udation already noticed, and thus occasions that exquisite va- 
riety in their testaceous coverings, which art attempts to emu- 
late, but can never fully equal. Thus far is the result of 
observation and experiment. It now remains to account for the 
extraordinary fact that the stony exudations of testaceous animals 
condense only on those parts where they are essential to their 
welfare. But here investigation ends—fhe microscope has done 
its office. It seems as if maternal nature delighted to baffle the 
wisdom of her sons, and to say to the proud assertors of the sufii- 
ciency of human reason for comprehending the mysteries of crea- 
tion and of Providence, “Thus far can you go, and no farther ; 
even in the formation of a shell, or its insigniticant inhabitant, 
your arrogant pretensions are completely humbled.”—The Con- 
chologist’s Companion, by Mary Loberts. 





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a, Wild Boar; b,old unimproved breed; ¢, black or wire-haired breed: a, Bow of the 1mproved breed 3 e,scw and young of improved breed ; 
J, Suffolk breed; g, Chinese breed] 


THE HOG. 


As is the case with all our domesticated animals, 
the hog has undergone various modifications of size 
and contour, and has diverged into different breeds 
(the consequence of judicious selections by the 
breeder, and of different modes of feeding). 

It cannot be doubted that the wild hog, once com- 
mon in our island, and still abundant in many districts 
of continental Europe and Asia, is the origin of our 
domestic race, at least if we except the Chinese 
breed, which some naturalists, and among them Fred. 
Cuvier, consider to be derived from a distinct stock. 

The wild hog, when fully grown, is a formidable 
animal; and its strength and ferocity render it more 


The savage nature of the wild race is by no means 
extinct in the domestic breed: we have seen boars 
and aged sows which it was dangerous to approach, 
and we have known instances in which they have 
attacked and wounded even the persons who attended 
to them. In the New Forest, where troops of seml- 
domesticated hogs, closely approaching the wild race 
in form, wander at large, these animals display great 
activity and spirit; they resolutely defend themselves 
against dogs, and when excited are even ready to rush 
upon any person who ventures too near them. The 
doz scems to rouse the anger of the hog more than 
any animal; and this more particularly when the hog 
is only semi-domesticated, as in the New Forest or 
in the woods of Sweden. Mr. Lloyd, in his ‘ Field 


than a match for the strongest dog in single combat. ! Sports,’ particularly alludes to this circumstance, and 


238 THE PENNY 
describes the ficrceness and resolution of the Swedish 
hogs, which, whenever they caught sight of his dogs, 
rushed upon them ; and on one occasion, when he with 
sone difficulty saved a brace of pointers from an mfurl- 
ated sow, he was himself placed in great jeopardy ; she 
resolutely attacked him, nothing daunted by several 
wounds received from a spear which 1t was necessary 
to employ in self-protection. 
The importance of the domestic hog in an economic 
point of view is appreciated by all. In the rearing 
and feeding of this animal, and in the preparation ot 
its flesh and fat by the processes of salting and drying, 
capital to a considerable amount is involved. _ Its 
flesh is also used in a fresh state ; and most agree that 
young pig is one of the delicacies of the table. It was 
esteemed as such by the epicures of ancient Rome. 
“Much of the value of the hog,” says the writer of 
the third volume of ‘ Menagcries,’ “results from the 
constitutional predisposition of its race to the deposition 
of a layer of unctuous fat between the skin and mus- 
cles, which fat is termed lard, in contradistinctlon to 
suct or- to oil, and to the readiness with which that 
unctuous fat becomes impregnated with saline par- 
ticles. Inthis respect indeed it differs materially from 
suet, whether of the ox or sheep, and also in the pro- 
portions of its chemical constituents. In 100 parts of 
hoe’s lard there are 38 parts of stearin, and G2 of 
elain. In the fat of the sheep the stearin is in much 
ereater proportion, as it 1s also in the suet of beef, 
of which three-fourths consist of stearin: hence the 
suet of the sheep and ox.is well adapted for various 
domestic purposes, and among them the manufacture 
of candles, for which the lard of the hog is useless.” 
Our Saxon forefathers fully appreciated the value of 
the hog ; its flesh was, in fact, the staple food of every 
houschold, and the wealthy possessed large herds, 
which, under the care of thralls, or villains, were 
driven into the woods, there to feed on acorns or mast, 
as is the case at present in Portugal. The right of 
pasturage for hogs was claimed under certain condi- 
tions, and might be conveyed by decd. In an ancient 
Saxon document we read, “J give food for 7O0swine in 
that woody allotment which the countrymen call 
Wolferdenlegh.” In the Saxon times, it 1s probable 
that the domestic, or rather, semi-domestic hog, closely 
resembled, both in aspect and habits, the wild race, 
then a native of our forests; as was the wolf also, 
against which the boar and the sow would have to de- 
fend themselves and their litter. They were a large 
and powerful breed, to which the hogs in the New 
Forest in the present day make the nearest approach. 
After the Norman conquest, the hog was compara- 
tively neglected. The lands which the Saxons had 
won by the sword were now seized by the Normans, 
who, aceustomed to a higher state of refinement than 
that existing among the Anglo-Saxons, despised their 
gross fare and the hogsflesh which they so largely 
used. Hence the numbers kept would diminish, and 
the breed would deteriorate from want of care and 
attention. The old unimproved hog, with a long lank 
body and large pendant ears, till lately cominon in 
England, and still more lately in Ireland, may be 
rezarded as the degenerate descendant of the race 
neglected after the Norman conquest. The Normans 
despised agricultural labours as a pursuit; and the 
nobles and barons divided their time between war, 
hunting, and hawking. They expended but little 
capital on improvements in farming, against which 
indeed, had they ever so sedulously attempted them, 
foreign wars and the crusades, as well as continued 
International contests between rivals for the throne, 
would have militated. Had the knowledge been 
possessed, the power of carrying it into operation 
would have beeu wanting. The amalgamation of the 


MAGAZINE. [J uma a, 
jurring elements of the body politic, and the subse- 
quently rapid elevation of England in a commercial 
point of view, gave to the landa value before unknown, 
and stimulated its holders to every kind of umprove- 
inent, whether connected with agriculture or the rear- 
ing of live-stock. Since the time of Elizabeth, our 
races of sheep, cattle, horses, and even swine have 
become modified, and various breeds have been estab- 
lished, the results of judicious selection and care in 
rearing. The old unimproved breed of swine is now 
seldoi or never seen. On the contrary, we find that 
various counties have their own peculiar but at the 
same tune highly improved race ; some remarkable for 
the delicacy and excellence of their flesh, some for 
their size and contour, and the readiness with which 
they may be reared and fattened. 

Hampshire and Berkshire are cach celebrated for a 
fine breed, individuals of which often attain to extraor- 
dinary dimensions. Oneof the Berkshire breed which 
was killed at Congleton, Cheshire, is reported by Mr. 
Culley to have measured, from the nose to the end of the 
tail, three yards eight inches, and to have stood four fect 
and a half in height: its weight, when killed, was 86 
stones 11 pounds avoirdupoise.* Size, however, is 
of minor importance; and since the introduction of 
the Chinese race, which has tended to the improvement 
of our native breeds, we less frequently hear of in- 
stances of enormous magnitude than formerly. 

The Chinese hog is of small size, with a deep round 
body, full round haunches, a short thick neck, erect 
ears, and a short and abruptly sharpened snout. The 
limbs are short, with small bones and compact toes ; 
the prevailing colour is black, or half black and half 
white. The fiesh is remarkable for its delicacy. This 
breed, or one closely related to it, extends from China 
throughout the various groups of islands in the South 
Pacific. 

Excellent as the flesh of the Chinese hog is, and of 
the breeds crossed with it, preference is given to some 
of our native improved breeds, as yielding the best 
bacon and hams. Of these the Berkshire, Hampshire, 
suffolk, and Yorkshire breeds are highly esteemed. 

The Irish hog remained till lately very much neg- 
lected, and was a thin, long-bodied, flap-eared animal. 
Of late years, however, owing to judicious crossing 
with our improved breeds, it has become greatly mo- 
dified for the better, in the form, the quality of the 
flesh, and the facility with which it is fattened. 

In the Orkneys and Hebrides a small stunted breed 
of pigs exists: the animals are left to themselves, and 
wander about the hills in search of a precarious sib- 
sistence. Occasionally they commit extensive depre- 
dations upon corn-lands and cultivated patches. These 
pigs are clothed with long bristles, which are used in 
the making of the ropes with which the fowlers are let 
down over the precipices of the rocks in quest of the 
young and eges of the various sea-birds which make 
those giddy steeps their breeding-place. The fiesh of 
these small -hogs is generally lean and ill-flavoured, 
but it is said that if the animals were properly managed, 
it would be excellent, and make good bacon. 

Much has been said respecting the advantages and 
disadvantages of keeping and rearing pigs: that the 
cottager whose garden produces sufficient refuse vege- 
table matter for the keep of one or two of these 
animals, with the exception of: what is requisite for fat- 
tening, will derive profit from them, we cannot doubt. 
Nevertheless, it is greatly doubted by many competent 
judges whether swine form a profitable stock when fed 
on food which requires to be raised for the purpose ; 
it 1S in connection with dairies, breweries, distilleries, 
and other large establishments, where offal food is 
abundant, that their importance is palpable; for they 


* The old stone of 141bs, is here meant, the weight being 1215ibs, 


1841.] 


return, for the ofial which they consume, and which 
would otherwise be wasted, a clear and considerable 
profit. In short, local circumstances must Ina great 
Ineasure determime the advantages or disadvaniages 
attending the breeding and feeding of swine ; and it is 
lnpossible either to lay down rules of general appli- 
cation or to describe a practice which necessarily 
varics in almost every district. 

The sow carries her young for sixteen weeks; the 
pigs are usually weaned when about six or eight weeks 
eld, and acouple of litters are generally produced each 
year: sometimes, indeed, five litters are produced 
within two years; but this isa rare oceurrence. The 
following particulars should be attended to in the 
breeding of swinc, namely, that the sow should not 


produce her htter in winter, as the young are delicate, | 
and do not thrive during the cold weather; and also_ 
that the same should not occur when food 1s searce, as | 


is the case for the most part on corn-farins during 
summer. The months of February and August have 
been recommended as the most proper. The sow 
brings forth at each time from nine to twelve, or even 
fifteen young; hence, as Buffon observes, the sow forms 
an exception to two of the gencral rules of nature, 
that the largest animals are the least prolific, and that 
digitated quadrupeds produce the most numcrous 
young. No other pachydermatous animal (as the ele- 
pant, rhinoceros, tapir, &c.) produces more than one, 
or at most two, at a birth. According to Azara, the 
peccary produces two at a birth, and only once a year. 
It is, however, probable that the hyrax, which in many 
respects resembles a rabbit, may also be an exception. 

For the purpose of comparison, a figure of ithe wild 
boar, of the old unimproved breed of England, of the 
improved breed (a boar, sow, and young), of the black 
breed, of the Suffolk, and of the Chinese breeds, are 
civen in the cut at the head of tlus article. 


me ee ee ee ee re 





ee 


THE THERMOMETER. 


[Concluded from page 282.] 


From that time experiments in great abundance 
were made to ascertain what was the best liquid to 
employ, aud what was the most convenient scale by 
which one temperature could be compared with an- 
other. Some used spirit of wine coloured with cochineal; 
some proposed linseed oil; others water; but the body 
which, ali things considered, has proved most fitted for 
this purpose is inercury, the only metal which remains 
liquid at ordinary temperatures. Mereury enlarges 
in bulk more equably for eaual increments of heat than 
most other bodies; 1t 1s more easily freed from air than 
either oil or alcohol, a quality of much importance in 
the construction of thermometers; 1t has a very con- 
venient range, for while 011 becomes viscid and tena- 
cious at low temperatures, and alcohol boils before we 
can attail a Iigh temperature, mercury retains its 
liquidity throughout a wide extent of change; and 
lastly, 1t accominodates itself to the temperature of 
surrounding bodies more readily than most other l- 
quids. Ali these qualities pointed out mercury as the 
liquid best fitted for thermometers; and by the exer- 
tions of Réaumur and Fahrenheit, the construction of 
these instruments was brought to a point of much ex- 
ceHence. Fahrenheit, in order to make his instrument 
useful as a measurer, divided the stem, by marks on an 
attached frame, into a number of equal parts. He im- 
mnersed the bulb containing the mercury in a mixture 
of snow and salt, whieh he erroncously thought would 
produce the most intense cold possible; then madea 
mark to indicate the height to which the mercury sank 
in the stem; then immersed the instrument in boiling 
vater, and inade a similar mark Inghber up. These 
two heights he made the limits of a scale, by dividing 


Tis PIN NY 


| 


MAGAZINE. 239 
the difference between them into two hundredandtwelve 
equal parts. called degrees (of which the symbol is °), 
inaking the lowest, or zero, =0°, and the highest = 212°, 
He afterwards found that when the bulb was jinmersed 
in melting snow or ice, the mercury remained at the 
level marked 32°; and from this circumstance we 
have been and still are accustomed to say that 32° is 
the fleezing-point of water, tor the thermometer gives 
the same indication when water 1s freezing as when ice 
or snow is Inelting. 

When subsequent experiments showed that a much 
lower temperature than Fahrenheit’s zero can be pro- 
duced, it was necessary to have other degrees to indi- 
eate it, and these are preceded by the subtractive sign 
The thermometer of Réaumur, and that ealled the 
Centigrade, were afterwards constructed, difitering from 
lahrenheit’s chiefly in the gradation of the scale. In 
Réaumur’s the freezing-point is marked 0°, and the 
boiling-point 80°; in the Centigrade the freezing-point 
is 0°, and the boiling-point 100; so that two and one- 
fourth of Réaumur, or one and four-fifths of the Centi- 
evade, are equal to 1° Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit’s scale 
1s used in England, the Centigrade in France, and 
Réaumur’s m some other parts of Europe. In reading 
French books wherein temperatures are mentioned, 
the scale employed is that of the Centigrade thermo- 
meter; and the corresponding degrees of Fahrenbcit 
may be deduced therefrom by remembering that 6° of 
Centigrade is the same temperature as 32° fahrenheit, 
and that a degree of Fahrenheit is equal to five-ninths 
of a degree of the Centigrade. To convert a Centigrade 
indication to one of Fahrenheit, therefore, we multiply 
by 9, divide by 5, and add 32°. To perform the reverse 
operation, we subtract 32°, multiply by 5, and divide 
by 9. If Réaumuy’s thermometric indications are to 
be reduced to those of Fahrenheit: as 6° Réaumur is 
equal to 32° Fahrenheit, and as one degree of Fahien- 
heit equals four-ninths* of a degree of Réaumur, we 
multiply by 9, divide by 4, and add 32°; and for the 
reverse operation, we subtract 32°, multiply by 4, and 
divide by 9 


a 


It will thus be found that-— 
41° Fahr. equals 4° Réau. or 5° Cent. 


50° 3) 8° 99 10° a7 
59° 9 1 23- 23 15° 9 
68° 59 16° 22 20° 9% 


Confining ourselves to Fahrenheit’s thermometer, 
then, we find that it is simply a glass bulb and tube 
containing mercury to a certain height, which mercury, 
by the existence of a vacuum above it, is free to obey 
the expansive tendency which heat imparts to it ; and 
by drawing marks on the wooden stem to wineh the 
tube is attached, to indicate the height to whch the 
mercury rises when exposed to certain well-known 
heats, the instrument becomes a heat-measurer for 
future use. 

The precautions necessary to be observed in con- 
structing a thermometer we shall not enter upon, jor 
they constitute a delicate branch of instrument- 
making. 

When a thermometer is placed in the open air, the 
mercury speedily attains the sane temperature as the 
air, in obedience to the law which regulates the di:m- 
sion of heat. The heat affects the crcury through the 
class passing to or from it, according as the mercury 1s 
colder or warmer than the air when first exposed to it. 
As to the actual quantity of heat which a given bulk of 
mercury contains, we are totally ignorant of it 5 all we 
know being that different substances have different 
capacities for heat, some requiring lore heat than 
others to bring them to a given temperature. | 

Thus, if the quantity of heat necessary to raise pure 
water through 1° of temperature be expressed hy 
1090, then 33 will express the quantity necessary to 


240 


raise the temperature of mercury one degree; or, in 
other words, mercury expands thirty times more readily 
than water, when placed in similar circumstances, and 
is thus a much more convenient liquid for thermome- 
ters than water. 

Some thermometers have been constructed so that 
they may leave a record of the highest and the lowest 
temperatures which have occurred during a period 
when the observer could not attend the instrument. A 
double thermometer, of mercury and of alcohol, is pro- 
vided with little bits of enamel or of steel, in such a 
manner that these shall remain stationary at the two 
extreme points of temperature which inay have oc- 
curred during the absence of the observer. Ruther- 
ford, Six, Forbes, and others have constructed these 
reeister-thermometers of various forms. 

For all temperatures between the freezing and the 
boiling pomts of mercury (—39° and -+-662°), a mer- 
curial thermometer is that which is most conveniently 
employed; but for lower temperatures the thermometric 
liquid is generally alcohol, which has never yet been 
known to freeze. On the other hand, for very high 
temperatures, the expansion of solid bodies, instead of 
liquids, is made the means of measuring temperatures, 
as every fluid would go oi into vapour. Such instru- 
ments are called pyrometers (fire-measurers), in which 
the expansion of a rod of metal at high temperatures 
is very accurately measured. 

It will be readily understood that the object of using 
a thermometer in meteorological observation is not to 
determine the actual amount of heat in the air, but 
only the changes in the amount. Tables are given in 
various works, indicating the average temperatures in 
different countries,—at noon, at night, in summer, in 
winter, in sunshine, in shade, &c. But all these are 
merely intended as means of comparison with other 
indications obtained elsewhere, or at other times, with 
a view of deducing, if possible, some laws which will 
explain the true part which heat performs in the pro- 
duction of atmospherical phenomena. All the tables 
of temperature kept by the Royal Society and other 
scientific bodies ; all the directions on this point given 
to Sir James Ross and other scientific travellers; all 
the thermometric averages given in our best almanacs, 
generally for the city or town where they are published, 
are intended as comparative data, from whence future 
truths may perhaps be gleaned as to the diffusion of 
heat in the atmosphere, but not as indications of the 
actual amount of heat present therein. In this point 
of view the term ‘“ thermometer” is somewhat un- 
fortunate, for we cannot, correctly speaking, measure 
the heat in a body; we can only measure the effect 
which it produces in altering the dimensions of the 
containing body. 


The Cross-Timber District in Texras.—The Cross Timber is a 
continuous series of forests, extending from the woody region at 
the sources of the Trinity, m a direct line uorth, across the ap- 
parently interminable prairies of northern Texas and the Ozark 
territory, to the southern bank of the Arkansas river. This belt 
of timber varies in width from five to fifty miles. Between the 
Trinity and Red River it 1s generally from five to nine miles 
wide, and is so remarkably straight and regular, that it appears 
to be a work of art. When viewed from the adjoimug prairies 
on the east or west, it appears in the distance like an immense 
wall of woods, stretching from south to north m a straight line, 
the extremities of which are lost in the horizon. There appears 
to be no peculiarity in the surface of the ground over which the 
Cross Timber passes, to distinguish it from the surface of the ad- 
joining country; but, where the country is level, the region 
traversed by the Cross Timber is level; where it is undulating, 
aud where it is hilly, that also is uneven, conforming in every 
respect to the general features of the adjoming country. The 
trees composing these forests are not distinguishable by any pe- 
culiarity irom those which are occasionally found in the ad- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE 


(June 19, 


joining prairies, or in the bottoms bordering the streams which 
intersect the Cross Timber. Oak, hickory, elm, white oak, 
post oak, holly, and other trees are found in it. The elm is 
often found growing luxuriantly far from any stream, and in 
apparelitly poor and sandy soil. The black jack, a species of 
oak, is met with throughout its whole extent, from the Ar- 
kansas to the “Black Jack ridge’ at the sources of the. 
Truuty. The Cross Timber, im its general direction, does not 
perceptibly vary from the true meridian. Dr. Irion (formerly 
secretary of state of the republic), a few years since accom- 
panied a party of surveyors, who measured a line extending 
forty miles due south from the bank of Red River, near the 
Cross Timber, and found, to their surprise, that the western 
border of the Cross Timber coutinued parallel with this line 
through the whole distance. As might naturally be supposed, 
the Cross Timber forms the great landmark of the western 
praines ; and the Indiaus and hunters, when describing their 
routes across the country, i their various expeditions, refer to 
the Cross Timber as the navigators of Kurope refer to the meri- 
dian of Greenwich. If they wish to furnish a sketch of the 
route taken in any expedition, they first draw a line repre- 
senting the Cross Timber, and another representing the route 
taken, nitersecting the former. Thus a simple but correct map 
of the portion of country traversed in the expedition is at once 
presented to view.—Kennedy's Texas. 


Metropolitan Vehicles.—It is very difficult to conceive a Lon- 
dou without an omnibus or a cabriolet. Yet who amongst us 
does not remember the hour when they first appeared. For some 
two hundred years, those who rode in hired carriages had seen 
the hackney-coach passing through all phases of dirt and dis- 
comfort ; the springs growing weaker, the ‘iron ladder’ by which 
we ascended into its rickety capaciousness more steep and more 
fragile, the straw litter filttmer, the cushions more redolent of 
dismal smells, the glasses less air-tight. But it is of httle con- 
sequence. Nobody rides in them. The gentlemen at the 
‘office for granting licences for carriages plying for hire in the 
metropolis” tell us that licences are still granted to four hundred 
hackney-coaches. Alas, how are the horses fel? Are the drivers 
living men who eat beef and drink beer? We doubt if those 
huge capes ever descend to receive a fare. Are they not spectre- 
coaches—coachmen still doomed to sleep upon their boxes, as 
the wild huntsman was doomed to a demon-chase—for propitia- 
tion? The same authority tells us that there are fifteen hundred 
cabriolets to whom licences are granted. These we know are 
things of life. They rush about the streets as rapid as fire-flies. 
They lame few, they kill fewer. They sometimes overturn us; 
but their serious damage is not much. We borrowed them from 
the French on a fine May morning in the year 1820. It 1s re- 
markable how slow we are im the adoption of a new thing; and 
how we hold to it when it is once adopted. In 1813 there were 
eleven hundred and fifty cabriolets upon the hackney-stands in 
Paris—* Cabriolets de place,”—and we had not one. Now, we 
have fifteen hundred of them.—London, No. 2. 


The Fate of Velleia.—In 1760 an exceedingly curious discovery 
was made close to the base of the Apemuimes, between Parma and 
Piacenza. At a village called Macinesso, overshadowed by steep 
hills, the finding of a few antiques tempted the Duke of Parma 


, to excavate; and, at a depth of many feet, covered by successive 


layers of soil and rocks, were disinterred the remains of an extensive 
town, to which its inscriptions gave the name of Velleia. It had 
perished by a landslip, supposed to have occurred in the fourth 
century ; and the number of skeletons that lay among the ruius 
showed that the catastrophe, which piled the first strata above the 
unhappy town, had been sudden and fatal. But the ancient 
writers are alike silent on the history of Velleia and on its 
fate: its antiquities also are mere fragments; and these causes, 
joined to the remoteness of the place from the great roads, have 
been the excuse of travellers for generally neglecting 1t.—Ldin- 
burgh Cabinet Library, No. XXIX.: Italy and the Italian Is- 
lands, Vol. L. 


Mutual Support.—The race of mankind would perish, did 
t ey cease to aid each other. From the time that the mother 
binds the child’s head, till the moment that some kind assistant 
wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot 
exist without mutual help, All, therefore, that need aid have a 
right to ask it of their fellow-mortals: no one who holds the 
power of granting can refuse it without guilt.—Sur Walter Scoit, 


1841.7 


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(Virgin and Child.—Vandyke.} 


GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. | ardent mind of Vandyke to remain content with ex- 


DULWICH COLLEGE. 


Tae jong residence: of Vandyke in England, his re- 
presentations of many of our most eminent warriors 
and statesmen, and of the beautiful women of the 
court of Charles I., have rendered his hame as univer- 
sally known among us as have the grace and purity 
of his style commanded our admiration and convinced 
our judgment. Patronised, in its most exalted sense, 
by the royal and the noble, employed by the affiuent, 
and courted by the lovely, Vandyke abandoned nearly 
lis whole time to the exercise of portrait-painting. 
But his deep reverence for the only painter in the 
world who in portrait has surpassed him, Titian, 
prompted him to ponder well on the wonderful power 
of his colouring, whilst the admiration he felt for his 
own illustrious preceptor, Rubens, and the applauses 
which that great painter’s gorgeous imaginings drew 


‘ 
‘ 


celling in portraiture alone. The Crucifixion for the 
church of the Recolets at Mechlin, and the Elevation 
of the Cross for the collegiate church of Courtray, 
are sufficient to prove that his studies on the colouring 
of the great Venetian, and his contemplation of the 
expansive richness of the Fleming, had produced the 
fruit which might be expected from so highly cultivated 
a mind and so skilful a hand. Of the former work no 
less an authority than Reynolds has declared that it, 
“upon the whole, may be considered as one of the finest 
pictures in the world, and gives the highest idea of 
Vandyke’s powers; it shows that he had truly a ge- 
nius for history painting, if he had not been taken 
off by portraits.” The latter, though undervalued, 
nay, scorned by its present possessors, has been ac- 
knowledged to be in every respect a masterpiece in the 
ereat essentials of art. 

Passing over for the present moment the practice 


forth from his contemporaries, would not permit the : of individualising followed by the Flemish painters in 


No. O92. 


VoL. XxX. 2 I 


249 


their Scriptural and poetic subjects, we come now to 
yemark upon the Madonna and Infant Saviour, from 
which Mr. Jackson has executed the above wood-en- 
gravine. This picture is one of the few Scriptural 
subjects by Vandyke in England, but whether exe- 
cuted during his residence in this country does not 
appear. Most probably it was not. The more strik- 
ing beauties of the performance are the exquisite 
expression of the face of the Virgin, the mixed itellec- 
tuality and infantine sportiveness m the countenance 
of the Redeemer, the graceful disposition of the dra- 
pery, the excellentarrangement of colour, the manage- 
ment of the lights and darks, and the beautiful draw- 
ing of the extremities, that is, of the hands oi the two 
figures and of the feet of the Saviour. The defects 
appear to be two, firstly, the affectation in the action 
of the figure of the child, and secondly, the want of 
drawing in the neck of the Madonna. One fault, and 
the greatest admirers of the work must admit it to be 
so, disturbs the repose of the whole composition, for 
the strong action of one figure is mconsistent with the 
quiescence of the other; its fiippancy of attitude in- 
juriously contrasts with the sublime repose of the Ma- 
donna. This is a solecism in taste. The other defect 
has arisen from an inattention to academic accuracy. 
The neck of the Virgin, instead of forming a graceful 
undulation from the shoulder upwards, as 1t would in 
nature, were the head thrown over in the manner here 
depicted, forms, in the first instance, too straight a 
line, and then too suddenly and abruptly joins the hne 
of the chin and of the cheek. 

If, as has been justly observed of the look of grief 
and resignation m the Virgin in the Crucifixion, that 
“it 1s above all praise * — yet we must admit that the 
aspect of sublime purity in the raised eyes, and in the 
all but breathing lps of the nnmaculate mother in the 
picture under our notice, are worthy of the highest 
encomium. The head of the infant Christ, too, pos- 
sesses a rare combination of divine intellect and of 
beautiful humanity—the colourmg of the whole pic- 
ture is rich, harmonious, and clear, and the flesh tints 
happily reheved from the contrasting blue and red 
drapery, without any violence to propriety or a sacri- 
fice of truth. 

We have been thus diffuse in speaking of this indi- 
vidual work, because we have seldom opportunities of 
beholding any pictures by Vandyke except his por- 
traits, and more so because there are two specimens of 
this very composition in England by him. The other 
formed part of the collection of the last duke of 
Bridgewater, and is now in the possession of Lord 
Irancis Eigerton. The artist thus repeating his own 
idea 1s some proof that he considered his conception of 
the subject just, and it matters little whether this be 
the first, and the Bridgewater picture the second work, 
or whether the converse be the truth—it is clear that he 
thought the expression so just as to warrant his repeat- 
ing it; and thus we have a picture stamped by the dis- 
tinguished painter’s own approbation. If he painted 
the Bridgewater picture first, we may fairly conclude 
that he made such alterations in this as might suggest 
themselves to him, to make it still more perfect; or 
op the other hand, if this be the original, then we 
have a right to consider that he was entirely satisfied 
with it, or he would not have gone over the same 
eround a second time. There is a third supposition, 
namely, that Vandyke was commissioned to repeat his 
work, and 1f so, 1 1s evidence that his and our own 
time concur in awarding to the picture their united 
tribute of applause. | 

Of a composition so simple in its construction, and 
consisting of a group of only two figures, detailed de- 
scription is wholly uncalled for; but we may profitably 
point out the want of ideal beauty in the representation | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(JunE 26, 


of the Madonna. True it is that in the painting ot 
Vanayke we find a greater portion of that ideality than 
im any other works of the Flemish school, yet even his 
conception of the figure, eraceful as it 1s, 18 far beneath 
that purity which we seek for and assuredly find in the 
pictures of Raffaelle. That the productions of the 
pencil of Vandyke vary from those of the “prince of 
painters” we do not object, for there are others and 
illustrious artists who have varied from him as much 
as has Vandyke, but what we do object to is the style 
of common, individual, and Flemish life which per- 
vades the figure of the Virgin. We cannot help 
thinking that, although it be necessary in painting this 
subject to adhere strictly to nature in the delineation 
of the figure and features of Mary, still that the por- 
trait-like appearance of individual life should be 
scrupulously avoided, and that, although the figure 
and features should be of earthly mould, and form, 
and texture, still they should bear the impress of the 
very highest class of human conformation. Measured 
by this standard, if it be a true one, the figure in the 
above work wiil be found to be in an essential degree 
defective. It conveys a notion of actual individual 
though beautiful Flemish life, not an abstract idea of 
the highest perfection of human purity. 

The life of this distinguished artist possesses con- 
siderable interest to the English reader, as connected 
with the history of painting in this country. Anthony 
Vandyke, or Van Dyck, was born at Antwerp, in 1599, 
and, according to Houbraken, was the son of a painter 
on glass. He studied under Henry van Balen, with 
whom he made great progress, and then, at his own 
express desire, became a pupil of Rubens. At an 
early period of his pupillage under that great painter, 
Vandyke was entrusted to forward such works as the 
master was engaged on even to such a point as only 
required the finishing touch of Rubens, and an anee- 
dote 1s related which serves to show that Vandyke had 
early gained great facility in imitating the style of his 
preceptor. One evening, after Rubens had left his 
painting-room, his pupils, in a frolic, had the nushap 
to deface the head of the Virgin Mary and the arm of 
the Mary Magdalen, in the celebrated picture of The 
Taking Down from the Cross. Derpenbeck, pushed 
by one of his fellow-students, was the immediate 
cause of the mischief. John van Hoech, another 
pupil, proposed that the most expert of the disciples 
of the painter should repair the damage, and the lot 
unanunously fell upon Vandyke, who performed his 
task with so much success, that Rubens, next morn- 
ing, pointed out those parts which had been restored 
as “by no means the worst that he had executed yes- 
terday.” 

After remaining in this school a suitable time, Van- 
dyke went to Italy, at the advice of his master, bemeg 
then only twenty years of age. He proceeded to Venice, 
where he diligently studied the works of Titian, visited 
Genoa and Palermo, and then for a time fixed his 
residence at Rome. He returned to his native city, 
and was engaged to paint his celebrated picture for 
the church of the Augustines, representing the patron 
saint in an ecstacy, supported by angels, a work which 
procured him great fame and the high encomiums of 
Rubens. He was quickly engaged to paint for the 
public edifices at Brussels, Mechlin, and Ghent, be- 
sides in many others of those of Antwerp, and at the 
church of Courtray. Among them were the two fine 
compositions to which we have before alluded, the 
Elevation of the Cross and the Crucifixion. He now 
accepted an invitation from Frederick, Prince of 
Orange, and visited the Hague, where he painted the 
portraits of that potentate, his family, and of the 
principal nobility of the court. In 1629 he came to 
Ingland, in the expectation of being introduced toe 


1841.] 


Charies J., but, being disappointed, he returned to 
Antwerp. Two years afterwards he came again to 
J.endon, invited expressly by the king, and was pre- 
sented at court by Sir Kenelm Digby. He was 
lodged at Blackfriars, among the king's artists, and 
thither the monarch frequently came by water, as 
well to enjoy the contemplation of the painter's skill 
as to join in the charms of his conversation. On 
the 5th of July, 1632, Charles couferred on him the 
honowr of knighthood, and soon afterwards granted 
him a pension of 200/. a year for life. ‘The patent 
Is preserved in the Rolls Chapel, and is dated 
1633, and in it Vandyke is styled “painter to his 
majesty.” 

he patronage of so refined a connoisseur as Charles 
I. prompted the nobility to employ this accomplished 
painter, and Icngland, consequently, abounds with 
portraits by his hand. We lived in wealth and 
splendour; and on his death, which happened in 
Blackfriars, on the Sth of December, 1641, at the 
early age of forty-two years, he was buried, with 
extraordinary funeral pomp, in St. Paul’s cathedral. 

If we consider that the decease of this eminent 
man occurred in the vigour of his manhood, and 
only twenty-two years after he had quitted the studio 
of his illustrious master to travel into Italy, it is 
a subject of astonishment that he left such nume- 
rous works. Deschamps gives a* particular ac- 
count of seventy-seven pictures by him in_ the 
churches and public edifices of his native country, 
and those form a part only of his similar pro- 
ductions. In England his portraits amount to many 
hundreds, and several of them consist of two or more 
figures. be 434, 07 


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AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS,—THEIR AP- 
PEARANCE, CHARACTER, &c. 


In America, where, almost monthly, new districts of 
country are becoming subdued, and where the ancient 
forests but lately covered-the entire space, villages and 
towns spring up as u by magic; and no sooner is a 
moderate numerical amount of the human race con- 
cregated in any mew: locality, than some adventurer 
in the printing lne is attracted from a distant and 
older settlement, aware that the publisher of a news- 
paper always tanks among the leading characters of a 
newly-settled district. This person, who probably has 
never ranked higher than a journeyman type-setter, 
on account of the universal credit system, finds little 
difficulty in establishing a weekly paper in some such 
new locality as above alluded to, which, to a person 
without capital, or friends to assist him, would be out 
of the question in this country, —whereas in most parts 
of America it 1s the easiest thing imaginable, and, for 
the miost part, 1s managed after the manner following. 
In the first place it is necessary to have a building 
erected for a printing-office, which some carpenter or 
other undertakes to do, and as the work 1s to be per- 
formed on a one or two years’ credit, thirty or forty 
per cent. more is agreed to be given than 1f the money 
were to be forthcoming on the conipletion of the job. 
IJowever, he (the printer) gives the carpenter pro- 
missory notes to the amount of the contract, bearing the 
usual rate of interest; which notes are traded away, 
as the custotnary phrase is, a dozen times or more be- 
fore they become due,-—not always at the value they 
bear on their face, but (according to circumstances) at 
what parties may be willing to receive them at. 

But a printing-office 1s of no use unless supplied 
‘with printing-types; and the necessary quantity of old 


aud worn-out types is probably procured (on credit | 


THe PENNY MAGAZINE. 


| cessiul operation. 
/himself, then he engages a printer, or person who 
knows something of the compositor’s art, to assist in 





243 


established papers are not only very indifferently got 
up, and abound with almost every variety of typogra- 
phical error or blunder, but the types are of that cha- 
racter to give the wholea blurred and sorry appearance. 
The quality of the paper is also of a very inferior descrip- 
tion; nor do the subscribers, under the circwnstances 
in which most new papers are first published, either 
desire or expect other than a cheap article. When the 
individual, who in hisown person unites the characters 
of editor, publisher, and printer, happens to be of 
industrious and plodding habits, on commencing a 
weekly journal he provides himself with a couple of 
boys or apprentices, to whom he professes to teach 
the art of printing, and without any other aid or as- 
sistance he contrives to carry his plans into suc- 
But if he be not a working man 


the office, and to instruct the apprentices. 

Where the population has arrived at a thriving and 
increasing condition, there is little difficulty in filling 
up a list with two or three hundred subscribers’ 
hames, for probably in no other country where news- 
papers exist do the subscribers trouble themselves 
less about finding the means of paying their newspa- 
per subscriptions when due, than they do in the United 
States. 

The general subscription price of a weekly pro- 
vincial country newspaper is two dollars (8s. 3d. ster- 
ling) per annum; though some are only one dollar 
and three-quarters ; and a few as low as a dollar and 
a half, or 6s. 24d. a year. A few of these papers adver- 
tise no less than three different prices at which they 
will be furnished to subscribers, nainely, cash in ad- 
vance, credit, and trade; and the difference made 
between cash in advance and either of the other two 1s 
usually very great. The reason scarcely requires an 
explanation, but it may be remarked, that in new set- 
tlements far imland cash is usually a very scarce 
article; the credit systen. requirés no explanation ; 
and by frade must be understood farm produce, or 
such articles as the subscriber may have to dispose of 
when it might not be convenient for him to raise the 
cash. Cash in advance usually has a preference of 30 
or 40 per cent. over either of the other two. 

There are scores of newspapers published in the 
United States, the subscription lists of which range 
from two hundred to four hundred. Take the average, 
that is three hundred, and supposing the subscribers 
were all to pay their subscriptious, the one-half of 
them in cash, and the other half of them in trade, the 
whole would amount to scarcely over 100/. per annum. 
Living is very cheap in the backwoods ; but notwith- 
standing that, this sum would be found insufficient to 
support the humblest printing-establishment without 
looking to some other source for an increase of income, 
In a small village surrounded by a thinly inhabited 
country, where most of the people are farmers or per- 
sons engaged in subduing the foresis, at first sight it 
might be supposed that there would be little done in 
the way of advertising. This is far from being the 
case; every one that has got anything, no matter what, 
to trade in, notifies (to make use of an Americanisin) 
the public thereof through the columns of the newspa- 
per. The parties advertising are rarely satished with 
telling their tale in a simple and straight-forward 
way, but appear to consider it necessary to pull egre- 
riously, and to make use of bombast and rhodomon- 
tade upon the most ordinary occasions. Should there 
happen to be two ov three small stores kept in the 
neighbourhood, the rival store-keepers are continually 
advertising goods that they have (or proiess to have) 


of course), and is forthwith sent to furnish the new | from some distant city or place of import, or else in- 


piiiting-office. 


Hence it is that most of these newly- | forming their customers and others that they are in 


ale a? 


244 THE PENNY 
want of oats, flour, wool, butter, boards, poultry, &c. 

The first in the field is sure to be outdone by the 

second, and the second by the third, for if one adver- 

tise a hundred pieces of Manchester goods as just re- 

ceived, his neighbour next week will advertise the 

arrival of a thousand pieces at his store ; while a third 
party will follow at the next opportunity, and proba- 

bly assert that he has received one hundred thousand 

pieces, though in fact not one of the whole triumvirate 

ever had fifty pieces of these goods in his store at one 

time. But these advertisers are far from all, although 
one keeper of asmall store will frequently insert half a 

dozen or half a score advertisements in the same paper 
in one week; and in order to make the advertised 
wares the more conspicuous, each of them occupies a 
different part of the newspaper ; for the shoemaker, 

the blacksmith, the cooper, the carpenter, the hatter, 

the tailor, and sundry other artisans and craftsmen— 
if the little community happens to conta such—are 

among the partics in the most frequent habit of sup- 
plying the weekly publications with an account of their 
respective wants or wishes. It 1s also a very common 

thing for traders, as well as mechanics, to make occa- 
sional appeals to the individuals indebted to them 

through the medium of a newspaper ; and after doing 
so for a few tines, without making the desired unpres- 
sion upon those to whom the appeal was made, another 
advertisement probably will announce—that the adver- 
tiser must have money, and that this is the last notice 
before putting the respective accounts into the hands 
of the sheriff for collection. 

The advertising department is therefore, even in a 
country village or small town, a source of considerable 
emolument, even where advertisements are inserted 
at a low rate, which is the case with such publhcations 
as arc here alluded to. But it should also be under- 
stood, that nearly the whole community of advertisers 
expect to pay in kind Gf they ever pay at all) for the 
insertion of their advertisements; and should some of 
this class of patrons of a newspaper have nothing to 
tender in payment that the printer can by possibility 
make use of himself, he is generally under the neces- 
sity of accepting whatever such persons are willing to 
turn out to him, as they express 1t, which he has to 
dispose of in the best way he can. He therefore seldom 
finds much difficulty in maintaining himself and his 
family, if he have one, for his subscribers and adver- 
tising patrons find little difficulty in supplying him 
with provisions, stores, fuel, and all the necessaries of 
life; but the great difficulty hes in procuring the 
amount of cash that 1s absolutely necessary to carry on 
his business with, for there are but few things ina 
new settlement that the people trade in, one among 
another, which can be converted into cash without a 
considerable loss on the original value of the article, 
or at a considerable degree of expense and trouble. 

In one of those American provincial newspapers there 
usually is but a very small quantity of editorial compo- 
sition, since, for the most part, the backwoods editors 
content themselves with quoting the political opinions 
of writers that have been more accustomed to the 
business than themselves, though they are not always 
honest enough to acknowledge the obligation by re- 
ferring to the source from whence they draw their 
extracts. And hence it is that many a newspaper 
editor gains the reputation with his readers and sub- 
scribers of being ‘(a smart man ” (7.e. writer), when the 
merit they consider him entitled to belongs to others. 
A newspaper of this character 1s easily got up. The 
sheet, in the first place, 1s a very small one, while the 
type is comparatively large ; and as the advertisements 
are spread over as much space as possible, there only 


requires as many cullings from other papers as will | 
Most persons dealing largely | 


fill wp the spare space. 


MAGAZINE. [June 26, 
in advertising, agree with the editor for so much by 
the year; hence it is no uncommon thing to find some 
of these people’s advertisements standing in type from 
one end of the year to the other, which is a saving of 
time to the compositor. Some of the advertisements 
—1in order probably to attract more notice—are placed 
upside down, while others are placed lengthwise in the 
columns ; and in order to make them look as imposing 
as possible, small wood-engravings, wretchedly exe- 
cuted, of men, dogs, cattle, houses, &c., are inserted 
wherever there seems a chance of their not being no- 
toriously out of place. - 

From what has been said, the reader will be able to 
comprehend, generally, the appearance of an Ameri- 
can newspaper, such as is commonly seen in the new 
settlements. Politics being a leading feature im all 
American journals (the annual elections and other 
political movements creating a constant political ex- 
citement), the editor or conductor of a newspaper, of 
the very lowest order, is looked upon, in the little 
sphere in which his paper circulates, as a leader of one 
or other political sect or party; and if he be fortunate 
enough to advocate the cause of the successful candidates 
for office, it is understood that this advocacy entitles him 
to the consideration of the successful party, and that 
he is fairly entitled to some place or office to which a 
salary is attached, as binding him to his party, and by 
thus extending his means, putting him ina situation of 
effecting still more in future party struggles. 

In the populous and commercial towns and cities, 
the newspapers have a very different appearance from 
those issued from the offices of the backwoods editors. 
In New York, Philadelphia, and several other cities, 
there are several papers published daily, others semi- 
weekly, and others weekly. Many of them are of a 
large size, and the general appearance respectable ; 
but for the most part the quality of the paper is not 
equal to that of our Enghsh newspapers. The same 
propensity for general advertising prevails in the 
cities that has been noticed as existing in country 
towns and villages, but with this difference—in the 
citiesthe advertisements are so very numerous, that very 
small types are used, and the matter reduced into the 
smallest space possible; and although some of our 
English newspapers (the Times for instance) presents 
us with a vast number of advertisements daily, some 
of the leading commercial papers in New York and 
elsewhere manage to cram more advertisements into 
one page than appear in any two pages of our largest 
journals. Most of the merchants pay by the year, and 
hence the necessity for the publisher finding room 
for all that may be sent to his paper for insertion. 

Though a very large portion of most of the leading 
American journals is devoted to advertisements, the 
editorial departments are under the management of 
eminent political writers belonging to one political 
party or another. The yearly subscription for a daily 
paper 1s commonly ten dollars (about 41s. Gd.) the 
year, which is but very little over 14d. for each paper. 
There are smaller sheets called ‘Transcripts,’ also 
published daily, the price of one of these, containing 
all the news of the day, is only a halfpenny. The 
American newspapers (except two or three published 
at Washington) never attempt to give the speeches of 
the members of Congress at full length, In Boston 
and New York newspapers of a most gigantic size have 
been published. The Boston ‘ Notion’ js in four pages, 
each equal to two pages of the ‘Times’ or ‘Morning 
Chronicle; and in the supplements to the ‘ World,’ 
published at New York, each page is about equal to 
four of such pages, the uninterrupted columns of type 
being very nearly five feet long and the pages three 
feet wide. 


1841. ] THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 








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{The Parson and the Clerk of Oxenford. } 


a UGmn owPORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE PARSON. 


Hap Chaucer never written a line but what is eon- 
tained within this description of the ‘“pouré Parson of 
a town,” he must have been looked upon as one of the 
ereatest of writers. It is not that it is more poetieal 
than his other descriptions ; aceording to the ordinary 
notions of poetry, Dryden’s imitation and enlargement 
of this character would be considered as infinitely 
more flowery and brilliant; but if to deal with senti- 
ments and emotions of the highest and most universal 
interest, and to do this in the best possible manner for 
the proper illustration of the subjeet, be the provinee 
of the great poet, then is Chaueer one of the greatest ; 
and precisely as Dryden has departed from him, so 
has he essentially deteriorated. In the one, you have 
all the grandeur and repose of a great work ; in the 
other, you have all the bustle and vigour of a elever 
poet. It is impossible to find a traee of Chaueer’s pre- 
sence in his description ; it 1s almost equally difficult 
to forget Dryden’s in his. Considering the charaeter 
he had to draw, a man of the sublimest Christian prin- 
eiples and feelings, and considering also the very 
humble position in which he thought proper to plaee 
him, what ean be finer, or more true to the best prin- 
ciples of art, than the delightful homeliness, the patri- 
archal simplicity of style here adopted. The deseription 
is long, but we cannot injure its effect by division :— 


“A good man was there of religion, 


That was a pouré Parson of a town: 

But rich he was of holy thought and work. 
He was also a learned man, a clerk 

That Christe’s gospel truély would preach. 
His parishens devoutly would he teach. 
Benign he was, and wonder diligent, 

And im adversity full patiént : 

And such he was yproved often sithes.* 
Full loth were him to cursen for his tithes ; 
But rather would he given out of doubt 
Unto his pouré parishens about 

Of his off’ring, and eke of his substance. 
He could in little thing have suffisance. 


Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder, 


But he ne left not for no rain uor thunder 
In sickness and in mischief} to visit _ 
The farthest in his parish, much and lite,} 
Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff. 
This noble ensample to his sheep he yaf,9 


That first he wrought, and afterwards he taught. 


Out of the Gospel he the wordés caugnt, 
And this figiire he added yet thereto :— 
That if gold rusté, what should iron do? 


He setté not his benefice to hire, 


And left his sheep accomb’red|| in the mire, 
ol. , 
- And ran unto Londén, unto St. Paul's, 


To seeken him a chantéry for souls, 


§ Gave. | Encurnbered—embarrassed. 


245 


* Since. + Misfortune. t Much and little—rich and poor. 


246 


Or with a brotherhood to be withold ; 
But dwelt at home, and kepté well his fold. 
So that the wolf ne made it not miscarry : 
He was a shepherd, and no mercenary. 
And though he holy were, aud virtuous, 
He was to sinful men not dispitous; 
Ne of his speeché dangerous, ne digne™, 
But in his teaching discreet and benign. 
To drawen folk to Heaven with fairéness, 
3y good ensample, was his business. 
But it were any person obstinate, 
What so he were of high or low estate, 
Him would be snibben sharply for the nonés; 
A better priest I trow that no where none is. 
He waited alter no pomp ie reverence, 
Ne maked him no spiced conscience ; 
But Christe’s love, aud his Apostles twelve, 
He taught, but first he followed it himselve.” 


There is a curious evidence in this description that 1t 
was borrowed from or applied to areal person. “Such 
he was yproved often sithes:”—Since when? Chaucer 
must mean sivce the pilgrimage, as that 1s the matter 
of which he is writing. Dryden 1s said to have apphed 
his description to Bishop Ken; and there are evidently 
in the latter personal allusions which justify the suppo- 
sition that he had some particular individual in his 
eye. Having referred to Dryden’s description in the 
way of contrast, it will be only proper to adduece an 
extract from it, to justify our remarks, or at least to 
enable our readers to judge ior themselves He thus 
commences,— 

‘‘ A parish priest was of the pilgrim train, 
An awful, reverend, and religious man: 
His eye diffused a venerable grace, 
And charity itself was im lus face. 
Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor 3 
(As God had clothed his own ambassador) 
Wor sach on earth his hless’d Redeemer bore. 
Of sixty years he seem’d, and well might last 
To sixty more, but that he lived too fast ; 
Refiu’d himself to soul, to curb the sense, 
And made almost a sim of abstinence. 
Wet had his aspect nothing of severe, 
But such a face as promised him sincere 3 
Nothing reserv’d or sullen was to sce, 
But sweet regards and pieasing sanctity. 
Mild was his accent, and his action free. 
With eloquence innate his tougne was arm’d; 
Though harsh, the precept yet the people charm’d. 
For letting down the golden chain on high, 
He drew his audience upward to the sky ; 
And oft with holy hymns he charm’d their ears, 
(A music more melodious than the spheres). 
For David left him, when he went to rest, 
His lyre; and after him he sung the best.” - 


In spite of the beautiful lines contained in the foxe- 
going passage, it seems on the whole, when compared 
with Chaucer, sad work. Such negative excellences 
as that he was not “sullen” nor “reserved,” or such 
positive ones as that his “action” was “free,” and that 
since David “he sung the best,” are utterly destructive 
of the plain quiet sublumity of the original, as an exem- 
plification of the character of a perfect Christian priest. 

In the Sutherland manuscript, the surcoat and hood 
of this pilgrim are of scarlet, such being the habit of a 
nuinistering priest in England till Elizabeth’s time. 
The placid countenance of the venerable man is finely 
shown. Ilis hands are crossed upon his breast, and 
round his waist 1s a girdle of beads. 


THE HYGROMETiORe 


SOME of the most important phenomena observable in 
the atmosphere are those which result from the pre- 
sence therein of waiter, inastate more or less vaporised ; 


* Disdaimful. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[JuNE 26, 


for the production of fogs, clouds, rain, dew, snow, hail, 
hoar-frost, &c., could not occur unless this moisture 
were present in the air. As it 1s Important to ke able 
to compare the degree of moisture 1n the air at differ- 
ent times and places, an instrument termed the hy- 
grometer (measurer of moisture) has been devised 
for this purpose; and the indications yielded by such 
instruments always occupy a column in meteorologi- 
cal tables. We will offer a few brief explanations 
on this matter. 

However fine the weather may be, however cloud- 
less and brilhant, the air is never without a supply of 
moisture suspended in it or diffused among it. Tis 
oisture, by assuming the form of vapour, becoimes 
invisible, and thereby escapes our cognisance; but if 
any circumstances should arise whereby this vapour is 
condensed, it becomes visible to us by intercepting 
more or less the passage of light through the air; 
and we recognise its existence in the form of fogs, 
clouds, mists, &. Such a change is likely to result 
from a diminution of temperature in the air, by which 
the heat present in it is not sufficient to retain the 
Inoisture in the form of vapour. 

If it be asked how the moisture gets into the air, 
or what is the source from whence it 1s derived, the 
answer informs us of the important fact that evapora- 
tion is constantly going on from the surface of water 
at all temperatures and in all climates. In the com- 
mon operations of daily life, this process of evaporation 
is always going on. If we leave a httle water in an 
open vessel, or if we spill water on the floor, or 1f a 
shower of rain falls, the process of drytmg universally 
follows, which is nothing more than an effect of eva- 
poration. Evaporation goes on more rapidly In warm 
than in cold weather, that is, the water is more ready 
to assume the form of vapour, and the air is more dis- 
posed to receive the vapour thus formed, in warm than 
in cold weather; but at all temperatures of the air 
there is a certain point beyond which no further mois- 
ture can be retained init. When this saturating point 
has been arrived at, any addition of vapour, or any re- 
duction of temperature, will cause a portion of the 
vapour to assume one or other of the appearances 
known as elouds, mists, rain, &c. 

When these facts became graduaily known, illus- 
trating, as they do, the powerful influence which mois- 
ture exerts on the phenomena of weather, a desire was 
felt to devise some means of measuring the amount of 
moisture contained in the air at any given time and 
place, and various persons set their ngenuity to work 
on: the matter. The first hygrometrical instruments 
were of very imperfect construction; they were, in fact, 
not so much hygrometers as hygroscopes, that 1s, they 
merely indicated, and not measured, the moisture 
in the air. Most persons are aware that fibrous 
materials contract in length when wetted; indeed, if a 
rope ten or twelve feet long, fixed vertically, have a 
heavy weight attached to its lower extremity resting 
on the ground, and if the rope be wetted, the weight 
will be hfted from the ground. This property was 
made the basis of the first hygrometers, one form of 
which was as follows :—To.a nail or hook, fastened in 
the wall, the end of a piece of whipcord or catgut 
was attached, and the cord was passed successively over 
four or five pulleys, whose axes were fixed in the same 
wall. At the other end of the eord hung a weight, for 
the purpose of giving it a proper degree of tension ; 
and to this weight an index was attached, opposite to a 
graduated plate fixed against the wall. When the air 
was very humid, the moisture caused the cord to shrink, 
by which the weight ‘was drawn upwards, and the 
index pointed to some division near the top of the 
eraduated scale on the plate. At this part the scale 
was marked “ wet,” at a higher part, “very wet;” at 


1841.] 


Jower positions, “ dry,” “very dry,” &c.; indicating 
that when the moisture in the air was such as to elevate 
the index, by contracting the cord, to the point marked 
“ wet,” that wet weather was hkely to follow; and so 
cf the other heights. 

Another hygrometer consisted of a piece of catgut 
fastened to a hook at one end, and suspending a weight 
at the other, which weight carried an index round a 
eraduated circle described ona horizontal board. When 
ar increased quantity of moisture was in the air, the 
cord became additionally twisted, and the index attached 
to the weight was carried partially round the graduated 
circle. 

Hooke constructed an hygrometer of the beard of a 
wild oat. He had a brass plate, about four inches 
square, with a rmg fixed to it, and graduated on the 
surface. The top of the oat-beard was fastened toa 
small cylindrical clamp attached toahght brass mdex, 
and the other end was fixed into another clamp beneath 
the plate; the beard passes through a hole m the plate. 
The twistine of the oat-beard, by variations in the hu- 
midity of the air, caused the index to revolve throngh 
a ereater or less number of degrees, and thus the beard 
became in some sense an hygrometer. De Luc and 
Saussure likewise employed natural products as the 
hygrometric substance. De Luc attached a narrow 
strip of whalebone, about ten inches im length, toa 
small apparatus, in such a manner that the elongation 
or contraction of the whalebone by changes of humidity 
caused a small index to move round a graduated scale. 
In Saussure’s instrument the hygrometric substance 
was a human hair, f:eed from all unctuosity by being 
boiled in ley, and attached, masimilar manner to those 
mentioned above, to an index working round a gradu- 
ated scale. 

Other persons have used various kinds of bearded 
grass as the hygrometric substance, and many forms of 
arranging the apparatus have been proposed. But all 
these plans are of limited use, on aecount of the un- 
certainty respecting the retention of the hygrometric 
quality in the substance employed. Some have pro- 
posed the adoption of a sponge, which, fixed to one end 
of a delicate balance, would have a slight increase of 
weight when more fwly charged with moisture from 
the air, and a diminution of weight in dry weather. 
Others have proposed to employ sulphuric acid, which 
absorbs moisture very rapidly, and may thus be made 
to indicate changes of humidity. The weather-house, 
the hooded monk, the automaton hygrometer, &c. are 
mere toys, and need not be described here. 

Other kinds of hygrometers are those which depend 
on evaporation rather than on contraction or elongation. 
Leslie constructed one in which two glass bulbs were 
connected at the bottom by a bent tube contaiming sul- 
phuric acid. When the bulbs, both of which are filled 
with air, are at the same temperature, the liquor in 
the tube remains stationary; but if one bulb be colder 
then the other, the air m the warmer bulb, by its greater 
elasticity, depresses the liquor in the stem attachea to 
that bulb, and elevates it in the other. This property 
is made to serve hygrometric purposes by coating one 
of the bulbs with cambric, kept moist with pure water 
conveyed to it by filaments of floss silk from an adjacent 
vessel. When the air is dry, the evaporation irom this 
wetted surface will go on more rapidly than when it is 
humid; and a scale attached to the mstruinent is made 
to indicate the varying states of dryness and humidity. 
Dry. Mason constructed an imstrument somewhat on the 
principle of Leshe’s hygrometer, indicating the hu- 
midity or dryness of the air by comparing the height 
of a dry thermometer vith that of another whose bulb 
is kept wetted, and from which evaporation 1s going 
Jorward. 

But the most important and accurate hygrometer is 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


247 


that of Professor Danicll, the action of which depends 
on the icllowing prineipies :—If we expose a body to 
the atmosphere, whose temperature is lower than that 
of the latter, 1t will first abstract heat from the vapour 
in contact with it, and lower its temperature until the 
vapour arrives at that temperature which it had when 
it passed from the liquid to the vaporic form: the 
body will then bring the vapour to its own tempera- 
ture; and this vapour will be found condensed m the 
form of dew on the exterior of the body. This effect 
we often see produced when a glass of cold spring 
water is taken into a warm room in summer. Acting 
on these data, the construction of Daniell’s hygrometer 
is thus effected :—On the top of an upright stand is 
supported a short horizontal glass tube, from each end 
of which a short tube descends vertically downwards, 
having a bulb at the bottom. The lower of the two 
bulbs contains ether, while the other bulb and the con- 
necting tube contain vapour of ether; and by covering 
the upper bulb with muslin, and wetiing 1t with ether, 
the hygromeiric state of the air may be ascertained. 
The rapid evaporation of the ether from the wetted 
muslin, by abstracting heat from the enveloped bulb, 
causes a condensation of the etherial vapour within it; 
and this enables more ether to evaporate from the 
other bulb, and to pass through the tube. The ex- 
posed bulb becomes cooled by this process, until at 
length a condensation of atmospheric moisture takes 
place upon the swrface. The temperature at which 
this oecurs is called the dew-point, and to determine it 
a thermometer bulb is placed within the exposed bulb 
of the hygrometer. The humidity of the air affects the 
indications of the instrument in this way :—that if the 
air be saturated with moisture, a very sheht reduction 
of temperature will produce the formation of dew, or 
the thermometer within the bulb will mdieate nearly 
the same temperature as the thermometer in the open 
air at that moment; butif the air be very dry, the tem- 
perature must be reduced a great many degrees betore 
dew will thus be formed. 

To form a judgmeat of the probability of rain and 
similar phenomena from the indications of this instru- 
ment, we must bear in mind that rain follows, not trom 
a great quantity of vapour in the air, but from the 
quantity being too great for the temperature. Ina warm 
fine day there may perhaps be more vapour im the air than 
onacold cloudy day; but the probahility of rainmay be 
less, because the greater temperature may more than 
counterbalance this increased quantity. The dew- 
point then, by giving the temperature of the vapour 
contained in the air, enables us to compare tempera- 
ture with that of the air itself; and if the difference ts 
not great, whatever the respective numbers be, a shght 
diminution of temperature m the air will convert the 
vapour into water. 

We shall now be able to explain the meaning of the 
hygrometric indications in such calendars as those 
eiven in our Monthly Supplements for the last year. 
Let us take the Supplement for November, for im- 
stance (containing the December calendar): here we 
find, under the head of “ Hygrometer,” the following 


Gubben | breve gee 


° ter, 

Mean dew-point . . 5 ae ae 
Highest . : , se OC 
5 lit. — 45° 

Lowest ; - = lb 

Mean dryness. —— 7 

Mean greatest dryness of day = 33 
: = " 
Greatest dryness : : a YAO 


The dew-point being that temperature below which 
air cannot be reduced without condensation of the 
contained in it, the mean dew-point is evi- 
the average of all these temperatures through - 
so that, taking one day 


vapour 
dently , 
| out the month of December; 


248 


with another, and one hour with another, the air must 
he as high as 37°°6 temp. Fahr., in order to retain the 
moisture within it in a vaporic form. The terms 
‘highest ” and “lowest” speak for themselves. The 
term “mean dryness” is in some degree an indication 
of the probability of rain, and results from subtracting 
the mean dew-point from the mean temperature of the 
air: thus, under the head ‘“ thermometer,” we find 
“mean temperature” to be 39°3; and as the “ mean 
dew-point” is stated above at 37°°6, we have 39°°3— 
37°°6 = 1°7; showing that if the mean temperature of 
the air in December were reduced less than two de- 
erees, the vapour contained in it would reach the con- 
densing-point, and cloudiness, if not rain, would result. 
“Mean greatest dryness of the day” explains its own 
meaning; and “greatest dryness” 1s the greatest dif- 
ference observed during the month between the tem- 
perature of the air and the temperature of the con- 
tained vapour: thus, there occurs, or 1s likely to occur, 
in the month of December, a period when the tem- 
perature of the air will be 10° higher than the dew- 
point. . “a , 

The time has not yet arrived for predieting the fall 
of rain from the indications of the hygrometer alone, 
because the temperature, the barometric pressure, and 
the electrical state, all influence the production of this 
phenomenon. But there can be no doubt that its ndi- 
cautious will afford valuable assistance in the deduction 
of general laws in meteorology ; and it 1s for this pur- 
pose that registered observations are kept with so much 
eare. 

A thin glass tumbler, a small thermometer, and 
some cold spring water will furnish the means for 
showing in a familar manner the mode in which the 
‘dew-point”” and the “dryness” are aseertained. We 
inay regulate the temperature of the water until it has 


attained just such a point that it will cause a deposi- | 


tion of dew in the exterior of the glass. The tempera- 
ture of the water at that moment will give the ‘“ dew- 
point,” and the difference between that and the tempe- 
rature of the air will give the “ dryness.” If the season 
of the year be sueh that the temperature of the air is 
as low as that of spring-water (which it 1s not in sum- 
mer), the water must be artificially cooled with ice, 
or a mixture of salt and snow, or an alkaline salt, 
down to 10° or 15° below the temperature of the 
atmosphere. 


Process and History of Lithography.—The process of litho- 
grapby depends on the facility with which some kinds of stone 
absorb either grease or water, and on the natural antipathy which 
grease and water have for each other. An even surface having 
been given to the stone, a drawing is made upon it with a greasy 
chalk. The stone is then wet, and the printer passes over it a 
roller covered with printing ink, which adheres to those parts 
only which are drawn upon with the chalk; a damp paper is 
theu pressed upon it, and receives an impression of the drawing. 
Lithography was accidentally discovered about the year 1792 by 
‘Alois Senefelder, the son of a performer at the Theatre Royal of 
Mumch, He was a student of law at the University of Ingol- 
stadt, and after his father’s death tried a theatrical life, but with- 
out success. He then became an author, but being too poor to 
publish his work, tried various methods of writing on copper, in 
order that he might then print himself, and soon found that a 
composition of soap, wax, and lampblack formed an excellent 
material for writing, capable, when dry, of resisting aquafortis. 
To obtain facility in writing backwards, as copper was too ex- 
pensive, he procured some pieces of calcareous stone, which 
when polished served him to practise upon. His mother having 
one day desired him to take an account of some linen she was 
sending to be washed, he wrote it out on a piece of this stone with 
his composition of soap and wax. It afterwards occurred to him, 
that by corroding the surface with acid, the letters would stand 
out in relief, and admit of impressions being taken from them. 
He tried the experiment and succeeded, and soon found that it 
was not absolutely necessary to lower the surface of the stone, | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[June 26, 1841. 


but that simply wetting it was sufficient to prevent the printing 
ink from adhering to any parts except those which were marked 
with the composition. Such was the invention of lithography, 
and Senefelder coutinued to pay unremitting attention to the 
improvement of the art. In 1796 pieces of music were printed, 
and it was perhaps the first time that lithography became of real 
use. The difficulty of writing backwards brought about the in- 
vention of the transfer paper. In 1799 Senefelder took out a 
patent at Munich, and soon after entered into partnership with 
a Mr. André of Offenbach, who proposed to establish presses and 
take out patents in London, Paris, aud Vienna. He came to 
London in 1801, with a brother of Mr. Offenbach, and commu- 
nicated the new art, then called poly-autography, to many of 
our best English artists, who tried it; but the continual failures, 
through want of skill in the printing, and the difference between 
German and English materials, caused it to be abandoned. 
Having separated from Mr. André, Senefelder went to Vienna, 
where he tried to apply lithography to the printing of cottons, but 
apparently without success, and he returned to Munich in 1806, 
in which year the Professor of Drawing at the Public School at 
Munich, Mr. Mitterer, succeeded in multiplying copies of his 
drawings for his pupils by lithography. He is also said to have 
invented the composition for chalk as now made. In 1809 we 
find Senefelder Inspector of the Royal Lithographic Establish- 
ment at Munich, and engaged in printing a map of Bayaria, and 
soon after invented the stone paper, which, however, did not suc- 
ceed; it was exhibited in 1823 at London, by-a partner of Sene- 
felder, but its liability to crack by being wet, and the pressure 
of the press, rendered it useless. Little was done in England 
after 1806 till its revival in 1817, since which time it has been 
gradually improving, till lately it has acquired still greater 
powers by the means of employing a second stone, by which 
is obtained a perfect imitation of drawings made oun tinted 
paper, having the hghts laid on with white.—-Fielding’s Art of 
Lingraving. 


Morals and Manners amongst a Scattered Population.—J 
know it has been laid down asa principle, that the more and 
closer men are congregated together, the more prevalent is vice 
of every kind; and that an isolated or scattered population is 
favourable to virtue and simplicity. It may be so, if you are 
satisfied with negative virtues and the simplicity of ignorance. 
But here, where a small population is scattered over a wide extent 
of fruitful country, where there is not a village or a hamlet for 
twenty or thirty or forty miles together—where there are no ma- 
nufactories—where there is almost entire equality of condition 
—where the means of subsistence are abundant—where there is 
no landed aristocracy—no poor-laws nor poor-rates, to grind the 
souls and the substance of the people between them, till nothing 
remains but chaff,—to what shall we attribute the gross vices, the 
prothgacy, the stupidity, and basely vulgar habits of a great part 
of the people, who know not eve1 how to enjoy or to turn to pro- 
fit the inestimable advantages around them? And, alas for 
them! there seems to be no one as yet to take an interest about 
them, or at least infuse a new spirit into the next generation. In 
one log-hut, in the very heart of the wilderness, where I might 
well have expected primitive manmers and simplicity, I found 
vulgar finery, vanity, affectation, under the most absurd and dis- 
gusting forms, combined with the want of the commonest phy- 
sical comforts of life, and the total absence of even elementary 
knowledge. In another I have seen drunkenness, profligacy, 
stolid indifference to all religion ; and in another the most sense- 
less fanaticism. There are people, I know, who think—who fear 
that the advancement of knowledge and civilization wmust be 
the increase of vice and insubordination; who deem that a scat- 
tered agricultural population, where there is a sufficiency of 
daily food for the body ; where no schoolmaster imterferes to infuse 
ambition and discontent into the abject self-satisfied mind ; where 
the labourer reads not, writes not, thinks not—only loves, hates, 
prays, and toils,—that such a state must be a sort of Arcadia. 
Let them come here !—there isno march of intellect here !—there 
is no “schoolmaster abroad” here! And what are the couse- 
quences? Not the most agreeable to contemplate, believe me. 


—Mrs. Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in 
Canada. 





Recreation.—Recreation is a second creation, wlien weariness 
hath almost annihilated one’s spirits. It is the breathing of the 


soul which otherwise would be stifled with continual business.— 
Fidler. : 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 249 


A SECOND DAY AT A SHIP- YARD. 

















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{Intenor of Mast-house. ] 


In our last Supplement we gave a brief descrip- 
tion of the ship-building establishment of Messrs. 
Green, Wigrams, and Greens at Blackwall, and also 
traced the earlier part of the processes connected with 
the construction of a ship. We now propose to take 
up the subject at the point where we then left it, and 
to show, as far as the nature of our work admits, the 
subsequent labours required for the completion of a 
vessel. 

It will be remembered that, after speaking of the 
occupation of the ship’s draughtsman, we explained 
the arrangement of the building-slip, the laying-down 
of the keel on the blocks, and the erection of the curved 
frame-timbers of a vessel. The form of the hull is 
thus given; m a rude manner, it is true, but still with 
a degree of certainty which determines the character 
of the vessel. The numerous pieces subsequently 
added, whether of British or African oak, elm, or fir, 
are sawn at the pits, under the supervision of the ‘ con- 
verter ; and are afterwards, in most cases, trimmed, 
or, as it is termed, ‘ dubbed,’ withan adze. In common 
carpenter’s work, the only tool used, after the saw, for 
paring away and levelling the surface of wood, is ge- 
nerally the plane ; but in the work of the shipwright, 
where more bulky materials are operated on, where 
almost every piece is to be hollowed or rounded in 
some part or other, and where great neatness is not 
required, the adze becomes a valuable instrument. 
The various kinds of joints whereby one timber or 
plank is connected with another, such as tenon-and- 
mortice, &c., are made by the aid of nearly the same 


No. 0933. 


tools as those employed in carpentry, but of a larger 
size and stronger make. As may be reasonably sup- 
posed, these prepared timbers are often very bulky and 
ponderous; and the conveyance of them from the saw- 
pit to the building-slip requires the aid of horses. 
There is a whimsical anecdote given by Strype, in his 
edition of Stow’s ‘ Survey of London,’ which, while it 
immediately illustrates this subject, also carries us 
back to an early period im the history of the Blackwall 
ship-yard, introducing us to this scene of bustle as it 
was in the seventeenth century :—‘“ In the time of the 
elder Sir Henry Johnson, Knt., ship-builder, an horse 
belonging to his yard was wrought there thirty-four 
years, driven by one man; and he grew to that expe- 
rience, that at the first sound of the bell for the men in 
the yard to leave off work, he also would cease labour- 
ing, and could not by any means be brought to give 
one pull after it: and when the bell rang to work, he 
would as readily come forth again to his labour, which 
was to draw planks and pieces of timber from one part 
of the yard to another.” We believe that a public- 
house in Blackwall has received the sign of the ‘ Old 
Hob,’ in honour of the horse which bore that name, 
and which took this very independent mode of showing 
his importance. 

But toreturn. The keel, the stern-post, and the 
stem, form the three great supports of the frame of the 





vessel; the first being horizontal, the second rising 


from it almost perpendicularly at one end, and the 
third rising in a curve at the other. Among the tim- 
bers which are subsequently adjusted to the vessel are 


Vou. X.—2 K 


250 THE PENNY 
three, called the keelson, the sternson, and the stemson, 
which are in some sense interior representatives of the 
three just named. The keelson is fixed on the floor 
timbers, immediately over the keel, and forms that part 
on which the steps or blocks of wood are placed which 
support the masts: it is secured down to te keel py 
means of bolts three feet in length, which pass entirely 
through both, as well as the intervening wood. The 
stemson and the sternson rise from the two ends of the 
keclson, and form internal supports to the ends of the 
vessel. The timbers are often strengthened within by 
pieces called riders; but in modern vessels they are 
frequently secured and braced one to another by diago- 
nal iron plates, from half an inch to an inch in thick- 
ness, passing nearly from the top to the bottom of the 
hull, inside the vessel. Being bent round the con- 
cavity of the ship’s side in an oblique direction, each 
niece of iron crosses several different frames of tim- 
bers, and is securely bolted to them all. 

The small portion of the hull of a vessel which 1s 
seen above the level of the water presents to view a 
surface covered with horizontal or nearly horizontal 
ranges of planking; and if we could see lower down, 
towards the keel, we should find a similar approach to 
a horizontal direction in the pieces of wood with which 
the hull is covered. Withinside, too, a similar arrange- 
ment is observable. The vertical frames of timbers 
of which we have been speaking do not present them- 
selves to the eye of a person viewing a finished vessel, 
either within or without. The whole are covered with 
planking, laid in nearly horizontal rows or ‘ strakes.’ 
The planks may be regarded as forming the skin with 
which the ribs of the ship are covered ; and, indeed, the 
shipwrights, who almost seem to regard their ship as a 
living being, apply the term ‘ skinning’ to the opera- 
tion of laying on these planks; an opposite sense, 1t 1s 
true, to that in which we are in the habit of using 
this term. Nor is thisskin by any means a trifling 
affair, for the thickness of the planks which form it 
varies from about three to six inches. The planks are 
formed of sound and durable oak, and are often nearly 
thirty feet in length. They are brought, while at the 
saw-pit, as nearly to the required form as may be prac- 
ticable; and are afterwards worked with the adze, to 
give them the proper contour. This must not be sup- 
posed to imply that the planks are hollowed or curved 
by the adze to the exact shape of the vessel, but that 
the width and thickness of adjoining planks are ad- 
justed to each other. When a prepared plank is laid 
against the outside of a vessel, the convexity of the 
latter causes the ends of the planks to stand out several 
inches from it; and on the other hand, when laid on 
the inside, the concave surface causes the ends to be in 
contact with the timbers, and the middle to be several 
inches away from them. The planks require, there- 
fore, the aid of powerful instruments to force them 
close to the timbers previous to bolting, and this ope- 
ration is further assisted by bringing the plank toa 
heated and moistened state by steam. 

The parts of the planking vary in thickness, and 
reccive distinctive names, according to the places which 
they occupy; but all are treated nearly in the same 
way—sawn, dressed with an adze, steamed, forced to 
the curvature of the ship, and fastened to the timbers 
with bolts. The trenails, wmch are more numerous 
than the bolts, are not driven in till a subsequent stage 
in the operations. In adjusting the planks to the ship’s 
sides, care is always taken that the adjoming ends of 
two planks in one row or strake shall not occur at the 
same part of the ship’s length asa joint in the row 
next above or below it, a caution similar to that ob- 
served in laying the courses of bricks in a wall, or the 
rows of slates on aroof, and the object of which is 


sufficiently obvious in relation to the strength of the 


MAGAZINE. (JUNE, 1841. 
structure. Whoever has an opportunity of seeing the 
whole hull of a vessel, will observe that the planking 
is ranged with great regularity, each strake or row 
diminishing in width towards the ends, to conform 
with the diminishing size of the vessel. 

In the building of a ship matters are so arranged 
that many different parts are in progress simulta- 
neously ; some workmen making preparations for the 
beams of a vessel withinside, while others are plank . 
ing the exterior, and others perhaps engaged at va- 
rious parts of the head andstern. The beamsare stout 
and well finished timbers stretching across the vessel 
from side to side, at intervals of a few feet, and serving 
not only to support the deck or decks, but also to bind 
the two sides of the vessel together. These beams, 
situated as they are at right angles to the keel, have 
riven rise to many nautical expressions which are 
rather incomprehensible to general readers: thus the 
‘breadth of beam’ is the width of a vessel; an object 
seen at sca in a direction at right angles with the keel, 
is said to be ‘on the beam ;’ when a ship inclines very 
much on one side, so that her beams approach to a 
vertical position, she is said to be ‘on her beam ends ;' 
and many other similar phrases might be adduced. 

The'beams are ranged at such distances apart, that 
an East Indiaman of a thousand tons burden requires 
about thirty beneath the main deck. Each beam is 
usually formed either of one or of three pieces, accord- 
ing to the dimensions of the vessel; the three pieces, 
in the latter case, being securely joined or scaried 
together. The beams are not straight, but are curved 
upwards in the middle, so that their upper surfaces 
are convex and their lower concave; the bendmg 
being such that there is a curvature of about one inch 
to every yard in the length of the beam. The ends of 
the beams are made to rest on stout planks called 
clamps; but the real fastening 1s by means of iron 
brackets technically termed knees, bolted both to the 
beam and to the timbers of the ship. Besides the fasten- 
ings at the two ends of cach beam, there are supporters 
in the middle, which are often formed of cast-1ron, 
combining lightness of appearance with strength. 

Various ledges and frames, called partners, coamings, 
and carlings, being arranged between the beams, the 
decks are next attended to. These divide the hull into 
different stories, analogous to those of a house ; and in 
the one case as in the other, the number of floors 1s 
creater in some instances than in others. Large ships 
of war are furnished with three entire decks, reaching 
from the stem to the stern; besides two shorter decks 
called the forecastle and the quarter-deck, the one 
placed at the head of the vessel, and the other towards 
the stern, a vacant space called the zwarst being left 
between them, at the middle of the ships length. In 
smaller vessels of war, and in merchantmen, the decks 
are fewer; two whole decks and a quarter-deck being 
the number in an East Indiaman. The deck is gene- 
rally made of Dantzig or Memel fir, and for vessels 
exposed to a hot climate yellow pine 1s sometimes 
employed. The deck-planks are laid side by side, 
lengthwise of the ship, or parallel to the keel, and 
vary from six to ten inches In breadth, and from two 
to four in thickness. They are nailed down to every 
beam and to every carling, either with iron nails or 
with nails formed of a nixed metal. 

We have said that the planking which covers the 
inside and outside of a ship is secured, partly by bolts 
and partly by wooden pins called trenauls, to the tim- 
bers; and that the trenails are not driven in until some 
time after the bolts. The object of this seems to be, 
that by making the trenail-holes a considerable time 
before the trenails are] inserted, the wood round each 
hole has an opportunity to become seasoned. The 
holes are made with an auger, which is a kind of gim- 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


blet or borer, varying from an inch to two inches in 
diameter, according to the size of the trenail to be in- 
serted. The head of the auger is provided with a cross 
handle of considerable leugth, which furnishes a lever- 
ave to the workman using the instrument. This kind 
of labour is often very severe, from the hardness of 
the wood, the great depth to which the hole is to be 
bored, and the awkward position in which the man has 
to place himself. The curvature of a ship near the 
keel is almost horizontal, and at other parts goes 
through all the gradations from a horizontal! to a ver- 





tical direction ; and the man who is engaged in boring 
the trenail-hoies has to vary his position and mode of 
working, sometines standing and at other times sitting, 
according to the part of the vessel at which he is at work. 
It is so arranged that the same trenail shall pass, not 
only through the outer planking and the frame-tunber, 
but also through the inner planking; by which all 
three are bound well together ; and the trenail-holes 
are bored in conformity with this arrangement. When 
the proper time arrives for driving in the trenails, a 
set of men, each provided with a large and heavy ham- 
mer, proceed to that operation. The trenail is made 
shehtly larger than the hole into which it 1s to be 
driven, so as to bite or cling closely to the timbers; 
and a succession of powerful blows is requisite to urge 
it forward. The trenail is a little longer than the 
depth of the hole, and the superfluous end is taken off 
With a saw when the driving is finished. It is then 
tightened in the hole by small wedges driven in at the 
end. 

The planking and trenailing having brought the 
surface of the hull to a tolerably even state, which is 
further assisted by a little trimming or ‘dubbing’ 
with the adze, a process follows which is indispensable 
to the exclusion of water from the vessel, viz. that of 
caulking. The planks cannot be brought so close 
together as to make the joining impenctrable to water, 
and the joint is therefore filled up with oakum. We 
explained in the last Supplement the manner in which 
threads of oakum are twisted by boys out of refuse 
rope, and alluded to the mode in which they are em- 
ployed. A kind of chisel, called a caulking-iron, is 
employed to drive the threads of oakum into the seams. 
The oakum is not placed merely at the outer edges of 
the crevices, but is driven in to a depth equal to the 
whole thickness of the plank. Sometimes the edges of 
the planks are chisclled away a little, in order to afford 
room for the entrance of the oakum,; and in all cases 
the caulkers manage the seams in such a manner as to 
fill them up with a dense and compact layer of oakum, 
which not only answers the purpose of making the 


THE PENNY 


———— 


WAGAZINE. 2h 





lie aN 


Cr ce 


vessel tight, but also helps to consolidate and strengthen 
the whole ship in a very considerable degree, by making 
the edges of the planks bear hard against each other, so 
that one part cannot move or work independent of an- 
other. At the time when this caulking of the seams is 
going on, the planks theinselves are examined, and any 
shakes or rents or fissures, however small, are well 
filled with oakum. This process being finally com- 
pleted, all the caulked seams are coated, or, as it is 
termed, ‘payed,’ with hot melted pitch and rosin, by 
Which the hempen fibres of oakum are preserved from 
the action of the sea-water. The sheathing is an ex- 
terior coating afterwards put on the bottom of the 
vessel; but this is a stage in the proceedings at which 
we have not yet arrived. 

The operations withinside the vessel are, as may be 
supposed, much more varied than those on the outside, 
but they partake more and more of the nature of car- 
pentry as the construction of the vessel advances. 
After the various picces are adjusted which form the 
main support of the different parts of the vessel, the 
hull is divided into compartments accordant with the 
purposes for which the vessel ts intended. The decks, 
port-holes, magazines, and berths for several hundred 
men in a man-of-war, and the cabins, the passenger 
accommodation, and luggage-room of a merchant 
ship, of course require different arrangements of the 
interior. Supposing these matters to have been com- 
pleted, we will next proceed to the important aifair 
of launching, by which the vessel is borne on to the 
liquid element which is afterwards to form her home. 
Those persons who have never seen a ship launched, 
and who are but little acquainted with these matters, 
may feel it desirable to know in what stage of the 
building process the launching is effected. We may 
here mention, then, that the hull is launched before it 
has been sheathed or coated with copper, and also 
before it is fitted with masts, yards, bowsprit, rudder, 
sails, or ropes. There are various reasons why these 
several parts are more conveniently fitted after than 
before the launching; the height of the vessel from 
the ground when on the building-ship—the angle at 
which it slopes towards the water—the difhculty of 
getting into the vessel, &c., are some of these reasons ; 
and with regard to the sheathing, it 1s deemed better 
to be postponed until the soundness of the naked 
planking has been tested by unmersion in the water. 

We explained in the former article, that the ship is 
built on blocks, laid in regular succession along the 
building-slip, and so adjusted that the keel, which 
rests immediately on thelr upper surfaces, cs have 

2K 2 


aoe 


an inclination of about five-eighths of an inch to the 
foot towards the river. These blocks form the central 
support beneath the vessel, during the whole progress 
of building; and the vessel is further supported at the 
sides by shores, or poles, raised at various angles from 
the ground. As the time of launching approaches, 
preparations are made for removing all these lateral 
supports, for lifting the keel completely from the 
blocks, and for constructing two temporary ‘ slippery 
paths” down’ which the vessel may slide into the 
river. The whole of these operations are very curious, 
and require great nicety and care to ensure success. 
Along the building-slip, on each side of the keel, and 
distant from it about one-sixth of the vessel’s breadth, 
is laid an inclined platform, formed of many pieces of 
wood, and presenting a flat upper surface inclining 
downwards towards the river atan angle of about seven- 
eighths of an inch to the foot, and consequently more 
sloping than the position of the keel. The inclined 

lane thus formed is called the ‘ shding-plank ; and it 

as a raised edge, or ledge, called the ‘ side-way,’ or 
‘ribband,’ projecting four or five inches upwards from 
its outer edge. The sliding-plank is placed upon sup- 
porting blocks, so as to be elevated some ieet from the 
eround. A long timber called a ‘bilge-way,’ with a 
smooth under-surface, is laid upon this shding-plank ; 
and upon this timber, asa base, is erected a trame- 
work, reaching up to the hull of the ship. This frame- 
work, which is called the ‘ cradle,’ is formed partly of 
solid wood-work, filling up the whole space between 


the bilge-way and the hull, and partly of short poles }. 


called ‘ proppets,’ which are erected nearly vertically, 
and abut against a plank fastened temporarily to the 
bottom of the ship. These operations are carried on 
on both sides of the keel, and at a few feet distant from 
it; and the vessel may in this state be almost said to 
have three keels, the real one midway between two 
temporary ones. Ata certain stage in the building- 
up of these pieces, a layer of tallow, soap, and oil is 
placed between the sliding-plank and the bilge-way, 
to diminish the friction during the sliding of the latter. 

But it is not sufficient that these two temporary false 
keels reach up to the hull: the hull must actually bear 
with its whole pressure upon them, so that the blocks 
beneath the real keel may be relieved from the enor- 
mous weight of the vessel. To efiect this, a great num- 
ber of wedges are driven in just above the bilge-way, 
by the action of which the vessel 1s in some degree 
lifted off the blocks, and made to rest on the bilge-ways. 
This operation is one of the most singular which a 
ship-yard presents. Very frequently a hundred men 
are driving the wedges at once; half of them being 
ranged on one side of the vessel and half on the other. 
Each man is provided with a heavy hammer, and ata 
given signal all strike together, whereby a hundred 
wedges are driven at the same instant. The effect pro- 
duced by the wedge 1s at all times one of a remarkable 
and powerful kind; and when the exertions of so 
many men are in this manner simultancously applied, 
the effect is irresistible: the huge ship, though not 
actually elevated above the central blocks, is so far 
moved as to transfer her pressure from them to the 
bilge-ways and sliding-planks. If the shores by which 
the sides of the ship are supported were now knocked 


away, the vessel would be likely to slide down into the | 


river, the bilge-ways gliding over the slippery surfaces 
of the sliding-planks. But to prevent this from occur- 
ring before the proper time, a short plece of wood 
called a ‘ dog-shore’ is fitted to the upper end of each 
bilge-way, in such a mamner as to prevent the bilge- 
way from beginning to slide so long as the dog-shore 
remains there. | 

A few other arrangements bemg made, the ship is 
ready for launching. The dog-shores, and the ham- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(June, 1841. 


mers with which they are to be knocked away, are 
generally painted blue, and now become conspicuous 
objects, for a visitor looks at them as the apparently 
shght means whereby the vessel is to be urged into the 
water. A screw is fixed against this end of the keel, 
to assist In urging the ship forward, if such a course 
be necessary, and some of the blocks under the keel 
are cut away, to make the vessel rest more entixely on 
the bilge-ways. Ata given signal two men, one on 
each side, knock away the dog-shores; the vessel glides 
slowly downwards into the water; a flask of wine is 
thrown at the head; she is christened with the name 
sclected for her; and when she touches the water 
all give her a hearty greeting. This is an exhilarating 
sight, and has formed the subject for many a picture ; 
which must, however, necessarily be defective, for a 
picture cannot represent motion. Poets, too, have not 
failed to celebrate this gliding of a ship to its watery 
dwelling. If we transfer the scene trom Plymouth 
harbour to the river Thames, the following lines by 
Carrington would not be inapplicable to our present 
subject :-— 
“ At last, 

By genius nobly form’d, the finish’d ship 

Ts ready for th’ impressive launch. The day 

Arrives, the Atlantic tide is swelling high 

To place her on its bosom. O’er her decks 

The streamers wave all-gallantly, around 

Kulivening music tloats, while myriads crowd 

Where the bold vessel on her rapid plane 

Sits proudly. Hark! the intrepid artizans 

Remove her last supports ;—a breathless pause 

Holds the vast multitude ;—a moment she 

Remains upon her slope,—then starts,—and now 

Rushing sublimely to the flashing deep, 

Amid the shouts of thousands she descends ; 

Then rises, buoyantly, a graceful pile, 

To float supinely on the blue Hamoaze.” 


Having launched our ship, we will next proceed to 
speak of the masts with which it is to be furnished. 
Whether the masts are placed in the vessel immediately 
after she is launched, or whether some other operations 
are previously performed, depends on many different 
circumstances; but in either case, the masts have 
been prepared during the time that the ship has been 
on the stocks, the workmen employed on the ene 
being a totally different set from those engaged on 
the other, and the operations being carried on in a dif- 
ferent part of the yard. Masts, as 1s well known, serve 
as supports to the sails, and are themselves supported 
by ropes and tackle. The number varies in different 
kinds of ships; for instance, a ship properly so called 
is provided with three masts; a brig and a schooner 
are each provided with two; while one mast forms 
the complement for a sloop, a cutter, or a smack. 
But it is necessary here to remark, that a mast is 
not, except in small vessels, a straight piece of timber 
put up in one single length; it 1s generally formed of 
three stages or tiers rising one above another, each of 
which receives a distinctive name. Let us take for 
example a 74-gun ship of war. Here are three masts, 
the foremast, the mainmast, and the mizen-mast; and 
each one of these three is formed of three subordinate 
masts, rising one above another, of which the lowest is 
termed the lower mast, the next in height the top- 
mast, and the third the topgallant-mast. The length 
of the lowest is rather more than that of the other two 
put together; and the united length of the whole is, 
in the case of the mainmast, above two hundred feet. 
In a merchant vessel, say of a thousand tons burden, 
the arrangement is just the same in principle, but the 
dimensions smaller, the nine subordinate masts varying 
from about twenty to ninety feet in length, the shortest 
being the mizen topgallant-mast, and the longest the 
lower mainmast. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


The masts for such vessels as the Agincourt and 
Southampton East Indiamen vary from about ten to 
twenty-cight or thirty inches in diameter; and as the 
latter dimensions are too great to allow the whole to 
be made from one tree, the mast is built up of several 
pieces, laid side by side in various ways, and bearing 
the technical names of spindles, side-trees, front-fishes, 
side-fishes, cheeks, cant-picces, fillings, heel-pieces, and 
others equally unintelligible to general readers. The 
principal part of each mast, or the whole mast, if the 
diameter be small, is made of Canadian fir, a tree which 
presents a remarkably straight and uniform trunk. 

The mast-making shop, at the yard which is the ob- 
ject of our visit, is a very large roofed building, above 
a hundred feet in length by seventy in width. It is 
situated close to the mast-pond in connection with the 
wet-dock, so that the inasts can be floated in or out of 
the yard with great facility. The mast-makers have 
some tools pecuhar to themselves; but the main ope- 
rations bear some resemblance to those by which the 
timbers of a ship are fashioned. The various pieces of 
which a mast is built up are sawn to their proper di- 
mensions, and fitted together by various kinds of 
joints, called coaking, dowelling, &c., and of which the 
common tenon and mortice will fwnish some idea. 
Various cutting instruments are employed to give the 
rounded or convex form to the mast, when the pieces 
are put together ; and pieces of wood are attached to 
its surface, to answer several purposes, when the mast 
is put in its place in the ship. The extent to which 
this building-up of a mast goes may be judged from 
the fact that the lower mainmast alone of an East 
Indiaman weighs upwards of six tons; and when lying 
along the floor of the mast-shop, its length of ninety 
feet and thickness of two and a half impress one with 
no mean idea of its bulk. 

The various pieces of which a large mast is formed 
would not be permanently retained in their proper 
places, were there not some external band or tie em- 
ployed. The band used for this purpose consists of a 
series of iron hoops, ranged at intervals of four or five 
feet apart along the mast. These hoops are formed of 
on bands about three inches in width and three- 
eighths of an inch in thickness; and after being 
welded as nearly as may be to the girth of the mast, 
they are fixed on it. Each hoop—of which the lower 
imainmast contains about twenty, and the others a pro- 
portionate number—is in the first place heated, not to 
such a degree as would scorch the wood on which it is 
laid, but so far as to give a slight expansion to its di- 
mensions. A small brick-built kiln is situated near 
the mast-shop, and in this kiln a fire is made, on which 
the iron hoop is laid to be heated. When the heating 
is effected, the hoop is taken up by means of a kind of 
tongs, carried to the mast-shop, put over the small end 
of the mast (for every mast is of smaller dimensions at 
one end than the other), and pushed on as far as its 
diameter will permit. A party of fourteen men then 
join their exertions to drive the hoop on as tightly as 
possible. Six of them grasp a long iron bar called a 
‘poker,’ and stand in an oblique line on one side of 
the mast; six others hold asimilar bar on the other 
side of the mast; and the remaining two are provided 
with heavy hammers. The men, thus placed, then 
strike the hoop with the two pokers, the end of each 
poker being made to strike against the edge of the 
hoop, and all the twelve men urging the two pokers 
simultaneously, by ‘which very powerful blows are 
given. At the call of? ‘hands up,’ the men direct their 
blows to the edge of the upper part of the hoop; while 
‘hands down’ is a dir ection to them to make the blows 
lower down. The two men with the hammers mean- 
winle deal powerful b lows on the surface or face of the 
hoop. As the hoop is driven onwards to a thicker part 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


| 





293 


of the mast, it necessarily binds the wood more tightly, 
and this is still further effected by the contraction of 
the hoop as the iron becomes cold. The ultimate 
effect is that the hoops give an extraordinary degree 
of strength to the mast. Our frontispiece represenis 
this process of ‘ hooping a mast.’ 

The bowsprit and the yards of a vessel are made by 
the mast-makers, and may indeed be considered as 
masts, so far as the mode of making is concerned. The 
bowsprit is a large mast which projects obliquely over 
the stem, to carry sail forward, in order to govern the 
fore part of a ship, and to counteract the force of the 
after-sails; it also serves to hold the stays or ropes by 
Which the foremast is kept in its position. It generally 
rises at an angle of about thirty-six degrees. It very 
nearly equals in diameter and is about two-thirds of 
the length of the lower mainmast; being, in an Hast 
Indiaman, nearly sixty fect in length, and two anda 
half in diameter at the larger end. ‘The yards are long 
pieces of timber suspended upon the masts, for the pur- 
pose of extending the sails; some being suspended 
across the masts at right angles, and called square 
yards ; others suspended obliquely, and termed lateen 
yards. The number of these yards in a large ship is 
about twenty, and the dimeusions of some of then are 
very considerable. The main yard of a first rate man- 
of-war is above a hundred feet in length and two feet 
in diameter ; while the other remaining yards have va- 
rious lengths down to about twenty feet, and various 
diameters down to three or four inches. 

While hearing of these very large and ponderous 
masts, yards, &c., the reader may naturally inquire 
how they are conveyed to the ship, and lifted in their 
places. On this point we will now offer a brief expla- 
nation. The great difficulty is to get in the three 
lower masts; for the upper ones are afterwards drawn 
up by means of tackle with comparative ease. The 
lower masts are fitted in three different ways, viz. by 
sheers, by a sheer-hulk, or by a masting-house. 

The sheers used in masting vessels are two large 
poles, masts, or spars, erected on the vessel whose masts 
are to be fixed; the lower ends resting on thick planks 
laid along the sides of the deck, and the upper ends 
crossing each other, where they are securely lashed. 
The point where the two spars cross 1s exactly over the 
hole where the mast is to be dropped through the deck ; 
and the spars are retained in this position by strong 
ropes attached to different parts of the ship. ‘The mast, 
being floated to the side of the ship, is elevated entirely 
above deck by means of tackle connected with the 
sheers; and when it is brought with the lower end 1m- 
mediately over the hole in the deck, 1t 1s gently lowered 
into its place, passing down through the entire height 
of the vessel, and resting on the step or block fixed to 
the keelson. When onc of the three masts 1s fixed in 
this way, the sheers are moved to the spot where the 
second is to be placed, and afterwards to the third. 
This is the gencral mode of masting merchant ships. 

The sheer-hulk is an old man-of-war cut down to the 
lower deck, and fitted with an apparatus of sheers, 
tackle, &c. for masting the ships of the royal navy. 
There is a mast, a hundred and twenty feet in length, 
fixed in the hulk, and acting as a support to three or 
four stout spars or sheers which project obliquely froin 
the side of the vessel. The tops of these sheers are at 
such a height, and project to such a distance from the 
side of the hulk, that the vessel which is to be masted 
can come beneath them, and be fitted with her lower 
masts, which are hoisted up to the requisite height by 
the sheers, and then lowered into the vessel. This is 
the general inode of masting ships of war. 

The masting-house is a building erected expressly 
for the operation of masting ships. We are notaware 
whether there are others of the kind in this country ; 


204 


but the one at Blackwall, formerly spoken of as once 
belongmeg to Mr. Perry, and as being now in the pos- 
session of the East India-Dock Company, 1s the place 
at which the ships from the Blackwall yard are masted. 
It 1s a square wooden building, erected on tlie western 
quay of the outward-bound dock, and having, at the 
top, a platform overhanging the water to the distance 
of several feet. The ship to be masted 1s floated into 
this dock from the Thames, and brought immediately 
beneath the overhanging platform. The masts are 
likewise floated in; and, after being hoisted up one by 
one by meaus of, tackle connected with the platform, 
are lowered into their proper places in the ship. 

Having thus spoken of the masting of a vessel (by 
which is usually understood the lower masts only), we 
will follow it back to the building-yard. We have 
before explained the difference between a building- 
slip and a dry-dock, and the manner in which a ship is 
brought into the latter. We will suppose it therctore 
to have been dry-docked, and to be ready for the 
process of sheathing, which is frequently done about 
this stage of the proceedings. The planks with which 
the tumbers of a ship are covered, although the seams 
may be caulked with oakum and pitched, are not na 
condition to be exposed to the sea without serious 
injury, and a casing or sheathing is thercfore applied. 
Deal or fir plank, sheet lead, brown paper coated with 
tar, and sheet copper, are the substances which have 
been employed for this purpose; and experience has 
shown the last to be the best. Formerly so much grass, 
ooze, shells, sea-weed, &c. accumulated on and adhered 
to the bottom of a ship during a voyage, that the speed 
was Impaired; and a process of breaming or graving 
was frequently required when she was in dock. This 
breaming consisted in melting the pitchy coating with 
Which the bottom was covered, by holding kindled 
furze, faggots, or reeds under it, and thus loosening 
the matters which adhered to it, and which were sub- 
sequently scraped and brushed off. With the hope of 
rendering this process less frequently necessary, a 
sheathing of copper was proposed about eighty years 
azo; and the result was so satisiactary, that nm 1783 the 
government ordered all ships belonging to the royal 
havy to be copper-bottomed. The practice spread from 
thence to the mercantile marinc, and is now very 
eenerally tollowed. 

The sheets of copper, or of an alloy of copper and 
zinc, for sheathing, are about four feet long by fourteen 
inches wide ; the thickness being such that one square 
ioot weighs from sixteen to thirty-two ounces, genec- 
rally from twenty to twenty-cight. The copper is 
sometimes laid on the bare planking, but in other in- 
stances there isan interposed layer of paper, of felt, or 
of sheathing-board. The two latter are nailed on in 
their usual state; but if paper be employed, the shects 
are first dipped in a mixture of melted tar and pitch, 
left to dry, and then nailed on. But whether these 
interposed layers are used or not, the copper sheets are 
put on in a pretty wniform plan. The sheets are 
pierced with holes, not only all round the edges, but 
wt intervals of three or four inches over the whole 
surface. Each sheet laps about one inch over the ad- 
joming sheet, and is fastened to the ship by means of 
flat-headed nails, made of the same metal as the shcets. 
Great regularity 1s observed in the arrangement of the 
sheets, so that a certain symmetry of appearance, as 
well as a durability, 1s attained. 

The munber of sheets of copper required for a large 
ship is very considerable. Nearly eight thousand 
square feet are required for each of the two vessels, 
the Agincourt and the Southampton, before alluded to. 
After two voyages to the East Indics, the coppering 
requires to be renewed; and the old copper is found to 


have lost three or four ounces of its Weight in the square | 


THE PENN® Gawain EE. 


{JuNE, 184l. 


foot, by the action of sca-water, friction, and other 
causes. For re-coppering a vessel, the ship is docked, 
and stages or platforms built round her hull, on which 
the workmen may stand. With instruments adapted 
to the purpose, the men then strip the old copper from 
the ship’s bottom; and itis sent away to the copper- 
works to be again melted up into a useful form. The 
surface of the planking being brought tolerably 
smooth, and prepared in one or other of the ways 
alluded to above, the nailing on of the sheets of copper 
proceeds in the same way as for anew vessel. Ina 
ship-yard such as that at Blackwall, where many 
hands are employed, and the general arrangements 
are on a complete scale, a vessel is irequently sent out 
of dock thoroughly new-coppered within two days of 
the time when she entered it. 

We must now say a little respecting the sails and 
rigging of a ship. There is a superintendant cither 
engaged in or in some measure connected with ship- 
yards, called the ‘ship’s husband,’ whose office is of 
much importance. The tcrm 1s a remarkable one, 
but it is in character with the gencral tone in which a 
ship is regarded by those about her. A ship in the eyes 
of aseaman isa lady; there is probably no instance 
in which an inanimate object is regarded with more 
admiration—nay, even affection—than a gallant and 
well-fitted ship is by her crew; and a landsman may 
perhaps be permitted to say that there are few more 
worthy of it. The ‘ship’s husband’ 1s one who is 
well acquainted not only with the arrangement and 
forms of the sails and rigging, but with the general 
details of seamanship, and with the services which are 
required from every sail, yard, and rope; and _ his 
office is to see that the ship—his bride—is decked out 
with all the trappmgs nccessary for her personal ap- 
pearance and for her future life on the waters, Al- 
though the two facts, that sails are intended for the 
propulsion of a ship by the wind, and that the rigging 
is intended chiefly for the management of these sails, 
may appear tolerably simple, yet the judicious arrange- 
iment of the several parts is a matter of great intricacy, 
and requires long study and experience. 

The rigging of a ship, which is generally understood 
to imply the whole assemblage of ropes with which 
she is fitted, is of two kinds, one termed the standing 
and the other the running rigging, The former term 
is applied to all the shrouds, stays, back-stays, and 
other ropes which are employed to maintain the masts 
and bowsprit in their proper position, and which re- 
main pretty nearly in a constant state whether the ship 
is in full sail or all the sailsare furled; the latter term 
is applied to various ropes called braces, sheets, tacks, 
haliards, buntlines, &c., which are attached to different 
parts of the masts, yards, sails, and shrouds, and are 
employed principally in furling and unfurling the 
sails for the purposes of navigation. The whole of 
this rigging is made of hempen fibres, more or less 
saturated with tar. Those pieces of cordage which are 
devoted to the management of the anchors are termed 
cables ; those which are employed in the general opera- 
tions of rigging, and are more than an Inclhi im circum- 
ference, are termed ropes; while cordage of smaller 
dimensions than this 1s generally called limes. But 
this classification is not sufficient for the purposes of the 
seaman; every cable, rope, and line has a distinctive 
name belonging to it, according to the place where 
or the purpose for which it is applied. The breast- 
rope, the davit-rope, the quest-rope, the heel-rope, 
the parral-rope, the bow-lines, clue-lines, bunt-lnes, 
tow-lines, leech-lines—however unintelligible to ge- 
neral readers—are associated with perfectly definite 
ideas in the mind of a seaman, and have aregular scale 
of dimensions. 

There are, we believe, no private ship-huilding 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


firms which make their own cordage. The govern- 
ment yards have ropewalks for this purpose; but in 
other cases the cordage is supplied by rope-makcers, 
who confine their operations solely to this department. 
In our 495th number will be found a brief account of 
the process of rope-making ; and we may therefore 
merely state here that the cordage is supplied to the 
riggers, in coils and bundles of various sizes, com- 
prising the necessary lengths of all the different kinds 
of rope and line. The business of a ship’s-rigger is 
distinct from that of a ship-builder; and the opera- 
tions may or may not be carried on in a ship-build- 
ing yard, according to the facilities which the yard 
presents and to other circumstances. 

But wherever the rigging may be carried on, the 
operations are always nearly alike. The rigging-house 
is a place provided with tackle for stretching the 
ropes, and with the necessary instruments for attach- 
ing the blocks, rings, &c. required for fixing the ropes 
to the ship, and for managing the sails. The blocks here 
alluded to are a kind of whecl working in a wooden 
case, round the circumference of which a rope is 
passed to act asa pulley. They are somctimes made 
in the mast-making shop, and at other times by persons 
who follow that line of business only. The outer case 
or ‘shell’ of a block is made of elm or ash, and after 
heing rounded somewhat to an oval form, various per- 
forations are made through it. One of these is for the 
reception of a pin or spindle, made of lignuin-vita, 
or some other hard wood, or of iron; and others are 
for the reception of the wheels or ‘sheaves,’ which 
vary trom one to eight in number in cach block, and 
which are made of lignum-vite. The adjustment of 
the ropes to these blocks, to iron rings and hooks, and 
to each other, devolves upon the rigger, who is pro- 
vided with instruments for cutting, stretching, bend- 
ing, and tyeing the ropes in their proper places. The 
cordage employed fora large East Indiaman weighs 
several tons, and some of the ropes are four inches in 
diameter: the bending and fixing of such ropes as 
these, therefore, require powerful implements. Among 
the operations which much of the cordage undergoes 
before it is taken to the ship, is that of ‘serving.’ 
This consists in binding a smaller rope very tightly 
round it, in order to preserve it both from rotting and 
from any iriction to which it may be exposed. The 
substance thus bound round the rope is not necessarily 
a madc-rope of smaller diameter, but is sometimes 
formed of old canvas, mat, plat, hide, or spun-yarn, 
according to circumstances. All these substances re- 
ceive the common name of ‘service;’ and the mode 











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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


200 


of proceeding may be understood by a description of 
the process of ‘serving’ a rope with spun-yarm. The 
yarn might be simply twisted by hand round the rope, 
but the necessary tightness and compactness would not 
be thus attained; and a mallet is used instead. The 
rope being stretched out horizontally, a man provided 
with a mallet, and a boy holding a ball of spun-yarn, 
stand opposite to cach other at about two fect distance. 
The mallet, which has a concave groove on the side 
opposite to the handle, is laid on the rope, handle up- 
permost. Two or three turns of the spun-yarn are 
passed tightly round the rope, and round the body of 
the mallet; and while the boy passes the ball of yarn 
continually round the rope, the man, at the same time, 
and in the same direction, winds on the yarn by means 
of the mallet, whose handle, acting as a lever, strains 
every turn about.the rope as firmly as possible. The 
yarn then appears hke a screw whose threads pass 
almost transversely round the rope. The annexed cut 
shows the position occupied by the man and boy while 
‘serving’ a rope. 

While describing the process of masting a vessel, 
we stated that 1t 1s only the lower masts and the bow- 
sprit which are fitted by the sheers, the shcer-hulk, or 
the masting-house. The upper masts are not drawn 
up till the stage in the proceedings at which we are 
now arrived. The lower masts require to be secured 
by shrouds, &c. before the others are adjusted to them, 
so that the raising of the latter takes place after the 
rigging of the ship has been commenced. We have 
stated that the topmast surmounts the lower mast, 
and that the topgallant-inast surmounts both; but the 
masts are not actually joined end to end, 1n the usual 
sense of this term. A few fect below the upper end 
of the lower mast, a kind of platform is erected, on 
which the topmast rests, a little in front of the lower 
mast, so that the two do not actually touch in any part. 
This platform is called the ‘top,’ and is supported by 
various timbers termed cross-trees and tressel-trees. 
The topmast is drawn up to its place by means of 
tackle, and fixed securely to the plattorm, as also to 
a piece of timber projecting forwards from the ex- 
treme top of the lower mast. The platiorm serves not 
only as a support to the topmast, but also as a place 
of attachment for the shrouds by which it is upheld. 
When the topmast has been raised and properly se- 
cured in its place, the topgallant-mast is similarly 
raised, and adjusted to the upper end of the latter ; 
and in some of the ships of war there is still a fourth 
mast, of very slender dimensions, called the topgal- 
lant-royal-mast, raised highest of all; but it 1s gene- 
rally a mere prolongation of the topgallant-mast 
above the rigging, instead of being a separate and dis- 
tinct mast. The bowsprit 1s, like the mast, provided 
with a kind of topmast or top-bowsprit, by which its 
effective length is increased. In this manner the 
vessel is gradually provided with all her masts and 
yards; the shrouds, stays, and other standing rigging 
being adjusted to their places at the saine time. 
The yards too, or the ponderous horizontal spars by 
which the sails are held, are introduced into the vessel 
one by one, and attached to the masts to which they 
belong. Whoever has seen a representation of a ship 
with her sails furled, must have remarked the vast 
number of ropes and blocks which connect the various 
parts of the masts and yards together, and which quite 
baffle the eye in an attempt to single them out one from 
another. All these ropes have certain definite offices to 
perform, and are placed in their respective positions 
by the rigger. 

Meanwhile, the sail-makers have been at work, pre- 
paring their important share of the ship’s fittings. 
We stated, while giving a general description of the 
ship-yard which is the object of these two papers, that 


256 


the sail-loft is situated near the mould-loft. It is an 
oblong apartment, sixty or seventy feet in length, and 
provided with tackle for stretching and drawing out 
the ropes which are sewn to the edges of the sails. 
During the principal parts of the operations, the sail- 
makers areseated on stools, of which several are placed 
in different parts of the loft, each provided with little 
receptacles for the tools which he requires. 

The canvas .used in making sails is a very stout 
material, woven, either in England or Scotland, from 
hemp brought from Russia, and purchased in the form 
of rolls called ‘bolts,’ each bolt contaming about 
forty yards of canvas, twenty-four inches in width. 
There are six or seven different qualities of canvas, 
according to the size and position of the sail to be 
made; and each quality has a particular number at- 
tached to it, and must havea certain weight per square 
foot; thus, in the royal navy, a bolt of No. 1 canvas, 
containing thirty-eight yards, must weigh forty-four 
pounds, whereas No.7 weighs only about half as much ; 
the intermediate numbers having intermediate weights. 
The canvas, though woven of stout yarn, 1s very regu- 
Jar and uniform in its appearance, and of a tolerably 
white tint. 

The first operation is, to cut up a sufficient quan- 
tity of canvas to make a sail; and as the width of the 
canvas, whatever be its quality, is only two feet, a 
ereat number of breadths become necessary. The 
mainsail of an East-Indiaman contains nearly seven 
hundred yards of canvas; while the whole suit of 
sails requires as much as nine thousand yards. Some 
of the sails are nearly rectangular, some -triangular, 
some of the edges are straight, some hollowed, and 
the foreman has to pay especial attention to these 
circumstances in arranging the breadths of canvas. 
To cut a piece of canvas directly across, the weit or 
cross-thread is taken as a guide; while an oblique 
section is marked out by a certain deviation from the 
direction of the weft. The canvas is not cut by shears 
or scissors; but a fold being made in the required 
direction, previously marked with chalk or pencil, 
two men hold thetwo ends of the fold, and one of them 
rips up the canvas with a sharp knife. 

The canvas being cut, the sail-makers then proceed 
to work it up. Their labour consists not only in seam- 
ing up the numerous breadths, so as to give the requi- 
site dimensions to the sail, but also in sewing on rope, 
called ‘bolt-rope,’ round every edge of every sail: 
were the sail not strengthened im this manner, it 
would neither bear the strain of the wind, nor furnish 
fastenings for the ropes by which it is worked. The 
seaming and sewing are effected with large three-sided 
needles, of seven or eight different kinds, which are 
threaded with sewing-twine made for the purpose, and 
having from two to four hundred fathoms to the pound 
weight. The skeins of twine, previous to being used, 
are dipped into a trough containing melted tar, grease, 
and oil, and are twisted round in such a manner as to 
force the’ composition completely through the twine, 
and to expel the superfluous portion. The twine, 
when dry, is wound into balls, or on reels, ready for 
the workman. 

The sail-maker, seated on his low stool, holds the 
canvas before him in a convenient position for work- 
ing. Onhis thumb he wears a thumb-stall, consisting 
of an iron, horn, or leathern ferrule, against which the 
thread passes, enabling him to tighten the stitches 
without hurting his thumb. He has also a little con- 
trivance called a ‘palm,’ consisting of a flat round 
piece of iron, chequered or grooved on its surface, and 
intended to act as a thimble: it is sewn to a piece of 
leather, which enables it to be conveniently attached 
to the palm of the right hand. The breadths of canvas 
are joined by stitching or ‘seaming,’ the stitches hav- 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. (June, 1841. 
ing a degree of closeness well agreed upon between 
master and man, and such as to include rather above a 
hundred stitches in a yard of length. The seam or 
overlapping is from an inch to an inch and a half in 








SoS << 





width. Besides the stitching of the seams, various 
pieces of canvas called linings, tablings, and bands are 
stitched on the sail in different directions, for the sake 
of strengthening it at those parts which are most lia- 
ble io strain. There are also many small holes to be 
made in some of the sails, for the reception of short 
pieces of cordage necessary in reefing the sail. 

The bolt-rope which is fastened to the edge of the 
sails is carefully covered before it is used, to preserve 
it from rotting: it is first ‘ parcelled,’ that is, encir- 
cled with narrow pieces of old canvas; then well 
tarred ; and afterwards ‘served’ or bound round with 
a close coil of spun-yarn. The ropes are then sewn to 
the edges of the sail ina very careful manner; arrange- 
ments being at the same time made for the formaticn 
of numerous loops, eyes, and other mechanism neces- 
sary for the subsequent guidance of the sail. Different 

arts of the bolt-rope receive different names accord- 
ing to their position: that which binds the bottom edge 
is the foot-rope; at the top, the head-rope; at the 
sides, the leech-rope. 

‘ Thus the operation of the sail-maker proceeds, un- 
til the whole suit of sails, generally about forty in 
number, for a ship are made. ‘So well arranged are 
the plans by which the canvas is cut for the sails, that 
not more than three or four yards are actually wasted 
in cutting up the nine thousand yards for a large 
ship. 

When the sails are finished, they are adjusted to 
their proper places in the ship by means of the ropes 
which govern them. The anchors (a brief account of 
the making of which was given in our Nos. 537, 538), 
the colours, the interior fittings and furniture, and a 
large variety of matters which we cannot even enume- 
rate, being also completed—the lady, in fact, being 
decked out in her complete attire—she is sent out of 
dock to the bosom of the waters, where, to use the 
language of Canning, she lies “ majestically reposing 
on her own shadow,” till the hour of sailing arrives. 

If the reader has expected to become a veritable 
ship-builder by the perusal of this sketch, he will 
doubtless be disappointed ; but if it merely conveys to 
him some idea of the vastness, the variety, and the 
ingenuity of the operations involved in the construc- 
tion of a ship, free from the embarrassment of the 
technical details necessary in a scientific treatise, the 
proposed object will have been attained. 


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5o widely was the re- 
nown of the Cid now 
spread abroad through 
the world, that the Sul- 
tan of the East, the re- 
nowned Soliman, hear- 
ing of his valorous 
deeds, sent an ambassa- 
dor to Valeneia with 
eostly presents of silks, 
purple and searlet eloth, 
ineense and myrrh, and 
gold and silver ornaments, in token of his friendship, 
eharging him to say, “ As the Prophet liveth,” saith 
my lord, “he would give his royal crown eould he 
but behold thee in his land.” With great courtesy 
did the Cid reeeive the ambassador, replying, that 
were his lord a Christian, he would joyfully visit him. 
Then he showed him all his wealth and power, and 
the pagan returned home marvelling greatly at his 
abundant riches. Aceording to the Chronicle, the 





Sultan was indueed to despateh this embassy, not | 


so much from disinterested admiration of the Cid’s 
heroism, as to deter him from joining the prinees of 
Europe in the crusade which had been proclaimed 
against him. . 

At this time also the two counts of Carrion were 
indueed, by the great fame and wealth of the Cid, to 
beseech the king to give them to wife his two daughters, 
Dona Elvira and Doha Sol. Alonso wrote to the 
Cid, asking him to meet him at Requena, to eonsult 
with hirn on the matter. Rodrigo did not mueh relish 
the proposal, thinking the counts too haughty and 
eourtier-like for his sons-in-law ; but he advised with 
Ximena, “for in such-like matters,” says the romance, 


No. O94. 





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THE CID.—No. IX. 


“God grau‘, who all created hath, and over all is Lord, 
That to my Cid these weddings may content and joy afford.” 
Poem 


“ Some there be, I trow, more valiant 
With their feet than with their hands.”’ 
Romance. 


| with much truth, “women are wont to be of great im- 


portanee.” 


“© Out then spake the dame Ximena, 
‘Troth, my Cid, no wish have I 
To ally me with these lordlings, 
Though they be of lineage high. 


But I would thou in this matter 
Do as best it seemeth thee ; 
"Tween thee and the king, of counsel 
Good and wise no lack can be.’”’ 


« When was ever seen in Castille so many choiee 


‘mules, so many swift palfreys, so many strong and 


sure-footed chargers, so many gay pennons fluttering 
from lanee-heads, so many shields embossed with gold 
and silver, so many rich garments of silk and fur, as 
when the Good One of Bibar met Alfonso the Castillian” 
at Requena? ‘He who in a lucky hour was born” 
east himself at the king’s feet, but Alfonso raised him 
up, telling him to kiss his hands and not his feet. Mass 
was then said, and the king opened the matter of the 
marriage. The Cid returned thanks to his sovereign 
for the honor intended to be eonferred upon him, and 
added that he, his daughters, and all he possessed, 
were in the king’s hands, to be dealt with as it 
vleased him; “ for whatever his lord wished, who was 
so much worthier than he, that did he wish also.” 
Whereon Alfonso ordered 8000 marks of silver to be 
viven to the sisters as their dowry, and deputed Don 
Alvar Fasez, their kinsman, to act in hisstead in giving 
away the brides. ‘T hen he commanded the Counts to 
kiss the Cid’s hands and pay him homage ; and the Cid 
departed with them for Valencia, having first inviced 
all the nobles to be present at the ceremony. The 
double wedding took plaee accordingly, and for eight 


VoL. X¥.—2 IL 


208 


days all was feasting, dancing, jousting, and bull 
Hehtine within the city of Valencia 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


The Cid, accord- | inand the mmediate surrender of the city. 


[Jury 3, 


The Moonsh king sent a herald to Valencia to de- 
This was 


ing to the custom of those days, gave gifts of great | the Cid’s reply :— 


value to the lords and magnates present; for as the 
romance sagaciously observes, 


“ He who ’s great in deeds of battle, 
Will be great in all beside.” 


; : ™ | 
These two counts of Carrion were, however, sad 


cravens; not worthy to be the sons-in-law of the Cid. 
They chanced one day to be sitting joking with Don 


Bermudo, one of the Cid’s nephews, in the same room | 
where Rodrigo himself lay stretched on his couch in | 


an after-dinner slumber, when 


“ Lo, loud outcries rent the palace, 
Shook its walls and turrets high! 
‘Ware the lion! ware the lion! 
He is loose!’ was heard the cry. 


Don Bermudo nought was moved, 
Nought his soul could terrify ; 
But the brother counts of Carrion 

‘Gan right specdily to fly.” 


Kernan Gonzales, the younger, crept for protection 
under the Cid’s couch, and in so doing burst his gar- 
ment across the shoulders ; while Diego his brother be- 
took himself for refuge to a dirty closet hard by, or, as 
the Poem says, crept beneath the beam of a wine-press. 
pBermudo drew his sword and put himself on Ins guard. 
The uproar awoke the Cid, who started from his couch 
just as the furious beast, followed by a number of armed 
men, entered the hall. ‘To the astonishment of all, the 
hon came crouchmg and fawning to the feet of the Cid: 
The romance hints that this was a miracle. It was 
ceriainly not less marvellous that Rodrigo threw his 
arms about the beast, and “ with a thousand caresses” 
bore him off to his den without receiving any iajury. 
Returning to the hall, he inquired for his sons-in-law ; 
and when they were dragged ignominiously from their 
places of refuge, their bridal gear woefully disarranged 
and soiled, “never was beheld such merriment as ran 
through the court.” The Cid, gazimg on each m tun, 
was for some moments unable to speak, through the 
excess of his astonishment and indignation. 


‘ ¢God! are these your wedding garments ? 
In the devil’s name, what fright,— 
Say what terror hath possess’d ye, 
That ye thus should take to flight ? 
~ Had ye not your weapons by ye; 
Why then fied ye in sucli haste ? 
Was the Cid not here ?—then surely 
Ye could stand and see the beast. 
Of the kimg ye sought my daughters, 
Thinking they had gold and land; 
God wot, I did never choose ye, 
But I bow’d to his command, 


Ave ye then the sons I needed, 
To protect me when I’m old ? 
Zounds! a good old age will mine be, 
Suice ye are as women bold.’ ” 


According to the Poem, the Cid did not reproach the 
“ounis, and suppressed the mirth of his knights, when 
they were disposed to be merry at their expense. How- 
ever this be, the Counts were stung with shame, and 
secretly swore to obtain revenge. The Cid, with his 
wonted generosity, seems soon to have forgiven them ; 
for in a council of war convoked shortly after, on the 
occasion of Bucar, king of Morocco, beleaguering the 
city with a vast host, he made them sit at his right 
hand, though, while he, as the romance beautifully ex- 
presses it, 

With excess of valor trembled, 
They with utter fear did quake.” 


“ «Let your king prepare his hattle, 

I shall straightway order mine ; 

Right dear hath Valencia cost me, 
Think not I will it resign. 


Hard the strife, and sore the slangliter, 
But I won the victory ; 
Thauks to God and to the valor 
Of Castillian chivalry ! ” 
As Ximena with her own hands was arming her lord 
for the field, he gave her these parting instructions :—— 


“ ¢Tf with deadly wounds in battle, 
I this day my breath resign ; 
To Sau Pedro de Cardefa 
Bear me straight, Ximena mine 


Wail me nof, lest some base panic 
On my chiefless warriors seize ; 
But amid the call to battle 
Make my funeral obsequies. 


This, my lov d Tizon, whose gleamings 
Every foeman’s heart appal ; 
Never let it lose its glory, 
Ne’er to hands of women fall. 
Should God will that Babieca 
Quit the strife alone this day ; 
And without lis lord returning, 
At thy gate aloud should neigh ; 


Open to him and caress him, 
Let him well be hous’d and fed ; 
He who well his master serveth, 
Rizht well should be guerdoned. 
Dear one, give me now thy blessing! 
Dry thine eyes and cease to mourn ¢” 
Then my Cid, he spur’d to battle— 
‘Grant him, Heaven, a safe return!’ ” 


The Cid, knowing the cowardice of his sons-in-law, 
advised them to remain within the city, and not sally 
forth with him to the war ; but they angrily announced 
their intention to accompany lim. During the combat 
a bold and stalwart Moor came up, lance in hand, to 
assail the younger of the Counts, who dared not abide 
his onset, but instantly turned and fled. None wit- 
nessed his cowardice but Don Ordono, the Cid’s 
nephew, and he pursued the Moor, slew him, spoiled 
hun of his horse and arms, and generously offered them 
to the Count. 

ake this steed and spoil, Don Fernan, 
Say that thou the Moor didst slay ; 
On my knightly troth I pledge thee, 
Never will I this gainsay ; 
Saving thou to speak compel me, 
None shall ever know the truth. 


ve Je) 


The Count was base enough to accept this offer of 
second-hand glory, and was highly extolled for his 
valour by the Cid, who came up at the instant. He 
stroked his beard, and said, “I thank Christ, Lord of 
the world, that my sons-in-law have fought so nobly 
with me im the field.” Victory, as usual, declared for 
‘him who in a lucky hour girt the sword,” and my Cid 
returned to Valencia with eighteen Moorish kings as 
trophies of his prowess, and with the renowned sword 
Tizona, “ worth more than a thousand marks of gold,” 
which he had won from the royal grasp of Bucar, who 
narrowly escaped swelling the number of his captives.* 

The brother Counts had meanwhile been plotting 


* Though a few of the romances agree with the Chronicle and 
Poem in stating that Tizona was won from Bucar at this time, 
the rest make frequent mention of it as wielded by our hero 
during the greater portion of his life, Such anachronisms are 
amoug the natural faults of ballad Instory. 


1841.] 


revenge against the Cid, and no less cruel than cow- 
ardly, they resolved to take it on the persons of his 
daughters. They demanded their wives, that they 
might depart with them to their own land. Rodrigo 
committed his daughters to them; but having scen by 
the flight of birds, that the nuptials would not be pro- 
pitious, he charged them to treat them with all gentle- 
ness and kindness. This the Counts promised ; and the 
Cid, who had begun to hope better things of their 
courage, gave them as parting gifts his two swords— 
Tizona and Colada, which he called “the best of all 
his goods,” together with chains of gold of costly Ara- 
bian workmanship, presents to him from the Sultan, 
vessels of gold and silver, and many mules and war- 
horses. He and his knights also accompanied them 
for the distance of a league from the city. 


“ The Cid he parted from lis daughters, 
Nought could he his grief disguise ; 

As he clasp'd them to his bosom, 
Tears did stream from out his eyes.” 


And he exclaimed, “Of a truth, ye tear from me the 
very cords of my heart!” He had a_presentiment 
of some evil about to befall them, and he charged 
his nephew Ordono to disguise himself and follow 
the Counts. These craven knights continued their 
journey, and were everywhere well received for 
the Cid’s sake. Arriving at length at Tormes, which 
was beyond his territories, they came to a_ halt, 
and ordered all their train to go forward, saying, 
that they and their wives would follow anon. Then 
entering a thick oak wood, hard by the road, they 
dragged their wives from their mules, tore all the 
clothes from their backs, seized them by the hau and 
drageed them to and fro over the rough ground, buffeted 
and lashed their naked flesh with their saddle-girths, 
kicked them barbarously with their rowelled heels, till 
their tender bodies, “ white as the sun,” were bathed 
in blood—all the while pouring forth the most oppro- 
brious language—and finally lashed them to trees, say- 
ing, as they left them to die of starvation, or to be torn 
to pieces by the wild beasts of the forest, 


“¢¢ Vengeance on your cursed sire 
Have we now obtain’d in ye; 
We have done with ye—ye are not 
Fit to mate with such as we.’ ” 


They then rode after their people, and answered their 
inquivies after the ladies, by saying, “they are well 
cared for.” 

The poor women rent the air with their shrieks, 
calling upon Heaven for vengeance,— 


“It was not the wounds and lashes— 
Not the pain that caus’d their woe: 
"Twas the shame, the foul dishonor— 

Deadliest ills that women know.” 


Don Ordono, who was following the Counts at a dis-. 


tance in the garb of a pilgrim, heard their cries and 
entered the wood. On beholding his cousins in such 
a state, he rent his clothes, tore his hair, and thundered 
out a thousand curses on the heads of the recreant 
Counts. He untied the ladies, made them a couch of 
leaves and grass, threw his own cloak over them, and 
left them to seek assistance, saying, with tears in his 
eyes, as he strove to comfort them,— 


“¢« Cheer up, cousins, be not downcast, 

Heaven’s will must aye be done; 

Wherefore this thing hath befallen ye, 
It is known to God alone. 

Lay nought to your sire, I pray ye, 
He obey’d the king’s command ; 

Your sire he is the Cid, fair ladies, 
Leave your honor im his hands.’ ” 


He soon returned with an honest peasant, who conveyed 


TUE PENN Ye MeGgeAIN I. 


2a) 


them to his own cot, where his wife and daughters 
tended them with great care and tenderness. 

Don Ordono straightway returned to Valencia and 
told his tale. Rodrigo restraimed all expression of his 
feelings: 

‘My Cid he seemed nothing moved, 
Though his grief was sore and deep: 
Him who looketh for his vengeance, 
It behoveth not to weep.” 


But Ximena gave vent to her sorrow in floods of tears. 
The Cid consoled her, swearing by his beard, “ which 
none had ever cut,” that she should have speedy ven- 
geance, and despatched messengers forthwith to the 
king, demanding justice. According to another ro- 
mance, the Cid went in person to the royal palace at 
Leon. It was the hour of mid-day by the clock, and 
the king was seated at dinner with his nobles, when 
the Cid, pale as death, and in complete armour, strode 
into the hall, and fixing his cyes on the king, ex 


elaimed,— 


“© ¢ Justice may I have of Heaven, 
If I can have none of thee!’ ” 


All the nobles ceased to eat, in amazement at these 
words of the Cid; his friends moved by anxicty, his 
foes by terror. After a pause he continued,— 


Vengeance, king! I pray thee vengcance! 
Do I ask this right in vain? 
I have oft in blood of traitors 
Wash’d mine honor from all stain; 
But to thee I would leave vengeance, 
For to thee it doth pertain. 


Lo! my daughters have been outrag’d! 
For thine own, thy kingdom’s sake, 

Look, Alfonso, to mine honor! 
Vengeance thou or I must take. 


If I have aggriev’d these traitors, 
Let me meet them in the fight,— 
This right arm and this good faulchion 
Soon shall show ye who hath right.’ ” 


King Alfonso was exceeding wrathful when he heard 
this, and to confront the Counts with the Cid, he 


; commanded that a Cortes should be proclaimed to be 


held at Toledo, and whosoever of his nobles did not 
obey the summons within thirty days (or three months, 
as the Chronicle has it), should be accounted a traitor 


and a rebel. 


Salt-Mine at Tuz Koi.—The salt occurs m a powerful bed, 
the extent of which it was impossible to judge of, as none of 
the actual shafts go to its floor, although many display its 
roof. This bed occurs ina stiff yellow clay, sometimes bluish 
coloured, with abundant crystals of gypsum, which is super- 
imposed upon it in horizontal beds, a little to the east of the 
mine. There are about seven shafts now open: these are dis- 
tributed, in a rather curious manner, round the sides of a pit 
formed by the excavations of former years; and they run in 
to various depths, from twenty to one hundred feet. The salt 
bed was about forty feet below the level of the hill; the gal- 
leries are carried down at a high angle of inclination; and the 
salt is taken out in baskets, carried up rude stairs cut out of the 
clay. There was also a shaft at the bottom of the pit, but it has 
long ago fallen in, and is now the grand receptacle for rain 
water, While Mr. Russell and I were at the mines, there came 
on a severe thunder-storm : torrents of water came pouring, in a 
few minutes, into the pit, from several sides at once; the soft 
clay gave way in large masses, and several slips occurred round 
the sides of the pit. It appears very likely that works so care- 
lessly carried on, will, some day or other, be overwhelmed all at 
once. —Laxpedition to Kurdistan, by WW. Ainsworth, in Royal Geog. 
Journal, vol. x., part J. 


emer 


260 


er beeen 


MAGAZINE. [JuLy 3, 











ON AR 


RONEN Cad 
URRY oe 


(House in which Bewiek was born. 


LIFE OF BEWICK. 


THE materials of the following paper are derived from 
‘A Treatise on Wood-Engraving,’ illustrated with 
numerous splendid wood-cuts by Mr. Jackson. The 


name of Mr. Jackson is too well known as an artist to | 
the subscribers of the ‘Penny Magazine’ to need any | 


panegyric here. It recals the memory of some of 
those copies from the finest works of the great painters, 
which showed more than anything else the wonderful 
powers of the not long before despised “ wood-cut.” 
Bewick was Mr. Jackson’s master, and to him we are 
indebted for the revival of wood-engraving in this 
country. By Mr. Jackson’s permission we are enabled 
to illustrate this article by some wood-cuts from his 
highly interesting and valuable work.* 

This distinguished wood-engraver, whose works will 
be admired as long as truth and nature shall continue 
to charm, was born on the 10th or llth of August, 
1753, at Cherry-burn, in the county of Northumber- 
land, but on the south side of the Tyne, about twelve 
miles westward of Newcastle. His father rented a 
small land-sale colliery at Micklay-bank, in the neigh- 
bourhood of his dwelling, and it is said that, when a 
boy, the future wood-engraver sometimes worked in 
the pit. Ata proper age he was sent as day-scholar to 
a school kept by the Rev. Christopher Gregson at 
Ovingham, on the opposite side of the Tyne. The par- 
sonage-house, in which Mr. Gregson lived, is_plea- 
santly situated on the edge of a sloping bank imme- 
diately above the river; and many reminiscences of 
the place are to be found in Bewick’s cuts; the gate 
at the entrance is introduced, with trifling variations, 
in three or four different subjects; and a person ac- 
quainted with the neighbourhood will easily recognise 
in his tail-pieces several other local sketches of a 
similar kind. 

In the time of the Rev. James Birkett, Mr. Greg- 
son’s successor, Ovingham school.had the character of 
being one of the best private schools in the county; 
and several gentlemen, whose talents reflect credit on 
their teacher, received their education there. 

Bewick’s school acquirements probably did not ex- 
tend beyond English reading, writing, and arithmetic ; 
for though he knew a little of Latin, he docs not ap- 


ots 


~ © Treatise on Wood-Engraving,’ pp. 559-605. 


pear to have ever received any instructions in that 
language. In a letter dated 18th of April, 1803, ad- 
dressed to Mr. Christopher Gregson, London, a son of 
his old master, introducing an artist of the name of 
Murphy, who had painted his portrait, Bewick 
humorously alludes to his beauty when a boy :—“ I 
do not imagine, at your time of life, my dear friend, 
that you will be solicitous about forming new ac- 
quaintances; but it may not, perhaps, be putting you 
much out of the way to show any little civilities to Mr. 
Murphy during his stay in London. He has, on his own 
account, taken my portrait, and I dare say will be de- 
sirous to show you it the first opportunity; when you 
see 1t you will no doubt conclude that T. B. is turning 
bonnyer and bonnyer im his old days; but mdeed you 
cannot help knowing this, and also that there were 
ereat indications of its turning out so long since.” 

Bewick, having shown a taste for drawing, was 
placed by his fathcr as an apprentice with Mr. Ralph 
Beulby, an cngraver, living in Newcastle, to whom, on 
the Ist of October, 1767, he was bound for a term of 
seven years. Mr. Beilby was not a wood-engraver ; 
and his business in the copper-plate lme was of a kind 
which did not allow of much scope for the display of 
artistic talents. He engraved copper-plates for books 
when any by chance were offered to him; and he also 
executed brass plates for doors, with the names of the 
owners handsomely filled up, after the manner of the 
old ‘ niellos,’ with black sealing-wax. 

Bewick’s attention appears to have been first directed 
to wood-engraving in consequence of his master having 
been employed by the late Dr. Charles Hutton, then a 
schoolmaster in Newcastle, to engrave on wood the 
diagrams for his ‘ Treatise on Mensuration. The 
printing of this work was commenced in 1768, and was 
completed in 1770. The engraving of the diagrams 
was committed to Bewick, who is said to have invented 
a graver with a fine groove at the point, which enabled 
him to cut the outlines bya single operation. Bewick, 
during his apprenticeship, paid ninepence a week 
for his lodgings in Newcastle, and usually received a 
brown loaf every week from Cherry-burn. On the 
expiration of his apprenticeship, he returned to his 
father’s house at Cherry-burn, but still continued to 
work for Mr. Beilby. About this time he seems to 
have formed the resolution of applying himself exclu- 


1841.] 


sively in future to wood-engraving; and with this 
view to have executed several cuts as specimens of 
In 1775 he received a premium from the 
Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manutfac- 
tures for a cut of the Huntsman and the Old Hound, 


his ability. 


Oe, 

Ree Ry: im 
set Es Sl TQ 
Sora lar 
Repel eit 
x ) ‘ 


In 1776, when on a visit to some of his relations in 
Cumberland, he availed himself of the opportunity of 
visiting the lakes; and in after-lite he used frequently 
to speak in terms of admiration of the beauty of the 
white-washed slate-covered cottages on the banks of 
THis tour was made on foot, with a 
stick in his hand and a wallet at his back ; and it has 
been supposed that in a tail-piece (to be found at page 
177 of the first volume of his ‘ British Birds,’ first edi- 
tion, 1797), he has introduced a sketch of himself in his 
travelling costume, drinking out of what he himself 
In the same 
year he went to London, where he arrived on the Ist of 
But after a short sojourn of a twelveinonth, 
he returned to Newcastle, and entered into partnership 


some of the lakes. 


would have called the flzpe of his hat. 


October. 


ply 


RZ 


S @& 
ete —e 


= 
Site =F 
Aone, te 


sige ee AG ee 
“Ps 


a + 
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xs "9° 


STR 


Vine 
eee 
< x: —— 


. 
4 


SF 

ty A ct 
1A a ape 

ee £7 
P- 1 ; 


Si Pes gen hiP Se 
ee Pees 


A 2 » . 
“Se 
seared 
- { Fe ™. es a ae oe : —£¢ 
, meal 5 
Sf ft * 
ws = _, Go = vw 
= 4 = tc ' —_— 
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sé, 8 ee 3. , ENS a " ons 


~ 


+ 





(The Huntsman and Old Hound | 


with his former master, Mr. Ralph Beilby. 


Bewick did not hke London; and he always advised 
his former pupils and north-country friends to leave 
the “province covered with houses” as soon as they 
could, and return to the country, there to enjoy the 
beauties of nature, fresh air, and content. In the letter 
to his old schoolfellow Mr. Christopher Gregson, pre- 
viously quoted, he thus expresses his opinion of Lon- 


roe. 


for though no 


his tail-pieces. 


don life: “ Ever since you paid your last visit to the | 


BA, w+ =" 


awe 


+ Sym: <x ee a { t 
4 a ne ae ' 
4 +4 % » ; —9 r a , i e 


piers, 
By pe > i ‘ 


SSH nine 
chs 1 = i. i = ¢ 
: eat ha, : baw ¢- 
py? a ese ' « ’ 
‘4 SY , ‘ ner 
: x 


i om sat Fw 
NE oe Be. 


DB Salk, awe 
ae 
i 4 
fi Ss PAL iim} ng y 
4 & at a 





—s —— = 


[Parsouage at Ovingham.} 





ee ag he 
EP 

i. QO 
" maa 7 2 


+e ie 2 oe f 
‘ bp he | hae ocak 1 
Rs as ee 2 * Wee x i 
qt Riek’ 4 ins Ay ie “A ¢ » we 
2 ‘ VS aids at ? 4454 
vr " ea at we, ¢ 
a } i ats mn Tey + s 
$ y Se ‘ 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


which he probably engraved when ving at Cherry- 
burn, after leaving Mr. Beilby. The following is a fac- 
simile of this cut, which was first printed in an edition 
of Gays ‘Tables,’ published by 'T. Saint, Newcastle, 


rae 
“ RAE, = Ne 


f 


north, I have often been thinking upon you, and wish- 
ing that you would dap wp, and leave the metropolis, 
to enjoy the fruits of your hard-earned industry on the 
banks of the Tyne, where you are so much respected, 
both on your own account and on that of those that are 
Indeed I wonder how you can think of turmoil- 
ing yourself to the end of the chapter, and let the op- 
portunity slip of contemplating at your ease the beau- 
ties of nature, so bountifully spread out to enlighten, 
to captivate, and to cheer the heart of man. 
part I am still of the same mind that I was in when in 
London, and that is, I would rather be herding sheep on 
Mickley-bank top than remain in London, although for 
doing so I was to be made the premier of England.” 
Bewick was truly a country man; he felt that 1t was 
better “ to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep ;” 
person was capable of closer application 
to his art when within doors, he loved to spend his 
hours of relaxation in the open air, studying the cha- 
racter of beasts and birds in their natural state ; and 
diligently noting those little incidents and traits of 
country life which give so great an interest to many of 


(To be concluded in our uext,] 


3 =. 


—- = 
—"ss 





STALACTITES AND STALAGMITES. 


Ture are two terms used in mineralogy, stalacizte 
and stalagmite, applied to a very singular phenomenon 
which is observed wnder various forms In different 
parts of the world. Both terms are derived from the 
Greek name for a drop, and are applicd in the follow- 
ing manner :—Stalactites are the pendent protuber- 
ances from the roof or sides of caverns, formed by the 
deposition of calcareous or other earths, from the water 
which percolates through recks; wlule stalagmites are 
the depositions of calcarcous earth formed in the floors 
of caverns by the water which drops from the roofs. 
The two therefore do not differ so much im their nature 
and formation as in the circumstance of the positions 
which they occupy. 

Since waters rising from beds of hmestone are so 
overcharged with calcareous earth as to form an in- 
crustation of stone round any substance that 1s 1m- 
mersed in them for a short time, these waters are said 
to have a petrifying or stone-forming property ; and 
the stalactites and stalagmites are but extensions of 
the same operation. Watcr dropping from some pro- 
jecting point, or percolating through a crevice, de- 
posits a portion of its calcareous contents; and this 
deposition is enlarged by succeeding drops, until it 
assumes the form either of a pendent icicle or of a 
mass on the ground. In some instances the formation 
has been so rapid as to fill up the whole of an excava- 
tion or grotto in the course of time. 

The deposition of earthy matter is easily accounted 
for, when the water is known to be loaded with it; 
but there are peculiar appearances in the structure of 
stalactites which are not so easily explained. In some 
a radiated, diverging, crystalline structure 1s observed ; 
in others the structure is more lamellated; and in 
others again, the process from the radiated to the re- 
geular crystalline structure may be seen in the same 
specimen. From this it has been inferred, that the 
particles of stalactite, after they had been mechanically 
deposited, and formed into a solid, were capable of a 
certain degree of motion, which permitted their crystal- 
line arrangement to proceed to its ultimate form. Some 
stalactites have occasionally been found which were 
tubular; others, solid within, are covered externally 
with minute crystals, and are sometimes terminated 
by a knob reseinbling a mushroom. 

In some parts of the earth caverns are found lined 
and roofed with stalactites, formed at some past but 
unknown period; while mn other parts springs are now 
fiowing which leave a calcareous deposit, and thus 
show the mode in which other deposits may have been 
formed. At Knaresborough, in Yorkshire, is a spring 
possessing powerful petrifying qualities. It rises on 
the slope of a hill, at the foot of a limestone rock, and 
after running about twenty yards towards the river 
Nid, it spreads itself over the top of a rock, from 
whence it trickles down in more than twenty places, 
dropping very fast, and creating a musical kind of 
tinkling, due, probably, to the concavity of the rock, 
which projects ma circular curve froin the bottom to 
the top, the brow overhanging the base nearly fifteen 
feet. The spring is supposed to emit about twenty 
gallons per minute; and the water abounds with fine 
calcareous particles, which it deposits when in languid 
motion, and leaves an incrustation on the bodies that 
it meets with in trickling slowly amid the many ob- 
stacles that impede its course. 

In the Derbyshire caves, of which so much has been 
written, there are many striking proofs of the effects 
resulting from the subsidence of calcareous matters 
from water. The calcareous covering of the peak 
contains a great nuinber of caves of different sizes, 
most of them abounding with stalactites of various 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[JULY 3, 


forms and colours. Some of these stalactites are of a 
beautiful white, and others are streaked with yellow, 
erey, and milk-colour veins. Some vases and other 
trinkets are occasionally made from the choicest speci- 
mens. These may be taken as evidence of effects pro- 


| duced long since; but the same county furnishes in- 


stances of petrifymg waters now m active existence. 
The warm springs at Matlock form vast accumulations 
of petrifactions, which are soft before exposure to the 
air, but become very hard by degrees. Whilst the 
waters retain their warmth and motion, few or no 
petrifactions are formed. It was stated by Dr. Short 
some years ago, that all the warm water dropping from 
the roofs of small grottoes and caves at this spot formed 
little prisms or pillars of various shapes; but that the 
water which was stationary, and left a deposit which en- 
crusted such small objects as moss, grass, leaves, twigs, 
&c., in time destroyed the bodies on which the deposi- 
tion was made, the deposit retaining the shape which it 
had assumed. 

The Geysers or hot-springs of Iceland furnish other 
examples of a durable solid being formed from the 
deposition of earthy matters by the water which con- 
tains them. The silicious depositions of the water of 
the Great Geyser have formed for it a basin about 
fifty feet in diameter, in the centre of which is a cylin- 
drical pipe or pit ten feet m diameter. Through this 
pit, at variable intervals of time, large masses of hot 
water burst out, gradually filling the pit and the basin, 
and then partially flowing over the edge. At intervals 
of some hours, when the basin is full, explosions are 
heard from below, like the firing of cannon at a-dis- 
tance ; and at the same time a tremulous motion of the 
geround is felt around the basin. Aiter many strange 
convulsions and upward bursts of water, which seem 
to indicate some powerful force acting from within, the 
whole subsides, and in a few minutes not only the 
basin, but also the pipe or pit is found to be empty of 
water. The petrifying quality of the water seems 
therefore to have shown itself in this way: that a sub- 
terranean force having made a rent in the ground, 
through which hot water was occasionally propelled, 
the water gradually deposited a sediment which built 
up, as it were, a cistern round the margin of the rent. 

It gives rise to some confusion when such processes 
as these are termed petrifaction, because this term is 
more particularly apphed to the formation of fossil 
organic remains; yet there is no other term—except- 
ing perhaps lapidification, nearly synonymous to 1— 
which so well expresses the sense to be conveyed. 
Leaving the question of nomenclature, however, and 
confining ourselves to the phenomenon itself, 1t 1s evi- 
dent that the formation of hard substances from the 
sediment of watcr, in Iceland, at Matlock, at Mnares- 
borough, and other places, 1s traceable to the same 
causes as those which, in some past period, produced 
the stalactites and stalagmites of grottoes and caverns. 
Without, therefore, adducing any further examples of 
petrifying springs, we will give a brief account of the 
stalactites at Antiparos, the most beautiful perhaps 
anywhere to be found. 

Antiparos is a small island in the Grecian Archipe- 
lago, about sixteen miles in circumference. Near the 
summit of a lofty hill is a large area, scooped out of a 
rock, on one side of which is seen a perpendicular jace 
or wall about twenty feet high, nearly covered with 
columns of stalactites. Behind these columns 1s all 
entrance to the celebrated grotto, which has attracted 
the attention of travellers from all countries. After 
descending obliquely to a certain depth, the traveller 
arrives at a perpendicular shaft, down which he pro- 
cecds by the aid of ropes held by the guides. At the 
bottom of this perpendicular descent, the footing again 
proceeds in an oblique direction, the descent of which 


1841.] THE PENNY 
brings the visitor to a small projection of rock, from 
whence he passes into the principal chamber, cavern, 
or grotto. This grotto is the most magnificent spec- 
tacle of the kind anywhere presented. It measures 
three hundred teet long by two hundred and fifty 
broad; and the whole of the roof, walls or sides, and 
floor are covered with a dazzling and snowy white m- 
crustation. Columnar icicles, if the term may be 
used, hang down from the roof to a depth of twenty- 
five feet; others extend from the roof to the floor, 
equal in diameter to the mast of a ship of war. A 
large mass of stalactite, which divides the principal 
chamber from a smaller one, is rendered remarkable 
by the number of tapering columns and spires which 
shoot up from it. This mass is called the altar, from 
asingular festival which was held in the grotto in 
1673, by the Marquis de Nointel, ambassador from 
France to the Turkish sultan. The marquis celebrated 
the festival of Christmas within the grotto itself, which 
he illuminated by a hundred large flambeaux and four 
thousand lamps, the ight from which produced a most 
brillant and dazzling effect. Five hundred persons 
attended; aud at midnight mass was celebrated, the 
block of stalactite serving as an altar. Magni, an 
Italian traveller, was told by some peasants that a 
ejant inhabited the mouth of the cavern; and he went 
to satisfy his curiosity in the matter. After encoun- 
tering the difficulties of the descent, he says, “We 
quickly perceived that what the ignorant natives cailed 
a giant was nothing more than a sparry concretion, 
formed by the water dripping from the root of thie cave, 
and by degrees hardening into a figure that their fears 
had transformed into a monster. Incited by this extra- 
ordinary appearance, we proceeded still farther, in 
quest of new adventures in this subterranean abode. 
As we advanced, new wonders offered themselves: 
the spars, formed into trees ard shrubs, presented a 
kind of petrified grove, some white, some green, and 
all receding in due perspective. They struck us with 
the more amazement, as we knew them to be the mcre 
productions of nature, who, hitherto im solitude, had 
in her playful moments dressed out the scene for her 
own amusement.” 

The production of these stalactites has been thus 
explained by M. de Choiseul :—Supposing the cavern 
itself to be one of those natural cavities which exist so 
abundantly in every part of the world, the water which 
issues through fissures in its rocky wall may be sup- 
posed to carry with it, in a state of solution, innu- 
merable particles of calcareous matter; and when the 
water finally escapes, in the form of drops, at the roof 
and sides of the cavern, the calcareous matter held in 
solution remains, and forms a concrction, while the 
water evaporates. The nucleus thus formed 1s con- 
tinually receiving an additional coating from fresh 
moisture descending as before. Like icicles hanging 
from rocks washed by a torrent, the stalactites grow 
larger and larger, still preserving the conical figure 
oceasioned by their original mode of formation. But 
should the water filtrate im greater abundance from 
above, the drops will not have time to evaporate in 
their passage; they will therefore fall to the bottom of 
the cavern, and will there form calcareous concretions, 
extending upwards, in proportion as those from the 
roof extend downwards; so that in process of time 
their extremities will meet. Thus will a column be 
formed, iunperfect at first, but gradually enlarging 
from the same causes which originated it. 

The stalactites with which this beautiful grotto is 
lined are formed of pure alabaster, a very delicate 
carbonate of lime; and a ‘“tarry-at-home traveller” 
may form some faint idea of the brilhant appearance 
which a grotto thus furnished must present when 
lighted up by several torches. 


a a a a C—O ———————————— cr cr cr Tr ae rrr rr mame 


MAGAZINE. 263 
THE BOTANIC GARDEN AND ARBORETUM 
AT KEW. 


Tue closely-packed inhabitants of the metropolis are 
becoming every year more and more desirous of re- 
taining a few breathing-spots, a few oases of grass and 
trees, anid the masses of brick and mortar in which 
they are involved. For half a century past the builders 
have had it all their own way: Kensington has come 
to London; London has stretched out to Hampstead, 
to Hackney, to Greenwich, to Clapham ; and the “ out- 
skirts” of London are gone-—we hardly know whither. 
It is not very likely that private owners of land will 
refrain from letting their ground for such purposes as 
will yield the best remuneration; indeed the very 
nature of commercial enterprise forbids us to look for 
such a result. Unless, therefore, the State interferes, 
the retention of open spots of ground would be almost 
impracticable. The earnestness with which the recent 
discussion respecting the Regent’s Park, Primrose Hl], 
Victoria Park, &e. have been conducted, shows m how 
marked a degree the attention of the public has been 
directed to this matter, and augurs favourably for the 
future. Mcanwhile, it may be as well just to remem- 
ber what we do possess—if not actually in the metro- 
polis—at least within the reach of those who can have 
a day’s pleasure once now and then. The Botanic 
Garden and Arboretum at Kew are not so well known 
as they ought to be; and as they are national property, 
we will draw the reader’s attention to them, 1n tlris 
season of flowers and bright sunshine. 

It may be desirable to offer a few words of explana- 
tion respecting the meaning and object of a botanic 
earden, before we describe the arrangement of the one 
above alluded to. Gardens, in the common acceptation 
of the term, may mean any pieces of ground cultivated 
with fruit, flowers, and culinary vegetables; but they 
may be classified as botanic, commercial, public, and 
private gardens, according to the circumstances under 
which, or the objects for which, they are supported. 
Mr. Loudon characterizes a botanic garden as a place 
the primary objects of which are to exhibit a collection 
of plants for the improvement of botanical science ; to 
exhibit living specimens of such plants as are useful in 
medicine, agriculture, and other arts, and to aid in 
the acclimatizing and dissemination of foreign plants 
throughout the country. Commercial gardens are 
those which are established by private individuals as 
a matter of trade; and assume the varlous forms of 
florists’ gardens, devoted to the growth of flowers ; 
market-gardens, for supplying the public markets with 
fruit and vegetables; nursery gardens or grounds, 
and herb-gardens. Public gardens may be deemed 
such as the plantation in St. James’s Park, and im 
many of the squares of London, open either to the 
public generally, or to the inhabitants of a particular 
district ; these are, in general, pleasure-grounds, 1n- 
tersected by gravel walks and studded with trees, 
rather than gardens commonly so termed. Private 
eardens include, of course, all those belonging to 
private individuals, and present features in accordance 
with the taste of the proprietor. 

There are botanic gardens distributed throughout 
most of the countrics in Europe, sometimes belonging 
to the sovereign or the state, aud thrown open to the 
public ; in other instances attached to scientific bodies. 
France, the various states of Germany, and Russia have 
many large gardens of this kind. W lth respect to our 
own country, the number is rather limited, owing in 
some degree to the caution with which parhament 
has bestowed the public funds upon matters of this 
kind. It has been remarked that gardening has not 
lost much in FEneland by the duty of fostering 1t 
being thrown on private individuals; for if, on the 


264 


one hand, public gardens are few in number, no part 
of the Continent, on the other hand, possesses such 
multitudes of good private gardens as Great Britain. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


There are botanic gardens at Edinburgh, Glasgow, | 
Liverpool, Oxford, Cambridge, Hull, Colchester, Man- 
chester, and Birmingham, mostly established, within 


a comparatively recent period, by liberal bodies anxious 
for the promotion of botanical science. In the neigh- 
bourhood of London, the Botanical Society, the Hor- 
ticultural Society, and the Apothecaries’ Company 
have gardens established more or less for these pw 
poses, to which may be added the Garden and Arbore- 
tum of Kew. 

Kew House came into the occupation (by lease, and 
ultimately by purchase) of the Prince of Wales, father 
of King George III., rather more than a century ago, 
and the prince and priucess brought the grounds be- 
longing to the house into a state of great beauty. 
About the time when her son came to the throne, 
the princess set apart a portion of the pleasure-grounds 
for the reception of exotic plants; and this was the 
nucleus of the present botanic garden. The garden 
was placed under the care of the elder Aiton, who 
retained the situation until his death, in 1793, when 
it passed to his son. Sir Josepli Banks gave to this 
garden the immense collection of plants and seeds 
obtained in his voyages, and this example has been 
followed by many other travellers; so that the rich- 
hess of its contents has been continually increasing. 
t is said to be better supphed with rare plants from 
New Holland than any other garden in the world. The 
arboretum is a portion of the grounds devoted to the 
reception of trees and shrubs. 

Such, then, being the nature and objects of botanic 
gardens, we may proceed to state that the one in ques- 
tion is situated near the village of Kew, on the 
southern bank of the Thames. The small steamers, 
which form such a convenient mode of transit to 
Vauxhall and Chelsea, do not ascend so far as Kew, 
but there are steam-boats to Richmond, and vehicles 
along the Great Western Road to Kew Bridge, to aid 
those who are unequal to a walk of six or seven miles 
from Piccadilly to Kew. We will suppose ourselves to 
have reached Kew Bridge, and to have passed onward 
to the pleasant Green, situated near its southern ex- 
tremity. A road-way, leading to Richmond, crosses 
to the middle of the Green, passing near a_ pretty 
country-looking church; and on the west or right- 
hand side of the Green we see glimpses of the Garden. 
A row of houses skirts the Green on the side towards 
the river, and at the end of this row are a lodge and 
gates belonging to that part of the royal domain retained 
by the King of Hanover. Passing round to the left from 
this lodge, by a curved road, we soon come to an open 
railing, which affords a view of the arboretum within, 
and behind which are four urns raised on pedestals ; 
an elegant conservatory 1s also visible in the midst of 
the grounds. We pass this railing, and shortly arrive 
at a gate, on which is written ‘“ Botanic Garden,” 
where adimission is gained. On the gate is a notice, 
which informs us that the Botanic Garden 1s open 
every day (except Sundays) from one to six o’clock ; 
and a porter is at hand to admit the visitor. It may 
here be remarked, that the pleasure-grounds belonging 
to Kew Palace, and not included in the Botanic Gar- 
den and Arboretum, are under the superintendence oi 
other parties, and are governed by different arrange- 
ments; admission to them is only obtained on two 
days in the week, and that only from Midsummer to 


Michaelmas. 
FTo be continued.] 





The Forests of Canada.—No one who has a single atom of ima- 
gination can travel throngl these forest roads of Canada without 


[JULY 3, 


being strongly impressed and excited. The seemingly inter- 
minable line of trees before you; the boundless wilderness around 5 
the mysterious depths amid the multitudinous foliage, where 
foot of man hath never penetrated,—and which partial gleams 
of the noontide sun, now seen, now lost, ht up with a changeful, 
magical beauty—the wondrous splendour and novelty of the 
flowers,—the silence, unbroken but by the low cry of a bird, or 
hum of insect, or the splash and croak of some huge bull-frog,— 
the solitude in which we proceeded mile after mile, no human 
being, no human dwelling within sight,—are all either exciting 
to the taucy, or oppressive to the spirits, according to the mood 
onemay bein. ‘Their effect on myself I cau hardly describe im 
words. 


+ %, 
ce ms 


a * 7 % 

I observed some birds of a species new to me; there was the 
lovely blue-bird, with its brilliant violet plumage; and a most 
gorgeous species of woodpecker, with a black head, white breast, 
and back and wings of the brightest scarlet; heuce it is called by 
some the field-ofticer, and more generally the cock of the woods. 
} should have called it the coxcomb of the woods, for it came 
flitting across our road, clinging to the trees before us, and re- 
maiung pertinaciously in sight, as if conscious of its own splendid 
array, and pleased to be admired. There was also the Canadian 
robin, a bird as large as a thrush, but in plumage and shape re- 
sembling the sweet bird at home “that wears the scarlet sto- 
macher.’’ There were great numbers of small birds of a bright 
yellow, like canaries, and I believe of the same genus. Some- 
times, when I looked up from the depth of foliage to the blue 
tirmament above, I saw an eagle sailing through the air on appa- 
reutly motionless wings. Nor let me forget the splendour of the 
flowers which carpeted the woods on either side, I might have 
exclaimed with Eichendorff, 


‘*O Welt! Du schone welt, Du! 
Mann sicht Dich vor Blumen kaum!”’ 

for thus in some places did a rich embroidered pall of flowers 
literally Aede the earth. There those beautiful plants, which we 
cultivate with such care in our ,gardens, azalias, rhododendrons, 
all the gorgeous family of the lobelia, were flourishing in wild 
luxuriance. ,Festoons of creeping and parasitical plants hung 
from branch to branch. The purple and scarlet iris, blue lark- 
spur, and the elegant Canadian columbine with its bright pink 
flowers; the scarlet lichnis, a species of orchis of the most daz- 
zling geranium colour, and the white and yellow and purple 
cyprepedium,* bordered the path, and a thousand others of most 
resplendent hues, for which I knew no names. I could not pass 
them with forbearance, and my Yankee driver, alighting, ga- 
thered for me a superb bouquet from the swampy margin of the 
forest. I contrived to fasten my flowers in a wreath along the 
front of the wagon, that I might enjoy at leisure their novelty 
aud beauty. How lavish, how carelessly profuse, is Nature in 
her handiwork! In the interior of the cyprepedium, which I tore 
open, there was vanety of configuration, and colour, and gem- 
hike richness of ornament, enough to fashion twenty different 
flowers; and for the little tly, in jewelled cuirass, which I found 
couched within its recesses, what a palace! that of Aladdin 
could not have been more splendid !—Mrs. Jameson's }Vinter 
Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, 


Superstition in Asia Minor.—Without the church at Merek 
was a rock with a smooth surface, which was supposed to possess 
the miraculous power of maintaming pieces of rock perpetually 
in contact, provided the person placing them there was free from 
sin. Here were seen numerous persons sufficiently credulous to 
make the vain attempt. After holding their fragments, and 
trying repeatedly whether they had stuck, by removing or slack- 
ening the pressure of the hand, they were mortified to find that 
their hopes and endeavours were fruitless—a discovery which 
one would have thought their consciences might previously have 
led them to make. Some of the more crafty sought out slight 
inequalities im the rock, hopmg by this device to gain a tem- 
porary tnumph. What blind ignorance im the people do such 
attempts betray, and what debasement in the clergy who coun- 
tenance them! It is quite indispensable to the success of inis- 
giouary labours in these countries to enlighten the Christians, for 
unless that be accomplished, any progress among the Moham- 
medans were utterly hopeless—Mr. Consul Brant’s Journey 
from Erz-rum to Van: Journal of Royal Geographical Society 


? From its resemblance in form to . shoe, this splendid flower bears 
everywhere the same uame. The English call it Jady’s-slipper; the 1n- 
diaus know it as the mocassin- flower. 


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{ Boors Merry-making.—Ostade.] 


GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. 


DULWICH COLLEGE. 


In estimating the value of painting as a medium of 
civilization, critics are but too apt to consider that the 
representation of vulgar life is rather a drawback than 
an advantage. ence the works oi Adrian van Ostade, 
and those of his still more celebrated coliteniporary, 
born in the same year, David Teniers the younger, are 
more frequently referred to as specimens of mercly 
successful imitations of coarse nature, than as examples 
of art whence inay be drawn wholesome food for in- 
struction and valuable matter for contemplation. In 
such limited views we can by no means concur, for we 
conceive that humanity, under every aspect in which it 
may be viewed, affords a subject at once available to 
the skill of the painter and the reflection of the mo- 
ralist. Here, however, we must guard ourselves from 
being misunderstood, by adding, that such is the case, 
provided the scene adopted does not present an outrage 
upon decency, a qualification essentially necessary 
when speaking of painters of familar subjects im the 
Flemish and Dutch schools. 
If by the sublime productions of the Homan artists 


No. 99D. 7. 


sve are elevated in our sentiments, or are soothed by 
the pure and graceful simpheity of Correggio, we must 
not therefore conclude that the mind may ‘hot be con- 
vineced or the heart amended by the delincations of 
every-day life. The kind offices of humanity, the love- 


liness of domestic affection, the hilarity of rational 


amusement, and even the uproariousness ot obstreperous 
enjoyment, alike aiford, to thuse who think, a source of 
reflection as well as of visual gratification. Indeed in 
some instances the famiharity of a subject may be the 
very means by which we may be enabled to come to a 

right conclusion upon its real value. The battles of 
Alexander or the tr iumphs of Cesar may arouse our 
conventional notions of glory, but the squabble of the 
alehouse or the ruffian contest of the skittle-ground 
brings us at once to a just appreciation of the br utalizine 
effects of physical violence. In the same manner the 
tranquillizing feelings which to the cultivated spectator 
are produced by viewing the productions of Guido or 
of Carlo Dolci, are more immediately appealed to in 
the uninitiated im the principles of high art, by the re- 
presentation of familar scenes, so long as’ they are 

confined to peaceable enjoyment or innocent mer- 
riment. 


Von. X.—2 4 


266 THE PENNY 

Of such a class is the picture from which Mr. Jack- 
son has engraved the illustration above. Three Dutch 
countrymen, or boors, are seated round a low table, one 
of them playing, or having just finished a tune upon 
the fiddle, whilst his companions evidence their admi- 
ration of his skill, one by suspending his enjoyment of 
the tobacco-pipe, the other by pledging the musician in 
a cup of beer or of Scheidam. Here we may suppose 
them to be gathered for social enjoyment after the 
labours of the day ; and he must be ascetic indeed who 
can look on unmoved by the simple gratification of his 
poorer fellow-men. In this picture the expression, 
upon a careful examination, will be found admirable ; 
there is a lively speakingness in the man pledging with 
the cup, which excellently contrasts with the solid 
complacency of the smoker, and at the same time 
appears to have elicited from the player a corre- 
spondent grin of ineffable and boundless self-satisfac- 
tion. In short the boor with the conical cap enacts the 
part of Orpheus, suspending the puff of his next neigh- 
bour, as his prototype did the whirling of Ixion’s wheel, 
though it must be admitted that the attitude of the 
third man little accords with the tranquillity fabled 
to have been caused in the stone of Sisyphus, since 
the can, which may stand in lieu of that implement, 
seems to be in active operation. 

Next to the expression contained in this picture, we 
may admire the admirable management of the hghts 
and darks, and the extreme fidelity of the perspective. 
Though dark in its general tone, the work is still trans- 
parent; and whilst its scale is far below the glare of 
daylight, yet the tints are so lucid and clear that the 
v'low of the setting sun may be readily imagined. The 
style of its execution is careful, yet exempt from over- 
finish and needless elaboration ; nor 1s there any want 
of freedom of handling in those parts where a bolder 
mode of using the pencil gives realty to the texture of 
the various stuffs introduced. 

The eminent painter of this picture, Adrian van 
Ostade, was born at Lubeck, in the year 1610, and re- 
moved to Haerlem, whilst very young, for the purpose 
of studying under Francis Hals, better known by the 
designation of Frank Hals, a painter whose works were 
then in great repute. He had for his fellow-pupil 
Adrian Brouwer, with whom he formed a strict inti- 
macy, and whom he induced to leave the house of Hals. 
On quitting the study of his master, Ostade painted for 
inany years at Haerlem, but taking alarm at the 
approach of the French troops in 1662, he quitted that 
city aid removed to Amsterdam, witha view of return- 
ing to Lubeck, but was persuaded to continue there. 
He was greatly prized and his works extensively pur- 
chased at good prices, which induced him to remain at 
Amsterdam till the period of his death, which hap- 
pened in the year 1685. 

The pictures of this master are generally of the class 
of that which we have already noticed, or the interiors 
of beer-houses or kitchens with boors regaling, and 
sometimes indulging in drunken quarrels and frolics. 
The lowness of these subjects might be supposed to 
render Ostade’s works offensive ; and in many instances, 
in consequence of the introduction of unnecessary gross- 
ness, they are extreinely so; yet the masterly style in 
which they are painted, the 1mmense command the 
artist had over the delineation of character and expres- 
sion, his profound knowledge aud admirable manage- 
ment of the chiaro-’scuro, his rich and glowing tints 
and harmonious blending of colour, render them so 
fascinating to the eye, that the judgment is suspended 
and the rigour of criticism 1s disarmed. “ The subjects 
which he chose to paint,” says Mr. Pilkington, “ were 
always of the low kind, and he had alinost the same 
ideas with Teniers; but though Ostade copied nature 
as it appeared in the lower class of mankind, among 


MAGAZINE. (Jury 10, 
whom he seemed to be most conversant; though his 
choice was without elegance, imitating uncomely 
nature without endeavouring to Improve it; accom- 
modating the actions, habits, and characters of his 
figures to his own taste; yet there is such spirit in his 
compositions, such truth, such nature, such hfe, and 
such delicacy of pencil, that even while many of his ob- 
jects are rather disgusting, a spectator cannot forbear 
to admire his genius and his execution.” . 

A writer in Rees’s ‘ Cyclopedia’ has also remarked, 
with no less justice than power of expression, in speak- 
ing of the paintings of Ostade, that “ he surprises our 
judgment into implicit admiration by a truth of cha- 
racter and energy of effect which preclude the founda- 
tion of censure.” 

Although this painter exercised his art for a great 
number of years, his careful mode of execution did not 
allow hin to produce so many as those artists, Teniers 
for instance, who adopted a different principle. In the 
pictures of Ostade, the whole surface will be found to 
be painted on, so as to exclude from sight the colour 
of the panel upon which it is executed ; whilst in those 
of Teniers the ground upon which the artist worked 
will be seen through the transparent colour he used, 
the principal hghts and darks alone shutting it out 
from view. - It will readily be understood how much 
more rapidly the latter nrode would bring a picture to 
completion than the former; but it 1s worth while to 
notice how exactly the two artists have arrived at the 
saime end, that is, an exact imitation of nature, by such 
different means. Though the ight in Teniers’ pictures 
is usually more broad and expansive than in those of 
Ostade, there is precisely as great a degree of lucid 
truth in one as in the other; and if on some occasions 
Ostade is more forcible in his effects than Teniers, 


Teniers is never less true to nature than Ostade.  » a 
Et 'y Leet, or ) 


; ; 


BOTANIC GARDEN AND ARBORETUM AT 
KEW. 
{[Coucluded from page 264.] 

On entering the gate, we pass along a winding path, 
which terininates in a beautiful grassy spot covered 
with trees, forming part of the Arboretum. A gate 
leads out of the curved path, on the left, but this leads 
to private buildmgs. On reaching the grassy plot, 
paths branch out both to the mght and left, the latter 
of which leads to the Botanic Garden. ‘This left-hand 
path brings us to a spot where a doorway, bordered 
with roses in full bloom, separates the Arboretum from 
the Botanic Garden. Within this doorway we find 
ourselves in the midst of the various buildings belong- 
ing to the Garden ; these we will go round in a direc- 
tion from left to right. The doors of all the hothouses 
and greenhouses are left unfastened, and no obstruc- 
tions whatever are placed in the way of visitors who 
know how to respect the objects which they are per- 
mitted to visit. 

The first hothouse on the left is a building about 
fifty feet long by twelve wide, stocked with valuable 
plants which require a high temperature for their pre- 
servation. ‘There may perhaps be some of our readers 
who are not familar with the various modes in which 
hothouses are kept at the desired temperature. The 
most general mode is by fires and smoke flues; the 
fire being made ina small brick fire-place, uncon- 
nected with the intenor of the hothouses, and the 
heated air and smoke being made to traverse the length 
of the hothouse in brick flues fifteen or eighteen 
inches high by eight or ten in width. Sometimes the 
flue traverses the length of the hothouse on one side, 
and returns on the other; but where the hothouse is 
narrow, the return flue is close to the other one. In 
the hothouse to which allusion has just been made 


1841. ] THE PENNY 
there isa fire-place at each end, from which a flue 

roceeds along to the middle of the length of the 

ouse, a little above the floor, and returns under the 
footway, through which there are holes to. admit 
heated air from the vicinity of the flue. In many 
botanic gardens and large nurseries the heating is 
cifected by steain, which is generated in boilers placed 
in some convenient part of the garden, and conveyed 
through the hothouses in steam-pipes: the botanic 
hothouses in the Duke of Northumberland’s garden 
at Sion-house, and at Messrs. Loddiges at Hackney, are 
heated in this way. A third mode of heating is by hot 
water circulating through iron pipes, and giving off 
abundance of heat in its progress. Of these three 
modes of heating, the old mode of smoke-flues is the 
only one adopted in Kew Gardens, except in a con- 
servatory of which we shall presently speak. 

When we have passed from end to end through this 
first hothouse (ve may here remark that visitors 
should be careful not to leave the doors of the hot- 
houses open), we arrive at a small open spot in which a 
rosa Banksiais trained against the wall, and beyond this 
a second hothouse, about the same dimensions as the 
first. At each end of the bed in this hothouse is an 
oval tank containing water, for the reception of such 
plants as require that mode of treatment. In front of 
these two hothouses is an optn space, occupied partly 
with inclined frames, and partly with rock-work beds, 
that is, beds having small masses of stone distributed 
over them in different parts to imitate rock, amone 
which mosses, ferns, &c. may grow. 

As we pass along by the left wall of the garden, we 
come to separate portions of the ground laid out in 
various ways. Beyond the rock-work beds just alluded 
to is a greenhouse about sixty feet in length; then 
another rock-work bed ; thenan enclosure presenting a 
very pretty appearance. This latter is an oblong 
parallelogram, with a thick and well-trimmed wall of 
ivy on all sides, and the ground is laid out partly in 
harrow beds and partly occupied by frames, containing 
various small plants. Next ensues another open spot, 
containing, among other objects, three trees of a re- 
markable kind: one is the arauecaria imbricata, an 
Australian tree, of such a delicate kind that a house is 
built round and over it during the winter to preserve 
it from cold; another is the betula pendula, a tree 
whose branches droop down to the ground at a distance 
of ten or fifteen feet from the trunk, forming an um- 
brageous cupola or dome; the third is a tree called 
the Broussdnetia pupyrifera, of which it is almost im- 
possible to find two leaves shaped alike. Next to 
this is a circular plantation, about a hundred feet in 
diameter, bounded, except at two entrances, by a thickly 
planted hedge, and occupied by six concentric beds, 
with paths between them, and cutting themat right an- 
gles, the whole encompassing a circular bed in the cen- 
tre: this arrangement has an exccedingly pretty effect 
to the eye. At a little distance beyond this circular 
plantation we come to the extremity of the left wall, 
passing two wickets which lead to another garden on 
the left, apparently not open to the public. 

Irom the corner to which we have just arrived, a wall, 
bordered by a path, leads in a curved direction round 
nearly to the spot at which we entered the garden; and 
the principal part of the ground so encircled is laid 
out in open beds, separated here and there by paths, 
and stocked with a large variety of choice plants. In 
this part of the ground is a greenhouse about a hun- 
dred feet in length; and near it are tan-pits or beds, 
that is, enclosed frames containing tan or bark for various 
kinds of plants. Behind this large greenhouse is an- 
other open space, occupied in part bya rock-work bed 
with ferns, mosses, &c., and in other parts by plants of 
different character. 


MAGAZINE. 264 


where we entered the garden, we come to three hot- 
houses connected together in one row; and at the end 
of these, a water-bed or tank for the reception of pots 
containing aquatic plants. 

From this place we enter by one of several openings 
into the Arboretum, which is an extensive piece of 
eround covered with grass, and studded more or less 
thickly with trees and shrubs, of most of which the 
names are given, on small tablets attached to the 
lower part of the tree. Immediately on entering, a 
small circular temple or pavilion meets the eye: it 
was built by George IV. as a refreshment-room, and 
consists of a circular room, round the upper part of 
which are painted the signs of the zodiac: 1t is lighted 
by eight windows, and has an ornamental projecting 
cornice supported by eight Corinthian pillars, whose 
bases rest on a raised terrace. Passing round by the 
left, we arrive in a few minutes at the orangery, a 
building erected about ninety years ago for the recep- 
tion of orange and other tropical trees. Itis warmed 
during the winter by flues running in various direc- 
tions beneath the pavement. The noblest plant in this 
room, among many of large size, is the araucaria 
excelsa, brought from Nortolk Island. Although 
standing nearly twenty feet in height, it is planted in 
a tub, and in that condition moved out into the open 
air as soon as the summer weather becomes suffi- 
ciently warm and settled: ona recent visit, we found 
this tree just about to be removed from the orangery 
into the open green in front of it,—an operation of 
much labour. 

The very extensive grounds stretching beyond the 
Orangery in this direction comprise the pleasure- 
grounds belonging to the palace, which are not so 
frequently open to the public as the garden and Ar- 
boretum, and which it is not our object to allude to 
here.’ Returning, therefore, from the orangery, and 
proceeding through a thickly wooded and beautiful 
part of the Arboretum towards the river, we speedily 
come to the new conservatory, the most elegant of all 
the buildings. This is a large and very lofty con- 
servatory, built by his late majesty Wilham IV., princi- 
pally for the reception of rare and valuable plants from 
New Holland. On each side of the conservatory, near 
the floor, is a mass of iron pipes, some miles in length, 
for warming the conservatory, when necessary, on Mr. 
Perkins’s hot-water principle. This conservatory, being 
an isolated building, and having four fronts, presents 
a very elegant appearance. This is the building which 
is visible from Kew Green through the open railings ; 
and from this spot we may either ramble through the 
grounds to the wall which separates them from the 
river, or may return to the entrance from whence we 
started; in either case passing among and between 
and under trees of very varied kinds. 

It has formed no part of our plan to enumerate the 
botanical treasures of the garden, but to indicate what 
may be termed its topography and general arrange- 
ment. Almost every specimen has a label or ticket 
attached, on which the name is written. It 1s true that 
these inscriptions generally give the Latin or scientific 
name of the plant; but in by far the greater number 
of instauces there is no popular English name belong- 
ing to it; and if there were, it is necessary In a garden 
established principally for the furtherance of scientific 
botany, to give the names by which plants are known 
to botanists generally, whether of this or of other coun- 
trles. 


Ingenuity wasted.— It is no merit to accomplish an object by 
difficult instruments when easy ones are at hand, or to reach an 
end by a circuitous road when there is a straight course. 
Michael Angelo bemg told of an artist who painted with his 


Ol | fingers, exclaimed, “ Why does not the blockhead make use of 
Then arriving nearly at the spot | 


his pencils ?” 


2 ‘\r2 


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[Bewick’s Workshop, Newcastle. 


LIFE OF BEWICK. 


[Concluded from p. 261.} 


On Bewick’s return to Newcastle, in 1777, he entered 
into partnership with Mr. Beilby; and his younger 
brother, John Bewick, who was then about seventeen 
years old, became their apprentice. From this time 
Bewick, though he continued to assist his partner in 
the other branches of their business, applied himself 
chiefly to engraving on wood. The cuts in an edition 
of Gay’s ‘Fables,’ 1779, and in an edition of ‘ Sclect 
Fables, 1784, both printed by J. Saint, Neweastle, 
were engraved by Bewick, who was probably assisted 
by his brother. Several of these cuts are well en- 
graved, though by no means to be compared to his 
later works, executed when he had acquired rreater 
knowledge of the’art, and more confidence in his own 
powers. He evidently improved as his talents were 
exercised; for the cuts in the ‘ Select Fables,’ 1784, 
are generally much superior to those in Gay’s ‘ Fables,’ 
1779; the animals are better drawn and engraved, the 
sketches of landscape in the backgrounds are more 
natural; and the engraving of the foliage of the trees 
and bushes 1s not unfrequently scarce inferior to that 
of his later productions. Such an attention to nature 
in this respect 1s not to be found in any woodcuts of an 
earlier date. In the best cuts of the time of Durer 
and Holbem the foliage is generally neglected; the 
artists of that period merely give general forms of 
trees, without ever attending to that which contributes 
so much to their beauty. The merit of introducing 
this great improvement in wood-engraving, and of 
depicting quadrupeds and birds in their natural forms 

and with their characteristic expression, is undoubtedly 

due to Bewick. We may here observe that for several 

of the cuts in the ‘Select Fables’ Bewick was only 

paid nine shillings each! Towards the latter end of 

1785 Bewick began to engrave the cuts for his ‘ Ge- 

neral History of Quadrupeds,’ which was first printed 

in 1790. His own account of the origin of this work 

18 interesting :—‘‘ From my first reading, when a boy 

atschool, a sixpenny ‘ History of Birds and Beasts” 

and a then wretched composition called the History | 


of Three Hundred Animals,’ to the time I became 
acquainted with works on natural history written for 
the perusal of men, I never was without the design of 
attempting somethmg of this kind myself; but my 
principal object was (and still is) directed to the 
mental pleasure and improvement of youth; to en- 
cage their attention, to direct steps aright, and to. lead 
them on till they became enamoured of this innocent 
and delightiul pursuit. ‘Some time after my partner- 
ship with Mr. Beilby commenced, I communicated my 
wishes to him, who, after many conversations, came 
into my plan of publishing a ‘ History of Quadrupeds,’ 
and I then immediately began to draw the animals, to 
design the vignettes, and to cut them on wood; and 
this, to avoid interruption, frequently till very late in 
the night; my partner at the same tune undertaking 
to compile and draw up the descriptions and history at 
his leisure hours and evenings at home. With the 
accounts of the foreign animals I did not much inter- 
fere; the sources whence I had drawn the little know- 
ledge I possessed were open to my coadjutor, and he 
used them; but to those of the animals of our own 
country, as my partner before this time had paid little 
attention to natural history, I lent a helping hand. 
This help was given in daily conversations, and in 
occasional notes and memoranda, which were used in 
their proper places.” The comparative excellence of 
the cuts in this work, which, for the correct delineation 
of the aninals and the natural character of the inci- 
dents, and the backgrounds, are superior to any- 
thing of the kind that had previously appeared, 
insured a rapid sale for the work; a second edi- 
tion was published in 1791, and a third in 1792. 
The tail-pieces in this work generally display great 
humour and talent. In the following cut of a sour- 
visaged old fellow going with corn to the mill, we 
have an exemplification of cruelty not unworthy of 
Hogarth. The over-laden, half-starved, old horse, 
broken-kneed, greasy-heeled, and evidently troubled 
with the string-halt, as is indicated by the action of the 
off hind leg, hesitates to descend the brae, at the foot 
of which there is a stream, aud the old brute on his 
back urges him forward by workmg him, as jockeys 


1841.] 


say, with the halter, and beating him with his stick. 
In the distance, Bewick, as 1s usual with him when he 
vives a sketch of cruelty or knavery, has introduced a 
eallows. The miserable appearance of the poor 


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animal is not a little increased by the nakedness of his 
hind-quarters; his stump of a tail is so short that it 


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Though the subject of the following cut is simple, 
yet the sentiment which it displays is the genuine oll- 
spring of true genius. Near to a ruined cottage, 
while all around is covered with snow, a lean and 
hungry ewe is seen nibbling at an old broom, while 






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her young and weakly lamb is sucking her milkless 
teats. Sucha picture of animal want, conceived witn 
so much feeling and so well expressed, has perhaps 
never been represented by any artist except Bewick. 
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[Ruined Cottage and Sheep.] 


Quadrupeds’ was received, determined Bewick to 
commence without delay his ‘ History of British Birds.’ 
Iie began to draw and engrave the cuts in 1791, and 
in 1797 the first volume of the work, containing the 
land birds, was published. The letter-press, as in the 
Quadrupeds, was written by his partner, Mr. Beilby, 
who certainly deserves great praise for the manner in 
which he has performed his task. The descriptions 
eenerally have the great merit of being simple, intel- 
higible, and correct. 

The partnership between Beilby and Bewick having 
been dissolved in 1797, shortly after the publication of 
the first volume of the Birds, the descriptions in the 
second, which did not appear till 1804, were written 
by Bewick himself, but revised by the Rev. Henry 
Cotes, vicar of Bedlington. The publicatioii of this 
volume formed the key-stone of Bewick’s fame asa 
designer and engraver on wood; for though the cuts 
are not superior to those of the first, they are not ex- 
celled, nor indeed equalled, by any that he afterwards 
executed. Indeed nothing of the same kind that 
wood-engraving has produced since the time of Bewick 
can for a moment bear a comparison with them. They 
are not to be equalled till a designer and engraver 
shall arise possessed of Bewick’s knowledge of nature, 
and endowed with his happy talent of expressing it. 
Bewick has in this respect effected more by hinself 


| 


professional designer, but who knows nothing of birds, 
of their habits, or the places which they frequent, and 
has not the slightest feeling for natural incident or 
picturesque beauty. The cut of the woodcock, of 
which the following is a copy, is another mstance of 
the able manner in which Bewick has availed lunself 
of the capabilities of his art. He has here produced 
the most perfect likeness of the bird that ever was 
engraved, and at the same time given to his subject an 
effect, by skilful management of light and shade, which 
it is impossible to obtain by means of copper-plate 
engraving. Bewick thoroughly understood the ad- 
vantages of his art in this respect, and no wood- 
engraver or designer, cither ancient or modern, has 
employed them with greater succcss, without sacri- 
ficing nature to mere effect. 

As an engraver, Bewick’s life affords a lesson to all 
who wish to attain distinction in art, and at the same 
time to preséive their independence. He diligently 
cultivated his talents, and never trusted to booksellers 
or designers for employment. He did not work ac- 
cording to the directions of others, but struck out a 
path for himself; and by diligently pursuing It ac- 
cording to the bent of lis own feelings, he acquired 
both a competence with respect to worldly means and 
an ample reward of fame. The success of his works 
did not render him inattentive to busmess; and he 


than has been produced by one of our best wood- | was never tempted by the prospect of increasing wealth 
engravers when working from drawings made by a! to indulge in expensive pleasures or lve ma manner 










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which his circumstances did not warrant. What he 
had honestly earned, he frugally husbanded ; and, lke 
a prudent man, made a provision for his old age. 
“The hand of the dihgent,” says Solomon, “maketh 
rich.” This Bewick felt, and his life may be cited in 
exemplification of the truth of the proverb. He ac- 
quired not indeed great wealth, but he attained-a com- 
petence, and was grateful and contented. No favoured 
worshipper of Mammon, though possessed of millions 
obtained by “ watching the turn of the market,” could 
say more. In the summer of 1828, Bewick visited 
London; but he was then evidently in a declming 
state of health, and he had lost much of his former 
energy of mind. Scarcely anything that he saw imte- 
rested him, and he tonged no less than in his younger 
days to return to the banks of the Tyne. He had 
ceased to feel an imterest in objects which formerly 
afforded him great pleasure; for when his old friend, 
the late Mr. Wilham Bulmer, drove him to the 
Regent’s Park, he declined to alight for the purpose 
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of the Zoological Society. On his return to Newcastle 
he appeared for a short time to enjoy his usual health 
and spirits. On the Saturday preceding his death he 
took the block of the Old Horse waiting for Death to 
the printers, and had it proved; on the following 
Monday he became unwell, and after a few days’ ill- 
ness he ceased to exist. He died at his house on the 
Windmill Hills, Gateshead, on the 8th of November, 
1828, aged seventy-five. He was buried at Ovingham. 

The following cut, in which is introduced an ima- 
onary representation of Bewick’s funeral, presents a 
correct view of the place. The popular saying, so 
well known in Northumberland, — 


‘¢ Happy is the bride that the sun shines on, 
Aud happy is the corpse that the rain rains on” — 


meaning that sunshine at a wedding is a sign of hap- 
piness in the marriage state to the bride, and that rain 
at a funeral is a sign of future happiness to the person 


about to be interred—suggested the introduction of the 
rainbow. 





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(Bewick’s Funeral.] 





1841.) 
CHAUCER’S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 


THE CLERK OF OXENFORD”™. 


“ A clerk there was of Oxenford also, 
That unto logic haddé long ygoy, 
As leané was his horse as is a rake, 
And he was not right fat, I undertake ; 
But looked hollow and thereto soberly. 
Full threadbare was his overest courtessy{ : 
For he had getten him yet no benefice, 
He was nought worldly to have an office. 
For him was lever have at his bed’s head 
A twenty bookés clothed in black or red 
Of Aristotle and his philosophy, 
Than robes rich, or fiddle or psaltry. 
But all be that he was a philosépher, 
Yet haddé he but little gold in coffer§, 
But all that he might of his friendés hent || 
On bookés and on learning he it spent, 
And busily gan for the soulés pray 
Of them that gave him wherewith to scholay. 
Of study took he mosté care and heed. 
Not a word spake he moré than was need 5 
And that was said 1n form and reverence, 
And short and quick, and full of Ingh senténce; 
Sounding in moral virtue was his speech ; 
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach.” 


Tuts very interesting character has much in common 
with the “ poure parson of a town” who last engaged 
our attention, although the poet, with true dramatic 
skill, has kept them perfectly distinct from each, not 
only as examples of the respective classes to which 
they belong, but as real personages, having their re- 
spective individual characteristics. The same lofty 
feclings and principles actuate both, assuming in the 
one instance a deeply religious cast, and in the other 
an equally powerful moral and philosophical tone ; 
both are learned men; both poor, and both willine to 
remain soa, whilst the one can enjoy the society of his 
books, and the other advance the spiritual prosperity of 
his flock. Their differences are no less noticeable and 
instructive. The entire heart and mind of him, who, 
apart from the sacred writings, presents the most per- 
fect specimen of a Christian pastor that we possess, or 
that the imagination of man can conceive, 1s occupied 
by the care of his flock ; the clerk’s morality and philo- 
sophy by no means produce an equal abnegation of 


geht —— 
Of study took he mosté care and heed :” 


the first lives wholly for others; the second, inferior 
only to him, spends no inconsiderable portion of his 
time and energies on himself. Yet even in so doing, 
how utterly divested is he of any sentiment of a selfish 
kind! Though the “poure parson’s” philosophy may 
be the nobler, yet still how noble is the clerk's! 
Aware of the high capacities God has implanted in 
him, he thinks it but his duty, as it is his pleasure, to 
develop them to the utmost, and at the same time 
both these influences impel him to impart to his fellow- 
men whatever of value his studies have bequeathed to 
him. ‘ Gladly would he learn,” says Chaucer, in the 
exquisite concluding line of the description, “ and 
eladly teach.” 

There are two passages of a very extraordinary kind 
in relation to the parson and the clerk, by Warton, 
which show but too clearly how little this generally 
admirable historian of poetry could sympathise with 


* Oxford. + Gone. { A short upper cloak. 

§ This alludes, we presume, to the coiection between 
alchemy and philosophy, which was formerly so close that the 
two were seldom found apart; and to the fact that the clerk 
found his alchemy put no more gold into his coffer than it had 
done into the coffers of his fellow-studeuts in the art before or 
since. 


|| Lay hold of; obtain, -- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


fal 


the highest class of poetical creations. He says of 
Chaucer’s description of the first, that he shows in it 
“his good sense aud good heart ;’ and there ends his 
commendation; whilst of the second, in reference to 
these noble lines— 


“¢ Not a word spake he moré than was need ; 
And that was said im form and revereuice, 
And short and quick, and full of high senténce ”— 


he writes, “ The clerk’s unwearied attention to logic 
had tinctured his conversation with much pedantic 
formality, and taught him to speak on all subjects in a 
precise and sententious style.” If this is not a fair 
specinen of what Swift calls the “ art of sinking” in 
poetry, we do not know what is. How differently 
Godwin has read the lines may be inferred from the 
fact that he adduces them as one of the proofs of a very 
interesting theory, namely, that Chaucer, in the person 
of the Clerk, described his own mental characteristics, 
We need hardly say that Godwin, in applying these 
hnes to the poet, did not intend to call him a formal 
pedant. The theory to which we have alluded is too 
interesting to be passed over without examination. 
Chaueer, as we have before stated, is himself one of 
the pilgrims who are journeying towards Canterbury. 
As he describes all his companions—their persons, 
habits, minds—he could scarcely avoid, without affec- 
tation, some allusions to himself. Most happily he got 
Over the difficulty. After the Prioress has told her 
tale, the host looks about him to see who shall tell the 
next, when his eye falls on Chaucer, whom he thus 
addresses :— 


¢ _____. What man art thou? quod he ; 

Thou lookest as thou wouldest find a hare, 

For ever upon the ground I see thee stare., 
Approaché near, and look up merrily. 

Now, ware you, sirs, and let this man have place. 
He in the waist is shapen as well as I: 

This were a poppet 11 an armé to embrace 

For any woman small and fair of face. 

He seemeth elvish by his countenance, 

For unto no wight doth he dalhance.”’ 


The poet, however, has here described his personal 
features, only; but in the Clerk of Oxenford, we be- 
heve, and that belief is sanctioned by Godwin’s high 
authority, he has revealed to us a most interesting 
elimpse of his lterary habits, mind, and of a very im- 
portant event in his history, of which we should other- 
wise have been ignorant. The love of “ Aristotle and 
his philosophy ” could not possibly apply more foreibly 
to the Clerk than we know it did to Chaucer ; and of 
the latter’s love of reading, and his propensity to enjoy 
that solace in bed in his sleepless hours, when the 
books at “ his bed’s head” must have been found very 
convenient, he has himself expressly and repeatedly: 
informed us. But the most striking proof of the con- 
nection is that Chaucer, as we have just stated, has put 
in the Clerk’s mouth a record of one of the most inte- 
resting events of his (the poet’s) life. «I will tell youa 
tale,” says the Clerk to his fellow-pilgrims, 


which that I 


&¢ 
Learnéd at Padua of a worthy clerk, 








ry 


ne “ 


Francis Petrarch, the laureate poéte.” 


The tale referred to is the exquisitely pathetic story 
of ‘ Griselda,’ which Petrareh translated from the 
‘Decameron’ of Boccaceio. In 1373 Chaucer was sent 
on a mission to the Genoese, and in that very same 
year Petrarch, in a letter still preserved, told Boccaccio 
that the ‘Decameron’ had fallen into his hand for the 
first time only a few weeks before, and that the nar- 
rative with which it concluded (the tale in question> 
had particularly struck him. As a still further proof 


2/2 


that the Clerk states a true fact for the poct’s bio- 
eraphy, Godwin remarks, “ Why did Chaucer choose 
to confess his obligation to Petrarch rather than to 
Boccaccio, from whose volume Petrarch confessedly 
translated it (and with which Chaucer was familiarly 
acquainted)? For this very natural reason—because 
he was eager to commemorate his interview with this 
vencrable patriarch of Italian letters, and to record the 
pleasure he had reaped from his society. Chaucer 
could not do this more effectually than by mentioning 
his having heard from the lps of Petrarch a tale 
which had been previously drawn up and delivered to 
the public by another.”* Chaucer’s visit to Petrarch 
must have occurred about the period when the latter 
had finished his translation of the tale ; and no doubt 
he learned it from the Italian poet’s own lips: and, as 
his biographer observes, the magic of a tale, perhaps 
the most pathetic that human fancy ever conceived, 
heard under the sacred roof of him in whom the genius 
of modern poetry seemed to be concentrated, must 
have been altogether a surprise, a feast, a complication 
of sentiment and pleasure, such as it has fallen to the 
lot of few mortals to partake. We may conclude this 
part of our subject by relating an anecdote illustrative 
of the effect of this tale on one of its readers. About 
the same time that Petrarch read it to Chaucer, he 
showed it to one of his Italian friends, a citizen of 
Padua. The latter attempted to read it aloud, but he 
had no sooner got into the incidents of the story than 
he was obliged to desist ; his voice was choked by his 
emotions. He repcated the trial, but was quite unable 
to proceed. 

In the Sutherland Manuscript the Clerk’s surcoat, or 
“overcst courtessy,” with the hood, is of a dirty violet 
colour ; his stockings, and the saddle and bridle on his 
“lean ” miserable-looking horse, are of scarlet. He 
holds a book in his right hand, which is stretched out, 
as if he were descanting upon its contents. Under his 
left arm he carries other books bound in red and blue. 
The painter has not overlooked the “hollow” face of 
the poor but high-minded Clerk. 


The Post-Office in Canada.—The poor emigrants who have 
not been long from the old country, round whose hearts tender 
remembrances of parents, and home, and home friends yet cling 
in all the strength of fresh regret and unsubdued longing, some- 
times present themselves at the post-offices, and on finding that 
their letters cost three shillings and fourpence, or perhaps five or 
six shillings, turn away in despair. I have seen such letters not 
here only, but often and im greater numbers at the larger post- 
offices. At Brandtford I saw forty-eight such letters, and an ad- 
vertisement from the post-master, setting forth that these letters, 
if not claimed and paid for by such a time, would be sent to the 
dead-letter office. I have thought with pat: how many fond, 
longing hearts must have bled over them. The torture of Tan- 
talus was surely nothing to this.—J7rs. Jameson's Vinter Studies 
and Summer Rambles in Canada. 


Simplicity of Agricultural Operations in the Weed Prairies of 
Texas.—In their “ weed prairies” the counties of Robertson and 
Milam possess a characteristic of the soil peculiar to themselves. 
These prairies, unlike most of those in other localities, are co- 
vered with a thick growth of weeds instead of grass. These 
weeds are generally from ten to fifteen feet high, and so dense 
that they are almost impenetrable to man or horse, resembling, 
in some respects, the crane-brakes of the alluvial region. The 
settlers highly estimate the productive power of the weed 
prairies. The soil is chiefly of a light mulatto colour, and re- 
markably fertile. In order to prepare it for cultivation, 1t 1s 
only necessary to beat down and burn the weeds, after which the 
soil is in a condition to receive the seed, being almost as loose 
and friable as a bed of ashes. In planting these prairies, the 


* ‘Life of Chaucer,’ vol. 11., p. 149. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Juny 10, 


plough is seldom used, but, instead of it, the settlers apply a 
large spiked roller, usually formed of a log, with harrow teeth 
placed at intervals, so as to form holes when dragged over the 
ground, Into these holes the Indian corn is dropped, and then 
covered slightly with earth, which is generally “ kicked” over it. 
The seed thus rudely and carelessly planted soon throws up 
vigorous blades, which require no further attention until harvest, 
except hght hoeing.—Kennedy’s Texas. 


Hyde Park a Century since.—One circumstance that tends to 
impress us with the idea of the solitary character of Hyde Park 
and. its environs,when compared with St. James’s Park, during the 
reigns of the last Stuarts and the first sovereigns of the present 
dynasty, is its bemg frequently selected, in common with the 
then lonely fields behind Montague House, now the British Mu- 
seum, as the scene of the more inveterate class of duels. In the 
days when men wore swords there were many off-hand duels— 
impromptu exertions of that species of lively humour. Horace 
Walpole, sen., quarrelled with a gentleman im the House of 
Commons, aud they fought at the stair-foot. Lord Byron and 
Mr. Chaworth stepped out of a dining-parlour in the Star and 
Garter Tavern, Pall-Mall, and fought, by the light of a bed-room 
candle, inan adjoining apartment. More than one duel occurred 
in Pall-Mall itself. But there were also more ceremonious 
duels, to which men were formally invited some time before-~ 
hand, and in which more guests than two participated. The 
pistol-duel in which Wilkes was severely wounded occurred in 
Hyde Park. Here too the fatal duel in which the Duke of 
Hamilton and. Lord Mahon (November, 1712) fell, and their 
seconds were wounded, took place. Swift enables us to fix with 
precision the locality of this last event: he says, in his ‘ Journal 
to Stella,’ “ The Duke was helped. towards the Cake-house by 
the Ring in Hyde Park, where they fought, and died on the 
erass before he could reach the house.” Its loneliness is also 
vouched for by the frequency of highway robberies in its imme- 
diate vicinity : pocket-picking 1s the branch of industry charac- 
teristic of town places like St. James’s Park; highway-robbery 
aud fox-hunting are rural occupations. The narrative of the 
principal witness in the trial of William Belchier, sentenced to 
death for highway-robbery im 1752, shows the state in which the 
roads which bound Hyde Park were at that time, and also pre- 
sents us with a picture of the substitutes then used instead of a 
good police:—William Norton: The chaise to the Devizes 
having been robbed two or three times, as I was informed, I was 
desired to go in it, to see 1f I could take the thief, which I did 
on the 3rd of June, about half an hour after one in the morning. 
I got into the post-chaise; the post-boy told me the place where 
he had been stopped was near the Half-way House between 
Knightsbridge and Kensington. As we came near the house, the 
prisoner came to us on foot, and said, “ Driver, stop!” He held 
a pistol tinder-box to the chaise, and said, “ Your money 
directly :- you must not stay, this minute your money.” I said, 
¢ Don’t frighten us; JI have but a trifle; you shall have it.” 
Then I said to the gentlemen (there were three in the chaise), 
‘Give your money.” I took out a pistol from my coat-pocket, 
and from my breeches-pocket a five-shilling piece and a dollar. 
I held the pistol concealed in one hand and the money m the 
other. JI held the money pretty hard; he said, “ Put it in my 
hat.” I Jet him take the five-shillmg piece out of my hand; 
as soon as he had taken it I snapped my pistol at him; it did 
not go off: he staggered back, and held up his hands and said, 
‘Oh Lord! oh Lord!” I jumped out of the chaise: he ran 
away, and I after him about six or seven hundred yards, and 
there took him. I hit him a blow on his back; he begged for 
mercy on his knees; I took his neckcloth off and tied his hands 
with it, and brought him back to the chaise: then I told the 
gentlemen m the chaise that was the errand I came upon, and 
wished them a good journey, and brought the prisoner to London. 
Question by the prisoner: “ Ask him how he lives.” Norton: “I 
keep a shop in Wych Street, and sometimes IJ take a thief.” The 
post-boy stated on the trial that he had told Norton, if they did 
not meet the highwayman between Knightsbridge and Kensing- 
ton, they shonld not meet him at all—a proof of the frequency 
of these occurrences in that neighbourhood. Truly while such 
tricks were played in the park by noblemen and gentlemen in 
the daytime, and by footpads at night, the propinquity of the 
place of execution at Tybur to the place of gaiety in the Ring 
was quite as desirable as it seems upon first thought anomalous. 


— London, No. XII. 


1841.] THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 273 


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(Long or Middle-Horned Cattle.—a, Old Craven Bull ; b, Shropshire Ox; c, New Leicester Bull; d, Devon Bull; e, Devon Cow; f, Hereford Bull; 


g, Hereford Cow ; /, Sussex Cow. 


CATTLE. the original source whence it sprung: we know not 


: rae | whether the various races of domestic cattle which are 
ee ee ee eee ee AL We et waa to different climates are attributable to the 


important of man’s conquests over theanimal kingdom, is : among the 
is a ox. Its eg appears to have ee ony, | Semerprimintve sbocls or hg convaagy Tainted With 
of his earliest triumphs ; we read in the Mosaic record ea ay Pratl tec a ne of at one of the 
that Jabal was the father “ of suchas have cattle ;” and bavi te ao 
thus are we introduced to the ox at a primitive period a f wild cattle existed in Central 
of man’s existence on the globe. Beyond the fact ie tip tha Wowie eesO ‘e hentic history, to which 
however, that this most valuable animal was then do- Europe within mene . +. Uy a A pea con- 
Lae : 7 ta - ients @ave the name oO TUS, ) 7 
mesticated, we have no information ; and it 1s useless =? the opinion of Cuvier, Dr. Weissenborn asserts 


to fill up the vacuum with vague and unsatisfactory th the Kusemean.pison* Or DOMsEEnS 
surmises. As the circumstances atiendant upon the to be identical with p 


primzeval domestication of the ox are beyond our know- * The bison of America has no real claim to this ancient 
ledge, so is our information as hmited with regard to | title. 


No. 596. Vou. X.—2N 


2°74. THE PENNY 
of the ancient writers, and of which he regards the 
aurochs or zubr of Lithuania as the descendant. If so, 
the urus of Caesar is not the origin of the common ox 
of our part of the world. 

Cuvier, however, conceives it probable that the urus 
of Cesar is distinct from the bison of Pliny, which 
latter is certainly the aurochs (and still called bisent 
or wisent in some of the districts of Germany) ; and he 
is further of opinion that to this ancient urus belonged 
the fossil remains of a species of ox with a large head 
and horns, found in the superficial strata both of Eng- 
land and the Continent. Hence he infers that the urus 
is extinct, and that we are, perhaps, justified in re- 
garding these relics in question as the remains of the 
primitive type of the domestic ox, namely, the Urus 
antiquorun. 

Many naturalists, and among them Mr. Bell, lean to 
Cuvier’s opinion, and certainly with much in their 
favour. “Upon the whole,” says Mr. Bell, “I cannot 
but believe that the fossil bones belonged to the original 
stock of our domestic ox, and that the wild cattle (of 
Chillingham Park, the Bos scoticus of authors) ap- 
proach so near to it, as to leave it a matter of doubt, 
not whether they all belong to the same species, but 
whether this breed be the actual remains of that ori- 
rial stock, or the descendants of domesticated indi- 
viduals which have resumed in a great degree their 
wild character, from having ceased through many 
renerations to feel the effects of human dominion.” 
The probability, in our opinion, is, that the wild cattle 
still lingering in a few of the parks of our island are 
the last remnants of a wild race once common in our 
forests, and specifically identical with our domestic 
breed ; that the fossil relics are the remains of the 
primeval ancestors of that race; and that they be- 
longed to the animal anciently known as the urus. 

Still this is all hypothetical. Whatever may be the 
source whence our domestic breeds Gn Europe, at 
least) have sprung, we cannot but acknowledge that 
they have undergone many modifications, from the in- 
fluences of climate, pasturage, and the culture of man. 
Iiven the different districts or counties of our own 
island possess or have possessed their peculiar breeds. 
This distinction of breeds, though by care and atten- 
tion it will become less marked, will never be entirely 
effaced while the grazier and the dairy-farmer aim at 
different objects. 

In England, a country abounding with luxuriant 
pasturage, the ox, only used for the purposes of agyri- 
cultural labour in a few limited districts, is destined to 
benefit the grazier on the one hand, and the dairy- 
farmer on the other. With the grazier, roundness of 
form, a moderate smallness of bone, depth of chest, and 
an aptitude to acquire external fat upon a small con- 
sumption of food, are among the points of excellence 
aimed at and expected. The attainment of perfection, 
however, in the points most desirable in the eyes of the 
grazier, 1s generally accompanied by a corresponding 
deterioration of cattle in those qualities. connected 
with the interests of the dairy-farmer, for very sel- 
dom are combined an aptitude to fatten and the quality 
(in the cow) of yielding an abundance of rich milk. 
Both parties, therefore, attend to their peculiar inte- 
rests, agreeing only in the care bestowed upon. the 
animals subservient to their respective purposes. 

Among the older breeds: of cattle, but now greatly 
modified, was a long-horned race, of which the West 
Riding of Yorkshire and Lancashire were the central 
residence, whence it extended through the midland 
counties and into Ireland. This breed was termed 
the Craven, from a district of the same name in York- 
shire, bordering upon Lancashire, and where it is said 
to have originally appeared. | 

This old breed was large and coarse-boned, and apt | 


MAGAZINE. (Jury 17%, 
to be long in the body, which, however, was destitute 
of roundness. The milk, if not abundant in quantity, 
was extremely rich, and suited the purposes of the 
dairy-farmer. The horns were of enormous length, 
sometimes they projected horizontally on each side of 
the head ; generally, however, they swept downwards, 
with an inward flexure, often reaching below the level 
of the muzzle, or even meeting before it, so as to inter- 
fere with the power of grazing. We have seen the 
points press against the sides of the muzzle, rendering 
it necessary to shorten them. 

In the beginning of the eighteenth century various 
acriculturists commenced a series of attempts towards 
the improvement of this old but ever valuable breed ; 
and to the skill and judgment of Mr. Bakewell is to be 
attributed the Dishley or New Leicester long-horn. In 
this breed the form and the tendency to acquire fat 
were greatly improved, and the size of the bone re- 
duced. To the grazier the improvement in these 
points was of the highest value, but the dairyman pre- 
ferred the old stock. In process of time, however, the 
new breed extended, improving the cattle of the mid- 
Jand and northern counties, and especially of Ireland. 
iverywhere, however, the long-horned has of late 
years yielded to a middle or short-horned race; and 
even in Leicestershire—the stronghold of the Dishley 
breed—few are now to be seen. In Cheshire also, 
which till recently retained a long-horned breed, de- 
rived chiefly from the old Lancashire and new Dishley 
stocks, the Durham or short-horned race has made 
decided inroads, but with doubtful advantage as re- 
spects the quality of the cheese for which that county 
is celebrated. Among the long-horns may be reckoned 
the old Shropshire breed, a large boned and hardy 
race, and well fitted for the dairy. This breed is now 
seldom seen pure, having been crossed with advantage 
by the short-horned Holderness. ‘Though the short- 
horns have superseded the long-horns in most parts of 
Staffordshire, the latter still continue to maintain their 
eround in the north of that county, and more particu- 
larly along the banks of the Dove and Trent, close to 
the borders of Derbyshire. 

Between the long-horned and short-horned breeds of 
our cattle intervenes a race termed middle-horns, 
represented by the North Devonshire, Somersetshire, 
Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Sussex cattle. 

The Devonshire breed is of great antiquity, and has 
been long celebrated for beauty. Like most of our 
other breeds, it has within the last fifty or sixty years 
become improved, and has perhaps now attained to its 
perfection. 

The head of the Devon ox is small, but broad across 
the forehead and narrow at the muzzle; the horns have 
a graceful curve upwards; the chest is deep, and the 
back straight. The cow is small compared with the 
bull. - 

The system of ploughing with oxen is very generally 
practised in Devonshire, and where the land is not too 
heavy, no teams of oxen are superior, if equal to these, 
in this kind of work. Four good oxen are equal to 
three horses, and will go through as much Jabour on 
the road or in the field in as short a time. 

To the grazier this breed is of great importance, few 
oxen rivalling the Devonshire in disposition to fatten 
and in the quality of the flesh. For the dairy, how- 
ever, this breed is inferior to many as respects quan- 
tity of milk, but not quality, for it yields more than an 
average proportion of cream and butter. Some 
farmers, however, have found the North Devons to 
yield a large produce of milk; contrary to the com- 
mon opinion, much probably depends upon pasturage: 
In Somersetshire the Devon breed prevauls, or at least 
the original breed has been greatly crossed by the 
Devon, of which it presents most of the excellencies. 


1841.] 


The Somersetshire cattle are valuable for “the pail, 
the plough, and grazing.” The tract of country be- 
tween Bridgewater and Cross produces cheese of well- 
known excellenee; the best Cheddar cheese is made 
either in that tract or in the marshes round Glaston- 
bury. The Hereford improved brecd with white faees 
is valuable as fattening rapidly, and that on inferior 
tare; the flesh is fine grained, and highly prized in 
the market ; the cows, however, yield but httle milk ; 
indeed a dairy of Hereford cattle is seldom to be found. 
In Gloueestershire the Herefords are preferred for the 
team, and by graziers for fattening, but the true Glou- 
cester breed for milk. The Gloueester breed is of 
mixed origin, composed of an old race of Welsh de- 
scent, as 1s supposed, and of various others, and among 
them the Alderney. The rieh vale of Berkeley pro- 
duees the finest Gloucester cheese. 

In Sussex the breed of cattle closely resembles that 
of Devonshire; aceording to judges it is intermediate 
between the Devon and the Hereford, “having the 
activity of the first, the strength of the seeond, and the 
propensity to fatten and the beautiiul fine-grained 
flesh of both.” Its eolour 1s deep ehestnut-red or 
blood-bay ; deviation from these colours indicates a 
eross. In the Weald of Snssex oxen of this valuable 
Stock are generally used for team-work ; and so great 
is their strength and quickness, that many teams have 
travelled with heavy loads fifteen miles a day for se- 
veral suceessive weeks without distress. As 1s the ease 
with the Devon and Hereford, the Sussex cow is very 
inferior to the ox, and moreover does not answer for 
the dairy. The milk is good, but of trifling quantity, 
Another objeetion against the cows of this breed 1s that 
their temper is restless and unquiet, and they are per- 
petually endeavouring to break their pasture. They 
are kept for breeding, and as they fatten rapidly, they 
repay the eare and trouble they oceasion. A valuable 
breed of middle-horns extends through South Wales ; 
and of this the Glamorganshire variety 1s highly eele- 
brated. Oxen of this stock feed well; their flesh is 
fine grained, and the cows yield a fair quantity of milk. 
To enumerate all the breeds of the long-horned and 
middle-horned races is impossible withm our limits ; 
it is sufficient to have noticed the prineipal. The 
eroup at the head of this article exhibits, of the long- 
horns—l, the old Craven; 2, the Leleestershire; 3, 
the Shropshire. Of the middle-horns—4, the Devon ; 
5, the Hereford: and, 6, the Sussex. 


UNITED SERVICE MUSEUM. 


THERE is an institution at the west end of the metro- 
polis, whose objects, and indeed whose existenee, are 
hardly known to any person except those engaged in 
the naval and military professions; we allude to the 
United Service Institution, in Seotland Yard. Most 
of our readers are probably aware that there 1s a club 
called the United Serviee Club, established for pur- 
poses analogous to those whieh distinguish elubs gene- 
rally; but the institution to which we now allude isa 
totally distinet establishment ; supported, it is true, by 
many or perhaps most of the members of the United 
Serviee Club, but founded for a different purpose, and 
supported by a distinet fund. It resembles many of 
the seientific and literary institutions whieh have been 
established within the last few years, in affording to its 
members, all of whom must either belong to the naval 
or military professions, or to some eivil establishment 
intimately conneeted with them, the use of a hbrary 
of books, of a museum fill with objects relating more 
or less to the objects of the institution, of a leeturc- 
room in which lectures on various seientifie subjeets 
are given, and of other facilities for establishing a 
social and advantagcous communion among the mem- 
bers generally. 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. ons 
Whoever has been in the habit of reading the pro- 
ceedings of the seientifie bodies of London for the last 
few years, must have observed the large amount of 
seientifie contributions from naval and military offieers. 
Geographical research has been eminently advanced 
by them; but all the seiences have to a greater or less 
degree been benefited by their exertions. It is not 
difficult to traee the reason for this. Officers in the 
Englsh serviee are generally men of education and 
refined tastes, who are eapable of appreciating the 
benefits of seienee, who are often thrown into situa- 
tions where they ean make valuable observations, and 
who aequire that kind of aetivity which renders em- 
ployment mueh sweeter than listless idleness. Until 
about a dozen years ago, there was, we believe, no in- 
stitution or establishment for the mutual improvement 
of this large elass of persons. Each officer stood alone, 
exeept when in actual serviee, or when attending the 
club, whieh resembles rather an hotel than an institu- 
tion ; there was no link whieh eonneeted them for pur- 
poses of private utility. Sueh a link was, however, 
subsequently formed; and it is interesting to observe 
the manner in whieh the present institution sprang up, 
as indicative of the existenee of a latent wish for such 
an establishment on the part of a large number of 
offeers, and of the useful serviees which the periodieal 
press may often render as a medium of communication. 
_In the year 1829 a new periodieal, ‘The United Ser- 
vice Journal,’ was established, for the publication of 
papers and information relating to the naval and mili- 
tary professions ; and in the seeond number a letter 
appears which may be deemed the germ from whenee 
the present institution emanated. In this letter, whieh 
is signed “ An old Egyptian Campaigner,” the follow- 
Ing passage appears :—“ It has long been a favourite 
idea of mine, that officers of the navy and army have 
it in their power, from the frequent opportunities pre- 
sented to them on serviee in almost every part of the 
known world, to contribute to the promotion of seience 
and art, but more partieularly in the department of 
natural history. The experience of nearly forty years 
has proved to mc that a taste for reading, for informa- 
tion, and for general hterature, has grown up rapidly 
in the army. I speak only of that serviee with which 
Iam best acquainted. We have too many proofs in 
print of the seientific progress made by officers of the 
navy, to require any other testimony of improvemeni, 
part passu, amongst the ‘blue jackets.’ Now my 
proposal is, that to give a tone of scienec to the charae- 
ter of both serviees, it would be a desirable point to 
Set on foot a museum, to be formed, eoudueted, and 
maintained solely by the military, medical, and eivil 
branehes of the royal navy, the king’s army, the Ho- 
nourable East India Company’s services, and their econ- 
neetions ; to be ealled the Umiied Service Museum.” 
In the next number of the ‘ Journal,’ a seeond letter 
appears from another officer, expressing approbation 
of the plan, and mentioning a few specimens In natural 
history whieh he was willing to present asa nucleus 
for such a museum; and shortly afterwards a leading 
article in the ‘ Journal’ advocated the plan at some 
length. From this time the letters and suggestions 
ceased to be anonymous: officers of distinguished rank 
openly assented to the seheme; and one gentleman 
offered to present a eollection of objects in natural 
history, which it had taken him five or six years to 
accumulate. In the middle of December in the same 
year a meeting of officers was held to eonsider the best 
means of establishing the proposed museum. After 
various intermediate proceedings, the mstitution was 
finally formed about the middle of the year 1831, his 
late majesty, and many of the highest officers in the 
serviee, offering it their sanetion and support. A 
building was procured for the reccption pete speci- 
2 N 2 


276 THE PENNY 
mens; and from that time to the present the accumu- 
lation has gone on steadily increasing, until at length 
the assemblage comprises one of the most varied and 
interesting exhibitions in the metropolis. 

We have given the above details in order to show 
the objects for which, and the mode in which, the 
museum has been established ; and we may now briefly 
notice the present state of the institution, previous to 
speaking of the contents of the museum. ‘Some short 
time back, the name of the establishment was changed 
from the ‘ United Service Museum,’ to the ‘ United 
Service Institution,’ as being more comprehensive. 
There are between four and five thousand members, 
of the professions or avocations before alluded to; each 
of whom goes through a certain form of election before 
he can be admitted, and then pays ten shillings per 
annum to the fund of the institution. There is a 
library, constantly increasing in extent, and open to the 
members at certain hours; lectures on various scien- 
tific and practical subjects ; meetings, at which presents 
and curiosities are exhibited; and a museum, consist- 
ing almost entirely of donations from naval and mili- 
tary officers. The members have the privilege of ad- 
mitting friends to visit the museum; and it is as the 
impression on the mind of a visitor that the following 
description of the museum is given. 

The museum is contained in four or five rooms of 
the building wherein the affairs of the institution are 
transacted, in Scotland Yard, Whitehall. The vestibule 
contains a few antiquities and other curiosities which 
are worthy of a passing glance; and from thence the 
visitor passes into 4 room on the right, of considerable 
dimensions. This is the only room on the ground-floor 
devoted to the museum, as the other rooms on the same 
story are otherwise employed and are open only to 
members. Into this room, then, we enter; and find 
ourselves surrounded with models of shipping and 
other apparatus relating more or less to naval and 
inilitary matters. Beginning at the east end, that at 
which we enter, we find numerous pieces of wood 
which had been taken from the wreck of the Royal 
George, and which have been preserved to show the 
different degrees in which they were affected by the 
sea-water; one is a block of oak nearly a cubic foot in 
dimension ; others are pieces of elm, taken from dif- 
ferent parts of the vessel; while there are also pieces 
of yarn from the unravelled ropes of the ship. Near 
these are portions of a ship’s fittings which had been 
immersed in the water for a much longer period than 
the Royal George; for instance, there is a piece of 
rope which was taken up in 1840 from a ship sunk in 
1711; and an iron ring which had been beneath the 
water at Spithead from 1545 to 1836, a period of nearly 
three centuries. The eifect produced by the long-con- 
tinued action of sea-water on different substances, 
might often be usefully illustrated by a collection of 
such specimens as these. 

On the south side of the room are ranged objects of 
a varied character. A large model of ‘ La Capitana,’ 
a Maltese galley, shows the form of vessel which was 
used in the contests between the Knights of Malta and 
the Turks in times long gone by: these galleys were 
sometimes nearly two hundred feet long, and were pro- 
pelled by five hundred rowers, generally slaves. an 
arrangement which we must now deem a sad waste of 
human labour. More than one specimen of a life-buoy 
is deposited here, that is, a contrivance which, when 
thrown into the sea, may enable a shipwrecked mariner 
to remain buoyant on the water: corks and casks, 
bags or bladders filled with air, are among the means 
usually devised for this purpose. Numerous models 
of foreign vessels are placed along the side, illustrative 
of the forms most prevalent in different countries; 


one is a bugla, a vessel which plies between Bombay 


MAGAZINE. [JuLy 17, 
and the Persian Gulf. There is a model of a 74-gun 
ship, made by some French prisoners at Norman Cross, 
and presenting an admirable specimen of minute 
workmanship. Gun-carriages of various forms aud 
sizes are represented by small models, intended in 
most instances to illustrate some proposed 1mprove-~- 
ments in their construction. A sectional representa- 
tion is given of the interior of a ship’s magazine, 
showing how the ammunition is stored away, on an 
improved plan, proposed by Sir William Congreve: a 
series of racks or open shelves is ranged round the 
magazine; and on these racks the ammunition is 
placed in barrels and cases, the outside of each barrel 
and case being so marked as to denote what it con- 
tains. A model, several feet in length, represents the 
nature and mode of construction of a bridge of boats 
built across the river Adour, near Bayonne, by com- 
mand of the Duke of Wellington, when he was about to 
lead the British army from Spain into France in the 
year 1814. A curious article, deposited near this 
model, is a camp kitchen, said to be the one from which 
Napoleon caused another to be made for his own use 
during the wretched Russian campaign: it is an as- 
semblage of tin vessels, supported on three iron feet, 
and arranged so as to form a portable cooking appa- 
ratus. Among the remaining objects on this side of 
the room are, a tide-gauge of a new form; a line 
rocket, for throwing out to stranded vessels; a ‘ ther- 
mantidote,’ or revolving machine, for exciting an arti- 
ficial current of air, to cool apartments in a hot ¢li- 
mate; and various miscellaneous objects, which we 
must here pass over. 

At the west end of the room, we find, near one of 
the windows, a curious piece of apparatus: it isa sun- 
dial, with a gun placed in the prolongation of the 
twelve-o’clock line; and above the gun is a burning- 
elass, capable of adjustment according to the varying 
declination of the sun, and having the touch-hole of 
the gun in its focus; so that when the sun reaches the 
meridian, the convergence of the solar rays by the 
burning-glass may fire the priming placed at the touch- 
hole. Such appears to be the object of the apparatus ; 
but how far it has ever been practically applied, we 
are not aware. Two or three planispheres deposited 
here show contrivances which are adopted for practi- 
cally solving some of the problems in astronomy and 
mathematical geography. Boxes of figures, and boards 
more or less resembling chess-boards, illustrate the 
evolutions of troops in the stern game of war. 

The north side of the room presents to us several 
models intended to explain some new improvements 
or suggestions in ship-building. One isa brig with 
revolving masts, that 1s, each mast is fixed toa circular 
stage just above the deck, on which it rotates. Another 
is a steam-boat, with paddles of a trapezoid form. 
There are also various smaller matters connected with 
naval affairs, and deposited as specimens of something 
either new or valuable, among which are two or three 
‘life-preserving’ hats and caps, any one of which, if 
tied on the head, is said to possess sufficient buoyancy 
to keep one person afloat. That a hat or cap, contain- 
ing a bladder of air ora large piece of cork, should 
produce such an effect, will not be surprising if we 
recollect that the human body, so long as water does 
not enter the stomach, is specifically hghter than salt 
or even fresh water. 

There are a few other models and other objects on 
the south side of the room; such as a military waggon, 
for the conveyance of wounded men from place to 
lace; grenades and shells of various dimensions ; 
aversacks, knapsacks, and pouches; a model of the 
Breakwater at Plymouth; models and hali-models ot 
ships; gun-boats; canoes; naval tackle; a model of 
the Pharos at Alexandria; a French relief-map of 


1841.] 


Neufchatel; a relief-map of Edinburgh; and a very 
neatly executed relief-map, or, we should rather say, 
model, of part of the island of St. Vincent, with the 
fortifications erected on it. 

Besides the objects ranged round the four sides of 
the room, there are numerous others occupying the 
centre. Immediately in front of the entrance 1s a ‘ lever 
target,’ an apparatus for the practice of naval gunnery 
on board ship, without using ammunition. Two models 
of apparatus illustrate two modes which have been 
proposed for raising sunken vessels. A fine model of 
a 74-gun ship exhibits a specimen of the talent of the 
native shipwrights of Bombay, who have made many 
excellent vessels for the East India Company. There 
is also another model, deposited by Sir Robert Sep- 
pings, which is ingeniously constructed for displaying 
the change which has been made in the mode of 
building many of our ships of war. The model is of a 
120-gun ship, and is made in two halves, separated by 
a vertical section along the middle of the ship: the 
interior of one half displays the old mode of arranging 


and strengthening the timbers of a ship, while the | 





“tens 


a 


\ x 





THE PENNY 


yard 


MAGAZINE. O77 
other half shows the diagonal trusses and braces intro- 
duced by Sir R. Seppings. 

A Surinam passage-boat and models of several parts 
of English ships are among the objects occupying 
the centre of the room. A large model or pian, en- 
closed ina glass case, illustrates a kind of art which 
has been much practised of late years, and seems likely 
to be of great service, viz. relief or projecting maps. 
The one in question is a reef plan of the intrenched 
camp at Linz in Upper Austria, executed on a scale o1 
one inch to a hundred yards. The model is about six 
or seven feet ‘square, and exhibits the undulations of 
the ground, together with the positions of all the several 
parts of the entrenchment. ‘Those who saw the model 
of the battle of Waterloo, exhibited some time back, 
will at once understand the manner in which these 
model-maps present the characteristic features of a 
district to the eye. 

We have now noticed the chief objects of interest to 
be seen in the ground-floor apartment of the museum, 
and will next proceed to the upper stories; but a notice 
of their contents must be left for another opportunity. 






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[Sculpture by Raffaele, at Down Hill, Ireland.] 


DOLPHIN AND CHILD. 
RAFFAELLE. 


Tue deep interest attaching to every work of art 
emanating from the hand of this sublime genius—a 
genius that has fully justified the enthusiastic praises 
of his countrymen, and the appellation they bestowed 
upon hun of Il divino Raffaello—renders the task of 
commenting upon so unusual a werk as a production 
of sculpture, as agreeable as it is instructive. In 
former articles upon the Cartoons, we have duly paid 
our tribute of reverential admiration to the powers 
of the painter; of his reputation as an architect we 
may hereafter speak; but it is now as a sculptor we 
are called upon to make some observations. 

It has often been asserted that Raffaelle, not satis- 
fied with his eminence as a painter, and his reputation 
in architecture, as the successor of Bramante, was 
emulous of vieing with his great preceptor Michael 
Angelo in the third great branch of the arts of design. 
Many statues are vaguely said to have been executed 
by him, but no writer of authority has instanced more 
than two specimens, and even one of those is, in the 
better opinion, only a model by the artist, which was 
afterwards carved in marble by another hand. As to 
the other, there does not appear to be any doubt but 
that it was executed, as well as modelled, by the great 
painter himself. Of the former, which is a statue in 


marble of Jonah, in the ChigiChapel of the church of 
Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, and which by com- 
petent judges -is considered to be ene of the finest 
specimens of modern Roman sculpture, the most pro- 
bable history appears to be this—that Ratftaelle mo- 
delled the statue in clay, and that then the marble was 


cut, under the designer’s own immediate inspection 


and direction, by Lorenzetto di Credi, a sculptor of 
great eminence at that period. Passavant, however, 
in his‘ Life of Raffaelle,’ an able review of which 
work appeared in the ‘ Quarterly Review,’ No. 131, ap- 
pears to consider that the marble, as well as the model, 
was executed by Raffaelle, and the reviewer states that 
such is the received opinion. This appears to be 
somewhat strange; for Rossi, whose work was pub- 
lished nearly a century and a half ago, and im which 
there isa very spirited engraving of the Jonah, ex- 
pressly states that Lorenzetto did actually execute the 
marble, and that Raffaelle actively superintended the 
work. This is followed by Mr. Duppa, in his Lie of 
the artist, in which he mentions this composition as 
“an extraordinary instance of the versatility of his 
powers;” and M. Quatremere de Quincy, 1n his 
elaborate account of the works of Raftaelle, also enu- 
merates the model as made by him, and the statue 
itself as from the chisel of Lorenzetto. We are therc- 
fore inclined to believe that M. Passavant must either 
have been mistaken in his observations on this statue, 


273 


or his meaning was misinterpreted by the able critic of 
the ‘Quarterly ; and that the latter 3s also in error Mm 
saying that. the execution of the Jonah in marble by 
Raffaelle himself is the “reccived opinion.” On the 
contrary, we conceive that there can be little doubt 
but that the account in Rossi’s work is entirely cor- 
rect. We have entered into this stateinent because 
the subject is of itself very interesting ; and as the 
article in the ‘Quarterly,’ with which we differ, 1s 
believed to have been written by an artist of great 
eminence, and who from his long residence at Rome 
may fairly be supposed to have full information on the 
subject of whichis the ‘received opinion” there con- 
cerning the Jonah. 

Respecting the Dolphin and Child, an engraving 
of which, by Mr. Jackson, is at the head of this paper, 
the writer last referred to speaks of it thus :—‘ It 
appears that the statue of the Wounded Child borne by 
a Dolphin, a subject from Ahan, probably suggested 
by Castiglione, was also by the hand of the master 
himself. A cast from this jis in the Dresden gallery. 
The marble itself cannot be traced.” Whether this 
statue is the one referred to in an anonymous manu- 
script at Milan of the date of Raffaelle, the author of 
which says that there was a statue of a child executed 
in marble by the great artist, and which was then, at 
the period of the author’s writing, in the possession of 
Giulo Romano, we cannot positively say; but there is 
a high degree of probability that itis. Still it 1s diffi- 
cult to account for the fact of all notice of so remark- 
able a feature in the group as the dolphin being 
omitted. Mr. Duppa thinks that of this statue of the 
Child being by Raffaelle there can be no doubt, since 
it is recognised by Count Castiglione in a letter 
written by him to M. Andrea Piperario in the year 
1523, and which is to be found im ‘ Lettere Pittorice,’ 
vol. v., p. 161. ‘ But,” adds Mr. Duppa, “ what be- 
came of it is not known.” This circumstance further 
induces us to believe the two are identically the same, 
notwithstanding the difficulty before noticed. It 1s 
also worthy of observation that M. Quatremére de 
Qiuuncy, in his Life of Raffaelle, in the ‘ Biographie 
Universelle,’ omits all mention of any statue by him, 
except the model of the Jonah. 

Having prefaced thus much, it is gratifying to add 
that the treasure is within the limits of the United 
Kingdon. The marble statue of the Dolphin and 
Child was brought to Ireland by the late earl of Bristol, 
bishop of Derry, and it is now in the collection at 
Down Hill in that country. The existence of it was 
unknown even to M. Bottiger, the learned custode of 
the casts from the antique sculptures in the Dresden 
eallery, until the year 1824, when an Irish traveller 
informed him of the place of its deposit. A sketch per- 
mitted to be taken by the possessor was forwarded to 
M. Bottiger, which, upon comparison with the Dresden 
casts, was found to confirm the traveller’s statement. 
The marble is the size of life, and turns upon a pivot 
so as to be readily viewed in all points of sight, and its 
truthfulness of attitude and exactness of proportion 
are thus by investigation rendered more apparent. 

Thus, then, we may boast of the possession of the 
ereatest specimens of painting of “the divine Rat- 
faclle” in the world, the Transfiguration of our Saviour 
alone excepted, namely, the Cartoons at Hampton 
Court ; and, without comparison, of the most exquisite 
and interesting example of his powers as a sculptor. 
Indeed if the statue of a Child, mentioned by Cas- 
ticlione, be identical with the statue under notice, we 
have in our possession the only known wark in marble 
executed by his hand; and if it be not identival, we 
have the only specimen of his sculptural genius, the 
exact locality of the depository of which is clearly 
ascertained. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Jun ae 


SIR DAVID WILKIE. 


So universal have been the expressions of regret at the 
loss which not only Great Britain but the world at 
large has sustained by the calamitous and unexpected 
death of this truly great artist, that we should not do 
justice to our own feelings of personal sorrow and our 
sense of professional bereavement were we not to offer 
a few observations on his artistic skill and judgment. 
Of the personal amiability of Sir David Wilkie it will 
suffice to say that we agree in the praises which have 
been by other writers bestowed upon him. We shall 
not encumber these pages with a biographical history 
of him, which may as conveniently be sought elsewhere, 
but our purpose shall be to give our views upon his 
inecrit as an artist, and our reasons for entertaining 
those views, and to point out in what instances and 
why we differ from the general current of opinion re- 
specting his works. 

Among the practitioners of the art of design the in- 
stances are numerous of inen attaining at once to a 
high degree of eminence, and in no case has it been 
more completely exemplified than in that of Sir David 
Wilkie. At the age of twenty-one, his Village Poli- 
ticlans was painted, and that production contained all 
the excellencies for which his pencil has been noted, 
whether of design, of expression, or of execution, up 
to the period at which he changed his style, as wili 
presently be adverted to, and in the following year, 
1807, the Blind Fiddler, now one of the chief ornaments 
of our National Gallery, gained for him that fame 
which remained undiminished to the hour of his 
death, 

The value of such works as those of Sir David 
Wilkie is not to be estimated alone by the excellence 
of their conception or the exactness of their completion. 
The sentiment conveyed or the moral inculcated is of 
far higher import. To present thatsentiment or convey 
an impression of that moral, no vehicle is so universally 
useful as the familiar class of painting. The subject 
being within the scope of the million, the truth or 
falsehood of the representation 1s at once apparent, and 
by so much as the scene gives token of reality, in the 
same degree does it rivet the attention. Thus, when 
the mere eye is sufficiently gratified by the external 
verity, the mind becomes active in reflecting on the 
intention of the painter. If, then, such intention be to 
elevate the feelings, or amend the heart, or improve 
the understanding, and if the effort has been successful 
in all or either of these, then our admiration of the 
skill of the artist, great as our applause may be, will 
sink into an insignificant consideration as compared 
with our estimation of the intent and power of the 
moralist. Second only to Hogarth, and that in poimt 
of time, but by no means 1n respect of artistic ability, 
Wilkie stands prominent amongst the professors in the 
Enelish school. Ifin the series of the Marriage a la 
Mode we confess the mind of a philosopher and the 
imagination of a wit, we cannot but admit a quiet vein 
of reflective humour to run through the productions 
of the Scottish genius. If Hogarth were superior to 
Wilkie, of which we entertain no shadow of doubt, in 
the more subtle qualities for the inception of his 
subject, we are as firmly convinced that Wilkie im- 
measurably exceeded Hogarth in the practical applica- 
tion of his pencil. The aim of Hogarth seems to have 
been to render his art subsidiary to the great work of 
morality, and not to render his pictures attractive 
merely by their useful tendency ; he appealed at once 
to the judgment, the hopes, and the fears of the spec- 
tator, relying more upon the subject he had chosen, 
and the mode in which he had treated it, than upon 
the manual dexterity he had displayed or the artist- 


| like success he had achieved over the difficulties of his 


1841.] 


calling. On the other hand, Wilkie, though ever ap- 
parently sensible of the importance of ineulcating a 
moral sentiment, has not shown us that a profound 
store of reflection guided him in his choice of subject, 
but he has laid before us in his familiar pictures scenes 
that speak at once to the understanding and the feel- 
ings of the spectator, however humble he may be, and 
in these works triumphs of art convincing alike to the 
most cultivated as to the most ignorant in the principles 
of painting. ‘In a word, then, if our estimate of the 
relative merits of these great masters be correct, Ho- 
garth was possessed of the higher qualities of imagi- 
nation, Wilkie was endowed with the more perfect 
command of his pencil. To be second to Hogarth is, 
in Our opinion, to be second only to the greatest artist 
of his class that the world has yet produced ; it will, 
theretorc, be considered that we speak of Wilkie in no 
detractive spirit. 

No painter has more completely imbibed the prin- 
ciples of composition and of light and shade adopted 
by preceding artists than has Sir David Wilkie ; yet 
there is no one who can be named who is more clearly 
safe from the charge of being a plagiarist or an imi- 
tator. The expansive breadth and the lucid clearness 
of Teniers, the truthfulness and minute discrimination 
of Wouvermans, and the cxquisite finish of Ostade, 
may all be found combined in one picture by Wilkie, 
yet in no work, nay in no part of any one work, will 
there be perceived the slightest imitation of either. 
Possessing these high qualities in the executive depart- 
meut of his art, it is not surprising that Wilkie, witha 
mind stored with the best principles of composition, 
and an eye keenly alive to all the peculiarities of ex- 
pression, should have triumphantly mastered the diffi- 
culties which presented themselves to him in his pro- 
cress. If, in addition to all these advantages, we find 
the artist avoiding the grossness of subject and indeli- 
cacy of treatment adopted by his great predecessors, we 
arrive at a high and justly igh estimate of the value 
of his work. In this respect, however, we must again 
refer to Hogarth, because, in admitting that he was 
habituated to coarseness of subject, we must bear in 
mind that such became necessary in enforcing the 
inoral he wished to convey, but that similar coarse- 
ness was uncalled for from the pencil of Wilkie, 
since he did not aim at objects of such elevation or 
importance. 

Of the genius, then, of Sir David Wilkie, it may 
be safely said that it has advanced one class of paint- 
ing to a scale far higher than before his time it had 
been carried, thus rendering scenes the most familiar 
and homely vehicles for disseminating morality or of 
enforcing truth. In this point of view we must admit 
that the world of art has sustained a grievous loss in 
the artist’s death, and though we have a high degree 
of confidence in the resources of the British school, 
we have fair reason to fear that the lapse of time will 
be long before his place will be adequately supplied. 
Thus much we may affirm respecting the subjects 
which Sir David adopted, and the style in which they 
were executed up to the period of his visit to Madrid, 
which event took place at some period during the years 
1826 to 1828. From that time the style of Wilkie was 
entirely changed. The principles of the Dutch and 
Flemish schools were abandoned for the more forcible 
and vigorous contrasts of the Spanish. In a word his 
pictures thenceforward contained a vast prevalence of 
dark, instcad of a great predominance of light. The 
only quality of execution which he retaincd to the last 
was that of scrupulous exactness of imitation and ex- 
treme care in finish. The homeliness of every-day 
life gave place to the stirring activity of war; the 
tranquil pursuit of pastoral and rustic existence could 
no longer compete 1n the artist’s mind with the moving 


a 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


200 


incidents of flood and field. The vigorous touch dis- 
played in these works, the forcible arrangement of the 
heht and dark, in some measure repay us for the loss 
of his humbler class of subjects, but a want of the 
greatest of all qualities of a painter, namely, expres- 
sion, renders it clear to us that we have not gained by 
this change in Sir David Wilkie’s style. We can do 
no better in support of this view than refer to a pic- 
ture which has been laudcd beyond all others of his 
painting, we mean, the Preaching of John Knox. 
Critics, instead of confining their praises, as they 
ought to have done, to the powerful and masterly 
management of the contrasts of light and shade, and 
the vigorous style of execution, have been lavish of 
their commendations of the manner in which the story 
is told, or of the ‘expression’ of the composition. The 
attentive reader of history knows full well that this 
is wholly unfounded. The harangue of Knox before 
the beautiful queen so angered some, that they would 
have murdcred him upon the spot, whilst it so tran- 
sported others with enthusiasm, that they rushed from 
the church and demolished the houses of the religionists 
who had been denounced from the pulpit. Is this, 
or are passions probably leading to such results, ap- 
parent in Sir David’s picture? We think not. In- 
stead of this, we do see in one part the figure of a 
raving fanatic, and in the remainder a congregation 
of automata. For this reason it 1s we cannot go along 
with the general voice in favour of this so-called mas- 
terpiece of his hand. 

We have still another point upon which to dissent 
from the all but universal opinion,—the merit of the 
portraits painted by this artist. These are generally 
referred to as woful drawbacks upon his fame, and the 
milder class of critics have been pleased to affirm that 
the just eminence of his other works may fairly be 
considered as counterbalancing the defects of these. 
Such opinions may do well for those who know not 
that the samc principles guide the painter in portrait 
as in historical composition. To attract the attention 
of the spectator to the chief point of the picture is 
managed by the same means in each, and, therefore, to 
depreciate a good portrait as a work of art 1s in itself 
absurd. Whether or not a man so highly gifted as 
Wilkie was well and profitably employed in trans- 
mitting the resemblances of his conventionally great 
contemporaries may be a matter of question. Many 
may think, and, perhaps, we are of the number, that 
his time might have becn far better appropriated by 
the execution of works in his own unrivalled manner. 
Yet we must not be too hasty in condemning the use 
of so gifted a hand in the art of portraiture. Whi 
would wish that Raffaelle had not given us the reseni- 
blance of his illustrious patron Jubus IJ., now in the 
National Gallery? Who regrets the time bestowed by 
Sebastian del Piombo in the portrait of Ginlia Gon- 
zaga, in the same collection? or who but prizes the 
labour of Titian in that of Francis I[., in the Gallcry of 
the Louvre? If such strict notions had been held 
heretofore, these three magnificent works of art would 
not have existed, and who will venture to say that 
each of them is not valuable, nay, of the highest value, 
on other grounds than as representations of the indi- 
viduals themselves ? 

To pass over many, we may not inaptly allude to the 
portrait of the Duke of Wellington, by Sir David 
Wilkie. It may not possess the charm with which the 
late accomplished President of the Academy invested 
his performances, but it gives us In every atom of it a 
most characteristic delineation of the great commander. 
The unflinching brow, the unhesitating compression 
of the lips, the fixed determinedness of purpose and 
the uncommunicative self-reliance shown In the steady 
gaze, all betoken that the artist did not feel himself a 


280 


mere limner when he executed it, but considered that 
he was transmitting to future ages the resemblance of 
one who was rightfully deemed a chief ornament of 
his own. Such a portrait as this forcibly brings to 
mind an anecdote which is told of the Duke. On one 
occasion it was said he had left the army for the pur- 
pose of bringing a large reinforcement, and on his 
return alone, an old soldier, upon seeing him, en- 
thusiastically exclaimed, “God bless his honest face, 
the sight of that will do more good than the help of 
ten thousand men.” 

Had Sir David Wilkie, at the time he did change 
his style of colouring and his class of subject, entered 
at onee, as his great powers of execution would ‘have 
justified him in doing, upon the highest scale of his 
art, namely, heroic or poetic composition, we entertain 
no doubt but that he would have left such productions 
as would have successfully competed with the works 
of the two painters whom he especially admired, 
namely, Caravaggio and Spagnuoletto. The force and 
vigour of both would have been delineated, with the 
powerful yet harmonious contrasts of the latter, but 
without the turgid exaggeration of the former. As it 
is we must rest content that we have amongst his works 
specimens of the best order of the lower class, and 
others of the same rank im a higher, but-still not the 
most important class of painting ; and further, we must 
admit that in both he has afforded us most valuable 
examples of carefulness of finish and minuteness of 
detail, without the slightest appearance of obtrusiveness 
in either. 


Piccadilly.—Before that' time (1778), where Apsley House 
now stands, stood a tavern, called the Hercules Pillars, the same 
at which the redoubted Squire Western, with his clerical satel- 
lite, is represented as taking up his abode on his arrival in Lon- 
don, aud conveying the fair Sophia. The character of the house 
in Fielding’s time is implied in the speech put into the Squire’s 
mouth when he says he looked upon the landlord as a fit person 










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MAGAZINE. [JuLy 17, 


to give him information respecting fashionable people, seeing 
their carriages stopped at his house. It seems to have been a 
comfortable low in, in the outskirts of the town, at which gentle- 
mens horses aud grooms were put up, aad whither farmers and 
graziers resorted. In front of the ium (and in front of Apsley 
House, till a comparatively recent period), a square rather pyra- 
midical column stood by the kerb-stone, on which was engraved 
the distance from the Standard in Cornhill. Between the three 
houses next to Apsley House and Hamilton Place was a row of 
small houses, one of them a public-house, called the Triumphant 
Chariot. It was a watering-house for hackney-coaches, and by 
the kerb-stone in front of it was a bench for the porters, and a 
board over it for depositing their’ loads. Such resting-places for 
that strong-backed fraternity were once universal in front of this 
class of houses, and they are still bright spots in our memory, 
associated with sunny.days in June tempered by light breezes, 
with watermg-troughs for the horses, and with deep draughts of 
stout for the men, such as are idealised in Hogarth’s Beer-Street, 
(A specimen of the class is given in the engraving below.» 
About forty yards west of Hamilton Place was the street men- 
tioned by Faulkner as deriving its name from the Hamilton 
family ; it contained twenty small houses, and two or three 
on a larger scale; they were pulled down, and Hamilton Place 
built, about thirty-five years ago. Where the opeuing of 
Hamilton Place is now, was a one-storied building, occupied by 
a barber, as we have been told by one upon whom that 
functionary has operated, before the march of comfort had 
taught every man to handle his own razor, as well as to be 
present at the shaving .of his own beard. Between Park Lane 
and Hyde Park Corner there was a terrace elevated some feet 
above the road, which was lowered within the last thirty years ; 
the houses between Hamilton Place and Apsley House are some- 
trmes called the Terrace still. In this part of Picadilly a Mr. 
Winstanley had, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
his ** water theatre,’’—a house distinguished from its neighbours 
by a “windmill on the top of it, im’ which curious effects pro- 
duced by hydraulic pressure were exhibited: in the evenings.” 
Kvelyn speaks of Wiustansley as an ingenious man, and Steele 
alludes to his theatre in the ‘Tatler.’ The eccentric Sir Samuel 


Moreland, also a mechanical genius and acquaintance of Evelyn, 
dates a letter from his “hut near Hyde Park Gate.”—London, 
No. XVII. 








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CATTLE. 


Tue most extensively diffused breed of cattle on our 
island, and by far the most valuable and beautiful, is 
the short-horned. In this breed almost every excel- 
lence is united. The form is admirable; the cows are 
excellent as milkers; and the oxen fatten quickly and 
attain often to an enormous weight. It appears that 
Durham and some parts of Yorkshire had long pos- 
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No. O97. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE 


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281 





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table to the dairy farmer, who might, however, substi- 
tute the improved breed for it with advantage. It 1s 
about eighty years since the improved breed began 
to be established on the banks of the Tees, owing to 
the judgment and care of the breeders of that district ; 
it ditters from that of the old short-horns, In possessing 
an excellent figure, and in aptitude to acquire fat. It 
is supposed that the Teeswate! short-horns have a 
cross of the white wild breed, and to this circumstance 
is attributed the prevalence of white among them. 
The first improvement of the short-horns, resulting mn 
the establishment of the Teeswater race by Mr. Milbank 
and others, paved the way for the successful exertions 


of subsequent spirited breeders, who, by pursuing a 
Vou. X.—2 0) 


282 


judicious plan in crossing, have brought the breed to 
the highest pitch of perfection. Of these Mr. C. Col- 
ling was one of the most successful; the celebrated 
‘Durham ox, which was exhibited in the years 
1801-5-6, was the produce of an ordimary cow and 
a bull termed Favourite, of the stock of Mr. Colling. 
“ At five years old,” says the able writer of the work 
on Cattle, “ the Durham ox was sold to Mr. Bulmer of 
Harmby near Bedale, for public exhibition, at the 
price of 1407. This was in February, 1801. He was 
at that time computed to weigh 168 stones of 14 lbs., 
his live weight being 216 stones; this extraordinary 
weight did not arise from his superior size, but from 
the excessive ripeness of his points.” The Durham 
ox in a short time passed into the possession of Mr. J. 
Day, who “ travelled with him through the principal 
parts of England and Scotland, till at Oxford, on the 
19th of February, 1807, the ox dislocated his hip-bone, 
and continued in that state till the 15th of April, when 
he was obliged to be slaughtered ; and notwithstand- 
ing he must have lost considerably in weight during 
these eight weeks of illness, his carcass weighed—the 
four quarters, 165 imperial stones, 12 Ibs. ; tallow, 11 
imperial stones, 2 lbs.; and hide,:10 imperial stones, 2 
lbs. 

Among the most remarkable of Mr. Colling’s ex- 
periments in breeding, was that of a cross between the 
improved short-horns and a polled Galloway cow, the 

roduce of which, being interbred with pure short- 
hornl gave origin to a breed called the Alloy, first in- 
deed by way of contempt, afterwards of commendation, 
for at a sale of Mr. Colling’s cattle, forty-eight animals 
(cows, bulls, year-old bull-calves, heifers, and heifer- 
calves) realised 7115/. 17s. One bull named Comet 
sold for one thousand guineas, and a cow (Lily) for 
four hundred and ten guineas. The portrait of a cow, 
one of the stock of the late Rev. H. Berry, 1s given in 
the work on Cattle as a specimen of the Alloy breed. 
In every point her figure is excellent, and her milking 
quality is stated to be good. 

Among the most celebrated short-horns of the pre- 
sent day Lord Althorp’s breed 1s one of the most dis- 
tinguished. It is derived from the stock of Mr. R. 
Colling, and no pains have been spared in bringing 
it to the highest possible excellence. A bull belong- 
ing to this nobleman, and called Firby, 1s almost per- 
fect as the model of the improved short-horn, and 
may indeed be regarded as a type of the breed. 

Excellent as milkers, the cows moreover fattening 
rapidly when dried, and the oxen, as it is acknow- 
ledged, being fit for the butcher even as early as two 
years old, still it has been objected that the short-horns 
are unfitted for the team; but this Mr. Berry asserted 
to be amistake. That gentleman, who died in August, 
1836, had a team of two-year-old short-horn steers 
working nine hours a day; but, as he observes, cattle 
which are profitable to the breeder for sale at two 
years old, and are as ready for the butcher at this age 
as any other breed at three or even four, ought never, 
as a general rule, to be placed in the yoke. Still, how- 
ever, where circumstances render it expedient, their 
employment may be admitted, and indeed the bulls, 
being extremely docile, may be judiciously employed 
in many operations going on in every farm; a plan, 
the more advisable, as the bulls are apt to acquire too 
much fat, which moderate labour would tend to di- 
minish. 

A breed of short-horns from Lincolnshire supphes, 
toa great extent, the Smithfield market. These cattle 
are by no means first-rate animals; the head is coarse, 
the bone comparatively large, the leg high, and the 
hips wide. In many instances, however, the stock has 
been improved by a mixture of the Durhams, and by the 
care of breeders who have diligently pursued a judicious 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[JuLy 24, 


system of selection. Lincoln oxen, thus improved, are 
valuable; but the flesh 1s not fine-grained. The Lin- 
coln cow yields a fair quantity of milk; on the whole, 
however, the breed is more profitable to the grazier 
than to the dairy farmer. Leaving the short-horned 
breed of cattle, we may now turn to some varieties 
which we have hitherto omitted to notice. Of these 
the Alderney cattle are familiar to most. 

The Alderney cattle are imported from Normandy 
and the islands on the French coast, from one of which 
(Alderney) they take their name. ‘These cattle are 
small, and often awkwardly shaped, cvery point being 
more or less defective; still they are favourites, the 
cows ylelding milk, if not in great quantity, yet of 
peculiar richness and abounding with butter. Impro- 
bable as it might seem from the appearance of the 
Alderney, its aptitude to fatten is remarkable: the 
cows, when dried, speedily become fat, and sometimes 
acquire considerable weight. Still, with the exception 
of Hampshire, these cattle are not kept in any county 
on an extensive scale; it 1s in the pleasure-grounds of 
the gentleman that they are chiefly to be seen. In 
Hampshire, however, they are very general. Mr, 
Gawler states that ‘the stock best adapted to the soil of 
that county are the Alderney and the smaller races of 
Norman cows. The Devonshire and larger breeds 
require richer pasture; and although they may be 
kept in condition, the milk they give is by no means 
in proportion to the bulk of food they consume. Mr 
Gawler’s dairy stock was in the proportion of one cow 
of the Devonshire breed to three of the Alderney or 
Norman, and the mitk was mixed on the presumption 
that, being thus diluted, it produced better butter, and 
a larger quantity of it.” 

In the Highlands of Scotland a small breed of black 
cattle prevails, of which large herds driven south- 
wards, and depastured in the grazing-lands of England 
till fat, ultimately find their way to the London 
market. Of this race there are several varietics; of 
these we nay notice the Kyloes of the Western Islands 
and the Hebrides, a small, hardy, well-formed race, 
thriving on coarse fare, and producing fine-grained 
meat, highly flavoured, and commanding a good price 
in the market. ‘ The different islands of the Hebrides,” 
says Mr. Youatt, ‘contain about one hundred and fifty 
thousand of these cattle, of which it is calculated that 
one-fifth are annually sent to the mainland, principally 
through Jura, or across the ferry of the Isle of Skye. 
If these average about 5/. per head, the amount will 
be 150,000/., or more than the rental of the whole 
islands, which Mr. Macdonald calculated at 106,720/., 
but which now produce a greater sum. Cattle 
therefore constitute the staple commodity of the 
Webrides. Three thousand five hundred are annually 
exported from the Island of Islay alone.” 

In the north of Argyleshire, the cattle are larger 
than those of the Hebrides, and are bred to the full 
size which the pasturage will admit and the good 
qualities of the animal bear without deterioration. 
It is in this district that the most perfect Highland 
cattle are oftenest seen. These cattle are short, and 
rather strong in the shank, round in the body, straight 
on the back, with a fine muzzle, and sharp small horns. 
As they wander over a wild country, they are wild and 
often fierce, and their eye expresses energy and spirit. 
It is solely for their flesh that herds of these cattle are 
reared; “every effort,” says Mr. Youatt, “to qualify 
them for the dairy will not only lessen their hardiness 
of constitution and propensity to fatten, but will fail 
in rendering them valuable for the purpose at which 
the farmer foolishly aims.” In the stewartry of Kirk- 
cudbright, together with part of Ayrshire and Dum- 
fries, forming the old province of Galloway, a beau- 
tiful polled or hornless breed of cattle exists, highly 


1841.] 


esteemed for their many excellencies. In figure they 
are admirable, excepting that the neck of the bull is 
almost too thick; but the chest is deep, the limbs clean 
and short, the back straight, and the body round. 
Black is the prevailing colour. These cattle exceed 
the Argyle breed in size; they fatten well and quickly, 
and their flesh is excellent; ‘they lay their fat,” says 
Mr. Culley, “upon the most valuable parts, and their 
beef is well marbled; few cattle sell so high in the 
Sinithfield market, and it is no uncommon thing to see 
one of these little bullocks outsell a coarse Lincolnshire 
bullock, although the latter is heavier by several 
stones.” | 

The Galloway cattle are remarkable for gentleness ; 
and robust and muscular as the bulls are, one of mis- 
chievous habits and bad temper is seldom met with. 
Ayrshire, Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, and other dis- 
tricts have their peculiar breeds. In Wales several 
breeds of cattle are to be found; in the Isle of Angle- 
sey there is a fine race of middle-horned black cattle, 
with a deep chest, heavy shoulders, cnormous dewlap, 
and round body. The appearance of the bulls of this 
breed is very noble and imposing; the expression of 
the head is animated, bold, and even fierce; and this 
character is not lost altogether .in the oxen and cows. 
It is calculated that upwards of ten thousand are 
annually exported from this island. The flesh of these 
cattle is of first-rate quality. The numerous inferior 
crosses or mongrel breeds of doubtful origin, into 
which the cattle of our island have ramified, need no 
especial notice. 

We cannot close our observations without express 
reference to Mr. Youatt’s admirable work on Cattle 
(Library of Useful Knowledge), a work replete not 
only with solid practical information, but with the 
utmost interest even to the general reader. 


A Parsees Impression of the Thames.—Here we were greatly 
surprised to see the amazing number of ships going out and 
pouring into the Thames, and steamers every now and then 
running backwards and forwards: we cannot convey to our 
countrymen any idea of this immense number of vessels and 
the beauty of the sight. You will see colliers, timber-ships, 
merchantmen, steamers, and many other crafts, from all parts of 
the world, hastening as it were to seek refuge in a river which is 
but a stream compared to the Ganges and the Indus, or the still 
larger rivers of America. We thought it a great wonder that 
such a small and insignificant speck as England appears on the 
map of the world can thus attract so many nations of the world 
towards her; and we asked ourselves, why should not those 
mighty rivers and countries, which have naturally much better 
accommodations for commerce than England, be frequented as 
much? Buta moment's reflection satisfied us on this point: 
the answer presented itself; and we will tell our countrymen 
that it is the persevering habits of the English, it is the labour 
and skill of that people that is the cause of such attraction. 
They are never satisfied with any one thing unless it is brought 
to perfection, it does not matter at what sacrifice. They are ever 
ready to receive improvements; and thus they have attained that 
celebrity in their manufactures, that countries which grow mate- 
rials bring them here to be converted into useful things, which 
are distributed all over the world; and while other countries 
were satisfied with what they had, England was eager to augmeut 
her resources. When we came within about five miles of Lon- 
don, we were surprised at the amazing number of vessels, from 
the humble barge to the more beautiful ships and steamers of 
all descriptions. The colliers were the most numerous; and 
vessels were anchored close to each other, and the river seemed 
to be almost covered with vessels; and the masts and yards give 
it the appearance of a forest at a distance. Indeed, there were 
to be found ships from all parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and 
America; and a great number of steamers ply about in all di- 
rections, filled with passengers. None of our countrymen can 
form any idea of this noble river and the shipping on it. The 
English may well be proud of it, though a small stream com- 


pared to some of the largest rivers of the world. Two Years and | 


a Half in Great Britain, by Fwo Parsees, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE 


50 


The Penny Postage. Anticipations and Results.—Increased 
facilities are no less an essential feature of the plan than reduced 
postage. At present, with some exception, the reduction alone 
is im operation. Until, therefore, opportunity shall arise for 
adding the stimulus of increased facility, the complete fulfil- 
ment of my expectations manifestly cannot réasonably be looked 
for. Keeping this consideration in mind, I proceed to observe :-— 
Ist, That I calculated that a fivefold increase in the number of 
letters (that is, an addition of fourfold) would sustain the gross 
Post-Office revenue. 2nd, That in consequence of the simple 
and economical arrangements proposed, such an increase in the 
number of letters would involve an addition of not more than 
about 300,000/. per annum to the expenses of the Post-Office. 
3rd, That there would, in such case, be a consequent diminution 
in the net revenue to the same extent; in other words, that the 
net revenue would fall from about 1,600,000/. to about 
1,300,0002. 4th, I held out the expectation, but without at- 
tempting to fix the time required, that the above increase of five- 
fold would eventually be obtained. 5th, Though I held out no 
expectation publicly as to the result of the first year, yet I did 
in conversation with many persons express an opinion, founded, | 
however, on the supposed realization of the whole plan, that the 
first year’s increase would be to the extent of threefold. 6th, I 
gave it as my opinion that the public would be found willing to 
pay its postage in advance. 7th, That the infraction of the law, 
in the illicit transmission of letters, would, in effect, cease on the 
reduction of the postage. Sth, That the increased opportunity 
of communication consequent on the adoption of the plan, would 
produce great moral, social, and commercial advantages; and 
would prove particularly acceptable and beneficial to the poorer 
classes. Further, that the deficiency reckoned upon in the net 
revenue of the Post-Office would eventually be made up by 
increased productiveness in other fiscal departments. Such 
were the expectations I held out. The next question is, to what 
extent the trial of the plan, so far as it has yet been developed, 
has wrought their fulfilment. With respect to the first three 
heads, it is as yet impossible to test my anticipations as to the 
effect of a fivefold increase; but we have the means of testing 
them on such increase as has been obtained. The increase in 
the chargeable letters is now to about 24-fold; and should 
therefore, according to my calculation, afford about half the 
former gross revenue; but we have already seen that whereas 
the former gross revenue was about 2,350,000/., the present gross 
revenue is about 1,350,000/., or considerably more than half; so 
that, even after making some necessary allowances, my antici- 
pations are thus far, at least, fully realised. With respect to 
the increased expeuses consequent on the adoption of the plan, a 
reference to p. 82 of my pamphlet (2nd edition), aided by a 
little calculation, will show that the anticipated increase from 
the present number of letters (viz. 24-fold the old number) is 
58,0002. The real increase fairly chargeable to Penny Postage 
is, as shown before, only about 44,0007. With respect to net 
revenue, a similar reference and calculation will show that the 
amount anticipated from the present number of letters is 428, 0002. 
per annum. The actual net revenue for 1840 is 469,000/. Of 
my expectation that the complete adoption of the plan would 
eventually secure a fivefold increase in the number of letters, I 
trust the Society will be of opinion that, considering the ground 
already made good, and the present rate of progress, resulting 1m 
both cases from the partial operation of the plan, there can be 
no reasonable doubt that snch expectation will be realised. 
Next, my expectation that the complete adoption of the plan 
would produce, in the first year, a threefold increase in the num- 
ber of letters, appears fully justified by the fact that its partial 
adoption produced, in the same time, 1 increase of nearly 
21-fold. To justify my anticipations respecting the public 
willingness to pay the postage in advance, I need only refer 
to the Ist and 2nd Returns cited before, and to the expe- 
rience of every one present. Next, I have the pleasure of re- 
porting that, so far as information can be obtained, the illicit 
transmission of letters has, in effect, ceased. Such are the con- 
sequences of the plan, so far as it has yet been developed; and 
I leave the Society to estimate the results of its complete adop- 
tion.—From a Paper by Mr. Rowland Hill, read before the Sta- 
tistical Society. 


A kind refusal is sometimes as gratifying as a bestowal : he 
who can alleviate the pain of an ungracious act is unpardonable 
unless he do so. 


ae re ee 


EPO 


28-4 THE PENNY MeGayint 





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“© May the God in heaven protect thee ; 
Guard thee from all treachery!” 





Wuew the time was come for the departure of the Cid for 
Toledo, to join the Cortes, which had been convoked by the 
king he arrayed himself “in sable armour studded with golden 
Grosses from the gorget unto the greaves,” mounted Ris horse 
Babieca, and was arranging his cloak about him, when 
Ximena seized his stirrup, and thus addressed him :— 


“ <¢Qook ye well, my Lord Rodrigo, 
That thy vengeance perfect be, 
For the shame that through thy daughters 
These base counts have brought on thee! 


Can it be that two such cravens 
To affront my Cid can dare, 
When two thousand mailed warriors 
Would not meet {hee in the war ? 


May the God in heaven protect thee ; 
Guard thee from all treachery ! 

For such as are cruel and craven, 
Well, methinks, may traitors be.” ” 


« Fenter not, my lord,’ she added, ‘“ into battle with these 
men; verily, it behoveth not one who hath vanquished so many 
kings thus to tarnish his glory; honor not with thy sword the 
filthy blood of these counts, for Babieca, with his neighing 
alone, hath overthrown much stouter foes.” Having com- 
mitted her and his daughters to the care of Martin Pelaez, 
the Cid struck spurs into his steed and sct out for Toledo. 

Sorely did the Counts of Carrion dread to attend the Cortes, 
knowing they should there meet the Cid; but lest they should 
not be held for eood and true hegemen, they obeyed the sun 
mons, accompanied by their uncle Don Suero, who had been 
with them in Valencia, and had counselled them to their da: 
tardly revenge. The thir ty days allowed by the king for his 
nobles to attend the Cortes and prove their loyalty passed, and 
the Cid came not. 


“ Out then spake the Counts of Carrion, 
‘Hold him, king, a traitor now 1’ 
But the good king gave them answer, 
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[JuLy 24 








wary THE PENNY 
My Cid he is right true and loyal ; 

He hath won full many a field ; 
Yea, in all my wide dominions 


None like him the sword can wield.’ ”’ 


As he thus spake, in came the Cid with nine hundred 
hidalgos in his train, clad in robes of the same cloth and 
hue, and thus saluted the king: 


“ + God preserve thee, king Alfonso! 
May God keep ye, nobles all! 
Save yon caitiff Counts of Carrion : 

Heaven's vengeance on them fall.’” 
He would have cast himself to the earth at the king’s 
feet, but Alfonso swore by St. Isidore (his favourite 
oath) that it should not be so. ‘“ We salute thee, Cid, 
with heart and soul ; what grieveth thy heart, grieveth 
ours also.” Whereon the Cid kissed his monarchs 
hands. The court was adjourned to the following day ; 
and “he who in a good hour girt sword” spent the 
night in prayer and watching in San Servan.* 

The Cortes assembled the next morning in the palace 
of Galiana, in a council-chamber hung with costly bro- 
cade and carpeted with velvet. The poem givesa full 
description of the dress our hero wore on this occasicn ; 
and considering the great antiquity of that work, 1t 1s 
much more likely to be accurate and characteristic otf 
the age than the descriptions of costume contained 1n 
the romances, which, being preserved orally, were sub- 
jected to the alterations of many succeeding ages. It 
is briefly this :—Hose of fine cloth, with elaborately 
wrought shoes; a linen shirt, “white as the sun,” with 
fastenings of gold and silver, and tight wristbands; a 
°old-embroidered tunic worn under a red fleece fringed 
with gold, which fleece “ my Cid was always wont to 
wear ” even over his hauberk of mail; and over all a 
mantle of great price.’ His head was covered with a 
scarlet cap worked with gold, and his long beard was 
tied up with a cord. In his beard the Cid took great 
pride, and never suffered it to be cut, so that “1t was 
the talk of both Moors and Christians,” for, according 
to the poem, he had sworn, on taking Valencia — 


“ ¢ By the love of King Alfonso, who hath exiled me from 
home, 
No hair shall of my beard be cut, no shears unto it 


come.” 


When the Cid entered the Cortes, his long beard 
struck admiration and awe into all present, and all 
gazed stedfastly on him, for right manly was his aspect ”’ 
—all save the Counts of Carrion, who dared not for 
shame regard him. ee | 

The king opened the court by enjoining silence. He 
next appointed six alcaldes or judges, from his own 
royal council, and made them swear by the Evangelists 
that they would thoroughly inform themselves of the 
evidence on both sides, and judge without fear, favour, 
or prejudice. Then he called upon the Cid to state his 
charge. “ He of the long beard” straight arose, and 
commenced by urging his claims: 


¢ ¢ Tong it is, oh! King Alfonso, 
Many a year hath passed o’er, 
Since Tizona in thy service 
Hath been cleau of Paynim gore. 


Many a weary year Ximena 

On her widow’d couch hath mourned, 
While a thousand Moorish banners 

In the battle I o’erturned.’” | 


* We think the poem must here refer to a castle of that name 
which still stands, though in ruins, on a height to the east of 
Toledo. It is said to have been built by the Moors, and if so, 
must have existed in the time of the Cid; and it was probably 
in this, or in a sanctuary in the immediate neighbourhood, that 


he kept his vigils, as it is evident that it was without the city, 


aiid on the opposite bank of the Tagus. 


MAGAZINE. 9Q5) 
He proceeded to state his charge against the Counts, 
and then demanded his two swords Tizona and Colada, 
for they belonged not to the Counts, who were no lon eer 
his sons-in-law ; and he said they must be “an hun- 
gered, as they were not fed as in former days.” The 
king turned to the Counts, but they said nought in their 
defence, and the judges ordered them to restore the 
swords to him who had won them. The Chronicle says 
that they refused to obey this command; whercon the 
king arose mm great wrath, and took them from their 
hands, and delivered them to the Cid. Rodrigo re- 
ceived them with great delight; “his whole body was 
eladdened and his heart laughed with joy;”’ and he 
called them his dear pledges, not precious because 
bought with gold or silver, but dearly purchased by the 
sweat of his brow in battle. He next demanded that 
the two thousand marks and all the jewels he had given 
his daughters on their wedding-day should be returned 
tohim. The judges, seeing that the Counts had de- 
serted their wives, immediately acceded to this demand, 
and called upon the Counts to pay back the dowries, 
which they did by delivering up horses, mules, and 
swords to the full value. The Cid a third time arose 
from his seat, and with eyes flashing with ire, and hand 
grasping his beard, which “ no son of woman had ever 
touched,” he opened his grand charge against them, 
calling them “ false and villain-hearted dogs of traitors. 
....As God liveth, ye are brave knights to lay hands 
on women; had ye to do with king Bucar, I wot, we: 
should hear another tale. Right truly saith the pro- 
verb, that some warriors are as valiant with their feet 
as others with their hands. Ye, methinks, are of the 
former.’ In conclusion he challenged the Counts and 
their uncle to mortal combat, for the stain they had m- 
flicted on his honour was one which blood alone could 
wash away. 
Hereon the king called upon the Counts for their 
defence : 
“ -Out and spake the elder brother, 
' Turning to the king, said he, 
‘Sire, thou knowest we are noblest 
Of Castille’s nobility. 
True it is, we left these women, 
Whom it was not meet to wed. 


Dire disgrace it were to mate us 
With the daughters of the Cid.’ ” 


Furious was the rage of the Cid’s followers, but all 
held their peace save Don Ordono, his nephew, who 
exclaimed,— 

‘‘<¢ Hold thy lying tongue, Diego, 
Utter not such falsehood foul, 
Strong and stalwart is thy body, 
But thou hast a craven soul.’”’ 


“Thou tongue without hands! how durst thou speak 
thus? Inasmuch as they are women, and ye are men, 
they are m all respects better and worthier than ye.” 
‘‘Remember,”’ he proceeds to say to the other bro- 
ther, “thy shameful flight from the Moor beneath the 
walls of Valencia, when I slew thine adversary tor 
thee, and gave thee his spoil to show it as a trophy of 
thy prowess. I did it to honour thee,.for that thou hadst 
wedded my cousin :— 


“¢Nought of this have J e’er utter d, 
Nought should from my lips depart, 
Were I not this day constrained 
To proclaim how vile thou art. 


aa 


He then reminds them both of their cowardice when 
the lion broke loose, and ends by branding them with 
baseness and cruelty: 

‘¢<¢ He’s no noble, maugre lineage, 
Who doth chivalry despite ; 

He who layeth hands on women 

Is a villain, and no knight.’ ”’ 


€ 


286 THE PENNY 

The Counts, with their uncle Suero Gonzalez, were 
obliged to accept the challenge, for by victory alone 
could they hope to establish themselves guiltless of the 
charges brought against them ; and the Cid was called 
upon by the king to appoint three knights to do battle 
in his name, which he did, to wit, Pedro Bermudez, 
Martin Antolinez, and Nuno Bustos. As the court 
broke up, messengers came in from Navarre and Ara- 
von, demanding the Cid’s daughters in marriage,— 
Dona Elvira, the eldest, for Don Ramiro, son of the 
king of Navarre, and Dofia Sol for Don Sancho, heir 
to the throne of Aragon. 

My Cid had already set out for Valencia, when he 
turned his rein and besought the king to take Babieca, 
saying, that it was not mect that he should keep so 
renowned a steed, which belonged of night to his hege 
lord. “Nay,” said the king, “not so; for were I to 
take him, he would not have so good a master as now. 
Verily, if he were mine, I would give him to thee, as 
to him who could employ him with most honour to 
himself and to me.” Then the king crossed himself 
and said, ‘‘I swear by St. Isidore, that in all my realm 
there is none like unto the Cid!” Rodrigo kissed his 
lord’s hands, and with great joy and contentmeut pro- 
ceeded on his way. 


own town of Carrion. King Alfonso, thcretore, 
courteously allowed them to depart, and tollowed 
them to Carrion, with the six judges of the fight and 
the three knights appointed to do battle in the Cid’s 
name. In the plain adjacent to the town he found the 
tents pitched and everything prcpared for the battle, 
but the kinsmen and partizans of the Counts mustered 
in such numbers, and were so formidably armed, that 
Alfonso suspected treachery, and, knowing the Counts 
to have more treason than valour, he caused it to be 
proclaimed,— 


“ Whoso shall do wrong or outrage 
To the squires of the Cid, 

List! his head and his possessions 

Straightway shall be forfeited.” 


This grieved the Counts sore, for they had agreed 
with their followers to slay the Cid’s men before the 
combat; then they besought the king, saying,— 


“<« King! a boon we crave !—forbid it 
That our foemen in the fight 
Wield Tizona and Colada— 


Faulchions they of wondrous might!” 


“Nay, Sir Counts,” replied the king, “I can grant 
ye none of this. Ye can equip yourselves in what 
arms ye please, there is none to gainsay ye. Ye 
are stout and stalwart; fight, then, with valiant 
hearts.” 

Our limits will not allow us to give the details of 
the battle. The result was that the Cid’s warriors 
were victorious, and, according to a letter which the 
king wrote to him, giving a full description of the 
combat, one of the brothers was left dead on the field; 
though another romance agrees with the Chronicle in 
saying that they all escaped with their lives, but were 
so covered with shame that “they fled from the land, 
and never more lifted up their heads.” Pursuant to 
the prevalcnt but absurd notion of trial by combat, 
that right was always victorious, the six judges then 
decreed that the two counts of Carrion, with their 
uncle Suero Gonzalez, were base and infamous traitors, 
thenceforward incapable of honour, and all their pos- 
sessions were forfeited to the crown. 

The three victors returned to Valencia, to the very 
great joy and rejoicing of the Cid, 


The traitor Counts excused themselves from the 
combat in Toledo, on the ground that they could not 
equip themsclves to their satisfaction, save in their 


MAGAZINE. (Suny 24, 
“ Down upon his knees he cast him, 
And his hands uprais’d to heaven, 
Praise and thanks to God he reuder’d 
For the vengeance he had given.” 


“He grasped his beard, and cried, “‘I thank the King 
of Heaven, my daughters are avenged!” He hastened 
to inform Ximena and his daughters of the joyful 
news. Elvira and Sol heard the tidings with mani- 
festations of unbounded delight, “‘ with joy as great as 
joy could be.” 


“Praise and thanks to God they render’d, 
Then they ran with haste amain, 
Forth to greet the good Bermudez 
And his valiant comrades twain. 


Eager in their arms they caught them, 
And would fain their hands have kiss’d, 
But the warriors forbade them,— 
Great the damsels’ joy, I wist.” 


After this the nuptials of the Cid’s daughters were 
celebrated with the Princes of Aragon and Navarre,— 
“See how honour floweth to him who in a good hour 
was born !”—and thus the Cid became the progenitor 
of kings, “scnding,” says a modcrn traveller, “through 
almost every royal house of Europe a vein of heroism 
which is not slow to proclaim itself.” 


UNITED SERVICE MUSEUM. 
[Concluded from page 277.] 


We noticed the contents of the lower room in the 
Museum im the last paper, and postponed a visit to the 
upper rooms till another occasion. We now complete 
our notice. 

Returning from the model-room to the vestibule, 
we find a staircase opposite the entrance from the 
street ; and round the wall of the staircase are ranged 
spears, arrows, and darts, of various kinds, brought 
from different counties of the East. The staircase 
leads to a handsome suit of rooms, three in number, 
occupying the whole width of the building, and open- 
ing into each other. The eastward of the three rooms 
is denominated the Armoury, and is devoted to the 
reception of objects which its name denotes. The 
middle room, which is a kind of small closet over the 
entrance hall, contains specimens in natural history ; 
as does also the west room, together with other articles 
not coming under that designation. 

On the floor of the middle room 1s placed the stuffed 
skin of a koodoo, a species of South African antelope. 
Round the four sides of the room are glass cascs, con- 
taining various specimens; in some instances, of stuifed 
birds; in others, of the nests and eggs of birds. The 
specimens are numbered; and tickets, fixed to some 
of the glass cases, contain the corresponding numbers, 
together with the names of the respective donors. 
Almost all the objects in the Museum have been pre- 
sented to the institution, and are so labelled as to 
denote from whom they were derived. 

The west room contains a large number of objects. 
Beginning with the east or entrance end, we find a 
slass case containing various specimens of stuffed 
birds; other glass cases, together with a nest of draw- 
ers, filled with mineral specimens ; bottles contaiming 
small animals preserved in spirits ; and stuffed skins of 
crocodiles and lizards. 

The south side of the room presents us with many 
animals preserved in glass cases, and others without 
that protection. There is an ant-eater, a peccary, a 
stoat, monkeys, snakes, hares, foxes. There are two 
eifts from Captain Back, which possess a kind of liv- 
ing interest, as having figured in the narrative of his 
Arctic voyage. One is a large white polar bear, which 
came within a few yards of the Terror, in search of 


1841.) 


food, and was then shot: when opened, its stomach was 
found entirely empty. The other 1s an Arctic wolf, 
which carried off a favourite little terrier belonging to 
Captain Back, but was killed before he could effect 
his escape: the poor little terrier 1s represented in the 
wolf’s mouth. It 1s scarcely necessary to remark that, 
in all these instances, the animals are stuffed to their 
natural sizes and forms. There are, towards the other 
end of this side of the room, specimens of dried plants, 
in glazed frames; cases and drawers, containing ento- 
mological specimens; skulls, shells, and skeletons of 
various species of fish; a porpoise, about a yard in 
length, which approached almost close to London 
Bridge, in the year 1832, and was there captured. The 
upper part of the wall contains a few pictures, either 
of maval scenery or portraits of naval officers; and 
beneath a picture of the Battle of Trafalgar 1s a docu- 
iment, which, though it appears rather misplaced among 
objects of natural history, is of much interest in a 
naval—we may perhaps say national—point of view. 
Jt is an autograph letter from Lord Collingwood to 
Sir Peter Parker, written just after the battle of Tra- 
falgar, in which Nelson lost his life, and giving an 
account of such details of that eventful day as may be 
looked for ina familiar letter rather than im an official 
document. Memorials of this kind, in the hand- 
writing of distinguished men, are generally prized 
when the grave has closed over the writers; and the 
feeling which prompts an affectionate regard for such 
objects 1s appreciated and understood by most per- 
sons. 

The west end of the room contains three or four 
“ants’ cities;” several specimens of the crab, star- 
fishes, shells, cases filled with entomological specimens, 
bottles in which small reptiles are preserved in spirits, 
and other objects in natural history. One of the 
iisects is placed within a microscope, and the micro- 
scope so situated as to afford with facility a greatly 
magnified view of the insect—a plan the occasional 
adoption of which would be a boon to visitors in 
entomological cabinets of higher pretensions. 

Nearly the whole of the north side of the room is 
occupied by cases and nests of drawers, containing 
insecis, shells, and mineralogical specimens. The 
middle of the room also contaius, among many other 
objects, cases similarly filled. Stuffed monkeys, ante- 
lopes, and reptiles are placed on stands in various 
partsof the room. The vertebra, the tusk, the grind- 
ers and the skull of a whale, the skull of a bison, the 
skull of an elk, the skull and horns of a buffalo, the 
skulls of a hippopotamus and of an alligator, together 
with parts of the skeleton of a bear, a narwhal, and a 
shark, are among the objects occupying the centre of 
the room. Elevated on a lofty stage is a kind of 
military trophy, if we may apply the term to such an 
object, viz. the skeleton of Marengo, the barb charger 
which Napoleon Bonaparte rode at the battle of 
Waterloo. 

The remaining objects in this room, such as glass 
cases containing anatomised plants, collections of sea- 
weed, &c., we must pass over, and proceed to the 
Arinoury, the most eastern of the three apartments. 
A figure in complete armour here confronts us in the 
middle of the room; but we will leave him for awhile, 
and proceed round the room. On the walls of the 
room, on the side where we enter, are hung weapons 
of various kinds, such as crossbows, swords, spears 
and pikes, a sword of the Elizabethan times, various 
pieces of armour as worn in the time of Oliver Crom- 
ivell: these are on the right hand or north of the door, 
and the left-hand side is occupied in a manner nearly 
similar. 

Proceeding from the entrance towards the north side 
of the room, we find, beneath the windows, glass cases 


dette, P ICININ GY 


MAGAZINE 287 


containing many objects, trifling in themselves, but 
possessing a value in the eyes of military and naval 
men, from the same causes which render autograph 
letters interesting. There is the crimson sash by which 
Sir John Moore was borne to and lowered into his 
crave, after his retreat and death at Corunna—a retreat 
more glorious than most victories. There 1s apiece of 
old lace, which once decorated Nelson’s coat at Tene- 
riffe. There is the sword which was worn and used by 
Oliver Cromwell, and the sword which General Wolfe 
wore at Quebec. Between the cases which contain 
these relics are specimens of weapons of different 
countries and ages, such as a Highland claymore used 
at Culloden, an Indian tomahawk, Asiatic swords and 
daggers, European swords, &c. There are also, in 
different parts of the room, stands on which several 
pieces of arms are tastefully arranged, each stand con- 
taining the military and naval fire-arms used in the 
Englsh service 1n some one particular reign. For 
instance, there is one stand for arms of the reign of 
William IV., another of George IIJI., another of 


| George I. and II.,a fourth of William JII. and Anne, 


and a fifth of James IJ. All these were presented to the 
institution by the Board of Ordnance, and constitute a 
faithful index of the changes which have occurred in 
these matters. 

Among the objects contained in the north and east 
sides of the room, besides African swords and daggers, 
Asiatic swords and daggers, and similar articles from 
other places, are two small relics which are preserved 
as memorials of events which have long become mat- 
ter of history. One isa piece of a cocoa-nut tree near 
which Captain Cook was standing when he received 
his mortal wound at Owhyhee; the tree was pierced 
with balls during the brief conflict which ensued, and 
the piece brought to England shows the marks of 
many of them. The other relic is a small gun which 
belonged to the ‘Bounty’ at the time of the “ eventful” 
mutiny, and which was brought by an English officer 
from Pitcairn’s Island two or three years ago. 

On the south side of the Armoury we find specimens 
of arms brought from various countries; some from 
China, and others from India, including the lance once 
belonging to Runjeet Singh, the ruler of Lahore. 
Ranged in an oblong parallelogram, near the middle 
of the room, are stands, on which are placed several 
curious specimens of armour. On the stands nearest 
to the door, on the left hand, are shirts or coats of chain 
armour, each one formed entirely of metallic chain- 
work, linked together in a flexible form, but so as to 
afford a very effective defence to the body. There is 
nothing of the stiffness unavoidable in plate armour ; 
but still these garments would be deemed anything 
but light in our days, when deeds of chivalry are mat- 
ters to be read of, not practised. <A figure of a man, 
opposite the door, 1s decked with complete armour, or, 
in the language appropriated to these matters, ‘armed 
cap-a-pié.’ Indian fighting dresses, obtained from va- 
rious tribes, occupy some of the stands; as also clubs 
and spears; war jackets formed of hempen rope; and 
an Afghan warrior’s fighting-dress. Attached to some 
pillars which support the ceiling of the room are 
likewise arms belonging to various nations. On one 
of the stands is a blue jacket or short cloak, which, if 
judged by its present condition, would possess but a 
low market-value; it however becomes a cherished 
relic when known as the cloak which Bolivar wore 
through many of his hard-fought campaigns: it is 
made of blue cloth, anu bears evident marks of hard 
service. This room also contains a glass case, in 
which a few relics are deposited, such as the swords of 
officers who have earncd for themselves an honourable 
distinction ; a fusil once belonging to Bonaparte; a 
razor and shaving-brush also belonging to him, and 


288 adel 1 Ty IN IN GYS 
taken at Waterloo ; anda fragment of his coffin, brought 
to England a few months ago. 

As there is still one other room to visit, we must 
pass over the other objects deposited in the Armoury. 
This other room, constituting the fifth in the Museum, 
is on the second floor of the building, and is approached 
by a staircase whose wall is decorated much im the 
same manner as the lower staircase. This upper room 
contains objects of a very miscellaneous kind. On the 
entrance side the wall is decked with dresses, brought 
from various barbarous or sem)-civilized countries, 
and illustrative of the tastes and arts of their inhabit- 
ants. Among them is an entire dress of seal-skin 
worn by the Esquimaux; a dress formed from an 
inner integument of the whale, by the natives of Cali- 
fornia; dresses of the South-Sea Islanders; Chilhan 
cloaks; leggings worn by the South Americans during 
their excursions among the Cordilleras of the Andes; 
sandals, mocassins, and shoes, from various tribes; 
and other articles of dress from similar sources. 

The south side of this room contains, in cases, small 
objects of so diverse a character that we hardly know 
what term to apply to them. Among them are two or 
three rosaries; a phylactery, which is a bandage worn 
by the Jews of some Eastern countries, and containing 
a verse or two from the Scriptures; some French 
assignats, a kind of promissory note, the extravagant 
use of which, during the early part of the Revolution, 
‘led to ruinous consequences; an exchequer tally for 
one and a half millions sterling, which reminds us of 
the manner in which the national accounts used to be 
recorded. Then there is an autograph letter of Mar- 
shal Marmont; the tinder-box and other apparatus 
with which “ Jack the Painter” endeavoured to fire 
Portsmouth Dock-Yard, in 1776; a map of Spain and 
Portugal perforated by a bullet which killed a French 
officer, who had the map folded over his breast; anda 
few other miscellaneous articles. 

The next or west side 1s chiefly filled with trinkets, 
implements, and ornaments, brought from various 
parts of Asia and Africa. ‘here 1s also a little slab of 
marble brought from a cross which Bartholomew 
Diaz erected on the western shore of Africa, during 
the journey which ended in the discovery of the Cape 
of Good Hope. To these succeeds a collection of 
feather-dresses, made by some of those rude nations 
who occasionally devote so much time to the prepara- 
tion of fantastic dresses. Numerous other dresses, 
made of fibrous materials, which appear evidently to 
have been woven, are placed here; as well as petti- 
coats made of twine or small rope. Coins, terra-cottas, 
a model of a Parsee sepulchre, a Chinese pair of bel- 
lows, and other matters, are distributed 1n various 
parts of the room; and in a glass case is a relic with 
which we must make our bow to the collection, viz. a 
cocked hat once worn by Lord Nelson. 

It will be evident from this cursory notice of the 
contents of the United Service Museum, that there is, 
to say the least of it, the germ of a very interesting and 
indeed important collection. <A process of classifica- 
tion has already been commenced; and as the collec- 
tion is being constantly increased, this classification 
will be carried out to greater extent. We believe 
that it is in contemplation to provide larger premises 
for the reception of the objects; and there seems little 
doubt, from the active enterprise of officers in the 
service in many parts of the globe, that valuable 
additions will continue to be made to the store. At 
present the specimens may perhaps he deemed as be- 
longing principally to the following divisions :—naval 
and military models ; naval and military arms; naval 
and military relics; illustrations of the arts and man- 
ners and customs in foreigu countries; coins and 
other monuments of past ages; and natural history. 


MAGAZINE. [JuLy 24, 


fron and Coal.—it is most extraordinary to see the multiph- 
city of purposes to which iron is now applied; steam-boats, and, 
indeed, steam-ships are now built of iron. Mr. Waghorn has 
carriages on the desert, on the overland route to India, composed 
eutirely of iron, lighter than they could be made of any other 
material, and possessing this advantage, that hot weather will 
not cause them to shrink. Iron cables we have all seen, and the 
strong prejudice that existed against them of their want of elasti- 
city 1s dying away ; for, singular as it may appear, iron cables 
have, in use, really more elasticity than hempen ones ; for a ship 
always rides with her hempen cable in a state of tension (that is, 
drawn out in a line from the anchor to the ship’s bow), but, 
on the contrary, from its weight the iron cable always hangs 
slack (bellying, as sailors term it), and the fact is, when the 
ship heaves, the giving up of this bellying of the cable yields 
greater relief than the elasticity of the hempen cable can 
possibly do. We have chain used for standing rigging and 
for securing the bowsprit; we see it used most extensively for 


‘knees of ships; we use it in ships for hawse-holes, and for facings 


to bit-heads; it has been used for boats; it is used by thousands 
of tons for railroads. Within doors in England every domestic 
article may be met with in cast-iron; it is used for staircases, 
for mantelpieces, and for cooking-kettles; and in the churchyard 
it is used for monuments instead of tombstones; on the high-road 
it 1s extensively used to supersede milestones; and we hear that 
it is used even for coffins, How much does England owe to her 
inexhaustible mines of coal and of iron! It is to them she is 
indebted for all her riches. Gold and silver mines are not to 
be compared to those of coal and iron: gold and silver would 
employ but few persons, and enrich but very few; but coals 
and iron in their processes afford employment to countless thou- 
sands.—Two Years and a Half in Great Britain, by Two 


‘Parsees. 


Mustard Tree.—‘ There was one curious tree,” say Captains 


Irby and Mangles, in their ‘ Travels in Egypt,’ &c., “ which we 


observed in great plenty, and which bare a fruit in bunches, re- 
sembling in appearance the currant, with the colour of the plum. 
It has a pleasant; although strongly ar matic taste, exactly re- 
sembling mustard; and, if taken in any quantity, produces a 
similar irritability of the nose and eyes to that which is caused 
by taking mustard. ‘The leaves of the tree have the same pun- 
gent flavour as the fruit, although not so strong. We think it 
probable that this is the tree our Saviour alluded to, in the para- 
ble of the mustard seed, and not the mustard plant which we 
have in the north; for although in our journey from Bysan to 
Adjeloun we met with the mustard plant, growing wild, as high 
as our horses’ heads, still, being an annual, it .did not deserve 
the appellation of ‘a tree;’ whereas the other is really such, aud 
birds might easily, and actually do, take shelter under its 
shadow.” This discovery will be of much interest to those who 
are aware of the great difficulty which has been experienced in 
identifying the tree to which our Saviour alludes, when com- 
paring the kingdom of heaven “ to a grain of mustard seed, 
which a man took and sowed im the earth, which is indeed the 
least of all seeds, but when it is grown, is the greatest among 
herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and 
lodge in the branches thereof.” (Matt., xin. 31, 32.) The 
Jewish writers speak of a mustard tree, common among them, in 
quite corresponding terms, seeming to show that a species of the 
Sizapis, or some analogous genus, existed in Palestine, with which 
we are not well acquainted; and which may very probably prove 
to be that which Captain Mangles has pointed out. It is to be re- 
gretted that he did not make himself acquainted with its name. 
As to the more common species of mustard, of which he inci- 
dentally speaks, we may as well mention here, that it was pro- 
bably the Siapis Orientalis, attaining, under a favouring climate 
and circumstances, a stature which it will not reach in our chi- 
mate. This species is common in Palestine. In essential cha- 
racter it differs little from the Sizapis arvensis (which supplies 
the “ Durham mustard’), being distinguished chiefly by the beak 
only of the pod being smooth.— Natural History of Palestine. 


Safe Dependence.—A firm trust in the assistance of an Al- 
mighty Being naturally produces patience, hope, cheerfulness, 
and all other dispositions of mind that alleviate those calamities 
which we are not able to remove.—Specéaior. 





LSt1.] 








THE PENNY MAGAZINE 





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(Landseape, with Catt'e and Pigures.—Wouvermans.. 


GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. 
DULWICH GALLERY. 


We know of no painter of landscape whose works are 
more familiar to the generality of admirers of art 
than those of Wouvermans (or, more properly, Wou- 
wermans). Indeed, there appear to be more of nis best 
efforts in English collections than in any of the con- 
tinental galleries, either public or private. At Dulwich 
there are no less than eleven, a circumstance which pro- 
bably arose from the great market-value in this country 
of his pictures ; for the person who originally collected 
these works, Mr. Noel Desenfans, was a dealer in such 
matters. Upon his decease, they passed to Sir Francis 
Bourgeois, by whom the whole were bequeathed to 
the master and wardens of Dulwich College. 

The popularity of this painter mainly depends upon 
the familiar nature of his subjects. They are always 
such as appeal to the understandings of the many, 
though their management is usually of that order 
which requires some insight into the principles of art 
fully to value. Buteven without wholly appreciating 


the merit of one of his pictures as a work of art, we | 


can readily see that there is a fidelity in the minutia, 
an accuracy in the drawing, and adelicacy in the finish, 


No 598. 


: which at once appeal to tne eye and gratify its per- 
| ceptions. 


re 


The gallant cavalier, the rude and simple boor, the 
homely housewife, or the industrious artisan, find able 
and vivid representatives in the emanations of his 
pencil; nor is the exactness of his anatomical know- 
ledge of tne horse or the spirit of his delineation of its 
variety of action less worthy of devotion. The distinc- 
tive marks by which the various trees and shrubs with 
which he enriches his landscapes may be known, are 
always carefully developed; and though the painting 
of them is made subservient to the general effect of 
the: whole subject, stl they present to the view just 
representations of Dutch nature; and indeed the 
entire aspect of his landscapes cannot fail to impress 
upon the spectator a vivid notion of the scenery of the 
painter’s native country. | | 

The composition of the picture from which Mr. Jack- 
son has executed the wood-engraving placed at the 
head of this article, is one of a very unusual character, 
and such as required all the painter-like skill and 
dexterous management of the artist to render effective. 
A single glance will satisfy us of the fine manner in 
which Wouvermans has overcome his voluntarily 
adopted difficulties. A mind less stored than his own 


Vou. X.—2 P 


290 THE PENNY 
with the principles both of near and aerial perspec- 
tive, might have so placed the two carts that they could 
readily be distinguished as to their relative distances 
from the foreground, by their position on the line of the 
picture. He has not resorted to any such means; but 
with a boldness, entirely justified by his masterly suc- 
cess, has depended alone on his command of aerial per- 
spective to afford the scale of such relative distances, 
and has placed one of the vehicles immediately, or 
nearly so, above the other. Had there been the slight- 
est failure in the nice gradation of tints between these 
two objects, the intervening space, and the high bank 
of the river, the whole truth of the work would have 
been destroyed. As it is, however, 1t 1s impossible not 
to be struck with the charming fidelity to nature dis- 
played in every part. The figures and the horses are 
drawn with life-like precision, while the mode of exe- 
cution, its freedom, hghtness, delicacy and_ finish, 
qualities rarely combined, render the Landscape with 
Cattle and Figures a work of high order in this par- 
ticular class of painting. Truly may it be said, 1n the 
words of Hazlitt, of the animal life here introduced, 
“there is immense knowledge and character in Wou- 
vermans’ horses;’ though neither in tlns nor in the 
vast majority of his pictures can we agree with the 
same critic, that “he seldom gets beyond the camp or 
the riding-school.” 

The defect frequently observable in the paintings of 
Wouvermans, and upon which we shall at a subse- 
quent part of this paper enlarge, namely, the heavi- 
ness of the skies, is not so apparent in the present sub- 
ject as in other and more celebrated, though by no 
means superior specimens in the Dulwich collection. 
Indeed, in this Landscape with Cattle and Figures 
there is a consistency of management which fully com- 
pensates for the darkness of the sky. All 1s harmoni- 
ous and subdued; no glare of sunshine in one place, 
and inky blackness im another; no effect produced 
upon the earth, for which an observant spectator can- 
not find an adequate cause in the source of hght. 

The history of this artist 1s shortly as follows :—he 
was one of three sons of Paul Wouvermans, a painter 
of history, of little celebrity, who all adopted painting 
as a profession. He received the rudiments of lis 
education in the art from his father, and then studied 
under John Wynants, a landscape painter of great 
eminence. So rapid was his advance under this most 
judicious instructor, that he was even permitted, at an 
early period, to decorate the works of Wynants with 
figures and animals, which he knew so admirably well 
how torcpresent. On quitting the studio of Wynants, 
Wouvermans carefully painted from nature, in the 
neighbourhood of Haerlem, the place of his birth, and 
from which locality it is generally believed he never 
removed. Notwithstanding the great merit of his works, 
he languished in poverty and obscurity, though to 
supply the wants of his family he was compelled to 
work with unceasing dihgence. I1is pictures were 
bought at insignificant prices, and rather, even then, it 
would appear, from a feeling of compassion for the 
artist, than any estimation of his labours. At the time 
that Wouvermans painted, Peter de Laer, known by the 
name of Bamboccio, was In great vogue with the col- 
lectors of Holland; and whilst that artist’s works were 
eagerly bought, the native master was allowed to pine 
in neglect. De Witt, however, it is said, became aware 
of the powers of the unnoticed painter, and having be- 
come the purchaser of a picture by Bamboccio, en- 
geared his countryman to exccute a companion one to 
it, which, when completed, the purchaser declared to 
be in all respects superior to that of De Laer. Whether 
this applause would have induced greater employ- 
ment, it 1s impossible to say, for Wouvermans died 
soon aiter, expiring at the age of forty-eight, in the 


MAGAZINE. [ Juss ls 
year 1668. Indeed, 1t has been asserted that the ex- 
pression of approbation so unusual to the painter's 
ears had such a deep effect on him as to cause his 
speedy dissolution. But whatever was the immediate 
cause of his death, it is clear that he lived and died im 
poverty. He had so keen a sense of the neglect he 
experienced, that before his decease he destroyed a great 
number of lis drawings and other valuable works, de- 
claring that as his exertions had been so 111 recom- 
ensed, his son should not by the possession of them be 
induced to follow a pursuit from which he had him- 
self derived nothing but beggary and wretchedness. 

Admitting, as we cheerfully do, the many excel- 
lencies of Wouvermans, we cannot but think that he 
has been by many writers extravagantly overrated. 
With a reverence for the acute critical judgment of 
sir Joshua Reynolds, we feel bound to say that the’ 
encomiums he bestows upon him are, In our opinion, 
far higher than deserved. The President, after ad- 
mitting that some of the painter’s works, those of his 
earher and of his later days, ‘“‘ have not that liquid soft- 
ness which characterizes his best works,’ observes, 
“upon the whole, he is one of the few painters whose 
excellency in his way is such as leaves nothing to be 
wished for.’ Mr. Pilkington adds his tribute of ap- 
plause by saying, “his skies, air, trees, and plants, are 
all exact and lively imitations of nature;” and Mr. 
Bryan follows in the same strain, declaring “his skies 
aud distances, his trees and plants, are the genuine re- 
presentations of nature.” 

Now it is precisely because we believe that the skies 
of Wouvermans are not “exact,” or “lively,” or 
“ wenuine” representations of nature; it is for the 
reason, that in the vast majority of his works the skies 
have not “that lquid softness” which is desirable 
as an accompaniment to the scenes he depicts, that 
we do not so greatly admire his labours; and it re- 
quires no very extensive degree of reading to know 
that it was this leaden and unnaturally gloomy appear- 
ance of the skies in his works which induced the Duich 
connoisseurs to neglect them as they did. In a word, a 
careful examination of the many pictures which are in 
this country will satisfy the inquirer, that in a great 
number of instances the artist has thrown the light of 
a broad sunshine upon his grounds and figures, whilst 
the sky is composed of heavy slate-coloured clouds, 
the manifestation of which is utterly inconsistent with 
the presence of the sun. Indeed, in more parts than 
the skies of many of his pictures 1s this heaviness or 
slatiness of hue observable, and the effect is to detract, 
in our opinion, in a very vast degree, from the other 
manifest excellencies of his works. 

Thus freely stating our objections to the general 
tyle of Wouvermans, we must join with his encomiasts 
in awarding our praise to the charming truth of his 
figures, horses, and cattle, and to the exquisite purity 
and lightness of his touch. The groups he introduces 
are masterly in the extreme; free, easy, and full of 
character, and when in action replete with graceful 
activity. His pencilling of the foregrounds 1s admi- 
rably contrasted, by its greater fulness and vigour, 
with the minute touches upon heads and hands, and the 
ornaments of the figures, and the accessories of his 
compositions. Indeed, we are disposed to think that 
but for the one defect we have pointed out, the praise 
of Sir Joshua Reynolds, that “ upon the whole he 1s one 


| of the few painters whose excellency in his way 1s such 


as leaves nothing to be wished for,” would have been 
richly merited. 

The works of this artist generally represent hunting 
and hawking parties, horse-fairs, encampments, halis 
of travellers, farriers’ shops, and other subjects lke 
that at the head of this article, which afford the oppor- 
tunity of introducing animal life in great variety, and 


1841.] 


which he has done in a manner so correct and spirited, 
that he has never been surpassed, and very rarely 
equalled. The number of these productions, highly 
finished as they are, is truly surprising, and bear wit- 
ness that the painter must have possessed a most 
fertile invention, and a no less perfect command of his 
pewem ih 


‘ +. ~~ ., ty oy 
/ f t . , at. Ig Ss e et 
{ ¥ 


ENDEMIC AND EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 
Crrrtain of the diseases which afflict the human body 
are found to be confined to particular localities, and 
are thence termed endemic, from two Greek words 
signifying that which is in or among a people. Others 
again, which, prevailing only for a certain time over 
a greater or less tract of country, afterwards disappear, 
again to return at uncertain periods, are termed 
epidemic, trom Greck words signifying upon or over 
apeople. A few general particulars concerning each 
of these, separated from medical details, will prove 
perhaps interesting to the reader. 


I. NDEMIC DISEASES are for the most part attributable 
to some peculiarities of the soil, air, food, or habits of 
the localities in which they appear. <Abject poverty, 
and is necessary consequences, want of cleanliness, 
bad or deficient dict, and moral degradation, is the 
fertile source of these maladies; while the removal of 
many of these evils 1s often attended with the disap- 
pearance of the endemics. We may lay it down asa 
law, says M. Andral, that the number and gravity 
of many of these complaints are found in an in- 
verse proportion to the degree of civilization and 
comfort diffused in a country. Contries formerly 
healthy have become the sources of the most pesti- 
lential diseases, not from any change of climate they 
have undergone, but from the existence of bad insti- 
tutions, which have neglected the cultivation of the 
arts of industry. Thus Egypt, formerly so healthy, is 
now-never free from the plague. A great part of the 
coast of Italy, formerly rendered inhabitable by the 
Romans, 1s now the seat of malignant fever, while in 
Treland the typhus fever annually sweeps off thousands 
of the inhabitants of its cities. On the other hand, he 
adds, in any country in which human intelligence is 
permitted to increase and devclop itself in every point 
of view, so does the sanatory state of its population 
augment. Thus itis well known to what an extent 
various diseases (we may mention plague, cutaneous 
atiections, scurvy, &c.) have disappeared of late years 
in European cities. All experience tends to prove 
that the health of a country will be proportionally 
eood to the decree of comfort enjoyed by its inhabi- 
tants. M. Villerme states that the number of deaths 
in the different parts of Paris is not so much propor- 
tionate to the crowded state of the houses as it is to the 
number of houses which are untaxed in the different 
localities. So too the improveinent in the state of 
prisons affords a pleasing proof of how much the 
amelioration of man’s condition rests with man him- 
self. Thus the mortality in the prisons of Lyon, from 
1800 to 1806, averaged oue in nineteen; from 1820 to 
1826, one in forty-three; at Rouen, from 1812 to 1814, 
one in four; from 1815 to 1826, one in fifty-one. Al- 
though we may do much, yet there are external in- 
fiuences in operation less under the control of man, 
the chicf of which have reference to the state of the 
atmosphere, or of the aliments employed. Many of 
these are, however, susceptible of amclhoration by im- 
proving the physical condition of the localities, or, 
where this is impracticable, removing from them. A 
small class of these maladies are not explicable upon 
any known grounds. Medical observers are by degrees 


becoming convinced that for the due comprehending | ve 
by the addition of greasc and hot woollen bonnets, to 


the nature and relicf of endemical discases a more 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 20) 


accurate study of topography than has yet been under- 
taken is essential. 

It has been remarked that the inhabitants of coun- 
tries or places in which discases prevail endemically 
are very often cxcmpt from other serious forms of 
disease. The natives of a country often become inured 
by habit to circumstances which at once manifest their 
evil influence upon the newly arrived stranger. This 
is especially seen in tropical regions. In countries, 
too, inhabited by diiierent races of men, as the Negroes 
and Malays, the Negroes and Americans, the same cir- 
cumstances do not produce the same effect upon these 
different varietics. The water of the Seine produces 
disorder in all but the Parisian who is accustomed to 
its use. So too the treatment ef the self-same disease 
is often found to be required to be different, according 
to the locality in which the person affected resides, and 
even to the rank of society to which he belongs. 

We will now enumcrate some of the principal en. 
demical diseases. | 

A more perfect cxample of an endemic could 
scarcely be found than the Pellagra, which attacks so 
large a proportion (a sixth or seventh part) of the in- 
habitants of the alluvial plains of Lombardy, stretching 
out betwcen the Alps and the Po. The public hos- 
pitals, large as they are, are insufficient to accommo- 
date all the subjects of this disease, many of whom 
perish in their own habitations, or drag on a lingering 
and miserable existence. The disease, on its first ap- 
pearance, much resembles erysipelas, leaving the skin, 
however, very rough; attacks are renewed from time 
to time for the space of three or more years, during 
which the skin becomes entirely altered from its natu- 
ral structure, and takes on the appearance “of the 
dry black skin of a fish;” and this roughened appear- 
ance of the skin has obtained the disease its name. 
The patient loses the use of his hmbs, and becomes the 
victim of severe pains in dificrent parts of the body, 
and of a most tormenting sensation of heat down the 
spine, depriving him of rest by day and sleep by night. 
The mind is also frequently disordered from the in- 
tensity of the suffering, and Dr. Holland found one- 
third of the patients of the lunatic hospital at Milan to 
be sufferers from this disease. A propensity to suicide 
frequently exists, and the mode of committing this has 
so frequently been by drowning, that Strambi calls the 
disease hydromania. The cause of the disease is in- 
volved in obscurity. The Milanese physicians attribute 
it to the poverty and bad diet of the peasantry (it 1s 
rarely found in towns), and Vaccari calls it emphati- 
cally the “mal de misére.” The diet is almost cxclu- 
sively vegetable, consisting of bad sow rye-bread, 
maize, rice, &c.; for rarely, if ever, does the poor 
peasant, in that prolific soil, partake of the herd he 
tends or the juice of the vine he cultivates. “Had 
Rogers and Wordsworth,” says Dr. James Johnson, 
“while celebrating the borders of Como and Lago 
Maggiore, representing them as terrestrial paradises, 
been acquainted with the pestilence that afflicts one- 
seventh of the inhabitants, they would have curbed a 
little their poetic fancies, or added a background to 
thie pictures — 

The Plica Polonica, or plaited hair, 1s a curious dis- 
ease prevalent in Poland especially, although it is 
sometimes also seen in Russia, Prussia, Belgium, and 
Hungary. The popular opinion is that it was intro- 
duced into Poland by the Tartars in the twelfth or 
thirteenth century, but some authors assign as late a 
period as the sixteenth for its first appearance. The 
disease consists in an exuberant growth of the hair, 
which becomes matted and interlaced in the most in- 
extricable confusion. So far from desiring to prevent 
this, however, the Pole is proud of it, and endeavours, 


2P2 


202. 


increase it; while the women for the same purpose 
knot instead of curling the hair, and apply to it glue 
or resin. When we add that a fetid odour attends the 
complaint, it will readily be imagined that the subjects 
of it present a disgusting exhibition of filth and disease. 
It is looked upon by many as a special gift of Provi- 
dence, as preventive of other sickness and calaniities, 
while a beggar possessing a plica finds 1m it a certain 
resource for procuring alms. The hair thus sometimes 
increases prodigiously, and while a length of two or 
three feet 1s often met with, in other cases it has trailed 
along the ground as the individual walked. The nails 
frequently partake of the disease, becoming yellow, 
long, and crooked, like the talons of a bird. The chief 
inconvenience attending the affection 1s the great 
weight of the hair, which sometimes amounts to seve- 
ral pounds, while any dragging motion applied to it, 
by irritating the bulbs, is productive of great sutfering. 
The beard often becomes plicated m the same manner. 
Bachstrom mentions that of a Jew which touched the 
ground; and Corona saw at Rome a Polish hermit 
whose beard fell from his bed on to the floor. Various 
animals are subject to this disease, but it 1s especially 
among horses that it is found both in Poland and 
Russia: the Pole leaves no means untried to produce 
the plicated state of the mane of his horse, which 
sometimes acquires a great length. 

Although this disgusting disease has been attributed 
to various causes, filth is now pretty generally believed 
to be the most predominant: it is seldom seen among 
the better classes, but 1s especially found among the 
Polish Jews, a large proportion of the community, and 
perhaps the filthiest inhabitants of Europe. The 
French surgeons soon cured the Polish recruits by 
cutting off the hair, and paying great attention -to 
cleanliness, while the disease has diminished in pro- 
portion as the condition of the population has im- 
proved. 

The emanations from the surface of the earth, known 
by the appellation of mzasmata, or malaria, although we 
are ignorant of their nature, produce very marked 
effects upon the human economy in the localities where 
they exist. In our own country these miasms chiefly 
proceed from marshy districts, producing the well- 
known disease called ague or intermitting fever, and 
which prevails endemically in the fenny and swampy 
districts of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, &c. 
In warmer climates, and especially when aided by de- 
ficient or bad food, and the accumulation of animal 
filth acting upon a dense population, the several de- 
scriptions of pestilential fevers are produced, as, for 
example, those which ravage the south of Hurope, the 
coasts of Africa, and the West Indies. The extent to 
which the malaria prevails in the Campagna di Roma 
is well known, causing all who can do so to quit Rome 
from the month of July to that of October. Although 
miarshy districts are well known as being pre-eil- 
nently capable of producing the malaria, yet are they 
not exclusively so: the result of numerous observa- 
tions proves that the only circumstances essential to 
its production are the recent presence of water or 
mere moisture, and the influence of solar heat. When 
the quantity of water present is very great, the effects 
of the malaria frequently do not manifest themselves 
until this subsides. Thus travellers in Africa have 
found the danger greatest at the commencement of the 
rains; when these have continued some time, the sick- 
ness has abated, again to be renewed upon their cessa- 
tion, when the soil has become somewhat dried by the 
evaporation from its surface. Soin the Burmese war 
it was found that at the subsidence of the inundations 
our troops chiefly suffered. Dr. Ferguson relates that 
a most destructive form of fever showed itself in the 

army which pursued the course of the Guadiana after 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


| J UL 


the battle of Talavera, that river being dried up into 
little pools. At other times, during the Peninsular 
war, the worst fevers were found to occur when the 
great heat which prevailed had dried up the surface of 
the earth, the emanations escaping from the cracks and 
fissures which resulted. The collections of low brush- 
wood, or of reeds and grass termed jungles, generate a 
malaria, producing what has been called the jungle 
fever. The inundation and draining of rice-grounds 
has proved a most fertile source Of discase both in 
India and Europe. Napoleon intended to have pro- 
hibited its cultivation in Italy and France, as the em- 
peror of Russia had already done in part of his domi- 
nions. 

Other sources of malaria are found in the cultivation 
of indigo, the steeping of flax, the mud left after the 
drying up of ponds and marshes in summer, the turn- 
ing up of land which has long laid as pasture, ne- 
lected drains and sewers in warm weather, &c. &c. 
Dr. M‘Culloch observes that alluvial ground, even 
when not marshy or intersected by ditches, is yet often 
very productive of malaria, as is seen im the vicinity ot 
the Swiss lakes and along the borders of the principal 
rivers of France. The peat-bogs in Scotland and Ire- 
land do not produce malaria. 

Many circumstances influence the development of the 
effects of malaria; thus it has sometimes been carried 
to great distances, and to situations topographically 
healthy, by winds and currents of air; whilealso the fell- 
ing of woods and forests has often, by exposing a quan- 
tity of damp soil to the action of the sun’s rays, gencrated 
miasmata (or by the removal of a natural screen which 
had heretofore resisted their progress from surround- 
ing parts), ina site hitherto uncontaminated by their 
influence. It is sometimes very local in its influence ; 
thus, the inhabitants of one side of the Kent road near 
Rochester suffered severely from ague, while those on 
the opposite were quite free from it. Strangers are 
sometimes less lable to be attacked in malarious dis- 
tricts than the inhabitants. Sir James Clark found 
this to be the case with the French, German, and 
Iinglish artists residing at Rome, who seldom were 
seized with the fever until the second or third year of - 
their residence; and he considers the fears of sud- 
denly acquiring the malaria by merely passing through 
its districts as quite groundless. ‘The residence in a 
malarious region not only disposes to the production of 
attacks of fever, but to a general disorder and decay of 
the vital powers; and the change which thus takes 
place is forcibly depicted in the countenance. Dr. 
James Johnson, an experienced traveller, describing it 
in the Lombardo-Venetian plains, thus expresses him- 
self:—* The alluvial debouches of the Scheldt, the 
Nile, the Oroonoko, Euphrates, Ganges, Danube, and 
Po, have so deteriorated the health of man, and 
stamped on his visage such indelible marks of disease, 
that the most superficial observer can never forget the 
humiliating portrait. Dr. M‘Culloch remarks that 
the inhabitants of France and Holland are very averse 
to allowing that any of the maladies result from the 
influence of malaria, and endeavours to explain their 
origin in a variety of ingenious modes. He says that 
it may excite a smile in our country to know. that 
“ the people of Walcheren repelled with no small in- 
dignation, at the time of the celebrated visit of our 
troops, the charge of unhealthiness which was brought 
against their beloved birth-place.” 

[To be Continued.] 


=z 


Necessity for Pleasures.—In every communsty there must be 
pleasures, relaxations, and means of agreeable excitement; and 
if innocent ones are not furnished, resort will be had to criminal, 


— Channing. 


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Chevowme a PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE MONK. 


Tue order of regular priests in the Roman Catholic 
church, that 1s to say, of those who had taken vows of 
perpetual chastity and poverty, was divided into two 
classes, monks and friars. The chief point of distinc- 
tion between them was, that the monks were for- 
bidden the possession of private property, and what- 
ever they held they held in common, whilst the friars 
renounced all property, whether as individuals or as a 
community. ach of these classes was again sub- 
divided into various orders and fraternities. Chaucer’s 
monk belongs to the order of the Benedictines, which 
derived its name from St. Benedict, who was born in 
Italy about the year 480; and who at the tender age of 
fourteen hid himself in a cavern in a desert for a con- 
siderable time, where he was supplied with provisions 
through the care of a friend, who had to descend with 
them by a rope. The fame of the ascetic soon spread, 
as people flocked to him from all quarters. About 528 
he removed to Mount Cassino, where, having converted 
the inhabitants from paganism, and overthrown the sta- 
tue of Apollo, he founded the order bearing his name. 
which quickly spread all over Europe. It was intro- 
duced into England by St. Augustine and his brethren 
in 596, when they came to convert the Anglo-Saxons 
to the Christian religion. So rapidly did the order 
progress here in public estimation, that its revenues in 
the course of time exceeded the revenucs of all the 


other monastic orders put together. All the abbeys 
in England prior to the Norman conquest were filled 
with its votaries ; and down to the Reformation all the 
mitred and parliamentary abbots, excepting the prior of 
the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem,were Benedictines. 

The duties of a monk may be thus briefly summed 
up:—to pray, groan, and weep for his faults; to watch, 
and abstain from sensual pleasures; to labour with his 
hands ; to throw off the cares of the world, and attend 
solely to their celestial interests; to keep within the 
cloister, and perform all the routine of lus appointed 
duties with faithfulness and regularity. If he aspired 
to the government of his fellow-monks, it appears that 
besides a stricter observance of the rules of “St. Maur 
and St. Beneit” (Benedict), various accomplishments 
were expected to be superadded. Some time 1n the thir- 
teenth century, the prior and convent of St. Swithin’s 
at Winchester, in recommending one of their brethren 
to the convent of Hyde as a proper person to fill the 
abbacy then vacant, include among his other and more 
spiritual qualifications his knowledge of glossing, writ- 
ing, illuminating, and chanting. Such then was, accord- 
ing to theory, the very man Chaucer had to describe. A 
very different picture, however, awaits us in the poet’s 
verses, and one, for the time of their composition, infi- 
nitely more true ° 

‘¢ A monk there was, a fair for the mast’ry* ; 
An out-rider that lovéd veneriet ; 


* A far for the mast’ry, v.e. one well fitted for the management 
of the commuuity to which he belongs. 7 Hunting. 


204 


A manly man, to be an abbot able. 

ull many a dainty horse had he m stable ; 

Aud when he rode, men might his bridle heaa 

Gingéling in a whisthug wind as clear 

And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell, 

There, as* this lord was keeper of'the cell. 
The rule of St. Maur and of St. Beneity, 

Because that it was old, and somdele strait, 

‘This ilké monk let oldé thingés pace ; 

And held aftér the newé world the trace.” 


As to the text 


“ That saith that hunters be not holy men; _ 
Ne that a monk when he is rekkélesst 
Is like to afish that 1s waterless ; 
This is to say, a monk out of his cloister :— 
This lke text held he not worth an oyster. 
Aud I say his open was good : 
What should he study, and make himselven wood 
Upon a book im cloister, alway to pare ? 
Or swinkend$ with his handés, and labotr, 
As Austin bit|]? How shall the world be serv’d ? 
Let Austin have his swink tohim reserv’d. 
Therefore he was a prickasoure [ a right: 
Greyhounds he had as swift as fowl** of flight : 
Of pricking, and of hunting for the hare 
Was all his lust ++ 5 for no cost would he spare.” 


The love of hunting, which Chaucer has here de- 
scribed as so conspicuous a feature of his Monk’s cha- 
raeter, receives numerous illustrations from the history 
of the religious houses of England. Thus we find that 
the Archdeacon of Richmond, on his initiation to the 
priory of Bridlington, in Yorkshire, in 1216, came 
attended by ninety-seven horses, twenty-one dogs, and 
three hawks. In 1256, Walter de Suffield, Bishop of 
Norwich, bequeathed by will his pack of hounds to the 
king; whilst the abbot of Tavistock, who had also a 
pack, was commanded by his bishop, in 1348, to break 
itup. A famous hunter, contemporary with Chaucer, 
was William de Clowne, abbot of Leicester, who died 
in 1377. His reputation for skill in the sport of hare- 
hunting was so great, that the king himself, his son 
Idward, and noblemen paid him an annual pension to 
hunt with him. 

The cell of which this Monk was “keeper” was most 
probably one of those offshoots from the parent houses, 
which, though subordinate to the latter, had their own 
oficers and domestic management, and were sometimes 
very wealthy ; occasionally indeed, they grew into so 
much importance as to achieve independence, and ob- 
tain the rank of a convent or priory. It is thus only 
that we can explam the fact of Chaucer’s Monk being 
able to have “many a dainty horse in stable,” or to 
dress in the style that he does. No mere monk would 
have been allowed to keep to humself the requisite 
wealth, and the “keeper” or “lord” of an insignificant 
cell would not have had it to keep. In the Suther- 
land manuscript the passage concerning the Monk’s 
bridle 

“ Gingéling in a whistling wind as clear 
And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell,” 


is illustrated by golden bells on the bridle and trap- 
pings on the horse. The custom is supposed to have 
been borrowed from the knights, among whom it was 


** Or, in other. words,—there, where this lord, &e. 
+ Benedict. 

t Mr. Tyrrwnitt thinks Chaucer wrote reghelles, a Saxon coin- 
pound signifying without rule, “ as the known sense of rekkeles, 
viz. careless, negligent, by no means suits with this passage.” 
With due respect to so high an authority, we caunot but observe 
that it seems to us the passage as it stands conveys the very sense 
the critic desires it should convey; what isa reckless man, but 
one whom the ordinary rules of conduct have ceased to bind ? 

§ Toil, drudge. || Biddeth. ¢| A hard rider, 
** Birds, +7} Pleasure, delight. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[ Jee 


made a matter of importance to have their bridles well 
hung with bells, and the neglecting to do so was looked 
upon as a mark of meanness or poverty. Arnaud of 
Marsan, an old troubadour, gives a reason for 1ts ob- 
servance :—‘‘ Nothing is more proper to inspire eonfi- 
dence in a knight and terror in an enemy.” Wickliffe, 
the contemporary, aid, perhaps, friend of Chaucer, has 
a passage happily illustrative of the truth of Chaucer's 
description. In his ‘Trialogue’ he inveighs against 
the priests for their “ fair horses, and jolly gay saddles 
and bridles ringing by the way.” The remainder of 
Chaucer’s description is as follows :— 


“*T saw lis sleeves purfied at the hand 
With gris”, and that the finest of the land. 
And for to fasten his hood under his chin 
He had of gold ywrought a curious pi; 
A love-knot in the greater end there was. 
His head was bald, and shoue as any glass, 
And eke his face as it had been anomit. 
He was a lord full fat and in good pomt. 
His eyeu steep and rolling in his head, 
That steamed as a furnace of a lead. 
His bootes supple, his horse of great estate, 
Now certainly he was a fair prelate. 
He was not pale as a forpinedt ghost. 
A fat swan loved he best of any roast. 
His palfrey was as brown as is a berry.” 


We have already referred to the golden bells in the 
pictured representation of the Monk in the Sutherland 
inanuscript ; in other respects also that representation 
agrees mninutely with the text, and sometimes illustrates 
it. The habit of the Benedictines was a black loose 
coat or gown of stuff, reaching down to their feet, with 
a cowl or hood of the same, and under that another 
habit, white, as large as the former, made of flannel, 
with boots on their legs. In the manuscript, accord- 
ingly, we have the black gown, with full sleeves, and a 
elimpse of the supple boots beneath. The monk has 
by his side two hounds, with blue collars and gilded 
buckles. The poet has remarked that the sleeves of 
the Monk’s tunic are edged with fur, “ the finest of the 
land,” and doubtless as expensive as it was beautiful. 
One of Wolsey’s ordinances for the reformation of the 
Benedictines, in 1519, was especially directed against 
this particular feature of monkish foppery. 


THE DEATH OF PLANTS. 


THe same volume of Brande’s ‘Journal’ we recently 
quoted, as containing an interesting article upon the 
Dissemination of Plants, from the pen of M. Mirbel, 
also contains a paper upon their death, by the same 
eminent botanist. We present an abstract of it :— 

Plants, as well as animals, unless destroyed by casual- 
ties or disease, are doomed to die of oldage. Several 
of the Mucores (Moulds), Byss?. and Mushrooms perish 
in a few days or even hours. The herbaceous planis 
called annuals die within the year, and this alniost in- 
dependently of climate ; the propagation of the species 
having been secured by the ripening of the seed. In 
the biennials the flower-stem is not evolved and seed 
produced until the second year, after which the plant 
perishes. In the perennials the parts exposed to view 
perish annually in ike manner; but the root surviving, 
new stems arise from it every spring. Jn most woody 
plants death does net occur until fructification has re- 
curred for a greater or less number of years; some of 
the monocotyledona, however, as the sago-tree, and the 
umbrella-tree (corypha umbraculifera), with immense 
fan-formed leaves of eight or ten yards in length, only 
bear fruit once, and then die. 

If the herbaceous perennials and woody plants were 
viewed as simple individuals, they would almost seem 


* Fur. + Wasted away. 


1841.] 


as not hable to death from old age; but in these plants 
we must distinguish between the new part, which lives 
and grows, and the old, which has ceased to do so, and 
is therefore dead. When these plants propagate their 
race by seeds, the seed must be considered as an em- 
bryo plant, a new and different individual, indepen- 
dent and unconnected with that from which it derived 
its existence; but when they are propagated by a con- 
tinuous evolution of hke pavts, these are as a series of 
individuals, which issue from the surface, the one of 
the other, in an uninterrupted sequence, continuing, 
however, in some instances permanently united. But 
in neither of these cases are the trdividuals perpe- 
tuated, although their succession or race becomes so. 

All the parts of the young herbaceous annual are 
susceptible of enlargement; the cells of the tubes, at 
first very small, are soon extended in every way. In 
process of time the membranous walls, fortified by the 
absorption of nutritious juices, grow thicker, and lose 
by degrees their orginal pliancy. The membranes 
once hardened, excitement ceases to be produced, and 
the vital functions are at an end; nourishment is no 
Jonger drawn, growth is at a stand, and the plant, un- 
able to resist the ceaseless attacks of the external 
agents employed by nature for its destruction, decays 
in a short time. So 

For the same reasons the stems of herbaccous peren- 
nials decay, but in these the root is regenerated by a 
succession of evolutions. Sotooin the shrubs and trees, 
the liber, or inner bark, represents the herbaceous 
plant, and, hke it, has only a short existence as such. 
For when vegetation revives in the woody part of a 
plant, on the return of spring, it is because a new liber 
has replaced, under the bark, the liber of the preceding 
year, which has hardened:and become wood. This ex- 
planation will equally apply to the meanest shrub and 
to the giants of the vegetable world, such as the cedars 
oi Lebanon, nine yards in girth, from the measure- 
ments of Labillardiére; the stupendous chesnuts of 
Mount Etna, one of which Howell states measured 
seventeen yards in circumference; and the Baobab of 
Senegal, ten or twelve yards in girth, and, according to 
the computation of Adanson, five or six thousand years 
old; in all of these vegetation is maintained by the an- 
nual production of the thin layer of liber at the inner 
surface of the bark. The concentric layers of preced- 
ing libers constitute the mass of the wood, serving 
merely to support the newly-formed parts, and to con- 
duct to them their nutritious juices. Nay, for the per- 
formance of these offices this wood need not always be 
entire, for willows and chesnuts, even when quite hol- 
low, will continue to grow with vigour; but in their 
soundest state the removal of the bark is their de- 
struction. 

Thus, as the old parts of the roots of the herbaceous 
perennial continue constantly to die away under 
ground, and are succeeded by new ones, and the con- 
centric layers which constitute the wood or heart of the 
trunks of trees are no other than the accumulated re- 
mains of bygone generations, in which vegetation 
and life are entirely extinct, we find that the ummor- 
tality imparted to this form of existence is only appa- 
rent, and that the individuals endowed with it perish in 
due course, as all other forms of organized bodies. 

As the age of the tree in nowise diminishes the 
vigour of the liber, and as a sound well-grown scion 
from an aged but healthy tree affords as good a cutting 
for propagation as that taken from a younger ; so, we 
may infer, that according to the course of nature, the 
progress of regeneration by continuous evolution 
would never be arrested, if the overgrown size of the 
branches and stem, the hardening of the wood, and the 


obstruction of the channels which permeate it, did not. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 295 


impede the circulation of the sap, and colsequently 
its access to the liber. 

The life of trees has been commonly divided into 
three stages—infancy, maturity, and old age. In the 
first the tree increases in strength from one day to the 
other; in the second it maimtains itself without sensi- 
ble gain or loss; in the third it declines. These stages 
vary in every species according to soil, climate, aspect, 
and the nature of the individual plant. The common 
oak usually lasts from six to nine hundred years, and 
the stages of its existence are of about two or three 
hundred years each. It, as well as the chesnut, has 
been observed to live longer upon a dry than a wet 
soil. 

Every species, to attain its due growth, requires a 
ceriain temperature to be found within limits of a 
ereater or less extent. The oak, the fir, the birch, &c. 
thrive most towards the north; the ash, the olive-tree, 
&c., in the warmest parts of Europe ; the baobab, the 
ceiba, and the palm fiourish only between the tropics. 
Sir Humphry Davy considered that the different 
quantities of carbon furnished by the various woods 
would atiord a tolerably accurate measure of their re- 
spective longevities ; those in which earthy and carbo- 
naceous substances prevailed being the most enduring, 
and those in which gaseous elements proportionally 
abounded, the least so. However well this rule may 
apply to the indigenous trees of Ffurope, it is not 
probable that many of the tropical trees of great Jon- 
eevity (as the baobab, &c.), but of loose and soft 
texture, would yield the same proportion of carbon as 
our oaks, elms, &c., whose existence 1s comparatively 
brief. The same distingwished writer also believed 
that trees of the same species grow to a more advanced 
period in the north than in the south; but in truth 
every tree lives the longest when it is in that climate 
which is best adapted to its nature: and thus, although 
more oaks and firs are found of a great age in the 
north than in the south of Europe, yet, on the other 
hand, the ashes of Calabria and Sicily are more long: 
lived than those of Great Britain and Prussia. 

In proportion as‘a tree increases in size, the vessels 
of its ligneous layers become obstructed, and the sap 
circulates with less freedom; hence, absorption and 
secretion decrease after youth, In proportion as the 
bulk of the tree is enlarged; the liber is less vigour- 
ous; the buds and roots become fewer and feebler ; the 
branches wither; the stem decays at the head; water 
settles in the injured parts; the wood moulders away. 
Ere long, the annual liber loses the power of com- 
pleting its regeneration; new parts are no longer 
evolved, and the tree perishes. The tree after death 
is overrun by various cryptogamous plants; it attracts. 
and imbibes moisture no longer, as formerly, by the 
absorbing powers of its organs, but by the hygrome- 
trical property it derives from its porosity, and the 
chemical action of the elements which compose it ; 
the oxygen of the atmosphere consumes a part of its: 
substance; water is generated and carbonic acid disen- 
caged; the rest is resolved into vegetable mould 
(humus), a fat brown powdery substance, eminently 
fertile, in which we find in different proportions. the 
same elements as those of which vegetables are com- 
posed, and which have the faculty of decomposing air 
and combining with its oxygen. — : 

It is thus the career of plants 1s terminated in the 
order of things. The earth they adorned in the period 
of vegetation is fertilized by their remains: germs 
impregnated with new hie have already been confided 
to its bosom, ready to supply the bygone generations, 
and, through the death of individuals, an unfading 
youth is secured to the race. 





296 


REAPING. 


REAPING (or cutting the corn when it is ripe) 1s one 
of the most important operations of harvest. It re- 
quires many hands to accomplish it in proper time, so 
that the corn which is ready for the sickle may not be 
too ripe and shed, nor the fair weather be allowed to 
pass before all the corn is secured in barns or stacks. 
The labourers-who are required all the year for the 
common purposes of husbandry seldom suffice for the 
harvest, especially on extensive farms, and recourse is 
usually had to the assistance of mechanics and artisans 
from the neighbouring towns and villages where the 
population is considerable, or labourers are induced by 
gsood wages to come from a distance. 

The common reaping-hook, or sickle, with which 
the corn is usually cut, is one of the cldest instruments 
of husbandry; and the goddess Ceres was generally 
represented by the ancients with a sheaf of corn anda 
sickle in her hand. In reaping with the sickle, a por- 
tion of the stems 1s collected with the left hand, and 
held fast; while the sickle in the right hand is inserted 
below the left, taking the stems in its semicircular 
blade, and cutting them through by drawing the sickle 
so as to act as a saw, for which purpose the edge is 
finely serrated in a direction from the point to the 
handle. The heads of the corn, with the upper part of 
the straw, are then laid on the ground in quantities 
which may readily be collected into a sheaf. Practice 
soon gives dexterity to the reaper; and he finds it more 
expeditious to cut small quantities in succession until 
he has filled his hand, than to attempt to cut through a 
large handful at once. Severe wounds are often in- 
flicted on the fingers of the left hand by beginners, 
even to the loss of a finger; but this soon makes them 
cautious and expert. The division of labour is intro- 
duced with advantage amongst a band of reapers. A 
certain number cut the corn, while others follow to 
eather the sheaves; some only preparing the bands, 
and others tying them and setting up the sheaves into 
stooks or shocks, which usually consist of ten or twelve 
sheaves. The smaller the sheaves are, the less injury 
the corn sustains in a wet harvest, as the moisture in 
a thick sheaf does not so readily evaporate. Hence it 
is the interest of the farmer to see that the reapers do 
not make the sheaves too large. In many places there 
is a regular measure for the circumference of a sheaf, 
which should never exceed thirty inches. The bands 
are made by taking two small handfuls of the cut corn, 


and crossing them just below the ears into a knot. The’ 


sheaf is then pressed with the knee, and the band drawn 
tightly around it. The ends are twisted together like 
a rope, and inserted under the band, which effectually 
fastens it. The sheaves should be so tied that there 
may be no danger of their falling loose when pitched 
into the cart or stacked, without being so tight as to 
prevent the moisture in the straw from evaporating. 
They should not be tied too near the ears, but rather 
nearer to the butt. The sheaves, when tied, are placed 
two and two on the butt-ends, with the ears leaning 
against each other: sometimes they are placed in a 
circle, all the ears being together, and the butts slant- 
ing outwards: a sheaf is then opened, by inserting the 
hand into the middle of the ears, and reversed over the 
tops of the preceding, forming a cone, and covering all 
the other ears, while it hangs down around them. In 
this position they will bear much rain without injury. 

Wherever the sickle is used for reaping, the straw is 
cut at a certain height from the ground, and the 
remainder forms a long stubble, which is usually 
mown at leisure after harvest, and carried into the 
yard for litter; but in the neighbourhood of large 
towns, where straw is sold at a good price, or ex- 
changed for stable dung, it is important that as much 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. [Juty 31. 1841. 
as possible of it should be cut with the corn. This 
has introduced the practice called fagging, and some- 
times bagging, the origin of which provincial expres- 
sions is not well known. The instrument used for this 
purpose partakes of the nature of a scythe, as well as 
of a reaping-hook. It is shaped lke a sickle, but is 
much larger and broader; and instead of being in- 
dented like a saw, it has a sharp edge like a scythe, 
which is renewed when blunt by means of a stone or 
bat. The fagging-hook cuts the straw close to the 
ground by a stroke of the hand ; and its curved form is 
only useful in collecting stray stems, and holding a 
certain quantity of them between it and the left hand 
of the reaper when he makes up a sheaf. A certain 
quantity is cut towards the standing corn, the leit hand 
pressing it down at the same time. When as much is 
thus cut as would make half a small sheai, the reaper 
comes backwards, cutting ina direction at right angles 
to the first, and rolling together the two parts, which 
he carries in ‘the bend of his hook and places on the 
band which has been prepared for him. A full-sized 
sheaf is usually composed of two cuttings. Two men 
will fully employ a third to make bands for them, tie 
up the sheaves, and set them up. This method of 
reaping is laborious, on account of the stooping re- 
quired to cut near the ground. The Hainault scythe, 
which has been described in most agricultural works, 
does the work better, and with less fatigue. It is in 
fact a fagging-hook, not quite so curved, of which the 
handle is longer, and placed at an angle with the plane 
of the blade. It requires some practice to give the 
proper swing to it by a peculiar motion of the wrist ; 
but when this is once acquired, a considerable saving 
of labour and time is effected. Many attempts have 
been made-to bring it into use in England; but, from 
the obstinacy of the labourers, or the want of persever- 
ance in the masters, without much success. A better 
instrument, however, on extensive farms is the cradle- 
scythe, which, in the hands of an expert mower, will 
do more work and more effectually secure all the straw 
than any other instrument. 

When the saving of time is considered, as well as 
expense, there seems to be no doubt than on an ex- 
tensive farm the scythe is far preferable to the sickle 
for cutting every kind of grain. Barley and oats are 
usually mown, and carried without tymg them into 
sheaves, but this is a slovenly and wasteful practice : 
by means of the cradle-scythe they may be mown so 
regularly as to be readily tied into sheaves; and the 
additional expense will be fully compensated by the 
saving of all the corn which, being on the outside of 
the stack, is lost by the depredations of small birds. 

Beans are usually reaped by the sickle, the stems 
being too strong and too wide apart to admit of the 
scythe. Where it can be done conveniently, without 
the soil adhering too much to the roots, it is better to 
pull them up, and tie them in bundles with straw 
bands, or tar-twine, which will be found both a con- 
venient and economical method. 

Peas are generally reaped by means of two large 
hooks. similar to the fagging-hooks, one of which is 
held in each hand; and the stems, which are generally 
much interwoven, are partly cut and partly torn from 
the roots, and so rolled up into a small bundle laid 
loose in order that it may dry. Tares are reaped in 
the same way. 

There have been many attempts to introduce ma- 
chinery for reaping corn. Some of the inventions were 
ingenious and promised well, but none, when put to 
the test, answered the expectations formed. ‘The 
various inclinations of the straws prevent any regular 
mode of cutting. Till some better invention appears, 
the scythe will probably be found the cheapest and 
most expeditious instrument for reaping the corn. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


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{ Milking-Shed, 12 o’clock.] 


A pAy at a London dairy is a very early day. It be- | more parts of London are supplied with milk than is 
gins when nearly all the world is fast asleep, and generally imagined. Proceeding northward from the 


ends when the fashionable world has not long risen. 
It is aday which reminds us of the “good old times” 
of Queen Bess, when a breakfast of beef and ale was 
taken at five or six o’clock in the morning, and when a 
large portion of the day’s labour was completed before 
noon. We do not, in this mention of dairies, allude to 
the shops or shop-kitchens of the humble dealers by 
whom so large a proportion of the London families are 
supphed with their daily pennyworths of milk (al- 
though these places are open betimes in the morning), 
but to the establishments of those large proprietors of 
milch cows by whom the retail dealers are in many cases 
supplied. It is not improbable that many persons 
living in the heart of the metropolis, and who scarcely 
see a cow from year’s end to year’s end, may be igno- 
rant of the existence of such places; entertaining the 
opinion that cach retail dealer draws his “new milk 
from the cow” in his own shed a few hours before the 
world’s breakfast-time. Many do so, no doubt; but 
there are also many who cannot boast of possessing a 
cow, and whose dairy proceedings consist in buying 
milk to sell again at a profit in small quantities. Let 
us see whether a pleasant “day” may not be spent in 
studying the commercial machinery by which large 
towns are supphed with milk. 
We shall have to rouse the reader from his bed at 
two o’clock in the morning, and bee of him to accom- 
pany us to Ishngton, a very land of cows, from which 


No. 599 


well-known ‘ Angel,’ we come to a division of roads 
at Ishngton-green: the eastern branch, called Lower 
Islington, leading to Stoke Newington, Dalston, and 
other villages; and the western, known as Upper 
Islington, leading to Holloway and Highgate. Fol- 
lowing this last-mentioned road, we pass Islington 
church ; and a little before we arrive at Highbury, an 
inscription on a gateway at the left points out to us 
“ Laycock’s Dairy and Cattle Layers.” Through this 
gateway (supposing the permission of the proprietor 
to have been obtained) we enter, and soon find our- 
selves surrounded by buildings spread over a vast ex- 
tent of ground, and consisting principally of sheds, 
barns, and granaries, but comprising also many others 
devoted to various purposes. At present we will not 
pay any particular attention to the other parts of the 
area, but will direct our notice to a large range of 
cow-sheds or milking-sheds, at the right-hand of the 
avenue leading from the entrance. Comprised within 
one building we here find six ranges of sheds, parallel 
one with the other, and running nearly north and 
south. Along both sides of every shed are stalls, each 
stall adapted for the reception of two cows; and the 
whole so arranged as to afford accommodation for 
sixty-four cows in each shed. 

As three o’clock approaches, a scene of bustle pre- 
sents itself. Muilk-maids, whose scarcely intelligible 
language indicates Wales to be their native country, 


Von. X.—-2 Q 


298 THE PENNY 
and whose ruddy faces give evidence of the healthiness 
of their employment, arrive at the dairy, bring their 
pails and stools to the milking-sheds, and make pre- 
parations for milking the cows. Perhaps we ought to 
say milk-eomen, for there are doubtless wives as 
well as maidens among them; but we do not like to 
dispense with an appellation which has become almost 
classical among pastoral writers: milk-maids, then, let 
them be. Each of these milk-maids has a handker- 
chief bound round her head, somewhat in the fashion 
of the French singing-women occasionally seen in the 
London streets. Each one places her wooden pail— 
so neat and white and clean, that one almost doubts 
whether it ever cowld be dirty—beneath the cow, sits 
on her stool, rests her head against the side of the 
animal, and milks until the pail be full, or until the 
cow has yielded her morning’s supply. The cows being 
ranged in tolerably regular order, and a considerable 
number being milked at one time, the whole presents 
a scene by no means unpicturesque. The number of 
milk-maids bears some convenient proportion to the 
number of cows; so that all the latter, four or five 
hundred in number, may be milked in the course of 
about an hour, or an hour and a half. Each milk- 
maid draws the milk from several cows; but the mode 
of proceeding is the same in all; the animal is fastened 
to the stall, and remains quiet during the process of 
milking. 

Of the very large quantity of milk which is thus 
obtained within a little more than an hour, by far the 
larger proportion leaves the dairy immediately. In 
some instances women, provided with a wooden yoke, 
carry away the milk in pails, while in other instances 
the milk is put into tall metallic vessels, and carried 
away incarts. The persons to whom the milk is thus 
sent are the retail dealers, to whom we before alluded ; 
and who, not possessing the means or the convenience 
for keeping cows, purchase their milk at these large 
establishments, and retail it at a profit which affords 
them the means of subsistence. On the nature of the 
transactions between the two parties we shall make a 
few observations hereafter. 

Immediately after the milking is concluded, the 
sheds are cleaned with great care; and the cows are 
treated, with respect to food, &c., in various ways, 
depending on the season of the year. 

The bustle of the dairy now in great measure sub- 
sides. The retail dealers, having obtained their supply 
of milk at this early hour, are enabled to convey it 
from door to door time enough for the breakfast-hour 
of their customers. Twelve oclock at noon is the 
time when they go for their supply of milk for the 
afternoon; and the interval leaves us a convenient 
opportunity for alittle gossip about dairy statistics 
renerally, the details of which are by no means uninte- 
resting. Leaving the London families, then, to break- 
fast on the milk thus obtained, we will spend the fore- 
noon ina tour among the country dairies. 

In two recent papers we have entered into a few de- 
tails of the history and zoological features of the va- 
rious breeds of British cattle; from which it will be 
seen that they are divided, for convenience, into 
classes distinguished by their horns. Thus there are 
the long-horns, the middle-horns, the short-horns, the 
Alderney or crumpled horns, and the polled or horn- 
less. This classification is very artificial, but 1s never- 
theless found useful, and may pave the way for a bet- 
ter, as the Linnzan system in Botany did for that of Jus- 
sieu. The details given in the two papers just alluded 
to may fittingly be followed by others relating—not to 
cattle generally—but to the milking qualities of cows 
belonging to different breeds, and to the dairy system 
in different places. Our chief authority will be Mr. 
Youatt, who, in collecting materials for his valuable 





MAGAZINE. [Juty, 1841. 
treatise on Cattle, traversed nearly every part of the 
three kingdoms. 

The middle-horns are the prevailing cows in Devon- 
shire, Hereford, Sussex, and some other counties, as 
well as in Wales and Scotland ; as a general rule they 
are deeined tolerable, but not extraordinary milkers. 
In Devonshire, the cows are not reared so much for 
their dairy produce as in many other counties; but 
the celebrated Devonshire or “ clouted” cream affords 
an instance of the rich quality of the milk. It may be 
interesting here to describe the mode in which this 
cream 1s obtained, as given in the ‘Agricultural 
Survey. The milk, while warm from the cow, is 
strained into shallow tinned-brass pans, or earthen 
ones, in which a little water has been previously placed 
to prevent the scorching of the milk. After the milk 
has stood several hours, the pans are placed over a 
clear slow fire ; a charcoal fire or a stove being deemed 
preferable to a turf or a wood fire, as less likely to 
give a smoky taste tothe cream. The heat should be 
so managed as not to suffer the milk to boil, or, as they 
provincially term it, to ‘ heave,’ as that would injure 
the cream; and the test by which the proper heat is 
ascertained is a curious one:—The pan, having its 
bottom much smaller than the top, throws up, as it 
were, the form of its bottom on the surface of the 
cream, or gives a particular appearance toa portion of 
the surface equal in size and shape to the bottom of 
the pan. If the pan be nearly as large at the bottom 
as at the top, this criterion is not so easily obtained. In 
summer, it must be observed, the process of scalding 
ought to be quicker than in the winter, as it would be 
apt to curdle in very hot weather 1 kept over too slow 
a fire. The scalding being finished, the pans are care- 
fully returned to the dairy, and, if in summer, cooled 
as quickly as possible ; but if in winter, cooled slowly. 
The cream which collects on the surface is allowed to 
remain one or two days, according to the season, and 1s 
then taken off, and put into wooden bowls, which are 
first rinsed in scalding water and then in cold. It is 
now briskly stirred round one way, with a nicely 
cleaned hand, which must also have been washed in 
hot and cold water, both for the sake of cleanliness 
and to prevent the adhesion of the cream. The cream, 
being thus agitated, quickly assumes the consistence 
of butter; the milky part readily separates,.and being 
poured off, the remainder is washed and pressed in 
successive portions of cold water, anda little salt is 
added to it. The cream is then well beaten in a 
wooden trencher, until the milky and watery parts 
are separated; and itis finally put into a convenient 
form for the market. Jn this latter state, it has im fact 
assumed the form of butter; but the cream 1s often 
eaten with strawberries, with tarts, &c., in the state in 
which it is taken off the scalding-pans twenty-four 
hours after the scalding. So much of the cream is 
obtained in this process, that the remaining milk is 
exceedingly poor and tasteless. . 

The Heretord breed, though valuable in many re~ 
spects, 1s far less esteemed as milch cows than the 
Devons; nor does the Sussex cow answer well for 
the dairy, almost eyery other breed being preferred 
ge) 

In the Hebrides, half a century ago, the cows were, 
during the winter, housed by the small farmer in the 
same room which formed the home of his family. The 
family had their beds of straw or heath in the niches of 
the walls; while the litter was never removed from 
the cows, but fresh layers of straw were occasionally 
laid down ; and thus the floor rose with the accumula- 
tion of litter until the season for spreading it upon the 
land, when it was at length taken away. Great im- 
provements, however, have been made since this state 
of things; and the cows in the Hebrides are now sup- 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


phed with food in a manner more convenient and 
more profitable to the owners. In most of these 
islands the dairy is looked upon as of less moment than 
the rearing of calves; the farmer rarely keeping more 
milch cows than will furnish his own family with milk, 
butter, and cheese. In some of the islands, however, 
such as North Uist and Tiree, where the herbage is 
good, the dairy 1s more attended to. The cows are 
driven as quietly and slowly as possible to the fold, 
from a regard both to the quality of the milk and to 
the wild character of the animals. They are carefully 
drained to the last drop, not only on account of the 
superior richness of the latter portion of the milk, but 
because the retention of any part is apt to produce or 
to hasten the drying-up of their milk, a defect to which 
these cows are said to be very lable. The milk is 
carried to the house with as little disturbance as prac- 
ticable, and put into vessels not more than two or three 
inches in depth. The cream is supposed to rise more 
rapidly in these shallow vessels; and it 1s removed in 
the course of eighteen hours. 

In the outer Hebrides, separated from the inner 
range by the channel called the Minch, the dairy hus- 
bandry has undergone very little change, the attention 
of the farmer being chiefly directed to breeding. 

Passing over Inverness, the Shetlands, and Orkneys, 
as presenting no particular features, we come to Caith- 
ness, where, after many attempts to rear milch cows of 
the Highland breed, it has been found that they will 
not yield a remuncrating dairy-produce to the farmer ; 
and the Ayrshire cows, of which we shall presently 
speak, are now kept there. The dairy is often managed 
in the following manner :—The farmer provides cattle 
and pasturage, but he has nothing to do with the manu- 
facture of the produce. He bargains with some dairy- 
woman to deliver to him annually a calf for every two 
cows, and forty or fifty pounds of butter, with an equal 
quantity of cheese for each cow. It is, however, now 
found more satisfactory and more profitable for the 
farmer to take upon himself the management of his 
own dairy produce. 

In the district of Buchan, in Aberdeenshire, the cows, 
on account of the excellent quality of the pasturage, 
yield a large quantity of milk, rich in cream; the 
quantity yielded being from ihree to four, and even 
sometimes as high asseven gallons per day. They are 
fed principally with oat-straw in the winter; but the 
sometimes get plotted hay, or hay on which boiling 
water has been poured. The county of Fife contains a 
breed of cattle by no means unprofitable for the dairy ; 
a good cow generally giving from five to seven gallons 
of milk per day for some months after the birth of a 
calf. This breed appears to be a mixture of the 
Highland with an English breed; and much discus- 
sion has arisen as to the time when this was effected ; 
some writers supposing that James I., on coming to 
the Enghsh throne, sent some valuable cattle to his 
Fifeshire subjects; while others say that when Mar- 
caret, daughter of Henry VII. of England, became the 
bride of James lV. of Scotland, she brought with her 
the simple but valuable dowry of three hundred 
English cows, which were sent into Fifeshire. : 

In Dumbartonshire the milch cows are fed in winter 
on straw with turnips or potatoes, and are sct lvose 
once in the day for water and exercise. During the 
stuniner months the milch cow is in the field during 
the night, but sheltered from the flies, and supplied 
with green fodder in the cow-house during the day ; 
and when the flies cease to torment, and the nights be- 
come cold, they arc housed during the night, and graze 
at liberty in the day. The calves for the dairy are 
eenerally taken from their dams as soon as born, and 
fed with milk from the hand for about two months, 
ihe quantity of milk being gradually decreased when 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 999 
they begin to take other food; liusced-tea, and bean 
or peas flour, are occasionally mingled with other 
food. After the calves are weaned, tlicy are turned on 
cood pasture, and during the first winter are housed 
and fed on oat-straw or meadow-hay mixed with 
turnips. 

Ayrshire 1s noted for the excellent milking quali- 
ties of its cows. Five gallons of milk daily, for two 
or three months after the birth of a calf; three gallons 
daily for the next three months; and one gallon and a 
half daily during the next four months, is said to be 
the average produce of an Ayrshire cow in her native 
district. This milk is employed in four different ways, 
according to the situation of the farm with respect to 
populous towns, namely, in supplying dairies with new 
milk, in fattening calves, in making butter and cheese. 
It is the practice in many parts of Ayrshire to let the 
cows to a professed milkman at so much per cow per 
annum ; which 1s provincially called a bowing, or boyen- 
amg, from boyen, a milk-pail. The farmer provides 
the cows and requisite dairy vessels, the whole sum- 
mer pasture and winter foddering, houses and litter 
for the cows, and a habitation for the milkman; while 
the boyener takes the whole charge of the milking, 
and the management and disposal of the butter, milk, 
cheese, or whey, as he chooses. The boyener pays a 
money-rent for the use of the cow, utensils, &c., and 
gets a small profit by selling the produce. Mr. Aiton, 
a well-known writer on dairy husbandry, gives an ac- 
count of the gencral mode of managing the Ayrshire 
cows in large farms, as exemplified in the farm of Mr. 
Ralston :—* He keeps sixty milch cows at Kirkwn, 
and nearly the same number at another farm a few 
miles distant; besides, he rears on one or two other 
farms thirty or forty young cows to keep up the stock 
and for sale. His cows are of the Ayrshire breed in 
its greatest perfection, and so well managed, that every 
milch cow on his farms yields him her own weight of 
the best cheese to be met with in Scotland, and for 
which he draws the value of the cow annually. Mr. 
Ralston keeps his cows constantly in the byre till the 
srass has risen so as to afford them a full bite. Many 
put them out every good day through the winter and 
spring, but they poach the ground with their fect, and 
nip up the young grass as it begins to spring, which, 
as they have not a full meal, injures the cattle. When- 
ever the weather becomes dry and hot, he feeds his 
cows ou cut grass in the byre from six o’clock 1n the 
morning to six at night, and turns them out to pasture 
the other twelve hours. When rain comes, the house 
feeding is discontinued. Whenever the pasture-grass 
begins to fail in harvest, the cows receive a supply of 
the second growth of clover, and afterwards of turnips 
strewed over the pasture-ground. When the weather 
becomes stormy in the months of October or Novem- 
ber, the cows are kept in the byre during the night, 
and ina short time after, during both night and day; 
they are then fed on oat-straw and turnips, and con- 
tinue to yield a considerable quantity of milk for some 
time. Part of the turnip crop is eaten up in the end 
of harvest and beginning of winter, to protract the 
milk, and part of it is stored up for green tood 
during the winter. After this 1s exhausted, the 
Swedish turnip and potatocs are used along with dry 
fodder, till the grass can support the cows.” Re have 
siven this account at full, because it explains the 
mode of fecding the cows on large farms in the finest 
dairy district of Scotland. 

Lanarkshire or Clydesdale is well calculated for a 
dairy district, and the Ayrshire cows are here kept m 
hieh perfection. There is (or was, a few years ago) at 
Glasgow, in this county, an extensive dairy, whose his- 
tory is very remarkable. A Myr. Harley, who had been 


long engaged in the cotton mamuacture, happening to 


2Q2 


300 THE PENNY 
discover in a field, which he had purchased near Glas- 
row, a copious spring of excellent water, he not only 
converted that spring to public use, by supplying the 
city better than 1t had been before, but he erected cold 
and hot baths. Some of the bathers having expressed 
a wish to be provided with warm milk aftcr bathing, 
Mr. Harley precured a cow for that purpose ; and as 
the baths soon became a place of general resort, he not 
only increased the number of the cows, so as to supply 
the demand, but perceiving that the city of Glasgow 
was ill supplied with milk, and that much of that which 
was sold there was of bad quality, he began at first to 
supply his friends, and afterwards the city, with milk 
perfectly pure. The stock of cows gradually increased 
to above a hundred. The milk was drawn into pails, 
and then passed through a hair sieve into large cans, in 
which it was carried to Glasgow. The cans were fixed 
on carts, each drawn by a pony. <A given quantity of 
milk was put under the charge of the driver, for which 
he was accountable ; and so tenacious was Mr. Harley 
of supplying the citizens with milk pure and unadul- 
terated, that every can, after the milk was introduced 
into it, was locked up so close that no air could be ad- 
mitted to it, except as much as would let the milk run 
at the cock below; and the air-hole was so constructed 
that it was not in the power of the driver to introduce 
water or any other liquid into it. Mr. Aiton has given 
a very minute account of the daily economy oi this 
establishment, the Willowbank dairy; but we believe 
that it is now discontinued, and we shall not therefore 
enter into these details. 

Nearly all the cows to which the preceding details 
relate belong to the breed of ‘ middle-horns ;’ and there 
are other counties, both in England and Scotland, 
where this breed similarly prevails; but they do not 
present any features in connection with our present 
object which need detain us. The same may be said 
of the ‘long-horns’ and of the ‘ Alderneys;’ for the 
former, though fattened for the market, and yielding a 
large supply of butter and cheese, are not kept to any 
great extent in ‘ lactaries, or milk establishments ; 
while the latter, though deemed, from their diminutive 
size, ornamental to a gentleman’s park, and though 
yielding milk of a very rich quality, give a quantity so 
small in proportion to the food which they eat, that 
their retention in a dairy 1s somewhat unprofitable. 
We will therefore dismiss them, and speak of the ‘ short- 
horns,’ the breed with which the great metropolitan 
dairies are principally supphed. MReferrimg to the two 
papers recently published, for a few details respecting 
the origin and growth of the short-horns, we will here 
briefly remark, that although there may be other cows 
which yield a larger or a richer supply of milk, yet, as 
a matter of commercial enterprise, the short-horns 
seem now to be favourites at these large establish- 
ments, because, aller having furnished a moderately 
eood supply of milk for a certain period, they are 
specdily fattened for the butcher and sent to Smith- 
field. 

We may here borrow from the article ‘ Dairy,’ in the 
‘Penny Cyclopedia,’ a brief notice of the general cha- 
racter of the Dutch dairies, which are remarkable for 
thelr neat and clean arrangement. The cow-house. 
and dairy are combined in a buildmg about sixty feet 
long by thirty wide, with a verandah running round 
three sides of it. The dairy-room is sunk below the 
level of the soil, and is paved with brick. The sides 
are covered with Dutch tiles, and the arched roof with 
hard cement. The cow-house has a broad passage in 
the middle, and the cows stand with their heads to- 
wards this passage, which is paved with clinkers or 
bricks set on edge. Their tails are towards the wall, 


along which runsa broad gutter, sunk six or eight, 
| entrance avenue, and thence pass through the other 


inches below the level of the place on which the cows 


MAGAZINE. [Juny, 1841. 
stand. This gutter slopes towards a sink covered with 
an iron grate, which communicates by a broad arched 
drain with a vaulted tank, into which all the lquid 
flows. The gutter is washed clean twice a day before 
the cows are milked. The cows stand or he on a 
sloping brick floor, and have but a small quantity of 
litter allowed them, which is removed every day, and 
carried to the dung-heap or to the pig-styes. When- 
ever the litter is removed, the bricks are swept clean, 
and in summer they are washed with water. The man- 
ner in which the cows are fastened is singular :-—l'wo 
slight pillars of strong wood are placed perpendicu- 
larly, about two feet distance from each other, so that 
the cow can readily pass her head between them. On 
each of these is aniron ring, which runs freely up and 
down, and has a hook in its circumference ; two small 
chains pass from the hooks to a leather strap which 
is buckled round the neck of the cow. Thus the cow 
can rise and lie down, and move forward to take her 
food, which is placed in a low manger before the two 
a but she cannot strike her neighbour with her 
10rns. 


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Section of the above. 


We must now return from our forenoon’s tour, and 
give a description of the metropolitan establishment 
which we first glanced at, the milking operations o1 
which recommence at twelve at noon. On entering 
the premises, the first buildings on the left hand are a 
counting-house, a measuring-room, and a dairy; of the 
two latter of which we shall speak presently. A. little 
beyond these, on the right, is the range of milking- 
sheds. Each shed is about a hundred and forty feet in 
length, by twenty-four in breadth, and, as before 
stated, is occupied by sixty-four cows. Along the 
middle of each shed is a drain, to carry off the water 
and refuse, and to keep the stalls clean. At the upper 
end of each stall is a trough, supphed with water trom 
large tanks above their level, and with a receptacle for 
food. An upright post is placed at each of the upper 
corners of the stall, to which the cow 1s fastened bya 
ring connected with a chain passmg round her neck. 
Near one end of these sheds is a square plot of ground 
called the ‘ dung-shoot,’ a most valuable part of the 
property. The refuse and clearings of the cow-sheds 
are here emptied, at stated times of the day, by which 
a store of manure is collected, the value of which is 
duly appreciated by agriculturists. A path has been 
formed by which carts may come from the open road 
to this spot for the removal of the manure. 

From these sheds we will cross to the leit of the 


SUPPLEMENT. | THE PENNY 
buildings of the establishment, spread over an area of 
sixteen acres. There is here much appearance of a 
farm-yard ; fowls roaming about in one part, and pigs 
housed in another, all being reared and fattened ata 
trifling expense. Of the four or five hundred cows 
kept in the dairy, many vary greatly in the supply of 
milk which they afford, according to their age, the state 
of their health, the season of the year, &c.; and the 
demand for milk on the part of customers is also 
slightly variable. From these circumstances it often 
results that the daily supply of milk may be more than 
equal to the demand; and the overplus, as well as the 
buttermilk resulting from the butter made at the dairy, 
is then profitably used as food for swine. The pigs, 
which are very numerous, are kept in well-constructed 
piggeries, presenting none of that dirty appearance 
which disfigures pig-styes in common farm-yards. 
Adjacent to the piggeries is a mixing-room, in which 
the milk destined for the pigs is mixed with such solid 
food as may be given to them: the mixture is effected 
in large wooden vessels, from which the food is con- 
veyed to the piggeries. 

Not far from the piggeries are several workshops 
for operations connected with the establishment. One 
is a wheelwright’s shop, for repairing the numerous 
carts and vehicles employed. A second is a smith’s 
shop, for the repair and adjustment of iron-work. A 
third is a shoeing-shop, for shoeing oxen employed in 
the team. For the better understanding the use of 
many parts of this establishment, it may be desir- 
able to observe that the proprietor, Mr. Flight (Mr, 
Laycock has been dead several years), is a cow- 
farmer as well as a cow-keeper; that is, he not only 
keeps the cows for the sake of their milk, but 
grows the food on which they are ina great mea- 
sure fed. He possesses two or three very extensive 
farms, at some distance from London, where the hay, 
turnips, mangel-wurzel, and other articles of cattle- 
food, are grown in sufficient abundance for the wants 
of the dairy. This extensive plan of operations is pro- 
ductive of much advantage, for while on the one hand 
the farms supply food to the dairy, the dairy supplies 
manure to the farms. The farm-implements, too, can 
be repaired at the workshops connected with the dairy; 
and the oxen, employed in the teams at the farms, are 
shod by the proprietors own men. For these and 
various other reasons a constant intercourse is main- 
tained between the dairy and the farms, one of which 
is at Enfield. 

Near the buildings just spoken of there isa tank, 
for Kyanizing wood intended for palings, stakes, posts, 
gates, &c.; and adjacent to this is a kitchen-garden. 
From this point, extending to the boundary of the pre- 
inises on the west, are the buildings called cattle layers, 
unconnected with the dairy or milk department of the 
establishment, but devoted to the reception of cattle 
for a few hours previous to their arrival at Smithfield 
market. We shall presently explain the nature of 
this system; but we may here state that the ‘ layers’ 
are very extensive sheds, bounded by walls at the back 
and ends, roofed with tiles, supported by pillars, some 
iron and some wood, and open in front. A rack runs 
along the back of each shed, in which the food for the 
cattle is placed. ‘Tanks of water, supplied by pipes 
and cocks from three or four pumps situated in differ- 
ent parts of the premises, are conveniently placed for 
affording drink for the cattle. The ground is covered 
with clean straw; and the cattle, during the short 
time that they are kept here, have a considerable space 
of open ground in which to roam about; gates being 
placed at the different openings to prevent the cattle 
in one layer from mingling with those in another. 
The number of cattle which could be contained in 
these layers would amount to several thousands; but 


MAGAZINE. 301 
nearly two thousand can be properly and conveniently 
received at one time. 

When we turn from Upper Street, Islington, into 
what is called the Liverpool Road, and proceed on- 
ward for a considerabie distance, we come to the 
western boundary of Laycock’s establishment; and 
within this boundary 1s the principal part of the cattle 
layers. Jn order to keep this part of the establishment 
distinct from the dairy, the cattle enter and leave the 
layers by a gate in the Liverpool Road, far distant 
from the dairy entrance im the IJshngton Road. 

Northward of the cattle-layers is a tract cf ground 
occupied by sheep-pens, in which five thousand sheep 
on their way to Smithfield may be received. Return- 
ing from thence towards the dairy entrance, we passa 
plot of ground in which are four very large grain-pits. 
One of the most important articles of food for the cows 
in the large London dairies is the grains, or spent 
malt, resulting from the process of brewing. The 
proprietor of this establishment contracts with one of 
the great porter breweries for the purchase of the 
refuse grains; and these grains (brought from the 
brewery in waggons belonging to the cow-keeper) are 
deposited in large brick-built pits; or rather, a portion 
of the supply is thus deposited, to equalise the stock 
on hand, because they are procurable in greater quan- 
tity from the brewers in spring and autumn than in 
the other seasons. The grains are firmly trodden 
down in the pits, and covered with a thick layer of 
moist earth, to keep out the rain and frost in winter, 
and the heatin summer. Mr. Youatt, spcaking of the 
general custom of the London dairies with respect to 
this article of food, says, ‘““ A cow consumes about a 
bushel of these grains daily, the cost of which is from 
fourpence to fivepence, exclusive of carriage and pre- 
servation. The grains are, 1f possible, thrown into the 
pit while warm and in a state of fermentation, and they 
soon turn sour, but they are not liked the worse by 
cattle on that account; and the air being perfectly ex- 
cluded, the fermentation cannot run on to putrefaction. 
The dairymen say that the slow and slight degree of 
fermentation which goes on tends to the greater 
development of the saccharine and nutritive principle; 
and they will have as large a stock upon hand as they 
can afford, and not open the pits until they are com- 
pelled. It is not uncommon for two years to pass 
before a pit of grains is touched; and it is said that 
some have lain nine years, and been periectly good at 
the expiration of that period.” _ 

Between the grain-beds and the milking-sheds are 
various buildings devoted to different purposes. One 
isa mill-room, for grinding or crushing the dry food 
occasionally given to the cows, such as beans, &c.; the 
mills and crushing-machines are worked by a horse, 
who tramps his never-ending circular path in a room 
beneath. Other buildings are employed as granaries, 
and as receptacles for the food eaten by the cows. 
When turnips or mangel-wurzel are at the proper 
season to be used as food, each cow will eat half a 
hundredweight per day, besides a bushel of grains, 
and a small quantity of other food, so that the quantity 
required for the whole dairy amounts to several tons 
weight per day. - 

Another cluster of buildings is appropriated as an 
hospital. Among several hundred cows 1t cannot but 
happen that some will occasionally be on the sick list ; 
and for their accommodation about a dozen neatly 
constructed stalls, or boxes—we certainly must not 
call them sheds—are set apart. Each stall is fitted up 
as comfortably as possible for the invahd ; and the 
necessary tackle is at hand for securing the animal 
when any operation is to be performed. A veterinary 
surgeon is attached to the establishment, under whom 
is placed not only the management of the cows in the 


302 


hospital, but the general care of the health of all those 
belonging to the dairy. ‘The average value of a cow 
is, we believe, about twenty pounds, so that the whole 
constitute a property well worthy of careful super- 
vision. 

Besides the six milking-sheds before alluded to, 
there are two or three others, situated not far distant, 
and under different roofs. These are to a greater or 
less extent occupied, according to the number of cows 
in the dairy, which varies in different seasons. One 
large shed, more lofty than the rest, is devoted to the 
reception of those cows who are no longer being 
milked, but are under process of fattening for the 
Smithfield market. This is a very remarkable feature 
in these establishinents. Instead of keeping a cow as 
long as milk may be drawn from her, there is a mini- 
mum of supply, below which the cow is not deemed to 
yleld what is required of her. ‘The cows are thus very 
frequently changed; they are bought for the dairy 
when they are in good milking condition, milked for 
acertain length of time, taken to the fattening-shed 
while still comparatively young, and sold in Smithfield 
at a price which renders this plan more profitable than 
the retention of a milch cow till she 1s old. Consider- 
able diversity of system prevails in this respect, for it is 
not till experiments on a large scale can be made, that 
the most profitable management of a cow can be de- 
termined. The expense of purchasing the cow, of 
feeding her during her continuance in the dairy, and 
of fattening her for market, as well as the produce of 
the dairy, and of the fattened cow, all vary with the 
circumstances under which the cow-keeper conducts 
his establishment, and with the locality in which he is 
situated ; and these diversities give rise to the different 
systems observed in different dairies. We shall, there- 
fore, merely state, that when it is determined to fatten 
a cow for market, she is fed on grains, clover-chaff, 
oil-cake, and, in some instances, boiled linseed. Oil- 
cake is the residue obtained after expressing the. oil 
from rape and linseed ; it is, in fact, the seed after the 
greater portion of the oil has been removed from it, 
and is found to possess a remarkable fattening quality 
when given to cows. 

{t will be seen, from the above description, that the 
establishment embraces several different departments ; 
but the most prominent of these is that by which 
families are supplied with milk. Milk is one of the 
few articles of consumption which is almost invariably 
taken to the customer, and not sent for by the cus- 
tomer to the seller; and the retail sellers, with 
their brightly polished cans, decked round the edge 
with a whole regiment of little cans and measures, are 
welcome contributors to the breakfast-table. It has 
been recently observed, “The cry of ‘inilk,’ or the 
rattle of the milk-pail, will never cease to be heard in 
our streets. There can be no reservoirs of milk, no 
pipes through which it flows into the houses. The 
more extensive the great capital becomes, the more 
active inust be the individual exertion to carry about 
this article of food. The old cry was, ‘Any milk here?” 
and it was sometimes mingled with the sound of ‘ Fresh 
cheese and cream; and it then passed into ‘ Milk, 
maids below ;? and it was then shortened into ‘ Milk, 
below ; and was finally shortened into ‘ Mio,’ which 
some wag interpreted into m-eau (demt-eau), half- 
water. But it must still be cried, whatever be the 
cry. The supply of milk to the metropolis is, perhaps, 
one of the most beautiful combinations of industry we 
have. The days are long since past when Finsbury 
had its pleasant groves, and Clerkenwell was a vil- 
lage, and there were green pastures in Holborn, and 
st. Pancras boasted only a little church standing in 


meadows, and St. Martin’s was literally in the fields. | 
Slowly but surely does the baked clay stride over the | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[JuLy, 1841. 


clever and the buttercup; and yet every family in 
London may be supplied with milk by eight o’clock 
every morning at their own doors.’’* ! 

These itinerant milk-dealers, as was observed in the 
early part of this paper, are of two classes, viz. those 
who keep cows and retail the produce, and those 
who purchase milk from the large dairies such as 
Laycock’s. In this latter mode of dealing, the pur- 
chaser agrees to give so much per gallon, and to milk 
the cows necessary to produce the required quantity. 
The milkers, therefore, whom we see at the dairy, are 
not, generally speaking, attached to the establishment, 
but are either the purchasers of the milk or are sent 
by the purchasers. As the cows do not always yield 
an equal quantity of milk, the milkers may sometimes 
take more and at other times less than the stipulated 
quantity; and, in order to adjust the quantity, each 
milker takes the milk which she has drawn to the 
‘measuring-room, where it is measured. If the 
quantity be more than agreed on, a portion 1s emptied 
into a store-vessel in the measuring-room ; whereas, if 
it be less, the requisite quantity 1s added from the 
store-vessel. A clerk and a dairy-woman are in at- 
tendance to superintend these arrangements. 

The quality of the milk supplied to London families 
varies a good deal, according to the source from whence 
itis obtained. From the great dairies all the milk is 
sent out in a pure and rich state ; for the retail dealers 
carry it away in their cans in the same state and nearly 
as warm as when it leaves the cow; while for private 
families in the neighbourhood of Ishngton, supplied 
directly from the dairy, the milk is sent out in cans 
securely locked by the clerk, so that no adulteration 
can be effected by the carriers. On this point Mr. 
Youatt observes, “The name of new milk has sorme- 
thing very pleasant about it, but it is an article which 
rarely makes its appearance at the breakfast or tea- 
table of the citizen. That which is got from the cow 
at night is put by until the morning, and the cream 
skimmed off, and then, a little water being added, it 
is sold to the public as the morning’s milk. The real 
morning’s milk isalso put by and skimmed, and, being 
warined a little, 1s sold as the evening’s milk. This is 
the practice of most or all of the little dairymen who 
keep their half a dozen cows; and if this were all 
(and with these people it is nearly all), the public must 
not complain ; the milk may be lowered by the warm 
water, but the lowering system is not carried to any 
great extent, for there is 4 pride among them that 
their milk shall be !better than that of the merchants 
ona yet smaller scale, who purchase the article from 
the great dairies; and so it generally is. The milk 
goes from the yard of the great dairy into the posses- 
sion of the itinerant dealers perfectly pure: what is 
done with it afterwards, and to what degree it is 
lowered and sophisticated, is known only to these retail 
merchants.” 

It has been estimated that about twelve thousand 
cows are necessary for the supply of London and its 
environs with milk, and that, taking the average quan- 
tity yielded by each cow throughout the year at nine 
quarts per day, the total quantity is about forty million 
quarts per annum. Considering that this milk Is 
usually sold by the retail dealers at four-pence per 
quart, after much of the cream is removed from it, 
that this cream is sold at three shillings per quart, 
and that a good deal of water is mixed with the 
milk by some dealers, it has been calculated that at 
least six-pence per quart is paid by the consumer for 
the real pure milk. This gives for the value of the 
milk consumed in the metropolis an annual sum very 
little short of one million sterling. 


* < London,’ No. viil., ‘Street Noises,’ p. 157, 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


Since, from various causes, the daily supply of milk 
at the great dairies is hable to fluctuation, while at the 
same time it is necessary that the supply should not 
be lower than the demand, 1t follows that there is often 
a superfluous quantity of milk after all the dealers are 
supplied. To turn this milk to profitable account, a 
dairy or butter-room 1s attached to the establishment. 
At Laycock’s, this room is near the measuring-room ; 
it is fitted up with the various vessels and implements 
for making butter, all—as may be supposed—scrupu- 
lously clean. ‘The higher classes of families in London 
use a great deal of cream instead of milk; and’large 
shallow vessels are also kept in this room for forming 
cream from the milk. The quantity of butter made 
here within a given time varies with the fluctuation in 
the supply of milk; but a ready market is found for 
all of it. The butter-milk and skim-mulk are profitably 
employed as food for swine in the piggeries ; so that 
the whole produce is brought into requisition. 

The greater part of the observations which we have 
made respecting Laycock’s dairy may, with a little 
modification, be applied to another large and well- 
known establishment at Islington, viz., that of the 
Messrs. Rhodes. Here, as at the other, several hun- 
dred cows are kept, principally for the supply of retail 
dealers: the superfluous milk is skimmed for cream, 
or is made into butter; and the cows, when dry, are 
fattened for market. There are slight differences in 
the dairy management, according to the view which 
each proprietor may take of his own interest, such as 
the arrangement and fitting-up of the cow-sheds, the 
mode of supplying water, the degree of liberty of 
movement given to the cows between the hours of 
milking, and the general system of feeding ; but the 
main features of the cstablishments bear a good deal 
of resemblance. 

During the “joint-stock” mania, by which the world 
was to be supplied with almost everything through 
the medium of public companies, m2/Rk did not escape 
the notice of the speculators. Public companies were 
established both in Edinburgh and in London for the 
supply of milk. The “Caledonian Joint-Stock Dairy 
Company” built a very noble dairy or cow-house at 
Edinburgh. From an entrance saloon the visitor 
passed into the great byre or cow-house, divided by 
cast-iron pillars and partitions into stalls for two hun- 
dred cows. The byre was thirty feet high, and from 
its centre rose a large dome, for “the purpose of light 
and ventilation. The drinking-troughs were of stone, 
aud were supplied with water by pipes. Beneath the 
byre was a range of arched vaults, for the reception of 
the litter and refuse. This company, hke most of a 
similar kind, failed as a commercial body; and the 
building was, we believe, afterwards taken bya private 
dairyman. The London establishments set on foot in 
the same manner, have similarly failed as joint-stock 
speculations. 

With respect to the fattening of dry cows for the 
butcher, we may observe that other parties do this 
besides the farmer and the cow-kceper. Connected 
with one or two extensive distilleries are establish- 
ments for fattening cows and cattle generally, formed 
for the purpose of consuming on the spot the grains 
and wash of the distillery. These grains are much 
more nutritive to cattle than those resulting from ale 
or porter brewing ; and the wash, a hquor remaining 
after the distillation of spirit from grain, is found to 
be conducive to the same end. Under these circum- 
stances, the cattle are fattened almost entirely on 
clover-chaff, grains, and wash. 

There is one feature at Laycock’s establishment 
which is not met with at other dairies, and which ac- 
counts for the large area of ground included within it; 
viz., the catile layers. When a joint of beef 1s pur- 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 303 
chased for a London table, we little think how long a 
distance the animal which contributed it travelled 
before reaching Smithfield market. A very large 
number of oxen from the midland counties find their 
way to Smithfield every Monday and Friday; but per- 
haps the Scotch black cattle furmish the most remark- 
able instance of change of abode. The system pur- 
sued with respect to these cattle is worthy of a brief 
notice. 

Most of the cattle (middle-horns) bred in the He- 
brides are sent to the mainland of Scotland to be 
fattened for the market. At the ferry of Kyle Rhea, 
for example, six or seven thousand annually pass over 
from the islands to the mainland. They are not ferried 
in boats, but by means of ropes about a yard in length, 
with a noose at each end, one of which 1s tied to the 
tail of the beast that is to swim before, and the other 
round the jaw and under the tongue of the next; and 
the beasts are thus connected together until there is a 
string of six or eight. The time of high-water is 
chosen, when, although the passage is wider, there is 
less current. The beasts are led into the water as 
quietly as possible until they are afloat, when they imme- 
diately cease to resist ; then the man at the stern of the 
ferry-boat taking hold of the rope that holds the fore- 
most beast, the vessel is rowed steadily across. The 
cattle being thus landed, they, as well as other cattle 
reared in the mainland, are sold to drovers trom the 
south, at what are called trysts. These trysts are 
not fairs or markets appointed by public authority, but 
by concert among the dealers. These drovers make 
their appearance in the Highlands about the end of 
April or the beginning of May, and give notice that on 
a particular day, and at some central place in the dis- 
trict, they will be ready to purchase. At the market 
or tryst thus appointed, the sellers and the drovers mect 
and bargain for the disposal of cattle, the price being 
regulated, as in other instances, principally by.the re- 
lation between supply and demand. During the suwn- 
mer these trysts are occasionally held, and the cattle 
bought there are pastured in southern districts. 

The black cattle lately alluded to do not come from 
the Hebrides; but the steps by which they reach Lon- 
don are not the less curious. The district of Galloway, 
at the south-western part of Scotland, contains a breed 
of polled or hornless cattle, highly valued for their 
erazing qualities; and these cattle are fattened in the 
Norfolk or Suffolk pastures for the London market. 
It is said that nearly one-half of the beasts which supply 
the metropolis come from these pastures; a large pro- 
portion being the Galloway black cattle. This transfer 
sives rise to an extensive system of dealing between 
the Scotch graziers on one hand, and the Norfolk and 
Suffolk graziers on the other. Of one set of dealers 
who only carry the cattle to the northern countics of 
England, Mr. Ross says :—‘ A mountaineer will travel 
from fair to fair for thirty miles round, with no other 
food than the oaten cake which he carries with him, 
and which requires neither fire, table, knife, nor other 
instrument to use. He will lay out the whole, or per- 
haps treble of all he is worth (to which the facility of the 
country banks is a great encouragement), in the pur- 
chase of thirty or a hundred head of cattle, with which, 
when collected, he sets out for England, a country 
with the roads, manners, and inhabitants of which he is 
totally unacquainted. In this journey he scarcely ever 
eoes into a house, sleeps but little, and then generally 
in the open air, and lives chiefly upon his favourite 
oaten bread. If he fails of disposing of his cattle at the 
fair of Carlisle, the usual place of sale, he is probably 
ruined, and has to begin the world, as he terms it, over 
again. If he succeeds, he returns home only to com- 


| mence a new wandering and anew labour, and is read 


in about a month perhaps to set out again to England.” 


304 


Sir Walter Scott’s tale of the ‘Two Drovers’ gives a 
graphic picture of the mode of life followed by these 
men. But the mode ef transference to the Norfolk 
and Suffolk pastures is on a more regular system, and 
is managed thus:+-The chief sales for the southern 
markets take place in September and October. The 
cattle are sent off in droves numbering from two te 
three hundred, under the charge of a person called the 
topsman, who generally precedes the drove to see that 
erass is secured at proper stations, and to make all ne- 
cessary arrangements. He has under him other 
drovers, in the proportion of one to about thirty head 
of cattle. The journey to Norfolk occupies about 
three weeks. The expense in summer and autumn 1s 
from twenty to twenty-four shillings per head; and in 
winter, when they are fed with hay, the cost is ten or 
fifteen shillings per head additional. The cattle are 
purchased and paid for by the drovers, sometimes in 
cash; but more generally a part of the price is paid in 
bills, and sometimes the whole of it. In some in- 
stances, where the farmer has confidence in the drover, 
he consents that the purchase-money shall be remitted 
from Norwich, or that the money shall be paid when 
the drover returns to Galloway. On the 17th of Oc- 
tober, a cattle-fair is held at the village of St. Faith’s, 
near Norwich; and at this fair, which is one of the 
largest cattle:fairs in the kingdom, the Norfolk graziers 
purchase the Galloway cattle from the drovers. The 
drover considers himself well paid, if, every expense 
of the journey being discharged, he clears from half a 
crown to five shillings per head; and when he has 
either money or credit to take a very large drove, this 
rate of profit yiclds a good remuneration. The Norfolk 
farmer then keeps the cattle several months on his pas- 
tures, feeding them principally on turnips, and deriving 
no trifling profit from the manure which they yield. 
The Suffolk graziers pursue nearly the same plan as 


those of Norfolk; and in the spring and early part of | 


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the summer, the droves, very much fatter than when 
they left Galloway, proceed on their journey to London. 
We have described this system in the present tense for 
convenicnce; but the extensive use of steam-boats and 
rallroads has made, and is still making, important 
changes in the modes of conveying cattle from place 
to place. 

_ It1is to form a quiet resting-place for cattle, brought 
in some such way as this from the northern districts, that 
cattle layers are provided at the outskirts of London. 
The cattle are ready for the salesman at Smithficld by 
an early hour on Monday and Friday mornings, but 
they arrive in the neighbourhood of London one day 
prior. The grazier agrees with the proprietor of the 
cattle layers for a few hours’ shelter. for the cattle, at a 
charge of a few pence per head. Fodder is supplied 
to the cattle at a stipulated price; and the manure 
given by the animals forms no inconsiderable an article 
of profit to the proprietor of the layers: .' For such part 
of the cattle as may be milch cows, -thée agreement is 
such that the layer-proprietor has-the milk given by 
them during the time of their sojourn’; the milking is 
performed by his own people, and he has thus an op- 
portunity of testing the milking properties of the cows 
before they go to market, and of regulating his pur- 
chases thereby. Ata very early hour in the morning 
of Monday or Friday, or else late on the previous 
evening, the cattle leave the layers, and procecd to 
Smithfield, where they finally pass into the hands of the 
butchers of the metropolis and its environs. 

The reader will thus see that much curious informa- 
tion may be obtained from an inquiry into the dairy 
system of the metropolis. Many of the points which have 
been slightly touched on here might be further eluci- 
dated by referring to a few of our past articles, such 
as the “Supply ot Food to large Towns,” the “Che- 
inical Properties of Milk,” the “ Making of Butter and 
Cheese,” and the notices of “ British Cattle.” 


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Mornitere and his Localities. 


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the River. ‘The Medallion to the left contains a 


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hi a poitrait of Moliére, from a picture by Garneray; and that on the right, Louis XIV., from a print by Gaul- 
tier. At bottom—Moliére reading a MS. play to bis servant, from a French design.) ; 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. 
MoLtiERE. 
Ricw as our literature is in dramatic composition, it 
can boast of no comic writer exeept Shakspere who, 
on the whole, can be said to equal the great French 
dramatist. To the wit, humour, and forcible satire 
of the best of our own authors, he-adds a just and 
piercing insight into all the varieties of human cha- 
racter, which they did not possess. This is Moliére’s 
great glory; but itis notall. The wittiest of Enelish 
dramatists, of Moliére’s age, are also the most licentious, 


and the least imbued with any high moral purpose; 


No. 6U0. 


Moliére, on the contrary, shows throughout his works 
a purity of feeling and principle; there 1s nothing in 
them to offend the ear of modesty; sobriety and vir- 
tue are there never made ridiculous or contemptible. 
Moliére’s proper name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin, 
and he continued to be called by that appellation till 
he joined the theatre as a performer, when he assumed 
the one by which he was to be so honourably shown to 
the world. He was born at Paris in 1622. His father 
was 2 tapissier, that is to say, a maker of tapestry, or 
perhaps, as he might be more correctly described, an 
upholsterer. THis father held the office of “ valet de 


Vo I, ° > ae Rt 


309 


306 jh LESS y 
chambre de tapissier” to Louis XIII. The boy was 
to have learnt the same trade, and remained therefore 
ii his father’s shop till he was about fourteen years old. 
Up to that time his education was hmited to instruc- 
tion in reading and writing. Dr. Johnson’s definition 
of ‘a true genius,” as “a mind of large general powers 
accidentally determined in some particular direction,” 
receives a felicitous illustration from the life of Mohiere. 
He hada grandfather who was much attached to him, 
and often took him to one of the theatres of the metro- 
polis. The impression thus made on the youthful 
Poquelin’s mind was deepened by his relative’s often 
expressed wish that his grandson might become a cele- 
brated actor. He became disgusted with his trade, 
and, what was of more importance as showing that 
some high thoughts were at work within him, with 
his ignorance. Returning one day from the theatre 
ereatly depressed in spirits, his father inquired the rea- 
son, and then first became aware how ardently his son 
desired a better education than he had received. The 
grandfather joined his entreaties to the youth’s, and 
they were happily successful. He was sent to the college 
of Clermont, under the care of the Jesuits, and there 
remained for-four or five years. On leaving Clermont 
in 1641, he was obliged to fulfil his father’s office about 
the king, and in the performance of this duty accom- 
panied Louis in the expedition that resulted in the 
capture of Perpignan from the Spaniards. Nothing is 
known of his course from this time to the year 1645, 
when we find him, under the name of Moliére, per- 
forming with a company of citizens in the Faubourg 
St. Germain, who at first made no charge for admis- 
sion, but subsequently endeavoured to combine profit 
with pleasure in the ordinary mode: they were, how- 
ever, unsuccessful. Another gap here occurs in Mo- 
liére’s biography ; but when we next meet with him it 
is under circumstances that show how greatly the in- 
terval had been improved. In 1653 we find him at 
the head of a company in Languedoc, whither he had 
been invited by the Prince of Conti, who was struck 
With his histrionic talents. 

From Languedoc he went to Lyon, where in the 
same year he produced his first play, ‘ L’Etourdi,’ with 
such success that two other theatrical companies Joined 
him. In 1654 he returned to Languedoc, and brought 
out his second piece, ‘ Le Dépit Amoureux,’ which was 
also successful. The Prince of Conti now made him 
director of the entertainments he gave in the province ; 
and valued him so highly both as a dramatist anda 
man, that he treated him asa personal friend, and 
offered him the post of private secretary. Moliére by 
this tune knew beyond the possibility of mistake the 
“direction” in which his “ genius” was to be directed, 
so he declined the flattering offer ; observing, “ [ama 
tolerable author, but J should make a very bad secre- 
tary.” After playing at Grenoble and Rouen, the com- 
pany finally settled at Paris, where Moliére was intro- 
duced to the king Louis XIV., before whom they 
played the tragedy of ‘ Nicoméde’ in 1658, ata theatre 
erected in the grand hall of the old Louvre. At the 
close of the piece Moliére came forward and observed, 
in reference to the superior company that was in the 
habit of playing before the king, that they were but 
faint copies of excellent originals, and hoped that his 
majesty: would allow them to play one of the little 
comie pieces which had been so successful in the pro- 
vinces. Louis consented, and the piece, which was one 
of those early works of the dramatist that have been 
lost, gave great satisfaction. The king desired them 
to stay in Paris, and gave them the title of “Troupe de 
Monsieur.” The same year ‘ L'Etourdi’ and ‘ Le 
Dépit Amoureux’ were played with great applause 


befure a Parisian audience; in 1659 his celebrated | order in their favour, and 


‘Précieuses Ridicules’ appeared, and was received | 


MAGAZINE. (AuGust 7, 
with such uncommon favour that the prices of admis- 
sion were trebled on the second performance, and the 
piece under these circumstances continued to be 
played for four months. The design of this play was 
to ridicule those ladies, called Précieuses, who in- 
dulged in an affected mode of talking peculiar to the 
time. Moliére’s reputation as a great dramatist com- 
menced with this piece. To us it may appear little 
better than a farce, but the Parisians beheld in it the: 
advent of an author in every way qualified to represent. 
boldly and strikingly the prevailing manners and cha-. 
racter. 

From this time Moliére’s comedies followed one an-- 
other in rapid succession: we need only notice those: 
which have some interesting circumstance connected 
with them. In 1662 appeared the ‘ Ecole des kemmes,’ 
the principal character of which, Agnes, is the original 
of Wycherley’s character of Mrs. Pinchwife, in_the 
‘Country Wife.’ It was not very successful; and Mo- 
liére, indignant at what he conceived to be the injustice 
with which it had been treated, wrote another piece, 
entitled ‘ La Critique de I’Ecole des Femmes,’ in which: 
he held up its opponents to public derision. This was: 
received with great applause. * td seis de Ver- 
sailles,’ produced the same year, is noticeable from its: 
having been preceded by a poem of thanks to the king 
for a pension of one thousand livres which had been 
eranted to him. Moliére was now held in high esteem 
at the court; so much so, indeed, that the king, it is 
stated, on one occasion, sat down with him at the same 
table, in order to shame some of his officers, who treated 
the dramatist with haughty coolness. His prosperity 
was about this time clouded by domestic unhappiness. 
He married Armande Bejart, a young lady of seven- 
teen, whose coquetry and levity kept him in continual 
inquietude. With true wisdom, he lessened the evil 
he could not get rid of, by pursuing his literary labours 
with increased assiduity ; and various new plays soon 
appeared. In 1665 the king took Moheére'’s company 
into his own service, conferred upon it the title of 
“Troupe du Roi,” and a pension of 7000 livres. In the 
following year appeared a humorous attack on the phy- 
sicians, called ‘ Le Médicin malgré lui,’ which is well 
known on the English stage by Fielding’s version of 
it, entitled ‘The Mock Doctor.’ But the play by which 
English audiences are best acquainted with Moliére is 
the ‘ Hypocrite,’ an imitation of ‘ Le Tartuffe, which 
was first played about this period. The more bigoted 
part of the people of Paris were so enraged at the ex- 
posures of this piece, that they made the most earnest 
representation to the king against it, and succeeded 
in obtaining an order from Louis, stopping its per- 
formance with the first night. Moliére soon convinced 
the king of the injustice of such an order, and induced 
him to revoke it; but for the present, he himself post- 
poned any further representation. At this very time, 
a profane farce was having a considerable run ; which 
induced Louis to express his wonder to the Prince of 
Condé at the very different treatment shown to the two 
new pieces. ‘In the farce,” replied the prince, “ re- 
ligion only is ridiculed; but Moliére, in the ‘ Tartuffe,’ 
has attacked even the priests.” When the play was 
a second time announced, the theatre was crowded to 
excess; but just as the actors were about to commence, 
a prohibitory order arrived from the parties who held 
authority during the king’s absence in Flanders, to the 
ereat indignation of the audience, and the pleasure of 
the fanatics, who had once more succeeded in stopping 
the performance. Moliére instantlyreturned the spec- 
tators their money, extinguished the lights, and without 
a IMoment’s delay despatched two of the company to the 
king to solicit his protection. They returned with an 
‘Le Tartuffe ’ commenced 
a career of uninterrupted success. 


1841.] 


The same year, 1672, which beheld Mohére produce 
one of the best of his comedies, his ‘'emmes Savantes,’ 
witnessed also his reconciliation with his wife, after a 
long estrangement. About the same time he quitted 
a milk diet, to which he had long restricted himself, on 
account of a complaint in the chest, and allowed him- 
‘self animal food. This increased his complaint; but 
he was now cngaged on one of the most amusing of his 
pieces, ‘ Le Malade Imaginaire’ (another and still more 
‘severe attack on the physicians); and he worked on with 
great industry till it was completed. It was produced 
in 1673, we need scarcely say with complete success. Mo- 
hére played the principal part, Argan. On the third day 
‘of the performance, he complained that the pain in his 
‘chest had much increased, and his wife and Baron 
the actor endeavoured to persuade him not to play. 
‘«* And what, then,” said Mohere, with that thoughtful- 
ness and goodness of heart which was so conspicuous 
in him through life, “is to become of my poor per- 
formers?- I should reproach myself if I negiccted 
them a single day.” So Mohiére played that mht, 
‘and for the last time. The circumstances of his death 
were painfully interesting. The character he had to 
perform, at one period of the piece, pretends to be 
dead, and it was a generally reccived opinion for some 
time that Moliére died at this precise moment ; so that 
when he should have shown to the persons whom 
‘Argan had intended to deceive, that it was only a feint, 
the actor lay motionless in real death. The poets could 
not afford to lose so striking an incident merely from 
the consideration that it might be untrue, so, without 
inquiry, they sent forth a variety of effusions to com- 
‘memorate it. The best has been thus translated :— 


‘ Here Moliére’ hes, the Roscius of his age, 
Whose pleasure while he lived was to engage 
With human nature ina comic strife, 

And personate her actions to the hfe. 

But surly Death, offended at his play, 

Would not be joked with in so free a way; 

He, when he mimick’d hin, his voice restrain’d, 
_And made him act in earnest what he feign’d.” 


Moliére, however, did not die under such distressing 
‘circumstances; a convulsion seized him during the 
pee ree which he endeavoured to conceal by a 
augh. As soon as the piece was over, he went into 
Baron’s box in the front of the house, who remarked 
that he appeared worse than ordinary: his hands in 
particular were very cold. Baron accompanied him 
home, where blood began to flow from his mouth, 
which at length suffocated him. He died on the 
17th of February, 1673. One can scarcely now hear 
‘without indignation that a man so distinguished for 
‘his brilliant and well exercised talents, for the recti- 
‘tude of his principles and the kindliness of his heart, 
‘for everything in short that could make a man worthy 
of the love, respect, and admiration of his fellow-men, 
should have been denied the rites of sepulture ; yet 
‘such was the fact; and it was only by the direct inter- 
ference of the king, that the archbishop of Paris was 
induced to consent that he should be buried in conse- 
crated ground ; and then the consent was clogged with 
the paltry and ridiculous restriction that the ceremony 
should be performed without any pomp. The great 
dramatist was accordingly buried by two priests, with 
“maimed rites,” in the cemetery behind the chapcl of 
St. Joseph, Ruc Montmartre. The restriction could 
not prevent a goodly assemblage of Moliére’s friends, 
who assembled to do him the last honours, each bearing 
‘a flambeau. 
her feelings, cried out, “ What! will they refuse burial 
to a man who deserves an altar?” That very morning 
she had becn obliged to appease an infuriated mob 
assembled round the door, by flinging money among 
them! About the close of the last century, the place 


THE PENNY 


orange is wrapped before it is placed in the boxes. 


His widow. in the natural excitement of 


MAGAZINE. 307 
of Moliére’s interment was pulled down, and his re- 
inains removed to the garden of the Museum of the 
Academy. There they rest in honoured repose. His 
countrymen, however, are now about erecting a monu- 
meut to his memory. It has been designed by M. 
Visconti, and will be placed in the Rue de Richcticu. 
‘The monument will consist of a niche with two de- 
tached columns on cach side, surmounted by a semi- 
circular pediment, ornamented with sculpture and 
dramatic attributes. ©The statue of Molheére will be 
placed in the niche on a semicircular pedestal, in a 
sitting posture, and in the attitude of meditation. On 
each side of the statue, in front of the columns, wil] 
be allegorical figures with extended wings, represent- 
ing—one the gay, and the other the serious, character 
of his plays. The basement will be ornamented with 
rich sculpture, and will bear two large masks throwing 
out water into a basin. The principal inscriptions 
will be as follows:—On the pediment, the words, ‘ A 
Moliére ; on the sides of the pedestal, ‘ Né a Paris, le 
15 Janvier, 1622; et mort a Paris, le Fevrier, 1673.’ 
The titles of his different comedies will also be in- 
scribed on the pedestal. It is expected that the in- 
auguration of the monument may take place on the 
17th February, the anniversary of Moliére’s death.” 

We conclude with a short anecdote which is inter- 
esting as affording a glimpse into the habits of compo- 
sition of this distinguished writer. He is said to have 
been accustomed to read his comedies before per- 
formance toa favourite servant or housckeeper, named 
Laforct, and when he perceived that the passages 
which he intended to be humorous and laughable had 
no effect upon her, he altered them. The same kind 
of principle may be observed in another recorded habit 
of his, that of requesting the actors to bring their 
children to the rehearsal of a new piece, that he 
might judge of the effect of particular passages by 
the natural emotions they raised in their minds. 


Mode of Packing the St. Michael Oranges.—Walked this 
morning to an orange-garden beyond the little village of Ribeira 
Secca. At its entrance was a pathway with evergreen faya-trees 
on each side, meeting in arches overhead. Suddenly we came 
upon merry groups of men and boys, all busily engaged in 
packing oranges, in a square and open plot of ground. They 
were gathered round a goodly pile of the fresh fruit, sitting on 
heaps of the dry calyx-leaves of the Indian corn, in which each 
Near these 
circles of laughing Azoreans, who sat at their work and kept up 
a continued cross-fire of rapid repartee as they quickly filled the 
orange-cases, were a party of children, whose business it was to 
prepare the husks for the men, who used them in packing. A 
quantity of the leaves being heaped together near the packers, the 
operation began, A child handed to a workman, who squatted 
by the heap of fruit, a prepared husk; this was rapidly snatched 
from the child, wrapped round the orange by an intermediate 
workman, passed by the feeder to the next, who (sitting with the 
chest between his legs) placed it in the orange-box with amazing 
rapidity, took a second and a third and a fourth as fast as his 
hands could move, and the feeders could supply hun, until at 
length the chest. was filled to overflowing, and was ready to be 
nailed up. Two men then handed it to the carpenter, who bent 
over the orange-chest several thin boards, secured them with a 
willow band, pressed it with his naked feet as he sawed olf the 
ragged ends of the boards, and finally despatched it to the ass, 
which stood ready for lading.—A /Vinler in the Azores. 





Bouquets at Night.—At a recent lecture at the Royal Institu- 
tion, the fact was stated that flowers durmg the day gave out 
as, which supports life, and that durmg the night they 
emitted carbonic acid gas, one of the most deleterious and 
poisonous gases known. The headaches, aud other aches, usually 
following balls, &c., where it 1s now the fashion for the ladies 
to display large bouquets, may be caused in part by the gas 


2R2 


oxygen g 


emitted. 


308 | 
PUBLIC RECORDS OF ENGLAND. 


Recorps, in the legal sense of the term, are contem- 
poraneous statements of the proceedings in _ those 
higher courts of law which are distinguished as Courts 
of Record, written upon rolls of parchment. Matters 
enrolled amongst the proceedings of a court, but not 
connected with those proceedings, as deeds enrolled, 
&c., are not records, though they are sometimes in a 
loose sense said to be “ things recorded.” In a popular 
sense the term is applied to all public documents pre- 
served in a recognised repository; and as such docu- 
ments cannot conveniently be removed, or may be 
wanted in several places at the same time, the courts 
of law receive in evidence examined copies of the con- 
tents of public docuinents so preserved, as well as of 
real records. 

The course we propose to take, is to treat that as a 
record which is thus received in the courts of justice. 
The act, for instance, which abolished Henry VIII.’s 
court of augmentation (of the revenues obtained from 
the suppression of the religious houses), declared that 
its records, rolls, books, papers, and documents should 
thenceforth be held to be records of the Court of E:x- 
chequer ; and accordingly we have seen many a docu- 
ment, originally a mere private memorandum, elevated 
to the dignity of a public record, on the sole ground of 
its official custody, and received in evidence asa record 
of the Augmentation Office. On the other hand, num- 
bers of documents which were originally compiled as 
public records, having strayed from their legal repo- 
,sitory to the British Museum, have thereby lost 
their character of authenticity. (‘ Proceedings of the 
Privy Council,’ vol. v., p. 4, edited by Sir Harris 
Nicolas.) 

“ Our stores of public records,” says Bishop Nicol- 
son, and, we believe, with perfect accuracy, “ are justly 
reckoned to excel in age, beauty, correctness, and 
authority whatever the choicest archives abroad can 
boast of the like sort.” (Preface to the ‘English His- 
torical Library.”) Yet rich as our own country is 
beyond all others of modern Europe in the pessession 
of antient written memorials of all branches of its. 
government, constitutional, judicial, parhamentary, | 
and fiscal, memorials authenticated by all the solemn 
sanctions of authority, telling truly, though incidentally, 
the history of our progress as a people, and handed 
down in unbroken series through the period of nearly 
seven centuries—the subject of its public records now 
appears, we believe, for the first time m a work lke 
the present. The amount of public care given to this 
subject during the last forty years, is shown by the 
appomtment of successive commissions and parlia-— 
mentary committees of inquiry, by a cost, in one shape 
or another, amounting to little less thau a million of 
pounds sterling, and by the passing of an act of par- 
hament designed to effect a thorough change in the 
system of keeping and using the public records. 

By far the greater part of records are kept as rolls 
written on skins of parchment and vellum, averaging 
from nine to fourteen inches wide,* and about three 
feet in length. Two modes of fastening the skins or 
membranes were employed: that of attaching all the 
tops of the membranes together bookwise, as is em- 
ployed in the Exchequer and courts of common law; 
whilst that of sewing each membrane consecutively, 
like the rolls of the Jews, was adopted in the Chancery 
and Wardrobe. 

The solution of the reasons for employing two dif- 
ferent modes has been thought difficult by writers on 
the subject. It appears to have been simply a matter 
of convenience in both cases. The difference in the 


: a rolls of the Great Wardrobe exceed eightcen inches in 
wiath. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. _ 


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circumstances under which these rolls were formed 
accounts, we think, satisfactorily for the variation. of 
make. In the first case, each inrolinent was. often 
begun at one time and completed at another. Space 
for the completion of the entry must have been left at 
hazard. Besides, several scribes were certainly en- 
gaced in inrolling the proceedings of the courts, and 
the roll was liable to be unbound, and to receive addi- 
tional membranes after it had once been made up. In 
the other case, the business of the chancery being simply 
registration, the scribe could register the documents 
before him, with certainty that nothing in future would 
at all affect their length, and he was enabled to fil] 
every membrane, and periect the roll as he pro- 
ceeded.* . 

The material on which the record is written is gene- 
rally parchment, which, until the reign of Elizabeth, is 
extremely clear and well prepared. From that period 
until the present the parchment gradually deteriorates, 
and the worst specimens are furnished in the reigns of 
George IV. and William IV. The earliest record 
written on paper, known to the writer, is of the time 
of Edward II. It 1s one of a series entitled ‘ Papirus 
magistri Johannis Guicardi contra-rotulatoris Magni 
Costume in Castro Burdegaliz, anno domini M°. ccc°. 
vill®. These records are in the office of the queen's 
remembrancer of the Exchequer. 

Talhes were records of wood. 

The handwriting of the courts, commonly called 
court-hand, which had reached its perfection about the 
reign of our second Edward, differs materially from 
that employed in chartularies and monastic writings. 
As printing extended, it relaxed into all the opposites 
of uniformity, clearness, legibility, and beauty which 
it once possessed. The ink, too, lost its antient indeli- 
bility; and, like the parchment, both handwriting and 


* The land-tax commissiouers’ Act of 1 Geo. IV. extends, it 


is said, 900 feet when unrolled, and employs a man three hours 


to unroll the volume. Other records have the shape of books. 
Doomsday-Book, called both ‘ Rotulus’ and ‘ Liber,’ the oldest 
and most precious of our records, counting eight centuries as its 
age, and still in the finest order, is a book ; and as occasions pre- 
sented themselves for adopting this shape without infringing on 
ancient precedent, the far more accessible shape which we now 
call a ‘ book’ seems to have been employed. 


1841.] 


ink are the lowest in character in the latest times: with 
equal care, venerable Doomsday will outlive its dege- 
nerate descendants. 

All the great series of our records, except those of 
parliament, are written in Latin, the spelling of which 
is much abbreviated, and in contractions, there can be 
little doubt, derived from Latin manuscripts. The 
reader who desires to be further informed on the sub- 
ject nay consult the collection which Mr. Hardy has 
inserted in the preface-to his ‘Close Rolls of King 
John,’ and Mr. Hunter, in his preface to the ‘ Fines of 
Richard I. and John.’ During the Commonwealth, 
English was substituted; but soon after the Restora- 
tion, Latin was restored, and the records of the courts 
continued to be kept in Latin until abolished by act of 
parhament in the reign of George II. In certain 
branches of the Exchequer, Latin continued in use 
until the abolition of the offices in very recent times. 
Many of our statutes from Edward |. to Henry V., 
and the principal part of the rolls of parliament, are 
written in Norman French. Petitions to parliament 
continued to be-presented in Norman [French until the 
reien of Richard IJ., whose renunciation of the crown 
is said to have been read before the estates of the realm 
at Westminster, first in Latin and then in English. 
After this period we find English, which had doubtless 
always remained in use among the lower classes, often 
used in transactions between the people and govern- 
ment—a sure sign that the distinctions of Norman 
origin were nearly absorbed among the people at large. 

Sir Francis Palgrave’s edition of the ‘ Calendars and 
Inventories of the Treasury of the Exchequer,’ some 
of which were compiled as early as the fourteenth 
century, are extremely interesting in exhibiting the 
ancient modes in which records were preserved. No 
uniform system of arrangement seems to have been 
employed, but a different expedient was used for the 
preservation of nearly every separate document. Great 
numbers, judging from the quantity found in arranging 
the miscellaneous records of the king’s remembrancer 
of the Exchequer, were kept’in pouches or bags of 
leather, canvas, cordovan, and buckram, a mode which 
is still used in this department of the Exchequer. 
These pouches, which fasten hke modern reticules, are 
described by Agarde, who was keeper of the treasury 
of the Exchequer, “as hanging against the walls.” 


The following drawing represents a leathern pouch | 


containing the tallies and the account of the bailiff of 
the manor of Gravesend in the 37 and 38 of Edward III. 





THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


Oe ee = — = a 


309 


When they have escaped damp, they have preserved 
their parchment contents for centuries in all their pris- 
tine freshness and cleanliness. Chests, coffers, coffins, 
and ‘“forcers’” bound with iron and painted of different 
colours, cases or “scrinia,” “skippets,” or small turned 
boxes, and hanapers, or “hampers of twygeys,” were 
also used. 



























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These two last illustrations are about one-third of 
the size of the originals, which remain in the “ trea- 
sury’ of the Exchequer. 

Inscriptions on labels, letters, and “signs” furnished 
the means of reference. We owe the following speei- 
mens of these “signs” to the kindness of Sir Francis 
Palgrave, who has obliged us with the: loan of the 
blocks, cut for his ‘ Calendars of the Exchequer’ before 
mentioned. These sigs in most cases bear some ana- 
logy to the subject of the documents which they are 
intended to mark. 

The rolls of the justices of the forest were marked 
by the sapling oak (No.1). Papal bulls, by the triple 
crown. Four canvas pouches holding rolls and tallies 
of certain payments made for the church of West- 
minster were marked by the church (3). The head in 
a cowl (4) marked an indenture respecting the jewels 
found in the house of the Fratres Minores in Salop. 
The scales (5), the assay of the mint in Dublin. The 
Briton having one foot shod and the other bare, with 
the lance and sword (6), marked the wooden “ coffin” 
holding the acquittance of receipts from Llewelln, 
Prince of Wales. Three herrings (7). the “ forcer”’ of 
leather bound with iron, containing documents relating 
to Yarmouth, &c. The lancer (8), documents relating 
to Aragon. The united hands (9), the marriage be- 
tween Henry, Prince of Wales, and Philippa, daughter 
of Henry IV. The galley (10), the recogmizance ol 
merchants of the three galleys of Venice. The hand 
and book (11), fealty to kings John and Henry. The 
charter or eyrograph (12), treaties and iruces between 
England and Scotland. The hooded monk (13), ad- 
vowsons of Irish churches. And the castle with a 


310 THE PENNY 


banner of the Clare arms (14), records relating to the 
possessions of the earl of Gloucester in Wales. 





Our ancestors before the Norman conquest pursued 
no system of public registration, though there are nu- 
merous charters of the Anglo-Saxon kings and deeds 
between private individuals still existing, and historical 
events are found chronicled in monastic chartularies. 

When a written account is made of any act, it is clear 
that 1t is made not for the exclusive benefit of one party 
only. In the Doomsday-book of the Norman con- 
queror, we see evidence that his power was far from 
absolute. The financial registrations (Rotuli Pipe) of 
Henry I., in whose reign the earliest example is found 
-~the records of the judicial proceedings of the “ Curia 
Regis,” which begin with Richard I.—and the special 
acts of the monarch himself enrolled on the “close,” 
“patent,” and “charter” rolls commencing in the reign 
of John—are all so many irresistible proofs how gra- 
dually larger interests were trenching on the will of 
the king, who formally recognised no other power than 
his own in the government of the kingdom. The 
judicial records of the King’s Bench and Common 
Pleas, and the parlamentary records beginning with 
edward I., are further evidence of the increasing in- 
finence of the nobles and commonalty of the realm. 

‘The king was legally considered as possessing the 
sovereign power. His peace was broken when the 
subject fell by the hand of the mnrderer ; his parlia- 
ment was to be summoned; his honour to be vindi- 
cated; and his army to be levied. It was the king’s 
exchequer, the king’s wardrobe, the king’s court, and 
essentially the king’s chancery; for the chancellor’s 
functions were originally those of a private secretary, 
combining duties both spiritual and temporal. The 
chamberlain of the exchequer was called “une grand 
office, car il gardera le treasour del roy, s. les recordes.” 


MAGAZINE. [Aucusr 7, 
In Henry III.’s reign there were treasuries in the Tower 
of Londonand the New Temple. From the latter place, 
in the 20th of Edward I., out of a chest secured by nine 
keys, certain records of the Chancery were taken by 
the king’s orders. (Rot. Claus.,20 Edward I., m. 13d.) 
The Tower had certainly become a permanent treasury 
for records in the 33rd of Edward I., when a transfer 
to it was directed to be made of all the papal privileges 
touching the crown or kingdom, from the treasury of 
the exchequer at Westminster. (Rot. Claus., 33 Ed- 
ward I., m.3.) Another ‘ treasury’ is described by 
certain ‘memoranda,’ made 19 Edward III., as within 
the cloister of Westminster Abbey, near the Chapter- 
House. This ‘treasury’ still remains. A single pillar 
supports the vaulted chamber, which is yet to be seen, 
with its double oak doors grated and barred with iron, 
and locked with three keys, and its drawers and ‘ tills’ 
labelled by Arthur Agarde, who was custos of the re- 
cords it contained. , 

The contents of several ‘ treasuries’ at various pe- 
riods seem to have been consolidated in the Chapter- 
House of Westminster Abbey, which was fitted up in 
its present state for the reception of records by Sir 
Christopher Wren. The only existing depositories of 
records besides the Chapter-House which preserve the 
appellation of ‘treasury,’ are the rooms in the Rolls- 
Iiouse, being the ‘treasury’ of the King’s Bench 
Records, and a portion of the Carlton Riding-House as 
the ‘ treasury’ of the Common Pleas Records. 

The demolition of the old ‘ treasuries’ adjoming 
Westminster Hall scattered their contents in all quar- 
ters of the metropolis. Thus the records of the king’s 
remembrancer, of the Exchequer, and. the Common 
Pleas, migrated from Westminster Hall to the late 
Mews at Charing Cross; and thence, to make room 
for the National Gallery, to Carlton Riding-School. 
The records of the late lord-treasurer’s remembrancer 
and Pipe-Office are entombed two stories deep in the 
vaults of Somerset House. Those of the King’s Bench 
for a time rested opposite St. Margaret’s Church, but 
were shifted to the Rolls-House in Chancery Lane to 
make room for. the present Rolls Court at Westmin- 
ster. 

Thus from time to time have repositories, as well 
undignified with the antient title of ‘king’s treasury’ 
as deficient in that careful superintendence which ori- 
ginally accompanied the title, arisen im all parts of 
London; and in 1837 a committee of the House of 
Commons reported that it had seen the Public Records, 
the most precious part of the king’s ‘ treasure,’ de- 
posited at the Tower over a gunpowder-magazine, and 
contiguous to a steam-engine in daily operation; at 
the Rolls, in a chapel where divine service is per- 
formed; in vaults two stories underground at Somerset 
House; in dark and humid cellars at Westminster 
Hall; in the stables of the late Carlton Ride; in the 
Chapter-House of Westminster Abbey; in offices sur- 
rounded by and subject to all the accidents of private 
dwellings, as the Augmentation Office and First Fruits.’ 
At the present time, besides the offices for modern re- 
cords attached to each court, we may enumerate the 
following repositories, with their different localities, as 
containing the public records :— 

The Tower, in Thames Street. 

Chapter-House, Westminster Abbey. 

Rolls Chapel, Chancery Late. 

Rolls House, Chancery Lane. 

Duchy of Lancaster, Lancaster Place, Strand. 

Duchy of Cornwall, Somerset House. 

Common Pleas, Carlton Ride and Whitehall Yard. 

Queen’s Remembrancer’s Records, in Carlton Ride 

and tower of Westminster Hall. 

Auementation-Office, Palace Yard, Westminster. 

Pipe-Office, Somerset House. 


1841. ] 


Lord-Treasurer’s Remembrancer, Somerset House. 

Land Revenue, Carlton Ride. 

Pell-Office, 1, Whitehall Yard. 

Exchequer of Pleas, 3, Whitehall Yard. 

First-Fruits Office, Temple.* 

It would seem that as early as the commencement of 
the fourteenth century the officers charged with the 
custody of the records were found to be either insuffi- 
cient or neglectful of the performance of their duties. 
Since the time of Edward II., scarcely a reign has 
passed without a special temporary agency being ap- 

ointed to restore the public records to good order. 
lhe necessity probably arose from the functions of the 
officer charged with the care of the records being alto- 
gether changed, as in the instance of the Master of the 
Rolls, who was the bona fide ‘ gardein des roules’ in early 
hhmes. 

A very important step has recently been taken by 
the legislature to provide for the better custody and 
preservation and more convenient use of the public 
records. An act was passed (1 and 2 Vic., c. 49) cal- 
culated to remedy effectually what preceding efforts 
had in vain attempted, by constituting a special agency 
for the custody of the records, to the want of which, 
and a sufficient responsibility, all the defects of the old 
system are attributable. By this act the Master of the 
Rolls is made the guardian of the public records, 
having powers to appoint a deputy; and, in conjunc- 
tion with the Treasury, to do all that may be necessary 
in the execution of this service. The act contemplates 
the consolidation of all the records, from their several 
unfit repesitories into one appropriate receptacle: 
their proper arrangement and repair; the preparation 
of calendars and indexes, which are more or less 
wanting to every class of records; and giving to the 
public more easy access tothem. Lord Langdale, the 
present Master’ of the Rolls, to whose influence the 
change of system is greatly due, has already brought 
the above act into as full operation as circumstances 
have allowed. The old custodyship of most of the 
offices has been superseded, and the offices are consti- 
tuted branches of one central depository, the Public 
Record Office, which, until a proper building is ready, 
is at the Rolls-House in Chancery Lane. The Victoria 
Tower of the new Houses of Parliament has been named 
as a likely repository for the public records. The ar- 
rangement and repair, as well as the making of inven- 
tories of records, have been generally begun in most 
of the offices. 

Preparations are also making for a uniform system 
of calendaring, a gigantic work, which a century will 
hardly see completed. To select what is useful’ from 
the judgments of a single court, the Common Pleas for 
instance, at least 1200 miles of parchment nine inches 
wide must be patiently read through; and yet, without 
the performance of this labour, these records can 
scarcely be consulted. 


ee 


ENDEMIC AND EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 


(Continued from p. 292.} 


Ir the inhabitants of alluvial plains and marshy 
regions have their endemical diseases, so too have the 
dwellers in hilly and mountainous districts theirs. 
One of these is the gottre, or swelled neck. It is met 
with principally in Switzerland, Savoy, the Tyrol, and 
in Derbyshire in Britain (whence called famiharly the 
Derbyshire neck). Its locality is often very confined : 


* By a recent regulation, attendance is now given at these 
offices from 10 til! 4d. Search in all Indexes, Calendars, &e., Is. 
Inspection of a Record, Is. Copies 6d. per folio. The public 
may make extracts or copies in pencil, hitherto forbidden or 
allowed as a favour. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


31] 


thus the inhabitants of the valley of the Rhéne are 
frequently afflicted by it; while in the valley of 
Chamouny, separated only by the’'Col de Balme, it is 
seldom seen. It affects feinales almost exclusively. 
The cause of this disease is involved in much ob- 
scurity. It has been usually attributed to bad diet 
and the use of impure water. Dr. Bally, a resident in 
a goitrous district, informed Dr. J. Johnson that the 
waters which trickled down from the mountains would 
produce or augment the disease in eight or ten days, 
while those who abstained from these remained free 
from the disease. Dr. Mason Good found that at 
Matlock it was chiefly the children of the poor who 
suffered. 

A much more terrible disease, Cretinism, is found 
in the Alps and Pyrenees, and is indeed sometimes 
combined with goitre. The Cretin, stunted in growth, 
and having a huge malformed head, presents a hidcous 
object to the traveller. The intellect participates in 
the physical debility, and the individuals drag on their 
days in a state of imbecility, quite contented if they 
can pass their lives in eating and sleeping. This dis- 
ease, like goitre, has been attributed to the bad diet 
and impure water of these regions, and like it, is very 
confined in its localities, a valley frequently contain- 
ing numbers of cretins, while the surrounding hills are 
quite free from them. The dirty and degraded state 
of many of the villages will contribute to the produc- 
tion of the disease; and it is said that since these 
have been somewhat improved, the numbers have 
diminished. Dr. James Johnson doubts this, and 
thinks rather that since the belief which once so gene- 
rally prevailed (as in Turkey, regarding idiots) that a 
cretin was a special gift of providence to the family in 
which he was found has declined, they are kept more 
out of sight than formerly; and indeed he saw them 
driven to the back parts of the villages as he ap- 
proached. He says, concerning the places in which 
they are found, “ The Vallois, situated in a damp soil, 
and sheltered by stupendous mountains, is the land of 
cretinism, and Sion is its capital. I explored this 
town, and I can safely aver that in no part of the 
world, not even excepting the Jews’ quarter at Rome, 
or the lanes of Itri and Fondi, in the kingdom of 
Naples, have I seen such intense filth. With the ex- 
ception of two or three streets, the others present 
nothing on their surface but a nameless mass of ani- 
mal and vegetable corruption; the alleys are narrow, 
and the houses constructed as 1f they were designed for 
malefactors’ dungeons rather than for the abodes of 
men at liberty.” 

Warm climates are liable to several endemical dis- 
eases; we can only briefly allude to two or three of 
these. Hlephantiasis, or the Barbadoes leg, is so 
termed from the huge misshapen limb, resembling in 
some degree that of an elephant. It is especially en- 
demic in Barbadoes, in Cochin, the coast of Ceylon, 
and Egypt. Until a century ago it was confined in 
Barbadoes exclusively to the black population ; since 
then the whites have also suffered, but neither there 
nor at Ceylon do the imported whites suffer. It ex- 
cepts neither rank nor sex, and often comes on In very 
early life. The disease commences with fever and 
inflammation of the limb, both of which afterwards 
subside ; repeated recurrences, however, at length 
produce the tumefied and shapeless form which gives 
the name to the disease. 

The Frambesia, or Yates, an eruptive disease, so 
called from its resemblance to raspberries, and con- 
sisting of the production of numerous excrescences on 
different parts of the surface of the body, is endemical 
in Guinea, and has been thence transported with the 
slaves to America and the West Indies. It has been 
supposed by several authors to be identical with the 


o12 


leprosy with which the Jews were affected during their 
passage through the Wilderness. As one attack pre- 


vents future ones, the Africans expose their children 


to it, it being readily communicable by contact. 

The Dracunculus, or Guinea-worm, is avery singular 
disease, which affects chiefly the negro tribe. It con- 
sists of a long thin worm, which lies embedded in the 
interstices of various muscles of the body, but espe- 
cially those of the legs. It creates immense irritation, 
and incapacitates the person suffering from following 
his employment. The worm is frequently extracted 
by an inch or two at a time,a piece of thread being 
fastened around the remainder to prevent its retrac- 
tion. The entire length has sometimes reached two or 
three fect. The Africans carry this disease with them 
into the countries into which they are tnported 
as slaves; and as it sometimes reigns epidemically, 
nearly half the negroes on an estate have sometimes 
been at once disenabled working. Dr. Chisholm met 
with three thousand cases in three years m the island 
of Granada. The diseasc is not exclusively confined to 
persons of, African origin, and prevails very exten- 
sively in different parts of India, especially the pre- 
sidency of Bombay. The mode in which this animal 
becomes introduced into the human system has excited 
much discussion, but the opmion, held by various tra- 
vellers, as Park, Bruce, &c., and by persons who have 
carefully investigated all the circumstances and loca- 
lities of the disease, corresponds with the popular one, 
namely, that the ova of this worm obtain admission by 
reason of the persons afiected having drunk of the 
waters of certain wells containing them. This would 
indeed seem almost to be proved to be the case by the 
fact that only those of the inhabitants of a certain dis- 
trict who partook of the waters in question have be- 
come affected, while those who had not done so remained 
quite healthy ; while again the providing improved 
cisterns and wells has frequently been found to banish 
the disease from a locality in which heretofore 1t com- 
mitted great ravages. 

Several hot climates produce endemical diseases of 
the eyes, and this is especially the case with Egypt, in 
which country a most destructive form of ophthalmia 
prevails: this, 1t would seem, from the accounts of his- 
torians, has existed there from remote ages; and in our 
own dayits virulence was manifested in its attacks upon 
both the I’rench and British armies while employed in 
that country. That this should be the case can excite 
no surprise when it 1s recollected that persons passing 
through this land are exposed to intense heat by day 
and a chilling dew by night, to the emanations from 
the banks of the Nile, and to the irritation of the sandy 
soil, which also adds, by the reflection 1t produces, to 
the already dazzling and. fatigumg brilliancy of the 
solar rays. | | 


Field Flowers.—Of all the flowers with which summer with a 
lavish hand graces our pastoral scenery, filling the air with fra- 
erance and covering the earth with beauty, none are more gene- 
rally attractive than the wild climbing plants of the hedges. 
They are most numerous towards the latter part of summer or 
the beginning of autumn. By interweaving their slender boughs, 
covered with foliage and flowers, or with berries no less beau- 
tiful, or, as in the wild clematis, crowned with their light and 
feathery seeds, they hang about the trees and bushes, and contri- 
bute very materially to that aspect of richness and beauty which 
the landscape presents at this part of the year. As the stems of 
these plants are so slender and yielding that they would sink 
under the weight of their flowery clusters, or their numerous 
leaves, or be shattered to pieces by the winds, if they did not find 
support from other plants, we see them hanging by their tendrils, 
or bending their stems into the most graceful twinings, and 
clothing the trunks of aged trees—® those green-robed senators 
of mighty woods, tall oaks”—with an abundant verdure, the 
dark glossy green of which contrasts with their grey lichen- 
‘covered trunks, or with the brighter tints of that massy canopy 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Aueust 7, 


which overhangs them. It is very evident that the ascending 
position of the greater number of plants is necessary both for 
their prosperity and the welfare of man and the lower animals, 
How soou would the profuseness of vegetation become a curse 
rather than a blessing, if it were not for the provisions made for 
this ascending direction! Were it not for this, the whole earth 
would be clogged with stems and foliage, and the industry of 
man could not effect a clearance for culture or pathway. At 
every step his foot would be entangled. Theu indeed the woods 
would all be pathless, and the want ofa free circulation of air 
would render the plants coarse and rank, and destroy some of the 
most delicate among them. The vegetable matter would accu-~ 


mulate by their continual decay, and render the air IMpure ; 


while, as in the jungles of hot countries, the noxious reptile 
would lurk there unseen, and the wild animal would there lie 
down in his lair, One circumstance respecting twining plants is 
worthy of remark. Some of them follow the appareut course of 
the sun, and turn around the supporting stem, from left to right. 
This is the case with the common black bryony of our woods, 
which, with its shining heart-shaped leaves aud small green 
flowers, may be seen in any wood during the summer months 
climbing over the trees. Other plants, as the -large white bind- 
weed or convolvulus, twine contrary to the sun, or from right to 
left. The peculiar tendency of the stem of every plant is 
always constant in each individual of the species. Thus a large 
biudweed, wherever found, always turns one way, and a plaut of 
black bryony the other; we never see its position reversed. 
Even if the gardener turn it in another direction, the plant, if 
unable to disengage itself and assume its natural bias, will 
eventually perish. It is very common about rivers, streams, or 
other moist grounds, and is a very graceful plant. The large 
white bells, which are called by the country-people old man’s 
nightcap,’’ are exceeded by no blossoms in whiteness of tint or 
beauty of outline; and the leaves, which are heart-shaped, are 
very handsome, It often creeps over the drooping willow-tree, 
festooming it lightly with its large flowers, or it wanders over the 
green bank, or almost covers some little rill, so that the heedless 
traveller might plunge his foot unexpectedly into the midst of 
the hidden waters. It is, like the other species of wild convol- 
vulus, very tenacious of life, and if it gets into the hedge of 
a garden, it costs the gardener considerable frouble in its eradi- 
cation. Indeed, in some places, it seems almost impossible to 
get rid of it; and summer after summer it unfolds its unwel- 
come blossoms, which are not less beautiful, though less rare, 
than many of the plants that are carefully nurtured in the en- 
closure.— Flowers and their Associations. - 


- 


Love of Country.—Men, almost universally, prefer their native 
country before every other 5 on account of what they consider to 
be its singular beauty or superior natural advantages. It is a 
well-known fact, that they who are natives of a dreary and 
barren region are as strougly attached to the land of their 
nativity, as they are whose native country is of the most fertile 
and beautiful description ; a striking proof of which is furnished 
by the people of Iceland, who are remarkably attached to their 
country, although it is truly “a dismal situation, waste and 
wild.” The same principle is powerfully displayed in the simple 
and affecting picture drawn by a poor African, when speaking of 
his native home, as given by Mr. Riland, in his * Memoirs of a 
West Indian Planter.’ Ah, Sir,” said poor old Caesar, “ every 
one loves his native land; the places where his fathers lived, the 
trees, flowers, and animals; and I think with pleasure now, even 
apon the dreadful snakes, because they belong to my country. 
God made our part of Africa such as any man might love. The 
sky is there not constantly covered with cold clouds, and always 
dripping with rain, though we had our rainy seasons; but then 
they were more regular, and we knew when to expect them. The 
sun does not there bathe his beams in mists and fogs, but pours 
its kindly heat on all things; and you can’t imagine how fast it 
makes the plants grow; the wide-spread trees give cool shadows, 
superior (but you will snule at me) to the finest palaces I ever 
saw in Kurope; all was delightful except the curse of the slave- 
trade.”—Carter’s Lectures on Taste. 


How to Acquire Knowledge.—A Persian philosopher, being 
asked by what method he had acquired so much knowledge, 
answered, “ By not being prevented by shame from asking ques- 
tions where I was ignorant.” 


1841.} THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 313 


to live; for at the expiration of that time he would 
meet the saints in glory. 
«¢ Dear art thou to God, Rodrigo, 
And this grace he granteth thee, 
When thy soul hath fled, thy body 
Still shall cause the Moovrs to flee ; 
And, by aid of Santiago, 
Gain a glorious victory.’ ” 


“This,” the Saint added, ‘God hath granted to 
my prayers, for the honour thou hast always shown to 
my house and altar at Cardena.” With these words 
the holy Apostle returned to heaven, leaving my Cid 







, s AX ge SSS 
att : 


: ss 
~ Sa i ho = ‘3 
r Awe Awe? os 
. fp SSPE SSS ~~ 
Se: : x SV 
> Si es a ae a » 
i = L <A 
“1 
} i : 
«, an . 4 p> 
i ie pans | SS | 
si te . ATS Ca ; 
; SE) i i ~ - 
© ~ 


in) hh 
Sa! 
qi Rs A 


i 
| 
7 


ae 
| ‘ it 


ie 
‘i i i ni HG i! 
fi Hi ; li | 


a 
fi SS * 


at 
















: Tse os. NV ZBI lost in praise and thanksgiving. 
UT eS oe, NN SIN These tidings cheered the Cid’s heart greatly, and he 
il Hi Dt, Sore Ay / Feed Ah > ey straightway made preparations for his approaching 
Sau i \ Ws ) > end, Having ordered all the Moors to quit the city 
i 1 dh < for the suburbs, he eathered together his followers 
veS 1 SS || we in the church of San Pedro, and there made known the 
ee OM SAN prophetic vision with which he had been honoured; 
Ait ace Sse<sy | then having charged them after his death to obey the 
| ~ ¥<S3 | commands of Don Geronymo, the bishop, Alvar Faficz, 
AN ISS and Pedro Bermudez, he took a solemn farewell of 


\ 
De 


AN nl tee ° 2 e ° ° A 
eS < | all, confessed his sins, received absolution, and re- 


«<~< | turned to his palace. Here he sickened fast, and for 
 ¢ seven days before his death could take nothing but a 
little of the myrrh and balsam he had received from 
DR ry Bipino | the Sultan of the East. 
i SH : Wey eS The day before that appointed for his decease, the 
‘Ai ee Cid called together his wife and his nearest kinsmen 


q 
, AY \ 







\ 


So : | and friends, to give. them directions how to act after 
1) | aN, Pen NE .* | his death: 


a t a! 
1 i 
rw \ R i 
1 ie ¥ Ate, 3° 
WAU Sa 
\ Ly bY Tha i .~.° 


— 





[panting 


fy 










ee SASS Ee WSS y y/ is | pga - 6 First when that my soul hath left it, 
il ‘i CRANE A 2D Wash my body clean and sweet ; 
ee ED We Lit ae LZ ash my body clean and sweet ; 


: SSS JL iy YW hy Fill it next with myrrh and balsam, 
SER: Se YW f And with spices, as is meet; 
Then with ointments well anoint it 
From the head unto the feet. 


THE CID.—No. XI. 


“That when dead the foe 
he routed, 
"Tis no folly to believe ; 
For to whom the saints show — 
favour 
All is easy to achieve.” 


~~ 2 Y 
“ ere 
a Swe S “ 


Mourn me not, my dear Ximena— 
Mourn me not, ye maids, I pray ; 

Lest your weeping and your wailing 
To the foe my death betray.’ ” 


Then turning to Alvar Fanez and Pedro Bermudez, 
his kinsmen and companions in arms, he said,— 
We now come to the 


: “ ¢Should the Moorish king assail ye, 
closing scenes of our 


bis Call your hosts and man the wall ; 
hero’s life. When he Shout aloud, and let the trumpets 
had retained possession ‘% SA amISS Sound a joyful battle-call. 

of Valencia for five al “e re | \itueh HS Meantime then to quit this city 
years, he fell sick, worn | femal) we a LH all searetly prepare, 

out by age and the i EC EL And make all your chattels ready 
fatigues of his long con- Back unto Castile to bear. 

tinued warfare with the Saddle next my Babieca, 





Moors. Tidings were at ; Arm him well as for the fight ; 
the same time brought i, On.his back then tie my body, 
him that the Moorish GPRD | In my well-known armour dight. 
king Bucar, whom he we ~ In my right hand place Tizona ; 
had before driven from the plains of Valencia, had re- Lead me forth unto the war ; 
turned to the siege with a mighty force of horse and foot, Bear my standard fast behind me, 


As it was my wont of yore. 


Then, Don Alvar, range thy warriors 
To do battle with the foe ; 
For right sure am I that on ye 
_. God will victory bestow.’ ” 


and with thirty kings in his alliance. 


“Sorely grieved the Cid these tidings, 
As upon his bed he lay ; 
Straight he pray’d the God of heaven 
For protection and for stay ; 


That from out this grievous peril The Cid then makes his will, which he commences 
He would safe his servant guide ; in this manner,— | 

Thus he pray’d, when on a sudden, «<¢ Hoe who spareth no man living, 
Lo! a man stood at his side. -- Kings or nobles though they be, 

There he stood in bright apparel, At my door at length hath knocked, 
Robed in raiment white as snow, And I hear him calling me, 


Scarce the Cid his face could gaze on, 
For so dazzling was its glow.” 


This figure proved to be Saint Peter, sent from 
heaven to declare to the Cid that he had but thirly days” 


; .xX.—25 
No. 601. | VoL. X 


As to go I am prepared, 
I do make my testament,’ ” &c. 


After repeating some of the above directions, he 


314 Te, Pio IN Y 
orders that Babieca, when he dies, should be decently 
aud carefully buried, “ that no dogs may eat the flesh 
of him who hath trodden down so much dogs’-flesh of 
Moors.” His own body he directs to be borne to San 
Pedro de Cardefa, and there buried under a bronze 
monument hard by the altar of the Holy Fisherman, 
as he calls St. Peter. He forbids any female mourners 
to be hired to bewail his death, as the tears of Ximena 
would suffice without the purchase of others. His 
conscience still rebuking him for the deceit he had 
practised on the two Jews who had lent him money on 
his departure into exile, he bequeaths them another 
coffer of silver; and after a few other legacies, he leaves 
the rest of his property to be distributed among the 
poor. Then turning to his friends, who were weeping 
around lus couch, he said,— 
‘*¢ Fyieuds, I sorrow not to leave ye ; 
If this hfe an exile be, 
We who leave it do but journey 
Homeward to our family.’ ” 


On the day following the Cid prayed sore to heaven: 
‘Oh! Lord Jesus, thy kingdom is over all—all rulers 
are in thy hands. ‘Thou art King over all kings, and 
Lord over all lords. J beseech thee, seeing thou hast 
given me so much honour and glory, and so many vic- 
tories over the enemies of thy holy faith, to be pleased 
to pardon all my sins, and take my spirit to thyself.” 
Saying this, he gave up the ghost. He died in the 
year 1099, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. 

Gil Diaz, his faithful servant, a Moor by birth, but 
a convert to Christianity, fulfilled all his mstructions 
with regard to the body, and gave it a sitting and up- 
right position, by. placing it on a chair, and leaving it 
to stiffen between two boards. 

On the twelfth day after his death everything was in 
readiness for the departure of the Christians from Va- 
Jencia. It was the hour of midnight when they led 
forth Babieca, who gazed at his dead lord “ with an air 
of sorrow more like a man than a brute.” They strapped 
the body firmly down to the saddle, and tied the feet 
to the stirrups. His helmet and armour were of parch- 
ment, painted so as to resemble steel. <A shield of the 
same, marked with his own device, was hung about his 
neck, and his beloved Tizona was fixed upright and 
bare im his right hand: 


“There he sat all stiff and upright, 
So Gil Diaz did coutrive ; 
He who had not known the secret, 
Would have deem’d him still alive. 


By the fitful glare of torches ' 
Forth they go at dead of night; 

Headed by their lifeless captain, 
Forth they march unto the fight.” 


The bishop of Valencia, Don Geronymo, led Babicca 
by one rein, and Gil Diaz by the other. Pedro Ber- 
mudez led the van, with the Cid’s banner upraised, 
guarded by four hundred knights of noble birth. Then 
followed the beasts laden with the baggage under a 
similar guard. Next came the Cid’s body, guarded by 
a hundred knights; and Ximena and her women, with 
six hundred knights, brought up the rear. The pro- 
cession moved on into the plain 


* All so silent and so softly, 
That there seemed not twenty there.” | 


As the day broke, they were met by the Moorish 
hosts, but Alvar Fafiez assailed them with ereat fury. 

At the head of the foe rode a Moorish woman, called 
‘the Star,” from her great skill in shooting, and by 
the Chronicle termed a queen, who with a hundred 
scmale companions, like the Amazons of old, did great 
execuuion with their long-bows. Had they been said 


MAGAZINE. [Aveust 14, 
to be Spanish Arabs, at that period the most polished 
and chivalrous race in Europe, we might deem this 
account unworthy of credit; but if we suppose them 
Africans, as we are at liberty to do, considermg they 
were im the army of the king of Morocco, the fact loses 
all improbability, as we know, from the Arabian epic 
of ‘ Antar,’ that among the tribes of the desert women 
not unfrequently took part in the perils of warfare, 
martial courage being regarded as one of the {female 
virtues. These heroines were all conquered and slain 
by the Christians. 

King Bucar and his thirty royal allies were as- 
tounded at beholding what, through a miraculous ilu- 
sion, seemed to their eyes a prodigious force advancing 
against them: 


“Seventy thousand Christian warriors, 
All in snowy garments dight, 
Led by one of giant stature, 
Mounted on a charger white; 


Ou his breast a cross of crimson, 
In his hand a sword of fire, 

With it hew’d he down the Paynims, 
As they fled, with slaughter dire.” 


This terrible warrior was no other than Santiago, or 
ot. James, who, as foretold by St. Peter, was to lend 
his aid to the Christians. Panic-struck, the Moors fled 
to their ships, but ten thousand were drowned in the 
attempt to get on board, and multitudes more were left 
dead on the field of battle. King Bucar himself escaped 
but twenty of his confederate kings were slain. Ilis 
camp fell into the hands of the Christians, who found 
in it so vast a spoil, that the poorest that entered came 
away rich. Thus laden, they continued their way to 
Castile; and wherever they halted on the road, they 
took the Cid’s body from Babieca’s back, and set it up- 
right on a wooden horse which Gil Diaz had made for 
the purpose. 

The Moors in the suburbs of Valencia, who had be- 
held the rout of King Buicar and his host, remained 
quiet all that day and the ensuing night, through fear of 
the Christians, but having neither seen nor heard them 
return to the city, they marvelled greatly, and on the 
following morning one of them ventured to ride round 
the walls. Je saw no warders on the ramparts, heard 
no clashing of arms within, and found every gate 
closed, save that through which the Christians had 
one forth, and on the wall he found a paper saying 
that the Cid was dead, and that the Christians had left 
Valencia to the Moors. Great was their joy to return 
Within its walls. 


ENDEMIC AND EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 
[Continued from p. 312. 


Epipemics do not usually, like endemics, exist for 
an indefinite period in the places wherein they appear. 
Their origin, progress, and termination are frequently 
matters of historical record. Many of those which 
formerly afflicted our ancestors have disappeared, to be 
replaced by others unknown to them. Their un- 
portance, measured by the devastation they produce, is 
infinitely greater than that of endemics; and indecd 
they constitute the greatest calamity to which the 
human race can be subjected. “ What,” says M. Littré, 
“are twenty battles, or even twenty years of the se- 
verest warfare, compared to the ravages caused by 
these dreadful scourges? The cholera has killed in a 
few years as many persons as fell during all the wars 
of the French Revolution. It is calculated that the 
Black Pestilence of the fourteenth century carried off 
in Europe alone above twenty-five millon souls ; 
while that which devastated the world during the reign 


18i1 | THE PENNY 
of Justinian did still more execution. What war again 

has the universality of an epidemic? The cholera, 

ecnerated in India, spread thence over entire Europe, 

and penetrated even to America.” 

Before enumerating a few examples of the principal 
epidemies, we may make one or two remarks upon 
some of the circumstances favouring their production. 
fu this respect epidemical diseases vary much. Some, 
such as the cholera and the influenza, secin to be very 
independent of local circumstances; while others, as 
the plague, yellow fever, &c., seem to be very much 
influenced by these. <A change in the constitution of 
the air has been very generally supposcd to oceur 
during the epidemic visitation; no positive proof of 
this ean be furnished, but it is well known that at least 
its temperature cxerts great influence, for the disease 
is always most severe when this is elevated. The his- 
tory of various plagues and pestilences shows us that 
coincident with them violent convulsions of nature, as 
earthquakes, tempcsts, and volcanic cruptions, fre- 
quently oecur. Noah Webster has collected fifty 
well-marked instances, wherein one or other of these 
prevailed. Itis not a little curious that at these times 
yast numbers of insccts are frequently produced, and 
this sometimes only in certain localities, or of some 
particular species: thus, at the plague of Lausanne 
.1613), and in Holland (1635), an inercdible number of 
flies were produced; and at the plague of Dantzig 
(1709) spiders abounded. On the contrary, the num- 
bers of the feathered creation have often been found to 
become much diminished, while a great mortality of 
sevcral of thc domesticated animals frequently occurs; 
this was the case with regard to the eattle prior to the 
Great Plague of London. To some other circun- 
stauices tending to favour the production of epidemic 
(diseases, we can refer with great satisfaction, since 
modern improvements in tlicse respects have caused a 
marked diminution in these awful visitations. We 
allude to the neglect of cleanliness, and the msuf- 
ficiency or bad nature of the diet of the common people. 
A pestilence always primarily and principally attacks 
the poorest and dirtiest portions of a community; such 
was the case in London, Marseilles, and Moscow. No 
fact ean be better attested than that Europcan cities 
have become freed from the plague in proportion as 
they have improved in cleanliness and good order. In 
cities which have not participated in the march of 1m- 
provement, pestilential epidemics still prevail; and 
thus, although the plague is scarcely now ever met 
with in European towns, it is still nearly endemical m 
those of the East : but even m these it attacks the most 
miserable and dirtiest portions. ‘‘I have always re- 
inarked,” says Clot Bey, “in Iegypt, that low humid 
places, ill-ventilated houses, the quarters of the in- 
digent, and populous eitics with narrow obstructed 
streets, pay the largest tributes to this disease. Thus at 
Cairo, Constantinople, and Alexandria, it is always 
in the populous quarters of the Jews and Armenians, 
and in the faubourgs and impassable streets, that the 
disease rages with the greatest intensity.” “ In the 
plague of 1834-5, at Alexandnia,” says Aubert, “the 
poorer claszes suffered far inore than the rich. Their 
quarters were horribly decimated.” Both these authors 
describe the residences of the poorer classes in the 
Kast as fitted rather for animals than men, while their 
inhabitants suffer under all the afflictions of misery, 
filthiness, and insufficient dict. Among the great 


numbers who perished at the plague of Moscow, few of 


note suffered; and in reference to this point, Lord 
Clarendon, returning to London after the Great Plague 
(emphatically called the Poor’s Plague), observed that 
few of nis friends were missing. Then, again, how 
many of the plagues of antiquity were connected with 
famine. 


“Certain it is,’ says Dr. Bateman, “that | the Great Plague of London. 


MAGAZINE, 315 
famine and pestilenec have ever been observed toge- 
ther from the earhest ages of the world, and are con- 
tinually mentioned in combination in the sacred 
writings. ‘The plague after a famine,’ was an old 
Greek adage. When articles of food are scarce, they 
also frequently are corrupted, and may thus contribute 
to dispose the system to a state of disease.” The vast 
increase of facilities for intercommunication, the ex- 
tension of commerce, and the improvements in agri- 
culture (cspecially the introduction of the potato), have 
rendered famines both much less common and less 
possible than heretofore. 

In the brief notice we purpose to give of some of 
the principal epidemic diseases, the Plague natu- 
rally first arrests our attention, from its antiquity, its 
formerly almost universal prevalence, and its great 
diminution in modern times. But we are at once met 
with a difficulty, arising from the vagueness and un- 
certainty of the medical nomenclature employed in 
former times; for as the word plague was alinost indis- 
erlminately employed to designate any great or devas- 
tating disease, there can be no doubt that it has been 
frequently applied to discases which in modern times 
have received distinctive appellations. If this remark 
applies, as it docs, to some of the diseases raging during 
the middle ages, yct does it more so to those of a re- 
moter antiquity. And thus doubts have becn raised 
whether the famous plague of Athens was the true 
plague or not. However this may be, a more frightful 
example of an epidemie cowld scarcely be pointed out 
than this, as described to us by Thucydides, who wit- 
nesscd it. Transported from /lthopia, the disease 
broke forth with the most terrible violence upon the 
unfortunate inhabitants of Attica, who had _ filled 
Athens with a population fleecing from the attacks of 
the Lacedzemonians during the Peloponnesian war. 
The Athenians raised a cry, so often repeated under 
similar eireumstances, that the wells had been poisoned 
by their cnemies. The mortality was 1mmense, but 
the licentiousness and recklessness that prevailed were 
even more dreadful. In this epidemic, it 1s said, the 
eelebratcd Hippocrates, the father of medicine, in vain 
essaycd his art ; and from the saine pestilence perished 
Pericles, just as his talents and decision were most 
required by the fickle and ungrateful Athenians. We 
have accounts of nunicrous other plagues of antiquity. 
During the reign of Marcus Aurelius (a.p. 166), one 
developed itself in almost every part of the Roman 
empire. The emperor, entering Rome in triumph 
after obtaining victories in the Last, carried with him 
the seeds of the disease into the capital. It passed the 
Alps and the Rhine, ravaging severely the countries 
called by the Romans barbarian, 

During the reign of Gallus (252), a eclebrated pes- 
tilence desolated Europe. Zonaras states that it lasted 
for fifteen ycars. Both the Roman armies, which were 
assembled to repress the advance of the barbarians and 
the Goths who devastated Italy, became the victims, 
Procopius and Nicephorus, eotemporary historians, de- 
scribe a terrible plaguc during the reign of Justinian : 
commeneing in 542, it is said to have lasted half a cen- 
tury. It was carried to Marseilles in 583, and to Paris in 
590. The mortality resulting from it has been estimated 
by some at one hundred and cight millions. Its eharac- 
ters resembled aceurately those of the more modern 
plagues. From this period this discase has continued 
to manifest itself at intervals in different couutries ; 
and at one period it was as common in Europe as it 1s 
at present in the East; and Paris and Loudon were 
almost as frequently infested by it as Cairo or Constan- 


 tinople. 


Ozanam cnunierates cleven celebrated plagues prior 
to Christ, and about one hundred up to the pericd of 
The most celebrated 

Zo 2 


316 
plague of comparatively modern times was the Black 
Plague, or Death of the Fourteenth Century, the third 
universal plague, says Stow, since the Deluge. A 
notice of Dr. Hecker’s interesting account of this has 
already appeared in this Magazine.* By far the most 
terrible plague with which Britain has been visited 
occurred in 1665, and is known in history as the Great 
Plague. This century had already been very prolific 
in the disorder, for Sir Gilbert Blane enumerates forty- 
five plagues as occurring from 1602 to 1665, of which 
twelve happened in England. But none of these ap- 
proached to the extent of the ravages committed by the 
Great Plague. Commencing at first in St. Giles’s, the 
disease soon spread to the surrounding parishes, and, 
notwithstanding the most vigilant precautions, entcred 
the city. A general panic ensucd: the nobility and 
royal family soon quitted the metropolis, and were 
Shortly followed by numbers of others; so that a com- 
plete emigration into the surrounding districts com- 
Inenced, and was only checked by the lord mayor re- 
fusing to grant certificates of health, and_by the inha- 
bitants of the neighbouring townships in their own 
defence refusing to admit the fugitives. Many mer- 
chants and others took refuge on board vessels in the 
river, and were supplied with provisions, &c. from 
Woolwich, Greenwich, and other parts of the Kentish 
side. Some of these ships went even -out to sea, and 
others put into various harbours. The pestilence con- 
tinued to increase, and the miscry consequent upon it 
augmented in like proportion; and from the want of 
employment for servants, artisans, &c., more than 
forty thousand of that class were roaming’ about with- 
outa home. Superstition and fanaticism added terror 
to sufferings sufficiently horrible. Tales and pre- 
dictions of all kinds were circulated; crowds assem- 
bled around the cemeteries to see the apparitions, while 
pretended prophets traversed the streets, announcing 
with maniacal gesturcs the entire destruction of the 
city. The chief thoroughfares became overgrown with 
grass, whole streets were tenantless, a most awful 
silence prevailed everywhere, interrupted only by the 
ravings of delirium, the loud laugh of debauchery 
issuing from the taverns, or the tinkling of the bell 
announcing the arrival of the pest-cart. The rites of 
sepulture were necessarily dispensed with; the bodies 
were promiscuously shot into a huge pit, attended only 
by the abandoned characters to whom the duty of col- 
lecting them was assigned, and who often performed 
their horrid offices in a manner the most rcvolting. 
The very means adopted to prevent the spreading of 
the disease sometimes multiplied the number of 
victims, for when a house was once marked by the red 
cross, designating the existence of the disease within it, 
its miscrable inmates were prevented for one month 
all egress; and thus confined and panic-struck, com- 
municated it to each other. The provident cares of the 
magistracy prevented famine being added to the other 
calamities ; and the contributions of the rich kept pace 
in some degree with the wants of the poor. King 
Charles IJ. (with all his faults, he could feel for the 
distresses of his subjects, as his conduct on this occasion 
and that of the Fire of London shows), contributed 
£1000 per week; and it is said that the almost incre- 
dible sum of £100,000 was distributed to the neces- 
sitous weekly. At the approach of winter the violence 
of the disease rapidly diminished, and those of the inha- 
bitants who had fled, joyfully returned to their homes. 
Although it was computed that nearly one hundred 
thousand persons had perished, yet in a short time the 
chasm in the population was no longer visible. 

The plague of Marseilles, which occurred in 1720, 
has attracted much attention. That city had twenty 
times before suffered from this disease, but never to the 

* Vol. vii., p. 478, 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. [Aueust 14, 
terrible extent 1t did upon the occasion in question. 
We have no space to entcr into any of the details, but 
cannot pass over without notice the admirable conduct 
and seli-devotion of Belsunce, the bishop of that city, 
a name almost as much honoured in France as that of 
Howard is among ourselves. This excellent man, of 
whom Pope says— 
« Why drew Marseilles’ good bishop purer breath 
When nature sickened and each gale was death ;” 


was at once the almoner, physician, and spiritual 
director of the poor. An eye-witness of his cfforts 
observes, ‘‘On the vast and frightful theatre of our 
sufferings we had not to seck the prelate. He was 
always whercver the greatest peril was to be found. 
His zeal knew no other measure than the wants and 
miseries of his flock. Huis firmness was never oncc 
shaken by the various forms by which death sur- 
rounded him.” Some idea of what he had to encounter, 
and of the statc of Marseilles during the prevalence of 
this pestilence (which in its progress carried off sixty 
thousand persons), may be gathered from the following 
extract from one of the bishop’s lettcrs :—‘“‘ We have 
seen all the streets of this town hned on each side by 
the unburied and half-putrefied dcad, and so encum- 
bered by articles of furniture cast from the windows, 
that we have had difficulty in finding where to place 
our feet. We have seen the expiring sick become the 
objects of dread and horror to those to whom nature 
should have inspired the tenderest and most respectful 
sentiments for them ; their nearest relatives cast them 
forth from their own houses into the midst of the 
streets among the dead, the stench and sight of whom 
were intolerable. How often have we seen with bittcr 
grief these poor wretches stretch out their trembling 
hands to us as we approached them, testifying their joy 
at once more meeting with the sympathy of man and 
the consolations of religion prior to death! How often 
have we seen them expire before our eyes, often for 
want of succour. Too often, alas, have we also seen the 
priests of our great God shrink with terror from their 
duty, and seek their safcty in a shameful flight; while 
a vast number of those ministers who continued faith- 
ful to Christ were snatched from us in the midst of 
their zealous and heroic charity. We are now 
destitute of all succour; we have no more meat, nor 
can I procure persons to distribute what is necessary 
to the poor or inter the dead. The doctors who have 
arrived from Montpellier are frightened at the horrid 
stench, and will not go out to see the sick until the 
streets are cleansed. What would they have donc a 
fortnight ago, when J had two hundred bodies rotting 
under my windows for ten days?” 

The government, as somc recompense, offered this 
excellent man a valuable preierment in another part 
of France; but he refused to quit the city he had 
risked his life to benefit, and cventually another was 
presentcd to him which would not occasion such a sc- 
paration. 

A similar noble example of devotion and disin- 
terestcdness was offered by Cardinal Borromeo during 
the plague which afflicted Milan in 1576. 

(To be continued.] 


a 


Physical and Mental Labour.—Whilst we were in hand with 
these four parts of the Institutes, we, often having occasion to go 
into the country, did in some sort envy the state of the honest 
ploughman and other mechanics. For one, when he was at his 
work, would merrily sing, and the ploughman whistled some 
self-pleasing tune, and yet their work both proceeded and suc- 
ceeded; but he that takes upon him to write, doth captivate all 
the faculties and powers of his mind and body, and must be only 
attentive to that which he collecteth, without any expression of 


joy or cheerfulness while he is at his work.—Sir Edward Coke. 


141. 





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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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317 







(Croydon Chureh.] 


RAILWAY RAMBLES. 
CROYDON CHURCH AND PALACE, BEDDINGTON, ETC. 


Among all the public buildings which lie within what 
may be called the envirous of London, and which are 
at once beautiful in themselves and interesting from 
their historical associations, there are few which will 
afford greater gratification to the visitor than the old 
archiepiscopal church and palace of Croydon. The 
manor wpon which they stand belonged to Lanfranc, 
archbishop of Canterbury, at the time of the Conquest; 
and as it has never changed owners from that time till 
its sale in the latter part of the last century (except for 
a short period during the Commonwealth), their his- 
tory includes no slight portion of the history of the 
heads of the chureh for eight hundred years.  Chi- 
cheley, the founder of the Lollands’ tower at Lambeth, 
rebuilt the sacred edifice, and succeeding prelates 
from time to time have assisted in the work of its pre- 
servation. In the palace, the author of the ‘ King’s 
Quair,’ James I., the royal poet of Scotland, spent most 
probably some part of the term of his early captivity ; 
for there is a deed or charter in existence, signed by 
him, and dated from Croydon, anno 1412. He must 
then have been in the charge of Archbishop Arundel. 
Here also Elizabeth was entertained by the Primate 
Parker for seven days. But the reminiscences of the 
place are innuinerable; so we shall merely add one 
more to the number, as we wander on towards the 
Church. 

- William Walworth, London’s bold Lord Mayor, who 
put an end to thé formidable insurrection of Wat Tyler 
and his associates by destroying its head, was ranger 
of Croydon park. The church, which has of late years 
undergone a thorough restoration, presents a fine ex- 
terior view; the body is lghted by seven beautiful 
windows, adorned by an elegant porch of entrance, 
erected in 1829, and dignified by a stately turreted and 
pinnacled tower. The interior, with its lofty roof and 
clustered pillars, 1s characterised by a very cathedral- 
like aspect. Around the walls are a variety of monu- 
ments calculated to inspire the spectator with no ordi- 
nary interest. The first circumstance that strikes his 
eye is the now uncommon appearance of painted sculp- 
ture, in which this church 1s scarcely less rich than 
the famous inetropolitan church of St. Mary Overies. 
Taking the more remarkable of the monuments in the 
order in which they occur, we may first mention that 
of Nicholas Herone, dated 1568, which has two rows 
of figures, one of four males, the other of six females, 


all facing one way, and all ranged in due order of de- 
clension from the tallest to the least. Near to this is 
the painted monument of a “citizen and grocer of 
London, 1571,” with the figures of himself and his wife 
in niches. Archbishop Grindall’s monument 1s a splen- 
did work in painted sculpture. It is of marble, of 
great size, and bears his full-length effigy. Arch- 
bishop Whitgift’s monument has also a full-length re- 
presentation of the prelate in marble. In both these 
works, the smaller ornaments, foliage, &c. are all 
picked out in colours, giving to the whole a curiously 
rich effect. We next find au ancient square niche, 
which is worthy of attention on account of the beauty 
of its sculptured decorations; the painted arms and 
real helmet placed above have survived apparently 
the more important effigies of their owner, which must 
have originally occupied the niche. We now approach 
the most imposing-looking monument that the church 
contains — Archbishop Sheldon’s. This extends, we 
should say, to at least three-fourths of the height of the 
lofty roof of the edifice. The prevailing colour 1s 
black. On the top white-winged infantine figures 
support the painted coat of arms and gilded mitre. 
Below this is a large tablet; whilst the lower part 1s 
occupied by a projecting tomb, on which 1s an ie wecd- 
ingly beautiful effigy of the Archbishop in white mar- 
ble. He is reclining on his left arm, which is elevated 
on pillows, and his eyes are directed towards the 
spectator. Around the sides of the tomb extends a 
remarkable frieze, formed of death’s heads, winged 
hour-glasses, and bones, all startlingly real in their ap- 
pearance, from the excellence of the workmanship, and 
the contrast between the white marble of which they 
are formed and the black ground on which they are 
laid. All the prelates we have mentioned were In- 
terred here, as were also Archbishops Herring, Potter, 
Wake, and Abbot. et 
Time has played sad work with the once fair 
palace. An old brick pile in the church-yard is the 
first part of it that arrests our attention. A large 
stone window in the centre, bricked wp, shows us what 
transformations have taken place even mm the portions 
of the structure yet remaining. A low doorway and 
staircasc, both of stone, admit us to the chapel, which 
yet remains in excellent preservation. As we ascend 
the steps we have a glimpse of the richly carved oaken 
pew erected for the use of Elizabeth, most probably on 
the visit before spoken of. | 
Farther in the chapel a screen extends across it. The 
paunelled ceiling and narrow pointed arched windows 


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(The Staucase of the Chapel, with Queen Elizabeth's Pew.] 


sive to this spot a fine antique expression, in admira 

ble harmony with its original purpose. It is now used 
as a school-room. The other principal remain of the 
palace is one that it is difficult to see without regret— 
an antiquary would perhaps say without indignation. 
This is the banqueting-hall, an immense and most 
magnificent structure, with the lofty pointed arched 
and groined roof of stone, the beautiful windows, and 
various painted coats of arms still remaining entire. 
This place, which would alone amply repay one for a 
much more extensive journey than from London to 
Croydon, 1s now, and has been for some tinie, occupied 
as a great Laundry! ‘The restoration of so splendid an 
ancient work is surely a case deserving the attention 
of those lovers of antiquities who have done much of 
late years to entitle them to the gratitude of posterity 
for preserving many a beautiful work of art for its in- 
struction and enjoyment. The hall of Croydon Palace 
as yet preserves essentially its strength, beauty, ana 
grandeur, although sadly mutilated in its parts by the 
alterations necessary for the business carried on in it, 
aud desecrated by the coal-sheds and dirt-heaps that 
ineet your eyes as youenter. Such is the state of the 
still glorious hall of the old archiepiscopal palace of 
Croydon! Hamlet’s imaginary degradation of fallen 
srcatness— 


“Imperial Caesar dead and turned to clay 
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away ”— 


scarcely presents a more extraordinary contrast than 
this real picture. 

Leaving the palace, the end of an old brick building 
with a gable roof and the letters J. W. worked in the 
walls, meets the eye at the top of the street. This is 
the hospital founded by Archbishop Whiteift for de- 
cayed housekeepers. Among its curiosities is a Bible 
in the dming-room, in oaken boards, which are almost 
covered with brass-work and solid studs ; and the chapel, 
Which is unique for its diminutive size and complete- 
ness. On the road from Croydon to Waddon, at a short 
distance from the former, we perceive, on looking back, 
the very pleasant view of the church shown at the head 
of this paper; and after quittmg Waddon by a lane 
only broad enough for pedestrians, which runs over the 
brow of a little eminence, and which at every step ar- 
resied our eyes to admire and our hands to collect 
some of the beautiful wild-flowers which enrich its 
hedges, we hear the sound of a water-wheel, the only 


busy thing in that quiet place, and presently the mill | 


and the glassy stream of the Wandle are visible by our 


side. 
heart of the prince of anglers, old Izaak Walton, even - 


MAGAZINE. [Auaust 14, 
Here is a scene to have gladdened the gentle 


if the dark shapes gliding about in the clear brilliant 
waters were somewhat less plentiful than they are 


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From hence a short walk brings us out into the high 
road to Beddington, and we soon ascend one of the plea- 
santest of the ‘pleasant hills of Kent;” from the top 
of which we catch, through some charming openings 
in the foliage of the park, a glimpse of Beddington 
House, the aristocratic-looking seat of the ancient 
family of the Carews. The name of Beddington is as 
old as Domesday, where it is spelt Beddintone; and if 
any reliance is to be placed on the etymology of the 
word, it signifies the first lodging-place or stage out of 
London: Bedding in Saxon signifying a bed or lodg- 
ing. The Roman road to Stone Strect and Sussex 
passes through the parish. So early as the fifteenth 
century the manor belonged to the Carew family, who 
lost it for a time by the attainder of Sir Nicholas Carew 
in 1539, as “being of counsel” with the Marquess of 
Exeter and Lord Montacute, all of whom were be- 
headed by Henry VIII., on so vague a charge (that of 
assisting the king’s enemy Cardinal Pole), that one of 
the best informed of contemporary writers, Lord Her- 
bert, says ‘he could never discover the particular 
offence of those great persons.” The simple fact secs 
to be that Henry had been so stung by the cardinal’s 
honest and indignant invectives against him on account 
of the murder of Sir Thomas More, that he could not 
rest without the blood of those whom he knew or sus- 
pected to hold any terms of intimacy or friendship with 
that eminent man. In the reign of Elizabeth. the at- 
tainder was reversed, but Sir Francis Carew, the 
rightfil owner, had to repurchase the estates. He 
then “rebuilt the mansion-house in a very magnificent 
manner, and laid out the gardens, which he planted 
with choice fruit-trees, in the cultivation of which he 
took great delight, and spared no expense in procuring 
them from foreign countries. The first orange-trees 
seen in England are said to have been planted by him. 
Aubrey says they were brought from Italy by Sir 
Francis Carew; but the editors of the ‘ Biographia,’ 
speaking from a tradition preserved in the famuly, tell 
us they were raised by Sir Francis Carew from the 
seeds of the first oranges which were imported into 
England by Sir Walter Raleigh, who had married nis 
niece, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton: 
the trees were planted in the open ground, and were 


preserved in the winter by a moveable shed; they flou- 


1841.] 


rished for about a century and a half, being destroyed 
by the hard frost in 1739-40.”"*. Elizabeth, among her 
other visits, paid two to Sir Francis in 1599 and 1560. 
The queen's oak and her favourite walk were long 
pointed out in memory of this occasion. Sir TTugh Platt 
relates an interesting anecdote of one of Iclizabeth’s 
visits to Beddington :-—“ Here I will conclude witha 
conceit of that delicate kmight Sir Francis Carew, who, 
for the better accomplishment of lis royal entertain- 
ment of our late queen Elizabeth, of happy memory, 
at his house at Beddington, led her majesty to a cherry- 
tree, whose fruit he had of purpose kept back from 
ripening at the least one month after all cherries had 
taken their farewell of England. 
formed by straining a tent or cover of canvas over the 
whole tree, and wetting the same now and then with a 
scoop or horn as the heat of the weather required ; and 
so by withholding the sun-beams from reflecting upon 
the berries, they grew both great and were very long 
before they had gotten their perfect cherry colour; 
and when he was assured of her majesty’s coming, he 
removed the tent, and a few sunny days brought them 
to their full maturity.+ 


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(Beddington Church, with a part of the adjoining Mansion.) 


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The mansion and the church are close together. 
The first is of brick, built in the form of three sides of 
a square, the hollow thus formed facing the park, 
where a broad shect of water extends in a direct line 
from the house between a noble avenue of trees. The 
hall is large and lofty, with a beautiful timber roof. 
The’ great door has a curious ancient lock, richly 
wrought, with the key-hole concealed by a shield bear- 
ing the arms of England, which moves to and fro ina 
eyoove. The church was probably erected in the time 
of Richard II. The tower has of late years been re- 
stored. The interior is large and handsome, and is 
full, to a very extraordinary degree, of rich monuments. 
One of these is of brass, and placed on the floor. This 
is an exceedingly interesting work, in perfect preser- 
vation. It contains full-length figures of Sir Nicholas 
Carew, who died in 1432, and of Isabella, his wife. 
But the great attraction of the church is the private 
chancel belonging to the Carew family, which is di- 
vided from the rest of the building by an elegant 
screen, and beneath which is their burial vault. This 
is a complete nest of elegant sculpture. The principal 
monument is that of Sir Francis Carew (1611), Uhiza- 


* Lyson’s § Environs of London,’ vol. 1., p. 06. 
9 % 2 
+ Platt’s “Garden of Eden. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


This secret he per-. 


319 
beth’s entertainer, which is of marble, lofty, and bears 
his full-length efligy: altogether a very splendid work. 
Below is arow of figures representing Sir Nicholas 
Carew and Jns family; and, adjoining, a tomb from 
which the figure has been removed: both of these 
monuments are decorated with exquisite workmanship. 
The font of the church must not be passed over with- 
out a brief notice. It 1s square, supported by four 
round pillars and a massive central stem, and, alto- 
gether, tells us, in the plainest language, that many a 


generation has passed away since it was first devoted 
to its sacred use. 


ON THE ARTIFICIAL COOLING OF DRINKS. 


Iv is nota little curious to observe the contrivances 
which different nations have adopted to give an arti- 
ficial degree of coldness to the beverages customarily 
in use among them in warm seasons. The points are 
few in which the inhabitants of a warm and luxurious 
climate envy those of a cold and snowy region; yet we 
could almost apply the term envy to the desire which 
the warmth of a southern climate engenders for the 
cooling drinks of a snowy country. 

The Persians are very fond of iced drinks in the 
summer; and as the winters of that country are sufli- 
ciently cold to produce ice in considerable quantity, a 
store 1s laid by for hot weather. Bell, in his ‘ Travels 
in Asia,’ notices the practice, but Sir John Chardin 
describes the system more minutely. The Persians 
open a deep flat-bottomed ditch facing the north, and 
near it dig a number of shallow square holes. These 
holes are filled with water on a winter’s evening ; and 
by the morning a crust of ice has formed on the surface, 
which is taken off, broken into small fragments, and 
thrown into the trench. The squares are then re- 
filled with water, and the broken ice in the trench is 
sprinkled with water from aconvenient vessel. On 
the next morning a second supply of ice is obtained 
from the squares, while at the same time the sprinkled 
water, by congealing, has converted the fragments 
into one solid lump in the trench. Thus the opera- 
tions continue, until a large mass of solid ice is accu- 
mulated, when the trench is closely covered with 
marine rushes, and left undisturbed till the summer. 
When required as a means of artificially cooling 
beverages, the ice is taken from the trench, and sold. 
at so much per ass or mule load, to persons who retail 
it in open spots outside the city walls. Oriental cus- 
toms are so unchanging, that Chardin’s account would 
probably apply, with very httle alteration, to the pre- 
sent times. 

Kalm, in describing the dwellings of the inhabit- 
ants of Quebec, says, “Some of the people of quality 
make use of ice-cellars to keep beer cool in durmg’ 
summer, and to keep fresh meat, which would not 
keep long in the great heat. These ice-cellars are 
commonly built of stone under the house; the walls 
are covered with boards, because the ice 1s more easily 
melted by stones. In winter the cellar is filled with 
ice and snow, covered with a little water, wlich con- 
eeals and hardens all into one mass. 

The mode of making and storing ice in Bengal is 
very remarkable; but for an account of this we will 
refer to No. 330 of the ‘Penny Magazine,’ and will 
pass on to a notice of the use of sow for similar pur- 
poses. There is proof that the art of preserving snow 
for cooling liquors during the summer in warm 
climates was known in very early times. Solomon 
(Proverbs, xxv. 13) evidently alluded to this custom 
when he said, “As the cold of snow in the time of 
harvest, so is a faithful messenger to them that sent 
him, for he refresheth the soul of his masters.” Plu- 
tarch also speaks of the possibility of preserving snow 


320 THE PENNY 
by covering it with chaff and coarse cloth. The snow 
thus preserved was used in three or four different 
ways: it was drunk ina melted state; 1t was put in 
small quantities into their wine; and they sometimes 
placed jars filled with wine in the snow, where 1t was 
left a considerable time to cool. 

Italy and the neighbouring states seem to have been 
the only part of Western Europe in which the prac- 
tiee of cooling liquors at the tables of the great was 
prevalent before the end of the sixteenth century. 
Bellori, in his aceount of his travels in Turkey, nearly 
three centuries ago, speaks of the mode in which snow 
and ice were preserved in pits during the summer at 
Constantinople, and suggests the adoption of a similar 
plan in France. Soon afterwards 1t appears that the 
French nobility adopted the custom, in imitation of the 
Italians and Spaniards. At the end of the seventeenth 
century there were a great many persons who dealt in 
snow and ice; and this traffic, which was at first free 
to all, was afterwards farmed out by government to 
monopolists. These persons raised the price so enor- 
ously, that ihe demand almost ceased, and the trade. 
again became open. At the present day, the practice 
in France is very similar to that observed in England, 
where ice is stored in ice-houses in winter, for use 
during the summer. In some parts of Portugal it is 
said that snow is collected in deep gulfs or crevices 
during the winter, and covered first with grass or 
ereen sods, and afterwards with the litter from sheep- 
pens. With respect to the snow harvests of Naples 
and Sicily, see avery graphic account, given by an 
eye-witness, in our numbers 154 and 156. 

The next method to which we may allude is the 
employment of salts and other chemical materials. 
The cooling of water by dissolving nitre in it, is de- 
scribed in the Institutes of the emperor Akbar, as 
practised in Hindostan in the sixteenth century. One 
part of nitre is directed to be thrown into a vessel 
containing two parts of water; and a vessel of pewter 
ov silver, filled with water for drinking, and closed at 
the mouth, is directed to be immersed in the solution 
for several minutes, by which the temperature of the 
water will be reduced. This custom appears to have 
extended from India to Europe in the middle of the 
sixteenth century. 

It appears that when nitre was first employed for 
this purpose, it was not known that other salts might 
be similarly employed; but this extension of knowledge 
took place afterwards, when experiments began to be 
made on the frigorific effects produced by mingled 
salt and snow, or nitre and snow. Boyle and Fahren- 
heit, and still later Mr. Walker and Professor Lowitz, 
have produced extraordinary degrees of cold. In 
Barclay’s ‘ Argenis’ is a curious account of the mode 
in which ice-cups were made, and which may at the 
same time illustrate the powerful cooling effects of the 
substances just mentioned. Twocups made of copper 
were placed the one within the other, so as to leave a 
small space between them, which was filled with water: 
the cups were then put into a pail, amidst a mixture 
of snow and unpurified salt coarsely pounded ; and the 
water in three hours was converted into a cup of solid 
ice. The muriate, sulphate, carbonate, and phosphate 
of soda, and the nitrates of ammonia and of potash, are 
among the salts which have been employed, two or 
three together, to produce a cooling effect; but these 
are employed rather in chemical experiments than in 
domestic economy. 

Another mode of cooling drink is to accelerate the 
proeess of evaporation. The bottles or bags made of 
goat-skins, in which thé wandering Arabs carry their 
scanty provision of water, by allowing a sinall portion 
of the liquid to exude, become enveloped in a kind of 


aqueous stratum, which, quickly evaporating, abstracts | 


MAGAZINE. [Aueust 14, 
heat from the contents of the bottle, and thus renders 
the liquid acceptably cool. This effect of evaporation 
seems to have been known in very early times, for the 
Egyptians, and other inhabitants of sultry climates, 
have for ages been accustomed to cool their water for 
drinking by exposing it in porous jars. According to 
Atheneeus, King Antiochus had always a provision for 
his table prepared in that way. The water was care- 
fully decanted from its sediment into earthen pitchers, 
and carried to the highest part of his palace, where the 
vessels were exposed to the clear and keen atmosphere 
during the night, the sides being occasionally wetted 
to aid the evaporation. Galen also, in allusion to the 
prevalent usages among the Egyptians, says that the 
water for drinking, having been previously boiled, was 
poured at sun-set into shallow pans, which were then 
carried to the house-top, and exposed during the whole 
night to the wind; and to preserve the low tempera- 
ture thus acquired, the pans were removed at day- 
break, and placed on the shaded ground, surrounded 
by leaves of trees, prunings of vines, lettuce, or other 
slow-conducting substances. om . 

The effect of evaporation in cooling liquors is known 
everywhere, and is applied in various ways. In addi- 
tion to the instances given above, we may mention that 
the Moors introduced into Spain a sort of unglazed 
earthen jugs, named bucaros or alcarrazas, which, being 
filled with water, present to the atmosphere a surface 
constantly humid, and furnish, by evaporation during 
the hot weather, a refreshing beverage. In Guinea it 
is customary to fill gourds or calabashes with water, . 
and suspend them all night from the outer branches of 
trees. The captains of French galleys in the Medi- 
terranean used formerly to cool their wines in summer 
by hanging the flasks all night from the masts: at day- 
break they were taken down and lapped in several 
folds of flannel, to preserve them in the same state ; 
and even in our own day, the more luxuriant of the 
mariners between the tropics are accustomed to cool 
their wines by wrapping the bottle in wet flannel, and 
suspending it from the cabin window. , 

Professor Leslie extended this method, by placing 
near a porous vessel containing the drink another ves- 
sel filled with sulphuric acid, which absorbed the mois- 
ture as fast as if was evaporated, and thus accelerated 
the cooling by accelerating the evaporation; and also 
explained how a small ‘ refrigeratory’ might be fitted 
up so as to cool not only bottles of liquid, but also va- 
rious kinds of solid food. The same distinguished 
philosopher showed how powerful a cooling effect 
might be produced by the use of the air-pump. By 
placing two small vessels under the receiver of an air- 
pump, one containing water and the other sulphuric 
acid, and then partially exhausting the air, the water 
becomes speedily converted into ice, the acid acting as 
an absorbent of the vapour given off by the water as 
the atmospheric pressure was removed. He subse- 
quently found that parched oatmeal would act very well 
as the absorbent, thus obviating the danger of using 
sulphuric acid. 


Iron Steam-Boats.—I had the pleasure at breakfast of sitting 
next Mr. Babbage, whose name is so well known among us as 
the author of the self-calculating machine. He has a most re- 
markable eye, that looks as if it might penetrate science, or any-~ 
thing else he chose to look into. He described the iron steamer 
now building, which has a larger tonnage than any merchant 
ship in the world, and expressed an opinion that iron ships would 
supersede all others; and another opinion that much concerns 
us, and which, I trust, will soon be verified—that in a few years 
these iron steamers will go to America in seven days! — Afiss 
Sedqwick’s Letters. 


1841.) 





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THie PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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[Babiroussa.] 


THE BABIROUSSA (Sus Babyrussa, Linn.). 


THE Babiroussa, or, as the Malays term it, Babi-rusa 
(swine-deer), is closely related to the common hog, 
belonging to the same genus. Fred. Cuvier indeed 
regarded it as the type of a distinct generic section, but 
most naturalists have left it in the genus to which 
Linneus assigned it. 

Though naturalists have been long acquainted with 
this animal, no living specimen, as far as we can learn, 
previously to the one now in the menagerie of the 
Zoological Society, has been imported into this country ; 
indeed, preserved specimens are extremely rare. The 
only example we had ever seen (before the present 
living animal) was that in the collection of Mr. Steed- 
man, which was exhibited some years since at the Co- 
losseum. The skull of the Babiroussa, on the contrary, 
is brought in abundance to England by vessels trading 
in the Indian seas, and may be observed in most mu- 
seums and collections of natural history, the long 
curved tusks of the upper jaw rendering it very re- 
markable. 

It is not improbable that the ancients had a more or 
less accurate knowledge of the existence of the Babi- 
roussa. Pliny notices a wild-boar, found in India, with 
horns projecting from the forehead; and Cosmes, a 
writer of the sixth century, gives the term swine-deer 
(youpekagoc), as the designation of an Indian animal. 
Pliny’s horned hog and this swine-deer may perhaps 
be the same animal. The description by the one, and 
the name given by the other writer, are, it must be 
confessed, very applicable to the Babiroussa, whose 
long horn-like tusks, passing through the skin of the 
snout, rise upwards, and then curve round upon the 
forehead, as if to protect the head and eyes. Accord- 
ing to Desmarest, it is the four-horned hog of /I lian. 

Bontius and Seba have both described and figured 


as the Aper Indicus Orientalis. Grew, in his ‘Museum 
Societatis Regalis,’ terms it the Horned Hog, and 
figures the skull. It is also described, and figured, but 
badly, by Valentyn (1726). It is the Indian Hog of 
Pennant (‘Synopsis ). 

The Babiroussa is completely hog-like in its figure 
and manners. The living specimen in the menageric 
of the Zoological Society is a very young male, cer- 
tainly not half-grown, and much resembles a small pig 
of the Chinese breed. It is roundly formed, like a 
young well-bred hog, and the skin lics close, giving a 
compactness to its appearance. 

The head is small, and high between the ears; the 
snout is elongated; the ears are very small, erect, and 
pointed; the eyes in their form and expression resem- 
ble those of a stag; the iris is brown; the skin, which 
is thinly clothed with short black bristly hairs, 1s every- 
where dotted with small granulations, which spread 
and become rougher, coarser, and more decided about 
the limbs and feet, and especially on the anterior part 
of the head and sides of the face and underjaw. Closely 
as the skin lies, it becomes thrown into a series of re- 
cular and prettily arranged wrinkles or furrows with 
the different movements of the body, and varying in 
direction accordingly. As the ammal turns to one 
side, these furrows are transverse ; in other attitudes 
they become more or less oblique; but none are to be 
seen when the animal stands still or lics quietly on its 
straw. 

The tail is rather long, slender, and tapering; the 
the limbs are well-proportioned, and do not appear to 
be longer, in relation to the size of the body, than In 
the hog ; the tusks of the upper jaw (in the present in- 
dividual) are at present small, but curved back. 

In its state of captivity this young Babiroussa seems 
as contented as a pig in its stye, aud it is not only 
quiet, but disposed to familiarity, raising itself up on 


it; the former under the title Baby-roussa; the latter | its hind legs,and putting its snout to the bars of the 


No. 602, 


Vou. X.—2 T 


322 Wie NNY 
enclosure, evidently soliciting food. It turns the straw 
over aud over with its nose, and champs in eating, but 
utters no grunt, as does the hog, nor has it the peculiar 
smell of the latter. There can be little doubt that the 
Babiroussa might be added, and usefully, to the list of 
our domestic animals. 

If the description we have here given of this young 
Babiroussa be compared with that of various writers, 
many points of discrepancy will be detected. 

Shaw, in his ‘Gencral Zoology,’ states this animal 
to be covered not with bristles, but with fine, short, 
and somewhat woolly hair, of a deep brown or blackish 
colour, interspersed with a few bristles on_the upper 
and hinder part of the back. Such 1s also Desmarest's 
account, who further observes that it stands higher on 
the limbs than the ordinary hog. The origin of these 
details is referrible to Valentyn, who describes the Ba- 
biroussa as of a morc slender contour than its relatives, 
covered with somewhat woolly hair, with some soft 
bristles on the back. 

In the individual in question these characters are 
certainly not to be seen, nor indeed were they in the 
preserved specimen to which we have alluded. In 
that specimen, which was adult, the skin was coarse, 
warty, and black, and the bristly hairs so short and so 
sparingly set, as scarcely to be noticed by a casual 
observer. 

Lesson, who informs us that he examined many 
specimens of the Babiroussa at Sourabaya, in the island 
of Java, describes this animal preeisely as we have 
found it. He states the skin to be black and furrowed, 
and furnished with only a few scattered hairs, adding, 
that the contour of the body is stout and massive, and 
the limbs robust. 

The dentition of the Babiroussa differs in some re- 
spects from that of the hog; and in the peculiarities 
of the tusks of the upper jaw the animal stands alone. 

The tusks of the lower jaw, like those of the hog, 
are large and exposed, and are, no doubt, very formida- 
ble weapons; but those of the upper jaw are extraor- 
dinary both in form and position. They do not pass 
out between the lips, but cut through the skin on the 
upper surface of the snout, and thus appear like horns 
rowing in an unnatural position. If we examine the 
skull, we shall find that the alveolz, or sockets, from 
which these tusks proceed, are directed obliquely up- 
wards by the side of the maxillary bone, and covered 
in the living animal by the skin. Hence, the tusks as 
they grow, taking an upward direction, necessarily cut 
throngh the skin, as a sort of gum, and appear in the 
position described. In the adult animals these tusks 
attain to a great length, but are comparatively slender ; 
they rise at first vertically, and then curve round 
towards the forehead, with a slight inclination out- 
wards, forming half or three-fourths of a circle, and 
often pressing against the forehead. 

The situation and shape of the upper tusks render 
them uscless as weapons, .and the intention of nature 
in giving to the Babiroussa such remarkable instru- 
ments 1s not apparent. 

It has been alleged, but on no good authority, that 
the animal applies them as hooks to low branches, in 
order to support itself when reposing in the depths of 
the forest. This idea is scarcely worthy notice. In 
the first place, when they touch the forehead, or even 
nearly so, as is often the case, it would be impossible 
for the animal to hook them upon a branch, unless in- 
deed the branch were a single undivided stem so appo- 
sitely placed as to allow of being threaded through 
their circle. In the second place, they do not exist, 
or rather, are undeveloped in the female, who certainly 
requires as much support as the male. 

The fact is, that this imaginary use of the tusks of 
the Babiroussa as hooks, which has passed current, 


MAGAZINE, {| AUGUSENRE, 
though entitled only to mdicule, appears first to have 
been suggested by Valentyn, and it was from a trans- 
lation of his ‘History of the East Indies that Pennant, 
as he informs us, borrowed the followimeg snecinct de- 
scription, in which, as will be seen, this strange use 
of the tusks is asserted. The passage 1s as follows :— 
‘“Inhabits Booro, a small isle near Amboina, but 
neither the continent of Asia nor Africa. They are 
sometimes kept tame in the Indian Isles; live in 
herds, have a very quick scent, feed on herbs and 
leaves of trees, and never ravage gardens like other 
swine. Their flesh is well tasted. When pursned 
and driven to extremities, they rush into the sea, swim 
well, and often dive; in the forests, often rest their 
head by hooking their upper tusks on some bough. 
The tusks, from their form, are useless in fight.” 

Another conjecture is that these tusks may serve to 
protect the eyes and head of the animal, as it urges its 
way through the dense and tangled underwood of the 
forest; but here unfortunately recurs the objection 
that they are not developed in the female. 

After all, 1t appears that these tusks must be re- 
earded only in the light of a sexual distinction pecu- 
liar to the male, and without specific use. Analogous 
examples are abundant. The horse has tusks; the 
mare none. The adult male Pongo of Borneo has 
huge callosities on the checks ; m the female they are 
absent. In many birds we see the males adorned with 
redundant and flowiig plumes, which are denied to 
the female; and parallel instances occur among in- 
sects. 

Of the habits and manners of the Babiroussa in its 
native regions we have but a general account. Lesson 
states it to be extremely partial to swampy places, and 
to dechght-in the water, where 1t swims with the greatest 
ease. IIe says it inhabits the marshy forests in the 
interior of the isle of Booro (one of the Moluccas), and 
that it feeds chiefly upon maize, giving preference to 
that beyond other articles of diet. Its temper is wild 
and savage, and it is said to preserve its ferocity and 
spirit of independence even when domesticated, re- 
maining almost perfectly intractable; an assertion 
which may apply to adults when captured, but certainly 
not to individuals taken young, as 1s fully proved by 
the quiet department of the living animal in the 
menagerie of the Zoological Society. 

The male, when adult, equals the largest hog; the 
female, however, 1s not only destitute of the curled 
tusks, but is much inferior in size. 

The Babiroussa is not exelusively a native of Booro ; 
it exists also in other islands of the Moluecas, as Am- 
boina, &c., and the Celebes. It associates in troops, 
like the wild hog or peccary, and is said to eross the 
straits between adjacent islands without any difficulty. 

We have not heard the young Babiroussa utter any 
distinct sound, and certamly nothing like the grunt of 
the hog; the animal, however, when irritated or en- 
raged, makes, as reported, a deep hoarse growl. 

No perfect drawing of this animal has hitherto been 
given; that in Buffon’s work is copied from Pennant, 
and is very indifferent. 


CHAUCERS PORTRAIY Gatti 
THE FRIAR. 


THE corruptions of the monastic life, of which we have 
seen a fair exainple in the person of Chaucer’s “ Monk,” 
led to the establishment, in the thirteenth century, of 
a new order of religionists, who hoped to bring back 
to the church of Rome the respect and affection of the 
people, by renouncing the wealth, the pride, the indo- 
lence, and the sensuality which so universally charae- 
terized their predecessors. 





1841. | THE PENNY 

The earliest orders of mendicant friars were those 
established by St. Dominie de Guzman, called the Do- 
mimeans or Black Friars, in 1216, and by St. Francis 
of Assisi, called the Grey Friars or Cordcliers, in 1223. 
Various other orders followed, all of whieh were ulti- 
mately snppressed except two, the Carmelites or White 
}*riars, and the Augustines. The success of these men 
was inost extraordinary. The principles and practice of 
pure Chrishanity seemed to be once more revived. 
The people beheld with wonder and admiration a body 
of men so devoted to their spiritual interests as to 
adopt for their sake a mode of life that must neces- 
sarily be full of hardships and privations. 

‘The friars had no magnificent palaces, like the 
monks, no thrones, painted windows, and stately archi- 
tecture ; they were for the most part wanderers on the 
face of the earth. In these respects they professed to 
act on the model of Christ and his Apostles; to take 
no thought for the morrow, to have no place ‘ where to 
lay their head,’ and to be indebted for the necessaries of 
existence to the spontaneous affection and kindness of 
the people whose neighbourhood they chanced to fre- 
quent. . . They exercised the occupation of beggar; 
and they undertook peremptorily to maintain in their 
sermons that Jesus Christ and his disciples demanded, 
and subsisted upon, the alms of their countrymen. It 
is not wonderful, that in the ages we are contemplating, 
persons holding out these professions should obtain the 
approbation of their contemporaries. But they did not 
stop here. Though beggars and wanderers on the 
earth, they determined to exhibit in their lives every 
proof of the most indefatigable industry. ‘ The lazy 
inonk,’ had become aterm of general disapprobation 
and obloquy. They resolved to be in all respects the 
reverse of the monk. They did not hide in eloistered 
walls, and withdraw themselves from the inspection 
and comments of mankind. They were always before 
the public, and were constantly employed in the pious 
offiees of counsel, comfort, admonition, preaching, and 
prayer. In pursuit of these objects they spared no 
fatigue; they hastened froin place to place; and when 
their frames might be expected to be worn out with 
the length of the way, they were still fresh and alert, 
without repose and almost without aliment, for all the 
offices of disinterested toil or Christian instruetion, and 
all the duties of men incessantly watchful for the sal- 
vation of their fellow-ereatures. This was their la- 
hour, their study, their refreshment, and their joy.”* 
Lastly may be noticed their most admirable exertions 
in the cause of learning. Their poverty, their hard- 
ships, and their incessant oecupation, did not prevent 
them from mastering all the subtleties of the sehool- 
astie literature and philosophy of the time, and from 
acquiring a new reputation in the pursuit. The 
ereatest intellects of the thirteenth and early part of 
the fourteenth centuries were almost all mendicants. 
We find among them Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, 
Duns Seotus, and Albertus Magnus. From this period 
their essential prosperity, which was founded upon the 
opinions of the people, began to decline, as a natural 
consequence of the fact that a more brillant but more 
delusive prosperity began to attraet the eye in every 
direction ; here in the shape of monasteries of unusual 
architectural magnificence, there in the exhibition of 
individual friars exercising the most important influ- 
ence in the temporal affairs of the world. As by the 
rules of their order the mendicant friars could not re- 
ceive estates, the munifieence of their patrons was 
displayed in the erection or adornment of the conven- 
tual buildings. Their churches in particular were 
very fine, and it became a custom with persons of the 
Inghest rank to be buried in them. In the noble 
ehurech of the Grey [Friars in London, which was 


* Godwin’s § Life of Chaucer,’ vol. 1, p. 192. 


| “advance” in the sense of profit. 


MAGAZINE. 323 


finished in 1325, four queens and six hundred persons 
of rank were buried, and their tombs, many of them of 
the most sumptuous kind, were remaining up to the 
period of the dissolution. Mendicancy had indeed be- 
come fashionable; and the religious mendicants, as 
night be expected, grew ambitious, if they were clever 
and energetic, or sensual when they wanted the talent 
or inclination to seek for anything higher than per- 
sonal ease and enjoyment. Chaucer's friar, whom we 
now introduce to our readers, is of the latter descrip- 
tion :— 


“A Frere there was, a wanton and a merry, 
A limitour, a full solemné man. 
In all the orders four is none that can 
So much of dalliance and fair language. 
He had ymade full many a marriage 
Of youngé women at his owen cost. 
Unto his order he was a noble post. 
Full well belovéd, and familiér was he 
With franklins over all in his country’. 
% x o # 
For he had power of confessidn, 
As said himself, more than a curfte, 
For of his order he was licenciat.* 
Full sweetély heard he confessién, 
And pleasant was his absolutién. 
He was au easy man to give penance, 
There as he wist? to have a good pittance ; 
For unto a pour order for to give, 
Ts signé that a man is well yshrive ;¢ 
For if he gave, he dursté make avant § 
He wisté that a man was répentant. 
For many a man so hard is of his heart, 
He may not weep, though him soré smart; 
Therefore instead of weeping and prayéres, 
Men may give silver to the pouré freres.” 


In addition to all these striking recommendations to 
sinners, who found it easier to open their pockets than 
their hearts, our friar has not neglected to prepare 
himself for those who might not require his spiritual 
services. 


“ His tippet was aye farsed || full of knives 
And pimnés for to given fairé wives. 
And certainly he had a merry note; 
Well could he smg and playen on a rote. ¢f 
Of yeddings ** he bare utterly the prize. 
His neck was whité as the fleur de lis, 
Thereto he strong was as a champion ; 
And knew well the tavernes in every town, 
Aud every hosteler and gay tapstére, 
Better than a lazar 7 or a beggére ; 
For unto such a worthy man as he 
Accordeth nought, as by his faculty, 
To haven with sike lazars 4cquaiutance : 
It is not honest, it may not advance, tt 
As for to dealen with no such pouraille, §§ 
But all with rich and sellers of vitaille.” 


A man who has so many qualifications for public 
favour, and who ean look so shrewdly after his own 
interests and dignity, could scarcely fail of suceess in 
any occupation, much less in that of the mendicant of 
the fourteenth century. 


¢ And over all, there as profit should arise, 
Courteous he was, and lowly of service. 


* That is to say, licensed to hear confession. 

+ There, where he knew or expected he should receive “a 
good pittance.” 

* Or, in other words, that he has confessed “ well.” 

§ Boast. || Stuffed. 

€f A musical instrument, supposed to have been similar to tne 
modern hurdy-gurdy, 

** The meaning of the word “ yeddings” is uncertaing songs 
or story-telling are most probably referred to. tt Leper. 

tt “ Honest’ is here used in the sense of creditable; and 

69 Offal. 

Del 2 


There was no man no where so virtuous.* 
He was the best beggar in all Ins house ; 
And gave a certain fermé for the grant, 
None of his bretheren came in his haunt.f 
For though a widow hadde but a shoe, 

(So pleasant was his In principio), 

Yet would he have a farthing e’er he went. 
His purchase was well better than his rent. 
And rage he could, as it had been a whelp, 
In lovédays; there could he mochel help. 
For there was he, not like a cloisterer 

With threadbare cope, as is a pour scholar, 
But he was like a master or 4 pope: 

Of double worsted was his semicope, 

That round was as a bell out of the press. 
Somewhat he lisped for his wantonness, 

To make his English sweet upon his tongue ; 
And in his harping, when that he had sung, 
His eyen twinkled in his head aright, 

As do the starrés in a frosty night.” 


Was there ever a more happy picture of one of the 
best of boon companions? ‘The very genuineness of 
his enjoyment makes one half in love with him, It is 
but too true, however, that we cannot, from this de- 
scription, think very highly of the worthy friar’s piety, 
Christian zeal, or power of self-denial, which the 
un-fushionable church reformers of the day (Chaucer 
and Wycliffe are among the number) held to be indis- 
pensable to even a decent observance of the duties of 
his calling. And so, whilst the poet silently and indi- 
rectly, but surely, attacked both monks and friars by 
contrasting his exemplars of each class with the “ pouré 
parson,” Wycliffe made the country ring again with 
his unsparing and almost imdiscriminating invectives 
of the entire body of religionists of all kinds. In one 
of his works he divided this body into twelve classes, 
beginning with the pope and ending with the mendi- 
cant friars, all of whom he denounces as anti-Christs 
aud the proctors of Satan. Gradually the friars be- 
came even more odious, perhaps, than the monks had 
ever been, as they were more meddling and _ per- 
sonally intrusive; and their fate excited the less regret 
at the common ruin which awaited their establish- 
ments at the dissolution of monasteries in the sixteenth 
century. 

The friar is a “limitour,” which Mr. Tyrrwhitt de- 
fines as one licensed to beg within a certain district; 
and Junius, who gives a wider meaning to the term, as 
one who discharged his office generally within speci- 
fied districts. These definitions most probably point 
very nearly to the truth; for, as Dr. Jamieson has ob- 
served, in the ‘ Visions of Piers Plowman,’ the “ limi- 
tour” appears as a confessor, who, by virtue of epis- 
copal letters, although he had no parochial charge, 
was authorised to hear confession and grant absolution 
within a certain district. The love-day, on which the 
friar appears to have been in much request, is sup- 
posed to have been originally a day appointed for the 
amicable settlement of differences, on which, when the 
business of the occasion was concluded, a treat was 
given to the arbitrators. Gradually it appears that 
the love-day degenerated into what was little better 
than a mere feast, characterised by more than ordinary 
licence and riot. Thus in ‘Piers Plowman,’ the author, 
whilst inveighing against the luxury and amusement 


of the ecclesiastics, does not forget the love-day. He 
Says i— 


“ And now is religion a rider, a roamer by the street, 
A. leader of love-dayes, and a loud beggar, 
A pricker on a palfrey,” &c. 


* Active, indefatigable. 


That is to say, he farmed or paid a certain rent for the right 


eget in his haunt,” to which consequently none of his 
“bretheren” were allowed to come. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[AuGuUaraad, 


Our friar was, no doubt, ‘‘a leader of love-days:” 
“there,” says Chaucer, “could he mochel help.” In 
the Sutherland manuscript, the Friar 1s represented in 
a black dress; from which it appears the artist consi- 
dered him to have been a Dominican, although there 
is no allusion in the text from which such a conclusion 
can be established. 


THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY’S MUSEUM. 


IIavine lately described the museums belonging to 
the East India Company and to the United Service 
Association, we will now take a similarly rapid glance 
at that one which has been collected by the Royal 


| Asiatic Society, which is open to the members and to 


other persons introduced on their recommendation. 

It may be desirable to premise, in a few words, the 
nature and objects of the Society to which this museum 
belongs. Towards the end of the last century, Sir 
William Jones and other learned men formed them- 
selves into a Society at Calcutta, for extending the 
knowledge of matters connected with Oriental htera- 
ture, science, and the arts; and the Society thus founded 
has accumulated a valuable mass of information, which 
forms the ‘ Asiatic Researches.’ But it had long been 
felt that the busy and active hfe led by the English 
officers and civil functionaries in India left them but 
little time to collect and write papers for such a work; 
and this led, about eighteen years ago, to the formation 
of a similar Society in London, the object of which was 
thus explained by Mr. Colebrooke, in his introductory 
discourse :—‘‘ One requisite is there (2.e. India) want- 
ing, as long since remarked by the venerable founder 
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal—it 1s leisure; but that 
is enjoyed on their return to their native country. 
Here may be arranged the treasured knowledge which 
they bring with them, and the written or remembered 
information which they have gathered. Here are pre- 
served, in public and private repositories, manuscript 
books collected in the East, exempt from the prompt 
decay which would there have overtaken them. Here 
too are preserved, in the archives of families, the 
manuscript observations ‘of individuals whose diffi- 
dence has prevented them from giving to the public. 
the fruits of their labours in a detached form.” To 
form a channel by which such materials might be 
brought to light, the Royal Asiatic Society. was esta- 
blished in 1824; and durmg the time which has since 
elapsed, the Society has collected that mass of Oriental 
curiosities which forms the museum, and which we 
now proceed to describe. 

The museum is contained in four or five rooms of 
the Society’s house in Grafton-street, Bond-street. The 
passage and hall are surrounded with various objects, 
consisting principally of fragments of stone covered 
with inscriptions, Oriental idol-figures, &c. From 
thence a handsome staircase leads up to the apartments 
forming the museum; and the wall of this staircase is 
lined with arms, both offensive and defensive, of almost 
every kind used in Oriental countries; spears, lances, 
javelins, darts, bows, arrows, swords, daggers, knives, 
axes, rifles, muskets, pistols, firelocks, shields, all 
have representatives in the collection ranged upon this 
wall. Fighting dresses, made of materials calculated 
more or less to shield the persons of the wearers, are 
also preserved here. 

The first floor of the building contains the chief 
apartment, viz., that in which the meetings of the 
members are held, and in which the choicest treasures 
of the museum are deposited. The eastern side of this 
room is covered with a range of glass cases, the chief 
contents of which we shall notice im order, beginning 
with the end nearest the window. The first case con- 
tains, among other matters, a Turkish jfirman, addressed 


184].] 


to the patriarch of Constantinople; a tablet of gold, 
engraved in the Ava language; a MS. copy of the 
Koran, and two illuminated Sanscrit MSS. on rollers; 
a sacred MS. in the Pali dialect; a small but richly 
illuminated copy of the Koran; a leaf or sheet, with 
an inscription in the Burmese language, in letters 
formed of mother-of-pearl; and another in which the 
letters are of japan on a gold ground. All these books 
and manuscripts possess very great value among 


Oriental scholars, because they furnish the means of 


instituting comparisons between the various languages 
and dialects used in the East; they also illustrate the 
immense expenditure of time and patience which 
must have been called for in their production, for most 
of them are embellished in a very lavish style. 

The adjoining glass case 1s filled with a misccllancous 
collection of articles, among which are vases and ves- 
sels such as are in use in many Eastern countries; 
gold, silver, copper, and bronze coins, likewise from 
the East; musical intruments, comprising several 
varieties of guitars and flute-formed kinds; Buddhic 
and Hindu idols; Hindu astronomical instruments, 
such as an astrolabe, &c. <A curious picture of the 
Ceylonese, “drawn by themselves,” is furnished by a 
collection of little figures, varying from five to twelve 
inches in height, and representing persons belonging 
to various different stations of life in Ceylon, each at- 
tired, we may presume, somewhat as the real person- 
ages may be. As specimens of mechanical art, perhaps 
the most interesting objects are a set of japanned bas- 
ket-work vessels, made by the natives of Ava; they 
were presented to the Society by Major H. Burney, 
the English resident at the court of Ava. The collec- 
tion consists of about forty specimens, illustrative of 
the successive stages which the vessels go through, 
from the formation of the basket-work to the com- 
pletion ; as also specimens of all the various kinds of 
Japan, varnish, &c. employed in the process. 

To these succeeds a case containing numerous wea- 
pons employed by the Rajpoots and other Eastern 
nations, as well as implements, trinkets, &c. found 
among them. A range of lower cases contains a large 
bundle of Oriental books and manuscripts; and near 
this an interesting collection of models of machines 
and implements used by the Hindus, such as a harrow, 
a drill-plough, mills, a rice-mortar, a machine for 
beating and opening cotton, a sugar-cane mill, an oil- 
pressing mill, and various others. Such models as 
these give us an insight into the nature and quality of 
the agricultural implements in use among the Hindus, 
and which are, as may be supposed, of the simplest 
kind. Among the remaining articles on this side of 
the room are shoes, cups, amulets, &c. in use among 
the same nation ; a model of a Hindu pleasurc-boat ; 
bottles containing speciinens of Assam tea. The reader 
is probably aware of the attempts which have been and 
are being made to rear tea in the north-east corner of 
India ; and we will therefore here only remark that at 
this museum, as well as that of the Society of Arts, 
specimens of the tea grown in Assam, the district 
alluded to, are preserved, to show the progress of the 
attempt. . 

The south side of the room, opposite the windows, is 
occupied chiefly by books, pictures, and drawings re- 
lating to Oriental subjects. Among the drawings is 
one, by a Hindu artist, of the Incarnations of Vishnu, 
one of the gods of that people. Another 1s a drawing, 
by a Chinese artist, of the intcrior of the English fac- 
tory at Canton, fittcd up for the trial of three English 
seamen, who had made themselves amenable to the 
laws. There is a series of portraits, about six in 
number, of a peculiar tribe or sect of people inhabiting 
the Neilgherry Hills in India, and presenting features, 


both of body and mind, differing greatly from those of 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


325 


the other inhabitants of that country. Captain Hark- 
ness has given a minute account of this tribe. The 
visitor has an opportunity of seeing the style and de- 
coration of a Persian letter, as exemplified in one 
hanging on this side of the room, written by Abbas 
Mirza of Persia, to the Asiatic Socicty. The writing, 
in the Persian character, is very large, and the written 
lines are separated from one another by rich running 
scroll-work. Whether his Highness gives his written 
letter to an illuminator for the purpose of decoration, 
or whether the letter 1s written on paper previously 
illuminated, we cannot say; probably the latter. 

The west side presents a range of bookcases from 
end to end, filled, as are most of the others belonging 
to the Society, with books relating more or less to 
Oriental subjects; and over these are figures, models, 
Implements, and instruments of a miscellaneous cha- 
racter. The remaining or fourth side of the room 
contains a few objects placed between the windows by 
which the room is lighted. Among these is another 
letter from Abbas Mirza to the Asiatic Society, more 
elegant in its decorations than the one just alluded to, 
but similar in character. Passing by two or three 
busts of individuals who have distinguished themselves 
by forwarding the objects of the Society, we may men- 
tion that there is a natural curiosity, brought trom a 
small island in the [Eastern seas, and called the 
‘“‘ double sea-cocoa-nut.” It is a nut not less than a 
yard in diameter, consisting, hke the common cocoa- 
nut, of a kernel enclosed in a fibrous shell. 

Adjoining the room of which we have just made the 
circuit, and forming an ante-room between it and the 
Stairs, is a small apartment containing a few objects of 
considerable interest. Among the smallest of these is 
one to which great value is attached by astronomers, 
as well as by all who desire to know the state of 
science among the Asiatics in past ages, viz., a sinall 
brass celestial globe, made in Asia several centuries 
azo, and lately belonging to Sir John Malcolm. Dr. 
Bernhard Dorn has given a very minute description 
of this globe in the ‘ Transactions’ of the Society, from 
which we may borrow a short explanatory notice. It 
is known that at a time when the state of knowledge 
in Europe was at a very low ebb, the science of astro- 
nomy was much cultivated in Arabia and Persia; not 
only were treatises written and systems formed, but 
astrolabes, globes, and other astronomical instruments 
constructed. Several of the astrolabes have been pre- 
served; but, as far as is at present known, only four 
of the globes have come down to our own times. One 
belonged to the late Cardinal Borgia, of Velietri in 
Italy ; and from a description of it by Assemani, it 
appears to have been made, either in Syria or in 
Egypt, about the year 1225. The second globe, made, 
like the former, of brass, is deposited in the Astrono- 
mical Museum at Dresden; it was constructed, m the 
year 1289, by an astronomer at Hulaku Khan’s court, 
at Maragha.. The third belongs to the Astronomical 
Society of London; but this is believed to be much less 
ancient than the two just spoken of. The fourth 1s 
that which is now in the Asiatic Society’s Museum. It 
is made of brass, and is apparently of Persian work- 
manship. An inscription, in the Cufic character (an 
alphabet formerly in use among the Saracens), when 
translated, runs thus: ‘‘ Made by the most humble in 
the Supreme God, Mohammed ben Helal, the astro- 
nomer of Mousul, in the year of the Hejra G74.” This 
date corresponds with a.p. 1275. On the surface of 
the globe are emgraved forty-seven constellations, 
being all that were known at the time when the globe 
was made; together with the zodiac, marked with 
degrees ; the ecliptic ; words indicating the cast, west, 
north, and south poimts of the horizon, &c. The globe 
is nine inches and a half in diameter, and is supported 


326 


ona frame which elevates it about twenty inches from 
the ground. 

Near this globe is a brass case, containing a figure, 
as large as life, of a Dirzee, or Hindu tailor, clothed 
in white flowing garments, and plying the needle: it 
is modelled in clay, and coloured to unitate the com- 
plexion of the Hindus. The ingenuity of an Indian 
artist is shown in an elaborately carved model of the 
Great Pagoda at Trivaloor, in Tanjore; and the rude 
knowledge of the arts of design among the same people 
is equally exemplified ina large drawing of the temple 
and car of Juggernauth, im which brillant colourimg 
is much more evident than correct perspective. 
Around the room are various idols, and drawings mn 
Oriental style, illustrative of the religion and super- 
stitions of the Asiatics. Among them is a Chinese 
« Temblem of Happiness,” consisting of a figure of an 
enormously fat individual, whose little half-hidden 
eyes are redolent of self-satisfaction. 

Two stands placed in this room support large mo- 
dels; the one, of the famed Car of Juggernauth, tlie 
object of a degrading superstition in the Eastern parts 
of India; and the other, of a Pagoda and Convent of 
priests at Canton. Of the latter we shall say a few 
words in our concluding paper. 


Literary Sociality of the Time of James I,—Gnitford has thus 
described the club at the Mermaid :—“ About this time (1603) 
Jonson probably began to acquire that turn for conviviality for 
which he was afterwards noted. Sir Walter Raleigh, previously 
to his unfortunate engagement with the wretched Cobham aid 
others, had instituted a meeting of beava esprits at the Mermaid, 
a celebrated tavern in Friday Street. Of this club, which com- 
bined more talent and genius than ever met together before or 
since, our author was a member; and here for many years he 
regularly repaired with Shakspere, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, 
Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, 
even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reve- 
rence and respect.”” Jonson has been accused of excess in wine; 
and certamly temperance was not the virtue of his age. Drum- 
mond, who puts down his conversations in a spirit of detraction, 
says, “ Drmk was the element in which he lived.” Aubrey tells 
us “he would many times exceed in drink; Canary was his be- 


loved liquor.” And so he tells us himself, in his graceful poem 
‘Inviting a Fnend to Supper :’— 


“ But that which most doth take my muse and me 
Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine, 
Which ts the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine.” 


But-:the rich Canary was to be used, and not abused :— 


“ Of this-we will sup free, but moderately ; 
Nor shall‘our cups make any guilty men: 
But at our parting we will be as when 
We imnoceitly met., No simple word, 
That shall be utter’d at our mirthful board, 
Shall make us sad next morning, or affright 
The liberty that we'll enjoy to-night.” 


This is not the przzciple of intemperance, at any rate; nor were 
the associates of Jonson at the Mermaid such as mere sensual 
gratification would have alhed in that band of friendship. They 
were hot such companions as the unhappy Robert Greene, whose 
genius was eaten up by his profligacy, describes himself to have 
lived amongst :—‘ His company were lightly the lewdest per- 
sons in the land, apt for pilfery, perjury, forgery, or any villany. 
Of these he kuew the cast to cog at cards, cozen at dice; by 
these he learned the legerdemains of iips, foysts, conycatchers, 
crossbyters, lifts, high lawyers, and all the rabble of that unclean 
generation of vipers; and pithily could he point out their whole 
courses of craft: so cumning was he in all crafts, as nothing rested 
in him ahnost but craftiness.” This is ansunhappy picture; and 
in that age, when the rewards of unprofessional scholars were few 
and uncertain, it is scarcely.to be wondered that their morals 
sometimes yielded to their necessities. Jonson aud Shakspere 
passed through the slough of the theatre without a stain. Their 


clab meetings were not the feasts of the senses alone.—London, 
No. AAW, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[AUGUSTe 2) 


Valley of Kashmir.—This valley is bounded on the southern 
side by gently rising declivities; the descent of Pir Panjal is 
covered by the most luxuriant vegetation; and the eye rises gra- 
dually from the magnificent forms and colours of the ever- 
heightening hills, till it rests ou the snowy peaks of the highest 
mountain-chain. On this side, between the gently dimnnshing 
ranges of hills, le greater and less valleys, in the centre of which 
flow the purest mountain-streams, which, higher upwards, form 
humerous cascades. This is the romantic district of Kashmir. 
From the little open plains, covered with southern vegetation, 
the traveller arrives on the banks of a river which winds through 
the deep fertile soil. The valley narrows the farther he advances, 
and the mountains approach each other more nearly the higher 
they become. The charms of the vegetable world are then more 
attractive to an European, as they develop themselves more 
closely allied to those of his distant fatherland. Apple, plum, 
and apricot trees, encircled by vines, here grow wild. Elms and 
willows conceal the banks of the river, the course of which may 
be traced by its murmuring over its rocky channel. White-thorn 
and spindle-trees (exonymus) surroud wide - spreading maple 
and limes, or enormous chesnut-trees, under whose shade the lly 
and narcissus, larkspur and aconite blossom, together with the 
lilac and the rose. Nearer to its source the river changes ito a 
foaming cataract, rushing over dark rocks. Here begins the 
region of the pines, from the majestic déédar (the cedar of the 
Himalaya) to the fir and other vaneties of that tribe. Still 
higher, the river divides into many streams, which flow through 
narrow gorges, and, lost in the white foam of the cataract, fall 
into the abyss below. Alpine plants, many species of rhododen- 
dron and daphne, here begin at the foot of the alder and birch, 
which bend beneath the weight of snow; and after these a strange 
vegetation, slightly elevated from the soil, appears on a plain al- 
ready situated inthe regions of eternal snow. Arrived on the 
height, the traveller sometimes treads firmly on the encrusted 
snow, sometimes clambering over uncovered stones; carefully 
ascertaining with his staff that the loose snow conceals no unseen 
precipice, he reaches one of the high peaks, where an -incompa- 
rable view presents itself. Tio the south, on this side, the eye is 
directed to the bare and frowmimg precipices of the Pur Panjal, 
and then far distant, over more than twenty valleys and moun- 
tain-ranges, to the plain of the Panj-ab, glowing in the golden 
mists of an Indian world. To the right and left le snow-covered 
plains and hills, rising over each other 11 endless succession ; and 
nothing 1s visible, for a much greater distance than the eye can 
discern, but the chill regions of eternal winter, various in form, yet 
dreary in its still monotony. The valley in a northern direction 
presents a charming contrast. The gently-declining hills guide 
the eye to the lower plain, which, covered by a rising vegetation, 
interspersed by groves and villages, divided by alleys and canals, 
gleams in the light of the morning sun. The Jélam flows 
proudly through the centre, its banks studded by towers, castles, 
and palaces. On the other side of the valley the mountains rise 
in bold forms—the snowy whiteness brings the Mghest point 
nearer to the eye than the lower declivities—the snowy hills 
there appearing to enclose the plain like a wall. Over these the 
previousl y-mentioned Jamal rises nearly at each end of the val- 
ley; and the white and black double pyramid of the Mer and 
Ser, hike a monument of creation when God divided the day 
and night. But on these heights, which rise more than fifteen 
thousand feet above the level of the sea, the first moment alone 
is agreeable. The air here is so rarefied, that a painful headache 
is the consequence even of a short stay, which, increasing every 
instant, lasts long after the descent to the plain. To the southern 
side of the valley of which we have spoken, the zoologist and 
botanist must direct his steps, either to discover new objects or 
to admire those already known in beauty never hefore witnessed. 
Here the thickest woods are mingled with open plains, and the 
traveller neither finds: trees levelled by the axe, nor the countless 
flowers pressed by the footsteps of a living being. There abso- 
lute stillness reigns. The treasures of vegetation, the loveliest 
forms of nature are there prodigally amassed without an intell- 
gent spirit to be gladdened by their beauty. The brook flows 
noiselessly along ; no air rustles through the motionless leaves, and 
the deep silence is only broken by the sweet tones of the blue 
thrusn, and of the bulbul (the nightingale of Kashmir). These 
approach man fearlessly, as in the days of Paradise, and are his 
faithful companions in his lonely pilgrimage. The deep fertile 
soil in the lateral valleys is uncultivated ; the great plains in the 
principal one have been long suflicient for the nounshment of 
the population. The northern side of the valley under the hills 


| of Thibet is very different from the south side already described « 


1841.] THE PENNY 
the hills rise suddenly to a considerable heignt, offering an ex- 
tensive ficld to the geologist. Few trees grow on this side, 
aud the rivers form in their wide stony channels an unbroken 
cataract—the banks, similarly covered with stones rolled from 
their bed, are perfectly bare—hardly a blade of grass is to 
be found. Stones are heaped over stones; rocks piled on each 
other almost without vegetation. The ascent on this side of the 
hill is very difficult after the first few steps; the rocks consist of 
huge masses, the oblique direction of which i many places 
offers no secure footing to the steps of the traveller. The valley 
is hardly to be seen from the highest point, asit lies concealed by 
the first perpendicular mountam-range. Nothing is seen on all 
sides but suow-capped summits. I know of no prospect so mel- 
ancholy as this is—no tree, no bird, no living thing is to be scen 
—a silence almost fearful reigus in these mountain fastnesses ; 
and the pame ‘ran’ (wilderness), which the natives bestow on 
these regions, is very applicable. On the heights below the 
highest peaks, close to the snow-line, saxifrage aud juniper are 
found at a height of fifteen thousand feet; lower down, birch; 
then firs aud pines occur. The mines of Kashmir lie on this side. 
—LBaron von Hugel, in Royal Geog. Journal, vol. x., part i. 


? 


THE CID.—No. XII. 


Tue good Ximena had sent messengers to the princes 
of Aragon and Navarre, her sons-in-law, as well as to 
the other kinsmen of the Cid, inviting them to come 
and do his body honour. Alvar Fanez proposed that 
before they came the body should be put into a coffin, 
fastened down with nails of gold and covered witha 
purple pall; but Ximena would not listen to this, 
saying that his daughters would rather behold him as 
le was: 


. © My Cid hath still a beauteous visage, 
And his eyes are nothing dim ; 
Whilst so fresh lis body keepeth, 
"Twere not meet to bury hun.’ ” 


As the procession drew mgh to Olmedo, it was met 
by the Cid’s daughters and their husbands, All the 
Aragonese knights in their train had their shields 
hanging reversed at their saddle-bows, and were clad 
in black cloaks with the hoods rent, according to the 
Castilian fashion of deep mourning, while the ladies 
were arrayed in robes of black serge. They wowd 
have wailed, but Ximena withstood them, as the Cid 
himself had forbidden it. Dona Elvira and Dona Sol, 
with their royal husbands, approached the body of their 
father : 

“ Weeping sore, his hands they kissed, 
Greatly marvelling at the sight ; 
For no dead man then he seemed, 
But a live and stalwart knight.” 


All joined the procession as it continued on its way 
to San Pedro de Cardena. Thither also came the good 
king Alfonso to do honour to the dead hero, and he 
commanded that the Cid’s body should not be buried 
at once, but should be clad in rich vestments sent him 
by the Sultan, and be set hard by the altar, on the seat 
he had been wont to use, on a cushion of cloth of gold, 
with his own good sword Tizona in his hand. AI tluis 
was done, and 


“ There it sat, within that chapel, 
More than ten long years, I ween.” 


And a festival was held cach year in honour of 
him, who “ though dead, hath a name that ne'er will 
die.” 

On one of these yearly festivals, which were celebrated 
at San Pedro de Cardena, whither multitudes flocked 
from every part of Castile, it chanced that a Jew 
entered the chapel at an hour when no one else was 
within its walls, as the abbot, by rcason of the crowd, 


was preaching to the pcople without. There he beheld | 


MAGAZINE. 307 


the Cid’s body sitting upright on his seat, with his long 
white heard hanging down on his bosom, as though he 
were “ endowed with great gravity and worthy of all 
reverence ;” Ins left hand holding the scabbard of his 
sword, and his right the strings of his mantle. his 
august sight failed however to awe the unbclieyer, 
and he said within himsclf, as he gazed on the dead 
Warrior : 
* ¢ Lo, the Cid! this is his body, 
Who through all the world was fear’d, 
I’ve heard say in his lifetime 
None did ever touch his beard. 
Come, methinks I now will pluck it— 
Nought can harm me, now he’s dead. 
Forth his hand the Hebrew stretched, 
As these imptous words he said. 
Kre the beard his fingers touched, 
Lo, the silent man of death 
Grasp’d the hilt, and drew Tizona 
Full a span from out the sheath! 


eadly fear the Hebrew seized 

When he did behold this sight— 
Dowi1i he fell unto the earth 

Well nigh lifeless with affright.” 


And there he was found by some of the congrega- 
tion who entered the church. On recovering from his 
swoon, he recounted what had past, and gave thanks 
to God for that miracle, which wrought his immediate 
conversion to Christianity. He assumed the cowl in 
the same convent of Cardena, and “ there ended his 
days, like any other good Christian.” But the Jew’s 
word, if we may believe the Chronicle, was not the 
only voucher for this miracle ; from that day forth the 
right hand of the dead Cid kept firm hold of the hilt 
of Tizona, so that is garments could no more be 
changed when dirty, as had been the wont before. 

At the end of ten years, the tip of the Cid’s nose 
dropped off; whereon the abbot and Gil Diaz thought it 
time for him to be interred, which was done accord- 
ingly in the same chapel ; a deep pit being dug before 
the high altar, and his body being placed upright in 
it, on his own chair, as it had sat sinee his death. 

Ximena and the faithful Gil Diaz spent the remain- 
der of their lives in the convent of San Pedro, watch- 
ing their lord’s body; keeping vigils and singing 
masses for the benefit of his soul. Ximena died four 
years after him, but Gil Diaz lived many years longer. 
He carefully tended Babieca and took especial care 
that none should ever mount him who had carried the 
Cid for forty-two years; and that his race might not 
be lost, he made hin the progenitor of the best breed 
of horses that ever existed in the realm of Spain. Ba- 
bieca died two years after his master, and was buried 
by Gil Diaz before the gate of the monastery. 

The remams of the Cid have several times been 
removed in the course of the seven centurics and a 
half which have elapsed since his death, the last time 
being by the French in 1809, to the Espolon or pubhe 
promenade of Burgos, but in 1826 they were restored 
with great solemnity to their original resting-place in 
the eonvent of San Pedro de Cardena. 

In the centre of a small chapel called “ the chapel 
of kings, counts, and illustrious men,” now stands the 
monument containing the remains of our hero and 
“his wife so perfect, whom he loved as his own soul,” 
as says the Poem. ‘Their effigies in-marble repose 
above, side by side. Ona tablet below is a Latin in- 
scription in doggercl hexameters, saying that “as Rome 
was honoured by the warhke deeds of her heroes, as 
King Arthur was the glory of the Britons, and Charle- 
inagne of the French, so Is Spain no less ennobled by 
her unconquered Cid.” The walls of this chapel are 
thickly covered with painted cscutchcons, to cach of 


328 THE PENNY 
which some name is attached, serving as the epitaph 
of the person whose remains le enclosed in the wall 
at that spot. Here you read the name of the Cid's 
creat ancestor, Lain Calvo, the first judge ol Castile— 
of his father Diego Lainez, and mother Dona T’eresa— 
of the proud Count of Gormaz, who fell by his maiden 
sword. Here are also interred our hero's two daugh- 
ters Elvira and Sol, together with their royal husbands 
of Navarre and Aragon; and his only son Diego Rod- 
riquez, of whom no mention 1s made by the romances, 
but who died at an early age, fighting by his father’s 
side against the Moors of Consuegra, Here also hes 
the dust of the Cid’s brave companions in arms—ot 
Alvar Fafiez Minaya, his first cousin, whom he was 
wont to call “his right arm, his better arm;” of Mar- 
tin Antolinez, Pedro Bermudez, and Ordono, lus 
nephews; of Martin Pelacz, the Asturian ; and of others 
of his captains whose names we have not recorded. 
Over the principal entrance to the convent 1s a 
mounted figure of the Cid, larger than life, and painted 
striking the Moors to the ground beneath the feet of 
Babieca. It was sadly mutilated durmg the War of 
Independence. Since the suppression of the monastic 
orders in Spain, in 1835, the convent has been unin- 
habited, save by a man who keeps it 1n order, and who, 
happily for the visitor, is deeply read In the Cid’s his- 
tory. It stands about six or seven miles to the east of 
Burgos, in the midst of a bleak and dreary country, 
but which is yet not unfertile, as 1t 1s In many parts 
covered with corn. The village of Bivar hes about 
the same distance to the north of Burgos. We did not 
visit it when recently at that city, but heard that some 
remains of the Cid’s castle are still standing. The site 
of the house in Burgos in which the Cid was born 1s 
marked by three obelisks bearing escutcheons and a 
commemorative inscription, which informs us_ that 
“ these monuments were raised on the antient ruins of 
his family mansion in the year 1784.” This, and the 
chest already spoken of as preserved in the cathedral, 
are, we believe, the only relics pertaining to the Cid 
now to be seen in Burgos; but we must not forget 


that his statue has a prominent place as “the dread and | 


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MAGAZINE. (Auaust 2], 
terror of the Moors,” in the quaint gateway of Santa 
Maria, erected by Charles V. to the memory of the 
heroes of Burgos. 

It may be remembered by the readers of ‘ Don Quixote’ 
that the Manchegan knight speaks of Babieca’s saddle 
being preserved in the Royal Armoury at Madrid. 
We were there a few months since, but saw no such 
saddle, only the suit of armour inentioned 1n a former 
article as belonging to the Cid, but which is evidently 
of later date by several centuries; and a sword which 
is called Colada, but of which, judging from the hilt, 
we think the same may be said. We had no oppor- 
tunity of examiming it, but Southey states that on one 
side of the blade is graven, “‘ Yes, yes,” on the other, 
“No, No.” ‘“ Tizona,” according to the same authority, 
“is an heir-loom in the family of the Marquis of 
Falces.” On one side of the blade 1s engraved, “‘ I am 
Tizona, made m era 1040,” 7.e. A.D. 1002; on the other, 
“ Wail, Mary,.full of grace !” 

In concluding our sketch of the Cid’s history, we 
must state our regret that the necessity we have all 
along felt of curtailing and condensing our matter as 
much as possible, has prevented us from dealing with 
the subject as it deserved. Yet we think our.readers 
will allow that these ballads of the Cid, though seen 
through the medium of our defective translation, are 
far from deserving the sweeping condemnation of Dr. 
Southey, that “the greater part of thein are utterly 
worthless.” Among the nearly two hundred which 
are extant, there are certainly some of little value or 
interest, but we are satisfied that few who read them 
in the original will allow that this 1s characteristic of 
the mass, and that nota few will say, with Mr. Lock- 
hart, that they have derived great pleasure from the 
perusal. In fact, those only who so read -them can 
adequately admire them, for, to adopt the words of a 
modern critic on the early poetry of Spain, ‘ Spanish 
literature 1s of all others that which can be least appre- 
ciated by extracts or translations. Its excellence con- 
sists not in insulated beauties, but in that noble na- 
tional spirit which, like a great connecting principle, 
pervades and harmonises the whole.” — - 






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DOMESTIC POULTRY. and on the Continent, extensive markets for the sale 

of poultry, almost exclusively, are established, and the 

Tue feathered tenants of the farm-yard, reclaimed poulterer and the egg-salesman carry on a lucrative 

from their aboriginal state of independence, and pen- | business. The general demand for the flesh and ece 

sioners on our bounty, are peculiarly interesting. | of poultry acts beneficially upon the small farmer, 

[hough less decidedly important than the sheep, the | and renders their rearing profitable. Certain districts 

ox, or the horse, they still rank among the useful; indeed are celebrated for the superior value of their 

their flesh and eggs are esteemed as wholesome and | feathered produce; we have all heard of Dorkin 
delicate food, and most are remarkable for grace and | fowls and Norfolk turkeys. 


beauty. In London and other large towns both here | The domestic birds, which “ gather round our door,” 
& 
No. 603. : VoL. X.—2 U 


or 
> 


330 


belong to two distinct groups, the gallinacecous or 
rasorial, and the swimming or natatorial orders. The 
pigeon perhaps may be excepted; for though placed 
by some naturalists in the former order, it seems to 
occupy a station “ per se,” between the insessorial order 
of Vigors and the true gallinaccous birds. 

To the gallinaceous order belong the fowl, the 
turkey, the guinea-fowl, the pea-fowl, the pheasant, 
&c.,and to some of these we shall here direct attention. 

Of all our domestic birds, the common fowl appears 
to have been the longest reclaimed, and is the most ex- 
tensively spread. It has ramified into numerous va- 
rieties, a circumstance which attests not only the 
antiquity but the completeness of its subjugation. 
This bird is of Indian origin; the wild stock whence it 
has descended is, no doubt, the common Indian jungle- 
fowl (Gallus Bankivus), which interbreeds freely with 
the common domestic race, and has been crossed with 
some of the game breeds for the purpose of keeping 
up the spirit and vigour of the stock. 

The circumstances attendant upon the primeval 
domestication and spread of the common towl are 
buried in obscurity, nor know we at what period it be- 
came naturalized in our island. Its introduction, how- 
ever, must have been at a remote epoch, as we find it 
among the things prohibited by the Druids as food. 
Allusions to the common fowl are abundant in the 
earliest writings, and we know that the ancient Greeks, 
on whose medals its figure is often seen, valued it for 
its pugnacious disposition and its prowess. Cock- 
fighting was one of their diversions, and the breeds 
most in repute were those of Rhodes and Tanagra in 
Beotia. Distinguished breeds were found also in 
Euboea, Media, and Persia, as well as in Egypt. 

The Romans, whose taste for sanguinary spectacles 
Is notorious, were extremely partial to the amusement 
of cock-fighting, and trained birds for the purpose. 
'ndeed_ the taste for this cruel sport seems to be very 
general: the Mussulman natives of India are greatly 
addicted to it, and one species of jungle-fowl, called 
sonnerat’s jungle-fowl (Gallus Sonneratiz), is in high 
request; this bird, though smaller than the domestic 
breed, 1s superior in spirit and endurance, and usually 
proves victorious in the combat. The Chinese are de- 
voted to the sport; and the natives of Sumatra enter 
into it with so much ardour, that instances, as it is said, 
have occurred of men staking not only their goods and 
money, but even their children on the issue of a battle. 

_1n England the same taste long prevailed, but hap- 
pily the practice, more honoured in the breach than 
the observance, is now greatly on the decline, if not 
obsolete ; it is indeed incompatible with the diffusion 
of knowledge, the tendency of which is to humanize 
mankind, and lead the mind from sordid and debasing 
pursuits to sources of intellectual enjoyment. The 
common fowl is a hardy bird, and capable of enduring 
considerable severity of cold; hence its extensive dis- 
tribution in a domestic state. The warmer and tem- 
perate latitudes, however, are most congenial to it; in 
the high northern regions it cannot be kept without 
difficulty, and therefore is not general in the bleak 
realms of Siberia, indeed it is found not to breed. 

Besides the game race, which approaches the nearest 
in character to the wild stock, several varieties exist in 
our island. One, the Friesland, has the feathers curled 
back, the plumage having a ruffled and by no means 
agreeable appearance. Another breed is destitute not 
only of tail feathers, but also of the tail itself. Some 
breeds have the comb greatly developed, in others it is 
small, and its place is usurped by a tuft of feathers. 
Dorking is celebrated for a large and delicately 
flavoured variety, distinguished by having five toes on 
each leg, the hind toe being doubled. The Poland, 
the Spanish, and the Hamburg breeds are also excel- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


{AueustT 28, 


lent. A small breed of fowls, termed the Bantam 
(originally from Java), is very beautiful. The old 
Bantam fowls, which are not much larger than a par- 
tridge, are feathered to the toes, the tarsi having long 
stiff feathers down them; there is a small variety, 
however, with clean legs and an elegantly spangled 
plumage, much in request. To the naturalist these 
varieties have little interest, excepting as far as they 
afford evidences of the effects which the agency of cli- 
mate, diet, and long domestication can produce in the 
modification of external characters. 

In Egypt the plan of hatching chickens by means of 
artificial heat has long been in operation. The eggs 
are placed by hundred in ovens, or rather, small cham- 
bers, the temperature of which is regulated with great 
nicety. At the time of hatching, people come from al] 
quarters to purchase the young poultry, which require 
but little trouble in rearing. In the ‘Penny Magazine’ 
for 1833, p. 311, some interesting details will be found 
relative to the process. The Eccaleobion, in London, 
is the same in principle as the egg-ovens of Berme 
in Egypt; it is established not for the purpose of sup- 
plying the markets with fowls, but for the sake of ex- 
hibiting to the curious the “art and mystery” of arti- 
ficial incubation. The chickens which we have seen 
called into life by this process have appeared to us to 
be more weakly than those hatched according to the 
natural mode; one reason may be their want of the 
fostering care of the hen, which, from the time of the 
exclusion of her brood from the egg, gathers them 
under her wings, and defends them from cold and wind, 
while at the same time they have the benefit of the 
fresh air of the open farm-yard. 

Another splendid bird, the ornament of the pleasure- 
ground, is the pea-fowl (Pavo cristatus). This magni- 
ficent bird is a native of India. It 1s common in many 
districts, and abounds in the jungles along the banks 
of the Ganges, in the forests of the Jungleterry and 
Baughulpore districts, and in the dense woods of the 
Ghauts. When taken young, it is casily domesticated, 
and many Hindoo temples in the Deckhan have consi-~ 
derable flocks attached to them. The pea-fowl, which 
need not be described in detail, was known to the an- 
cients. We find it noticed in the Scriptures as being 
one of the importations from India in the time of 
Solomon, and a forcible allusion to the splendour of 
its plumes is made im the book of Job. 

Alexander the Great, who obtained this bird during 
his Indian expedition, appears to have introduced it 
into Greece, and subsequently it has spread through 
the greater portion of urope. 

To the Romans it was very familiar; and indeed 
must have been common in Italy at an early period. 
Admired as the peacock was, its beauty did not protect 
it from slaughter, for it was killed to add to the deli- 
cacies of the tables of the great and luxurious; and its 
brain, together with the tongues of flamingos, entered 
into the composition of a favourite dish of the emperor 
Vitellius, ; 

In our country, a roasted pea-fowl, served up with 
the pluines attached to it, swelled the rude pomp of a 
baron’s entertainment. 

The pea-fowl is restless and wandering in its habits, 
and caunot well be kept in a small space; it perches 
or roosts by preference on the topmost branches of 
trees, and indeed is fond of any clevated situation. It 
seeks 1ts food, however, and also constructs its nest on 
the ground. In its wild state, it chooses a retired spot, 
among close brushwood, as the place of incubation, 
making an inartificial nest of sticks, twigs, and leaves: 
the eggs are from twelve to fifteen innumber. In 
domestication its habits are the same; indeed domesti- 
cation has effected but little alteration in these points ; 


| nor has it degenerated into numerous varieties.. White 


1841 | 


peacocks, it is true, are sometimes to be seen, and im- 
perfectly coloured birds are not uncommon, but here 
the changes terminate. 

The beautiful plumes of this bird are usually called 
its tail, and by many are supposed to be so; this, how- 
ever, is not the case: the plumes of the peacock, which 
are not developed till the third year, are its tail- 
coverts; they overhang and conceal the true tail-fea- 
thers, which are short, but which may be easily seen 
when the plumes are clevated. 

A peacock in full plumage, proudly stalking with 
his train elevated, 1s indeed a magnificent object; well 
might the satirical poet write— 

‘¢ Miraris quoties gemmantes explicat alas 
Et potes hunc, seevo tradere, dure, coquo ?” 


Like most of our domestic poultry, the pea-fowl 
adds insects, larva, and worms to the ordinary grain 
which forms the staple of its diet ; it will also devour 
lizards and small snakes. 

The female or pea-hen is a plain bird compared to 
her mate; she is destitute of his “ gemmy train.” 

The peacock has not the pugnacity of the game-cock ; 
we have, however, seen 1t give battle to a small dog, 
and come off the victor; and have known it also attack 
persons very resolutely; a friend of the writer’s had his 
lip completely cut open by a blow of the spur of one 
of these birds, which he had teased till it became en- 
raged. The loud harsh cry of this bird is well known. 
A second species of pea-fowl found in Java (Pavo Java- 
nicus) has been recently introduced to our country. 
It differs from the common bird in having its crest 
composed of long slender and equally-barbed feathers. 
The feathers of the head and neck, instead of being 
silky, are broad, short, rounded, and imbricate lke the 
scales of a fish; their colour is metallic green, with a 
lighter margin, 3 

The Guinea-fowl or Pintado (Numida Meleagris), 
as its name indicates, 1s originally from Africa. It was 
known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and re- 
ceived froin the former the name of meleagris. <Ac- 
cording to the ancient fable, the sisters of Meleager, 
mourning the death of their brother, were turned into 
birds called Meleagrides (in the singular Meleagris), 
having their feathers sprinkled with tear-drops. The 
term meleagris, however, strange to say, has been 
transferred by Belon, Gesner, Aldrovandus, and 
others, to the turkey, a native of America, and of 
which the ancients had no information. Their mistake 
in supposing the turkey to be the meleagris of the 
Greeks is unaccountable, for the turkey was unknown 
in Europe until the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. Oviedo, in 1526, describes it as domesticated in 
the islands and the Spanish main; and in 1541 it ob- 
tained a place in our country among the delicacies of 
the table. The guinea-fowl is noticed by Aristotle, by 
Pliny, by Varro (‘De Re Rustica’), and by Columella, a 
writer on husbandry in the reign of Claudius Cesar, 
and by others. According to Athenzeus the /Attolians 
first mntroduced this bird into Greece; but though it 
must have been naturalized there, it does not appear 
to have spread very widely. In the middle ages we 
lose all trace of it, no writers of those times appear to 
notice it, nor can we distinctly point out the period of 
its introduction into the British Isles. This, however, 
must be recent comparatively ; its name does not occur 
in the list of birds in the famous feast of Archbishop 
Nevill, in the reign of Edward IV.; nor does it appear 
in the Duke of Northumberland’s Household-Book, 
1512; nor yet in the Household-Book of Henry VIII. 
Yet, in all these lists, the peion, or peacock, makes a 
conspicuous figure. 

In the early part of the eighteenth century the gui- 


nea-fowl was tolerably common in England, and is 


now completely naturalized. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


331 


Adanson, Dampier, Le Vaillant, and other travellers 
in Africa, have observed the wild guinea-fowl in dif- 
ferent parts of that continent ; but, as about five species 
are known, we cannot be certain which of them is in- 
tended. 

The common guinea-fowl (Numida Meleagris) ap- 
pears to be dispersed through an extensive range of 
Africa, frequenting low humid situations, and the 
banks of rivers and marshes. It is eminently grega- 
rious, assembling in large flocks, which wander about 
during the day in search of food ; as evening approaches 
they seek the branches of trees, and roost crowded to- 
gether. In its rapid mode of running, and in its short 
flight when forced to take wing, we are reminded of 
the partridge, which it also somewhat resembles in the 
contour of its body. 

A wild race of these birds is found in St. Domingo 
and others of the West India Islands; this race is said 
to have been imported from Guinea. 

In a domestic condition, the guinea-fowl retains 
almost unaltered its original habits; it is restless, 
addicted to wandering, and impatient of restraint. It 
will stray for miles from the farm to which it belongs, 
and it often happens that a long-missed female will 
make her appearance with a young brood attending 
her. In close confinement the female rarely hatches 
her eggs; the want of freedom interfering with her 
instincts: few birds indeed are more recluse and shy 
during the time of incubation, or more cautious in 
concealing their nests. It 1s generally made among 
dense brushwood or in similar retreats. The number 
of eggs varies from twelve to twenty. They are 
smaller than those of the fowl, of a pale yellowish red, 
minutely dotted with darker points. Both the eggs 
and flesh of the guinea-fowl are excellent. Cream- 
coloured guinea-fowls are sometimes to be seen; in 
these the white spots are still to be distinguished. 
Another variety has a white breast, and the general 
colouring destitute of the richness which renders the 
wild and the undegenerate domestic race so attractive. 
The shrill querulous notes of this bird, which it per- 
petually repeats, are very disagreeable. The guinea- 
fowl has not yet reached the colder latitudes of Europe ; 
it is not mentioned by Linnzeus in his Swedish Fauna ; 
and it is said that neither Denmark, Norway, nor 
Northern Russia possesses 1. 

Of our domestic gallinaceous birds, we have found 
that two are derived from India and one from Africa; 
we have, however, one from America, namely the tur- 
key (Meleagris Gallopavo). 

To the misappropriation of the term meleagris to 
the turkey we have already alluded ; the mistake, how- 
ever cannot now be remedied, naturalists having uni- 
versally adopted the word as the generic title of the 
bird in question. ; 

The turkey was once very extensively spread in a 
wild condition in America; at no distant period it was 
found in the woods, from the northern limits of the 
United States to the Isthmus of Panama; but at present, 
in consequence of the spread of European colonization 
and the destruction of the forests, its range has become 
circumscribed. Its chief places of abode are the as yet 
uncleared wooded tracts along the Mississippi and the 
Missouri, the unsettled parts of the states of Ohio, 
Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, Georgia and the Ca- 
rolinas. Every day, however, it is becoming scarcer, 
and its territories more limited. 

The wild turkey is gregarious, but the adult males 
and females are in separate flocks; the young asso- 
ciate with the females, and continue with her till the 
ensuing spring. In October these flocks make exten- 
sive migrations, deserting some districts and advancing 
to others, which they throng, having often crossed rivers 
in their passage. These migratory oh, ini are 

2U2 


fend cad 


332 HE PENNY 
undertaken solely in quest of an abundant supply of 
food, which consists of forest fruits, termed indiscrimi- 
nately mast in America. Their mode of crossing a 
river is singular ; it would appear as if the flock were 
aware of the difficulty of the undertaking ; they betake 
themselves to the highest eminences, and there remain 
for a day cr two; the males are then heard gobbling 
and calling, and may be seen strutting about, as if to 
raise their courage to the sticking-place in the 1mpend- 
ing trial. When the weather seems favourable for the 
attempt, they all mount the tops of the highest trees, 
und, at a signal note, wing their way towards the oppo- 
tte shore. The old birds easily get over, should the 
river be even a mile in breadth; but the young, or 
less robust, frequently fall into the water. Here, how- 
ever, they are not drowned, they bring their wings 
close to their body, expand the tail as a support, stretch 
forward their neck, and strike vigorously with their 
legs, and thus make way with considerable expedition. 
From this we may conclude that the powers of flight 
which eyen the wild turkey possesses are but trifling 
compared with those of other birds; in fact their mi- 
erations are performed on foot, and unless their way 
be interrupted by a river, or the dog of the hunter 
force them, they never take wing; at night they roost 
in flocks on the branches of trees, and are then often 
harassed by some of the larger species of owl, to 
the attacks of which they occasionally fall a sacri- 
fice. 

It would appear to have been shortly after the sub- 
yugation of Mexico by the Spaniards, that the reclaimed 
turkey was introduced into Europe. Mexico was dis- 
covered by Grijalva in 1518. In 1541 the turkey 
ranked among the dainties of the table in our country ; 
and Archbishop Cranmer (Leland’s ‘Collectanea’), in 
a regulation respecting festivals, ordered that of 
cranes, swans, and turkey-cocks there should be but 
one dish. 

Tusser, in his ‘ Five Hundred Points of Good Hus- 
bandry’ (1573), accounts the turkey as part of the 
farmer’s Christmas fare. 

Though we can thus arrive at certain data which 
lead us to place the introduction of the turkey into 
Europe about the year 1520, or within ten years after- 
wards, we are unable to learn the details of its domes- 
tication. Probably the Spaniards found it already 
domesticated in Mexico; if so, they have neglected to 
record it. The appellation of turkey, which we give 
to this bird, originated, according to Willughby, from 
the supposition that it was brought from the country of 
that name; a statement, if correct, which shows how 
easily errors arise, and how they spread. It is perhaps 
{rom the prevalence of this false opinion (namely, that 
the turkey came from the Levant), that Belon, Gesner, 
and others regarded it as the meleagris of the Greeks, 
the guinea-fowl, or true meleagris, being in their day 
very scarce in Europe. 

The turkey is one of the most valuable of our do- 
mestic birds, its flesh being in high esteem. Like the 
pea-fowl and guinea-fowl, it is addicted to wandering, 
and delights to range over large fields and parks, its 
innate habits remaining but little affected by reclama- 
tion. In size and beauty it is perhaps inferior to its 
free-born relatives in their natural chmate; yet we 
have seen many quite equal in the splendour of their 
plumage and in weight to the specimens of wild birds 
which have come under our notice. These, it must be 
observed, vary greatly in size. Audubon states that 
the males weigh from fifteen to eighteen pounds, and 
occasionally twenty, twenty-five, or even thirty pounds. 
The male turkey is three years in acquiring his full 
plumage, and continues to increase in size for a year 
or two more. 

A detailed description of this fine bird is super- 


MAGAZINE. [Aucusr 28, 
fluous; its colours,—its carunculated neck,—its 
proud gait,—its habits and manners, are familar 
to. au 

The plate represents the domestic fowl, as displayed 
by four varicties (the game, the Hamburg, the Dork- 
ing, and the Bantam); the peacock ; the guimea-fow] ; 
and the turkey. 


Noxious Planis useful—Kvery production of nature is good 
in its kind; and if anything is found to be noxious, it is be- 
cause we do not make a proper use of it. Hence it happens, that 
what preserves the hfe of one animal, occasions the death of 
another; and the same plant which in certain circumstancés is 
regarded as-poisonous, in others is highly useful and salutary. 
Hemlock, for example, was formerly considered as a deadly poi- 
son; but it is now employed in many cases as a medicine with 
considerable success, and without producing any bad conse- 
quences. The number and diversity of vegetables growing upon 
the earth is prodigious, and we must not imagie they were all 
created for the use of man; some are designed for beasts, some 
to exhale grateful odours, and others are useful in many of the 
diseases to which the animal economy is subjected. The same 
thing holds good with regard to many living creatures, which, 
though very dangerous to man, are useful to other animals, as 
affording food or medicaments. Many birds feed upon insects 
which are considered as noxious: domestic fowls are fond: of 
spiders; peacocks and storks will feed upon serpents. Some of 
the most efficacious medicines are composed of the most poison- 
ous herbs. The number of plants and animals of a poisouous or 
venomous nature is very considerable, compared with that of 
those which are evidently useful and beneficial; aud both men 
and animals have a natural repugnancy and aversion for every- 
thing which is hurtful or prejudicial to their nature.—Sturm’s 
deflections. 


& 


Great Cataract of Alata on the Nile.—'Two hours (six 
miles) from Denbas, we crossed the little mver Alata, which 
here, flowing from north-north-east, discharges its waters into 
the Abai (Nile), three-quarters of an hour (two miles) 
west of the bridge. Passing through a tract contmually be- 
coming more wild and rocky, we at length, after travelling 
for three-quarters of an hour farther, reached the bridge of 
Deldai [Deldai, which the traveller took for a proper name, 
signifies ‘the bridge” |, which is a highly singular and striking 
object. Through a narrow cleft in the rock, more than sixty 
feet deep, the perpendicular sides of which are in many places 
scarcely two fathoms asunder, the Nile here flowing to the south- 
east, rushes down through an uninterrupted series of foaming 
cascades. . . . The bridge consists of eight arches, of different 
sizes, of which the northernmost, by much the largest of all, 
crosses the cleft, and is therefore the only one beneath which the 
river always passes. The length of the bridge is ninety paces 
(one hundred and fifty yards), and its breadth fifteen feet (five 
yards). It is not straight, and is crossed in the middle by a 
wall, in which there is a gate: at its northern end there is a kind 
of watch-tower, now in ruins. All the stone-work of the bridge 
consists of lava, except the arching, which is formed of hewn 
sandstone. The hills lying immediately over the banks of the 
river are wild, rent masses of volcanic rock, partly overgrown 
with large trees and rampant shrubs. About one hundred feet 
to the west of the bridge, the upper edges of the rift in the rock, 
which forms the proper bed of the stream, approach each other 
to within about nine feet; and I was assured that the distance 
was often cleared by a bold leap. How far the foaming cascades 
extend eastwards J could neither ascertain by my own observa- 
tion nor learn by any satisfactory report from the natives. ‘To 
the west a chain of similar waterfalls continues for about a quar- 
ter of an hour (one mile); between which and the lake Tzana 
the river is said to cut its way, in a serpentine course, through 
rich meadow-ground. At the commencement of the cascades to 
the east, there is a small] island, with the convent of Abt: Kedam, 
near which the great waterfall described by Bruce (vol. v., p. 
105) must be sought, according to him, about half an English 
mile above the bridge.—Iuppell’s Travels in Abyssinia, in Itoyal 
Geog. Journal. 








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(Scene on the Dannbe.} 


THE DANUBE. 


Mr. PLancus, in his interesting work, ‘The De- 
scent of the Danube,’ expresses his surprise “that 
while our print-shops teem with views on the Rhine, 
and the shelves of our booksellers groan with the 
weight of tours in its neighbourhood, no English 
pen or pencil should have been hitherto employed in 
ilustration of the magnificent Danube,” that river 
“whose wayes have witnessed the march of Attila, of 
Charlemagne, of Gustavus Adolphus, and Napoleon, 
whose shores have echoed the blast of the Roman 
trumpet, the hymn of the pilgrim of the Cross, and the 
wild halloo of the sons of Islam ; whose name is equally 
dear to history and fable;” and we may add, whose 
scenery in different parts of its course is unrivalled by 
that of any other of the great rivers of Europe for gran- 
deur and sublimity. The neglect, which Mr. Planché 
was the first to remedy, has doubtless been caused in a 
oreat measure by the length of time required for an 
English visitor to make himself acquainted with the 
Danube, not merely from its distance or its length, but 
from the want of those facilities for navigation which the 
more favoured Rhine offers to the traveller. A great 
improvement however has taken place of late years. 
Steam-boats now navigate most if not all of the navi- 
cable parts. Artists and writers begin to avail them- 
selves of the comparatively novel track thus opened to 
them, and before long we may expect to find the 
scenery, the history, and the traditions of the “thunder- 


ing river” as familiar to us all, as those of the Rhine 
are at present. 

The Danube, called by the Germans Donau, and by 
the Hungarians and Turks Duna, is generally supposed 
to derive its appellation from the word donner, thunder, 
though several other derivations not here worth men- 
tioning are advanced by respectable authorities. It 
rises on the eastern declivity of the Black Forest, in 
the kingdom of Wiirtemberg, in Western Germany, 
and only about twenty-four miles from the banks of its 
ereat rival the Rhine. It here forms a mountain-torrent, 
known under the name of Breghe. Near a place 
called Danaueshingen it is jomed by another moun- 
tain-stream; and from thence the united waters bear 
the name of the Donau, or Danube. In its entire 
course, calculated to measure not less than 1770 miles, 
it passes through the kingdoms of Wiirtemberg, Ba- 
varia, in which territory it receives no less than thirty- 
eight tributaries, Austria, and Wallachia in Turkey, to 
the Black Sea, which it reaches by cight several 
mouths. The surface of territory drained by the Da- 
nube, and the numerous rivers which flow into 1t, pro- 
bably exceeds three hundred thousand square miles. 
Having made these preliminary observations, we shall 
now follow the course of the Danube from its source 
to the sea, describing by the way, so far as our space 
will admit, all the more particular objects of interest 
presented on its banks. for this purpose the works 
of Mr. Planché, Mr. Quin,* and other writers, will 


* <4 Steam Voyage down the Dauube,’ 1836, 


334 ak, PING 
furnish ample materials. From Danaueshingen the 
rencral course of the Danube is at first towards the 
cast, but aftcrwards it declines to the north-east, in 
which direction it continues till it reaches Ratisbon. 
Betwecn these places it flows within about two miles 
of Ulm, the scene of the surrender of the Austrian 
army, twenty thousand strong, under General Mack, 
to Napoleon, on the 17th of October, 1805, and directly 
past Ginzberg; Hochstiidt, near which is Blenhcum, 
the spot made for ever memorable by Marlborough’s 
great victory over the French and Bavarian forces 
commanded by Marshal Tallard; Donauworth; Neu- 
berg, an important town, formerly the capital of the an- 
cient principality of the same name; and Ingolstadt, the 
inost important fortress of Bavaria prior to the destruc- 
tion of the works by the French in 1800, and which 
promises again to chtain its ancient repute, many thou- 
sand men having been employed for some years in 
erecting the necessary fortifications. At Ulm the Da- 
nube first becomes navigable for barges. Before en- 
tering the great plain of Bavaria at Donauworth, the 
river runs for the chief part of its course along the 
southern base of the dry and barren table-land called 
the Rauhe Alp, which riscs two thousand feet above the 
Icvel of the Danube. Numerous offsets from the Alps 
approach the river, forming hills of moderate eleva- 
tion with gentle declivities, and enclosing charming 
and fertile valleys. In its way through the great plain 
we have mentioned, many objects of interest meet the 
eye of the spectator. At Ratisbon, or Regensburg, 
seated on the river Regen, which here joins the 
Danube, we find the Regina Castra of the Romans, 
forming in their time one of the chief towns on the 
frontiers of Illyria, and a place of considerable impor- 
tance to the Roman merchant for the furs which he 
here purchased. Its history is full of important 
events, as may be easily credited when we state that in 
the course of nine hundred years it has been visited 
with all the horrors of wariare no less than fourteen 
times; the last being the siege of 1809, when, after a 
desperate assault, it was taken by the French. But to 
an Englishman the most deeply interesting recollec- 
tion of Ratisbon is that connected with our Richard 
Coeur-de-Lion, who was here delivered up to the em- 
peror Henry VI. by Leopold, duke of Austria, in pur- 
suance of the disgraceful bargain which had been con- 
cluded between them. From Ratisbon he was condueted 
to one of the emperor’s castles in the Tyrol, loaded 
with chains, and guarded night and day by trusty sol- 
diers. The river hcre forms two small islands, called 
Oberworth and Niederworth, which are laid out in 
agreeable walks, and counected with each other and 
with the town by a stone bridge twenty-three feet wide 
and nearly eleven hundred feet long, built in the 
twelfth century. 

Near Ratisbon is a monument to Kepler, who was 
born here ; and ona rock on the banks of the Danube 
is a marble temple erected in honour of the grcat men 
of Germany. The river in this part is about eleven 
feet deep, and “something broader than the Thames at 
Putney.” The right bank of the river, nearly all the 
way to Straubing, 1s “low, sedgy, and Duich-like ;°* but 
on the left bank a bold range of mountains follows the 
windings of the stream almost the whole way to 
Vienna. The ruins of the castle of Donaustauf, 
“cresting a round bluff rock,” with the iittle town at 
its foot, stillespeak of their ancient strength, and, as 
Mr. Planché remarks, of the “ battles, siazes, fortunes 
it hath past.” This formerly belonged to the see of 
Regensburg, and was the residence of its bishops, among 
whom we find Albertus Magnus. This eminent phi- 


* © Descent of the Danube,’ p. 22; from which work the 
quotations in this part of our description are taken, unless other- 
wise expressed. 


her. 


MAGAZINE. [ AuGusr 28, 
losopher resided here about 12690, and as his studies were 
of a similar nature to those of our own “ Friar Bacon,” 
lis contemporary, so too was he looked upon by the 
ignorant people as a magician and sorcerer. The 
speaking brazen head has been attributed to both; but 
in the power of being at one and the same time in two 
places, Albertus has the sole honour. ‘“ It 1s asserted 
that at the very moment he was holding forth to his 
attcntive pupils from the chair still exhibited in the 
chapel (of the Dominicans at Ratisbon), he was to be 
seen busily einployed in his study at Donaustauf, about 
twelve milcs off.” 

Leaving Donaustauf, we pass, among nuinerous 
other villages, Bach, celebrated for the mincs in its 
neighbourhood, which stands on the Icft bank; and 
the palace of Worth, which, though long visible before 
it is reached, at one time appears behind us, so ex- 
traordinary are the sinuosities of the river. Not one 
of the least interesting features of the Danube are the 
peasantry who appear on its banks. In the district 
through which we are now passing they are wealthy, 
“exceedingly proud, and fond of all kinds of finery. 
The fincst Swiss and Dutch linen, silk and satin ker- 
chiefs of the gayest hues, Brabant lace, and gold and 
silver stuffs of all descriptions are in constant re-~- 
quisition. The men wear gold rings, and generally 
two gold watches. The black velvet or embroidered 
silk boddices of the women are laced with massive 
silver chains, from which hang a profusion of gold and © 
silver trinkets, hearts, crosses, coins, medals,” &c. At 
Sossau, on the left bank, is a far-famed picture of the 
Virgin, brought hither, if we may believe the monkish 
traditions, by angels in a boat from some heretical vil- 
lage where the Luthcran doctrines had suddenly 
appeared. Straubing, the first place of any importance 
on the Danube after quitting Ratisbon, like most of 
the large and aneient towns of Germany, 1s remarkable 
for the sieges it has undergone. At one of these the 
eitizens defended their town against the Duke of Saxe- 
Weimar with a courage and ability worthy of note. 
The burgomaster Haller, who was an excellent marks- 
man, on this occasion slew no less than thirty of the 
duke’s officers from his position on the ramparts. A 
deeply affecting memory is attached to Siraubing. In 
a small chapel in the churchyard of St. Peter’s 1s a red 
marble tablet with an effigy, and the following (trans- 
lated) inscription :—‘ In the year of our Lord 1436, on 
the 12th day of October, died Agnes Bernauer. May 
she rest in peace!” The story of this unfortunate lady 
nay be thus briefly narrated :—Alhert, the only son of 
Duke Ernst of Bavaria, one of the most valiant and 
accomplished princes of his age, was affiauced to the 
Countess Elizabeth of Wiirtemberg, and the marriage 
was just about to take place, when, at a grand tourna- 
ment given in honour ot the occasion at Augsburg, he 
beheld Agnes Bernauer, “the angel,” as she was 
called among the citizens, and with whom he became 
passionately in love. Atthe same time news was brought 
to him that the Countess Elizabeth had eloped with a 
more favoured lover. The prince, regardless of the 
difference between his rank and that of Agnes, whose 
father was a bather, an employment then looked on as 
disreputable in Germany, wooed and in secret married 
The consequences were truly deplorable. The 
prince’s father and family strove to compel him to sign 
a divorce, and when that attempt failed, the unfor- 
tunate Agnes found her ruin only the more surely 
accomplished by insidious attacks on her fair fame and 
character. The authorities of Straubing, near which 
place the prince and his lady resided, seizing the 
opportunity afforded by Albert’s absence for a short 
time from his palace, arrested Agnes on some frivolous 
pretext, and when, with an honest indignation, she as- 
sertcd her innoccnce, they declared her guilty of trea- 


1941.] 


son, and condemned her to death. On the 12th of 
October, 1436, she was accordingly thrown from the 
bridge of Straubing into the water; and although she 
succeeded in frceing one foot from her bonds, and 
strove, while shrieking for help and mercy, to gain the 
Opposite bank, one of her pitiless executioners caught 
her long fair hair with a hooked pole, and dragged her 
back into the stream till all resistance ceased! The 
horror-stricken husband at first set no bounds to his 
fury. He obtained an army from his father’s bittcrcst 
enemy, with which he returned to punish the mur- 
derers of his beloved Agnes. The emperor Sigismund 
now interfcred, who at last pacified the prince, and 
reconciled him with his father; who, to attest his con- 
trition, instituted a perpetual mass for the soul of the 
deccased lady. 

The boats used in the navigation of the Danube are 
mostly of one shape, though differing in size, and known 
by variousappellations. They are little better than large 
flat-bottomed punts, ranging from about 40 to nearly 
150 feet long, and composed gencraily of planks nailed 
rudely together, with a kind of hut in or near the 
centre. “ Sails are unknown onthe Danube;” they arc 
therefore rowed by two or more hands according to the 
size of the boat, by mcans of long clumsy paddles tied 
to upright posts, on which watcr is frequently thrown 
to prevent ignition. The largest boats, in ascending 
the river, are towed four or five together by a long 
string of horses. Both drivers and boatmen have cus- 
toms and modes of thought and feeling peculiar to 
themselves. The former are in appearance “some- 
thing between the English dustman and dray- 
man; but the lowest of either of thesc worthics 
might pass for a scholar and a gentleman by the 
side of one of them. From the moment the Danube 
becomes navigable, till it is again chained up in ice, 
these fellows never enter the humblest hovel, or mix 
with men of other callings, but cven sleep upon the 
the river’s bank beside their horses. A miserable su- 
perstition exists amongst them. They bclicve that some 
of their number must every year be sacrificed to the 
Spirit of the Waters ; and consequently, when an acci- 
dent occurs, they all scramble for the drowning man’s 
hat, but never think of stretching out a finger to save 
him, whom they look upon as a doomed and demanded 
victim. Professor Schultes declares that he once saw 
five drivers with their horses precipitated into the river, 
when their companions hastily cut the ropes to prevent 
the rest of the team from following, and drove ‘on, 
leaving the poor wrctches to their fate.” The boatmen 
by whose side the drivers move along day by day for so 
great a portion of the year are a very different race of 
men, and present one charactcristic at least of an 
interesting and poetical nature. Mr. Planché one 
night, being unable to sleep in the “hut,” got up, and 
seating himself by the cabin-door, as the moon was 
rising, “listened to the song's of the boatmcn, who, as 
they lazily plied their unwieldy paddles, warbled in 
their own peculiar style—a style rendcred familiar to 
London ears by the interesting ‘ Rainer family,’ for it 
is not confined to the Tyrol—several wild but pleasing 
melodies. Jt is very provoking,” he adds, “ that the 
English should be perhaps the only people who have 
no idea of singing in parts; an untutored boatman, pea- 
sant, or soldier of almost any of the continental nations, 
will suddenly strike in with an. extemporary and very 
creditable bass, though the air be led off by an utter 
stranger to him. On the banks of the Main at Aschat- 
fenburg, and at the Mohdlng in the Wienerwald, il 
was particularly struck with this pleasing talent, and 
have noticed it repeatedly both in France and Swit- 
zerland,” 

(‘To be continued. ) 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


33!) 


|THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY'S MUSEUM. 


(Concluded from page 324.] 


Tue Pagoda and convent of priests at Canton, a model 
of which in the Museum we alluded to in the last 
paper, was, we believe, the place in which the embas- 
sies under Lord Macartney and Lord Amherst were 
accommodated during their sojourn in Canton. Lord 
Macartney, in his private journal of the embassy, says : 
“Our quartcrs arc on an island, opposite to the Eng- 
lish factory, which is situated on the mainland in the 
suburbs of the city of Canton. The river that divides 
us is about halfa mile broad. These quarters consist 
of several pavilions or scparate buildings, very spa- 
cious and convenient, and some of them fitted up in 
the English manner, with glass windows and fire- 
erates; which lattcr, at this scason, although we are 
on the edge of the tropic, are vcry comfortable pieces 
of furniture. Our habitations are in the midst of a 
large garden, adorned with ponds and parterres, and 
with flowers, trecs, and shrubs, curious either from 
rarity or beauty. On one side of us is a magnificent 
miao, or Bonze temple, and on the other a laree edifice, 
from the top of which is a very fine view of the river 
and shipping, the city and country, to a great extent.” 

We now ascend to the upper rooms of the Museum ; 
in the first of which, on the left-hand side, we find 
fragments of stone, tombs, gravestones, and imagcs, 
engraved or sculptured with hieroglyphics and charac- 
ters in various Oriental languages: many of these 
inscriptions have been deciphered, and translations of 
them given in the ‘Transactions’ of the Socicty; such 
being onc of the features, and a vcry valuable one, for 
which the Socicty was founded. On the adjacent side 
of the room, betwecn the windows, are a few objects 
connected with natural history, such as a trunk of 
bamboo, the skelcton of the head of a Malacca clephant, 
a collection of the hanging nests of the Indian gros- 
beak, &e. There are also some Buddhic idols; three 
or four models of canocs uscd by various Indian tribes; 
and a pair of enormous ‘dumb-bells,’ employed as a 
means of muscular exercise by the Indians. These 
latter consist of two heavy picces of wood, about thirty 
inches in length, diminishing in thickness from the 
bottom, where they are about scven inches in diameter, 
to the top, which forms a handle: the swinging of 
these implements must require no small amount of 
muscular force. 

The right-hand side of the room is chicfly occupied 
with animal specimens, such as the horns and bones of 
a buffalo and a tapir; stuffed skins of crocodiles and 
alligators; the jaw-bones and vertcbra of a shark; 
the ‘saw’ of a saw-fish; the stuffed skin of a short- 
tailed Manis; together with many small specimens 
preserved in bottles. The side opposite to the window 
presents to view, among other animal specimens, ske- 
letons of the head of the hippopotamus, the wild ox of 
Canara, the wild buffalo, and the wild hog; and the 
skin of a boa-constrictor, thirteen feet in length. A 
few crystals, mincrals, and pigments preparcd in India, 
are also here deposited; and among a few remaining 
articles illustrative of Eastern manufactures, are a 
curious pair of forge bellows used by Burmese smiths, 
and a Ceyloncse parasol, about three tect in diainctcr, 
made from plaited or interwoven strips of the leaf of 
the Talpat palm; of which material also are made 
large folding fans, used by the native Ccylonese ladies. 
A elass case in the middle of the room contains minc- 
rals and fossils ; as well asa few other objects, among 
which is a bottle filled with the poison of the Upas 
trees 

Wc now pass on to the fourth and last room of the 
Museum, situated on the same floor as the one which 
we have just Ieft. The contents of this room consist 


336 


principally of objects brought from or relating to 
China. A series of shelves on the west and north sides 
are occupied by a valuable collection of Chinese books 
in various departments of literature: they are in 
general rather thin, and are deposited, six or eight to- 
fether, in pasteboard cases. 

On the left of the window in this room Is a glass case 
containing many specimens of charms, talismans, and 
felicitous appendages worn about the person or hung 
up in the houses of the Chinese. In order to explain 
the nature and assigned qualities of these relics, Mr. 
Morrison, who presented them to the Museum, wrote 
a description of them in the ‘ Transactions’ of the So- 
ciety, from which we may borrow a few explanatory 
remarks. ‘ Money-swords” consist of a number of old 
copper coins, strung together in the form of a sword, 
and kept straight by a piece of iron running wp the 
middle. They are hung at the heads of beds, that the 
supposed presence of the monarchs under whose reigns 
the coins were struck, may have the effect of keeping 
away ghosts and evil spirits: they are used chiefly in 
houses or rooms where persons have committed swi- 
cide, or have suffered a violent death ; and sick persons 
use them to hasten thelr recovery. The ‘hundred 
Jamily-lock”” is a charm constructed thus:—A man 
goes round among his friends, and having obtained 
from one hundred different persons three or four cop- 
per coins each, he expends them in the making of a 
lock, which he hangs on his child’s neck, for the pur- 
pose of locking him, as it were, to life, and making 
the one hundred persons sureties for his attaining old 
age. The “old brass mirror” is a charm which is sup- 
posed to possess the virtue of immediately healing any 
one who has become mad by the sight of a spirit or 
demon, by merely taking a glance at himself in it; it 
is kept in the chief apartments of the rich, for the pur- 
pose of scaring away spirits. The “peach charm” 
consists of a sprig of peach-blossoms, which, on the first 
day of the first moon, is placed in some districts at the 
head of the door of every house, to drive away demons 
and malignant spirits. The “Yuh seal” isa stone worn by 
children on their foreheads or wrists, on which are en- 
graved short sentences, and which is supposed to sup- 
press fright, and to show whether a child is well or ill, 
by a clear appearance in the one case and a dark appear- 
ance in the other. The gourd: gourd-bottles beine 
formerly carried by old men on their backs, figures of 
them, made cither of copper or of the wood of old 
men’s coffins, are worn as charms for longevity; the 
former round the neck, the latter round the wrist. 
Besides many other charms of these kinds, which may 
be deemed talismans, there are little sacred books, 
which are suspended from the girdle in small sill 
bags, and hence called girdle scriptures. People ct 
property buy them for their children, and pay priests 
to repeat the prayers, &c. contained in them, in order 
to preserve their children from premature death. 
Lastly, there are certain spells, consisting of words 
written on scraps of paper. These spells are some- 
times kept about the person, and sometimes pasted on 
walls and over doors; some also are used as cures for 
sick persons, by being either written on leaves and 
then transferred into some liquid, or by being written 
on paper, burnt, and then thrown into the liquid, after 
which the patient has to drink off the hquid and the 
spell together. Afurther description of these spells is 
not here necessary, as their general character may be 
casily imagined: there are spells for almost every one 
of the Chinese deities. The names given above are 
translations, by Mr. Morrison, of the Chinese names 
applied to the respective articles. 

In the same range of glass cases which contain these 


charms and spells, is a miscellaneous assemblage of. 
Objects, brought principally from China and other. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Ave. 28, Team 


countries in the castern parts of Asia. Among these 
are two Chinese ‘chop-sticks,’ made of ivory, about 
ten or twelve inches long; a very neatly and delicately 
made Clinese steclyard ; a complete apparatus for the 
oplum-smokers, consisting of a pipe, a lamp, an ash- 
pan, &c.; a mariner’s compass, In use among the 
Chinese navigators; Chinese metallic mirrors, sub- 
stitutes for looking-glass; a flute, and other musical 
instrunents ; a Chinese bird-cage in form of a junk ; 
fans and fly-flappers; Chinese and Burmese dresses, 
robes, hats, shoes, &c.; a fragment of a Chinese tomb- 
stone, found in a tea-chest brought to England. There 
are also counting-machines, under the name of Schwan- 
pan, somewhat similar to the Abacus of the ancients, in 
which little beads strung upon wires, and ranged in a 
certain order, enable the people for whom they are 
intended to perform simple arithmetical computation, 
such as addition and subtraction. An interesting 
series of articles here is a complete Chinese writing 
apparatus, comprising the paper, pens, ink, &c. used 
by that singular people. 

Between the windows of this room are a case of 
Oriental books, a carved chair brought from Malacca, 
and a sheet of paper which would set even the 
‘double Times” in the shade; it measures sixty feet 
by twenty-five, and was made in Kumaoon, a district 
of Northern India, from the inner fibres of the bark of 
the set-burooah, or Daphne Cannabina. The adjoining 
side of the room is occupied partly. by the Chinese 
books lately alluded to, and partly by miscellaneous 
curiosities, such as a vina, or Indian guitar ; a South- 
Indian horn, shaped something lke the English ser- 
pent; two or three Burmese stringed instruments 
resembling harps ; a Sato/a, or Burmese guitar, having 
nearly the form of an alligator ; a model of a Parsee 
cemetery erected at Bombay ; a model of a pagoda at 
Tinnevelly; another of a Buddhist preaching-house ; 
and others of Burmese war-boats, &c. 

The reader has probably encountered in the public 
journals during the late transactions between the 
English and ihe Chinese, some mention of the chops, 
or official documents of the Chinese empire, and might 
like to know what is the appearance presented by such 
documents. On the north side of this room is a ‘ chop,’ 
the translation of which would probably not be a little 
curious. Jtisa kind of permit or licence granted to 
the captain of the ship Sarah, for him to depart from 
Canton with his cargo for England. This was the first 
ship which left Canton for England after the throwing 
open of the China trade in 1834; having on board a 
cargo of silk valued at four hundred thousand pounds. 
‘the ‘chop’ is written on a sheet of paper measuring 


‘about three feet by two, and the writing with which 


the sheet is covered, in the Chinese character, consists 
of an enumeration of the qualities, importance, and 
virtues of the official personage who grants it; a state- 
ment of the reasons why the stranger-person is desirous 
of going to his own country ; an acknowledgement that 
all the proper dues had been paid, and observances ful- 
filled by the captain, and a permission to him to set sail. 

Some portions of this room are occupied by glass 
cases containing stuffed birds, insects, and other objects 
belonging to the department of natural history, in most 
instances belonging to species now found in Asiatic 
countries. In the middle of the room is a model of a 
Vihari, or Ceylonese Buddhist temple; and on the 
landing leading thereto are a set of Persian portraits 
of ladies, a Hindoo painting on copper. and a curious 
Hindoo map of India painted on cloth. 

In conclusion we may remark that this Museum, 
like that collected by the United Service Association, 
is well calculated to illustrate the subjects, the study 
and elucidation of which form the objects for which 
the Society was established. 


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[Show-Room of the London Marble-Working Cormpany, Esher Street, Millbank, Westminster, ] 


Tue cutting of a piece of stone, and bringing it toa 
form and appearanee adapted to the purposes of the 
builder, are operations which, until the last few yzars, 
have undergone but a very slight amount of change. 
The pickaxe at the quarry, and the saw and chisel at 
the mason’s yard, have probably for ages been the in- 
struments by which these operations have been con- 
ducted; and, indeed, so far as regards the common 
bhuilding-stones, the same remark may be made im our 
own day. The more costly kind of stone, to which we 
give the name of marble, and which, from its nature, 
is susceptible of a high and durable polish, requires for 
its due preparation an amount of labour far exceeding 
that which is customarily bestowed upon the commoner 
kinds of stone ; and this circumstance has led, within 
a period comparatively recent, to the construction of 
machines which enable the processes of sawing, grind- 
ing, polishing, &c. to be performed with more expe- 
dition and less expenditure of manual labour than 
characterized the same operations formerly. Were 
it not for this circumstance, we should not probably 
have called the reader's attention to this department of 
mechanical art; but there are many points connected 
with the subject at the present day which deserve a 
little notice. 

So far as stone is employed in large blocks for the 
construction of buildings, strength and durability are 
the chief qualities for which the material is valued ; 
but when we have a substance such as marble, mn which 
delicacy and purity of colour are combined with a sus- 
ceptibility of receiving a high polish, and of being cut 


No. 604. . 


into elegant forms , a new measure of value is obtained, 
our notions of taste and beauty are at once appealed to, 
and the refining influence which objects of taste exert 
on mankind 1s shared by this substance in common 
with some others. That this is felt to be the case, 1s 
shown by the evidence given before the parliamentary 
committee on the Arts and Principles of Design, in 
1836. It appeared to be an opinion on the part of 
many members of the Committee, that if so beautiful a 
substance as marble could be brought more plentifully 
and economically within the reach of the inhabitants of 
this country, it would tend to advance the arts of design, 
and to diffuse a taste for the elegancies which are so 
well appreciated in Italy. On this subject, Mr. Cow- 
per gave the following evidence :— 

‘613. Would you not conceive, if the arts were gene- 
rally diffused among the people, the black marble of 
Derbyshire and different marbles would be converted 
to purposes at present almost unknown ?—Certainly. 

“614. Is there not some tendency now existing to- 
wards the conversion of that and various marbles to 

urposes of art ?—There is, both as to the various mar- 
bids and various other materials. At the marble-works, 
Esher Street, Horseferry Road, there isa beautiful sys- 
tem of machinery for working ornamental marble; 
mouldings, slabs, and pilasters of beautiful workman- 
ship, are executed in British and foreign marble at a 
low price. The whole is the contrivance of Mr. Tul- 
loch, an independent gentleman of great taste, as his 
large collection of paintings by the old masters testifies 
He, from observing the great use of marble in Italy 


Vou. X.—2 X 


338 


and in other countries, contrived this machinery for 
the express purpose of introducing marble into more 
gencral use in this country.” — 

After a few questions relating toa patent mode of 
carving busts in ivory, Mr. Cowper was asked— 

«632. If applied to oak or hard wood, the expense 
would be considerably lessened ?—Yes ; and J have 
seen the most elegant parquetry floor made by it, which 
would be too expensive to be attempted by hand. 
Mueh, if not all, of the Gothic oak carving for the 
new houses of parliament might be done by it; and 
with Mr. Tulloch’s machinery in Esher Strect, almost 
all the Gothic stone mouldings might be executed; so 
that by this application of art to manufacture, the 
splendid palace of the legislature might itself be in- 
creased in splendour. 

«633. Could it be used for working in wood and 
wainscoting, and for ornaments’—Yes; and there 
would be no difficulty in doing so.” 

As it may not be uninteresting to the reader to know 
the means by which marble may be thus brought into 
a useful and ornamental form by machinery, we shall 
in the present paper detail the results of a visit recently 
made to the establishment referred to in the above evi- 
dence, illustrating our remarks by a few wood-cuts, 
and by such descriptions as will explain in a familiar 
way the action of the patent machinery, without at- 
tempting minute dctal. 

It 1s necessary to state the distinction between mar- 
ble and other kinds of stone. This term is applied to 
those finer varictics of granular and compact limestone, 
which, being of a closer grain, are susceptible of a su- 
perior polish, and are remarkable either for their 
whiteness, their blackness, or the beauty and variety of 
their colours. In former times the appellation of 
marble (derived from the Greck verb, to shine or glit- 
fer) was indiscriminately given to many stony masses 
that admit of being polished; and accordingly we find 
alabaster, serpentine, basalt, porphyry, &c. occasionally 
included under that term. At present, however, it is 
customary to confine the term ‘ marble’ to the kinds 
of limestone above alluded to, whither in a pure state, 
or varied with foreign substances mixed with or im- 
bedded in the mass, such as serpentine, hornblende, 
quartz, &c. Where a piece of marble is not purely 
white (and white specimens are very rare), it has re- 
ceived lis tints generally from the oxides of iron, the 
solution of which has, wholly or partially, penetrated 
the mass previous to its complete induration. Blue 
and green marbles frequently owe their tints to minute 
particles of hornblende. ‘The black varieties, such as 
those of Ireland and of Derbyshire, are coloured by 
carbon, and sometimes by 2 kind of bitumen. 

The ancient statues, of which so many beautiful 
specunens are still remaining, were formed of marble 
obtained from quarries which are met with even in 
the present day; and the general character of all 
such quarrics may be judged from a _ notice of 
those at Carrara. Several ridges of low hills 
near the town of Carrara have been known for the 
marble-quarrics worked there ever sinec the time of 
the Romans. The quarries are more than a hundred 
in number, some furnishing the pnrest white marble 
which the sculptor can obtain, and others marble va- 
riously tinted and adapted for ornamental purposes. 
The quarries were worked throughout the flourishing 
period of the Roman empire; alter which they fell 
into disuse, and did not resuine their importanec till 
the Pisans took possession of them in the twelfth cen- 
tury. 


Of this assemblage of quarries Mr. Simonds ob- 


serves:— Formerly on the sea-side, it now forms | 
can produce flat surfaces of marble, for such purposes 


a deep nook in the mountain behind: but all Italy, 
all Europe, and all the world, might be covered 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 





{ Auacust, 1841. 


with temples and peopled with statues of Carrara mar- 
ble, yet the main stock would sustain scarcely a visible 
diminution by the loss of such fragments of its yast- 
ness. The rock is strewed over with these fragments 
detached from the heights by pygmies whom you 
scarcely see above, working with their puny tools, and 
blasting with gunpowder. The facc of the noble rock, 
exposed for ages to the weather, is black; while the 
new fractures are dazzling white, and their crystal 
grain, dunly transparent, looks as if a single stroke of 
the chisel-—a skilful one indeed—might make it 
breathe at once.”* Twelve hundred workmen are 
constantly employed at the quarries; and the annual 
revenue 1s calculated at seven or eight hundred thou- 
sand francs. The blocks are carried down from the 
quarry in carts, drawn by oxen, to the Spiaggia, or 
beach of Avenza, where the storchouses are, and 
whence the marble is shipped on board the vessels that 
anchor in the roads. As the freight of the blocks 
would be uselessly increased if they were exported in 
misshapen masses, they are frequently sawn into 
squares by saw-mills, turned by some small streams 
which flow down the side of the hills in which the 
quarries are situated. 

The marble, thus brought to London in the rough 
state, whether from Italy, from France, from Ireland, 
or from the northern parts of England, we will sup- 
pose to be consigned to the marble-working establish- 
nent before spoken of ; and we will proceed to describe 
the general arrangement of the buildings, and the 
action of the different machines employed for working 
1h 

Most Londoners, and perhaps most visitors to Lon- 
don, are aware that the Milbank Penitentiary is situated 
at a little distance north-west of Vauxhall Bridge. 
Immediately to the north of this building is Holywell 
Strect, out of which branches a smaller street called 
Esher Street; and in this last-mentioned strect is 
situated the London marble-works ; or, to give the full 
name, the “London Marble and Stone Works ;” for 
other kinds of stone are worked besides marble. The 
buildings comprise a long front range; three or four 
ranges of workshops and sheds; and open yards con- 
necting these ranges one with another. 

An arched entrance leads through the front range of 
buildings into an open court behind. On either side 
of this entrance are doors, the one on the left hand 
leading to offices and counting-houses, to which we 
shall not further allude. The entrance on the right is 
to a room occupied by monumental tablets and other 
articles in inarble, ina state nearly approaching to com- 
pletion; as well as plaster casts or models of which 
marble copies have been made. 

Irom this lower room a staircase leads up to the 
show-room, which presents a very beautiful appear- 
ance. It is a kind of gallery, well adapted for the 
reception and exhibition of finished works in marble. 
The room 1s of great length, and is lighted by ranges 
of windows situated near the ceiling on both sides of 
the room, leaving ample spacc for monumental tablets, 
Sc. beneath them. <A clear passage is left through the 
middle of the room from end to end; on either side of 
which are ranged very numerous specimens of finished 
works in marble, such as chimncy-pieces, pillars, pilas- 
ters, vases, urns, tables and table-tops, statues, busts, 
monumental tablets, mouldings, &c., and at one end 
of which are plates of looking-glass. Some of these 
are very claborately worked; and from the diversificd 
colours of the specunens of marble employed, and the 
taste with which they are arranged, the whole presents 
a very elegant appearance. Others are nearly plain, and 
exhibit the accuracy with which the machinery employed 


* Tour in Italy and Sicily,’ p. 576. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


as paving for halls, conservatories, dairies, shop-fronts, 
&c. Most of these objects being temporarily placed 
in this room, the collection varies from time to time. 
A short time ago, among the more elaborate works 
finished at the establishment, were a large Gothic 
monument, a marble fountain for Sutherland House, 
and a marble copy of the large vase presented to the 
British Museum by Lord Western in 1839. At a more 
recent visit we observed several balustrades and other 
articles of polished black Irish marble for Hamilton 
Palace in Scotland. 

Descending from the show-room, we pass out into 
the court or yard behind the front range of buildings, 
This yard is occupied by large blocks of marble ; 
some 1 the rough state in which they were brought to 
London, cither merely trimmed with the chisel or 
rudely sawn into thick slabs; others in a more or less 
prepared state. Among these we noticed blocks of 
black marble from Ireland, of the unusually large 
dimensions of thirteen feet by ten or eleven ; and other 
blocks of white marble from Italy, much smaller in 
size, and exhibiting examples of the rude manner in 
Which the hand-sawing of the Italians is effected. 

To the left of this yard, and extending behind the 
southern end of the front range of buildings, is another 
yard, almost entirely filled with marble which has been 
already cut up into slabs of an inch or so in thickness, 
and which are deposited here till wanted for the sub- 
sequent processes. A few slabs of the finer kinds of 
stone are among them; but marbles of various colours 
and qualitics constitute the chief materials operated on. 

Crossing to the right of the central court or yard, we 
come to the buildings in which the working processes 
are carricd on. The main building is of two stories, 
cach measuring probably cighty feet by fifty. The 
lower story or room has doors on the north, south, and 
west sides, each leading to an open court or yard; 
while on the east side is a door opening into an enginc- 
room, where a steam-engine, supphed with the neecs- 
sary appendages of furnace, boiler, fly-wheel, &e., pro- 
duces the moving-power by which all the machinery is 
impelled. This large room is so filled with machines 
in active operation, and the unceasing noise of the 
sawing and grinding processes is so bewildering, that 
a stranger requires scme little time to analyze the 
complicated arrangements of the room. By beginning 
at the source of power, however, viz., the steam-cn- 
gine, and tracing the communication from one point 
to another, the skilful arrangement of the whole gra- 
dually becomes manifest, and exhibits the ingenuity of 
the inventor, Mr. Tulloch. The fly-wheel of the steam- 
engine moves a shaft to which, by an ingenious adap- 
{ation of cranks, four rods are made to move hori- 
zontally. Each of these rods, by a reciprocating lon- 
citudinal movement, moves a set of saws inserted in 
fraines ; and the arrangement of cach irae, as we shall 
presently explain, is such as to admit of a block of 
mnarble being cut by these saws. There are thus four 
sawing-frames or machines, ranged in a rectangular 
form, two to the north and two to the south of the ro- 
tating shaft; and the whole occupying the greater part 
of the eastern half of the room. 

Ou the western side of the room, next to the door by 
which we enter, is a ‘ripping-bed,’ a inachine for cut- 
ting slabs of marble into narrow strips or into small 
pieces. Next to this is a ‘ grinding-bed,’ on which 
the slabs arc ground after sawing, and previous to the 
process of polishing. Beyond, and towards the northern 
end of the room, is a ‘ moulding-bed,’ a machine by 
which pieces of marble are worked into the architec- 
tural form of mouldings, such as squares, fillets, bead- 
ings, hollows, and ovalos. All these machines consist 
of various parts to which motion of some kind or other 
is given, in one of the many ways which are familar to 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 339 
those accustomed to machinery, but which can scarcely 
be made intelligible to general readers by written de- 
scription. Shafts, drums, bands, cog-whceels, racks 
and pinions, bevel-whcels—all are brought into requi- 
sition, according to the kind of motion and the cir- 
cumstances under which it is to be produced. At the 
eastern side of the room, in addition to the sawing- 
machines, is a lathe of large dimensions, turned by a 
shaft connected with the other machinery. At this 
lathe circular pieces of stone are moulded, or provided 
with the architectural mouldings just alluded to; and 
by it also circular columns are turned. 

We will now pass to the upper story of the building, 
corresponding in size with the lower. This room is 
lighted on all four sides by windows, and contains a 
great number of workmen employed principally in the 
finishing processes of marble-working. There are 
several openings in the floor, to make room for the 
upper parts of the large sawing-machines below, and 
for some of the motive apparatus by which the machines 
arc worked. Between and around these openings 
work-benches are erected, at which the men are em- 
ployed. The operations are mostly effected by hand; 
but there are two machines on the western side, called 
‘polishing - beds,’ at which the finishing operation is 
given to slabs and other flat pieces of marble. <A door 
from the southern end of this room leads to the show- 
room, . 

We now leave the large building, and pass through 
an open shed or shop attached to its western wall. 
This shed exhibits an instance of the ubiquity (if we 
may be allowed the term) of steam-power ; for by car- 
rying a shaft through the wall which separates the shed 
froni the sawing-room, three or four machines in the 
former are set in motion as effectually as if they were 
in the large building. - The first of these, connected 
lmnicdiately with the shaft, is a grinding-machine, for 
grinding smaller pieces of marble than those operated 
on by the machine in the large building. Next to this, 
and connected with it by a revolving drum and band, 
is a machine for cutting circular slabs of marble of any 
dimensions up to six or eight fect in diameter. Adja- 
cent to this is a third machine, by which small circles, 
a few inches in diameter, are cut out of slabs of marble, 
and by which, with a little modification of arrange- 
ment, cylinders, tubes, and columns might be cut. The 
remaining part of this shed is occupied by workbenches 
at which men are engaged in sawing, grinding, and 
polishing small pieees of marble, the working of whieh 
scarcely requires the aid of the machines. 

A narrow avenue separates the shed just alluded to 
from a long range of shops, in which those departments 
of marble-working are carried on in which the mallet 
and chisel are the principal instruments employed. 
Small benches, ranged laterally across the shop through- 
out its whole length, are occupied by men engaged 
principally in sculpturing or carving the ornamental 
parts of marble-work. 

Beyond this range of carving shops is a nullwright’s- 
shop, in which the numerous saws, chisels, and other 
instruments of iron and stecl employed in the processes 
of the manufacture are repaired and sharpened; and 
in which repairs and adjustments of the machinery are 
made. At the left of this is a large open yard entirely 
filled with slabs of statuary marble, which have been 
cut by the machines, and are deposited here till wanted. 
To the right or castward of the millwright’s-shop is 
another open yard, oecupied partly by stores of stone 
and marble not yet brought under the action of the 
saw, and partly by the sand and the apparatus for 
cleansing and prepariug it, required in the process of 
sawing. 

We have now taken a glance at the general arrange- 


/ment ef the establishinent, to show the mutual depen- 


GP 


340 THE PENNY 
dence of its several parts. Our next object is, to trace 
the progress of a block of marble through the several 
processes which it, or the pieces into which it is cut, 
undergo, till its final conversion into slabs, pillars, 
mouldings, plinths, vases, or other specimens of mar- 
ble-work. We shall thus have an opportunity of de- 
scribing the particular action of all the machines sepa- 
rately, as they are brought into requisition. 

The first machine employed on a block of marble 
after it is deposited in the manufactory, is the large 
sawing-machine, one of which is represented in the 










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annexed cut. There are five or six of these in opera- 
tion, but the action of any one will illustrate that of all 
the rest. The process of sawing must of course be re- 
eulated according to the purpose for which the marble 
is employed. In a monumental tablet, the pieces of 
marble employed are generally broad, flat, and thin, 
whether or not they be highly decorated. In a chim- 
ney-piece, the several parts are likewise made from 
rather thin slabs and strips; in marble steps, table- 
tops, pavements, &c., the same remark applies; and 
indeed in the larger proportion of articles made of 
marble, the pieces from which they are formed are flat 
slabs or sheets, rather than massive pieces. In many 
of the ornamental purposes to which marble is applied, 
a foundation of commoner stone, of brick, of wood, or 
of cement, is first formed, and then the marble is 
superposed merely as a sort of casing. It results from 
this mode of using it, that a block of marble is in most 
cases converted into slabs of an inch or so im thickness 
before being applied to its ulterior purpose. 

‘his first process of sawing is that in which the ap- 
plication of machinery is perhaps of the greatest im- 
portance, not only as regards the expenditure of manual 
labour, but also in reference to the accuracy with which 
the cutting is effected. With regard to the first point, 
many persons must have observed the singularly in- 
efficient way in which the muscular power of a man 1s 
exerted in the common mode of sawing a stone. He 
sits at one end of the stone, grasping with his hands one 
end of a frame which contains an iron saw or cutter, 
and this saw he pushes to and fro as a means of divid- 
ing the block of stone or marble into slabs. Now it is 
manifest on a very little consideration, that his mus- 
cular strength is not equally effective as a working- 
power during these reciprocal movements; to push 
and to pull, to draw upwards and to draw downwards, 
to extend the hands from the body and to draw them 
to it, are respectively efforts which produce very un- 
equal effects. If we watch the proceedings of a stone- 
sawyer, we shall also see that the saw frequently ‘jars,’ 


MAGAZINE. {Aueust, 1841. 
or has a tremulous motion consequent on the unequable 
manner in which it is moved; the result of which is, 
that the cut is not equally effective throughout the 
whole length of the block. All these circumstances 
combine to render the cutting by hand a very slow 
one. 

With respect to the accuracy of the cutting, it may 
well be supposed that this is with difficulty attained by 
hand. The blade of the saw or cutting instrument is 
not above three or four inches wide, and is extremely 
apt to twist a little out of the vertical plane. If we 
were to attempt to cut through a large cheese with a 
common knife, the cut would be more and more irre- 
gular in proportion as the blade of the knife was nar- 
rower. So in the case of the stone; the narrowness of 
the blade—necessary to ensure its easy passage through 
the stone—renders it so hable to deviate from the 
vertical plane, that a perfectly level cut is almost un- 
attainable by hand. This irregularity produces two 
ill consequences: it renders a laborious process of 
erinding necessary, in order to produce a level sur- 
face ; and it occasions a waste of inaterial, which is of 
serious importance if the quality of the marble he 
valuable. Of this latter fact we saw a striking in- 
stance. In the central yard of the marble-works were 
the two halves of a large and very fine block of 
statuary marble, which had been cut into two in Italy 
before exportation. The cutting had been effected by 
hand; and on glancing the eye along the surface of 
one of the pieces thus cut, it was obvious that the sur- 
face was about nine inches out of a true plane, the saw 
having twisted in various directions during the pro- 
cess of cutting. The distortion thus occasioned affected 
both halves equally, for a convex protuberance in one 
half had a corresponding depression on the other; and 
to bring both these to a true surface, the middle por- 
tion of the one and the edges of the other had to be 
sawn or ground away to the depth of nine inches. It 
happened that this block was one of the finest specimens 
of purely white marble, a fact which could not be fully 
ascertained until the cut was made; the quality was so 
valuable, that the portion wasted by the irregular saw- 
ing would, if cut into slabs, have been worth a sum 
estimated by the proprietors at nearly a hundred and 
fifty pounds. 

These are some of the circumstances which render 
the employment of machinery very important; and 
Sir George Wright and Sir James Jelf some years ago 
devised machines for these purposes. Their attempts, 
from various causes, were not permanently success- 
ful; but the mechanism of Mr. Tulloch has now 
been in operation several years. The sawing-iframes 
each consist of a cast-iron framework, to hold the work- 
ing machinery together, about twelve feet long. A 
horizontal rectangular frame, longer than the block to 
be cut, and wider than the block is thick, has me- 
chanism at each end by which a number of saws may 
be fixed parallel to the length of the frame, and with 
the blade of each saw in a vertical plane. By means 
of pins and wedges, the saws can be fixed at any re- 
quired distance apart; suppose, for instance, that a 
block is to be cut into a number of slabs each one inch 
thick ; an equal number of saws would be fixed in the 
frame strictly parallel one to another, and exactly an 
inch apart: so that the saws themselves would ensure 
the accurate regulation of the thickness of the slabs. 
The saw-frame is capable of sliding in vertical grooves 
in the cast-iron supporters, and is balanced by weights 
connected with it by a chain passing over a pulley 
above; the saws are thus kept at a height from the 
eround corresponding to the part of the block which is 
being cut; and as they are a little heavier than the 


| balance-weight, they gradually descend by their own 


pressure as the cutting proceeds. 





SUPPLEMENT. | 


The saws here spoken of are rather unfortunately 
named. A stone-saw is nota sawatall. It is merely 
a piece of soft sheet-iron, with a blunt, smooth, straight 
edge, unprovided with teeth. Its action is not, properly 
speaking, to cué the stone, but to separate the particles 
of the material by friction. The effect is much in- 
creased by the addition of sand and water, the latter of 
which in some degree softens the stone, while the sharp 
particles of the former aid the frictive action of the 
saw; the small hard particles which constitute sand 
may indeed be deemed substitutes for the teeth of a 
saw. The quality of the sand is varied according to 
the nature and hardness of the stone to be cut; coarse 
sharp sand being used for soft kinds of stone, while 
very fine sand is better fitted for the harder stones. At 
the marble-works the sand employed is obtained from 
the neighbourhood of Croydon. It is well washed in 
large vessels, in order to free it as much as possible 
from extraneous substances; after which it is placed 
in a large brick receptacle covered with a roof, but 
open to the air, where it is kept till wanted. The 
cleanness of the sand employed is a matter of con- 
siderable importance ; for if a small fragment of wood, 
or a grain so large that it will not penetrate (but rolls 
over) the stone, gets among the sand, the action of the 
saw is much impeded, and the removal of the obstacle 
is very difficult. 

__Wewill suppose that a block of Italian marble, 
eight or ten feet long, five or six wide, and one and a 
half thick, is to he cut into as many inch slabs as it will 
make, say sixteen. Sixteen saws are fitted into the 
frame parallel and equidistant, and the whole are 
lifted up by means of a windlass acting on the balance- 
weight above, to a height sufficient to allow the block 
of marble to be placed edge uppermost bencath them. 
The block is placed as nearly vertical as practicable, 
and is wedged and supported so as to remain firm. A 
very ingenious little machine, in which Mr. Tulloch 
has shown much inventive contrivance, is then sus- 
pended over the block, for supplying the saws with 
the requisite amount of sand and water. In the ordinary 
method of sawing by hand, a board is placed so as to 
slope towards the fissure made by the saw; and at the 
upper part of this board is placed a vessel of water, 
from which a small but constant stream is running 
down the board into the opening. A quantity of sand 
previously washed 1s also placed on the board at a little 
distance from the point where the water is running: 
and a portion of this sand is drawn forward by the 
workman into the running water by means of a stick 
with a hook at the end, and carried down gradual] 
into the fissure made by the saw. But by Mr. Tul- 
loch’s contrivance several saw-fissures are supplied 
with sand and water at once. An iron cistern, about 
two feet long, one high, and one wide, is filled with 
water; and in each side are fixed about twenty cocks. 
The water, slowly flowing from these cocks, falls into 
an equal number of little grooves formed in the bottom 
of a box filled with sand; and these grooves are so 
constructed that the sand and water flow out together 
at a number of little openings on one side of the box. 
These streams of sand and water are then so directed 
as to flow each into one of the saw-fissures. As there 
are two grooved boxes, one on each side of the cistern, 
there are two streams of sand and water flowing into 
each fissure. This is one of those small pieces of 
mechanism frequently met with in our manufactures, 
in which more inventive ingenuity is often called 
for than in machines apparently much more im- 
portant. 

The saws being made to rest on the block, and the 
sand and water being arranged to flow into the fissures 
as soon as they are made, the saw-frame is set into 
reciprocating horizontal motion by a connection being 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


Rem am mf FR AS, te pS 


34] 


formed between it and the working shaft of the steam- 
engine. _ By a particular application of a parallel 
motion somewhat similar to that of Watt, the saws are 
moved in a strictly horizontal manner, the length of 
the stroke of each saw being about eighteen inches. 
When the saw comes to the end of its stroke, it is 
lifted up a little by means of an inclined plane, so as 
to allow the sand and water to flow down beneath it in 
the crevice. As the cutting proceeds, the assemblage 
of saws descend by their own weight being a little 
greater than that of the balance; and the reciprocating 
motion continues till the block has been entirely 
divided into slabs. 

There are four machines of the kind just described, 
all connected by rods with the working-shaft of the 
steam-engine, and all capable of receiving and work- 
ing an equal number of saws. But within the last few 
years blocks of black marble from Galway have been 
procured of such large dimensions that the sawing- 
machines are not able to receive them. For working 
on such blocks another sawing-frame has been erected 
out in the open yard, but still in connection with the 
working power of the steam-engine. We saw a block 
of Galway marble, thirteen feet long by ten feet wide, 
under process of sawing in this frame ; it was being ° 
cut into slabs for forming the landings of a grand 
staircase in Hamilton Palace. 

After a block of marble has been cut into slabs, it 
is for many purposes required to be reduced to the 
form of narrow strips, such the several parts of a 
chimney-piece, or of a monumental tablet; or else 
into small pieces of various shapes. The large sawing- 
frames are not adapted for this smaller kind of work- 
manship, which is therefore effected in a machine 
called a ‘ripping-bed,’ represented in the annexed 





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cut. This is a kind of table, twelve or fourteen feet 
long, six or seven wide, and three high; the flat of 
which is made of cast-iron. On this iron bed is placed 
one of plank, forming the top of the table; and on this 
the slabs which are to be cut into strips are temporarily 
fixed with plaster of Paris. A horizontal axle revolves 
a few inches above the table, and on this axle are fixed 
vertical cutters, consisting of circular pieces of soft 
iron about eight inches in diameter, the lower edge of 
which, while revolving, nearly touches the table. The 
iron bed on which the planking and the slab rest is 
connected, by means of pulleys, with a heavy weight, 
by which it 1s drawn slowly forward; the edge of the 
marble, thus forcibly drawn in contact with the edge 
of the cutter, 1s subjected to its cutting action, and is 


342 


ulled forward by the weight as fast as the cutting 1s 
effected. The axle, being several feet long, is adapted 
for the reception of several cutters at once, which may 
be so adjusted as to produce strips of any required 
width. Suppose, for cxample, it were required to cut 
a slab, three feet wide, into one dozen strips, all ot 
different width: a series of cutters, all of equal dia- 
meter, would be fixed upon the axle at such relative 
distances apart as would correspond with the width of 
the strips to be produced, and all the cuttings would 
be made at one time. One man attends to the machine, 
adjusting the cutters to the axle, arranging the marble 
on the bed, adjusting the balance-weight to the work 
required to be effected, and keeping up a constant 
supply of sand and water at the fissures which the 
cutters make in the marble. 

The form of this machine adapting it only to make 
rectilinear cuts, the production of a curve requires 
other arrangements. We have before stated that there 
are two machines for cutting circular pieces of marble 
fron) flat slabs. One of these, for circles of large di- 
mensions, consists of a flat bed capable of receiving a 
slab six or eight fect in diameter, in a horizontal 
position. Above this isa vertical pillar, to the lower 
cnd of which are attached four arms at right angles 
with one another, and all exactly equal in length. To 
the bottom of each arm is fixed a picce of iron, such as 
the saws are made of, bent into a curve corresponding 
with the curvature of the circle to be produced. These 
pieces of iron are capable of being fixed at any dis- 
tance from the centre, and the distance chosen in any 
particular instance depends on the diameter of the 
circle to be cut. When the arms revolve, the pieces of 
iron attached to their lower surfaces become cutters: 
each is capable of making a circular cut in the surface of 
the marble during one rotation, and all acting in con- 
junction to produce a more speedy effect. The slab 1s 
fastened down to the bed with plaster of Paris, to keep 
it from shifting during the process of sawing; and the 
fissure is kept constantly wetted with sand and water 
by a man or boy in attendance on the machine. The 
revolving arms are connected with a balance-weight in 
such a manner that the cutters sink in proportion as 
the fissure in the marble becomes deeper, until at 
length a circular piece is entirely cut out of the slab. 
We saw two beautiful variegated marble table-tops, 
about six feet in diameter, which had been cut to the 
circular form by this machine. 

The smaller circular cutter acts on somewhat the 





same principle as the larger. <A vertical shaft 1s set 
in rotation, to the lower end of wluch is attached a 
hollow cylinder of sheet-iron. The lower edge of this 
cylinder acts as a cutter, the marble to be cut being 
placed in a stand or bench immediately bencath 1t. 
Cylinders of different sizes are kept for circles of va- 
rying diameters, and their depth is such that three or 
four pieces of marble might be laid one on another, 
and all cut at once. The same means of fixing the 
marble to the bench beneath, of supplying the fissure 
With sand and water, and of elevating and depressing 
the cutters, are adopted in this as in the other machines 
lately described. Some years ago a contrivance, bear- 
ing a certain degree of reseinblance to this, was devised 
for forming round pillars and hollow cylinders and 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


{[Aveust, 1841. 


tubes of stone; the cutting instrument in both cases 
being a cylinder of metal. By a small circular cutter 
of this kind, pieces of marble may be cut in great 
number, and with great accuracy, for mosaic or tessel- 
lated pavements. 

But a mere circle, with a plain edge, is only one of 
the forms in which a curved piece of marble is required 
for ornamental purposes. The edge itself, or portions 
of a pillar or pedestal, may be required to present 
some architectural form, such as squares, rounds, hol- 
lows, &c. To give this form toa piece of marble a 
lathe is employed, differing lttle from the common 
turning-lathe. A small block of marble in a rough 
state, or a small circular piece of slab, as the case may be, 
is attached to the lathe, and set into rapid rotation by a 
shaft connected with the steam-engine; and a work- 
man proceeds to give it the required form. This he 
does not effect with an iron cutter used with sand and 
water, nor with a mallet and chisel, but with long 
sharp-pointed instruments of steel, the points of which 
he brings in contact with the stone in the same manner 
as the turner uses his chisel. The stone flies off in 
small fragments by the use of the sharp-pointed instru- 
ment; and when a rough approximation to the shape 
has been thus produced, other tools, such as gouges, 
&c., are employed to complete the form of the piece of 
marble. Pillars and other objects of a similar kind 
could be worked by these means. 

A few paragraphs back we described a machine 
called a ‘ripping-bed,’ by which a slab of marble could 
be cut up into strips. The strips thus produced are 
sometimes used in their plain form, after being po- 
lished; but they are more frequently diversified with 
mouldings, in a manner exemplified by the upright 
sides of a marble chimney-piece. These mouldings 


are worked by an ingenious machine called a ‘mould- 





ing-bed, bearing a good deal of resemblance to the 
‘ripping-bed,’ so far as regards the flat table on which 
the marble is laid, and the position of a revolving axle 
a little above the table. But the cutters by which the 
mouldings are wrought are altogether different: they 
consist not of circular pieces of sheet-iron, but of 
masses of iron whose circular surfaces have been 
wrought into various forms, the counterparts of the 
different mouldings to be produced. We saw several 


hundreds of these cutters, adapted for all the various 


patierns likely to be demanded. When a strip of 


SuPpPLEMENT., 


inarble is to be moulded to any particular form, an 
iron cutter corresponding with that form, or rather, the 
counterpart to it, is placed on an axle just above the 
bed of the machine, and firmly fixed in its place. The 
strip of marble is then fixed down with plastcr of Paris 
to a board which is capable of being moved slowly 
forward bya rope and pulley, as in the other machines, 
at such a height as shall just allow the iron cutter to 
make the required depth of cutting. The cutter being 
set into rapid rotation, the marble is brought up to it, 
and is cut away by the action of the revolving iron. 
The marble advances onwards as fast as it is cut, and 
then presents a series of parallel] mouldings on its sur- 
face, the counterpart of those in the cutter. 

We have now, we believe, described all the machines 
whose action is to cut the blocks of marble into smaller 
pieces of various forms, and have next to speak of 
those whose office is to give a smooth and polished 
surface to the pieces socut. The action of the cutters, 
whatever be their form, necessarily leaves a certain de- 
sree of roughness of surface; and if the cutting he 
inade irregularly, the surface is not only rough, but 
uneven. Under all circumstances, therefore, a slab or 
piece of marble requires to be ground after it 1s cut. 
‘The means of effecting this at the marble-works are 
various, according to the size of the slab to be operated 
on. If the slab be large, a ‘ grinding-bed,’ situated 


near the large sawing-frames, is employed. This con- 
sists mainly of a very strong wooden bed or table on 
which the slab is laid, and of a large cast-iron plate 
whose lower surface performs the grinding process. 
The bed is subject to a very slow reciprocating or 
backward and forward motion, by means of rack and 
pinion work beneath; while the iron plate, which 1s 
suspended from above, has a very singular motion 
siven to it, not exactly either circular or rectilinear, 
but a compound of both. The combination ot these 
movements ul the bed to which the marble is attached, 
and in the iron plate which is superposed on it, is such 
that the motion of any one point may be compared to 
the curves on an engine-turned watch. The object of 
this very ingenious coutrivance is, that every part of the 
slab may be ground in the same degree and 1 the same 
manner, and that the movement of the iron over any 
particular part of the surface of the marble may be as 
varied in direction as possible. This process, hke that 
of sawing, requires a supply of sand and water to aid 
the action of the iron. The supply is cfiected ina 
curious manner. The plate is surrounded by-a raised 
ledge, and is pierced in various parts with round holes. 


It thus forms a kind of shallow box with a perforated | 


THE PENNY BIAGAZINE. 


343 


bottom; and being filled or partially filled with moist- 
ened sand, the latter finds its way down through the 
holes, and moistens the whole surface of the marble 
beneath the iron. The plate is capable of being ele- 
vated and depressed to different heights, to accommo- 
date the thickness of the marble which may be placed 
beneath 11. 

The machine just described is particularly calculated 
for grinding large flat surfaces of marble, which it re- 
duces to a plane almost mathematically correct. But 
for smaller pieces of marble, or the edges of slabs, 
another machine is employed, in which the grinding 





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instrument, although arranged in a totally different 
manner, is still made of iron. A circular plate of iron, 
about five feet in diameter, and two inches in thick- 
ness is placed in a horizontal position, and connected 
with a vertical shaft or axle which passes through the 
centre. This axle, by the aid of intervening wheel- 
work, is set into rotation, and in its turn rotates the iron 
plate. The lower surface and the edge of the plate are 
hidden, but the upper surface is open; and beig at 
a height of about three fect from the ground, it forms 
a convenient bed or bench at which the men may work ; 
it is in fact an iron workbench revolving in a horizon- 
tal direction. This ‘circular grinding-bed,’ which 
the workmen—with the peculiar nomenclature of which 
most workmen are so fond—call a ‘roundabout,’ is 
moistened with sand and water; and any picces of 
marble which are to be ground by its aid are pressed 
down firmly upon it. The iron surface has the same 
effect on the marble in this instance as in the former, 
the difference being in the kind of motion given to the 
iron, and in the iron being beneath the inarble instead 
of above it. 

The action of a surface of iron, used as in the two 
machines just described, is not to polish the picce of 
marble exposed to it, but merely to bring it to a per- 
fect level, by removing all saw-marks and other irregu- 
larities of surface. But as one of the chief beauties for 
which marble is admired is the brillant gloss which its 
surface presents when highly worked, the slabs or 
strips, after being ground by one of the two machines 


| described above, are carried to a polishing-machine, or 


‘ polishing- bed,’ situated in the upper floor of the 











building. This machine is about twelve feet long, four 
or five wide, and three high. It consists of a flat bed 
on which the piece of marble is laid, and mechanism 
for working the polishing instruments. Each of these 
latter 1s about two feet long and four inches wide, 
formed of lead or some other heavy substance, and 
faced at the bottom with a layer of a peculiar kind of 
felt, adapted for the polishing of marble. Each po- 
lisher is connected by means of a long handle with the 
working machinery of the steam-engine, by which it 
acquires a backward and forward motion over the sur- 
face of the marble; and the arrangement is such that 
several polishers may be wrought at one time. All 
flat surfaces of marble, whether large slabs or narrow 
strips, may be polished in this way. 

There are, in most worked specimens of marble, 
whether articles of furniture or of decoration, numerous 
small pieces which cannot be conveniently or profit- 
ably prepared by the machines which have lately en- 
raced our attention. This is especially the case where 
any elaborate carved-work forms part of the design. 
It thence results that there are a large number of men 
employed at the marble-works, besides those who are 
in attendance on the machinery. A brief notice of the 
modes in which the manual labour of these workmen 
is applied, will be a necessary sequel to our preceding 
details. 

If a small piece of marble is to be cut ina manner 
which does not require the aid of the machines, a man 
uses a kind of small hand-saw, formed, like the larger 
saws, of a piece of soft iron without teeth. This piece 
of iron is fixed into a handle, and it is used nearly in 
the same manner as a common saw; the workmen 
keeping the fissure in the marble constantly supplied 
with sand and water. The process of grinding small 
pieces of marble by hand is in like manner a minia- 
ture representation of the analogous process as 
effected by machinery. Small pieces of iron, attached 
to wooden handles of a convenient shape, constitute 
the grinding tools, which are used with sand and 
Water, 

The chisel and mallet are tools of which we have not 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


; Aucust, 184l. 


had much occasion to speak ; but they are much used 
in the finer and ornamental parts of the work. This 
is often very slow and tedious work. The piece of 
marble to be carved is placed upon a bench; and the 
workman, provided with chisels, gouges, and pointed 
instruments of various shapes, chips away the marble 
until he has formed the required device or pattern. 
Foliage, groups of figures, and indeed all patterns in 
which varying undulations of surface occur, are pro- 
duced by these means. We saw, under process of 
carving, several elaborate balusters of black marble 
for a staircase at Hamilton Palace. Each baluster was 
about a yard in length, and five or six inches 1n thick- 
ness, and profusely decorated in every part. One 
piece of marble, without joint or division, formed each 
baluster ; so that the carver had to chisel away just 
enough, and no more, to produce the required pattern. 
The beautiful substance of which these balusters were 
formed suggests a remark .on the store of material 
which we have in our own country and in the sister 
island. This black marble, brought from a quarry 
near Galway, is perfectly spotless, as black as jet, and 
susceptible of a very high polish; and as the blocks 
xrocurable from thence are among the largest which 
have ever been brought to England, the marble is ca- 
pable of being applied to a great variety of purposes. 
A visit to the British Museum will show that our 
quarries are capable of supplying black and coloured 
marbles of great beauty. In the New Mineralogical 
Gallery are two tables, one presented to the Museum 
by Mr. Martin, and the other, in 1838, by the Duke of 
Rutland. The former consists of a richly variegated 
green and. white serpentine .marble, brought from the 
quarry of Ballinahinch, near Galway. The latter 
consists of two kinds of marble ; the frame-work, legs, 
and bottom plinth of the table being of black marble, 
brought from Bakewell in Derbyshire; and the top 
being composed of a very curious sponge-coloured 
slab of stalagmitic marble, from Hartle in the same 
county. If the means were attained for working up 
these fine marbles in an expeditious and economical 
manner (and the patent machinery seems calculated to 
aid in producing this result), the more extensive use 
* our home quarries would in all probability fol- 
Ow. 

All the pieces of marble which have passed through 
the hands of the carver require to be ground and 
polished before the beauty of surface can be developed. 
This is effected by using small pieces of different sub- 
stances, such as cast-iron, gritstone, smooth stone, and 
slate, shaped so as to suit the diversities of ornament, 
and rubbed over the marble until the latter is brought 
to a fine surface. These are processes which it is not 
probable machinery will ever be made to perform. In- 
stead of expressing any surprise at this circumstance, 
we cannot but admire the ingenuity which could effect 
so many different processes by machinery : the cutting 
of slabs from the block; the cutting of strips from a 
slab; the cutting of various-sized circles; the cutting 
of architectural mouldings in a slip of marble; the 
grinding of a large slab by one machine, and of small 
pieces by another; the polishing of the pieces thus 
ground ; and the adjustment of machinery by which all 
these processes are performed through the agency of 
one working shaft of the steam-engine; required no 
small share of inventive talent. 

In conclusion we may say, that if a visitor 1s reso- 
lute enough to bear the “setting his teeth on edge” by 
the noise of the sawing, there is much to interest him 
at this establishment, which we have been obligingly 
permitted to describe. 


SEPT. 4, 1841. ] 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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{Sumpnour and Pardoner-} 


CHAUCER’S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE SUMPNOUR. 


THE Sumpnour and the Pardoner,—two important 
personages in the nanagement of ecclesiastical affairs 
during the middle ages, but now so completely fallen 
into cblivion that their very names will doubtless ap- 
pear strange to many of our readers,—show very 
strongly the bent of Chaucer’s mind during that event- 
ful period of church history. The bold exactions of 
which the first was the instrument, and the impudent 
cheats put upon the people by the other, had no doubt 
made them generally obnoxious; but still there was 
wanted a poet concentration of the popular idea to 
do them full justice; and this Chaucer furnished in 
the two masterly portraits now before us. The one 
that will at present engage our attention is the Sump- 
nour, or Summoner, an officer employed to summon 
delinquents to the ecclesiastical courts, now known as 
an apparitor. In the ‘ Frere’s Tale’ we have a com- 
plete view of the position and duties of this individual, 
from which it appears that it was his business to seck 
out cases for the archdeacons to punish; cases of witch- 
craft, 
“¢ Of defamation, and avouterie, 

Of church reves, and of testaments, 

Of contracts, and lack of sacraments, 

Of usure, and of simony also, 

But certes lecliers did he greatest woe.” 


Offenders of the latter description appear to have 


60d. 


been his chief object of search, and he employed spies 
to inform him as to who were wealthy, and to draw 
those into temptation whom it “ availed” to punish. 
This brief account will serve to make clearer one or 
two passages in the following description :— 


‘¢ A Sumpnour was there with us in that place, 
That had a fire-red cherubinnes face ; 
For sausfleme™* lie was, with eyen Ps 

* * % % 

With scalled+ browes black and pilled{ beard, 
Of his visige children were sore afeard. 
There n’as quicksilver, litarge, ne brimstone, 
Boras, ceruse, ne oil of tartar none, 
Ne ointément that woulde cleanse or bite, 
That him might helpen of his whelkes§ white, 
Ne of the knobbes sitting on his cheeks. 
Well loved he garlic, onions, and leeks ; 
And for to drink strong wine as red as blood ; 
Then would he speak, and cry as le were wood}. 
And when that he well drunken had the wine, 
Then would he speaken no word but Latine. 
A fewe termes could he, two or three 
That he had learned out of some decree: 


* In the ‘Thousand Notable Things,’ a prescription is given 
for “a sausfleame, or red pimpled face.” Two of the ingredients 
are quicksilver and brimstone. 

+ Scurfy. Y Bald, or scanty. 

§ In the work before mentioned we find it also stated that oil 
of tartar “ will take away clean all spots, freckles, and filthy 
wheales.’ This last word means, we presume, the same as 


whelkes, a corrupt breaking out on the face. 
{| Wild or mad. 


Vou. X.—2 Y 


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No wonder 1s,—he heard it all the day. 
And eke ye knowen well, how that a jay 
Can clepen™ ‘ Wat! as well as can the pope. 
But whoso would m other tug him grope, 
ry. ° . 
Then had he spent all his philosophy : 
Ay, Questio quid guris, would he cry. 

xe % 3% 3s oe 


Full privily a finch eke could he pullf. 

And if he found owhere} a good felaw 

He woulde teachen him to have none awe 

In such a case of the archdeacon’s curse ; 

But if § a manne’s soul were im his purse, 

For in his purse he should ypunished be : 
Purse is the archdeacon’s hell, said hie. 

But well I wot he héd right in deed 

Of cursing ought each guilty man lim dread. 
For curse will slay right as assoiling sayeth : 
And also ware him of a segnificavit||. 

In danger had he at his owen guise 

The younge girles of the diocise, @ 

Aud knew their counsel, and was of their rede**, 
A. garlaud had he set upon his head, 

As great as it were for an alestakeyt : 

A buckler had he made him of a cake.” 


We wonder whether Shakspere had Chaucer’s Sump- 
nour in his eye, when he makes Fluellen thus describe 
to Henry V. ‘one Bardolph, 1f your majesty know 
the man: his face is all bubukles, and whelks, and 
knobs, and flames of fire.” The description at all 
events reminds one instantly of that of the elder poet. 
The last ‘is humorously drawn,” says Warton, “as 
counteracting his profession by his example: he is 
libidinous and voluptuous, and his rosy countenance 
belies his occupation.” He then adds, “ that it is an 
indirect satire on the ecclesiastical proceedings of those 
times.” Even before the time of the author of the 
‘Canterbury Tales,’ the Sumpnour appears to have 
distinguished himself by the contrast which Warton 

oints out, and to have brought down upon hun the 
indignation of equally zealous but less powerful 
satinists. We find, in ‘ Piers Plowman’s Visions,’ the 
‘‘somoners and their lemmans” marked out for espe- 
cial reprobation in his indignant censures of the con- 
duct of those then connected with the church. And 
after the period of Chaucer, he enjoys no greater 
amount of favour from the poets; for Milton calls him, 
and the whole race of such persons, with that vehemence 
of phrase but too familiar with him insome of his prose 
writings, “a hell-pestering rabble.” 

This affectation of law terms, picked up from the 
decrees and pleadings which he had overheard during 
his attendance in court—his display of learning, when, 
having “ well drunken” of the wine, he will speak 
nothing but the Latin, which the law-terms have taught 
him—above all, his flights for refuge to the one parrot 
cry, ‘‘ Questio quid juris,” are highly humorous and 
amusing. Mr. Tyrrwhitt’s explanation of the origin of 
this phrase, which the Sumpnour finds so useful when 
he hath “ spent all his philosophy,” is “ that this kind 
of question occurs frequently in Ralph de Hengham 
(a law writer and chief justice of the Court of King’s 
Bench, in the time of Edward I.); after having stated 
acase, he adds ‘ Quid juris?’ and then proceeds to 
give the answer to it.” 

Chaucer has not described the Sumpnour’s dress. 
About the sixteenth century the colour of the garb of 


eal. + Or, as a modern gambler would say, pluck 
a DIgcon. { Anywhere. 9 But if,—except. 

|| The writ de ercommunicato capiendo was commonly called 
a significavit, from the commencing words. 

“| Girles may mean persons of both sexcs. By having 
them in danger is meant that they were within the control of his 
olitce, 

“= And was of their rede, i.e. he advised with them. 
++ A stake set up before an alehouse as a sign, and which, 
it appears, was sometimes decorated with a garland. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


| least defective nutrition. 


[SEPTEMBER 4, 


ecclesiastical attendants generally appears to have 
been tawny. In Shakspere’s ‘Henry YI.,’ the Bishop of 
Winchester is said to be attended by men in tawny 
coats; but in other passages of dramatic authors we 
have the Sumpnour more particularly referred to by 
that mark. Mr. Steevens quotes the following pas- 
sage :—‘ Though I was never a tawny coat, I have 
played the summoner’s part.” In the Sutherland 
manuscript we have an entirely different garb. There 
the Sumpnour wears a jacket or surcoat of blue, and 
pantaloons of scarlet. He has the garland on his head, 
worn, we may imagine, to set off the beauty of the face 
beneath, which is faithfully delineated from the poet's 
verses; the buckler, apparently made of a cake, by his 
side, and a sealed letter or summons in his hand. 

We conclude with noticing that the Friars and 
sumpnours of the fourteenth century do not appear to 
have looked on each other with very favourable feel- 
ings. During the pilgrimage, we learn that the 

“ Noble frere 
He made alway a manner louring cheer 
Upon the Sumpnour,” 


and as soon as the opportunity offers, says, 


“Tf it like unto this company, 
I will you of a Sumpnour tell a game ; 
Parde, ye may well knowen, by the name, 
That of a Sumpnour may no good be said.” 


IIe does accordingly tell a tale which affects the Sump- 
nour so strongly, 


“ That like an aspen leaf he quoke for ire.” 


He, however, takes his revenge in the story he tells in 
return, and a “ very pretty quarrel” their fellow-travel- 
lers no doubt thought it. 


ENDEMIC AND EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 
(Concluded from page 316.] 


THE middle ages were remarkable for the numerous 
epidemic visitations they sustamed, induced in great 
part by the miscrable condition in which the mass 
of the people lived. We have already alluded to 
the devastation committed by the Black Death. A 
disease known by the various names of Mal des Ardens, 
St. Anthony's Fire, Feu Sacré, &c., spread epidemically 
several times over various parts of urope. It 1s first 
mentioned in the chronicles of Froissart for 945. The 
patient, seized with a burning fever, if he did not die, 
almost always lost one or more of his hmbs by a morti- 
fication which destroyed them. Urban II. founded the 
order of St. Anthony in 1090, in order to succour those 
afflicted by it. Twenty-five years before this, the body 
of that saint had been transported from Constantinople 
to Vienne in Dauphiné; and it was generally believed 
that the sick arriving at the abbey where these were 
deposited, were relieved in seven or eight days. Im- 
mense crowds of sick arrived from all parts of Europe, 
many of whom left a limb behind them. Hugo, bishop 
of Lincoln, being in Normandy, says he saw crowds 
arrive of every age and sex, many of whom quite re- 
covered, with the exception of the affected limbs, whieh 
were never preserved. As late as 1702 a vast number 
of these dried and blackened limbs were exhibited 
in the abbey. The disease has been observed on several 
occasions in much more recent times in France, Swe- 
den, Germany, &c.,and the name of Lrgotism given to 
it, from the belicf that it was produced by partaking of 
bread containing the spur or ergot of rye—a disease of 
that plant supposed to be produced by the instrumen- 
tality of insects. Dr. Bateman doubts the correctness 
of attributing this disease to spurred rye, and rather 
refers it to the existence of a state of famine, or at 
It has always been found to 


1841.) 


occur i seasons of dearth, and to attack chiefly the 
poor peasantry and mendicants, while the miseries of 
war have never failed to inerease its violence. “JIs it 
probable,” he asks, ‘that the rye through extensive 
provinces should thus become aftected with ergot so as 
to produce a general epidemic? Is not the disappear- 
ance of the disease in our own day to be rather attri- 
buted to the n:mprovements in agriculture, which have 
rendered dearths less frequent and extensive, and to 
the increase of commerce, which has facilitated the 
supply of nutritious food to make up for partial de- 
ficieneies, than to the disappearance of the disease in 
the corn?” 

The curious epidemic disease called the Sweating 
Sickness has already been described in the pages of 
the ‘Penny Magazine.’* One of the most universal 
diseases which reigned in Europe during the middle 
ages was the Leprosy. The precise nature of this disease 
is now involved in obscurity, but there is sufficient 
reason to beheve that it differed materially from the 
leprosy of the Jews. By some it has been supposed 
to have been brought by the Crusaders from the East, 
but receptacles for lepers existed in France and Eng- 
Jand long prior to the epoch of these expeditions. Pro- 
bably many diseases of the skin were confounded 
under this name; however this may be, the disease 
termed the leprosy spread over almost as great a por- 
tion of Europe during the middle ages as the plague 
itself. Persons so affected were crowded into hospitals 
(for the support of which large sums of money were 
devoted), in which they often remained for life, as the 
disease was usually deemed incurable. Not only did 
these various physical maladies prevail in Europe at 
the period in question, but various others sprang 
up which scemed to involve the intellectual and inoral 
faculties in a participation of the diseased condition. 
Of this description are the Dancing Mania, and other 
convulsive discases so ably described by Hecker.t So, 
too, the Lycantrophia, or Wolf Mania, mentioned by 
the Greek physicians, reappeared in these justly termed 
dark. ages, mn which numbers of persons, fancying them- 
selves wolves, imitated the howling of these animals, 
prowled about the cemetcries by mght, and abandoned 
theinselves to the most revolting practices. “ /itius 
calls it,” says Burton, in his ‘ Anatomy of Melancholy,’ 
‘‘a kind of melancholy, but I would rathcr refer it to 
madness, as most do.” The various Crusades, and the 
insane fears of and cruel persecutions of witches and 
sorcerers, might casily be included m the same cate- 
gory. 

i, modern times two cpidemics have especially at- 
tracted attention from the amazing rapidity and extent 
of their diffusion. A short notice of their progress 
will conclude the subject. 

The Influenza was first described as raging epidemi- 
eally by the historian De Thou in 1510. In 1557 the 
disease, commencing in Asia, spread all over Europe, 
and crossed the Atlantic. During the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries numerous epidemics prevailed, 
accounts of which having been handed down by com- 
petent observers, a general law of the progress of the 
disease has been pretty accurately deduced. “ The 
disease, commencing sometimes as far east as Asia, but 
at all times proceeding from the north-east of Europe, 
has advanced westward until arriving at England; it 
has divided into two branches, one of whieh traversed 
the Atlantic to America, while the other has retro- 
rraded towards France, Spain, and Italy, to become lost 
inthe Mediterranean. This course isthe more remark- 
able as being that afterwards observed by the cholera.” 
These different epidemics have received various names, 
as “ La Grippe,” “ Epidemie Catarrhy Sex, butt eb- 

* Vol. ix. p. 271. 
+ *Penny Magazine,’ vol, vill., pp. £39, 454. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


347 
tained its present name in Italy in 1775, from its influ- 
ence being iclt over nearly entire Europe. The last 
important invasion of this country by the disease took 
place in 1837. The state of the season prior to its ap- 
pearance had been most inclement. A hurricane of 
almost unexampled violence in this country, on the 
29th November, 1836, was followed on Christmas-day 
by a tremendous storm of snow and wind, which was 
simultaneous over great part of Europe, so that snow 
fell even in Lisbon and Palermo, while in England all 
intercommunication with the provinces was arrested. 
Show, too, unknown to the oldest inhabitant, was also 
seen in Canton; and the French army at Constantine 
Gn Algeria) was impeded for three days by its heavy fall. 
Including slight cases, Dr. Holland calculates that in 
the January following, at least half the population of 
London were suffering from Influenza. A month later it 
affected a like proportion at Paris, and then spread into 
Spain and Portugal. A similar epidemic prevailed in 
Australia at the end of 1836, simultaneously with the 
first appearance of the disease in the north of Europe. 
As to the cause of the disease, it is involved in obscurity. 
The mfluence of atmospheric changes and extraordi- 
nary seasons, and many other circumstances, have been 
adduced and examined, but have proved insufficient 
to account for the phenomena. 

The mortality from Influenza is by no means so 
great as that resulting from most other epidemics, but 
it is really greater than apparent, by reason of its lay- 
ing the foundation to several diseases which do not 
terminate fatally until it has disappeared. The aged 
are especially sufferers from it. 

Both from its recent occurrence, and from its very 
extensive diffusion and great mortality, the epidemic 
of 1832, termed the Cholera, must be fresh in the 
recollection of most of our readers, and we will con- 
tent ourselves with an abridgment of Dr. Wilson’s his- 
torical account of its progress. Although the Brah- 
mins maintain that this disease is deseribed in the 
writings of Dhawantari, a mythological personage re- 
sembling the Esculapius of the Greeks, yet we have 
no reason to believe it ever raged to any considerable 
extent in India prior to 1817. During August of that 
year it broke out at Jessora, and in a few weeks ten 
thousand persons perished: conveyed thence to Cal- 
eutta, more than two hundred individuals becaine its 
victims every day. Spreading over the entire province 
of Bengal, the pestilence reached the grand ariny, then 
acting under the Marquis of Hastings on the banks of 
the Sinde, which consisted of ten thousand soldiers 
and eighty thousand camp-followers. [iis camp was 
soon converted into a vast hospital. In one week 
nearly a tenth part of the army was destroyed, but the 
disease was at that time arrested in the camp by a 
change of its locality. From the army and from Cal- 
cutta the cholera spread over all the provinces of 
India ; and in 1818 and 1819 it reached the coasts of 
Coromandel, Ceylon, and the Indian Archipelago. In 
the Philippine Islands the natives accused the Eu- 
ropeans and the Chinese of magic, and fifteen thousand 
lives were lost in the struggle that thence resulted. I¢ 
ravaged China in 1820, and passed the northern wall 
into Mongolia in 1821. In 1821 also it obtamed ad- 
mission into Arabia and Persia ; at Muscat ten thousand 
persons perished, and in eleven days one-third of the 
whole of the inhabitants of Bussorah fell victims. In 
this year it reached Bagdad, then besieged by the Per- 
sians. In 1822 Aleppo became infected, and for three 
days three hundred persons daily perished. In 1823 it 
had arrived at the western shores of the Mediterranean, 
when its course became arrested for some years. In 
1831 it appeared at Mecca, on the arrival of erowds of 
Moslem pilgrims from India, Persia, and other coun- 
tries becheved to be suffering from a disease. In 
2 


d48 


four days twenty thousand of their number arc said_ to 
have perished. Egypt, which had hitherto escaped, by 
reason, aS was supposed, of the rigid quarantine 
enforced by the pasha, now suffered in its various 
towns (to which the pilgrims retreating from Mecca 
resorted) all the most aggravated horrors of this 
disease. ' 
Although as early as 1823 the cholera had been carried 
by the retreating Turks from the ports of the Persian 
Gulf to the borders of the Caspian Sea, and hence to the 
Russian port of Astrachan; yet, as 1t remained in an 
almost quiescent state, it exacted little attention until 
1830, when it reappeared at Astrachan, reimported, as 
was supposed, from the south-western shores of the 
Caspian. In Astrachan four thousand perished, and 
twenty-one thousand in the surrounding provinces. In 
September, 1831, the disease had reached Moscow, and 
raged there, with the snow covering the ground, and 
the thermometer often 35° below zero. Notwithstand- 
ing every precaution derivable from miltary cordons 
and quarantine, it penetrated to St. Petersburg in the 
same year, and thence spread over Poland, Prussia, 
and Germany. It is supposed to have been imported 
into this country from Hamburg; however that may 
be, it is certain that it first manifested itself at Sunder- 
land, to the vicinity of which town it was at first con- 
fined. In February, 1832, however, 1t reached Edin- 
burg and the shipping in the Thames, and in March 
Dublin was attacked. Although on its arrival in this 
country the cholera was the same virulent disease 
which 1t had manifested itself to be elsewhere, yet it 
did not spread to the same extent here as on the Con- 
tinent; for upon the highest calculations not more than 
thirty thousand persons perished in the entire kingdom 
during the whole of its visitation. The epidemic, now 
having reached the extreme verge of Western Europe, 
divided into two branches: one of these pursued its 
course westward across the Atlantic, until 1t reached 
the American continent, whence it spread over the 
United States, Canada, and part of South America ; 
the other branch turned towards the south-east, and 
invaded France, Italy, and the Peninsula. The pro- 
portionate mortality at Paris was much greater than 
that which had occurred in London. To the horrors of 
the pestilence were added those of a popular tumult, 
originating in the belief that the infliction arose from 
the wells and fountains of the city having been poi- 
soned. In the city of Naples the most rigid quarantine 
regulations were in vain put into force in order to pre- 
vent the spread of the disease. All persons affected 
were crowded into hospitals, and all intercourse with 
them forbidden, while those who had attended upon 
them were sent to the lazarettos. The consequence of 
all this was the production of a terrible panic; thou- 
sands of the inhabitants left the city, and among those 
who remained violent tumultuary assemblages oc- 
curred ; these could only be allayed by the king tra- 
versing the streets in person and partaking of the bread 
said to be poisoned, and the abandonment of the obnox- 
ious quarantine regulations. The cholera has not always 
proceeded step by step in its progress, but has broken 
out in various and distant poimts, each forming new 
and separate centres of infection. Thus many places 
entirely escaped, as the kingdom of Hanover, and 
inany districts inGermany and France; while in our 
own country, according to Sir James Clark, only two 
hundred and thirty-five towns and forty-one counties 
were infected. tn all countries wherein it 1s not 
native, the disease has been found to subside in two or 
three years after its appearance; but it still continues 
to exist in India, and under a favourable combination 
of circumstances it may again become epidemic, and, 


passing its present limits, again devastate Europe and | 


America. 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. (SEPTEMBER 4, 

As to the cause of this disease all at present is mere 
conjecture ; and the various hypotheses attributing it 
to the influence of season, diet, &c. will not bear 
examination. Itis certain that, like most other epide- 
mics, it especially affects the poorer classes, and ot 
these the aged are its especial victims. This is alike 
the case in India and in Europe. Excesses in diet 
also especially predispose to it. 

Although the diseases which we have alluded to 
above are those which usually manifest themselves in 
an epidemic form, yet may a variety of others occasion- 
ally prevail in asimilar manner: this is especially the 
case with cutaneous and febrile affections; thus, the 
scarlet fever, measles, and small-pox (an epidemic of 
small-pox has prevailed in England during the present 
year), frequently prevail epidemically ; and one of the 
most destructive diseases met with in warm climates is 
the epidemic yellow fever. 


Uses of Sickness.—Sickness is the mother of modesty, putteth 
us in mind of our mortality; and, when we are in the full career 
of our worldly pomp and jollity, she pulleth us by the ear, and 
maketh us know ourselves. Pliny calls it the sum of philosophy, 
if we could but perform that in our health which we promise in 
our sickness; for what sick man (as Secundus expostulates with 
Rufus) was ever lascivious, covetous, or ambitious? He envies 
10 man, admires no man, flatters 10 man, despiseth no man, 
listens not after lies and tales, &c. And, were it not for such 
gentle remembrances, men would have no moderation of them- 
selves; they would be worse than tigers, wolves, and lions: who 
should keep them in awe? Princes, masters, parents, magis- 
trates, judges, friends, enemies, fair or foul means cannot contain 
us; but a little sickness (as Chrysostom observes) will correct 
and amend us. And, therefore, with good discretion, Jovianus 
Pontanus caused this short sentence to be engraven on his tomb 
in Naples :—“ Labour, sorrow, grief, sickness, want, and woe, to 
serve proud masters, bear that superstitious yoke, aud bury your 
dearest friends, &c., are the sauces of our life.” If thy disease 
be continuate aud painful to thee, it will not surely last; and a 
light affliction, which is but for a moment, causeth unto us a far 
more excellent and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor., iv. 17): be 
conragious; there is as much yalour to be showed in thy bed, as 
In an army or at a sea-fight: thou shalt be rid at last. In the 
mean time, let it take its course; thy mind Is not any way dis- 
abled. Bilibaldus Pirkimerus, senator to Charles V., ruled all 
Germany, lying most part of his days sick of the gout upon lus 
bed. The more violent thy torture 1s, the less it will continue; 
and, though it be severe and hideous for the time, comfort thy- 
self, as martyrs do, with honour and immortality. That famous 
philosopher Epicurus, being in as miserable pain of stone and 
colic as a man might endure, solaced himself with a conceit of 
immortality : the joy of his soul for his rare inventions repelled 
the pain of his bodily tormeuts.—Burton’s Anat. of Melancholy. 


The two John Wicliffes—Remarkable Fact.—It 1s an extraordi- 
nary fact, but not the less true, that there were living at the 
same period two John Wicliffes, both born about the same time, 
both educated as ecclesiastics at Oxford, and becoming there the 
heads of houses, the one of Canterbury, the other of Chichester, 
and both dying within a year of each other. This is the more 
remarkable, as the name of Wicliffe is a local one; and the only 
locality in England bearing the name is the village about six 
miles from the town of Richmond in Yorkshire, where the Re- 
former is said to have been born, m or about the year 1324. 
This fact may not only clear him from several apparent incon- 
sistencies of conduct, but from the graver charge preferred by 
Anthony Wood, Dr. Fell, bishop of Oxford, and other writers, 
that the zeal which he displayed in withstanding the errors of 
the Papacy was occasioned by nothing else than the loss of the 
wardenship of Canterbury Hall, Oxford, of which they say he 
was first deprived by Archbishop Langham, and finally by Pope 
Urban V.; and that “ what he afterwards did was merely out of 
revenge, and not at all of conscience, and that, being a man of 
good parts, he exercised them to an evil end.” Light is, however, 
thrown upon these matters by the discovery of the fact that the 
Warden of Canterbury Hall and the Reformer were two distinct 
individuals.—Abridged from the Gentleman's Magazine. 


1841.) 


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(Scene on the Dannbe.] 


THE DANUBE. 


A CHARACTERISTIC feature of the Danube, as well as 
of the Rhine, are the ruined castles, seen “ frowning 
from every steep,” and carrying back the thoughts of 
the spectator to the terrible period of their prosperity, 
the middle ages, when the bold barons, their owners, 
and the hordes of retainers they kept in pay, were 
chiefly supported on the spoil of the more industrious 
Classes. Froissart and other writers give-us a lament- 
able picture of the avarice, brutality, and reckless 
disregard of the commonest dictates of right and wrong 
exhibited by the nobility and clergy of Germany at 
the time to which we have referred. What an awful 
picture of society is opened to us in the witty remark of 
a German author quoted by Mr. Planché—* an arch- 
bishop thought he had a fair revenue before him when 
he built his fortress on the junction of four roads.” 
The castle of the counts of Bogen was the home of a 
powertul family of this class of robber chieftains. It 
stands on the summit of the Bogenberg, right before 
us, and offers a striking example of the situations 
favoured by such residents. ‘“ Seated upon the apex 
of a pyramidal rock, inaccessible but by one narrow 
pass on its eastern side, which a handful of determined 
men might keep against a host, and commanding a 
view over nearly half the dukedom of Bavaria, its 
lawless lord watched from its battlements, like a 
vulture, the approach of his prey, and pouncing 
upon it, bore it up in triumph to his mountain eyrie.” 
A curious story is told of Ludmilla, the brother of the 
last count of Bogen. On the death of her husband 
Albert, Louis, ‘he second duke of Bavaria, hearing the 
reports of her beauty, offered her marriage, provided 


he should like her on personal acquaintance. Lud- 
milla consented; the Duke visited her, and, we pre- 
sume, was not dissatisfied with her appearance and 
Manners. The lady, however, doubtful of the sincerity 
of his protestations, playfully asked him one day to 
plight his troth to her in a tapestried chamber, and to 
iet the figures of three knights, worked im the hang- 
ings, be witnesses. The Duke, smiling, held up his 
hand, and took the oath required, when three real 
living knights stepped from behind the tapestry, and 
compelled him formally to ratify the jesting contract 
he had made. We are now approaching a stream made 
sacred by the glorious poem of Hohenlinden,—the 
“Tsar rolling rapidly” is not far distant, and the Danube, 
as it advances to the place where the waters m1x to- 
gether, becomes bolder and more interesting. Opposite 
the Kloster-Metten—a convent erected, according to 
the veracious authority of the legend, by Charlemagne, 
as a boon to a holy man whom he caught one day on the 
site playing various pranks, such as hanging his axe 
on a sunbeam, &c.—is the remarkable rock called the 
Natternberg, the only one to be found on the right 
bank for a space of eighty miles, and which has on the 
summit another of the ruined castles of the counts of 
Bogen. A rock thus isolated, and nearly three hun- 
dred feet high, has excited many geological specula- 
tions. The peasantry settle it, as usual, by a legend. 
The devil, hating the inhabitants of the neighbouring 
town of Deggendorf for their piety, brought an 1n- 
mense rock from Italy to crush them; when, for- 
tunately, as he was passing near Kloster-Meiten, with 
the rock under his arm, the bells of the convent rang 
for holy service, and ‘‘ gnashing for anguish and despite 


‘and shame,” he found himself compelled to let the 


~~ 


300 


mountain fall on the spot where 1t now stands, There 
is here a bridge across the Danube (which is nearly 
twelve hundred feet wide), supported by twentyxsix 
picrs, but built very slightly, in order to its removal 
when the ice comes floating down the river. Deggen- 
dorf is famous for its annual festival of St. Michael's- 
eve, when pilgrims flock thither from all parts, to the 
number occasionally of fifty thousand persons. Abso- 
lution is granted to all comers, on account of the origin 
of the observance of the day. In 1337 the “ Host’ was, 
it is said, purloined by some Jews, and insults offered 
to it. The consequence was a frightful massacre of 
those unhappy persons. The whole story, with its 
marvellous incidents, and disgusting prejudice and 
cruelty, is pictured on the walls of the church of Deg- 
rendorf. As usual, the Jews were large creditors of 
their murderers. The waters of the Isar are seldom 
destitute of floating rafts of timber, which come down 
singly alinost to the Danube: but before entering the 
great river which is to conduct them to Vienna, they 
are lashed together in pairs, and formed inio fleets, 
consisting of three, four, or six pairs cach. Huts are 
erected upon them to shelter the boatmen, and any 
passengers who inay prefer making the voyage on these 
pleasant floating islands, where they have always at 
command an agreeable promenade, to the more 
restricted conveniences of the passage-boat. Many are 
the ruined castles, famous religious establishments, 
and picturesque villages and small towns, each of 
which has its own interesting legend or history, that 
we must pass by without notice or with but a very 
brief one. Among the latter we may enumerate the 
castle of Hoch-Winzer, Kinzing (the Castra Quintana 
of the Romans), Vilshofen, another Roman place, with 
its long light bridge and pretty gardens, the fine old 
ruin of Hildegartsberg, and the town of Windort, well 
known for its extensive boat-building. “ The Coblentz 
of the Danube,” Passau, the capital of the Bavarian 
eircle of the Lower Danube, is now before us, with the 
cathedral and the old fort of Oberhaus on the opposite 
height, standing out in bold relief against the sky. 
Passau is finely situated at the confiux of the Danube 
and the Inn, ona peninsula between the two rivers. 
A handsome bridge resting on seven piers of granite 
crosses the Danube, and a similar edifice of wood the 
Inn; cach connecting the town with the suburbs in 
their respective directions. The fortress of Oberhaus 
is connected with the castle of Niederhaus,. situated 
below it, and surrounded by no less than eight forts. 
Passau is the Castra Batava of the Romans. Perhaps 
the most interesting circumstance in the history of 
Passau is the preservation of the ancient and splendid 
Teutonic romance the ‘ Nibelungen Lied,’ for which 
the world is indebted to Pelegrin, bishop of Passau; 
who in the tenth century collected the legends of 
which 1t 1s composed. The goitre, that most disgust- 
ing of natural deformities to an “ unaccustomed eye,” 
is now frequently seen on the banks of the river; no 
pains are taken to conceal it, for here too, as in some 
parts of Switzerland, the goitre is not unfrequently 
looked upon by the natives as a beauty. No one 
should leave Passau without turning “a long linger- 
ing look behind” at the beauty of the scene. “ Stand- 
ing in the stern of the boat,” writes Mr. Planché, ‘and 
looking back on the too rapidly disappearing scene, on 
our right arose the long walls and round towers of 
Oberhaus, upon a range of precipiccs richly hung with 
wood, and full four hundred fathoms high; on our left 
stood the Maria-Hilf-berg, crowned with its church, 
and the houses of the Inn-stadt picturesquely grouped 
atits foot; in the centre, the town of Passau, forming a 
salient angle upon a plane of water, nearly two thou- 
saud feet in width, and standing like an island between 
two of the noblest rivers in Germany. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


The time. 


[SEPTEMBER 4 


allowed us to contemplate this scene was as brief as 
the enjoyment was exquisite. The Danube, reinforced 
by the waves of the Innand the Iz, rushes with redoubled 
speed round a rocky cape, and presto / your boat is glid- 
ing between banks so savage and solitary, that you can 
scarcely believe some necromantic spell has not trans- 
ported you, in the twinkling of an eye, thousands of 
miles from that ‘ peopled city,’ the hum of which still 
lingers in your ear. In its eccentric course the river 
now forms itself, as it were, into a chain of beautiful 
lakes, each apparently shut in on all sides by preci- 
pitous hills, clothed with black firs that grow down to 
the very water’s edge, while from amongst them peeps 
out, here and there, one of the little Swiss-looking 
cottages, with perhaps a rustic bridge thrown across a 
small cleft or chasm, through which a mountain 
rivulet falls, like a silver thread, into the flood be- 
low.” 

A little beyond the chateau of Fichtenstein, situated 
on the summit of a stupendous rock, isa small building 
in the centre of the river, generally considered as the 
boundary-mark between Bavaria and Austria. The 
custom-house of the latter country 1s at Engelhard’s- 
zell, a little beyond. Passing the ancient chateau of 
Rana-riedl, on the ridge of a high mountain, with its 
white and peaked turrets beautifully backed by the deep 
blue sky, and a ravine at its side, through which comes 
a brawling stream, bringing down fire-wood from the 
forests of the interior, we approach one of the most in- 
teresting parts of the Danube. Nearly facing the 
crumbling ruins of the fortress of Waldkirche, “rises 
the ruin of Hagenbach, or Kirkbaum, upon the ridge 
of the long, lofty, and nearly perpendicular mountain, 
which terminates the chain on this side of the valley, 
and forms a promontory, round which the river, sud- 
denly and rapidly wheeling, completely doubles itself, 
and enters a narrow defile, the romantic, and, | may 
say, awful beauty of which surpasses all description. 
. . . Enormous crags, piled one upon the other to 
the height of from three to four hundred fathoms, their 
weather-blanched pinnacles starting up among the 
black firs and tangled shrubs, that struggle to clothe 
each rugged pyramid from its base to its apex, form 
the entrance to this grand and gloomy gorge, through 
which the mighty stream now boils and hurries, wind- 
ing and writhing, till at length you become so utterly 
bewildered, that nothing but a compass can give you 
the slightest idea of the direction of its course. . . . 
It is only on arriving at the very foot of the rocky wall 
(on the summit of which stands the chateau of Neuhaus), 
which forms an impenctrable barrier to the farther 
progress of the Danube northward, that you perceive 
the outlet from this valley of precipices. A beautiful 
lake opens to the right, near the point where the Grosse 
Michel disembogues itself from a woody ravine; and 
the mountain-chain gradually sinking on each side, 
the river widens and widens till the passenger would 
fancy it had completed its seaward course, and that he 
was entering upon the broad and fathomless ocean.” 
From Aschach, a place of some importance in the time 
of Charlemagne, to Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, 
the banks of the Danube are made memorable by the 
wars which convulsed the provinces of Upper Austria 
during the seventeenth century, and which were ren- 
dered more terrible by the severities exercised by both 
sides during the struggle, and more particularly by 
Ferdinand IJ. on the unhappy Protestants, when the 
latter were defeated. The course of the Danube in 
this part is very intricate, and, without a pilot, dan- 
rerous, for the current is continually changing lis 
course, and producing sand-banks to-day where none 
were visible perhaps a week ago. Linz has been fye- 
quently burnt: it was in one of the conflagrations that 
took place during the religious struggle we have re- 


13841. ] 


ferred to, that Kep.er, who at that time resided in the 
suburbs of Linz, lost some valuable astronomical MSS. 
in the flames. The wooden bridge of Linz is upwards 
of one thousand feet long. Lofty and majestic emi- 
nences, green fertile valleys, and a long line of small 
pleasant-looking villages, characterise the progress of 
the river from Linz. Ebelsberg, lying a short distance 
from the Danube, was the scene of a desperate battle 
between the Austrians and French in 1807, when the 
latter crossed a wooden bridge, thirty fathoms long, in 
the face of a walled town, castle, and other fortifica- 
tions, defended by eighty pieces of cannon and thirty 
thousand troops, and took the place, though with the 
most terrible slaughter. From twelve to sixteen 
thousand men fell in this conflict. Tilly's Berg is 
the name given to a large square building with four 
towers, given by the emperor Ferdinand to the famous 
aid sanguinary Count de Tilly. The well-known town 
of Ens, said to have been first made a fortified place by 
Leopold, duke of Austria, who built the walls with 
Richard Coeur-de-Lion’s ransom-money, is situated on 
a steep hill on the left bank of the river Ens, a short 
distance from its junction with the Danube. The next 
place to Ens of any interest is Ardagger, where the em- 
peror Conrad ITI., when setting out on lis unfortunate 
crusade, landed with an immense army in 1147, to pre- 
pare for passing the dangerous rocks towards which 
we are advancing, the Strudel and Wirbel. Under his 
banners seventy thousand knights completely armed, 
as many foot soldiers, a troop of females “in the armour 
and attitude of men,” the chief of whom, from her gilt 
spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of “the golden- 
footed dame,” and an innumerable train of attendants, 
&c., passed down the Danube. ‘Two years afterwards 
a few boats, principally filled with priests who had fol- 
lowed the army, returned to these shores—all that 
treachery, battle, and disease had left of the mighty 
host that had so lately marched in full confidence to 
the conquest of Asia!” 

After passing Grein, we approach. ‘‘ the most extra- 
ordinary scene on the long Danube, from its source in 
the Black Forest, to its mouth in the Black Sea. As 
soon asa bend of the river has shut out the view of 
Grein and its chiteau, a mass of rock and castle, 
scarcely distinguishable from each other, appears to 
rise in the middle of the stream before you. The flood 
roars and rushes round each side of it; and ere you 
can perceive which way the boat will take, it dashes 
down a slight fall to the left, struggles awhile with the 
waves, and then sweeps round between two crags, on 
which are the fragments of old square towers, with 
crucifixes planted beforethem. It has scarcely righted 
itself from this first shock, when it is borne rapidly 
forward towards an immense block of stone, on which 
stands a third tower, till now hidden by the others, and 
having at its foot a dangerous eddy. The boat flashes 
like hghtning through the tossing waves, within a few 
feet of the vortex, and comes immediately into still 
water, leaving the passenger who beholds this scene 
for the first time, mute with wonder and admiration. 
These are the Scylla and Charybdis of the Danube, the 
celebrated Strudel and Wirbel.” From hence to Vi- 
enna, our space will only allow us to notice two of the 
numerous places of interest that give a still higher 
charm to the natural beauties and sublimities of the 
river. The first of these is the magnificent ruins of 
the castle of Durrenstein, which rise from a stupendous 
rock right before us as we emerge from a narrow and 
rocky gorge. Ilere, according to the balance of pro- 
babilities, was Richard confined. In the ‘ Chronicon 
Awetlense,’ it is stated that the English monarch was 
seized at Erpuch, now Erdberg, one of the suburbs of 


Vienna, and placed by Leopold in the custody of Had- | 
mar, at Ttirnstein, which Mr. Planché says is Durren- | 


THE PENNY 


- 


MAGAZINE. 2s) 


stein.* ‘These then are the walls which echoed with the 
clank of the chains which bound the noble limbs of the 
chivalrous crusader, king, and poet; and with the 
pleasanter sounds of the song and the lay, by means of 
which he repressed the gnawing indignation of his soul 
at the treatment he was compelled to endure, and be- 
eiuiled many a weary hour; by means of which, above 
all, if we may credit a story which has entered too deeply 
into the national heart ever to be entirely disbelicved, 
except on stronger evidence than has yet been produced, 
the faithful Blondel discovered his captive sovercign, 
and bya continuation of the song Richard was singing 
announced his own presence to the agitated and de- 
lighted listener. The other spot to which we referred 
is the island of Lobau, to which the French army 
under Napoleon retreated after the defeat at Aspern, 
in which he lost thirty thousand men; and from which, 
after a delay of six weeks, he re-crossed the Danube, 
under circumstances in the highest degree calculated 
to add to the impressive character of the occasion :— 


« The night was dark, and the thick mist allow’d 
Nought to be seen save the artillery’s flame, 
Which arch’d the horizon like a fiery cloud, 
And in the Dannbe’s waters shone the same— 
A mirror’d Hell! the volleying roar, and loud 
Long boooming of each peal ou peal, o’ercame 
The ear far more than thunder, for Heaven’s flashes 
Spare or smite rarely,—Man's make millions ashes!” 


The victory of Wagram followed, and laid Austria 
at Napoleon’s feet. 


VIRGIN EARTH. 

Virein earth, correctly speaking, is that which has 
never been disturbed by the plough or any other im- 
plement of the cultivator. The husbandman, however, 
does not always so strictly confine the apphcation of 
the term virgin soil; for we frequently find him apply- 
ing it to soils that have been cultivated at some distant 
period, but which have been allowed to rest undis- 
turbed so long, that it is presumed they possess the 
same properties. 

Agriculture of late years has been endeavouring to 
raise itself to a higher position upon the scale of gene- 
ral intelligence than it formerly used to possess, and 
for this purpose the aid of several of the sciences—par- 
ticularly chemistry and geology—have been invoked 
to render their assistance. Chemistry, no doubt, has 
already achieved much that was both necessary and 
desirable; but, notwithstanding this, a great deal 
remains to be achieved before agriculture can be re- 
duced to anything approaching a regular system. 

One thing, however, yet seems wanting, and that is, 
a careful and scientific examination into the nature 
and properties of virgin soil, in order that its peculiarly 
exciting and stimulating qualities upon vegetable pro- 
ductions generally should be accurately determined ; 
for, were this the case, there would then be little art or 
mystery, where a soil had become impoverished by 
over-cropping or mismanagement, in applying the 
necessary remedy (in the form of a manure of some sort 
or other) for restoring it to its original state, or toa 
condition as nearly resembling virgin earth as possi- 
ble. However exciting and invigorating the principle 
may be which this soil is found to possess, 1t 1s first 
necessary to expose it to the action of tle atmosphere, 
in order that this principle be called into full and ac- 
tive operation; for while it continues shut out from 
the influence of the sun and the atmosphere, the power 
which it has upon vegetation appears to he inert; but 
it ought to be borne in mind that nearly all sorts of 
plants derive a portion of their nourishment from 
water and the constituent parts of the atmosphere, and 
are not, consequently, wholly dependent upon the most 


* See ‘Penny Magazine,’ No. 99, 


352 THE PENNY 
fertile soil for ald that they require to bring them toa 
state of perfect maturity. 

Farmers are commonly in the habit of thus designat- 
ing all such soils as appear to them to have been 
deposited at a depth out of the reach of the ordmary 
mode of tillage; and hence it is that so many of them 
are now found introducing the practice of trench- 
ploughing, whereby a portion of this virgin earth 1s 
raised to the surface ; and by its becoming mixed at 
once with the portion of the soil that has become 
weakened and impaired in its powers of productive- 
ness, the whole mass is thereby greatly improved, and 
superior crops may be raised thereon for several suc- 
ceeding years. Care, however, should be taken in 
trench-ploughing, not to throw upon the surface a sub- 
soil of an inferior quality ; for if there is a deficiency 
of soil of the primary order, trench-ploughing would 
only raise to the surface a substratum, or soil of a 
secondary order, anda great deal more of harm than of 
eood would necessarily be the result. Hence it 1s, 
most probably, that among practical farmers so much 
diversity of opinion prevails regarding the utility of 
subsoil and trench-ploughing; for since there 1s so 
much diversity among soils, it would be an absurdity 
to suppose that the same treatment would everywhere 
succeed. 

Nothing more clearly elucidates the fertility of vir- 
gin earth, as well as the necessity which exists for its 
being exposed to the action of the atmosphere, than 
the system of cultivation adopted in most new coun- 
tries; and for example Upper Canada, as a corn- 
growing country, may be referred to. The primeval 
forests of that and countries similarly situated grow 
upon what may very properly be termed virgin soils. 
Now in these parts, even where there is but little 
underwood, and where the woods are termed open 
(in comparison with those where underwood abounds), 
they may be traversed for scores of miles without a 
single blade of grass being anywhere met with; but 
ho sooner are the forests removed, either by fire or 
otherwise, and the influence of the sun and air brought 
into contact with the soil, or the surface of it at least, 
than vegetable productions, of one description or 
another, are found taking possession of the soil, and 
growing most luxuriantly. It is upon this suriace soil 
that wheat and other corn-crops are grown in the 
new settlements; for the plough is not employed, for 
these two reasons, namely, the high rate of labourers’ 
wages, and the difficulty attending the ploughing up 
of forest ground before the roots of the trees are suffi- 
ciently decayed to render them no longer any great 
impediment to the plough. 

It is necessary, however, that the seed be covered 
with soil; for this means a small triangular harrow, 
possessing considerable strength, is employed, whereby 
the seed gets a slight covering. Sometimes one, some- 
times two, or even a greater number of crops, are 
raised in this way. But as the amount of this soil 
which is then called into action is small, it ought 
not to surprise any one, if it should, after a year or 
two, appear to be exhausted, which 1s commonly the 
case; although it is a very common circumstance to 
find the settlers continuing to put in their seed, wheat 
or rye (upon the old stubbles, and without ploughing) 
for several years, often indeed until the crops are 
“scarcely worth the trouble of reaping, which, to say 
the least of it, is exceedingly bad management. _ 

But those soils, if properly managed, will continue 
for many years, without the aid of any extraneous sub- 
stance in the character of manure, to yield good crops ; 
but then means must be taken to bring to the surface 
successive portions of the soil; first in the way already 
stated, then by shallow ploughing, and afterwards by 
deeper ploughing, by which means a new supply of 


MAGAZINE. [SEPTEMBER 4, 
the virgin earth will be brought into operation; and 
not only this, but the amount of loose soil will be 
greatly increased, and hence the roots of plants will 
have a large space to range in, and enlarged facilities 
for obtaining the food they may require. 


Perfection of Glass-Manufacture among the Egyptians.—The 
fact proved by the illustrations of Rossellini, by extant relics of 
the glass-manufactory of Egypt in the British Museum, and by 
the extant confirmatory relics in various other museums, exposes 
the error of the ordinary and narrow ideas indulged in by his- 
torians on the subject. It is common to assert that, with the 
exception of some glass vessels at a great price, glass was little 
known and used till the time of Augustus, and never in windows 
till after the fall of the Roman empire. The fact of pieces of 
glass, of good manufacture, having beei found at Pompeii, ought 
to have thrown doubt upon this allegation, derived from an am- 
biguous assertion of Pliny. The fact is, that glass and porcelain, 
of equally fine quality as the modern, were made 1800 years 
B.c., under the eighteenth dynasty. They were moreover made in 
perfection. This is another startling allegation supported by 
good proof, but a more startling one must still be added. The 
glass-blowers of Thebes were greater proficients in the art than we 
are. They possessed the art of staining glass, which, although 
not wholly lost, is comparatively but little known, and practised 
only by a few. Among the illustrations of Rossellini, there is a 
copy of a piece of stained glass of considerable taste of design 
and beauty of colour, in which the colour is struck through the 
whole vitrified structure; and there are instances of the design 
being equally struck through pieces of glass half an inch thick, 
perfectly incorporated with the structure, and appearing the 
same on the obverse as on the reverse side. In consequence of 
this fact it was that Winkleman truly asserted that the Eeyp- 
tians of this time (the eighteenth dynasty) brought it to a much 
higher point of perfectiou than ourselves. In fact, after the de- 
cline of the art, Egypt became to Rome what Venice became 
afterwards to Kurope. The great part of the supply of glass was 
considered by Pliny to derive its good quality from the ashes of 
a peculiar genus of kelp growing in abundance by the Lake 
Mareotis and the Red Sea. That kelp, reduced to a kind of 
green ash, is represented by Rossellini as brought in baskets to 
the glass-manufactories, and in his illustrations from the potteries, 
where a vitreous process was evidently employed for the purpose 
of glazing the earthen vessel. It is quite clear from contempo- 
rary records, and from proofs which remain, that Winkleman 
was right. They imitated amethysts and other precious stones 
with wonderful dexterity ; and besides the art of staining glass, 
they must have been aware of the use of the diamond in cutting 
it and engraving it. In Mr. Salt’s collection in the British 
Museum of the time of Thothmos III., 1500 years B.c., a piece 
is beautifully stained throughout, and skilfully engraved with 
his emblazonment. The profusion of glass in Egypt is easily 
proved. Fragments have been found of granite which are co- 
vered with a coating of stained glass, through which the hiero- 
glyphics of the stone appear. The relation that the bodies of 
Alexander and Cyrus were deposited in glass coffins, which has 
been considered as a fable, is thus analogically proved. But the 
profusion of the dearest glass-manufactures may be equally 
proved. Vast numbers of imitative precious stones in glass, 
made by the Theban jewellers, are to be found in all the mu- 
seums of Europe. Among them are the false emeralds, in which 
they seem to have succeeded best. There is little doubt that 
many of the large emerald basins used in the early Christian 
churches were of their manufacture. Diodorus Siculus says the 
coffins were commonly made of it in Ethiopia. The extensive 
character of the manufacture may be also inferred from a circum- 
stance recorded by Phny, that in the temple of Jupiter Ammon 
there was an obelisk of emerald, that is, of glass in imitation of 
emerald, sixty feet in height. The emerald hue which the glass- 
manufacturers of Kurope gave to glass appears, from chemical 
analysis, to be imparted by oxide of copper ; and the reds, used 
i111 imitation of the rubies, or in staining plate-glass, appear to 
have been derived from minium. All these facts prove the ex- 
tensive knowledge of chemistry among the natives of Old 
Thebes. Glass bottles (quart bottles?), nearly similar to our 
wine bottles in colour and measure, though in shape resembling 
the wide-mouthed bottles used in preserving fruit, may be seen 
in the British Museum, and are found in abundance in other 
Kuropean cabinets.—From a paper on the Ancient Egyptians, in 
the Westminster Review. 


1841.] 


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Kurns and his Localities, 


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At top—Statue of Burns, by Flaxman, from the Monument at Edinburgh. On the left—1, Dumfries; 2, The Twa Brigs of 


Ayr; 3, Burns’ Mausvleum at Dumfries. On the right—1l, Banks 0’ Doon; 2, Room in the Cottage at Maybole. 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. 
BuRNS. 


In one of the letters of the great “national poet” of 
Scotland, as Henry Mackenzie, with a bold and far- 
sighted prescience, called Burns on the first publication 
of his poems, the latter writés,—“TI am hurt to see the 
other towns, rivers, woods, haughs, &c. of Scotland 1m- 
mortalised in song, while my dear native country, the 
ancient bailieries of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham, 
famous, both in antient and modern times, for a gal- 
lant and warlike race of inhabitants—-a country where 


civil and particularly religious liberty have ever | in which the 


try the birth-place of many famous philosophers, 
soldiers, and statesmen, and the scene of many 1m-~- 
portant events recorded in history, particularly a great 
many of the actions of the glorious Wallace—yet we 
have never had one Scotch poet of any eminence to 
make the fertile banks of Irvine, the romantic wood- 
lands and sequestered scenes on Ayr, and the heathy 
mountainous source and winding sweep of the Doon, 
emulate the Tay, Forth, Ettrick, and Tweed. This 1s 
a complaint I would gladly remedy ; but, alas! J am’ 
far unequal to the task, both in genius and education.” 


The date of this letter is 1785, the year preceding that 


first edition of his poems was published, 


found their first support and their last asylum—a coun- | and when consequently he wanted that full confidence 


No. 606. 


VoL. X.—2 Z 


354 


in his owu powers which the favourable opinion of the | 


world only cangive. Yet how short a time elapsed be- 
force he did remedy the neglect of which he compa 
—before he invested the Irvine, the Ayr, and tne Doon 
with charms more attractive than thelr own surpassing 
beauty, more permanent perhaps than even their own 
existence. Little could the poet think, even in his 
inost dazzling visions, that the mere fact of his residence 
in that district, for whose scenery and_ recollections 
he was so solicitous, should give to it a new and 
more universally interesting character; that the me- 
mory of its “famous philosophers, soldicrs, and states- 
men” should all be absorbed in the memory of the 
ploughman-poet; that, in short, the peasants of his 
native land, with no unnatural ecxultation at the glory 
that had gone forth from among them, should cease to 
point out the scene of this great action, or of that 
illustrious man’s home, but sum up allin the emphatic 
declaration, ‘ This is the Land of Burns.’ ” 

In tracing the course of the poet’s movements 
through the localities thus happily designated, we 
commence with the clay-built cottage on the banks of 
the Doon, built by his fathcr’s own hands. Here 
Robert Burns was born, on the 25th of January, 1759. 
The “clay bigging,” as it was called by the country 
people, stood about two miles from Ayr, on the road 
to Maybole, and but a short distance irom the “ Auld 
Brig o’ Doon,” and from Alloway Kirk, the scene of 
the unearthly midnight revels in ‘Tam o’ Shanter.’ 
Burus was accustomed, in his after-life, to allude to 
the circumstance attending his birth,—the season was 
rough; and within a few days a part of the cottage was 
blown down, and himself and mother removed for 
shelter to a neighbour’s house—and ironically claim 
pity for the stormy passions of one thus tempestuously 
ushered into life. The cottage consisted of but two 
apartments, one used as a kitchen and sitting-room, 
the other as a kind of parlour called in Scotland a 
‘spence ; in arecess of the former stood the bed in 
which the poet was born. William Burness, the 
father, was, as 1s well known, subject to great pecu- 
niary troubles, almost from the period of his inarriage 
to that of his death. A circumstance of this nature 
caused him to sell the lease of the ground he culti- 
vated, and of the clay bigging, to the corporation 
of shoemakers in Ayr. The latter is now occupied as 
an alchouse, which, as we may well suppose, 1s in no 
want of visitors. An album is kept by the host, in 
which strangers are desired to enter their names: 
these, in the month of December, 1838, amounted to 
three hundred and fifty! We must not omit to notice 
that opposite the alehouse is a thatched cottage scarcely 
less interesting, for in it ved Murdoch, Burns’s kind 
and enthusiastic instructor. Lochlea was the family’s 
next residence, and for the first four years prospects 
looked brighter, but after that period there appears to 
have been almosta continual decline. To make matters 
worse, disputes broke out between William Burness 
and his landlord, which still further enhanced the 
anxieties amid which the poet spent his earlier years. 
Of the character and attainments of the latter at this 
time we have the best of evidence—his own. “At seven 
years of age,” he says, “I was by no means a favourite 
vith anybody. I wasa good decal noted for retentive me- 
mory, a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, 
and an enthusiastic idiot piety ; I say idiot piety, because 
I was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster 
some thrashings, I made an exccllent English scholar ; 
and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age I was 
a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. The 
earhest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in 
was ‘The Vision of Mirza,’ and a hymu of Addison’s, 
beginning— 

‘How are thy servants blest, QO Lord!’ 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[S@prEMBER 1], 


The “schoolmaster” was not the poct’s only in- 
structor; he learnt much from his own father, who, 
hike the generality of Scottish peasants, possessed no 
inconsiderable amount of knowledge. In imparting 
this to his children the clder Burns spent his even- 
ings. Books also lent their aid. The family hbrary 
contained, among other works, some plays of Shak- 
spere, the ‘Heathen Pantheon,’ Locke’s ‘ Essay on 
the Human Understanding, Allan Ramsay’s and 
Young’s poems, and ‘ Hervey’s Meditations.’ Yet to 
an humbler source than any of these must we look for 
the incidents which had the largest share in develop- 
ing the poet’s mind. ‘“ In my infant and boyish days,” 
he writes to Dr. Moore, another of his early literary 
patrons, “ I owed much to an old woman who resided 
in the family (Jenny Wilson by name), remarkable for 
her ignorance, credulity, and superstition ; she had, I 
suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales 
and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownics, 
witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, cli-candles, dead- 
lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted 
towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated 
the latent seeds of poesie ; but had so strong an effect 
on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal 
rainbles, I sometimes keep a look-out in suspicious 
places.” Besides the books we have mentioned, Burns 
possessed a collection of songs, which were to him the 
greatest of all his literary treasures. This, he says, 
“was my vade-mecum. J pored over them, driving my 
cart or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse, 
carefully noting the true, tender, or sublime, from 
affectation and fustian.’ And under what circum- 
stances were these studics pursued? ‘ The chcerless 
eloom of a hermit,” says the poet, ‘‘ with the unceasing 
moil of a galley-slave, brought me to my sixteenth 
year!” Wis brother Gilbert, with a touching simpli- 
city, enters more in detail into the history of the family 
distresses. ‘‘ We lived very sparing. For several years 
butcher’s-meat was a stranger in the house, while all 
the members of the family exerted themselves to the 
utmost of their strength, and rather beyond it, in the 
labours of the farm. My brother, at the age of thir- 
teen, assisted in threshing the crop of corn, and at fif- 
teen was the principal labourer on the farm; for we 
had no hired servant, male or female. The anguish of 
mind we felt at our tender years under these straits 
and difficultics was very great. To think of our father 
erowing old—for he was now above fifty, broken down 
with the long-continued fatigues of his life, with a wife 
and five other children, and in a declining state of cir- 
cumstances !—these reflections produced in my bro- 
ther’s mind and mine sensations of the deepest distress. 
....1 doubt not but the hard labour and sorrow of this 
period of his life was in a great measure the cause of 
that depression of spirits with which Robert was so 
often afflicted through his whole hfe afterwards.” A 
new expedient was now tried on the farm of Lochlea ; 
as corn was unprofitable, flax was cultivated, and the 
poet was sent to Irvine, in 1781, to learn the art of flax- 
dressing, 1n order that he should manufacture the 
home-produce for market. This was exchanging a toil 
which he hked Gn moderation), for one which, by con- 
trast, could not but disgust him. His spirits and his 
health alike gave way, and he expressed himself in his 
letters at the time as transported at the thought of soon 
bidding an adieu to all the pains and uneasinesses 
and disquietudes of this weary life. In 1784 his iather 
died, just in time to be saved from the horrors of a 
eaol. 

We now follow the bereaved family to the farm of 
Mossgicl, a place doubly dear to the lovers of poctry as 
that in which Burns wrote the best of his early picces, 
and as having been described by Wordsworth in a very 
exquisite sonnet, which we transcribe :— 


1841,] 


“¢ There,’ said a stripling, pomting with much pride, 
Towards a low root, with green trees half-concealed, 
‘Is Mossgiel farm; and that’s the very field 
Where Burns plough’d up the daisy.’ Far and wide 
A plain below stretch’d seaward, while, descried 
Above sea-clouds, the peaks of Arran rose ; 

And, by that simple notice, the repose 

Of earth, sky, sea, and air was vivified. 

Beneath the random bield of clod or stone, 
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower 
Near the lark’s nest, and in their natural hour 
Have pass’d away; less happy than the one 
That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove 
The tender charm of poctry and love.” 


Mossgiel was taken by the poet and his brother some 
months before their father’s death, when his affairs ap- 
peared to be on the verge of bankruptcy; and it was 
stocked by the individual savings of the family. The 
farm, according to Gilbert Burns, “ was a joint con- 
cern, Every member of the family was allowed ordi- 
nary wages for the labour he performed cn the farm. 
My brother’s allowance and mine was £7 per annum 
each. And during the whole time this family concern 
lasted, which was four years, as during the preceding 
period at Lochlea, his expenses never in any year ex- 
ceeded his slender income.” But the most pinching 
economy was once more found an insufficient remedy 
for a badly chosen soil and situation. 

“Mossgiel,” says Gilbert, “ lies very high, and mostly 
ina cold wet bottom. The first four years that we 
were in the farm were very frosty, and the spring was 
very late. Our crops in consequence were very un- 
profitable ; and notwithstanding our utmost diligence 
and economy, we found ourselves obliged to give up 
our bargain, with the loss of a considerable portion of 
our original stock.” But during the period here re- 
ferred to, matters of high moment had occurred, calcu- 
lated to make even failures so distressing as this appear 
insignificant, from the brilliancy of the new prospects 
that opened to the gaze of one of the brothers. By the 
close of the year 1786, Robert Burns had added a new 
name to the illustrious roll of the great poets of Britain. 
Love, which throughout Burns's life continued an un- 
failing source of inspiration, also first impelled him to 
write. “You know,” he observes in a communication 


Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sang 
sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I at- 
tempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme..... 
Lhus with me began love and poetry.” The verses 
written on this occasion, like those of Lord Byron, and 
perhaps of every other great poet’s real first attempt, 
contained little or no indication of his genius. The 
difficulty of rhyme naturally first engages the attention 
of the poetical aspirant, and directs him to the works 
of the writers whom he most admires, for example and 
instruction ; and it is only when this difficulty is mas- 
tered, that he begins to take practically to heart the 
conviction that the verse he has been studying is of 
little or no value except for the originality of the 
thoughts it may bear. With every fresh attempt, how- 
ever, came increased power; and during the poet’s 
residence at Mossgiel, ‘My Nanny, O,’ ‘ Green grow 
the Rashes,’ ‘ Poor Mailie,’ his satirical attacks on the 
‘New Light faction’ of the Calvinists, the ‘ Holy Fair,’ 
the ‘Address to the De’il,’ the wonderful dramatic 
extravaganza of the ‘ Jolly Beggars,’ the ‘ Cotter’s 


saturday Night,’ &c., in short, all the pieces that ap- | 


peared in his first’ publication, were composed. For 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


355 


this, like most of the other principal epochs in Burns’s 

career, we have his own TUStOny eee Tl weighed,” he 

says in a letter to Dr. Moore, «“ my productions as im- 

partially as was in my power. J thought they had 

merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be 

called a clever fellow, even though it should never 

reach my cars—a poor negro-driver, or perhaps a vic- 

tim to that inhospitable clime (Jamaica), and gone to the 

world of spirits. To know myself, had been all alone: 

my constant study. I weighed myself alone, I balanced 

myself with others, I watched every means of informa-. 
tion, to see how much ground I occupied as a man and 

a poet: I studied assiduously Nature's design in my 

formation, where the lights and shades in character. 
were intended. I was pretty confident my poems would 
mect with some applause ; but, at the worst, the roar 
of the Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and 
the novelty of West Indian scenes make me forget 
neglect. I threw off six hundred copies, having got 
subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty.” The 

foreign voyage, to which he refers so frequently in this 
letter, was projected in consequence of an event which 
at first caused Burns much misery, his connection with 
Jean Armour, afterwards Mrs. Burns. The promised 
birth of a child first revealed the matter to the maiden’s 
father, who, instead of being pacified by the production 
of the “ marriage lines,” as a private acknowledenient 
of marriage is called in Scotland when the sanction of 
the Kirk has not been obtained, tore the paper from 
her hands, and throwing it into the fire, commanded 
her no longer to think of Burns as her husband. She 
trembled and obeyed, to the great anguish and not un- 
natural indignation of the poet. He determined, in 
consequence, to go out to the West Indies, and there 
push his fortune; and for the requisite means, he 

looked to the profits of his publication. And never was 
poet’s first venture attended with more sudden or better 
deserved, and, therefore, more permanent success. “ It 
is hardly possible,” says Heron, one of his biographers, 
“to express with what eager admiration and delight 
the poems were everywhere received.” The edition 
soon disappeared, and Burns proposed a second to his 
printer, “ Wee Johnnie;” but the latter demurring, 
Burns was so incensed at his wnreasonableness, that he 
even refused to allow some of his friends to secure the 
printer against the loss he so much dreaded. The 
profits of this publication were not very remarkable, 
twenty pounds being the sum total of the poet’s receipts. 
In other matters also, he saw that as yet, at least, his 
reputation brought no tangible result with it. He 
might dine as often as he pleased with the rich and the 
powerful, but not the less did he find it necessary to 
return at midnight to his blanket and straw, which, 
says Allan Cunningham, “ happened often to Burns.” 
So he procured the situation of overseer on an estate 
in Jamaica, and prepared for his departure froin Moss- 
giel and the loved country of his birth. 


(To be continued. } 


The Veronese Peasantry.—This is the richest part of Lom- 
bardy, covered with mulberries and vines, and througing with, 
as it appears to us, a healthy population, full fed from the cradle 
to the grave. The children are stout and rosy, with masses of 
bright curling hair. The women are tall and well developed, 
and the old people so old that one would think they must theme 
selves have forgotten they were ever young—the last thing they 
do forget. But they are never “rocked in the cradle of reposing 
age’—never cease from their labours. We see even the very old 
women, with their grey heads bare or covered with a fanciful 
straw hat, driving asses and leading cows on the highway.— 
Letters from Abroad, by Miss Sedgwick. 


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Sir John Dinuely.] 


SIR JOHN DINELY. 


Ir is some forty years ago since a remarkable person- 
age, who is correctly enough represented in the above 
wood-cut, was to be daily gazed at amongst the sights 
of Windsor. One of the writer’s earliest recollections 
is of this singular man. We see him now, as he ap- 
peared to our childish curiosity, mysteriously creeping 
by the first hght of a winter’s morning through the 
great gate of the lower ward of the Castle into the 
narrow back streets of the town. He then constantly 
wore a large cloak, called a roquelaurc, beneath which 
appeared a pair of thin legs encased in dirty silk 
stockings. If the morning was wet, his cloak was not 
hisonly protection from the weather. He had a for- 
midable umbrella; and, what was most wonderful, he 
stalked along upon pattens. Otten have we watched 
him €reeping out of his solitary house in the Castle, 
and mest carefully locking doors behind him, as he 
went 64 his morning errands. There he lived in one 
of the-houses of the Military Knights, then called Poor 
Knights,te’which body he belonged: it was the house 
next fo “the *governor’s. No human being, it was 
imagined, had for some years entered that house except 
its eccentric possessor. The wise man, hc held, was 
his own best assistant; and so he dispensed with all do- 
mestic service. -In the morning, then, he duly went 
forth to make his frugal purchases for the day—a fag- 
got, a candle, a small loaf, perhapsa herring. Al] 
luxuries, whether of meat, or tea, or sugar, or butter, 
were renounced. He had objects to be attained, and 
for whose attainment he laboured for years, which re- 
quired money. His income in money, derived from 
his office, besides his house, was about sixty pounds. 
Regular attendance upon the service of Saint George’s 
Chapel was his duty; and the long blue mantle which 
the Poor Knights wore covered the faded finery be- 
neath, as well as the roquelaure hid the loaf and the 
farthing candle. But when thc offices of the morning 
had been performed, and the sun, perchance, shone 
brightly, out came another creature. Wherever crowds 
were assembled,—whercver royalty was to be looked 
upon, and the sounds of military music summoned the 
fair ones of Windsor and Eton to the gay parade,—there 


familiar. 


was Sir John Dinely. The roquelaure was cast aside, 
and then were disclosed the treasures which it concealed 
—the embroidered coat, the silk-flowered waistcoat, 
the nether garments of faded velvet, carefully meeting 
the dirty silk stocking, which terminated in the halt- 
polished shoe surmounted by the dingy silver buckle. 
The old wig, on great occasions, was newly powdercd, 
and the best cocked-hat was brought forth, with a tar- 
nished lace edging. There walked, then, on Windsor 
Terrace, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
one who might have sat for the costume of the days of 
George IJ. All other days were to him as nothing. 
Hc had dreams of ancient genealogies; and of al- 
liances still subsisting between himself and the first 
families of the land; and of mansions described in 
Nash’s ‘ History of Worcestershire,’ with marble halls 
and “ superb gates ;” and of possessions that ought to 
be his own, which would place him upon an equality 
with the noblest and the wealthiest. A little money to 
be expended in law proceedings was to make these 
dreams realities. That money was to be obtained 
through a wife. To secure for himself a wife was the 
business of his existence; to display himself properly 
where women “most do congregate,” was the object 
of his savings; to be constantly in the public eye was 
his glory and his hope. The man had not a particle of 
levity in these proceedings. His face had a grave and 
intellectual character; his deportment was staid and 
dignified. He had a wonderful discrimination in 
avoiding the tittering girls with whose faces he was 
But perchance some buxom matron or timid 
maiden who had seen him for the first time gazed upon 
the apparition with surprise and curiosity. He ap- 
proached. With the air of one bred in courts, he made 
his most profound bow; and taking a printed paper 
from his pocket, reverently presented it and withdrew. 
We give an extract from one of these documents which 
is before us :— 
“ For a wife. , 

“As the prospect of my marriage has much in- 
creased lately, I am determined to take the best means 
to discover the lady most liberal in her esteem, by 
giving her fourteen days more to make her quickest 
steps towards matrimony, from the date of this paper 


1841.} 


until eleven o’clock the next morning; and as the 
contest evidently will be superb, honourable, sacred, 
and lawfully affectionate, pray do not let false delicacy 
interrupt you. .... An eminent attorney here is lately 
returned from a vicw of my very superb gates before 
my capital house, built in the form of the queen’s 
house. J have ordered him, or the next eminent 
attorney herc, who can satisfy you of my possession in 
my estate, and every desirable particular concerning it, 
to make you the most liberal settlement you can desire, 
to the vast extent of three hundred thousand pounds.” 
And then come some verses, concluding thus :— 


“A beautiful page shall carefully hold 
Your Jadyship’s train surrounded with gold.” 


Was this man mad? He had a monomania cer- 
tainly; but in other matters he was the shrewdest man 
we ever kncw. He was reserved and sarcastic to most 
persons ; for too frequently was he insulted: but to 
those who were kind to him he displayed no common 
mind. Our childish curiosity about this singulat per- 
son became, as we grew older, mixed with a respectful 
and higher interest. He was unfortunate. Huis mis- 
fortunes were inscribed in no less terrible a page than 
that book over which many a boy has wept and trem- 
bled—the ‘Newgate Calendar.’ In one of these 
volumes we had read that on the 17th of January, 
1741, a dismal tragedy had occurred at Bristol. There 
were two brothers who had become enemies on account 
of the entail of property. The elder was Sir John 
Dinely Goodyere, Baronet; the younger, Samuel 
Dinely Goodyere, a captain in the navy, commanding 
the Ruby ship of war. The two brothers had long 
ceased to meet; but a common fricnd, at the request 
of the younger, brought them together. They dined at 
his house; they exchanged professions of brotherly 
love. When thcy separated, the baronet had to pass 
alone over College Green, at Bristol. He was encoun- 
tered by six sailors, with the captain of the Ruby at 
their head. He was seized, gagged, carried to a boat, 
and thence to the ship—and he was strangled. The 
vengeance of the law was speedy. The vessel was dc- 
tained upon suspicion; the crime was fully proved ; 
and the inhuman brother and two of his confederates 
were hanged within two months. The Sir John Dinely 
of Windsor was the son of the murderer. That the 
poor man was perfectly familar with all the circum- 
stances of this tragedy there can be no doubt; and we 
have often thought that, shut up in his lonely house, 
with the horrible recollections of the past lingering 
about him, it was wonderful that he was not altogether 
mad. The family estatcs which might have come to 
Captain Goodyere were most probably forfeited to the 
crown. Thc poor advertiser for a wife alludes to this 
circumstance in another of his bills:—‘ Pray, my 
young charmers, give me a fair hearing; do not let 
your avaricious guardians unjustly fright you with a 
false account of a forfeiture.” But the estates were not 
to be recovered; and the penalty for the crime in the 
second generation was mitigated, we hope, by the in- 
nocent delusions by which the son of the guilty brother 
was buoyed up, even to his dying hour. Sir John 
Dinely was one morning missing from his due attend- 
ance upon the scrvice of St. George’s chapel. His 
door was broken open. His house was without fur- 
niture except a table and a chair or two. The passage 
by which it was entered was a receptacle for coals. 
The sitting-room was strewed with printing types— 
for he uscd to print his own bills after the rudest 
fashion ;—in a small room beyond was stretched the 
poor man upon a pallet bed. He had studied physic ; 
and he had prescribed for himself not injudiciously, 
having a few medicines always at hand. He lingered 
a few days, and then—all the dream was over. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 357 


FEATHERS—THEIR NATURE AND USES. 


No part of the natural structure of a bird is appro- 
priated to more opposite uses than the feathers. They 
are employed, after a certain preparatory process, as a 
decoration to the head-dresses of ladies and of mibtary 
officers; as a material for filling beds, bolsters, and 
pillows; and as a material for the formation of writing- 
pens. It is evident that these several uses depend on 
different qualities in the feathers; beauty of appear- 
ance in the first case, softness of texture in the second, 
and the possession of a hollow quill or barrel in the 
third. We will offer a few explanatory remarks on 
these applications of feathers; but it may be desirable 
first to say a word or two on the nature of feathers 
generally. 

Birds constitute the only class of animals in which 
feathers,.properly so called, are found; for the slight 
indication of similar appendages in some varieties of 
insects are found to be different both in structure and 
mode of growth. No bird is entirely destitute of 
feathers ; the turkey and the vulture are defective in 
some particular parts, the ostrich and the wading- 
birds in others, but all show indications of this kind 
of covering on some part or other of their bodies. The 
feathers differ greatly in character according to the 
part of the body where they are situated. The down is 
an cxtremely short layer situated beneath the common 
feathers ; it gives an almost entire covering to some 
water-birds, such as the young goose at a very early 
ave, and appears designed to defend the bird against . 
cold and wet. The common short feathers grow pretty 
nearly all over the body, but more thickly upon the 
shoulders and loins, and along the under part of the 
neck and breast, than in most other parts. The large 
feathers, or quills, ditter from the other feathers in being 
apparently rather instruments of motion than a cover- 
ing for the bird; they are situated upon the wings and 
tail, and are found to be more strong and unyielding in 
birds of flight than im others. Besides the feathers 
here enumerated, there are others which can scarcely 
be classed in any of the divisions; such as those form- 
ing the crest of the peacock and some of the crane 
kind, the rump-feathers of the peacock, some of those 
in the bird of paradise, &c.; as far as our present 
knowledge extends, these appear to be more adapted 
for ornament than use. 

The mode in which feathers grow on the .bird is 
pretty much the same in most cases, and may be illus- 
trated by the growth of the quills or large feathers. 
Before feathers appear on the newly-born, bird, the 
skin is generally covered with little tufts of hair, ten 
or twelve hairs in each tuft; and Cuvier States that 
these tufts arc implanted in a bulb which contains the 
sheath of the future feather. All feathers are origin- 
ally contained in shcaths; these penetrate the skin, 
and become apparcnt, usually a few days after the bird 
leaves the shell; carrying out with it the tuft or fas- 
ciculus of hairs. The hair in most cases very soon falls 
off, and the feather gradually develops itself. The 
sheath here spoken of is tubular; the inner cxtremity, 
which is affixed to the skin, being blunt and perforated, 
in order to give passage to the bulb or vascular part of 
the feather, and the outer extremity being closed and 
pointed. The sheath appears to be composed of a 
thin, fragile, horny substance ; and if it be opened ata 
very early period, it displays a kind of vascular pulp, 
surrounded by a soft pasty coloured matter: this paste 
is found to have a lamellated structure, similar to the 
barbs of the future feather. The formation of the 
feather gradually goes on within the sheath, the point 
of the feather perforating a channel for itself at the 
external end of the tube. The feathcr emerges from 
the sheath as it is formed, the sheath enlarging in bulk 
to make room for it, and finally dries and falls off 


358,00 8 THE PENNY 
in shreds when its protecting agency is no longer 
required. 

The vascular pulp contained in the sheath seems to 
furnish the substance of which the feather is made ; it 
is an organised substance, which loses its vascularity 
when its office is fulfilled, and finally shrivels up into 
a membranous form. It is supposed that the fine 
membrane found in a shrivelled state within the barre] 
of a quill before the latter is made into a pen, is a por- 
tion of the dried remains of the vascular pulp; and 
that the scaly or membranous coat which adheres to the 
exterior of the barrel before the latter has been cleaned, 
is in like manner part of the dried remains of the 
sheath which once enclosed the vascular pulp. 

The parts of which a feather consists, after being 
formed from the vascular pulp and the coloured sub- 
stance which surrounded it, are the barrel or quill, the 
Shaft or stalk, and the barbs. The barrel is a horny 
transparent cylinder, bearing a relation to the size of 
the whole feather, which is different in different birds. 
In the swan, the goose, and the turkey, the barrel is 
large in proportion to the rest of the feather; and 
hence the use of those quills in the making of pens. 
Lhe cavity is continued a little way into the shaft or 
stalk, in which it is gradually lost ; the distance being 
greater in the eagle, the hawk, and other birds of 
flight, than in those which do not soar so loftily: we 
hence see an admirable adaptation of lightness to the 
wants of the bird. The shaft or stalk is composed of 
two horny sheathes or shells attached together, and 
forming a hollow cavity which is filled with an opaque 
pith of a compact structure and a white colour. This 
stalk is four-sided; the outer side being’ smooth and 
somewnat convex, the inner side indented with a 
groove along its whole length, and the other two 
sides presenting asofter texture, to which the Zarbs are 
attached. These barbs, from their size,.colour, and 
form, constitute the chief feature which gives a charac- 
ter to the feather. They are long, narrow, and thin 
filaments, attached at one end to the stalk, along which 
they are arranged at nearly equal distances. Each 
barb has a number of little barbules, or points, attached 
to one cf its edges, in the same manner as the barb 
itself is attached to the stalk ; and in general the barbules 
of one barb are interwoven with those of the next, so 
that the feather presents a continuous surface to the 
air or water. This interlacing of the barbules is de- 
stroyed when the feathers are what we term ‘ruffled? 
and the action by which the bird restores the feathers 
to a smooth state depends chiefly on the re-adjustment 
of the barbules among each other. In some birds, 
such as the goose, each barb has a convex and a con- 
cave surface, so that two adjoining barbs lie one in the 
other’s hollow. Some feathers have barbs without bar- 
bules; some others have neither barbs nor barbules ; 
while others again have certain peculiarities in the 
barbs, or barbules, or both, dependent on, or at least 
correspondent to, the habits of the bird to which they 
belong. | 

From the above details it will appear, that the mak- 
ing of pens from quills depends on the size and excel- 
lence of the barrels, that the ornamental appearance of 
a feather depends principally on the barbs, and that 
the use of feathers as a stuffing for beds depends on the 
softness of the barbs. The preparation of the feathers 
for these three purposes may now engage our atten- 
tion. 

Of the quills employed for the making of pens, those 
obtained from the goose are by far the most numerous. 
The geese are plucked of their feathers four and in some 
cases five times in the year; the first plucking, about 
the end of March, being for quills aud feathers, and 
the others for feathers only. Generally speaking the 
quills selected for pens are the Jarge feathers taken 


MAGAZINE. [SEPTEMBER ILI, 
from the ends of the wings. The quills pass from the 
hands of the farmer to the quill-dresser, who is also 
often a pen-maker, and who supplies the stationers. In 
their state when plucked, they are covered with a mem- 
branous skin, resulting, as is supposed, from the decay 
of the sheath before alluded to; the interior vascular 
membrane, too, resulting from the decay of the vascu- 
lar pith, adheres so strongly to the barrel as to be with 
difficulty separated: while at the same time the barrel 
itself is opaque, soft, and tough. The quill has there- 
fore to undergo certain processes, in order to loosen 
the membranes within and without, and to render the 
barrel transparent, hard, and somewhat brittle. The 
quill-dresser receives the quills in large promiscuous 
bundles, Just as they are plucked from the birds; and 
his first business is to sort them according to their 
quality. Those of the largest size and longest barrel 
are called prames, and are set aside for making the best 
and dearest pens; the next in point of size and quality 
are called seconds; while the smallest and shortest are 
denominated pinions. . 

The first process in the preparation of the quill is 
clarifying, that is, removing the membranous skin. 
The quills are plunged into heated sand, the high tem- 
perature of which causes the external skin of the barrel 
to crack and peel off, and the mternal membrane to 
shrivel up. The outer membrane is then scraped off 
with a sharp instrument, while the inner membrane 
remains in a state to be easily detached. For the 
finest quills, the heating is repeated two or three times, 
care being taken not to overheat the barrel. The heat 
of the sand, by consuming and drying up the oleagi- 
nous moisture in the barrel, renders it harder and 
more transparent; and in order to give the barrel a 
yellow colour, and a tendency to split more readily and 
clearly, it is dipped in weak nitric acid. But this 
latter plan is considered by many to be a sacrifice of 
durability to beauty; as it renders the barrel brittle 
and unable to bear much pressure. 

When the quills are dressed, the broad barbs in the 
inner cdge are usually stripped off, to make the quills 
lie closer together; and they are then made up into 


bundles, commonly of twenty-five each, and bound up. 


Another mode has been adopted for dressing quills, as 
follows:—the barrel, having been dipped in water, is 
heated at a charcoal fire, and pressed or scraped flat 
by means of a suitable instrument: another heating 
swells them out again to their cylindrical form. 

The mode of making a pen is too simple an operation 
to require description, but we may say a few words re- 
specting a plan by which several pens or ‘nibs’ are 
procured from one pen. The stalk of the feather being 
cut off, as well as the extreme end of the barrel, the 
remainder has a small cylinder inserted in it, and is 
then passed through a machine provided with two 
cutting edges, which divide the barrel lengthwise into 
two halves. The edgcs of the two pieces are planed 
Straight; each piece is cut into three or four, according 
to its length; and each of thesc smaller pieces is 
slitted, shaped, nibbed, in the form of a pen, by means of 
an ingenious cutting-machine. 

The immense consumption of steel pens within the 
last few years, though it has probably diminished the 
demand for those made of quills, has by no means re- 
duced it to an insignificant amount. In addition to 
the quills obtamed from English geese, the following 
extract from Mr, MacCulloch respecting the importa- 
tion of quills from abroad, will show the great extent 
of the demand :—* The goodness of quills is judged 
partly by the size of the barrels, but more by the weight; 
hence the denomination of quills of 14, 15, &c. loths 
per mille, cach mille consisting of 1200 quills. The 
duty on goose-quills produced, in 1832, 4202J. 11s., 
which, as the duty is at the rate of 2s. 6d. the thousand, 


1841.] 


shows that the number of quills entered for home con- 
sumption that year must have amounted to 33,668,000.” 
The imported quills are brought principally trom 
Riga, Germany, and the Netherlands. 

Of the swan and crow quills we need say no more 
than that the former, from their large size, are very 
durable, and fitted for large writing ; while the latter, 
froin an opposite reason, are peculiarly adapted for fine 
‘vriting, as well as designing and ‘ pen-and-ink’ draw- 
Ing. 


(To be continued.) 


THE NAIL-MANUFACTURE. 


Wuen William Hutton, the subscquent historian of 
Birmingham, first approached that busy centre of the 
iron-manuiacture, just a century ago, he was surprised 
to observe the prodigious number of blacksmiths’ shops 
upon the road, and could not conceive how a country, 
though populous, could support so many people of the 
saine occupation. ‘In some of these shops,” he re- 
marks, “ I observed one or more females, stripped of 
their upper garments, and not overcharged with their 
lower, wielding the hammcr with all the grace of the 
sex. The beauties of their face were rather eclipsed by 
the sinut of the anvil, or, in poetical phrase, the tinc- 
ture of the forge had taken possession of those lips 
which might have been taken by the kiss. Struck with 
the novelty, I inquired, ‘ Whether the ladies in this 
country shod horses?’ but was answered, with a smile, 
‘ They are nazlors,” 

The century which has elapsed has produced some 
changcs in this as in most other branches of manufac- 
ture; but the making of nails is still, to a considerable 
extent, carried on in a peculiar way, very distinct from 
other branches of the iron-manuiacture. The nail- 
makers, nail-smiths, or, as they are more generally 
called, ‘ nailors,’ inhabit certain districts, scattered per- 
haps over a considerable space, and working together 
in partics of two, three, or even wholc families of both 
sexes, In little smithies, fitted up with bellows, a hearth, 
asinallanvil, and afew other simply-formed tools. Somc- 
times, to economise coals, shop-room, &c., two or three 
nailors occupy but one hearth, using the same fire and 
the same bellows in turn; and in all such cases the 
price obtained for the nails, or for the labour expended 
11 their manufacture, is divided among the nailors in 
certain agrecd proportions. It will be seen that this 
system differs considerably from the large factory or 
foundry system by which the majority of iron articles 
are manufactured. 

Mr. Hutton, in speaking of Birmingham as it was 
sixty years ago, says—‘ The art of nail-making is the 
most ancient among us. We inay safely charge its 
antiquity with four figures. We cannot consider it a 
trade 22, so much as of Birmingham ; for we have but 
few nail-makers left in the town: our nailors are chiefly 
masters, and rather opulent. The manufacturers are 
so scattered round the country that we cannot travel far 
in any direction out of the sound of the nail-hammer. 
But Bumingham, hke a powerful magnet, draws the 
produce of the anvil to herself.” 

Nails are of various kinds, according to the purposes 
for which they are used ; but all those which are known 
as wrought nails are worked with the hammer or some 
analozous engine; whereas those called ‘cut’ are 
shaped by a cutting instrument. For the wrought 
nails, iron of a cheap quality is used, which is first 
passed through a rolling-miull, to reduce it to the state 
of a thin bar, and then slit up by means of grooves in 
slitting-rollers, into small rods, leaving a width and 
thickness proportionate to the size of the nail. These 
rods, which are called nail-rods, are a considerable 


article of trade ; and the nailors obtain the iron in this | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


309 
form, to be convertcd into nails by them, with the aid 
of their wives aud children. The bellows employed 
are usually lightly loaded, so that a very small motion 
riven to them now and then will blow suliciently to 
heat the rods; two, three, or four of which, according 
to their size, are kept in the fire at once. 

Supposing the end of a rod to have been sufficiently 
heated in the fire, the nailor takes it out and proceeds 
to form the point of the nail. The anvil upon which 
he works is asmall cube of steel, with a surtace of but 
a few inches in extent, and is insertcd into a wrought or 
cast iron block weighing from one to two hundred- 
weight ; the whole of this larger mass being generally 
surrounded with stones and unbedded in smithy-slack, 
so that only the sinall anvil isseen. On this anvil, by 
a few strokes of a peculiarly shaped hammcr, the end 
of the rod is wrought so as to torm the point of the 
nail; and the next operation is to cut off a piece of the 
rod sufficient in length to form the nail. An upright 
chisel, called a hack-iron, is provided with a stop or 
check, fixed at acertain distance from its edge; so that 
the point of the rod being applied to this stop, and 
another part a little distance from it being made to 
rest on the edge of the chisel, a smgle blow cuts off a 
piece of iron of the required length for the nail, equal 
to the distance between the edge and the stop. The 
nail falls into a tin pan beneath; and if it be large, the 
rod requires a second heating before a second nail can 
be wrought from it; but ifsmall, the nailor can at once 
form a second nail before the rod becomes too far cold. 
He then returns the end of the rod to the fire; and 
while it is rcheating, he proceeds to form the head of 
the nail which he has just cut off. He cmploys for 
this purpose an instrument called a bore, consisting of 
a piece of strong iron, ten or twelve inches in length, 
near each end of which is a knob or swell of steel per- 
forated to the size of the shank or collar of the nail, 
and countersunk so as to correspond with the shape, 
size, and pattern of the head. By having dores with 
perforations of different kinds, the nailor 1s enabled to 
form nails with the various shaped heads. The bore, 
when out of the workman’s hand, 1s placed beside the 
anvil in two brackets ; and when he wants to use it, he 
takes up the nail with a pair of tweezers, and intro- 
ducing its point into one hole-of the bore, strikes a 
blow or two on the protruding end, by which a head is 
formed, receiving its shape from that of the counter- 
sunk hole. 

These apparently simple processes are conducted 
with surprising rapidity; as the nailors, by long prac- 
tice, acquire a mechanical habit of forming a compleie 
nail by a certain number of strokes, so as never in the 
course of an hour to make an unneccssary Movement. 
The extraordinary quickness which this mechanical 
habit engenders may be strikingly illustrated by an 
example which occurred a few years ago, and which 
was communicated to one of the public journals. A 
nailor undertook, for a trifling bet, to make seventcen 
thousand double flooring nails per week, tor two suc- 
cessive weeks; the nails weighing twenty pounds the 
thousand. The workman finished his first week's task 
by thrce o'clock on Saturday afternoon ; resumed his 
labour on Monday morning, and concluded his second 
week’s task with even more ease than the first. A 
curious analysis has been siven of the muscular excr- 
tion involved in this performance. “ Those who do 
not understand the nature of the work may form some 
idea of the undertaking when they are informed that 
the above quantity 1s allowed to be as much as three 
ordinary men can perform without difficulty; and that 
allowing twenty-five strokes of the hammer (which is 
two pounds weight) to each nail, including the cutting 
of the rods into a size convenient to be handled, and 
re-uniting them when too short, there were no less 


360 THE PENNY. 
than 1,033,656 strokes required before the task could 
be completed. In addition to this, the workman had 
to give from one to three blasts with his bellows for 
every nail he made,. had to supply the fire with fuel, 
and had to move from the fire-place to where the nails 
were made, and vice versd, upwards of 42,830 times.” 

The hammer used by the nailors is larger or smaller, 
according to the size of the nails to be formed; its 
usual form is the frustrum or large end of a cone, the 
smaller end being the face, which, instead of forming 
a horizontal plane, as in the case of an ordinary hain- 
mer, is inclined or sloped considerably towards the 
handle. The degree of this obliquity, the weight of 
the hammer-head, the size and shape of the handle, 
&c. are matters of nice consideration ; one nailor being 
rarely able to work comfortably with another man’s 
hammer; hence, wherever the workman may go, in his 
search for employment, he takes his hammer with him. 

The modes 1n which nails have been proposed to be 
produced by machinery are very various; but these 
are not so successful as was at first hoped for, princi- 
pally from this reason, that the hammering given to a 
nail in the common process of making imparts to the 
iron a degree of density and durability which it does 
not possess without that operation. One method pro- 
posed has been, to apply water-power to the working 
of the hammer, the other operations being performed 
as before described. Another method is, to have a die, 
or an impression of the nail to be cut, formed in one 
or more pieces of steel; the iron of which the nails are 
to be formed, being drawn or rolled into the proper 
form and thickness, is pressed by a mechanical force 
into the cavity of the die, so as to form the nails either 
complete, or so nearly complete that they could be 
finished with very little labour. A third method is, to 
have two steel rollers of equal diameter, one half the 
impress of the nail being cut in one roller, and one 
half in the other, whereby the two impressions form a 
cavity or die of the exact form of a nail; when the two 
surfaces are cut all over in this way, brought into con- 
tact, made to rotate, and a plate or rod of iron applied 
to them, the metal will be formed into a kind of sheet 
of nails, shghtly adhering one to another by edges 
which may easily be separated. These three methods 
are but representatives of numerous others, some of 
which have been patented, some have failed in pro- 
ducing the required results, while others have been 
wholly or partially acted on. 

A kind of nail which has come into extensive use in 
modern times is the cut brad, procured by cutting 
sharp pointed nails from a sheet of iron. The manner 
in which these were first made was this :—The iron was 
rolled out into large thin sheets, of the proper thick- 
ness to form a nail; this was cut up by strong shears 
into parallel strips or ribands, the width of which was 
equal to the length of the intended nails. From these 
slips the nails were cut off one by one by means of a 
fly-press; the cutting lines being alternately turned 
in opposite directions, so that the head of one nail was 
cut from the same edge of the slip or riband as the 
point of the next. The cutting apparatus consisted 
of two parts, one apphed beneath and the other above 
the slip of iron; the part beneath being a bar of steel 
set up edgewise, with one of the angles of its upper 
side ground to a sharp straight edge; and the part 
above being a kind of punch capable of vertical mo- 
tion. ‘The workman, seated before the press, held the 
handle of the fly-press in the right hand, and the slip 
of iron in the left; by pushing back the handle, the 
punch was raised; and after placing the slip upon the 
cutting edge, and drawing forward the handle, the 
pressure of the punch cut outa piece of iron in the 
form of a nail. A second series of similar movements 
cul out asecond nail, the slip of iron being first turned 


MAGAZINE. [SEPTEMBER 11, 


over, to bring the other side uppermost, by which the 
bar was at the second time cut with an inclination in 
an opposite direction to the former, so that the taper- 
ing form of the nail did not involve any loss of material, 
The manner in which this process may be modified by 
an improved application of mechanical power, so as to 
cut several nails at a time instead of one, may be con- 
ceived without much difficulty; and we need not 
therefore detail any elaborate methods actually in use. 

Nails furnish one among the many instances afforded 
in our manufactures, of the enormous extent to which 
an apparently trifling article influences the consump- 
tion of raw material. Besides the very large amount 
employed: for home consumption, there were, between 
the years 1821 and 1831, nearly four thousand tons of 
nails annually exported from England,—very nearly 
nine millions of pounds weight! 


Manners in Asia Minor.—The interest of our halt was 
greatly increased by our observing an almost uninterrupted train 
of cattle and people moving from the valleys to the cool places 
for the summer season—the yeedlassies. I was much struck by 
the simplicity and patriarchal appearance of the several fami- 
lies, which brought forcibly to mind the descriptions of pastoral 
life in Bible history. . .. In advance of the pastoral groups 
were the straggling goats, browsing on the fresh blossoms of the 
wild almond as they passed. In more steady courses followed 
the small black cattle, with their calves, and among them several 
asses, carrying in saddle-bags those calves that were too young 
to follow their watchful mothers. Then came the flocks of sheep 
and the camels, each with their young; two or three fine-grown 
camels bearing piled loads of ploughs, tent-poles, kettles, pans 
presses, and all the utensils for the dairy; and amidst this rustic 
load was always seen the rich Turkey carpet and damask cushions, 
the pride even of the tented Turk. Behind these portions of the 
train I must place, with more finish, the family—the foreground 
of my picture. An old man, and generally his wife, head the 
clan, which consists of several generations; many of them must 
have seen near fivescore summers on the mountains: the old 
man, grasping a long stick, leads his children with a firm step. 
His son, the master of the flocks, follows with his wife; she is 
often seated on a horse, with a child in her arms; and other 
horses are led, all clothed with the gay trappings of a Turkish 
steed. Asses are allotted to the younger children, who are placed 
amidst the domestic stores, aud never without a pet cat in their 
arms: long tresses of hair hang down their necks, and are kept 
closely to the head by a circlet of coins. By their side walks the 
eldest son, with all the air and alacrity of a young sportsman; 
over his shoulder hangs a long-barrelled gun, in his hand is the 
cage of a decoy partridge, and a classic-looking hound follows 
at his heels: a number of shepherd-boys mingle with the flocks 
and bring up the rear. The gay costume, the varied noises of 
the cattle, and the high glee attending the party on this annual 
expedition, must be supplied by the imagination. I should 
think that twenty families passed in succession during our halt, 
few of them having less than one hundred head of stock, and 
many had more. In some families, attendants, servants or 
farming-labourers, were among the cattle, generally with their 
aprons tied around them, in which they carried two or three 
young kids: they had often over their shoulders a small calf, 
with all its legs held together on the breast, exactly as seen in 
the offerings on the bas-reliefs at Xanthus and elsewhere. The 
longevity of the people in this pastoral country is very re- 
markable. Iam sure that we have seen at least twenty peasants 
within the last two days above a hundred years of age, and appa- 
rently still enjoying health and activity of body: in some in- 
staices the mind appeared wandering. An old-looking hag, 
screaming violently, seized my servant. Mania, and asked if he 
was come to take away her other child for a soldier; for if 
he were gone, she should have none left to take care of her. 
The temperate habits of the Turks, as well as some of their 
customs, may in part account for the prolongation of life in 
this country. One custom I may mention as tending to diminish 
the cares of age, and to show the excellence of these simple 
people. When sons grow up and marry, the father gives over to 
them his flocks and property, and trusts to the known and natural 
affection of his children to take care of him in his declining years: 


toa son his parents are always his first charge.—Fellows’s Second 
| Laxcursion in Asia Minor. 


1S41.] 





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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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Tumbler Pigeon 


At top, several varieties. 


THE DOMESTIC PIGEON. 


THis beautiful bird, which time immemorial has been 
reclaimed by man, is familiar to all. Its varieties are 
even more numerous than those of the comnion fowl; 
some of them are remarkable for their singularity of 
appearance, and others for their elegance. 

At what period man added the pigeon to the list of 
his domestic feathered retainers is not very clear; but 
that it was at avery remote cpoch is certain. We 
find references to if in the classical writers ; and we 
know that it was among the clean aninals according 
10 the law of Moses. In the East the dove or pigeon 
has always been regarded with favour ; and the expe- 


No. 607. 


dicnt of employing it as a carrier of letters or written 
messages was often practised: its rapidity of flight, 
its almost uncrring instinct in finding its way home, 
and the eagerness with which it returns to its dwelling, 
recommending it for such a use. 

But before noticing the habits and manners of our 
domestic pigeon, we ought to glance at its origin ; 
and this the rather as the point has been involved in 
no little confusion. ; 

In Europe we have the following wild species of 
the genus Columba: the Ringdove, Cushat, or Queest 
(Columba Palumbus) ; the Stockdove (Columba AGnas) 5 
the Rockdove (Columba livia); and the Turtle-dove 
(Columba Turtur). 


VoL. X.—3 A 


362 fly wide) gal yl 

The Ringdove is the largest of our wild pigcons, 
and is common in the wooded districts of our island, 
as well as of the greater portion of Europe. In the 
winter it assembles in numerous flocks, which resort 
to the stubble-lands in quest of food. It devours all 
kinds of grain, peas, beech-mast, acorns, berries, and 
the green Icaves of the turnip. During this season ot 
the year its numbers are often increased by the arrival 
of flocks from the more northern parts of Europe ;’ 
but in our island, and in France and the southern 
countries, it is not migratory. No naturalist has re- 
garded the ringdove as identical with the domestic 
pigeon. Its mode of building its nest, a flat platform 
of twigs laid crossways on the fork of a branch—its 
sizc—its rcfusal when in captivity to breed with the 
pigeon—and the failure of every attempt to reduce it 
to a state of domestication,—are of themselves, setting 
aside colouring, sufficient proofs of specific distinct- 
ness. 

Still more remote from the common pigeon is the 
Turtle-dove, a bird of passage, and one of the spring 
visitors to our shores, ‘‘ when flowers appear on the 
earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come.” 
In September the turtle leaves our shores for a warmer 
clirnate. Colour, size, and habits clearly separate the 
turtle from the pigeon. We have then two other spe- 
cies, the Stockdove and the Rockdove. 

The Stockdove derives its name from being, as was 
presumed, but erroneously, the stock to which the 
common pigeon is referrible. This error arose, no 
doubt, from our early ornithologists having confounded 
the stockdove with the rockdove, and so mixed up the 
history of both. Montague, in his ‘ Dictionary of Or- 
nithology,’ confounds these birds together, decming 
the Columba livia and the C. @nas to be identical. His 
description however refers to the C. /zvia (Rockdove) ; 
and it would seem that he was unacquainted with the 
true C. @nas. 

White, in his ‘ History of Selborne,’ well distin- 
guishes the stockdove, and the “small hlue rock- 
pigeon ;” observing, that “unless the stockdove in 
winter greatly varies from itself in summer, no specics 
seems more unlikely to be domesticated and to make 
a house-dove. We very rarely see the latter settle on 
trees at all, nor does it ever haunt the woods; but the 
former, as long as it stays with us, from November 
perhaps to February, lives the same wild life with the 
ringdove; frequents coppices and groves, supports 
itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the 
tallest beeches. Could it be known in what manner 
the stockdoves build, the doubt would be settled with 
me at once, provided they construct their nests on 
trees, like the ringdove, as I much suspect they do.” 

From this it appears that White had only a partial 
degree of information respecting the stockdove. This 
bird is indigenous in our island, breeding in the 
woods; but its localities are circumscribed. In winter 
the flocks are increased by accessions from the north- 
ern provinces of Europe; but these visitants depart in 
spring. The same circumstances occur in the instance 
of many other birds: as the thrush and the lark, of 
which our native flocks are joined in winter by arrivals 
from higher latitudes. 

In our island the stockdove limits its range almost 
exclusively to the midland counties, and is common in 
Hertfordshire. It is rarely seen in the southcrn or 
western counties, and still more rarely inthe northern. 
This bird makes an artificial nest of twigs in the holes 
of decayed and timeworn trees, and im cavitics on the 
top of pollards, but never places it on the forked or 
spreading branches of a tree. As is the case with all 
the dove tribe, its eggs are two in number. 

The stockdove is not only found in Europe, but in 


the northern provinces of Africa, and in various parts | 


MAGAZINE. 


of Asia. We have seen specimens from the neigh- 
bourhood of Trebizond and Erzerum, where it is said 
to be common. 

In a ‘ Catalogue of the Birds of the Dukhun,’ by 
Colonel Sykes, is included the stockdove. We are 1n- 
formed that the Mahrattas term it Parwa. It 1s “ the 
most common bird in the Dukhun, congregating in 
flocks of scores, and a constant inhabitant of every old 
dilapidated building.” Coloncl Sykes saw the same 
species, on board ship on the voyage to England, 
brought from China. 

Some differences in the colouring noticed by Colonel 
Sykes, taken in conjunction with his statement that it 
inhabits old dilapidated buildings, induce a suspicion 
that the Dukhun stockdove differs specifically from 
that of Europe and Western Asia. The stockdove in 
Icurope is a tenant of the woods. 

Selby thus dctails the colours of the stockdove : 
‘‘ Head and throat deep bluish grey ; sides of the neck 
glossed, with different shades of green and purple; the 
feathers shorter and more distinct than those of the 
rockdove; lower parts of the neck and breast pale 
lavender purple ; belly, thighs, and under tail-coverts 
bluish grey, with a slight purplish tinge; back deep 
bluish grey; wing-coverts paler, and some of the greater 
ones spotted and barred with black, but not forming any 
defined bar as in the above-mentioned species. Quills 
blackish grey, the outer webs near the base of the fea- 
thers passing into bluish grey; lower part of the back 
and tail-coverts bluish grcy; tail bluish grey, with a 
broad black bar at thc end, and having the outermost 
feather margined with white; iris brownish red; legs 
and toes bright cochineal-red.” 

As we have already stated, the stockdove has been 
confounded with the rockdove, and the characters of 
the latter have been consequently given as those of the 
former. The rockdove, however, is a totally distinct 
species, and its habits are unlike those of any other of 
our Columhbee. As its name imports, it frequents rocks 
and precipices, especially along the sea-coast, and is 
far from being uncommon. It is partial to deep 
caverns, in which it breeds. Jt haunts the caves in the 
cliff at St. Abb’s Head, on the Berwickshire coast ; 
those in the Isle of Bass; of Caldy Island, South 
Wales; and of the wild precipices of the Orkneys. 
We have seen it frequenting the steeples of churches 
near the coast, and have remarked numbers inhabiting 
the holes and crevices in the higher parts of Cantcr- 
bury Cathedral. In the latter instances it may be said 
that the birds are merely the emancipated descendants 
of our domestic breed. If so, with their freedom 
they have regained their genuine colours in most in- 
stances. 

We have seen many specimens from Northern Africa 
and Western Asia. Selby states that 1t 1s numerous in 
the rocky islands of the Mediterranean, where it lives 
and breeds in caverns on the shore; and is cqually 
abundant in the north of Africa, especially in the 
island of Tencriffe, where it is met with in incredible 
numbers, 

The rockdove is more slender than the stockdove, 
and 1s astonishingly rapid in flight. It may at once be 
distinguished from the latter by the white colour of the 
lower part of the back, and the two distinct bands of 
leaden-black across the wings. These distinctive marks 
are found in our ordinary dovecote pigeons; and 
when in the fancy kinds they become, by the breeder's 
art, umperceptible, they are ever ready to return, and 
hence one of the difficulties of keeping up a particular 
fancy stock. It is, then, to the rockdove, a spccies 
almost universally spread in its wild state throughout 
the Old World, that the domestic pigeon and its va- 
rieties must be referred. All these varieties breed 
with each other, and with the wild rockdove; and 


[SEPTEMBER 18, 


1841.) 


without due care, all soon degenerate, as it is termed, 
and acquire the original form and colouring. 

Many of our varieties are very beautiful, and they 
all present peculiarities of manner and flight, well 
known to those who take pleasure in them. The 
Carrier, originally from the East, is distinguished by a 
long bill, with large fleshy caruncles at the base, and 
a naked space round the eye; the colour is either 
black or blue. This variety possesses great powers of 
flight: having mounted to a considerable elevation, 
it directs its course in a straight line toa great distance, 
and then returns home. We had once a pair, purchased 
from a breeder, which, on first being let out of the 
pigeon-house, where they had been confined for about 
a fortnight, flew in a direct line till out of sight: we 
supposed them lost; in about four hours, however, 
they returned, and settled upon their domicile, which 
they had, till that day, never before quitted. | 

The Twnbler is distinguished by flying in circles and 
throwing itself over backwards, so as to perform a 
sommerset in the air: before settling, this evolution is 
often performed several times in succession. A flock 
of tumblers in exercise is a very pretty spectacle. 

The Fantail is distinguished by the arrangement of 
the tail-feathers like those of a fowl: their number is 
often sixteen or eighteen. This varicty is usually 
white. The males have a peculiarly vibratory motion 
of the neck, and walk very elegantly. As respects 


powers of flight, this variety is very inferior. 


The elevated figure, feathered legs, and distended 
crop of the Pouter, render him conspicuous—not ele- 
eant. The Jacobin isasmall pigeon, mostly of a rusty- 
yellow, with a frill of reverted feathers down each side 
of the neck to the chest. 

The Nun is a beautiful variety of a pure white, ex- 
cepting the head, quill-feathers, and tail, which are 
black. We might thus proceed to a great length in 
the mere enumeration of varieties, of which there are 
at least five and tweuty distinguished by their pecu- 
hharities; but we will pass on to consider one re- 
markable character of the pigeon, before alluded to— 
its instinctive mode of discovering its own abode, and 
return to it, when carried to a great distance away. It 
is evident to all conversant with the pigeon, that it has 


the strongest affection for its own home—an instinctive | 


Nostalgia, which in old birds can scarcely be eradicated 
by time ; confined for weeks or months—on gaining 
their liberty, off they fly to the “ old familiar spot,” and 
if taken away again, still return on the first oppor- 
tunity. Young birds are much more easily reconciled 
to a change of tenement, and soon learn to regard the 
new place as their own. It 1s this desire—this longing 
for home, which impels the pigeon carried to a dis- 
tant spot and turned loose, to attempt to regain it; and 
regain it the bird does, at least in general; but the 
query arises—how does it know in what direction its 
home hes? how does it know which way to direct its 
rapid course? If the distance be short, we can easily 
conceive that the bird making wide circles at a great 
elevation may at one part of the circle discern some 
known object, which will at once indicate the direction 
to be followed. A circle of three or four miles would 
give the bird the command of a very wide extent of 
country; and a tall object, as a spire, previously 
visited voluntarily, or seen from its abode, would afford 
the desired clue. This perhaps may account in ordi- 
nary cases for the return of the pigeon to its home; 
but it will not account for the return of the bird from 
ereat distances. We hear of pigeons being brought 
from towns on the Continent, as Brussels, &c., and set 
at liberty in London; and of their return in a compa- 
ratively short space of time, few of the number failing 
to find their way. ‘Trials of this kind have been often 
repeated; and unless the weather proves misty, or fogs 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


363 


hang over the sea, the birds cross the Channel safely, 
and regain their home. That they are sometimes dis- 
persed and lost in foggy weather proves that they use 
their sight in pursuing their homeward course, but 
still the difficulty remains—how is that course deter- 
mined? The same difficulty meets us in the migration 
of the swallow. Its winter abode is Western Africa. 
It finds its way to the African shores, and returns again 
to Europe: but-what is more, the same pair will steer - 
not only for England, but for the very chimney or 
barn which they habitually tenant as their summer 
breeding-place ; and it is probable that they visit a 
determinate spot in Africa. Itis one of the facts in 
natural history, which we must be content to leave un- 
explained. 

The habits of the domestic pigeon are too well 

known to need detailing. The wild rockdove, which, 
like its tame relatives, pairs with a single mate, and 
contracts a permanent union, breeds twice or thrice a 
year; the domestic race, however, breed oftener; and 
the male and female relieve each other in the weari- 
some duty of incubation. At this epoch the crop of 
both becomes highly vascular, and secretes from cer- 
tain glandular follicles dispersed over it a white milky 
fluid in great abundance. It is with this fluid that the 
newly hatched young are fed for the first three days 
exclusively ; afterwards the usual grain is added; and 
less and less given of the milky secretion, which is 
Suppressed by the eighth day, counting from the time 
of hatching. The flesh of all the pigeon tribe is excel- 
lent, and that of young birds of the domestic stock is in 
high estimation. 
_ The following pigeons and varieties are represented 
in the engraving: the Ringdove, the Rock-pigeon, 
(var.), the Carrier, the Jacobin, the Nun, the Pouter, 
the Tumbler, and the Fantail. 


FEATHERS—THEIR NATURE AND USES. 
[Concluded from p. 359.] 
WE now proceed to notice the manner in which feathers 
are prepared as decorations for the head. The plu- 
masster 18 the operator who undertakes this preparation. 
As the ostrich-feather is one of the most valuable of 
the feathers employed in this way, a notice of the mode 
im which it is prepared will serve as a general repre- 
sentative of the whole; but the mode of procuring the 
feathers must be first briefly noticed. 

One of the most remarkable points in the African 
ostrich is the beauty of the plumage, particularly of 
the long feathers that compose the wings and the tail. 
It is chiefly to obtain these feathers than man_has been 
so active in the pursuit of these birds. The feathers 
Were prized centuries ago, for the ancients used them 
as ornaments for their helmets. At the present day the 
ostrich-feather 1s deemed an article of luxury, as well 
in the East as in Europe; and the Arabs of the desert 
are uicited to the pursuit of the birds for the profit 
derived from the feathers. An ostrich in actual motion 
can outrun the fieetest horse, but the Arabs succeed in 
catching them bya well-concerted plan. The Arab, 
mounted on a horse trained for the purpose, gives chase 
to an ostrich which he may chance to see in the desert, 
and manages to keep him constantly in view, taking 
care not to push him so close as to make him escape to 
the mountains, but at the same time so as to prevent 
him from taking food. This is the more readily effected, 
as the bird takes its course ina wavering and circuitous 
direction, which is greatly shortened by the hunter, 
who comes upon him by a direct path. Thus they 
continue two or three days, the hunters relieving each 
other by turns, until the ostrich becomes exhausted by 
fatigue and famine, when he is killed with clibs b 
the hunters, who are careful not to soil the feathers 


| with the blood of the poor animal. The feathers, for 


3A2 


364 


the obtaining of which this hard chase is run, are 
plucked from the bird, and made an article of com- 
merce. On their being brought to England, a duty of 
ten shillings per pound is paid on them in the un- 
dressed state; and if imported after dressing or pre- 
paration, the duty 1s much higher. 

The feathers are assorted into various classes, ac- 
cording to their quality. Those taken from the back 
and above the wings are deemed the best ; those from 
the wings are ranked next; while those from the tail 
are ranked as least valuable. The finest white feathers 
of the female ostrich generally have their ends a little 
greyish, which lessens their lustre, and renders them 
rather less valuable than those of the male. The os- 
trich-down, which is black in the male and grey in the 
female, is merely the feathers of the other parts of the 
body, varying from four to fourteen inches in length. 

According to the account of Dr. Ure, in his new 
Dictionary, the mode of preparing the feathers for use 
is as follows :—Four ounces of white soap, cut small, 
are dissolved in four pounds of water, moderately hot, 
in a large basin, and the solution 1s made into a lather 
by beating with rods. Two bundles of the feathers, 
tied with packthread, are then introduced, and are 
rubbed well with the hands for five or six minutes. 
After this soaping they are washed in clear water as 
hot as the hand can bear. The feathers bemg thus 
brought to a clean state, they undergo three successive 
processes, for the purpose of whitening or bleaching 
them. In the first place they are immersed in hot 
water mixed with Spanish white, and well agitated in 
it; after which they are washed in three successive 
waters. In the next place they are azgured by being 
passed quickly through a bath of cold water contain- 
ing a little indigo tied up ina fine cloth. Lastly, they 
are sulphured, in the same way as straw hats are done ; 
a process, one mode of performing which is as follows: 
—A cask, open at both ends, with its seams papered, 
is set upright a few inches from the ground, having a 
hoop nailed to its inside about six inches beneath the 
top, to support another hoop with a net stretched 
across 1t, on which the straw or the feathers are laid. 
The cask having been covered with a tight overlap- 
ping lid stuffed with lists of cloth, a brazier of burn- 
ing charcoal is inserted within the bottom, and an iron 
dish containing pieces of brimstone is put upon the 
brazier. The brimstone soon takes fire, and fills the 
cask with sulphurous acid gas, whereby the straw 
or the feathers become bleached in the course of three 
or four hours. Sulphuring chests are often used 
instead of this simple apparatus, but the principle of 
action is the same. 

The feathers, having been bleached in some such way 
as this, are dried by being hung upon cords, the fibres 
being opened by shaking at intervals. The ribs are 
then scraped with a bit of glass cut circularly, in order 
to render them very plant; and the filaments are 
made to assume the curly form so much admired, by 
drawing the edge of a blunt knife over them. Those 
which are of a dingy colour are died black by a strong 
decoction of logwood aided by copperas. Feathers, 
from whatever bird they may be taken, are dyed by 
the aid of ingredients similar to those employed in 
other departments of dyeing. A rose-colour or pink 
is given by safflower and lemon-juice ; a deep red bya 
decoction of Brazil-wood ; a crimson by a similar dye, 
followed by a decoction of cudbear; blue by indigo ; 
yellow by turmeric or weld; &c. After all such pro- 
cesses of dyeing, the feathers are well cleansed, rinsed, 
and dried. 2 

We must now pass on to give a brief notice of the 
employment of feathers as a stuffing for beds. To 
what period we may trace the first application of 
feathers to this purpose is not easily determined, The 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(SEPTEMBER 18, 


ruder nations of antiquity probably slept at night on 
the skins which formed their clothing by day; and in 
process of time these skins were replaced, as a mate- 
rial for a bed, by loose rushes, heath, straw, &c. Bed- 
cases or ticks, filled with chaff, heath, or straw, were 
used by the English gentry five or six centuries ago. 
But it appears by a statute passed in the reign of 
Henry VII1., that feather-beds were then commonly in 
use 1n England; for certain precautions are therein 
ordered to be taken as to the feathers selected, for 1n- 
stance, no feather-beds were to be sold if any scalded 
feathers were mixed with the dry-pulled feathers ; 
no down-beds, if fen-down was mixed with clean 
down; no beds; mattresses, or cushions, if stuffed with 
horse-hair, goat’s hair, or neat’s hair. The reason 
assigned for these prohibitions was, that scalded fea- 
thers and fen-down (down obtained from geese reared 
in the fens of Lincolnshire) and animal hair were pre- 
judicial to the health of his majesty’s liege subjects.. 

Goose feathers are usually assorted into white and 
grey, the former bearing a higher market-price than 
the latter. Those feathers known as “ poultry feathers,” 
such as those obtained from turkeys, ducks, and fowls, 
are of lower value; not from any deficiency in the 
quality of softness, but because their elasticity is not 
equal to that of goose feathers. The feathers of the 
wild-duck are said to be both soft and elastic; but the 
disagreeable odour of the 011 contained in them is so 
retentive that it is with difficulty removed. A small 
quantity of hme mixed with the feathers tends to their 
preservation, by combining with the oil which they 
contain, and also by preventing the putrefaction of the 
small portions of animal fibre which occasionally 
adhere to them. 

As an example of the mode in which feathers are 
cleaned for beds, we may give the following, for which 
the Society of Arts awarded a premium some years 
azo :—Quicklime and clean water are mixed together, 
in the proportion of one pound of lime to every 
eallon of water; and when the undissolved lime is 
precipitated in fine powder, the clean lime-water is 
poured off for use. The feathers which are to be 
cleaned are put into a tub, and the lime-water is added 
to the depth of three inches, in which the feathers are 
well steeped and stirred. After remaining in this state 
three or four days, the feathers are taken out of the foul 
water, laid on a sleve to drain, washed in clean water, 
and then laid upon nets similar to cabbage-nets, where 
they are left to dry. While lying on the nets, the fea- 
thers are shaken from time to time, to aid the admis- 
sion of air, by which the drying is effected. The final 
process is to beat them, by which the dust is separated 
from them. 

We may here remark that the down spoken of above, 
and which has become a kind of symbol of softness, is 
the assemblage of very fine feathers taken from the 
breasts of birds. Of these the most valuable is that 
obtained from the eider-duck. The birds pluck it 
from their breasts, and line their nests with it; and 
the down obtained in this way, called live-down, is 
more valuable, because more elastic, than the dead- 
down plucked from the animal when dead. In Iceland 
and Norway this kind of stuffing for beds 1s very much 
used, and is spoken of by travellers as forming one of 
the most delightful of all beds. Generally the sleeper 
hes on one bed, and has another, made rather thin, 
placed on him, in lieu of what we should term bed- 
clothes. The down, from its great lightness, does not 
produce any-inconvenient pressure on the body; while 
from its being such a non-conductor of heat, the 
natural warmth of the body is not abstracted during 
sleep, however rigorous may be the temperature of the 
room. 





1841.] 


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THE DANUBE. 
{Concluded from page 351.) 


Near Vienna a great change takes place in the ap- 
pearance of the river. The rocks through which it has 
so long been compelled to find a tortuous passage dis- 
appear ; the mountains recede, leaving on both sides a 
considerable plain; and the chafed and troubled waters, 
sinking into comparative rest, divide and playfully 
wind through innumerable channels, and round many 
a pleasant island they have thus formed. It is, however, 
still so rapid that it can only be navigated agreeably 
and economically in its downward course. In its pas- 
sage into the kingdom of Hungary, between Haimburg 
and Presburg, it 1s skirted by the Leitha range of the 
Noric Alps on the right, and by the lesser Carpathian 
mountains on the left. From hence steam-vessels 
frequently meet the eye passing to and fro betwixt 
Vienna and Constantinople. The imhabitants of Pres- 
burg, the once flourishing capital of Hungary, hope 
much from the imtroduction of steam on the Danube. 
This antient town 1s finely situated on a hill command- 
ing an extensive view over the plain watered by the 
ereat river, which is here crossed by a bridge of boats 
three hundred and sixty-five paces in length. Although 
Ofen or Buda is now the seat of government, the king 
is still crowned at Presburg, and the ceremony 1s fol- 
lowed by a very peculiar custom:—As soon as the 
monarch is crowned in the cathedral, he rides to an 
artificial hill or mound of inconsiderable height, and 
brandishing his sword towards each of the four cardinal 

oints, thereby intimates to the world that he will de- 
end the kingdom against its enemies from whatever 
quarter they may come. From Presburg to Comorn, 
the Danube flows through two channels (the northern 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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receiving the river Waag, and the southern the Raab), — 
which enclose the island of Schutt, measuring not less 
than fifty miles in length, and from four to nine:in 
breadth. At the eastern end of the island the channels 
unite, and then pursue their course between the moun- 
tains of the Bakony forest, and the base of those of the 
Carpathian range. At the point of junction of the 
channels, and immediately opposite the afflux of the 
Waag into the Danube, is the royal free town and 
maiden fortress of Comorn. The latter promises long 
to maintain its virgin reputation, if we may judge of its 
fate by the strength of its fortifications. The fortress 
was built by Mathias Corvinus, king of Hungary; it is 
defended by extensive works and tétes-de-pont on both 
banks; and the great original strength of the place has 
been still further enhanced by the additional works 
erected in the present century. Comorn, like Presburg, 
has a bridge of boats; 1t has in addition a flying bridge. 
At Gran, like Comorn, a royal free town, we find an- 
other strong fortress, standing on a rocky island in the 
river, which has undergone several sieges. We now 
pass rapidly on to the more interesting parts of the 
Danube, namely, the portion lying between Pesth and 
Vidin or Widdin.  Pesth, the most distinguished city 
of Hungary both for commerce and population, is on 
the left bank, and immediately opposite, on the other 
side of the river, is the city of Ofen or Buda. The two 
places are connected by a bridge of forty-seven large 
boats, united by chains, and floored with planks, one 
thousand five hundred paces long. Pesth looks pic- 
turesque from the Danube, being for the most part 
well built, and enjoying so pleasant a site. Buda is 
nearly as populous as Pesth, and still more romantic in 
in its appearance. It is said to derive its name from a 


366 


brother of Attila, who made it his place of residence, 
ad greatly unproved it. Jt is built round the Schloss- 
berg mountain, in the midst of a hilly and beautiful 
country, encircled on three sides by vineyards and 
forests. The central part of Buda is enclosed within 
what is called the fortress, and, rising on all sides round 
the acclivities of the Schlossberg, is defended at the ioot 
of the latter by walls and bastions. The fortress contains 
a royal and several other palaces, two large churches, 
various great public edifices, and several handsome 
squares. Near the Schlossberg rises a much higher 
rock called the Blocksberg, on which 1s an observatory. 
Leaving Buda and Pesth, one is struck by the curious 
flour-mills of the Danube, which consist of a wooden 
house erected in a large unwieldy boat moored near to 
the most rapid part of the stream. Parallel to this, 
and only a few paces distant, is fixed a smaller boat; 
the heads of both being directed down the stream. 
Between them is suspended a water-wheel, which of 
course revolves rapidly with the flow of the river. 
Ten or twenty of these are sometiines found in succes- 
sion. Not far from Pesth we pass the large island of 
Ratoykovi, sprinkled with neat and prosperous look- 
ing villages, and clothed with luxurious forests, On 
the right extends one of those apparently boundless 
plains which are so striking a geographical feature 
of Hungary. Beyond this extensive tract of pasture- 
land, with its large flocks of sheep and droves of oxen, 
appear vineyards on every side, separated by hedges 
teeming with the blossoms of the hlac and barberry. 
Tobacco also is largely grown, and a small quan- 
tity of saffron. Passengers by the steam-boats find 
great amusement in noticing the manners and costume 
of the Hungarian peasantry drawn to the banks by the 
attraction of the new wonder of navigation. Both 
men and women are well looking. The former are 
hghtly clad in shirts, waistcoats, and loose trowsers, all 
made of coarse canvas, and ihe trowsers in particular 
looking at a little distance like petticoats. Sandals 


defend their feet; the legs are stockingless. As to 
the women, they do not even wear the sandals. Their 


head-dress consists simply of a bluc handkerchief tied 
under the chin; their gowns are of blue, red, or green 
calico; and a profusion of different coloured necklaces 
of glass or coral complete the picture. 

Mohacs, an insignificant village, is only of interest 
as being the scene of a great battle fought between 
the Hungarians under Louis IJ. and the Turks com- 
mande<d by the great Solyman, where the former were 
defeated with great slaughter, and their king iniserably 
perished in endeavouring to escape. His horse fell 
back whilst crossing a deep marsh, and the unfortunate 
monarch, loaded with heavy armour, was suffocated. 
From Mohacs the scenery of the Danube is for some 
distance comparatively insipid and uninteresting, but 
as we approach Peterwardein it improves, and we find 
upon our right undulating and forest-clad hills, vil- 
lages prettily situated on the minor eminences, and 
church spires issuing from masses of green foliage, 
and ‘ pointing with silent finger unto Heaven.” Peter- 
wardein is the frontier and principal fortress of Sla- 
vonia, the territory into which we are advancing, and 
from its strength and situation has been designated the 
Gibraltar of Hungary. It stands at one of the angles 
which the Danube is so fond of making, and on the 
right bank. The upper fortress and the horn-work 
appear on a rock isolated on three sides, and the lower, 
Which includes the town, at its northern foot or base. 
The waters of the Danube wash the walls on the west 
and south sides. It possesses a well, excavated right 
through the rock down to a spot lower than the 
Danube ; it is defended on the only accessible side by 
very broad and deep moats ; and is so large that a gar- 


rison of ten thousand men can be accommodated within | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[SEPTEMBER 18, 


its walls. A bridge of boats over the Danube, which is 
here seven hundred feet wide, and from fifty to sixty 
deep, connects Peterwardein with the opposite town of 
Neusatz. Near Semlin, the next place of any im- 
portance, was fought the decisive battle of Salanke- 
ment, between the grand-vizier of Achmet, the brother 
and successor of Solyman, (a poet and musician as well 
as a monarch), who commanded the Turkish army, and 
Prince Lewis of Baden, who led the Imperialists. The 
result was the defeat of the Turks, with the loss of 
twenty-five thousand men, one hundred and fifty-four 
pieces of cannon, ten thousand tents, innumerable 
camels, mules, and other beasts of burden, and many 
chests of silver and copper money. A place still more 
distinguished in military annals next meets our gaze-— 
Belgrade, with its splendid mosques, tall minarets, domes, 
eardens, and cypress-groves. It stands in a most noble 
situation, where the waters of the Save and the Danube 
join. ‘* These two majestic streams, blending their 
waters at this point, expand into what might be mis- 
taken for the ocean itself, and the spot where the Save 
pours itself into the queen of European rivers 1s clearly 
perceptible from the diversity of the tints.”"* Bel- 
gerade was founded by the Romans, afterwards de- 
stroyed by the barbarians, and then rebuilt by Jus- 
tinian. The citadel is a commanding object, standing 
as it does ona steep hill one hundred feet high, and 
jutting out inio the waters of the Danube. This is the 
source of many a Turkish atrocity towards Christian 
captives. Rhigas the Greek was here sawed asunder 
limb by limb; and so late as 1815, thirty-six unhappy 
Servians were impaled alive, in violation of a pledge 
piven as to their safety. Belgrade is the seat of a pasha 
of three tails, and of the only garrison that the Turks, 
in pursuance of thelr treaty with the Servians, can 
maintain in the country. The immense fortifications 
are now fast mouldering away. The history of Bele 
erade is too full of great events for us to attempt even 
a bare enumeration of them, so we prefer occupying 
our space with a brief glimpse of the very interesting 
town. This is composed partly of “ lines of modern 
houses, but in general of rows of wooden stalls, in 
which the owner arranges his merchandise with no 
small degree of taste, and parades his customers, sur- 
rounded by his workmen intent upon their several 
tasks. The barber and coffee-vender alone carry on 
their trade in closed shops, and enjoy the luxury of 
elazed windows. ‘To any traveller fresh from Western 
iurope the motley pepulation of this town is a novel 
and highly interesting scene; the tailor and the gun- 
sinith, the baker and the victualler, by their white tur- 
bans, sallow sombre faces, and haughty mien, will be 
instantly recognised as Turks; the red cap, sharp eye, 
and insinuating manners of the merchant and dealer 
betray their Greek extraction ; and the merry coun- 
tenance of the shopkeeper smirks beneath the round 
close bonnet of the native Servian.” > 

At no great distance from Belgrade we find the 
commencement of several groups of islands, densely 
covered with osicrs and evergreen shrubs, and peopled 
with many varieties of water-fowl. Some of these are 
exceedingly beautiful. The variety of their forms, 
their numerous inlets, their clusters of magnificent 
shrubs hung with flowers, among which one might 
fancy we perceive some of the sweetest and most bril- 
hant of our English hedgerows and gardens, the deep 
solitude interrupted only by the screams or occasional 
flight of strange-looking birds, all make up a scene on 
which the voyager delights to dwell. From hence “a 
field of Indian corn, hills deeply indented by the rains, 
and exhibiting sometimes the appearance of arti- 
ficial fortresses, sometimes retiring to a distance 

* Frickel’s ‘ Pedestrian Tour.’ 
+ *Penny Cyclopeedia,’ article § Belgrade,’ vol. iy. 


1841.) 


and leaving in front abrupt mounds of the most 
fantastic shapes; villages with thei churches and 
steeples on one side, and churches and minarets 
on the other; Serviaus on our right fishing in little 
cockle-shells of boats; Hungarians on the left tending 
herds of swine; mountains towering in the distance ;”* 
—engage our attention until we reach Moldava. A 
hitle below this town recommences the mountainous 
scenery of the Danube, and at the very entrance of the 
rocky gorge through which the river finds its course 
are the ruins of Kolubatz, occupied about a century 
azo by a band of Wallachian brigands. On emerging 
from this part, the rapids of the Danube are before us. 
The bed of the river is here wholly composed of rough 
rocks, sometimes starting up in masses nearly to the 
surface of the water, sometimes forming a wall across 
it from bank to bank. Passing over unnoticed many 
interesting places, and much beautiful and sublime 
scenery, we hasten to the Iron Gate of the Danube, a 
spot that, taken altogether, is perhaps the most remark- 
able feature of the river. ‘This is ascries of rapids, 
extending through a narrow valley formed on the north 
by the Banat range, -an offset of the Transylvanian 
Carpathians, and on the south by a lateral range of 
Mount Balkan. The name is probably derived from 
the extreme difficulty of the passage, and from the fer- 
ruginous colour of the rocks, which occupy the entire 
bed of the Danube for nearly three miles. The rocks 
are exceedingly rough in their appearance, tumbled 
about in every kind of form and position, and, when 
the waters are low, have a very terrific appearance : 
Mr. Quin likens them to the gaping jaws of some in- 
fernal monster. When the Danubc is at its ordinary 
Jevel, the roar of the waters as they hurry through the 
Jron Gate is heard for many miles round. Vessels of 
a low draught may descend the rapids, but to ascend 
them isa matter of great difficulty ; here therefore occurs 
the only obstruction toa water communication between 
Hungary and Turkey. The mountains which form the 
sides of this most extraordinary valley have an interest 
of another, but scarcely less absorbing kind. Roman 
antiquities of an important character are found there 
and in the neighbourhood ; roads, bridges, &c. with 
inscriptions still readible. The most important of these 
are a road and bridge, both attributed to the Roman 
emperor Trajan. The former was constructed as a 
tracking-path along the Servian side of the Iron Gate. 
At the lower part of the passage an ancient corridor is 
cut in the rock; at the upper, huge mortice holes are 
let in for the insertion of beams, on which the corridor 
was borne along its face. A large inscription still 
legible gives the honour of this great work to Trajan. 
A recent traveller whose MSS. are quoted by a writer 
in the ‘ Quarterly Review’ (No. 108), says, ‘ Never did 
I more strongly feel the greatness of that wonderful 
people, than when, on sailing down the Danube, [I first 
observed the traces and comprehended the object to 
which this work was destined. .... Here was the 
evidence of the accomplishment by the Romans, 
although scarcely an indication of it remains in Roman 
authors, of an enterprise which is now universall 

admitted to be one of the most important for the public 
welfare of IXurope.” Mr. Quin took some pains to 
trace the exact site of the famous bridge across the 
Danube, and, it appears, with success. He found on the 
Wallachian bank an ancient tower of Roman construc- 
tion, built on an eminence ; and looking down the river, 
he distinctly observed the water curling over a series 
of impediments extending from bank to bank. At both 
extremities of the line thus formed, he found the 
remains of square pillars, and a ruin on one side 
appeared to him to have been the buttress of the first 
arch of the bridge. Of the cuts at the head of these 


* Mr. Quin’s ‘Steam Voyage.’ 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


367 


articles, the first represents a scene near the celebrated 
strudel and. Wirbel, the other two scenes lower down 
the river. 

At the fron Gate the Danube quits the Austrian 
dominions and enters those of Turkey. The country on 
the south continues for some time mountainous, then 
hilly, and by degrees sinks into a plain; on the north 
is the great level of Wallachia. In its course towards 
the Black Sea, the Danube divides frequently, forming 
numerous islands, especially below Silistria. Its width 
where undivided now generally averages from 1500 to 
2000 yards, and its depth above 20 feet. Before reach- 
Ing 1is mouth, several large rivers flow into it, as the 
Alt, Sereth, and Pruth. On its junction with the last- 
mentioned river it divides into several branches, which 
do not again unite, and it at last terminates its long 
course by issuing through seven several mouths into 
the Black Sea, 


THE EDIBLE BIRDS’ NESTS OF THE 
KASTERN ISLANDS. 
THERE 1s an article of extensive commerce in the 
islands of the Eastern archipelago, which, from its very 
unusual character, considered in reference to Euro- 
pean habits, is worthy of a bricf notice. We mean 
birds’ nests as an article of food. 

In Java and other Eastern islands a bird called the 
ITirundo nidis edulibus, a species of swallow, forms its 
nest of a substance which is catable, and which is much 
prized by the higher classes in China. The nature of 
this substance has been the subject of much contro- 
versy among the Europeans who have had an oppor- 
tunity of inspecting it, and among whom are Sir Stam- 
ford Raffles, Captain Forrest, Mr. Crawfurd, and M. 
Hogendorp. Captain Forrest states,—‘“ The bird with 
an edible nest is called Jaimatani by the natives of the 
Moluccas, and Leyang-layang by the Malays. It is 
black as jet, and very much lke a martin, but con- 
siderably smaller. Its nests, which the Malays call 
sarang, are found in caves, and generally in those to 
which the sea has access; and as they are built in rows 
ol. perpendicular rocks, from which the young birds 
frequently fall, those caves are frequented by fish, and 
often by snakes, who are hunting for prey. The nests 
are made of a slimy gelatinous substance found on the 
shore, of the sea-weed called agal-agal, and of a soft 
greenish sizy matter often seen on rocks in the shade 
when the water oozes from above.” Sir Stamford 
Raffles states however, that from observations which 
have been made at Java, it has been inferred that the 
mucilaginous substance of which the nests are formed 
is not obtained from the ocean. ‘The birds, it 1s true, 
generally inhabit the caverns in the vicinity of the sea, 
as agreeing best with their habits, and affording them 
the most convenient retreats for building their nests ; 
but several caverns are found inland at a distance of 
forty or fifty miles from the sea, containing nests sumi- 
lar to those on the shore. From many of their retreats 
along the southern coasts the birds have been observed 
to take their flight in an inland direction towards the 
pools, lakes, and extensive marshes covered with stag- 
nant water, as affording them abundance of their food, 
which consists of flies, musquitoes, gnats, and small 
insects of every description. The sea that washes the 
foot of the cliffs where they most abound is almost 
always in a state of violent agitation, and affords none 
of those substances which have been supposed to con- 
stitute the food of the esculent swallow. From these 
and other circumstances, 1t has been supposed by Dr. 
Horsfield, that the nest 1s formed by an aninial elabo- 
ration or secretion of the bird itself. 

From the substance of the nests (which appears from 


the preceding remarks to be a matter still in dispute), 


368 


we pass on to notice their appearance and localities. 
In shape the nest is like that of an ordinary swallow ; 
and in external appearance, as well as consistence, 
somewhat resembles a fibrous ill-concocted isinglass. 
When the nest is broken transversely, it displays seve- 
ral concentric layers, from which its mode of fabrica- 
tion may be in some degree judged. The nests are 
collected by the natives twice a-year ; and if regularly 
collected, and no unusual injury be offered to the ca- 
verns, the supply remains tolerably equable, very little 
increase of quantity being found to result from leaving 
the caves unmolested for a year or two. Most of the 
caverns are so situated as to render the task of collect- 
ing the nests very difficult, and requiring all the skill 
of persons trained to that purpose. Mr Crawturd says, 
that the most remarkable and productive caves which 
he has met with are those of Karang-Bolang, in the 
province of Baglen, on the south coast of Java. Here 
the caves are only tobe approached by a perpendicular 
descent of many hundred feet, by ladders of bamboo 
and rattan, over a sea rolling violently against the 
rocks. When the mouth of the cavern is attained, the 
perilous office of taking the nests must often be per- 
formed by torch-light, by penetrating into recesses of 
the rock, where the slightest trip would be fatal to 
the adventurers, who see nothing below them but the tur- 
bulent surf making its way into the chasms of the rock. 

Hogendorp says, that in order to secure the fidelity 
of the natives employed in this perilous undertaking, 
they are stripped naked before descending into the ca- 
verns, as a means of preventing embezzlement. Before 
descending, they receive benediction from the hands of 
certain Mohammedan priests, who are stationed among 
the guards at the entrance of the cavern. These priests, 
the overseers, and the nest-gatherers, are all well paid 
by the government as a means of Insuring their ho- 
hesty. 

Mr. Crawfurd has given a minute account of the 
commercial transactions connected with these nests, 
from which we learn that the value of the nests depends 
on various circumstances. The best nests are those 
obtained in deep damp caves, and such as are taken 
before the birds have laid their eggs; whereas the 
coarsest are those which are taken after the young 
have been fledged. The finest are the whitest, that is, 
those taken before the nest has been rendered impure 
by the young birds; the inferior qualities are dark- 
coloured, streaked with blood, or intermixed with fea- 
thers. Some of the natives, however, describe the purer 
nests as the dwelling of the male bird, and always so 
designate them in commerce. The only preparation 
which the birds’ nests undergo is that of simply drying 
without direct exposure to the sun; after which they 
are packed in small boxes, usually of half a picul (a 
picut 1s equal to about 133 lbs. English). They are 
assorted for the Chinese market into three kinds, ac- 
cording to their qualities, distinguished as first or best, 
second, and third qualities. Caverns that are regularly 
managed generally yield rather more than half of the 
first quality, about a third of the second, and a small 
proportion of the inferior. The large revenue yielded 
by the sale of these nests (of which we shall speak pre- 
sently) is claimed as the exclusive property of the sove- 
reign, and everywhere forms a branch of revenue so 
important as to raise this smgular traffic to a promi- 
nent station in the Eastern islands. This value how- 
ever, as Mr. Crawfurd observes, is subject to much 
variation, according to the locality of the cavern. 
Being often in remote and sequestered situations, in a 
country of a lawless character, a property so valuable 
and exposed is subject to the perpetual depredation of 
treebooters ; and it not unfrequently happens that an 
attack wpon them is the principal object of the warfare 
committed by one petty state against another. In such 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[SEPTEMBER 18, 


situations, the expense of attording them protection 1s 
so heavy, that they are necessarily of little value. But 
in situations where the caverns are difficult of access to 
strangers, and where there reigns enough of order and 
tranquillity to secure them from depredation, and to 
admit of the nests being obtained without other ex- 
pense than the simple labour of collecting them, the 
value of the property is very great. 

The prices obtained for the birds’-nests at Canton 
are as {dllows: best, 3500 Spanish dollars the picul, or 
d!. 18s. 14d. per lb. ; seconds, 2800 dollars the picul ; 
and thirds, 1600 doilars. When they afterwards get 
into the Chinese markets, a still nicer classification is 
often made; the whole are frequently divided into 
three great classes, under the commercial appellations 
of Paskat, Chikat, and Tung-tung ; each of which, ac- 
cording to quality, is subdivided into three inferior 
orders. The prices are thus made to vary from 1200 to 
4200 Spanish dollars the picul, the latter of which rates 
is more than equal to their weight in solid silver! As 
to the quantity sent to China, it is not easily estimated. 
From Java it is supposed to amount to 200 piculs, or 
27,0002. annually, of which the greater part is of the best 
quality. From the Suluk archipelago the annual quan- 
tity is estimated at 530 piculs ; from Macassar, 30 piculs. 
Taking all the islands situated between Ceylon and 
New Guinea, in most of which these nests are found, Mr. 
Crawfurd supposes that the total quantity sent to China 
annually amounts to about a quarter of a million 
pounds weight, for which a sum nearly equal to 300,000/. 
is paid. Hogendorp says, that there are about fifty or 
sixty nests to a pound weight ; so that the annual sup- 
ply of nests must be from twelvé to fifteen millions. 

The most singular circumstance connected with this 
subject is, that the Chinese appear to be the only purcha- 
sers; they being the only people who have persuaded 
themselves to deem these nests a luxury. When the nests 
are steeped in water, they become softened, and are 
separable into fibres of a mucilaginous character ; and 
in this form they are used as an ingredient in ragouts, 
soups, &c. They are consumed only by the great, and 
chiefly by the emperor and his court. The impression 
on the part of the Chinese seems to be that the use of 
the nests is powerfully stimulating and tonic; but as 
the Japanese, who so much resemble the Chinese m 
many of their habits, have no relish for the edible nests, 
and as it does not appear that any of the other islanders 
care much about them as an article of food, the use of 
these nests in China may perhaps be attributed to a 
taste for what is costly and difficult of attainment, 
rather than for any intrinsic quality in the nests them- 
selves. But, be this as it may, one of the modes in 
which those of the best kind are said to be used is as 
follows :—The nests are first soaked in water to soften, 
are then pulled to pieces, and after bemg mixed with 
ginseng, are put into the body of a fowl. ‘The whole 
is then stewed in a pot with a sufficient quantity of 
water, over a fire, where it remains all night, and in 
the morning the fowl is ready to be eaten. In other 
cases the softened nest 1s used as a kind of herb or sea- 
soning in broths and soups. 

In conclusion we may quote a remark from Mr. 
Crawfurd as to the nature of this trafic. ‘‘The price 
of birds’ nests 1s, of course, a monopoly price, the 
quantity produced being by nature hmited and inca- 
pable of being augmented. The value of the labour ex- 
pended in bringing birds’ nests to market 1s but a tri- 
fling portion of their price, which consists of the highest 
price which the luxurious Chinese will afford to pay 
for them, and which is a tax paid by that nation to the 
inhabitants of the Indian islands. There 1s perhaps no 
production upon which human industry 1s exerted, of 


| which the cost of production bears so small a propor- 


tion to the market price.” 


184].] 


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[CornEILZF, from a portrait by Desmaison. Vignette on the right—View of Dieppe. On the left—Havre. In the centre—Street of the Great Clock, 
Rouen. At the bottom—Peasants of Corneille’s native province, Normandie, from a sketch by Sorrien.} 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT MEN. 
PIERRE CORNEILLE, 


Pizrre Corneille, the son of an advocate of Rouen, 
was born at that place in 1606. He was destined to 
his father’s profession, and, indeed, practised for some 
time, but with little success. A personal incident is 
said to have first indicated to him the nature of the 
talents he possessed, by furnishing him with the subject 
of his first comedy, ‘ Mélite.’ He had been taken by 
one of his friends to see a lady of whom the latter 


‘Mélite,’ produced in 1625, was followed by several 
other pieces, which gave the poet some, but no very 
ereat reputation. Suddenly, however, he made an 
immense advance. One M. de Chalon, who had been 
secretary to Mary de’ Medici, had retired to Rouen in 
his old age. Congratulating Corneille on his first suc- 
cess, he said to him one day, “ Your comedies are full 
of spirit, but permit me to tell you the kind of writing 
you have embraced is unworthy of your talent: you 
will not acquire in it more than a passing renown. 
You will find among the Spaniards subjects which, 


was enamoured, when he himself fell in love with her, | treated in your taste, by a spirit like your own, will 


No. 60S. 


VoL. X.—3 B 


370 THE PENNY 
produce great effect. Learn their language; it is 
easy; I offer to impart to you all that I know. We 
will translate first some passages from Guillen de 
Castro.” It is perhaps to these words, says the author 
of Corneille’s Life, in the ‘ Biographie Universelle,’ 
“that we owe our tragic drama, the development of the 
eenius of Corneille, and the taste of the nation.” ‘The 
Cid,’ founded on De Castro’s play of the same name, 
was the first fruit of the new study, and it at once 
raised Corneille’s fame to the highest pitch. The Pa- 
risians looked upon this play, so superior to anything 
they had previously known on their stage, as little short 
of a miracle. He was from that time ‘ Le Grand Cor- 
neille.’ And how did the great Richelieu, formerly his 
patron, receive this new accession to the hterature 
Which was to do such honour to his age? According 
to Fontenelle, he could not have been more unplea- 
santly surprised if he had seen the Spaniards at the 
gates of Paris! What was the cause of this feeling it 
is now difficult to discover. It has been said that the 
minister, jealous of all kinds of renown, had in vain 
offered to Corneille a hundred thousand crowns if he 
would sell ‘ The Cid’ to him before representation, and 
not declare himself to be the author; and enormous as 
the sum mentioned was for the time, yet there have 
not been wanting evidences in support of its truth. 
But a more credible reason is to be found in the state- 
ment that Corneille, in the fulfilment of his duty asa 
court poet of putting Richelieu’s comedies into verse, 
had altered some parts of a piece entitled ‘ The Comedy 
of the Twilleries,’ and thus deeply wounded the minis- 
ter’s self-love. Whatever the cause, the consequence 
is undeniable, that Richelieu, from the period in ques- 
tion, opposed Corneille’s advancement by every method 
in his power; and the rivals whom the latter had over- 
shadowed, making common cause with the minister 
and the obsequious courtiers, set themselves earnestly 
to work to destroy the reputation of the production that 
had thrown them all into such commotion. In the 
‘Biog. Univ.’ it is stated that its success excited against 
the author “ one of the most violent persecutions of 
which the history of letters, and of the passions which 
dishonour them, have preserved the memory.” Cor- 
neille, however, calmly pursued his course, and prac- 
tically answered one of the invidious remarks that had 
been made in connection with ‘ The Cid,’ namely, that 
he had borrowed his plot from the Spanish because he 
had not imagination enough to contrive a new one, by 
the production of his tragedy of ‘ Horace,’ which com- 
pletely established his power of moulding a complicated 
story out of scanty materials. Between the period of 
the production of ‘ The Cid,’ in 1636, and the unsuc- 
cessful tragedy of ‘ Pertharite,’ in 1653, many pieces 
appeared ; and, amongst the rest, ‘ Polyeucte,’ which 
is looked upon as Corneille’s greatest work, and which, 
when the poet read it to a circle of friends prior to its 
representation, was looked upon as a failure. The 
fate of ‘ Pertharite’ so disgusted Corneille, that he 
ceased writing for the stage, and, being of a devout 
melancholy temperament, turned his attention to re- 
hgious poetry, and began to versify the ‘De Imita- 
tione Christi’ of Thomas-’-Kempis. Jn1659 be again 
returned to the theatre, with his tragedy of ‘ Gidipe,’ 
which was successful, as was also an opera that he pro- 
duced soon after. From that time he wrote nothing 
worthy of comparison with his earher pieces. -He 
died in 1684, at the age of seventy-eight. 

This man, so great in the theatre, carried into the 
world the manners of a peasant, with the simplicity of 
«child. At the first glance there appeared a roughness 
about him which impressed the spectator with an un- 
favourable idea. This, says ‘the ‘ Biog. Univ.,’ is a 
feature he shared in common with other great men of 
his time, equally distinguished for their goodness. 


MAGAZINE. [SEPTEMBER 25, 
Corneille, like Turenne, beneath a rude and unpro- 
mising exterior, possessed great humanity and sweet- 
ness of disposition, as well as the more imposing quali- 
ties for which one would give him credit on a perusal 
of his works. He was a good son, a good husband, a 
good father. He may have had faults, but no vices. 
His tastes were as simple as his manners. He enjoyed 
the pleasures of domestic life, and found his happiness 
in his duty. He and his brother, also a dramatist and a 
poet, married two sisters; and without any arrange- 
ment as to their respective fortunes, &c., formed but 
one family and household till the poet’s death. Con- 
nected with the descendants of Corneille is an incident 
of too honourable a character ‘to a man of letters to be 
passed over without remark. Voltaire heard that a great- 
niece of Corneille’s was living, with few friends and no 
fortune: he immediately took her into his house at 
Ferney, completed her education, and married her to a 
captain of dragoons. Besides the portion he gave with 
her, he undertook for her benefit to write a commen- 
tary on her distinguished ancestor. This work added 
20,000 francs to the young lady’s fortune. 

Corneille was indisputably the founder of the tragic 
drama of France. A theatre, indeed, had been esta- 
blished as early as 1548, at the Hétel de Bourgogne, at 
which were acted the plays of Garnier, Du Ryer, Jo- 
delle, Hardy, Scudéri, and others. Corneille added his 
name to this fraternity of dramatic artists, and produced 
s1x comedies, which, though superior to theirs, were not 
so much superior as to set him decidedly above his 
contemporaries. The success of his first comedy, 
‘Meélite,’ was such as to introduce him at once into the 
dramatic community, and to procure for him the pa- 
tronage oi Cardinal Richelieu. It was followed by 
‘Chiandre,’ ‘La Veuve,’ ‘La Galérie du Palais,’ ‘La 
Suivante,’ and ‘La Place Royale.’ He produced also 
a tragedy, ‘Medée,’ worthy, in bombastic extravagance, 
to rival those of Scudéri. But havmg, as we have 
mentioned, been induced to study the Spanish drama, 
he constructed out of it a-species of drama peculiarly 
his own; he founded a school, of which he became and 
still continues to be the greatest master. His tragedy 
of ‘The Cid’ took the French stage by storm, and lifted 
him to an elevation which made him independent of the 
great cardinal, who from a patron became an enemy, 
and tried, by the aid of Scudéri and the French Aca- 
demy, to criticise him down; hut in vain; the French 
public were on his side; and his following tragedies of 
‘ Horace,’ ‘Cinna,’ and ‘ Polyeucte’ established him in his 
pre-eminence. As he thus lifted himself, hke Shak- 
spere, above his contemporaries, such of our readers as 
are not acquainted with the French tragic drama will 
probably suppose that it resembles the tragic drama of 
Shakspere. Notat all. The tragedies of Corneille are 
as different from those of Shakspere as it is possible for 
the consummate art of the two great masters to have 
made them. In Shakspere we have a series of events 
such as have occurred or may occur in the world, 
springing out of the actions of men of every variety of 
character,who are moved by passions and motives such 
as we can understand and appreciate, and who express 
themselves in a language natural, familiar, and, as Dr. 
Johnson happily expresses it, ‘level with life.” Not so 
in Corneille. The men are heroes; the women are 
heroines. There is no development or discrimination 
of character. They belong to a world of which we 
have had no experience ; and they express themselves 
in a language appropriate to the elevation of their cha- 
racters—the language of poetry, not of life. Most of our 
readers are aware that the French have no blank verse ; 
the tragedies of the school of Corneille are in rhymed 
couplets, to which the rhymed tragediesof Dryden atiord 
the closest resemblance of anything which we possess 
in English ; with this difference, that the Frenchman is 


1841.] 


vastly superior to his imitator in earnestness of purpose 
and intensity of effect. In the tragedies of Corneille 
an event is selected as the groundwork of the action 
which puts some strong passion (in Corneille, it is al- 
most always that of love) in direct opposition to some 
equally strong principle ;—honour, as in ‘ The Cid; or 
patriotism, as in ‘ Horace; or mingled patriotism and 
ambition, as in ‘Cinna; or religion, as in ‘ Polyeucte.’ 
These violent eontrasts, or rather contests, of feeling, 
afford situations of deep interest, well ealculated for 
dramatic effect. In the tragedies of Corneille there is a 
seneral elevation of sentiment, frequently rising to- 
wards sublimity, sometimes perhaps reaching it. The 
style 1s nervous and clear, and the versifieation has a 
majestie march suitable to the lofty sentiment which it 
has to convey. His finest plays are—‘ Le Cid’ (1637), 
‘ Horaee’ (1639), ‘Cinna’ (1639), ‘Polyeuete,’ and ‘ Ro- 
dogune’ (1646). ‘Le Menteur,’ a comedy, partly trans- 
lated and partly imitated from the Spanish, performed 
in 1641, was very successful; it is the best of his come- 
dies. He produced several tragedies and some conie- 
dies besides those which we have named, in which are 
to be found fine scenes and splendid passages; but it is 
generally admitted, that, regarding eaeh play as a 
whole, none are equal to those which we have named, 
and most of them manifest a great falling off of dra- 
matie power. 

It has been generally supposed that Corneille was 
the first to introduee and defend what are ealled the 
unities. This, however, is a mistake. In‘ The Cid,’ 
for instance, no regard whatever is paid to the unities 
either of time or plaee. The scene is shifted from the 
residence of Don Gomés to the king’s palace; to the 
street; then to the house of Chimene, and then again 
to the palace, just as the poct finds eonvenient; and 
the characters are introduced when and where he has 
occasion for them; sometimes, indeed, from no other 
apparent reason. In ‘Horace’ he adheres strictly to 
the unity.of time and plaee; in ‘Cinna,’ again, he de- 
parts from it. 


MOLE-CATCHERS AND MOLE-CATCHING. 


MOoLE-CATCHERS are not very dissimilar in their 
pursuits from rat-catchers ; nor does either elass rank 
very high even among the labouring eommunities of 
rural distriets; for both the mole-eatcher and the rat- 
catcher are looked upon as persons who have a distaste 
for ordinary farm labour—preferring a half-lazy and 
somewhat dubious employment to gaining a subsistenee 
by “the sweat of the brow.” The mole-catcher, how- 
ever, when he has a job, frequently walks more than 
twenty miles a day, exclusive of the labour and delay 
in the setting of his traps; and this, for the most part, 
neither along good roads nor well-beaten paths, but 
over hedge and diteh, from farm to farm, and from field 
to field, upon the estates and farms whose owners or 
oceupiers contract with the mole-catcher to have their 
moles destroyed. 

Exeept in those parts of the eountry where extensive 
wastes are found, or where the principal portion of the 
land is devoted to grazing, the mole-eatcher’s oceupa- 
tion is periodical, being confined to those seasons when 
he does not materially interfere with the crops; so that, 
for several months of the year his traps are idle, and he 
himself has to look for some other employment. In 
winter, too, the frost often prevents him pursuing his 
calling or interferes with his success. Besides, in wet 
situations, a hard frost will sometimes burst his traps, 
when made out of hollow wooden tubes. 

There is scareely any part of the country entirely 
uniniested by those animals; for although they do not 
prey upon any of the ordinary products of the farm, 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 37] 
roots of plants and vegetables; and where there are 
drains, or embankments against rivers or ponds, the 
former are constantly in danger of being stopped up 
by them, while the latter are liable to be damaged by 
the excavations they make through them in order to 
reach the water. - | 

It is rather smgular that so easy and simple a matter 
as trapping moles should not invariably be undertaken 
by individuals living in the immediate neighbourhood 
where there services are required. Nevertheless such 
is not the case; for over a considerable extent of Scot- 
land, as well as of Wales, the moles are destroyed by 
catchers who belong to some of the northern eounties 
of England—particularly Westmoreland, with parts of 
the adjoining counties of Laneashire, Yorkshire, and 
Cumberland—who annually visit those countries at 
regular periods of the year, when their.appearance is 
looked forward to among the Scotch and Welsh far- 
mers with as much certainty as the arrival of the Irish 
hay-makers and reapers is anticipated by English far- 
mers. But the stay of the mole-eatchers 1s much 
longer than that of the hay-makers or reapers, for in- 
stead of an absenee of a few weeks, they seldom return 
under,six or seven months ; and, as it would be ineon- 
venient to earry their stock of traps with them annually, 
When onee they have got a eonnection established 
among the farmers, their traps remain until they return 
the following season. 

Mole-eatehing is by no means a mysterious art, or 
one that requires mueh capital to commence business. 

When the mole-eateher makes use of the old- 
fashioned wooden trap, a stock of seventy or eighty 
may cost him twelve or fifteen shillings, and by the time 
they are fitted up with the necessary stout linen twine, 
or whipeord, and triggers fitted to them, an expense of 
two or three shillings more will be added. Besides his 
traps, he should possess a small and light narrow spade, 
or spud, for the purpose of making holes wherein to place 
his traps ; so that it would require nearly the amount ofa 
pound sterling to set him up in his ealling. The com- 
mon size of one of these wooden traps is five, or five 
and a half inehes in length, and about two inehes 1n 
diameter, being usually hollowed: out with a two-inch 
auger; the thickness of the wood which composes the 
shell of the trap is from a quarter to half an inch in 
thiekness. After the tube has been bored out, put into 
a turning-lathe, and the shell smoothed and reduced to 
the requisite thickness, a considerable segment 1s cut 
out of one side of the hollow tube, the length of which 
is about three inches; and in the centre the part taken 
away commonly extends to about the centre of the shell 
of the trap. Indeed the less substance left remaining 
the better for the purpose of deceiving the moles; but 
when but little of the original shell or tube is left, the 
traps are rendered so slight that they are lable to be 
injured or broken to a much greater extent than they 
otherwise would be when left stronger. At the dis- 
tance of half an ineh from either end of the trap a 
small groove is made within the tube, for the purpose 
of plaeing therein the string or thin cord, which 1s kept 
in its place bya little soft earth being plastered over it 
when so placed in the groove. This string is admitted 
through two gimlet-holes an inch apart; and 1mme- 
diately in the eentre of the trap—also on the upper side— 
is a larger gimlet-hole for the purpose of fixing therein 
the point of the trigger at the time the trap 1s set in the 
ground. The noose placed in either eroove near the 
ends of the trap is formed of one pieee of cord, or two 
connected together in the eentre, and there another 
short piece of cord, not over two or three inehes lone, 
with a knot at its extremity, is put down through the 
eentre or trigger-hole, when the narrow end of a trian- 
ewlar piece of wood, called the trigger, is pushed up- 


they do mueh damage by their workings, injuring the | wards into this same centre-hole, and the knot at the 


3B2 


372 THE PENNY 
end of the short downward cord prevents its being 
pulled through the hole upwards, until such time as 
the trigger is removed. Two small hooked sticks are 
pushed firmly into the ground, one at each end of the 
trap, the hooks preventing the trap from being lifted 
out of its place when the spring-stick, which acts as a 
lever, is properly adjusted. The spring-stick is com- 
monly about three feet long; the stouter end 1s pushed 
into the ground, at a distance from where the trap has 
been placed, in one of the principal burrows or passages 
of the mole, the smaller end being bent over so that its 
extremity may be brought down and inserted in the 
loop, to which is immediately attached the downward 
trigger-string, a notch being cut near the end of the 
spring or lever, to prevent the loop from slipping oif. 
This completes the operation of setting a mole-trap: 
the mole, in passing along its burrow, when it reaches 
the trap does not find its course wholly obstructed, for 
the trigger but partially fills up the passage; and it at 
once proceeds to remove the impediment out of the 
way ; but the moment the trigger is pushed to one side, 
the lever strikes up the two nooses, one or other of 
which is sure to secure the victim, pressing it with 
considerable violence (according to the strength 
of the spring-stick) against the upper side of the trap, 
where it soon dies from the effects of the violent 
pressure. 

There are instances, however, where a mole will ex- 
hibit a considerable degree of cunning and sagacity ; 
and on arriving at a trap, instead of passing directly 
through it, will at once discover that there is a necessity 
for caution; and instead of venturing into either end 
of the trap, will proceed to open a passage outside of it, 
and in doing so fills both ends of the trap with earth 
without ever moving the trigger. When he discovers 
this to be the case, the mole-catcher will distribute 
two or three traps in the same run (as a burrow 
is often called), when the mole, having cautiously 
avolded one or two of them, falls into the second or 
the third. 

Sometimes the traps are made of a small picce of flat 
hoard, say five inches long and three wide, near to each 
end of which is fixed a smallhoop of tough ash, or 
sometimes of iron, within which a couple of nooses are 
placed, sometimes horsehair ones, but more generally 
such as have already been described, and gimlet-holes 
have to be made in the flat piece of board similar to 
those in the circular trap, and a trigger and lever are 
employed in the same way. Moles are occasionally 
taken also by sinking earthen jars level with the bottom 
of the mole tracks; and sometimes they are poisoned 
by steeping hazel-nuts, or other substances that they 
are known to be fond of, in powerful liquid poisons. 
A mole-catcher, or indeed any person who is acquainted 
with their haunts and habits, may frequently destroy 
them during the mornings and evenings at the hours 
they commonly throw up the mole-hills; for by stick- 
ing a spade across the burrow, behind where the mole 
may be seen or heard busy at work, it will have no 
means of retreating (unless it happen to be in an old 
working from which there are sundry passages), and 
may thus be easily destroyed. Some dogs become very 
expert at destroying moles, and will watch for hours 
until an opportunity presents itself of pouncing upon 
their victims while engaged in throwing out the mould 
from some new excavation, when the eye, assisted by 
the ear, of the cunning cur, enables it to secure its 
prey. 

‘Though the skins of moles are of some little value 
to the mole-catcher, the fur, from the shortness of the 
staple, though exceedingly soft and of a fine texture, 
1S comparatively worthless in the manufactures of this 
country. 


MAGAZINE. [SEPTEMBER 25, 


SONGS OF CHARLES DIBDIN. 


THE art of song-writing, the most simple, and appa- 
rently the most easy of all the species of poetry, is 
perhaps that in which excellence is least frequently 
obtained in proportion to the number of attempts. One 
cause of this hes probably in its facility of mechanical 
construction, which leads multitudes, most of whom 
are wholly unqualified, into this path. Another course 
hes probably in mistaken ideas as to what is required to 
form a deservedly successful and enduring song. On 
the latter point many theories have been proposed, 
which it is not our purpose here to discuss, but all 
agree in this, that however taste can be modified by 
fashion, nothing will survive that fashion unless formed 
on the surer foundation of feeling and nature. 

English songs have scarcely yet had sufficient justice 
dene them. From an age previous to Shaksperé we 
had truly national songs, as distinguished from ballads, 
of which we have also many. One on the battle of 
Agincourt is given by Percy (‘Reliques of Ancient 
Knghsh Poetry,’ vol. i., book 1., No. 5), who, we think, 
underrates it, talks of its “homely rhymes,” and con- 
eratulates us that our ancestors could wield their 
swords much better than their pens. We shall give a 
stanza, that the reader may judge, even under the dis- 
advantage of a modern pronunciation which must 
materially affect the rhythm, whether the strokes of our 
ancestors’ pens were not as direct and as hearty as 
those of their swords :— 


‘“‘ He set. a siege, sothe for to say, 
To Harfleur town with royal array ; 
That town he won, and made a fray, 
That France shall rue till domésday. 
Deo gratias : 
Deo gratias Angha redde pro victoria.” 


These national songs have never wholly ceased, 
though but occasionally appearing, and their rough 
vigour nas ever risen above the more elegant exotics 
that have been imported into our hterary bowers. 
Love and war have been, of course, the staple subjects. 
Shakspere, Jonson, Marvell, ahd many nameless con- 
tributors have left us masterly specimens; while the 
sweetness and elegance of Waller, Cowley, and others 
are known only to hterary men, and as objects of 
curlosity; and the wit and poetical imagery of some 
more modern lyrical poets will scarcely, we consider, 
ever raise them to the dignity of giving expression 
to, or perpetuating, what may be termed national 
feelings. 

To be permanently popular a song must not rise too 
high beyond the comprehension of its hearers; but 
neither should it descend to pander to their vulgarities 
or bad tastes. Its aim should be to elevate, by sepa- 
rating as far as possible the actual feelings, habits, 
or manners, from the accidental degradations with 
which they may be associated. By vulgarity we by no 
means understand those solecisms of language which 
characterise the class represented or addressed, and 
which come to them as the language of good fellow- 
ship and friendship, but the grossnesses of idea or act 
hkely to be produced by an imperfect education acted 
upon by strong if not violent passions. These Dibdin 
sought to restrain or guide, and viewed in this hght 
his songs must be allowed to hold a very high rank. 
Never concealing, and sometimes half-justifying or 
extenuating the irregularities of the classes whom he 
chiefly addressed, the whole tendency of his songs 1s to 
strengthen in the homeliest and least obtrusive Manner 
the peculiar virtues of their station—honour, valour, 
mercy, inendship, and virtuous love; while inciden- 
tally, and without the remotest attempt at teaching, 


| the ill consequences of an opposite conduct are shown, 
| even under the guise of a triumphing boast that— 


1841. } 


‘“¢ He pays his score 
With spirit on shore, 
And that’s all the use of a guinea.” 

The classes above alluded to as those whom Dibdin 
chiefly addressed are the soldiers and sailors. “A 
great portion of the patriotic songs of England have 
reference to her character as a maritime nation. These 
allusions not only preserve amongst the people gene- 
rally a habit of referring to the great cause of our 
national triumphs, but they keep alive amongst the 
seamen those proud and heroic feelings which sustain 
their superiority in the day of battle. A sailor’s life is 


— eli ; m4 dé 

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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


——— 





TT 
Al aE 


343 


one of intermitting hardship and leisure; and it is na- 
tural that in the pauses of his duty he should relieve 
the monotony of his situation by those songs which re- 
cal the idea of his home or of his love, or give him con- 
fidence in his painful though glorious career of exer- 
tion.”* Dibdin, in addressing those classes, has had 
many eminent predecessors, and some contemporaries 
and followers, but in productiveness he has outnum- 
bered the whole, and in varied powers and success he 
has equalled the best. Asa specimen of his homilies 
for seamen, we give his ‘ Tom Tackle :?’— 


* 
feat 
ey noe @ 


TTR 


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PRL Be 


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4) Ee Meta 


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Pe 


HN} in 


—_ (| : 
Ww. 





i NN AN shee 
f s Han BSG 
\) 4 5 . it a! Hy == 
ut B+ 13 ‘ 
hs Bia ih yy n'y 
Ye Se es 
. ae AK atats 
7 ' On Eos Sr . 
. ae 1} . 


a8 
aa 
8 a 


AL hea sess 
ASS 


tans 


iagit® 
ann 
==” 
— hel 
a 


$ 


(Sailors Singing.— After a Drawing by William Lee.) 


‘ Tom Tackle was noble, was true to his word ; 
If merit bought titles, Tom might be my lord. 
How gaily his bark through life’s ocean would sail ; 
Truth furnish’d the rigging, and Honour the gale. 
Yet Tom had a failing, if ever man had, 
That, good as he was, made him all that was bad ; 
He was paltry and pitiful, scurvy and mean, 
And the sniv’lingest scoundrel that ever was seen : 
For so said the girls and the landlords “long shore. 
Would you know what his fault was?—Tom Tackle was 


poor. 


"Twas once on a time, when we took a galloon, 

And the crew touch’d the agent for cash to some tune, 
Tom a trip took to gaol, an old messmate to free ; 

And four thankful prattlers soon sat on his knee. 

Then Tom was an angel, downright from heaveii sent! 
While they’d hands he his goodness should never repent. 
Return’d from next voyage, he bemoan’d his sad case, 
To find his dear friend shut the door in his face ! 


‘Why d’ye wonder?’ cried one: ‘you're served right, to be 
sure ;’ 

Once Tom Tackle was rich—now Tom Tackle is poor! 

I ben’t, you see, versed in high maxims and sitch ; 

But don’t this same honour concern poor and rich ? 

If it don’t come from good hearts, I can’t see where from, 

And, dam’me, if e’er tar had a good heart ‘twas Tom. 

Yet, some how or ‘nother, Tom never did right : 

None knew better the time when to spare or to fight ; 

He, by finding a leak, once preserved crew and ship ; 

Saved the commodore’s life ;—then he’d make such raie flip! 

‘And yet for all this, no one Tom could endure ; 

I fancies as how ’twas—because he was poor. 


At last an old shipmate, that Tom might hail land, 

Who saw that his heart sail’d too fast for his hand, 

In the riding of comfort a mooring to find, 

Reef’d the sails of Tom’s-fortune, that shook in the wind : 


* ¢Englishman’s Library,’ p. 239. 


374 


He gave him enough through life’s ocean to steer, 

Be the breeze what it might, steady, thus, or no‘near: 

His pittance is daily; and yet Tom imparts 

What he can to his friends; and may all honest hearts, 
‘Like Tom Tackle, have what keeps tlie wolf from the door, 
Just enough to be generous—too much to be poor.” 


From Chevy Chase downward, a marked charac-. 


teristic of the patriotic songs of Britain has been the 
openness and candour with which the bravery of an 
enemy is reckoned upon and acknowledged. Though 
the sailor 1s made to boast, 


“When yard-arm and yard-arm ’longside of a foe, 
When blood from the scuppers rain’d on us below, 
When crippled enough to be taken in tow, 

. To strike we saw Mounseer prepare 3’ 


there is no disparagement of his adversaries. Self- 
confidence is made the foundation of his courage. 
Neither is there any attempt to deccive himself or 
others as to the dangers of his profession, but he is 
taught to pride himself in the energy of will that de- 
termines him to overcome them by his own efforts, or 
renders him willing to perish in the attempt. To 
minds of this cast, and educated in such a school, Dib- 
din addresses his shipwreck :— 


“¢ Avert yon omen, gracious Heaven ! 

The ugly scud, 

By rising winds resistless driven, 
Kisses the flood. 

How hard the lot for sailors cast, 
TFhat they should roam 

For years, to perish thus at last 
In sight of home ; 

For if the coming gale we mourn 
A tempest grows, 

Our vessel’s shatter’d so and torn, 
That down she goes. 


The tempest comes, while meteors red 
Portentous fly ; 

And now we touch old ocean’s bed, 
Now reach the sky: 

On sable wings, in gloomy flight, 
Fiends seem to wait, 

To snatch us in this dreadful night, 
Dark as our fate ; 

Unless some kind, some pitying power 
Should interpose, 

She labours so, within this hour 
Down she goes. 


But see, on rosy pinions borne, 
O’er the mad deep, 

Reluctant beams the sorrowing morn, 
With us to weep. 

Deceitful sorrow, cheerless light, 
Dreadful to think, 

The morn is risen in endless night, 
Our hopes to sink. 

She splits! she parts !—through sluices driven, 
The water flows ; 

Adicu, ye friends—have mercy, Heaven! 
For down she goes.” 


The foregoing song would not appear at first sight 
a very fitting one to supply the place of a recruiting 
officer, as Dibdin’s songs are said to have done with 
surprising effect ; but he knew whom he was address- 
ing, and we will allow him to give his own character 
of ‘The true English Sailor ’— 


“ Jack dances and sings, and is always content; 
In lis vows to lis lass he'll ne‘er fail her : 
His anchor’s a-trip when his money’s all spent; 
And this is the life of a sailor. 


Alert in his duty he readily flies, 
Where the winds the tired vessel are flinging 5 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[SEPTEMBER 25, 


Though sunk to the sea-gods, or toss‘d to the skies, 
Still Jack is found working and singing. 


‘Longside of an enemy, boldly and brave, 
He'll with broadside on broadside regale her ; 
Yet he'll sigh to the soul o’er that encmy’s grave ; 
So noble’s the mind of a sailor. 


Let cannons roar loud, burst their sides let the bombs, 
Let the winds a dread hurricane rattle, 

The rough and the pleasant he takes as it comes, 
And laughs at the storm and the battle. 


In a fostering power while Jack puts his trust, 
As fortune comes, smiling he’ll hail her, 

Resign’d, still and manly, since what must be must; 
And this is the mind of a sailor. 


Though careless and headlong, if danger should press, 
And rank’d ’mongst the free list of rovers ; 

Yet he’ll melt into tears at a tale of distress, 
And prove the most constant of lovers. 


To rancour unknown, to no passion a slave, 
Nor unmanly, nor mean, nor a railer, 
; 

He’s gentle as mercy, as fortitude brave ; 
Aud this isa true English sailor. 


“Had Dibdin written merely to amuse,” says a 
writer in the ‘Harmonicon,’ in 1824, “his reputation 
would have been great, but it stands the higher be- 
cause It is always on the side of virtue. Humanity, 
constancy, love of country, and courage, are the sub- 
jects of his song and the themes of his praise, and 
while it 1s known that many a national foe, whether 
contending or subdued, has experienced the efficacy of 
his precepts, we are willing to believe that the suffer- 
ings which the lower orders of the creation are too 
commonly doomed to endure, have now and then been 
a little mitigated through the influence of his persua- 
sive verse.” The latter part of the above judgment, 
with which we thoroughly agree, alludes to the well- 
known song of ‘The High-mettled Racer,’ which he 
has bequeathed to the world, together with many others 
of a more pacific character than the great majority of 
his pieces. War is no doubt a hateful evil, and if it 
cannot be extirpated from earth, will assuredly be 
ameliorated by the extension of knowledge ; but though 
Dibdin was a man of his age, and as such his “voice 
was still for war,” yet it was a great merit that, at a 
period of unusual excitement, he cheered its followers 
on as brave but humane men; as performing a duty 
to their country, not as gratifying any vindictive pas- 
sion of their own. 

A collected edition of his songs, with some capital 
illustrations by G. Cruikshank,* has given occasion to 
this article, and we add a hasty sketch of his life to 
make the notice of so eminent a man as complete as 
our limits will permit. 

Charles Dibdin was born in 1745, at Dibdin, near 
Southampton, the youngest of eighteen children, and 
received his musical education at Winchester, under 
Kent; and at sixteen produced an opera at Covent 
Garden, and a few years afterwards made his appear- 
ance as an actor; but it was not till 1789, by the 
production of the celebrated ballad of ‘ Poor Jack’ and 
other songs, in an entertainment called ‘The Whim of 
the Moment,’ and of which he was sole author, com- 
poser, and performer, that his true destination was 
fully and immediately recognised as a lyric poet of a 
high order. His inclination for, and probably much 
of his knowledge of, naval matters, has been attributed 
to the influence of an elder brother, the captain of an 
Ivast Indiaman, and upon whose death he wrote the 
well-known and pathetic song of ‘Tom Bowling.” After 
a career involving most of the casualties attending the 
life of a dramatic manager, he retired into private 


* Murray, 1841. 


1841.) 


life in 1805, but without a sufficient independence to 
make his retreat comfortable. This having been re- 
presented, the government, which, according to his 
own statement, had urged him to produce, and even to 
tive away, What were called war-songs, and to which 
he had acceded at a considerable pecuniary sacrifice, 
granted him a pension of 200/. per annum. On the 
change of the ministry, which was succeeded by that 
of Lord Grenville, it was withdrawn from him, but on 
another change it was most properly again restored (a 
part only, by his own statement); but he did not 
enjoy it long, as he died of paralysis in 1813, and was 
interred in the burial-ground of St. James’s, Hamp- 
stead Road. 


CHAUCER’S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE PARDONER. | 
Wirx the Sumpnour, continues the poet, 


“ Rode a gentle Pardonere 
Of Rounceval, his frieud and his compeer, 
That straight was comen from the court of Romé, 
Full loud he sang, ‘Come hither, lové, to me :’ 
This Sumpnour bare to him a stiff burdoun,* 
Was never tromp of half so great a soun. 
This Pardoner had hair as yellow as wax, 
But smooth it hung as doth a strike of flax, 
By ounces hung his lockes that he had, 
And therewith he his shoulders oversprad, 
Full thin it lay by culpons,f on and on; 
But hood for jollity, ne weared he none; 
For it was trusséd up in his wallét. 
Him thought he rode all of the newe get ;{ 
Dishevel, save his cap, he rode all bare. 
Such glaring eyen had he as an hare. 
A vernicle had he sewed upon his cap. 
His wallet lay before him in his lap, 
Bret-full of pardon come from Rome all hot. 
A voice he had as small as hath a goat. 
No beard had he, ne never none should have, 


As smooth it was as it were newe shave. 
oe * * * 

But of his craft, from Berwick unto Ware 
Ne was there such another Pardonere. 
For in his mail he had a pilwebere,$ 
Which, as he saide, was Our Ladie’s veil. 
He said he had a gobbet || of the sail 
Thatte Saint Peter had when that he went 
Upon the sea till Jesus Christ him hent.4[ 
He had a cross of laton full of stones, , 
And in a glass he hadde pigges’ bones. 
But with these relics, whenne that he found 
A poure parson dwelling up on lond, 
Upon a day he got him more monéy, 
Then that the parson got in moneths tway. 
And thus with feigned flattering and gapes 
He made the parson and the people his apes. 

But truely to tellen at the last, 
He was in church a noble ecclesiast. ' 
Well could he read a lesson or a story, 
But alderbest** he sang an offertory,++ 
For well he wiste when that song was sung, 
He muste preach, and well afile his tongue, 
To winne silver as he right well could, 
Therefore he sang the merrier and loud.” 


Such is the general description of the Pardoner, in 
the prologue to the ‘Canterbury Tales;’ but in the 
tales themselves we have a still more detailed picture, 

ainted by that most amusing and impudent cheat 
himself and in the richest style of humorous satire. 


* Or, sung a base accompaniment. + Shreds. 

+ That is to say, in the most fashionable maimer. 

§ The covering of a pillow. {| Morsel. 

| Took hold of. == Best of all. 

++ The anthem or service chanted during the offering, and 
forms a part of the Mass. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


375 


Before we proceed any further, however, it may be as 
well to notice a few particulars concerning the origi 
and history of the “craft” of which the individual im 
question 1s so brilhant an exemplar. In the early 
ages of the Roman Catholic church, contrite sinners, 
after confession, not unfrequently received severe and 
public punishment, in addition to the pains of pur- 
gatory after death to which their sin would subject 
them. Occasionally, however, an indulgence was 
granted by the bishops, mitigating the severity or 
duration of both kinds of punishment, or commuting 
them for works of charity and pious exercises. In 
progress of time, such indulgences were granted on a. 
more wholesale scale, as a temptation to wealthy per- 
sons to assist in the erection of some great monastery 
or cathedral, or for the attainment of other important 
objects desired by the church. Such was the origin of 
indulgences. The first great abuse of this power ap- 
pears to have been its too frequent use by the bishops, 
and by its arrogation on the part of simple priests; the 
result of which was a most injurious facility of obtain- 
ing remission of punishment. The early fathers of 
the church, St. Cyprian and Tertullian for instanee, 
complain of this state of things. A worse, however, 
was to follow. Indulgences not only were granted 


| without reference to their original purpose, of merely 


comnmuting a specific punishment for a specific sin, 
and in an appropriate manner after a consideration of 
all the circumstances—but they became matters of 
sale! And although the traffic in them has been se- 
verely reprobated by many councils, and although the 
very bull by which: they were granted contained a 
clause stating that if anything were given as the price 
of the indulgence, the indulgence itself became null, 
yet it is well known that, in the words of Godwin, “the 
sale of indulgences, pardons, and dispensations, the oc- 
casions for which were continually multiphed, brought 
a boundless revenue to the court of Rome.* By the 
time of Chaucer and Wickliffe, the evil had become 
an intolerable disgrace to the church in the eyes of all 
its enlightened and pious friends; consequently we 
find both those admirable reformers holding the Par- 
doners, as the retailers of indulgences were called, up 
to the scorn and contempt of their readers. The poet, 
in particular, has drawn their character so carefully, 
has detailed all the modes of imposition adopted by 
them, with so keen a sarcasm, that there wanted but 
the art of printing for its dissemination to have saved 
our later writers and preachers a great deal of trouble. 
The Pardoner thus addresses the other pilgrims :— 


‘ Lordings, quod he, in chirche when I preach, 
I peine met to have an hautein} speech, 
And sing it out as round as goth a bell, 
For I can all by roté that I tell. 

My theme is alway one, and ever was: 
Radix malorum est cupitidas.§ 

First I pronouncé whennes|| that I come, 
And then my bulles show I all and some ; 
Our liegé lordés seal on my patent, 

That show I first, my body to warréut, 
That no man be so bold, ne priest, ue clerk, 
Me to disturb of Christes holy work. 

% ® % 

Then have I in laton a shoulder bone, 

Which that was of a holy Jewes sheep. 

Good men, say I, take of my wordes keep ; 

If that this bone be wash’d im any well, 

If cow, or calf, or sheep, or oxé smell, 

That any worm hath eat, or worm ystung, 

Take water of that well and wasli Ins tongue, 

And it is whole anon. 


* ¢Tife of Chaucer,’ vol. u., p. 114. 

+ I pee me, ze. I take pains. t Hauglity, bold. 
§ Cupidity, or avarice, is the root of all evil. 

\| Wheiice. 


% + 


If that the good man that the beastes oweth”, 
Will every week, e’er that the cock him croweth, 
Fasting, ydrinken of this well a draught, 

As thilké holy Jew our elders taught, 

His beastes and his store shall multiply ; 
And, sirs, also it healeth jealousy. 

There 1s a mitten eke, that ye may see: 

He that his hand will put in this mittén, 

He shall have multiplying of his gram 
When he hath sowen, be it wheat or oats, 

So that he offer pence or elles groats.”’ 


The veneration for the relics of holy men, martyrs, 
&c. sprung up during the first age of the Christian 
church; but their use, which, 1t appears from Chaucer, 
had grown in the fourteenth century into so vulgar a 
superstition, and afforded such a harvest to imposture, 
may be dated probably trom about the end of the sixth 
century only. At that period Gregory I. was pope, who 
displayed a high sense of the virtue inherent in such 
things. There is a letter of his to the empress Constan- 
tina, in answer to her request for a part of the body of St. 
Paul, which he declines, on the ground that 1t was not the 
custom of the Romans, and in general of the Christians 
of the West, to touch, much less to remove, the bodies 
of saints; but that they put a piece of linen, called 
Brandeum, near them, which is afterwards withdrawn, 
and treasured up with due veneration in some new 
church, and as many miracles are wrought by it as if 
the bodies themselves were there. 
not to wholly disappoint the empress, the Pope added, 
he would send her some filings of the chains which St. 
Paul wore on his neck and hands. From that time the 
veneration for relics increased, till 1t became, as we 
have said, durmg the middle ages, a vulgar supersti- 
tion, on which impostors throve :— 


« By this gaud have I wonnen year by year 
A hundred marks since I was Pardoner,’— 


continues the candid rogue of the ‘Canterbury Tales.’ 
We learn from the same authority—the Pardoner’s ac- 
count of himself—his mode of silencing all opposition 
to his trade, or at least of punishing it, by attacking 
the offender from the pulpit, which it appears was 
frequently if not generally open to hin. “For,” he 
says,— 
“When I dare no other ways debate, 

Then will I sting him with my tongue smart 

In preaching, so that he shall not astertet 

To be defamed falsely, if that he 

Hath trespassed to my bretheren or to me. 

For though I telle not lis proper name, 

Men shall well knowen that it is the same, 

By signs, and by other circumstances : 

Thus quit I folk who do us displeasances. 

Thus spit I out my venom under hue 

Of holiness, to seem holy and true. 

But shortly mime intent I will devise, 

I preach of nothing but for covetise. 

Therefore my theme is yet, and ever was, 

Radix malorum est cupitidus.” 


Mr. Todd says, “ However lghtly the character of 
the Pardoner may be estimated, I must not omit to 
remark, that the tale which the poet occasions him to 
recite (the awful story of ‘ Death and the Three Riot- 
ours’) 1s extremely interesting in its dramatic and 
moral effect.’ This observation, whether so intended 
or not, appears calculated to convey an erroneous 1m- 
pression, namely, that there is a want of fitness be- 
tween the tale and its relater, which is perhaps about 
the last fault that so great an artist as Chaucer would 
have committed. Knowing the Pardoner’s character 
and tastes, the pilgrims cry out, immediately that he is 
about to commence his tale, 


* Owneth. + Escape. 
+ Hlustrations of Gower and Chaucer, p. 263, 


THE PENNY 


In order, however,- 


1 the points, yellow, red, and blue. 


MAGAZINE. [Sepr, 25, 1841. 
Nay, let him tell us of no ribaldry. 
Tell us some moral thing that we may leam.” 


To which the Pardoner replies— 


“—though myself be a full vicious man, 
A moral tale yet I you tellen can, 
Which I am wont to preachen for to win ;” 


and which he “ can by rote,” as he has before indirectly 
stated. The tale is told; and at its conclusion, the 
Pardoner, with consummate assurance and irresistible 
humour, says to the pilgrims,— 


‘ But, sirs, one word forgot I in my tale— 
I have relics and pardon in my mail, 
As fair as any man in Engle-land, 
Which were me given by the popé’s hand. 
If any of you will of devotion 
Offer, and have mine absolution, 
Come forth anon, and kneeleth here adown, 
And meekly receiveth my pardoin. 
Or elles taketh pardon, as ye wend ~ 
All new and fresh, at every townes’ end, 
So that ye offer alway new and new, 
Nobles or pence, which that be good or true. 
' It is an honour to everfch that is here, 
That ye moun have a suffisant Pardonere 
To assoilen you in country as ye ride 
For 4dventurés which that moun betide.” 


And to make the whole thing richer and more ridi- 
culous, he adds,— 


‘J redé that our Aoste shall begin, 
For he is most enveloped in sin. 
Come forth, sir host, and offer first anon, 
And thou shalt kiss the relics every one, 
Yea, for a groat; unbuckle then thy purse.” 


There is a laugh at the host’s expense; quickly, how- 
ever, returned upon the Pardoner by Harry Bailly’s 
retort. The worthy knight interferes, and checks the 
rising anger; so the two “kiss,” 


“ec 





and riden furth their way.” 


The Sutherland manuscript shows the long yellow 
hair spread in parted locks upon the Pardoner’s 
shoulders; his surcoat of scarlet trimmed with white, 
and ‘his scarlet cap with the vernicle in front. This is 
an ornament exhibiting a copy in miniature of the pic- 
ture of Christ, supposed to have been miraculously 
imprinted upon a handkerchief preserved in the church 
of St. Peter’s at Rome: it 1s worn by the Pardoner as 
a token of his recent return from the holy city. His 
stockings are blue. In his hand he earries the cross 
of laton,a kind of copper or mixed metal, coloured at 
The wallet bearing 
such precious relics rests on the horse’s back, and is care- 
fully guarded by white strings, which the Pardoner 
has hung round his neck. We conclude by observing, 
that to the Pardoner or his class we are in no trifling 
degree indebted for the acceleration, at least, of the 
Reformation. It was the retailing of indulgences by 
Tetzel, a Dominican friar, in Wittemberg, in 1517, 
that brought Luther first before the world, in opposi- 
tion not only to their sale, but to their general purpose 
and tendency, and so prepared his mind for the 
mightier warfare he was to wage in sweeping away 
throughout Europe the abuses of which Pardoners 
formed but an inconsiderable portion; and in which 
his success was to be for ever afterwards referred to as 
one of the greatest epochs mm the history of intellectual 
independence. 


Safe Dependence.—A firm trust in the assistance of an Al- 
mighty Being naturally produces patience, hope, cheerfulness, 
and all other dispositions of the mind that alleviate those cala- 
mities which we are not able to remove.—Spectator, 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


377 


GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS. 


THE CARTOONS AT HAMPTON COURT. 




















aii DSN, 


h 










































































| 


iLL 





HI 


4 


‘, = 

‘ = 
Ne 
, 


(The. Miraculous Draught of Fishes.] 


In the first and second volumes of the ‘Penny Maga- 
zine’ the history of the Cartoons of Raffaelle was given, 
and ail those which are now at Hampton Court were 
described with reference to their character and merits 
as pictures. To the illustrious artist himself, the reader 
has also been introduced (vol. i., p. 13); and Hamp- 
ton Court, the not unbecoming dwelling-place of the 
Cartoons, has been fully described (vol. ili., p.25). To 
these points it is not, therefore, necessary to refer on 
the present occasion ; but it is our intention to view the 
Cartoons in connection with the historical circumstances 
which they embody—to which they give form, and with 
SO surpassing a power of realization, that these pictures 
become for ever a part of the intellect of every one by 
whom they are contemplated. Every one reads, or 
hears read, often the historical stateinent of the events 
which the painter has depicted; and every one, as he 
reads, necessarily forms, each to himself, an ideal 
image of the scene. This idea is dim, shadowy, indis- 
tinct, differing at different times and occasions; the 
forms and colours dependent upon weather, health, 
youth, age, and a multitude of circumstances in our- 
selves and out of ourselves. But he who secs the Car- 
toons of Raffaelle finds all his future imaginations 
with respect to these scenes paralysed, or rather super- 
seded. He reads, but his mind cannot act, as before, 
upon its own resources. <A master-spell is upon his 
spirit; and instead of the fantastic and dim uncer- 
tainties of the passing picture which his own concep- 
tions would adumbrate, the Cartoon of Raffaelle rises 


No. 699. 


a a ge es fn SSS SS ce me 


spontaneously before him in all its truth and distinct- 
ness, and it is impossible to form another image of the 
scene than that which 7 has represented. And when- 
ever the mind recurs to these events, and, unconsciously 
revolting against its bondage, commences forming a 
picture for itself, it is found that it would merely pro- 
duce slight differences of grouping and of arrange- 
inents in parts. The materials are still Ratfaelle’s; 
the Christ is Raffaelle’s; the Peter, Rafiaelle’s; the 
John, Raffaelle’s; the Paul, Raffaelle’s; and finding it 
thus, the mind abandons its incipient attempt at inde- 
pendent action, and submits willingly to a captivity 
better than freedom. 

Now this is the undoubted privilege of genius—to 
make its acts parts of other minds—to render far more 
than “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh”—by 
becoming incorporate with that essential atmosphere 
through which our inner and intellectual lie receives 
its light, and in which it breathes and has its being. 
And this privilege is not common or of small value. 
A great conqueror is he—some will say the greatest of 
conquerors—who has conquered minds in any parts of 
their acts or operations; and who asserts this power 
over the minds of people of different nations, lan- 
euages, habits, conditions, ages ; and who, in this most 
unlike the conquerors of armies and of kingdoms, 
maintains and exercises his authority long after—ages 
after—his own personal existence has been lost in the 
‘cold obstructions” of the grave. foremost among 
these conquerors of the world is Raffaelle; some of 


Vou. X.—3 C 


3/8 THe PENN 
the chief agents of whose continued sway we now pro- 
ceed to contemplate. 

It is well known that the Cartoons at Hampton 
Court form part of a series of subjects from the New 
Testament history, designed as patterns for two sects 
of magnificent tapestry, one of which Pope Leo xX. 
designed to retain, and to present the other to our 
Henry VIII. The tapestries bemg executed, the Car- 
toons were treated with much neglect by those into 
whose hands they fell, who appear to have considered 
that they had served their purpose. When ultimately 
inquired for, some of thcm were lost and_ others 
spoiled. A few of the whole twenty-five exist, besides 
the seven at Hampton Court, and the subjects and 
mode of treatment in those that are wanting are known 
from the tapestries executed from them, and with 
such means of comparison it:is satisfactory to know 
that among the best in the whole series are the seven, 
the view of which is one of several rich and pure en- 
joyments open to the harassed inhabitants of the great 
metropolis, bya short, easy, and now cheap excursion to 
the finest neighbourhood of London. Sorely are we 
tempted to recount the whole of these enjoyments— 
enjoyments of the road, and of the river, and of the 
hill; enjoyments of royal gardens, and parks, and 
palaces, and pictured halls—but we forbear. We can- 
not, however, but point out a new source of illustra- 
tion to the Cartoons which has been lately opened at 
Hampton Court. As thc visitor passes under one of 
the archways which connect the various courts which 
together form the palace, he will perceive on the left 
hand a broad staircase of stone, with a board on the 
wall painted with “To the Cardinal's Hall.” Go up, 
by all means. We find ourselves in a large and very 
handsome hall, only just opened to the public, and 
which the workmen have not yet abandoned. The 
walls of this hall are completely covered with tapes- 
tries representing the history of Abraham. This work 
of tapestry is very interesting and curious 1n itself; 
but we only notice it now for the sake of indicating to 
the reader that it was for such tapestry as this, and 
destined to be thus hung on walls, that the Cartoons 
of Raffaelle were exccuted. It will thus be seen that 
the paintings were intended to represent the effect 
which the woven tapestry itself was to produce; and 
this will account for the pecultarity of style and effect 
in the Cartoons which has given occasion for much 
remark. 

There is one matter, however, which it seems the 
peculiar province of a work hke ours to record. It 
is not many years ago that Hampton Court was but 
little thought of or visited by Londoners; and when 
the enjoyments which it offered were all but absolutely 
beyond the reach of the classes who now throng to it 
by hundreds at every favourable occasion. Not longer 
back than 1823, an intelhgent writer said of Hampton 
Court :—‘‘ From perpetually echoing to the more than 
regal revelries by which Wolsey’s unbounded wealth 
enabled him to further the views of his equally un- 
bounded ainbition, these princely halls have come to 
be almost as silent as their dead master’s tomb; from 
witnessing the proud airs and peerless glances of court 
beauties, and reflecting back the humble whispers of 
supplicating lovers, thcy have come to find their best 
boast in the painted effigies of these beauties that hang 
upon their otherwise bare walls; and they have nothing 
to echo back but the hurried footsteps ofa single do- 
mestic, who passes through them daily to wipe away the 
dust from their untrodden floors, only that 1% may col- 
lect there again; or the unintelligible jargon of a 
superannuated dependent, as he describes to a few 
straggling visitors (without looking at either) the ob- 
jects of art that have bcen depositcd in them, (ike trea- 
sures ina tomb.” All this has now passed away,—the 


~ 


MAGAZINE. (SEPTEMBER, 184] 
floors are no longer untrodden; uf there be dust upon 
them, it is the dust of many feet. The single domestic 
and ancicnt dependent have given place to a dozen 


spruce policemen, picked and dressed for the service ; 


instead of being tortured by the unintelligible jargon 
of an aged and ignorant person who had to be paid for 
his interpretations, the visitor has the opportunity of 
purchasing the efficient and permanent services of a 
neat and uscful catalogue of the various pictures and 
objects which thesc halls contain; and instead of “‘a 
few straggling visitors,” some scores are found there 
on any fine day, while on Sundays and Mondays, 
and on every holiday, the place is absolutely thronged 
with Londoners, so that some regulations have been 
found necessary to enable them to survey the various 
rooms without confusion. 

The once solitary village bears now evident signs of 
this concurrencc—in the display of all kinds of con- 
veyances in which the visitors have been brought, and 
in which they will return—the private equipages—the 
taxed cart—the stage coaches—the omnibusses—the 
vans—in “booking offices’—in places for the refresh- 
ment of the visitors—inns— tea-gardens—confectioners’ 
shops. But these last are less numerous than might 
be expected, on account of the vicinity of Richmond, 
which has always been a favourite place of resort to 
the Londoners, and which, as a larger place, has much 
superior and more varied accommodations of the sort, 
without which we are afraid that even a trip to Hamp- 
ton Court would be lightly esteemed by the comfort- 
loving people of our Babylon. And they are right in 
prefcrring Richmond as the place of rest and refresh- 
ment; for, apart from the palace and its grounds, 
Richmond is certainly a much pleasanter place than 
Hampton Court. Many, therefore, walk the distance 
between the two places; and there are also vehicles 
which traverse this distance only, without proceeding 
to London; while there are others, including the 
steamers, which pass between London and Itichmond, 
without procecding to Hampton. 

Nor are the signs of the present, and, we are sure, 
abiding popularity of Hampton Court, confined to the 
neighbourhood of the palace. In the innermost re- 
cesses of London’s mighty heart, the name of ‘ Hamp- 
ton Court” is written. Go where you will, into the 
high-road or the bye-road, into the public street or the 
narrowest lane, into the alley or the court, there 1s no 
cscaping the eternal painted board (generally red 
with yellow lctters), with sometimes a rude drawing 
of the conveyance—‘ Vans to Hampton Court.” 
And occasionally of a Saturday evening, uf the van- 
holder lives ina place wide enough for the display, the 
van, newly washed, and clean as a daisy, may be seen 
drawn up before his door, with the tempting announce- 
ment—* This Van starts for Hampton Court to-morrow 
morning at eight o'clock.” These vans are hung with 
curtains, and mounted on springs, and have very much 
resemblance to the arabah, which is the only wheel- 
conveyance in Turkey, but are far more convenient 
and comfortable. 

The writer we have already quoted concludes his 
notice with the remark—“ In the immediate environs 
of the palace, and the road leading to and passing 
through it, there is an air and appcarance which [ 
know not how to describe, otherwise than by calling it 
courtly. Youfeel, without knowing why, that you are 
in the presence of greatness; and all things that you 
see correspond with (or perhaps ‘it is, they excite) this 
feelmg. The great, wide, yet unfrequented road, worn 
only in the middle, and grown with grass at the sides— 
the great walls that line the wide pathways on either 
hand, and the great stately elms that stand out, here 


j and there, almost into the middle of the road, as you 
/see them nowhere clse—all give an imposing ap- 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


pearance that I do not reinember to have scen else- 
where.” 

The presence of all kinds of modern conveyances, 
and the movements to and fro of cheerful groups in 
holiday attire, have unpaired inuch of this courthness; 
the wide road is no longer grass-grown, but well worn 
by many wheels and many feet. But the elms are 
there; for there is hfe natree. Having on former 
occasions approached the palace in another direction, 
we did not notice them until our last visit, when their 
old gnarled rinds, and the enormous overhangmg 
branches—themselves trees—which look as if ready to 
break down by their own weight, immediately arrested 
attention, and called for the strongest admiration. 

So, then, there has been change—much change—in 
this quarter. Much of this may be ascribed to the im- 
mense facilities of cheap and easy conveyance in all 
directians; which have already, in the course of a tew 
_ years, made quite a revolution in our social system. 
The very becoming abrogation of the fee formerly paid 
for viewing itampton Court must also be taken into 
account. But we do not fear being mistaken in our 
calculation that this and similar manifestations in 
other directions are in a very great degree the result 
ofa greatly increased relish among all classes for the 
many pure and ennobling enjoyments which art and 
nature offer. 

When we first visited the Cartoons, we were not 
at all prepared for their peculiarity of style; and the 
paintings seemed at the first general glance to manifest 
an appearance of poorness and want of finish, which 
created a fceling of disappointment and regret; and 
almost induced us to feel that the Cartoons were seen 
to most advantage in good engravings. But it for- 
tunately happened that different engravings after the 
several Cartoons had been placed below, and near the 
eye, for the sake of comparison. Some of these engrav- 
ings were very excellent; but the result of a close 
comparison showed such a loss of power in the best of 
them, that our attention was forcibly thrown back 
upon the paintings themselves, that we might by search- 
ing find out wherein the great strength ascribed to 
them lay. We searched, and abundantly were we re- 
warded. What treasures did we not discover—and 
continue still to find out—for the search has been con- 
tinued at every repeated visit, and will continue as 
long as we live, in the conviction that we shall always, 
as we have done, come away with facts, details, expres- 


sions, ideas, powers, which had escaped the most dili-. 


eent of our previous researches. And so it will always 
be ; for these are the productions of a creative mind— 
works not to be looked at, but to be studied—works 
before any one of which we may profitably spend not 
minutes but hours, seeking to penetrate the great 
mysteries of art and knowledge which it contains. 
With all reverence we must declare that it is in some 
respect with these works as with the Bible, in which, 
as 1s well known to the diligent and careful readers 
thereof, new impressions are made by, and new beau- 
ties discovered in, passages which have been read 
and re-read times without number. 

One matter that has struck us much in all our views 
of these wonderful pictures is their great truth—not 
oniy truth of character and expression in the human 
figures, but the truth of circumstances and details. 
This evinces that Raftaelle did not place his whole de- 
pendence upon the force of his genius and his power of 
producing the effects he contemplated; but that he 
studied hard and well. He laboured to make himsclf 
acquainted with the most minute particulars of the his- 
tory he undertook to paint; and not only so, but by 
careful study of books of travel in Palestine he endca- 
voured to render himself acquainted with the local 
characteristics of the spot which was the scene of the 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


379 


transaction he undertook to paint. This is a motive 
so little practised by painters generally, whether an- 
cient or modern, that it deserves to be mentioned to 
the special honour of Raffaelle: for the want of it 
often obliges the man of knowledge and reading to 
turn with dissatisfaction and regret from some of the 
finest paintings of scriptural and classical subjects 
which the world contains. This, therefore, is one of 
the characteristics of the Cartoons, which in the en- 
suing pages we shall be particularly anxious to in- 
dicate. 

The Cartoons were, as we have already stated, ori- 
ginally twenty-five in number. Taken together, and 
in their proper connection, they formed a pictorial his- 
tory of the New Testament; the events of prominent 
lmportance being represented in orderly successron. 
This will be seen from the following list, in which we 
ae arranged the subjects in their proper historical 
order :— 


1. The Nativity. 

2. The Adoration of the Magi. 

3, 4, 3. The Slaughter of the Innocents. 

6. The Presentation in the Temple. 

@. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. 

8. The Descent of Christ into Hades. 

9. The Resurrection. 

10. Noh me Tangere. 

1]. Christ Supping at Emmaus. 

12. Christ's Charge to Peter (usually, but errone- 
ously, styled Christ Delivering the Keys to Peter). 
13. The Ascension. 

. The Descent of the Holy Ghost. 

. Peter and John Healing in the Teimple. 

. The Death of Ananias. 

. The Stoning of Stephen. 

. The Conversion of St. Paul. 

. Llymas the Sorcerer struck with Blindness. 
. The Sacrifice at Lystra. 

. Paul Preaching at Athens. 

. Lhe Earthquake. 

23, 24. Children at Play, catching birds, &c. 
oe) Slice: 


From this list it appears that of the twenty-five sub- 
jects thirteen Gif we include the Slaughter of the Inno- 
cents) belong to the history of Christ, and eight to the 
history of his Apostles; the remaining four not being 
Scriptural subjects. The Hampton Court Cartoons are 
those whose titles are printed in Italics. In these the 
proportions are reversed, only two of the seven pic- 
tures belonging to the history of Christ, while five 
belong to the history of the Apostles. Of these five, 
three refer to circumstances in the life of St. Paul, 
who is, upon the whole, the prominent figure in this 
collection. The precise place which the seven occu- 
picd in the historical series of twenty-one will at once 
be perceived from their position in the list we have 
viven. | 

In reviewing this Catalogue the reader will pro- 
bably remark with some surprise that 1n a serics evi- 
dently intended as a continuous series of New Tes- 
tament subjects, events of such paramount importance 
as the Transfiguration and Crucifixion are not in- 
cluded. The reason of this omission is probably found 
in the fact that the former of these grand events, as 
well as many others in the hfe of Christ, had been pre- 
viously painted by Raffaclle, and that in taking a new 
course of Scriptural subjects he wished to avoid those 
on which he had previously exercised his powers. In 
fact, on turning to a list of this great painter’s works,we 
find that the whole series of the Cartoons includes but 
one subject—the Adoration of the Magi—which he had 
previously painted, and that previous painting was but 


| a small picture, executed in the carly part of his career, 
3C 5 


380 THE PENNY 
when his style lacked that freedom which it had ac- 
quired in those riper years in which the Cartoons were 
undertaken. As to the Transfiguration, he reserved 
that subject for the glorious picture—the crowning 
monument of his fame—which he commenced soon 
after the Cartoons were finished, and which he did not 
live entirely to complete. 

We shall now address ourselves to the Cartoons at 
Hampton Court, or rather, to the subjects which they 
represent, taking them not in the order in which they 
are usually described, but in that historical order in 
which they occur in the list we have introduced. 

The Miraculous Draught of Fishes 1s the subject 
which this order brings first under our notice. 

This event occurred very early in the ministry of 
Christ. He had, indeed, performed several miracles, 
and had otherwise engaged the attention of the people 
by the parables and discourses which he delivered ; so 
that, whenever he appeared, he was followed by crowds 
hoping to see some miracle performed by him, or to 
hear the new and noble doctrines which fell from the 
hps of one “ who spake as one having authority, and 
not as the Scribes.” But as yet his labours had been 
confined to the province of Galilee; and had, indeed, 
been divided chiefly between the town and neighbour- 
hood of Nazareth, and the shores of the Lake of Gen- 
nesaret. At this time, however, he had been expelled 
from Nazareth (of which he was reputed a native), 
and resided principally at Capernaum, near the head 
of the lake. As yet he had no followers exclusively 
devoted to him, and attending him im all his journeys 
and muinistrations; but there were several who were 
his followers in the ordinary sense, that is, who heard 
him with attention and reverence, and who took every 
occasion which their avocations allowed of seeking his 

resence. Among these were four fishermen of the 
ake, Peter and Andrew, the owners of one fishing-boat ; 
and the brothers James and John, to whose father, Ze- 
bedee, another boat belonged; and 1t would seem that 
the two boats commonly acted in partnership. 

One day, as Jesus stood on the shore, he was thronged 
by the people who were anxious to hear him. To 
avoid the pressure, he entered the boat of Peter, which 
was Close at hand; and when it had been thrust a little 
way into the water, he spoke to the people from thence. 
When he had concluded, he desired Peter to launch 
forth, and cast his nets into the sea. Now it happened 
that Peter and his companions had becn out fishing 
all the night without success. This he intimated to 
Jesus: ‘ Master, we have toiled all the night, and have 
taken nothing.” And under such circumstances men 
are generally sore, and ina very fit frame of mind for 
rejecting advice and direction as an odious imperti- 
nence. But Peter, by a first manifestation of that 
faith which afterwards burned in him “ stronger than 
death,” added—‘‘ Nevertheless, at thy word I will let 
down the net.” This was done; and immediately the 
net was filled with such a multitude of fishes, that the 
net was broken in the attempt to draw it. On this 
Peter and his brother called their partners, Zebedee’s 
sons, to their assistance ; and when, with this assistance, 
the draught was secured, both the boats were so filled, 
that there was reason to fear that they would sink. The 
whole party were astonished beyond measure at this 
prodigy, which their ill success all the previous night 
prepared them the more strongly to appreciate. But the 
effect upon Peter was the most marked. He was:too 
skilful a fisher, too well acquainted with the lake, and 
with the fit times and seasons of his trade, not to see 
more in this than some of us—who are no fishermen, 
and know nothing of the lake—are willing to see. He 
saw and recognised the presenve of one to whom the 
‘gh and operations of nature were subservient; and 

is enhanced perception of majesty in Christ gave in- 


MAGAZINE. [SEPTEMBER, 1841. 


tensity, by contrast, to the sense of his own utter un- 
worthiness, and his unfitness for such a presence.* He 
therefore fell down at the Saviour’s knees, and cried, 
‘Depart from me; for J am a sinful man, O Lord!” 
What a prayer !—as if the patient should say to the 
physician—‘ Depart from me, for Jamsick!” It was 
well for Peter that it was not granted. Nay, rather, 
instead of going from him, Jesus, in effect, called and 
invited him to amore close and intimate connection 
with himself, in terms which included a significant 
typical reference to the present act :—‘‘ Fear not: 
Jrom henceforth thou shalt catch mEn.” 

This is the moment chosen by the painter—while the 
succession of the immediately preceding circumstances 
is indicated by the still lingering portions of the crowd 
upon the shore, and by the manner 1n which James and 
John (who are in the second boat with their father 
Zebedee) arc still occupied with the net. Thus, also 
variety of action has been produced; and the picture 
is more effective, and the attention more concentrated 
on the principal persons, than it would otherwise have 
been. Andrew, similarly impressed with his brother, 
steps forward to share in his act and sentiment; and 
although the sons of Zebedee are otherwise. engaged, 


* The Rev. R. Cattermole, in his ‘ Book of the Cartoons,’ 
notices the objections that are frequently and strongly felt by 
many against personal representations of the paternal Godhead, 
in which he concurs, so far at least as to consider even Raifaelle’s 
delineations as unsatisfactory. He adds, however, “ Not so in” 
his representations of the incarnate God—the Eternal, the Infi- 
nite, veiled beneath the final and the finite. In the individual 
Divine Man, the artist is supplied with a type, the existence of 
which withdraws all impropriety from the attempt; and if it be 
objected, that he has failed adequately to depict the Godhead, 
we answer—to do so was not his object. He penetrates not be- 
low the covering of humanity which hides the Omnipotent from 
mortal view. If upon its surface he can trace some faint touches 
of the latent glory, he attains not only all that he is warranted 
in attempting, but, perhaps, all which in reality the human 
form of the Son of God, during his residence on earth, itself dis- 
played. 

“ The ‘Christs’ of Raffaelle are, upon the whole, more suc 
cessful than those of any other artist ; with reference to the above 
view of what is required, they may be regarded perhaps as per- 
fect. The exquisite figure before the reader will justify this 
assertion. In both the action and form of our Saviour we dis- 
cover the usual felicity of the artist’s genius. The divine com- 
posure of Omnipotence exercising authority over nature could 
scarcely be better expressed than in that simple and graceful 
posture in which he is seated—in the countenance radiant with 
benignity—in the lips, which, by their movement and their form, 
appear employed in modulating a voice replete with sweet and 
gentle yet powerful expression—in that hand which wields the 
elements, gracefully raised in accordance with the words whereby 
he moderates the emotions of the agitated Apostle. The character 
of the form and features, and even the drapery of Christ, are 
finely contrasted with those of his merely human companions. 
The head is in the most graceful style of masculine beauty; the 
delicate texture and flowing lines of the hair and beard har- 
monise delightfully with the sweetness and purity of every other 
part—even in these the divine superiority of the Friend of man- 
kind is distinctly expressed :”— 


“¢ ¢The man that shines as bright as God—not so, 
For God he is himself that close lies under 
That man—so close, that no time can dissunder 
That bond; yet not so close, but from him break 
Such beams as mortal eyes are all too weak 
Such sight to see—or it, if they should see, to sneak. 


His hair in small curls did twine, 
As though it were the shadow of some light, 
And underneath, his face as day did shine— 
But sure the day shined not half so bright; 
Under his lovely locks, her head to shroud, 
Did meek Humility herself grow proud :— 
Hither, to light their lamps, did all the graces crowd. 
Giles Fletcher.” 


2 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


we see by the direction of their looks that their atten- | 


tion is drawn to what is passing mm the other boat: they 
see the prostration, they hear the confession of Peter ; 
and they also hear and understand the impressive an- 
swer of Jesus. We are therefore prepared to learn 
that they, as well as Peter and Andrew, on reaching 
the shore—“ left all, and followed him.” 

We have said that it is not our intention to expatiate 
on the artistical character of these productions. This 
has already been amply done in <he present and other 
publications. We cannot, however, forbear from calling 
attention to one matter which has not by any means 
received the attention it deserves ;—this is, that accu- 
racy in the details and circumstances to which we 
alluded in a former page: of this, the present Cartoon 
is a very striking example. 

It has been more than onee remarked, as an evidence 
of Raffaelle’s attention to the proprieties, that he has 
represented here not a shallow stream, but an expan- 
sive lake—such as was the Lake of Gennesaret: but 
it has not been remarked that this lake 7s the very Lake 
of Gennesaret; so that it is quite evident that the 





Ss 4 SE 


38 | 


artist took great pains to make himself well acquainted 
with the locality of the seene whieh he had undertaken 
to represent. This he might do from the various 
descriptions which then existed, as well as from con- 
versation with persons—pilgrims and monks—eertain 
to be found at Rome, who had visited the lake. We 
have thus not only the true character of the banks, but 
of the birds which fiy over, whieh skim the surfaee, 
and which frequent the shores of the lake, as well as 
of the very fish which inhabit its waters. The buildings 
along the shore are also more proper than might, at 
the first view, occur to the reader. They have a mixed 
Oriental and Roman character, which is peeuliarly 
exact and proper with reference to the time of Christ, 
when Herod the Great and his sons had strewed the 
borders of the Lake with public and other buildings— 
temples, palaees, theatres, baths-—in the Roman style 
of architeeture. The works of this description were 
the most numerous towards that northern quarter of 
the lake which was the scene of the transaction which 
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[Christ’s Charge to Peter, 


Christ's Charge to Peter, commonly, but erroneously, 
called Christ Delivering the Keys to Peter, 1s the next 
Cartoon in the series to which our attention is turned. 
In the complete series, four pictures intervene between 
this and the one which has engaged our notice. Yet it 
so happens that the absence of these four, so far from 
destroying or injurmeg the connection between them, 
has produced a very beautiful connection and opposi- 
tion which the pamter did not contemplate. In both, 
Christ and Peter are the principal characters; the 
scene of both is by the Lake of Tiberias, near the same 
spot ; the boat and the net are introduced in both; on 
both occasions there had been a miraculous draught of 
fishes ; the former was the opening and this the closmg 
actin Peter’s connection with Christ; and in both there 
is nearly the same charge given to the Apostle under a 
differing similitude. 

Nearly the whole publ ministry of Christ had passed 
in the interval between these pictures. Christ had 
taught, and wrought miracles, and suffered death, and 


risen from the dead, and had more than once appeared 
to hs disciples to satisfy them, that he lved, and to 
sive instruction and comfort to them. It will be 
remembered that Christ was crucified at Jerusalem 
during the Passover; and during the following week, 
he, by his appearances to them, and his acts, had satis- 
fied the Apostles that he had indeed risen in his own 
very person from the grave ; though they had still very 
imperfect notions of the true design of the dispensation 
and of their own mission. 

After the Passover week, the Apostles returned to 
Galilee, to which most of them belonged, and to which 
they had been directed to repair. Here such of them 
as had been fishermen, and lived on the borders of the 
Lake of Gennesaret, betook themselves to their old 
occupation—either as being necessary to their subsist- 
ence, or, which is more probable, concluding that their 
engagement with and for Jesus was at an end—whereas, 
in truth, it had scarcely more than commenced. 

One evening Simon Peter, with James, John, Thomas, 


382 


Nathanael, and two others, went out to fish on the 
lake, and, as on the former occasion, toiled all the night 
In vain. When the morning broke, a stranger was 
perceived upon the shore, who called to them, ‘“ Chil- 
dren, have ye any meat?” They answered “ No;” and 
were told that if they let down the net on the right 
side of their vessel, they should find enough and to 
spare. They did so, and were then unable to draw the 
net for the multitude of fish which it contained. This 
miracle convinced John, who is distinguished by the 
touching title of “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” that 
the stranger, whose person they had not been able in 
the dimness of the morning to distinguish, was their 
own Master , and he whispered his conviction to Peter, 
who no sooner heard that 1t was the Lord, than the 
usual impulsiveness of his character would not permit 
him to tarry for the boat, but he threw himself into the 
water, to hasten to him. The others followed in the 
smaller boat, dragging after them the net, which they 
had not been able to draw in the usual way, and which, 
to their surprise, they found not to be broken, notwith- 
standing the number (153) of large fish which it con- 
tained. 

When all were landed, they saw a fire, with fish 
broiling thereon, on which, with bread, the Saviour 
invited them to ‘“ Come and dine.” And none of them 
durst ask him, “ Who art thou?” knowing it was the 
Lord. After they had eaten, Jesus, touched probably 
by the characteristic manner in which Peter had just 
evineed his affection, turned to him and asked— 
“Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than 
these?” It wili be remembered that at the Last Sup- 
per Peter had professed with vechemence his superior 
attachment to his Master, and that if all else should 
forsake him, yet he would be faithful unto death. The 
question, therefore, now put to him, was the same as 
asking him whether he still persisted in this profession. 
The natural ardour of Peter would have inclined him 
to utter the strongest expressions of devotedattachment; 
but checked and humbled by the consciousness of that 
terrible night when, before the cock crew thrice, he 
had twice denied his Master; and by the keen remem- 
brance of that moment when “ He had turned and 
looked upon Peter,” in the judgment-hall, when the 
the third denial was yet upon his lips—subdued by this, 
he only ventured on a touching appeal to Christ’s own 
consciousness of his love—“ Lord, thou knowest that 
I love thee.” The answer was,‘ Feed my lambs!” 
‘“ He saith unto him again, the second time: ‘Simon, 
son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” Hesaith unto him, ‘ Yea, 
Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.’ He saith unto 
him, ‘ Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third 
tune, ‘ Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?’ Peter was 
grieved because he said unto him the third time, ‘lovest 
thou me?’ And he said unto him, ‘ Lord, thou knowest 
all things, THOU KNOWEST THAT I LOVE THEE.’ Jesus 
.Saith unto him, ‘Feed my sheep.’” He then continued: 
—“ Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast 
young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou 
wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt 
stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and 
carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” This was 
understood to be an intimation to Peter by what manner 
of death he should “ glorify God :” and accordingly the 
history of the church informs us that this eminent 
Apostle was, like his Master, crucified, and, not like 
hun, nazled, but bound with cords to his cross. 

Jiverything in the Cartoon indicates that this is the 
scene which the painter intended to represent, and not 
the metaphorical delivery of the keys to Peter, which 
took place a good while before the Crucifixion (Mait., 
Xvi. 19), and not near the Lake of Gennesaret. The 
sheep, the lake, the boat, the net, the prints of the nails 


in the hands and feet of Christ, the number of the | 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. [SEPTEMBER, 1841. 
Apostles (eleven, Judas being wantinge*)—all clearly 
refer to a time posterior to the crucifixion and 
resurrection of Christ, and to no other. It is true 
Peter has the keys: and this has led to the mis- 
conception. But we do not think from this that 
the picture represents the Delivery of the Keys; nor 
even that it proposes to combine that action with the 
final charge of “ Feed my sheep!” For seeing that the 
time and ad/ the circumstances refer to the latter trans- 
action, 1t is obvious to consider that it is merely to 
distinguish and dignify his person that he is represented 
as holding the keys which had formerly been committed 
to him. The action of Jesus is also entirely indicative. 
Me does not appear as delivering or as having just 
delivered the keys, nor Peter as receiving or having 
just received them—he hold them as his possession. 

Peter and John Healing the Cripple is the singularly 
rich and effective painting which next occurs to our 
notice. 

The Temple of Jerusalem, as it stood in the time of 
Christ and his Apostles, had many gates. Nine of 
them were very glorious, being overlaid with gold and 
silver, even to the side-posts and the lentils: but 
another gate, thirty cubits high and fifteen broad, was 
made entirely of Corinthian brass, and, ftom its splen- 
dour and claborate workmanship, was much more 
admired than those covered with gold and silver. This 
was probably the “ Beautiful Gate of the Temple,” at 
which, or in whose corridors, the halt, the maimed 
stationed themselves day by day to receive the alms of 
those who entered or departed from the house of God. 

The Apostles had returned from Galilee to Jerusa- 
lem. They had seen their Master ascend to heaven 
from the Mount Olivet; and on the day of Pentecost 
they had received the gift of tongues, and had been 
endowed with such miraculous powers as Christ him- 
self had exercised. Already Peter had become a 
“fisher of men ;” for on that great day, three thousand 
persons had been converted to Christ by his first dis- 
course. Many circumstances, traceable even in the 
Gospels, had tended to create a peculiar intimacy be- 
tween the ardent Peter and the loving John, who, in- 
deed, had been friends and partners before they left all 
to tollow Christ. 

Not long after the day of Pentecost, and before occa- 
sion for the exercise of their miraculous powers had 
yet offered, Peter and John repaired together to the 
Temple at the hour of afternoon prayer. As they 
approached the “ Beautiful Gate,” they were asked for 
alms by a man who had been lame from his birth— 
who had never walked—and whom his friends carried 
daily to the Temple-gates. The Apostles were struck 
with compassion at the pitiable object before them; 
and Peter felt the faith in him to exercise the gift he 
had received. He said to the man, “ Look on us;” and 
he looked well, expecting to receive money from them. 
Answering the expectation which that look conveyed, 
Peter said :—“ Silver and gold have I none; but such 
as I have, give I thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth, rise up, and wAuK.” As he said this “he 
took him by the right hand and lifted him up: and 
iminediately his feet and ancle bones received strength; 
and he, leaping up, stood, and walked, and entered 
with them into the Temple, walking, and leaping, and 
praising God.” The man was so well known, from his 
remarkable lameness, and from being daily seen at the 
Beautiful Gate, that this astonishing case attracted 
general attention, and produced a deep sensation, of 


* In fact there were but seven “ disciples” (including at 
least four Apostles) present on this occasion; but the licence of 
introducing the whole number, and making it eleven (not twelve, 
as it would have been at’the time of delivering the keys to Peter), 
is as significant of time as the actual number of disciples would 
have been. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


which Peter took advantage by declaring to the people 
there the doctrine of Christ, faith 11 whosc name had 
made this hopeless cripple whole. 

The moment of action ehosen by the painter is that 
in which the Apostle takes the cripple by the hand 
and commands him, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, 
to rise and walk. The fine contrasts of echaraeter and 
emotion m the different figures, and the skilful pic- 
torial effeets produced m this noble composition, have 
been indieated by a previous writer in the ‘ Penny 
Magazine’ (No. 70); and we shall therefore limit our 
attention to one or two points which have not been 
clearly understood. 

The gorgeous architeeture and the effective distri- 
bution of the rows of columns have been very much 
admired; but Raffaelle has not in this had the full 
praise he deserves. Jn this we find marks of careful 
study and comparison; and we do not hesitate to de- 
clare that he exhibits such a distinct knowledge of his 
subject as few professed writers on biblical antiquities 
have manifested. 

The proper fabric of the Temple and 1ts courts, into 
whieh none but Israclites might pass, stood m a vast 
enelosed eourt, called the Court of the Geniiles, to 
whieh everybody had access. The principal gate of 
aeeess to this outer court was the gate (called Shu- 
shan) on the eastern side; and it was the only gate on 
that side. Exaetly opposite to this gate was the only 
cate on the east side of the inner and more sacred por- 
tion leading to the eourt of Israel. This was the 
Beautiful Gate. The extensive outer court of the 
Gentiles was surrounded by a broad and magnificent 
piazza or colonnade, supported by mnumerable pillars 
of white marble. Josephus speaks of these cxtensive 
rows of marble pillars with rapture, declaring that the 
effect was merecdible to those who never saw them, and 
an amazement to those who did. Now it 1s a portion 
of this colonnade which the painter has represented. 
The Apostles had entered the outer gate, and were 
proeceding under the colonnade to the inner Beautiful 
Gate, when the cripple arrested their attention. In 
the two right-hand compartments the vicw is mter- 
ecpted and darkened by the walls of the mner fabrie, 
while in that to the left a view of the clear sky and of 
the open eourt is obtained. 

It may not be amiss to mention that the covered 
walk of this outer court was a plaee of great public 
resort, and that it was here Jesus himself delivered 
some of his most 1mpressive diseourses. 

As to the form of the pillars, so little 1s said on the 
subjeet in the Seriptures or in Josephus, that the 
painter was left in a great degree to his own fancy. 
He has, however, embodied all the hints he eould eol- 
lect, and the pillars, therefore, exhibit the eherubs, the 
clustering vines, the lily-work, and other known orna- 
inents of Hebrew arehiteeture, displayed to singular 
advantage in combination with the spiral form which 
the coluinns have reeeived from his hand. 

The cifeet produeed by the view of the open sky 
through the colonnade in the left-hand compartment 
cannot be too much admired; and we do not fail to 
remark that the artist has filled this compartment with 
light and pleasant objects, in unison with this intended 
relief. The women and boys of Raffaelle, in general, 
claim much admiration; and nowhere arc they finer 
than in this picturc. The female with the basket on 
her head, followed by the boy with two doves, forms a 
creation of surpassing beauty, sufficient alone to im- 
mortalise any picture in which it might be found. 

These objects remind us of another explanation, 
which may not be unacceptable to the reader; the 
rather as it brings out another instance of Raffaelle’s 
knowledge, and his exemplary attention to historical 
propriety. They are going into the Court of the Gen- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


330 


tiles with doves and fruit. Now, in fact, there was a 
sort of market in that eourt, which was considered less 
holy than the more interior parts of the Temple. This 
market was allowed under the pretence of convenience 
to the people in obtaining near at hand such articles, 
animals, or birds as were used for offerings. This 
market, at which were sold oxen, sheep, lambs, kids, 
doves, &c., was held at the south side of the court; 
and beg in itself undoubtedly as illegal as unseemly, 
and sanctioned only as a source of gain to the priests, 
our Saviour, on two oceasious, drove all the dealers 
and their wares before him, aeross the court, towards the 
east gate of the centre wall,where he also ovcrturned the 
tables of the money-ehangers who were stationed there. 

By introdueing two figures proceeding in that di- 
rection with doves, the artist has skilfully intimated 
the existenee of this interior market, and has availed 
himself of it for the production of the two charming 
beings by whom this intimation is eonveyed. 

simee the preeeding observations were written, we 
have mct with two or three pages of interesting re- 
marks on the Cartoons by an anonymous writer in the 
‘New Monthly Magazine,’ in 1823, from which we wil- 
lngly introduce one passage whieh refers chiefly to 
those from which the engravings in our present Sup- 
plement have been taken. He declares the grand 
charaeteristic of the Cartoons to be — “ expression, 
depth, variety, consisteney, and, above all, unity of ex- 
pression. And this extends not only to the animated 
objeets that they represent, but to the most apparently 
insignificant details that are introduced into them. 
The hands of the ‘Paul preaching at Athens’ are 
searcely less cloquent and inspired than the countc- 
nanee, and the very folds of his mantle speak as with a 
tongue. The storks that arc seen in the ‘ Miraeulous 
Draught of Fishes’ stand on tip-toe, and elap their 
wings expectantly, as if the miracle had been worked 
for them alonc; and the littleness of the boat in this 
pieture (which has, I believe, been remarked on as 
preposterously out of keeping with the persons whom 
it contains) 1s so contrived purposely, in order to give 
a grandeur to the figures and an expansion to the sea, 
that they could have aequired by no other means. Let 
the pseudo-eritie, who objects to this fine application 
Of poctieal leence, ealculate the size that the boat in 
question ought to have been, on his principle, the 
figures being nearly as large as life; and then, if he 
happens to be an artist, let him paimt a picture on the 
same subject aceordingly—his eanvas being of the size 
of that we are speaking of. Alas! his picture will be 
alt boat—figures, storks, fishes, miracle and all, going 
for nothing. Is this what he would have, in place of the 
magnificent work before us?... 1 mention these asin- 
stanees of the astonishing unity of expression prevalent 
in these works—infused into them pcrhaps m a great 
degree uneonsciously on the part of the painter; but 
the more rather than the less admirable onythat ac- 
eount, as evincing the absolute mterfusion of the 
artist’s spirit with that of the subject he was engaged 
upon; the entire subduing of all the faculties of the 
mind, ‘even to the very quality’ of that which was 
‘its lord’ for the time being. Raffaelle’s genius pos- 
sessed this power of self-adaptation more than any 
other modern, except Shakspeare. He possessed it, in- 
deed, in an infinitely inferior degree to Shakspeare, in 
point of extent and variety, but where it did reach, it 
was not inferior to his. It may fairly be conjectured, 
too, that Raffaclle limited the exercise of his genius 
consciously and purposely to subjects in which gran- 
deur, grace, and beauty were predominant; and that, 
if he had attained the ordinary age of man, he would 
have practiscd and excelled in other departments of 
his art, no less than he did in thesc. In proof of this 
opinion, I would instance the figures of the two afflicted 


JS4 


persons in the Cartoon of ‘ The Beautiful Gate.’ Nothing 
can be finer in their way—that is to say, more abso- 


lutely trwe—than the expression of these two figures 5. 


and yet nothing can be more shocking and disgusting.” 

With reference to these two figures, which have en- 
vaged much attention, we have no doubt that an artist 
of inferior powers would have chosen rather to render 
them “interesting,” by regular features and an en- 
eagving expression of countenance. But it had not 
escaped the notice of Raffaelle, that in those who had 
from early youth, or all their lives, been cripples, a 
form and expression of countenance was generally de- 
veloped the reverse of engaging, and which forms, in 
fact, one heavy portion of that affliction which such per- 
sons have to sustain. ‘To have given such persons 
dignified heads would have been incongruous, however 
common in art; it would have been a pictorial lie; 
and no artist that ever lived knew better than 
the painter of the Cartoons, that, even pictorially, all 
truth is beautiful when truthfully applied and under- 
stood. Here, accordingly, the artist understood how 
even this unpleasant truth might become a beauty, by 
the effective contrasts which it would enable him to 
realise. This beauty in the picture—resulting from the 
power which a great mind possesses of rendering all 
things subservient to a great design—every one can 
now appreciate ; and the frutA every one can ascertain 
from his own observation. In fact, it,is said that, in 
the determination to be true to nature, Raffaelle made 
choice of two well-known crippled beggars at Rome 
for his models. 

Yet, while both the cripples are thus “marred ” in 
countenance, there were perhaps never two men re- 
sembling each other less in character and expression. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(SEPTEMBER, 1841. 


deformed of countenance; but already he feels the new 
life tingle in his limbs, already he has begun to raise 
one of his legs, and finding it obedient to his will—his 
faith, already a gleam of wandering hope, appears in 
and begins to irradiate his countenance ; and we cansce 
that his aspect, not less than his linbs, is to be healed. 
How different the other man, who appears the very 
impersonation of a sturdy and saucy beggar. Being 
in the act of advancing, it would appear as if the pause 
of the Apostles before his brother cripple had attracted 
his attention, and he has hastened to claim a share in 
their bounty. He has heard the words—“ Silver and 
gold have I none; but such as I have, give I thee :” 
and his countenance answers too plainly to be misun- 
derstood—‘* What else has any one worth giving!” 
fis firm and scornful incredulity of any good from 
persons who have no silver or gold, is expressed with 
great force, which we have not seen adequately repre- 
sented in any engraving. It is evident that he has not 
that faith in the name of Jesus of Nazareth which 
might entitle him to be healed; and the artist thus 
meets the objection, “ You have introduced two crip- 
ples, whereas the history notices but one: if another 
had been really present, might we not expect him also 
to be healed.” To obviate this, the pamter has not 
given them equal claims to the notice of the Apostles ; 
and has, in fact, skilfully insmuated a reason why the 
other was not cured. In fact, no one in looking at the 
Cartoon seems to feel the least wish or expectation that 


he should be healed, or the slightest wonder that he 


was not: and this neutralization of our feeling in be- 
half of this cripple, being the very effect which the 
artist intended to produce, and which it was necessary 
he should produce, is in itself one of the strongest 


The man who is the object of the miracle is painfully ! evidences of his consummate skill. 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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(a, Teal; 6, Wigeon, male and female; c Tame Swan; d, Wild Duck, male; e, Tame Duck male; f; Muscovy Duck; 9. Domestic Goose.] 


DOMESTIC WATER-FOWL. 


Next to the gallinaceous order of birds, the natatorial 
or swimming order presents us with the most valuable 
of our feathered denizens of the farm-yard. Of these 
the goose and the duck are familiar to every one. But 
we may add the Muscovy or musk duck, common in 
many places; the Canada goose, kept rather as an or- 
nament in a semi-domesticated state on lakes or ponds 
in pleasure-grounds, than for the sake of its flesh; the 
Chinese goose, occasionally to be seen, and interbreed- 


No. 610. 


ing with the common goose; and, lastly, the swan, 
semi- domesticated and the ornament of lakes and 
rivers. 

That others of the duck tribe (Anatid@) might be re 
claimed and introduced into the farm-yard or pleasure- 
eround, is very evident,—indeed, the Mandarin teal, 
and the Summer duck, both pre-eminent for beauty, and, 
at least as it respects the latter, highly esteemed for the 
table, breed in the gardens of the Zoological Society. 

From what we have said, it will appear that our 


| domestic water-fowl belong exclusively to one tribe of 


VoL. X.—3 D 


386 THE LoONNY 
the natatorial order, namely, the Duck tribe, or, as na- 
turalists term it, the Anatide. The general charac- 
teristics, as we observe them in the duek or swan, 
proclaim aquatic habits. The form of the body is boat- 
like; the plumage consists of an undervest of down 
(remarkable in some species, as the wild swan and the 
eider duck, for its softness and delicacy), and of an outer 
layer of smooth feathers, varnished with a subtle oily 
fluid which enables them to repel the water; the neck 
is long; the beak large, depressed, and usually broad ; 
the edge of each mandible 1s provided with a series of 
laminated projections serving as strainers—with the 
exception of a sort of nail at the tip of the upper man- 
dible, both are clothed with a smooth skin; the tongue 
is large and fleshy, and furnished on its edges with ap- 
pendages useful for enabling the bird to separate its 
food from the mud and water taken into the mouth 
with it; the legs are short, and placed far backwards ; 
the toes are spreading, and the three fore-toes are 
united by broad intervening webs; the wings are 
pointed, and the tail is short; the windpipe often pre- 
sents curious flexures, or contractions and dilatations, 
or a hollow bony box, or drum, at its lower extremity, 
before dividing to pass into the lungs. The gait of the 
Anatidewe on land is awkward and constrained, but they 
swim with grace and ease. Vegetables, insects, shell- 
fish, and even fishes, constitute their diet—not, however, 
indiscrimately ; some subsist exclusively on vegetables, 
while others, as the Scoter duck, feed on small erabs 
and bivalve molluscs, for the grinding down of which 
their thick muscular gizzard, lned with a tough 
leathery membrane, is well adapted. 

Though the Anatide, as a tribe, are aquatic, some 
are more so than others; and in such as resort but sel- 
Jom to the water, we find modifications of structure in 
the limbs and beak; and characters in the form of the 
body and texture of the feathers indicative of terres- 
trial, or at least but partially aquatic habits. The long- 
legged Cereopsis, or New Holland goose, is an exam- 
ple. On the contrary, some species rarely visit the land 
except for the purpose of breeding; while others feed 
on the land, and resort to the water for safety, or, float- 
ing on the water, seek their food among the weeds and 
herbage which grow on its border. 

Many of the Anatide are migratory ; indeed most of 
our European species, if not all, are so; for thougha 
few species, as the sheldrake, and mallard, or wild duck, 
are to be classed among the permanent residents in our 
island, yet their numbers are augmented in winter by 
temporary visitors from the north. The high northern 
latitudes, in fact, may be regarded as the summer re- 
sort and nursery ofthe European Anatide ; and thence, 
as winter locks up the rivers and lakes with ice, they 
wing their way southwards, to seek in more temperate 
latitudes a convenient asylum. 

From these general and discursive observations let 
us advance to a closer review of the most common and 
familar of our water-fowl. Our lakes and rivers have 
no ornament more attractive than the tame swan (Cyg- 
nus olor). This noble bird is not, however, indigenous 
in our island; and though it now breeds with us, and 
wanders at will, it must be classed among the reclaimed 
species. In its truly wild state it inhabits the eastern 
portions of Europe and the adjacent parts of Asia, 
where extensive lakes or inland seas, large rivers, and 
wide-spread morasses afford it a congenial abode. 
The tame or mute swan is abundant on the Thames, 
each pair having their exclusive range or district, at 
least during the breeding season. The nest, in the 
formation of which both the male and female labour, is 
made on the bank among reeds or oziers, or on one of 
the ozier islands. It consists of a mass of sticks, twigs, 
&c. raised sufficiently high to prevent its being 
overflowed by any rise of the water, 


The eggs are | 


MAGAZINE. [OcTonBER 2, 
six or eight in number. While the female is engaged 
in the duty of incubation, she is assiduously guarded 
by the male, who manifests great anger 1f she is ap- 
proached. On one occasion, rowing with a friend on 
the Thames, we approached a female swan on her nest, 
seated on an island near Staines bridge; the male in- 
stantly darted forward to attack us, and gave us chase 
for a full quarter of a mile, propelling himself so 
vigorously and rapidly along, that it was with difficulty 
we could keep a-head. It was, in fact, an amusing 
rowing-match against a swan. 

The young birds, or cygnets, are not white, but are 
covered with a greyish brown plumage ; the white in 
its purity not being acquired till the third year. The 
cygnets, during the first summer and autumn, are 
under the care of the old pair, who guard them dih- 
gently. The ensuing spring brings new cares for the 
old pair, and the young form flocks, which continue 
unbroken till the white plumage is assumed, when the 
birds mate, and seek their respective breeding-places. 
During the winter large flocks of old and young birds 
may be often seen. The flesh of the cygnet was for- 
merly in high estimation, and. is still occasionally 
eaten. 

Besides the tame swan (Cygnus olor), there are three 
Icuropean wild species. Of these, one has been re- 
cently characterised; it 1s allied to the tame swan, 
but instead of the legs, toes, and webs being black, as 
in the latter, they are of a pale ashy grey. The cygnets 
are white. Mr. Yarrell, the first describer of this spe- 
cies (of which several individuals are living, and have 
bred in the gardens of the Zoological Society), observes 
that “this species had been known to him for some 
years past, as an article of commerce among the Lon- 
don dealers in birds, who receive it from the Baltic, 
and distinguish it by the name of the Polish swan. In 
several instances these swans had produced young in 
this country, and the cygnets when hatched were pure 
white, and did not at any age assume the brown colour 
borne for the first two years by the young of all the 
other known species of swans.” (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1838, 
p. 19.) To this species Mr. Yarrell gave the name of 
Cygnus tmmutabilis, in allusion to its permanency of 
colour. 

During the severe winter of 1837-8, “flocks of this 
swan were seen pursuing a southern course along the 
line of our north-east coast from Seotland to the 
mouth of the Thames, and several specimens were ob- 
tained.” One flock of thirty and several smaller flocks 
were seen onthe Medway. The skull of this species 
differs in certain points from that of the tame swan, 
according to Mr. Pelerin, who has published a paper 
on the subject in the ‘Magazine of Nat. Hist.,’ April, 
1839. Of the two remaining swans, one is the Wild 
Swan, Hooper, or Whistlmg Swan (Cygnus ferus), a 
native of the whole of the northern hemisphere, breed- 
ing on the borders of the arctic circle, and migrating 
southwards in winter. In America the emigrations of 
this swan are bounded by Hudson’s Bay on the north, 
and extend southwards as far as Louisiana and the 
Carolinas. It extends its winter visits in Europe and 
Asia as far as the warmer latitudes, and passes even 
into Egypt. The windpipe of this swan 1s remarkable 
for a loop which passes into the substance of the keel 
of the breast-bone. 

The last European species is Bewick’s Swan (Cyg- 
nus Bewickit), which has been confounded with the 
Hooper, but which, as Mr. Yarrell has demonstrated, 
isa distinct species. Like the preceding, it 1s a native 
of the high northern regions, migrating south in 
winter. Jis windpipe is of smaller ealibre than that 
of the Hooper, and passes far more deeply into the 
keel of the breast-bone. 

Less ornamental than the swan, but more profitable, 


1841.] 


the doinestic goose next presents itself. The origin of 
this valuable bird is undoubtedly the grey lag wild 
roose (Anser palustris, Flem. ; Anser cinereus, Meyer); 
but at what period or by whom the domestication of 
the race was achieved, we have no information. 

The Grey Lag was formerly abundant in England, 
breeding in great numbers in thie fenny counties, but 
of late years 1t has become scarce, owing, no doubt, to 
the advance of cultivation. It 1s common in the cen- 
tral and eastern parts of Eturope and in northern Asia, 
tenanting marshes, lakes, and inland seas. During 
the winter, flocks occasionally visit our island, but 
these are far less numerous than the bean-goose (Anser 
segetum, Steph.), and an allied species, recently de- 
scribed, the pink-footed goose (Anser phenicopis, 
Bartlett, Proc. Zool. Soc., 1839). 

The grey lag isa bird of remarkable vigilance and 
shyness, and cannot be approached within gunshot 
range without extreme caution. During the night 
the flock retire to the water for repose, a sentinel 
keeping watch; and during the day, while feeding, the 
same precaution is observed ; on the least alarm, a cry 
is uttered, and the whole flock are on the wing. The 
height at which they fly is very great, and they proceed 
either in a single line or in two converging lnes hke 
the letter V, the angle foremost. 

(zrasses, grains, and the tender blades of rising 
wheat constitute the food of this species; and as we 
may observe in the tame goose, the beak is admirably 
qualified for nipping off each blade. The goose 1s in- 
deed a close grazer, and will keep the grass of a com- 
mon short and fine. 

The domestic goose is subject to great variation in 
its markings, white often predominating, and the male 
or gander is usually of a pure white. The general 
colour of the grey lag is brownish-grey above, and 
greyish-white below, the feathers having paler mar- 
gins, the upper and under tail-coverts are pure white ; 
the bill is orange-red; the feet tile-red. 

The habits and manners of our domestic goose are 
too well known to need description; nor need we 
dilate upon the value of this bird in a commercial point 
of view, nor its excellence as a delicacy. Vast flocks 
are kept in the fenny districts by breeders, who derive 
profit from the sale of the feathers, and also from the 
young birds, which are sent in multitudes to the Lon- 


don markets. 
| (To be continued.) 


AN ANTIQUE PORTRAIT. 


Tue following sketch, by the first Earl of Shaftesbury, 
is introduced in the ‘ Connoisseur,’ a periodical work 
published in 1755, with the remark that ‘a mere 
country squire, who passes all his time among dogs 
and horses, is now become an uncommon character : 
the most awkward inheritor of an old mansion-house is 
a fine gentleman in comparison to his forefathers ;” 
and one of the causes for this change is that ‘‘now 
every London refinement travels to the remotest corner 
of the kingdom.” 


“ The Character of the Honourable W. Hastings, of 


Woodlands, in Hainpshire ; second son of Francis, 

Earl of Huntingdon. 

«In the year 1638 lived Mr. Hastings ; by his quality 
son, brother, and uncle to the Earls of Huntingdon. 
Ife was peradventure an original in our age: or rather, 
the copy of our ancient nobility, in hunting, not im 
warlike times. 

«Tle was low, very strong, and very active; of a 
reddish flaxen hair. His clothes always green cloth, 
and never all worth (when new) five pounds. 

« Tis house was perfectly of the old fashion, in the 
midst of a large park well stocked with deer ; and near 
the house rabbits to serve his kitchen; many fish- 


THI PENNY MAGAZINE. 


387 


ponds, great store of wood and timber, a bowling-green 
in it, long, but narrow, full of high ridges, it being 
never levelled since it was ploughed. They used 
round sandbowls; and it had a banqueting-house, like 
a stand, built in a tree. 

“Te kept all manner of sport hounds, that ran 
buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and hawks, long 
aud short winged. He had all sorts of nets for fish, 
He had a walk in the New Forest, and the manor of 
Christchurch. This last supphed him with red deer, 
and sea and river fish. And indeed all his neighbours’ 
erounds and royalties were free to him, who bestowed 
all his time on these sports. Every neighbour was 
very welconie to his house, whenever he came. Theie 
he found becf, pudding, and small beer in great plenty. 
A house not so neatly kept as to shame him or his 
dirty shoes: the great hall strewed with marrow-bones, 
full of hawks’ perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers: 
the upper side of the hall hung with fox-skins of this 
and the last year’s killing; here and there a polecat 
intermixed; gamekeepers and hunters’ poles in great 
abundance. 

“The parlour was a large room as properly fur- 
nished. Ona great hearth paved with brick lay some 
terriers, and the choicest hounds and spaniels. Seldom 
but two of the great chairs had litters of young cats in 
them, which were not to be disturbed; he having 
always three or four attending him at dinner; and a 
httle white stick of fourteen inches lying by his 
trencher, that he might defend such meat as he had no 
mind to part with to them. The windows (which were 
very large) served for places to lay his arrows, cross- 
bows, stone-bows, and other such-hke accoutrements. 
The corners of the room full of the best-chose hunting 
and hawking poles. An oyster-table at the lower end, 
which was of constant use twice a day all the year 
round; for he never failed to eat oysters before dinner 
and supper, through all seasons; the neighbouring 
town of Poole supplied him with them. 

“The upper part of the room had two small tables 
and a desk, on the one side of which was a church 
Bible, and on the other the ‘Book of Martyrs.’ On 
the tables were hawks’-hoods, bells, and such like; two 
or three old green hats, with their crowns thrust in so 
as to hold ten or a dozen eggs, which were of a phea- 
sant kind of poultry he took much care of and fed 
himself. Tables, dice, cards, and boxes were not 
wanting. In the hole of the desk were store of tobacco- 
pipes that had been used. 

“ On one side of this end of the room was the door of 
a closet, wherein stood the strong beer and the wine, 
which never came thence but in single glasses—that 
being the rule of the house exactly observed; for he 
never exceeded in drink or permitted 1t. 

‘On the other side was the door into an old chapel, 
not used for devotion. The pulpit, as the safest place, 
was never wanting of a cold chine of beei, venison 
pastry, gammon of bacon, or great apple-pie with thick 
crust extremely baked. 

« His table cost him not much, though it was good 
to eatat. His sports supplied all but beef and mutton, 
except Fridays, when he had the best salt fish (as well 
as other fish) he could get; and was the day his neigh- 
bours of best quality most visited him. le never 
wanted a London pudding, and always sung it in with 
‘omy part lies therein a.’ He drank a glass or two of 
wine at meals; very often syrup of gilliflower in his 
sack; and had always a tun-glass, without feet, stood 
by him, holding a pint of small beer, which he often 
stirred with rosemary. 

“Tfe lived to be a hundred; never lost his eye- 
sight, but always wrote and read without spectacles ; 
and got on horseback without help. Until past four- 


| score he rode to the death of a stag as well as any.” 


o 12 


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(The Peat-Gatherer.} 


THE PEAT-GATHERER. 


Here is a sketch—a portrait—of one of those who eke 
out a scanty subsistence by the appropriation of some 
of the productions of nature which have scarcely passed 
into the condition of property. Near this old woman’s 
cottage there isa peat-moss; and thither on the fine 
autumnal days does she take her course, to load that 
basket which she bears with the lumps of decomposed 
roots and fibres which, dried in the sun, are to furnish 
her poor hearth with its winter’s warmth. Let not the 
more fortunate think contemptuously of her humble 
and, to a certain extent, unprofitable labours. A 
penny would perhaps represent the commercial value 
of the fuel which she thus daily accumulates ; but it is 
better to accumulate her small capital of peat than to 
do nothing. Society has no further need of her services. 
There was a day when she took her share of the toils 
of the field : seed-time and harvest saw her busy. She 
was once a careful housewife, and had higher duties. 
She was a wife and mother. She is now alone in her 
wretched cabin. But it is her duty to live on, and to 
make her existence as pleasurable as she can. She 
has a confiding belief that— 


‘ He that doth the ravens feed, 
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,” 


will not let her perish. In this trust she employs her 
lew remaining energies to possess something which is 


of too small value to be appropriated, but which 1s 
much to her. She has her little store of gleaned corn; 
the fishermen on her coast have bestowed on her some 
herrings out of their abundant draughts,—and these she 
has salted ; her heap of peat is daily increasing. Why 
then should she fear the winter ? 

Our greatest living poet is, as all great poets must be, 
the poet of the poor. It is amongst the poor that they 
have to study the unconventional aspects of humanity 
—natural feelings, warm affections, undoubting faith, 
elevating and purifying what externally appears coarse 
and revolting in the every-day existence of those who 
must labour with their hands from the cradle to the 
grave. Wordsworth has a story which superficial 
critics have made the subject of their ridicule—that of 
‘Goody Blake. Some may call it a homely story; 
but there is deep meaning in it :— 


“ Old Goody Blake was old and poor ; 
Ill fed she was, and thinly clad ; 
And any man who passed her door 
Might see how poor a hut she had. 


All day she spun in her poor dwelling : 

And then her three hours’ work at night, 

Alas! ’t was hardly worth the telling, 

It would not pay for candle-light. 

Remote from sheltering village green, 

On a hill’s northern side she dwelt, 
Where from sea-blasts the hawthorns lean, 

And hoary dews are slow to melt. 


1841.] 


By the same fire to boil their pottage, 
Two poor old dames, as I have known, 
Will often live in one small cottage ; 
But she, poor woman! housed alone. 
"Twas well enough when summer came, 
The long, warm, hghtsome summer-day, 
Then at her door the canty dame 
Would sit, as any linnet gay. 


But when the ice our streams did fetter, 
Oh! then how her old bones would shake, 
You would have said, if you had met her, 
"Twas a hard time for Goody Blake. 

Her evenings then were dull and dead! 
Sad case it was, as you may think, 

For very cold to go to bed ; 

And then for cold not sleep a wink. 


O joy for her! whene’er in winter 
The winds at night had made a rout ; 
And scattered many a lusty splinter 
And many a rotten bough about. 

Yet never had she, well or sick, 

As every man who knew her says, 

A pile beforehand, turf or stick, 
Knough to warm her for three days.” 


This poor old woman felt it hard always to distin- 
owish between what was spread in the lap of nature for 
her to pick up, and what society had assigned to indi- 
viduals. A hedge was a temptation to her when 
windfalls of wood were scarce; and Harry Gill, the 
farmer, seized her in the act of pulling a stake. The 
terrified woman prayed that the relentless man might 
“never more be warm;” and the story says that he, 
who did not fecl that her trespass was venial, tasted 
the bitterness of that cold which hovers round the 
emberless hearth of poverty, even to his dying day. 

This 1s poetical exaggeration; but the story is cal- 
culated to sink deep into the reflecting mind. In the 
solitary places with which even the most populous 
parts of our country abound there are many such as 
Goody Blake, who dwell alone, carrying on a constant 
warfare with the bittcrest penury. It may be said 
that the law has provided a refuge where the sick and 
the aged may be comfortably maintained. And many, 
as we know, avail themselves of this just assistance ; 
and they are well treated. But itis impossible to deny 
that there are feelings amongst the poor stronger even 
than the desire to escape the heaviest inflictions of 
want. They cling to the hut, in their solitary age, 
which has been the home of gladness in their social 
youth. The old things by which they are surrounded 
are far dearer to them than what is strange and un- 
familiar. And we must not deal harshly with those 
feelings which belong to the higher parts of our nature. 
We must not attempt to tear the sapless trunk from 
the soil where it once budded and blossomed. Let 
charity address itself to the Goody Blakes, not in the 
undiscriminating form of alms-giving, but in that most 
considerate shape which benevolence puts on when it 
fives some stimulus even to the feeblest efforts of. in- 
dustry. There was a time when an old woman ina 
desolate cottage was held to be a witch :— 


‘There in a gloomy hollow glen she found 
A little cottage built of sticks and reeds 
In homely wise, and wall’d with sods around ; 
In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weeds 
And wilful want, all careless of her needs; 
So choosing solitary to abide 
Far from all neighbours.” 


Spenser has thus described what two centuries ago, 
and indeed in much more recent times, was the popular 
notion of an old woman whose destiny compelled her 
“solitary to abide.” These prejudices are past. But 
the progress of reason, which has driven out such 
superstitions, may have its prejudices also. It may 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


380 


‘think an old solitary woman, or an aged couple, 


dwelling in 
“A little cottage built of sticks and reeds,” 


as persisting in “welfud want.” It would sce the hut 
and its inhabitants succeeded by what belongs more to 
utility. Reason may not be quite right in such matters. 
The patience, the hope, the pious trust, which the en- 
durance of so much evil imphes, are for cxample. 
Philosophy may here learn something better than she 
can teach.. We are not to measure happiness by the 
command of external comforts. In the hght embers 
of the poor Peat-gatherer’s fire there may be associa- 
tions—recollections of the past, aspirations for the 


future—which no other fire-side could give. 


BURNS. 
(Concluded from p. 355.] 


Burns had bid farewell to his friends; his chest was 
already on its way to Greenock, and he himself was 
about to follow, when a most kindly and encouraging 
letter from Dr. Blacklock, whom Mr. Cunningham 
calls “a middling poet, but a most worthy man,” at once 
changed his determination. The Doctor said therein, it 
was “ much to be wished, for the sake of the young man, 
that:a second edition, more numerous than the former, 
should immediately be printed ;’ and Burns was but 
too happy to listen to the recommendation. It “ fired 
me so much,” says the latter, ‘that away I posted to 
Edinburgh without a single acquaintance or a single 
letter of introduction.” In the Scottish metropolis, 
however, he did not long remain unnoticed. The his- 
torian Robertson, Dugald Stewart, and Henry Mac- 
kenzie were foremost in acknowledging the clains of 
the “ inspired ploughman” to a lofty rank among the 
poets of their common country; and they, and the 
brilhant circles of rank and fashion among which 
Burns was soon continually found, were astonished at 
his self-possession and extraordinary conversational 
powers. ‘“ The attentions which he received,” says 
Dugald Stewart, “during his stay in town, from all 
ranks and descriptions of persons, were such as would 
have turned any head but his own. I cannot say that 
I could perceive any unfavourable effect which they 
left upon his mind....Among the poets whom I have 
happened to know, I have been struck in more than 
one instance with the unaccountable disparity between 
their general talent and the occasional inspirations of 
their more favoured moments. Butall the faculties of 
Burns’s mind were, as far as I could judge, equally 
vigorous, and his predilections for poetry were rather 
the result of his own enthusiastic and impassioned 
temper, than of a gemius exclusively adapted to that 
species of composition. From his conversation I should 
have pronounced him to be fitted to excel in whatever 
walk of ambition he had chosen to exert his abilities.” 
Under the patronage of the Earl of Glencairn and the 
eminent men we have mentioned, appeared the second 
edition of Burns’s poems. This was towards the close 
of the year 1786; and before the cry of the cuckoo was 
heard, to use Burns’s own expression, in the tollowing 
year, not less than two thousand eight hundred and odd 
copies had been subscribed for by little more than 
fifteen hundred subscribers. All things smiled upon 
the joyous bard. Not that he was at all unaware of 
the precarious character of one of the consequences of 
his reputation, the countenance and patronage of the 
creat and powerful. ‘ I have formed many intimacies 
and friendships,” he writes, in a lIctter to Dr. Moore, 
“but Iam afraid they are all of a too tender con- 
struction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles ;”’ 
and in the very dedication of his poems to the noble- 
men and gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt, he re- 
marks, “‘the poetic genius of my country found me, as 


O90 


the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha—at the plough ;” 
and seeins to anticipate that 1t will so leave him, 1n 1ts 
concluding sentences: ‘“ Nor do I present this address 
with the venal soul of a servile author looking for a 
continuation of these favours: I was bred to the 
plough, aud am independent.” The profits of the 
publication amounted to nearly five hundred pounds, 
After a residence of little more than five months in 
Edinburgh, he quitted that city to make a tour through 
the border counties. Many characteristic passages 
marked this journey. On crossing the Tweed at 
Coldstream, “as soon as he had reached the English 
side, he took off his hat, knelt down, and with extreme 
emotion, and a countenance rapt and inspired, prayed 
for and blessed Scotland, by pronouncing aloud the 
two concluding verses of ‘The Cotter’s Saturday 
Night.’ ” 

In his course up the Teviot and the Jed, he called on 
an old gentleman, who showed him an arm-chair that 
had belonged to the poet Thomson. Burns exhibited 
the veneration that men of true genius generally have 
for each other, by reverently examining the relic, and 
almost refusing to sit down in it. He had, we may 
observe by the way, previously displayed sunilar feel- 
ines at Xdinbureh, where one of his earliest cares was 
to find out the localities that had long been sacred to 
the poet’s heart—the grave of Ferguson—where he 
knelt down and kissed the sod, and the house of Allan 
Ramsay. On the 13th of May he spent an hour among 
the ruins of Dryburgh, and passed over some broken 
round in the neighbourhood, where his mare could 
scarcely keep her feet, unconscious that on the one 
spot would rise the magnificent home (Abbotsford), 
and that in the other would rest the honoured remains, 
of a nan whose reputation would even exceed his own: 
yet was the poet the very earliest to prophesy the 
future reputation of the great romancist. 

Burns returned to Mossgiel in 1787. His mother 
meeting him at the door, with tears in her eyes, and a 
world of pride, joy, and affection in her heart, that 
could find vent only in the simple but touching words 
—‘< Oh, Robert” The next few months were spent in 
similar wanderings, and in visits to Edinburgh, where 
already he found his titled friends look coldly on him. 
He grew restless and dissatisfied. But in 1778 he 
married Jean Armour, advanced two hundred pounds 
to his brother Gilbert, and with the remainder of his 
pecuniary possessions stocked the farm of Ellisland in 
Dumfriesshire, and immediately busied himself in the 
duties of his new engagement, and in those of the 
Iuxcise-office to which he now belonged. He obtained 
his appointnent as an exciseman principally through 
Grahame of Fintray, a friend whom he has made me- 
morable by his poems. “I have chosen this, my dear 
dear friend,’ writes Burns to Margaret Chalmers, 
“after mature deliberation. The question is not at 
what door of fortune’s palace shall we enter in, but 
what doors does she open for us. I was not hkely to 
get anything to do. I got this without any hanging on 
or mortifying solicitation; it is immediate bread, and 
though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months 
of my existence, ’tis luxury in comparison of all my 
preceding lite.” We must add on this matter one or 
two observations by Mr. Cunningham. He says, 
“ Gauger 1s a word of mean sound, nor is the calling a 
popular one; yet the situation is neither so humble 
uor the emoluments so trifling as some of the poet’s 
southern adinirers have supposed. A gauger’s income 
iu those days on the banks of the Nith was equal to 
three hundred a year at present in London; an excise- 
officer is the companion of gentlemen ; he is usually a 
well informed person, and altogether fifty per cent. 


above the ordinary excise-officers on the banks of the 


Piiaines.” 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[ OCTOBER 2 


Jillisland consisted of a beautifully situated, but un- 
enclosed and unimproved piece of ground, measuring 
somewhat more than a hundred acres. <A dwelling- 
house and the various farm-buildings required, had to 
be built. The ‘onstead’ to which he conducted his 
wife, as soon as it was prepared for her reception, 
shows the poetical taste which had presided over the 
arrangements. Through the centre of a fine alluvial 
plain skirted by mountains of considerable elevation, 
the Nith, a broad and copious stream, pursues its way 
to the Solway. The right or west bank here rises in a 
gravelly precipice about forty feet above the stream, 
while the opposite bank consists of a low hollow or 
meadow, out of which, about a mile from Ellisland, 
rise the towers of Dalswinton. Burns’s farm-buildings 
were situated near the verge of the precipice or scaur 
alluded to, in such a way that, as Mr. Cunningham 
remarks, their afternoon shadow fell across the river 
upon the opposite fields. The house was small, con- 
taining only an ample kitchen, which was to serve also 
as the dining-rooin, a bed-room to hold two beds, a 
closet to hold one, and a garret for the female servants. 
The garden was a little way from the house; along the 
river side ran a pretty footpath southward, another 
leading northward afforded fine views of the Nith, 
while half way down the steep declivity was a spring 
of beautiful water for the supply of the household. 
some of the panes yet exhibit Burns’s love of scribbling 
upon such irail tablets. On one we read Pope’s noble 
line, “ An honest man ’s the noblest work of God.” At 
Kisland were written some of the best of his songs, 
the exquisitely pathetic verses to ‘ Mary in Heaven,’ 
‘Tam O'Shanter,’ &c. &c. It was in the stack-yard to 
the left of the house that Mrs. Burns followed her hus- 
band one evening during harvest, noticing that he was 
in a melancholy or unhappy mood. She found him 
walking backward and forward, gazing on the starry 
sky. As he had been unwell, she entreated him to 
come into the house, and he promised complhance. 
A second time she went to him, found him in the same 
place, and again he promised obedience to her wishes. 
still remaining absent, she went to him a third time, 
and found him “ stretched on a mass of straw, with 
his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet, ‘ that shone like 
another moon.’” He now yielded to her request, and 
immediately wrote out the verses commencing— 

“ Thou lingering star, with lessening ray _ 

That loves to greet the early morn, 

Again thou usherest in the day 
My Mary from my soul was torn. 

O Mary! dear departed shade ! 
Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 

Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? 
Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast ?”’ 

The circumstances under which ‘Tam O’Shanter 
was produced were of a very different character. The 
name, we may premise, was taken from the farm of 
Shanter in Kyle; the rude germs of the story from 
tradition. Mrs. Burns relates that observing Robert 
walking with long swinging sort of strides, and appa- 
rently muttermg as he went, she let him alone for 
some time; at length she took the children with her, 
and went forth to meet him. He seemed not to observe 
her, but continued his walk: “ On this,” says she, “ I 
stept aside with the bairns among the broom—and 
past us he came, his brow flushed, and his eyes shining ; 
he was reciting these lines— 

“<« Now—Tam! O Tam! had thae been queans 
A’ plump and strapping in their teens, 
Their sarks, instead of creeslie flaimen, 
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen! 
Thir brecks 0’ mine, my only pair, 
That ance were plush, 0’ gude blue hair 
I wad hae gi’en them off my hurdies! 
For a’e blink o tne bonnie burdies"’ 


1841. ] 


““T wish ye had butseen hin! he was in such ecstacy 
that the tears were happing down his cheeks.” Had 
Ivllisland been successtul, there seems every reason to 
suppose that the poet would have been happy, perhaps 
long hved, and the author of writings even of a still 
higher class than any he has left us. That he meditated 
such things we know, but unfortunately the repose 
necessary for their accomplishment was denied to him. 
Ellisland, instead of succeeding, swept away all the 
money the poet had reserved to himself trom the 
profits of his poems, and in 1791, after a sale of his 
stock and part of his furniture, he removed to Dum- 
fries, where he had obtained a better Excise appoint- 
ment. 

At Dumfries Burns took a house near the lower 
end of the Bank-Vennel, and dismissing all fnrther 
ideas of farming, trusted entirely to the Excise Board 
for the means of living. And there were situations in 
its gift which would have left Burns a happy and con- 
tented man for hfe. They were not for hin, however. 
A charge was made against him by some malicious 
busybody, and the Board, instead of treating it with 
the contempt it deservéd, set on foot a regular inquisi- 
tion into Burns’s political tenets and conduct; and 
this in connection with a man whose independence 
formed the inost striking trait of his moral character! 
Burns thus describes his feelings and thoughts at this 
most unhappy epoch in his history. He is writing to 
his friend Grahame of Fintray; the date is December, 
1792 :—‘“‘ I have been surprised, confounded, and dis- 
tracted by Mr. Mitchell, the collector, telling me that 
he has received an order from your Board to inquire 
into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person 
disaffected to government. Sir, you are a husband 
and a father. You know what you would feel to see 
the much-loved wife of your bosom and your helpless 
prattling little ones turned adrift imto the world, 
degraded, and disgraced, from a situation in which 
they had been respectable and respected. I would not 
tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though even worse 
horrors, if worse can be than these I have mentioned, 
hung over my head ; andI say that the allegation, what- 
ever villain has made it, isa he! ‘To the British Con- 
stitution, on Revolution principles, next after my God, 
{ am most devoutly attached.” Enclosed with this 
letter was another to be laid before the Board, dis- 
claiming all idea of setting up a republic, and express- 
ing his adherence to the constitutional principles of the 
Revolution of 1688. He, however, owned at the same 
time, with a manly courage, that he felt corruptions 
had crept in, which every patriotic Briton desired to 
see amended. 

“This last remark,” says the poet, ‘‘ gave great of- 
fence; and one of our supervisors-general, a Mr. 
Corbet, was instructed to inquire on the spot, and to 
document me,—that my business was to act, not to 
think ; and that whatever might be, men or measures, 
it was for me to be silent and obedient.” Rightly did 
a nobleman of the very administration under which 
such things were done, remark upon the poet’s judges, 
“they are as absurd as they are cruel.” Burns was 
‘‘nartly forgiven,” but from henceforward all his hopes 
of advancement were blasted. And consequently, from 
that time may, we think, be dated that downward 
course which most of his biographers state him to have 
taken froin the period of his residence in Dumfries, but 
which we think has been much exaggerated by some 
of them. Findlater, a brother officer, says he was “ ex- 
emplary” in his attention to his duties, until disease and 
acciunulated infirmities came upon him; and that, whilst 
seeing inore of him than any other person, he “never 
beheld anything like the gross enormities” with which 
he was charged after his death. 

At midsummer, 1794, Burns removed from the Bank- 


YHE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


39] 


Vennel to Milehole-brae, since called Burns-street, 
where he leased a plain and humble, but commodious 
house. ‘he strect stands near the bleaching or parade 
ground on the river side, a favourite walk of the citi- 
zens of Dumfries. Jlere he was often seen, within the 


‘open door, reading among his children, with his wife 


moving about, arranging matters connected with the 
details of her household. Darker and darker grew the 
scene as death approached. An excruciating rheuma- 
tism reduced him to a deplorable state. The Excise 
then only allowed him half-pay, as was customary; 
and when he petitioned the Board, saying, “if they do 
not grant it, J must make my account with an exit 
truly en poete; if I die not of disease, I must perish 
with hunger,”—it was still refused. Many of his hap- 
piest songs had been written as contributions to Thom- 
son’s ‘Collection of Original Scottish Airs;’ and at 
an early period of the acquaintance of the two men, 
Burns had almost quarrelled with his friend for send- 
ing him five pounds, remarking, that in the honest en- 
thusiasm with which he engaged in the work, it would 
be prostitution of soul to talk of money, fee, &c. He 
was now, however, obliged to write in a different strain. 
On the 12th of July Thomson received from him a 
letter, in which he said: “ After all my boasted inde- 
pendence, cursed necessity compels me to implore you 
for five pounds. A cruel haberdasher, to whom I owe 
an account, taking it into his head that J am dying, has 
commenced a process, and will infallibly put me in 
gaol. Do, for God’s sake, send me that sum, and that 
by return of post. Forgive me this earnestness; but the 
horrors of a gaol have made me half distracted. I do 
not ask all this gratuitously, for upon returning health 
I hereby promise and engage to furnish you with five 
pounds’ worth of the neatest song genius you have 
seen.” Of course he received the money he desired, 
but no health returned to enable the high-spirited man 
to keep this voluntary pledge. Sea-bathing in the 
Solway relieved for a time the paims in the limbs, but 
his appetite failed, and melancholy preyed on his spirits. 
He grew feverish on the 14th of July (1796), and de- 
sired to be conducted home. He returned on the 18th, 
and the news soon spread through the town that he was 
dying. “Who do you think will be our poet now ?” 
inquired with much simplicity one of the numerous 
persons congregated in knots about the street. His 
wit and good humour broke out in some of his last 
recorded sayings. ‘To Gibson, a brother volunteer, who 
sat by the bedside in tears, he said, smiling, “John, 
don’t let the awkward squad fire over me.” As to 
Burns woman owed much for the thousand charming 
things he had said and sung of them ; to woman was he 
in return indebted, during the last few days of his life, 
for an alleviation of his pains and anxietids. With all 
the poet’s admirers let the name of Jessy Lewars be 
held in affectionate esteem and honour; she it was who, 
When Mrs. Burns was in hourly expectation of her 
confinement, and the poet’s children, in their youth and 
helplessness, required, instead of being able to render, 
sympathy and support, ‘acted with the prudence of a 
sister and the tenderness of a daughter, and kept deso- 
lation away, though she could not keep disease.” It was 
on the fourth day after his return, that as his attendant 
held a cordial to his lips, the poet swallowed 1t eagerly, 
rose almost erect in the bed, extended his hands, sprang 
forward nearly the whole length, and died. He was 
but in his thirty-seventh year. He was buried with the 
military honours he had deprecated on the 25th, Mrs, 
Burns giving birth almost at the same honr to a son, 
who lived but a short time. The old kirkyard of Dum- 
fries was the poet’s burial-place. On the 5th of June, 
1815, the grave was opened to remove the body to a 
more comimodious part. The coffin was partly de- 
stroyed, but the dark and curling locks looked as 


392 


fresh and glossy as ever. A ‘showy’ mausoleum, with 
a Latin inscription, now marks out, to the pilgrims who 
daily visit the place, the object of their search. 

We conclude this paper with a brief summary of his 
poetical characteristics, from the pen of Mr. Thomas 
Carlyle, which describes them, we think, very happily. 
‘The excellence of Burns is indeed of the rarest, whether 
in poetry or prose ; but at the’ same time it 1s plain and 
easily recognised—his sincerity—his indisputable air of 
truth. Here are no fabulous woes or joys; no hollow 
fantastic sentimentalities; no wire-drawn refinings 
either in thought or feeling; the passion that 1s traced 
before us has glowed in a living heart; the opinion 
he utters has risen in his own understanding, and been 
a light to his own steps. He does not write from hear- 
say, but from sight and experience; it is the scenes 
he has lived and laboured amidst that he describes; 
those scenes, rude and humbleas they are, have kindled 
beautiful emotions in his soul, noble thoughts, and de- 
finite resolves ; and he speaks forth what is in him, not 
from any outward call of vanity or interest, but because 
his heart is too full to be silent. He speaks it too with 
such melody and modulation as he can—in homely rus- 
tic jingle—but it is hisown, and genuine. This is the 
srand secret for finding readers, and retaining them: 
let him who would move and convince others, be first 
moved and convinced himself.” 


The Wild Horse of Texas.— We rode through beds of sun- 
flowers, miles m extent, their dark seedy centres and radiatmg 
yellow leaves following the sun through the day from east to 
west, and drooping when the shadows fell over them. These 
were sometimes beautifully varied with a delicate flower, of an 
azure tint, yielding no perfume, but forming a pleasant contrast 
to the bright yellow of the sun-flower. About half-past ten we 
discerned a creature in motion at an 1mmense distance, and in- 
stantly started im pursuit. Fifteen mimutes’ mding brought us 
near enough to discover, by its fleetness, that it could not be a 
buffalo, yet it was too large for an antelope or a deer. On we 
went, and soon distinguished the erect head, the flowing mane, 
and the beautiful proportions of the wild horse of the prairie. He 
saw us, and sped away with an arrowy fleetness till he gained a 
distant eminence, when he turned to gaze at us, and suffered us 
to approach within four hundred yards, when he bounded away 
again in another direction, with a graceful velocity delightful to 
behold. We paused—for, to pursue him with a view to capture 
was clearly out of the question. When he discovered we were 
not following him, he also paused, and now seemed to be in- 
spired with curiosity equal to our own; for, after making a shght 
turn, he came nearer, until we could distinguish the inquiring 
expression of his clear, bright eye, and the quick cur] of his in- 
{lated nostrils. We had no hopes of catching, and did not wish 
to kill him, but our curiosity led us to approach him slowly. 
We had not advanced far before he moved’ away, and, circling 
round, approached on the other side. It was a beautiful ammal 
—a sorrel, with jet black mane and tail. As he moved, we 
could see the muscles quiver in his glossy limbs; and when, 
half playfully, and half in fright, he tossed his flowing mane in 
the air, and flourished his long silky tail, our admiration knew 
no bounds, and we longed—hopelessly, vexatiously longed—to 
possess him. We might have shot him where we stood; but, 
had we been starving, we could scarcely have done it. He was 
free, and we loved him for the very possession of that liberty we 
longed to take from him; but we would not kill him. We fired 
a rifle over his head; he heard the shot, and the whiz of the bal], 
and away he went, disappearing in the next hollow, showing 
himself again as he crossed the distant ridges, still seeming 
smaller, until he faded away to a speck on the far horizon’s 
verge.—Kennedy's Texas. 








Dwellings of the Icelanders.—The present houses of the Ice- 
landers differ little from those used by their ancestors who first 
colonized the island; and, though not according to our wleas of 
beauty or comfort, are probably the best fitted for the climate. 
They never exceed one story in height; and, as each room 1s, m 
some measure, separate from the others, the buildings on a 
moderate-sized farm bear some resemblance to a village. The 
walls are occasionally composed of drift-wood, but oftener of 
stone or lava, having the interstices stuffed with moss or earth, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Ocroaug 


and are about four feet high by six in thickness. Instead of the 
usual rafters, the roof often consists of whale ribs, which are 
more durable, covered with brushwood and tif, producing good 
grass, which is carefully cut at the proper season. From the 
door a long passage extends to the badstofa, or principal room, 
the common sitting, eating, and sleeping apartment of the family. 
From the sides of the lobby, doors lead to other rooms, used by 
the servants, or for kitchen and dairy. In the better class of 
houses the walls of the principal chamber are wainscoted, and 
the windows glazed; but these luxuries are unknown in most, 
and the holes in the roof that admit the ight are covered by a 
hoop, with the amnion of a sheep or a piece of thin skin 
stretched over it. They have no chimneys or grate, the smoke 
escaping by a hole in the roof; and there is no fire, even 1m the 
coldest weather, except in the kitchen. The beds are merely 
open frames filled with sea-weed, feathers, or down, over which 
is thrown two or three folds of wadmal, and a coverlet of divers 
colours. From the roof hang various articles of domestic eco- 
nomy; the floor is generally nothing more than the damp 
earth; and the only seats are the bones of a whale or a horse’s 
skull. To a stranger, however, the filth and smell are the most 
disagreeable accompaniments of an Icelandic habitation, and 
contribute not a little to the unhealthiness of the inmates. It is 
but seldom that the traveller meets a dwelling a little larger, 
more airy, and better built, belonging to some rich peasant, who 
tries to combine convenience and neatness with the’solid struc- 
tures of his ancestors. 


Hedgehogs.—Oue of the most interesting facts im the natural 
history of the hedgehog is that announced in 1831 by M, Lenz, 
and which is now confirmed by Professor Buckland. This 1s, 
that the most violent animal poisons have no effect upon it; a 
fact which renders it of peculiar valne in forests, where it appears 
to destroy a great number of noxious reptiles. M. Lenz says 
that he had in his house a female hedgehog, which he kept m a 
large box, and which soon became very mild and familiar. He 
often put into the box some adders, which it attacked with 
avidity, seizing them indifferently by the head, the body, or the 
tail, and did not appear alarmed or embarrassed when they 
coiled themselves around its body.’ On one occasion M. Lenz 
witnessed:a fight between the hedgehog and a viper. When the 
hedgehog came near and smelled the snake, for with these ani- 
mals the sense of sight is very obtuse, she seized it by the head, 
and held it fast between her teeth, but withont appearing to do 
it much harm; for having disengaged its head, it assumed a 
furious and menacing attitude, and hissing vehemently, inflicted 
several severe bites on the hedgehog. The little animal, how- 
ever, did not recoil from the bites of the viper, or indeed seem 
to care much about them. At last, when the reptile was 
fatigued by its efforts, she again seized it by the head, which she 
eround between her teeth, compressing the fangs and glands of 
poison; and then devouring every part of the body. M. Jenz 
says that battles of this sort often occurred in the presence of 
many persons, and sometimes the hedgehog has received eight or 
ten wounds on the ears, the snout, and even on the tongue, with- 
out appearing to experience any of the ordinary symptoms pro- 
duced by the venom of the viper. Neither herself nor the young 
which she was then suckling seemed to suffer from it. This ob- 
servation agrees with that of Pallas, who assures us that the 
hedgehog can eat about a hundred cantharides, without expe- 
rieucing any of the effects which this insect taken inwardly pro- 
duces on men, dogs, and cats. A German physician who made 
the hedgehog a particular object of study, gave it a strong dose 
of prussic acid, of arsenic, of opium, and of corrosive sublimate, 
none of which did it any harm. The hedgehog in its natural 
state only feeds on pears, apples, and other fruits, when it can 
get nothing it likes better. Its ordinary food consists of worms, 
slugs, snails, frogs, adders, and sometimes rats and mice. 





Peculiarity 1x Orange- Trees.—Many of the trees in one garden 
were a hundred years old, still bearing plentifully a highly- 
prized thin-skinned orange, full of juice, and free from pips. 
The thinness of the rind of a St. Michael’s orange, and its free- 
dom from pips, depend on the age of the tree. The young trees, 
when in full vigour, bear fruit with a thick pulpy rind and an 
abundance of seeds; but, as the vigour of the plant declines, the 
peel becomes thinner, and the seeds gradually diminish in num- 
ber until they disappear altogether. Thus the oranges that we 
esteem the most are the produce of aged trees, and those which 
we consider the least palatable come from plants in full vigour. 


! —4 Winter in the Azores. 


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[The Ploughman and Shipman.] 


CHAUCER’S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 


THE PLOUGHMAN. 


Tuis industrious, simple hearted, and good man occu- 
pies but a small space in the text; the description is, 
hke himself, simple and unobtrusive. The most in- 
teresting feature of his personal history is his connec- 
tion with the “ poure Parson,” as that of his moral 
character is the benefit he appears to have thence 
derived. He isin spirit, as well as in blood, the Par- 
son's 
* brother, 

That had ylaid of dung full many a fother.* 

A trué swinker}, and a good was he ; 

Living in peace and perfect charity. 

God loved he best, with alle his heart 

At alle times, were it gain or smart, 

And then his neighebour right as himselve. 

He woulde thresh, and thereto dyke and delve, 

For Christes sake, for every poure wight 

Withouten hire, if it lay in his might. 

His tithes payed he full fair and well, 

Both of his proper swinkt and his cattél. 

In a tabard he rode wpon a mare.” 


The use of the word tabard, we may observe by the 
way, for a kind of sleeveless coat, or in short a smock- 
frock, is curious. Of the state of the class represented 
among the pilgrims by the Ploughman, during the 


* Or load. + Worker or labourer. 
} That is to say, of the fruits of his dubour as well as of his 


cattle, 
No. oll. 


middle ages, we possess but meagre information. It 
is evident from the text, that he is not a mere plough- 


‘man in the sense we now attach to the words, but a 


man who has “ cattle,” and from whom “tithe” is ex- 
pected. Te was most probably one of that large class 
of emancipated villains, who lived by renting a small 
piece of land, and eking out its produce by occasional 
labour for other and wealthier men. The rental of 
land at or about the period of Chaucer presents some 
curious features as to the prices and quantities of 
land concerned. We extract a few particulars from 
sir John Cullum’s ‘ History of Hawsted.’ One rental 
in 1420 mentions eight acres of arable land let at 6d. 
an acre; another in 1421, thirty-eight acres at 9d. an 
acre; and a garden at the old rent of 10s. a year. 
From the same work we obtain an idea of the extent 
and nature of the produce of a piece of arable land in 
the manor of Hawsted, consisting of 1574 acres. This 
was cultivated in the proportion of fifty-seven acres of 
wheat and fifty-four and a half of oats, to twenty- 
four of barley and twenty-two of peas. The produce 
averaged somewhat less than eight bushels per acre. 
As to other matters, the land lying nearest to inhabited 
places was the best cultivated; the common pastures 
served as support for the ‘cattle,’ and the acorns and 
beech-mast of the woods for the hogs; whilst for their 
own living the labouring population relied little on 
luxuries and much on appetite, which no doubt was 
sufficiently sharpened by the continual labour they had 
to perform. During harvest, herrings, beer, and bread 
made of rye, barley, peas, and occasionally of beans, 


Vou. X.—3 E 


394 THE PENNY 
formed the chief part of the provisions that graced the 
husbandman’s table. Messes of pottage and cheese 
also were not wanting. In ancient valuations, both in 
towns and in rural districts, we find mention made of 
stores of eorn possessed by the inhabitants. It was the 
neglect of this preeaution, generally earried into effect 
immediately after harvest, and the eonsequent 1mpro- 
vidence that ensued, that often produced famines. 
When wheat was sold at such low prices as to be within 
the reach of the poor, it was thought a great thing. 
This of course was only the ease immediately after a very 
favourable harvest. In ‘ Piers Plowman’ is recorded an 
instanee of this kind, when even no beggar would ‘eat 
bread that init beanes were.” Implements at this period 
were simple, few in number, and inexpensive, for the 
user generally made them himself: an iron plough- 
share, an axe, and a spade formed the only articles 
which he was aceustomed to purehase. The plough 
was drawn by oxen, who were so badly fed, that six of 
them were required for that fie and, aiter all, 
scare half an aere was turned up as the result ofa 
day’s work. Such were some of the difficulties of 
husbandry in the older time; and to these eircum- 
stances we probably owe not only the simpheity, but 
the little prominence given by Chaucer to his Plough- 
man. 


BLACK-LEAD AND BLACK-LEAD PENCILS. 


A Buack-LEApD pencil is one of that numerous class 
of familiar implements, the use of which 1s much better 
known than the manufacture, or even the materials. 
Plumbago, the substance which we improperly call 
blaek-lead, is a earburet of iron, that 1s, a eompound 
of carbon and iron, and is found in various situ- 
ations, sueh as in the midst of mountains, in beds of 
quartz, and in masses of ealcareous earth. It generally 
oceurs in kidney-form pieces, varying in size from that 
of a pea upwards. When pure, a piece weighing ten 
ounces will eontain about nine ounces of earbon and 
one ounce of iron; hence arises an incombustible cha- 
raeter which admirably adapts this substance as a ma- 
terial for erucibles, 1n the making of which 1t 1s mueh 
employed. A mine of black-lead was discovered some 
years ago in North Carolina, in which the mineral oe- 
cured in large solid lumps, which were collected, 
paeked in the native state in barrels, and sold at eigh- 
teen or twenty shillings per cwt. It was used by the 
Americans in various forms; being ground with oil 
for painting the wooden roofs of their buildings, and 
being used in different ways as a preservative from 
decay, and also from fire, to which its mcombustible 
character well fits it. Blaek-lead has been discovered 
at a considerable depth in one of the mountains of 
Ceylon; and more reeently, a mine of the same sub- 
stance has been discovered in Ayrshire in Scotland. 
But by far the most celebrated blaek-lead mine is 
that in Borrowdale, Cumberland, six miles from Kes- 
wiek. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, while some 
copper and lead mines were being worked in this dis- 
trict, the black-lead mine was aceidentally diseovered, 
by a disrupture occasioned by a hurrieane. When the 
commercial value of this newly found substance be- 
came known, the proprietors found it very difficult to 
ruard the mine from depredations; the praetice of 
robbing it having at length beeome so common, that 
several persons living in the neighbourhood were said 
to have made large fortunes by secreting and selling 
the mineral. About a eentury ago, a body of miners 
broke mto the mine by main foree, and held possession 
of it for a eonsiderable time, during which they ab- 
Sstracted an enormous quantity of the mineral, whieh 


tney sold ata price so low, that the proprietor was in- | 


MAGAZINE. [OcTOBER 9, 
duced to buy it up, in order to restore the old rate of 
prices. 

These circumstances gave rise to such jealous eau- 
tion on the part of the proprictors, that seareely any- 
thing was known of the nature or mode of working the 
mine, until a few years ago, when Mr. Parkes, the 
chemist, having an opportunity to visit 1t during one 
of its periods of working, gave a minute account of the 
whole, from which we will borrow a few particulars. 

The road from Keswiek to the mine leads through 
some defiles which must be traversed either on foot or 
horseback, as no earrlage ean pass. The mine is in the 
midst of a mountain about two thousand feet high, 
which rises at an angle of about 45°; and as that part 
of the mine whieh 1s now being worked is near the 
middle of the mountain, the present entrance is about 
one thousand feet from the summit. The aperture by 
which the workmen enter descends by a flight of steps ; 
and in order to guard the treasure contained within, 
the proprietors have ereeted a strong brick building of 
four rooms, one of which is immediately over the en- 
trance into the mine. This opening is secured by a 
trap-door, and the room connected with it is ealled the 
dressing-room ; for, when the men enter it, they strip 
off their usual clothes, and put on dresses suitable for 
mining. The men work in gangs, which relieve each 
other every six hours; and when the hour of relet 
comes, a steward or foreman attends in the dressing- 
room to see the men change their dress as they come up 
one by one out of the mine. The elothes are examined 
by the steward, to see that no black-lead is concealed in 
them ; and when the men have dressed, they leave the 
mine, making room for another gang, who ehangce their 
clothes, enter the mine, and are fastened in for six 
hours. In one of the four rooms of which the house 
consists there 1s a kind of counter or strong table, at 
which two men are employed in assorting and dressing 
the mineral. This is necessary, because it 1s usually 
divided into two qualities; the finest of which have 
generally pieces of iron-ore or other impurity attached 
to them, which must be dressed off. These men, who 
are strictly watched while at work, put the dressed 
blaek-lead into casks holding about one cwt. each, in 
which state it leaves the mine. The easks are conveyed 
down the side of the mountain in the following man- 
ner :— Each cask is fixed upon a light sledge with two 
wheels, and a man, who is well used to the preeipitous 
path, walks down in front of the sledge, taking care 
that it does not acquire too greata momentum, and thus 
overpower him. When the cask has been thus guided 
safely to the bottom, the man earries the sledge up hill 
upon his shoulders, and prepares for another cask. 

About the middle of the last century, the mine was 
opened only once in seven years; and a quantity, sup- 
posed to be equal to the demand for that space of time, 
was taken out at once. Subsequently, however, the 
demand being greater, and the quantity obtainable at 
any one time being smaller, 1t was found necessary to 
work the mine for six or seven weeks every year. 
During the time of working, the mine is guarded night 
and day; and when a quantity sufficient for one year 
has been taken out, the mine is seeured thus :—There 
is, besides the opening at which the men enter, a large 
horizontal one capable of admitting hand-carts and 
wheclbarrows, for the removal of the rubbish and loase 
earth with whieh the black-lead is enveloped, and for 
the flow of water from the mine. All this rubbish is. 
at the completion of the working, wheeled back inta 
the larger entrance, to the extent of several hundred 
eartloads, by which the water is dammed up, and tlie 
mine gradually flooded. All the doors are then 
locked, and the mine entirely deserted till the follow- 
ing year. 

Several shafts have been worked in the mine, ac- 


1841. 


cording to the richness of the contents at any particular 
spot, and the expense of collcetion varies with the 
position of the shaft. But the outlay, from the follow- 
ing remark of Mr. Parkes, appears to be by no means 
heavy :—“ The expenses in driving the level, building 
the house, and working the mine, from the 28rd of 
April, 1798, to the 4th of April, 1814, have amounted 
to 66371. 9s. 4d.; and during this period there have 
been produced 736 casks of fine black-lead, and .1816 
casks of the coarse kind, amounting together to 2552 
easks, of about 112 Ibs. each.’ The commercial trans- 
actions by which the black-lead passes into the hands 
of the pencil-makers, were thus described by Dr. 
Faraday, in one of his lectures a few years ago:—The 
mineral is exposed to sale at the black-lead market, 
which is held on the first Monday of every month ata 
house in Essex Street, Strand. The buyers, who 
amount to about seven or eight, examine every piece 
with a sharp instrument to ascertain its hardness; 
those whieh are too soft being rejected. The individual 
who has the first choice pays 45s. per pound; the 
others 30s. But as there is no addition made to the 
first quantity in the market, during the course of the 
year, the residual portions are examined over and over 
again, until they are exhausted. The average annual 
sale is said now to amount to about 3000/. per annum ; 
but Mr. Parkes states that it was at one time as much 
as thirty or forty thousand pounds. 

At what time the making of pencils from black- 
lead was first adopted is not clearly known; the first 
mention with which we are acquainted is in Sir John 
Pettus’s ‘Fleta Minor,’ published in 1686; where, in 
speaking of black-lead, he says:—“ Of late it is cu- 
riously formed into cases of deal or cedar, and so sold 
as dry pencils, something morc useful than pen and 
ink.” The mode of manufacture is simply as follows: 
—The cedar of which the cases are formed is sawed 
into long planks, and subsequently into smaller rods. 
Grooves are then cut out by means of a fly-wheel, of 
such a size as to receive the layer of black-lead. The 
pieces of the mineral are cut into thin slabs, and then 
into rods the saine size as the grooves, into which they 
are inserted. ‘The two halves of the case are then 
glued together, and the whole is turned into a cylin- 
drical form by means of a gauge. 

Dr. Ure has described the mode of making pencils in 
Paris, in which the marking ingredient has any desired 
degree of hardness given to it. Black-lead, being re- 
duced to a fine powder, is mixed with very pure clay, 
also in the form of powder, then put intoa crucible, and 
calcined at a heat approaching to whiteness. The pro- 
portion of clay employed is greater as the pencil is re- 
quired to be harder; the average being equal parts of 
each ingredient. The ingredients are ground with a 
muller on a porphyry slab, and subsequently made into 
balls, which are preserved in a moist atmosphere in 
the form of paste. To give a pencil form to this paste, 
it is pressed into grooves cut in a smooth board, and 
another board, previously greased, is pressed down 
firmly upon them. When the paste has had time to 
dry, the mould or grooved board is put into a mode- 
rately heated oven, by which the paste, now in the form 
of square pencils, shrinks sufficiently to fall easily out 
of the grooves. In order to give solidity to the pencils, 
they are set upright in a crucible till it is filled with 
them, and then surrounded with charcoal powder, fine 
sand, or sifted ashes. The crucible, being covered, is 
exposed to a degrcc of heat proportionate to the hard- 


hess required in the pencils, the harder pencils re- | 


quiring the higher degree of heat. Some of the pencils 
are shaped in a curious manner: models of the pencils, 
made of iron, are stuck upright upon an iron tray, 
having edges raised as high as the intended length of 
the pencils, and a metallic alloy, made of tin, lead, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


395 


antimony, and bismuth, is poured into the shcet-iron 
tray. When the alloy has cooled, it is inverted and 
shaken off from the model-rods, so as to forin a mass of 
metal perforated throughout with tubular cavities cor- 
responding to the intendcd peneil-pieces. The pencil- 
paste 1s introduced by pressure into these cavities ; and 
when nearly dry, the pieces shrink sufficiently to be 
easily removed from the cavities. It will be observed 
that the French pencils here spoken of are unprovided 
with wooden cases. Messrs. Couté and Humblot are 
said to have realized large fortunes by the manufacture 
and sale of these pencils. 

_ Within the last few years black-lead has been used 
In a smgular form as a material for pencils, viz. in the 
‘ ever-pointed’ pencil-case. This peculiar little in- 
strument, patented by Mr. Mordan about twenty years 
ago, 18 a pencil-case provided with a slider, acted on 
byaserew for the purpose of projecting forward a little 
cylinder of black-lead. This cylinder is so small tha’ 
the lead needs not cutting for the ordinary purposes ot 
a pocket-pencil. The mineral is formed into these 
cylindrical rods by being first cut into thin slabs, then 
ito square rods, and finally passed through holes in a 
steel plate armed with rubies for the sake of hardness 
The first of these holes is octagonal, by which the four- 
sided rod of mineral is converted into one of eight 
sides ; the other two holes are for giving a cylindrical 
form to the pencil. 


DOMESTIC WATER-FOWL. 


(Concluded from page 387.] 

In North America the Canada goose (Anser Cana: 
densts) is very cominon in a state of domestication, and 
abundant as a wild bird, breeding in the arctic regions, 
and spreading southwards on the approach of winter. 
It isnow to be classed among our domestic water-fowl, 
but is kept rather as an ornament to ponds and sheets 
of watcr than for the sake of its flesh. In America, 
however, the farmers regard it as nearly as good and 
profitable as the common domestic kind, 

The Chinese goose (Anser Cygnoides) is more com- 
mon in our country as a domestic bird than the Canada 
goose, and intermingles with the ordinary grey goose, 
which it exceeds in size, and especially in the swan-like 
length of the neck. It is a native of China and other 
parts of Asia, and is also said to occur in Africa. 
Button describes it as the “ Ove de Guinée.” 

The common domestic duck, so much in request for 
the table, is descended from the wild duck, or mallard 
(Anas Boschas), one of the most beautiful of the tribe. 
The tame drake indeed often displays exquisite tints 
of glossy blue and green, and pencillings of the most 
delicate character ; but great variation obtains, and we 
find individuals of a pure black, or a pure white, with 
every diversity bctween them. 

The wild duck is spread ovcr most of the temperate 
and colder regions of the globe, and is indigenous in 
England, although far less plentiful than formerly. In 
winter its numbers are increased by accessions from 
the colder regions, but these depart early in spring. 
The tame duck is polygamous, but the wild duck pairs, 
the pairing season being towards the end of February 
or very early in March. The female incubates in April 
or May; and at this juncture thc male deserts her, 
leaving to her the care of the forthcoming brood. The 
males now associate in small flocks, and lose their bril- 
hant plumes and curled up tail-feathers, and nearly 
resemble the female. With the autumnal moult they 
regain their distinctive colouring. The flesh of the 
wild duck is very excellent, and several modes have 
been resorted to for the capture of these birds in 
various countries, Of these the decoy is the most suc- 
cessful; and it is recorded that in one season, near 
Wainfleet, thirty-one thousand two hundred wild fowl 


dE 2 


356 THE PENNY 


were taken in ten of these decoys, of which two-thirds 
were mallards. On the subject of capturing these 
birds we shall say nothing, as the reader will find 
ample details in the ‘Penny Magazine’ for 1837, pp. 
49 and 60. 

In China the eggs of the tame duck are hatched by 
artificial incubation, as those of the fowl in Egypt. ~ 

The tame duck intermingles with a curious species 
often seen in farm-yards, termed the Muscovy, or more 
properly the musk duck (Anas moschata), of which 
little or nothing seems to be known. This duck ex- 
ceeds the ordinary kind in size, and differs greatly in 
colouring, and the form of the head and body. The 
male is much larger than the female. The general 
colour is glossy blue-black, varied more or less with 
white ; the head is crested, and a scarlet fleshy space 
surrounds the eye, continued from scarlet caruncles or 
wattles on the beak. The feathers are larger, -softer, 
and more lax than in the ordimary duck, and less 
adapted for aquatic habits. 

Buffon terms this bird Le Canard Musqué, on ac- 
count of its strong musk-like scent; and Ray says the 
same thing: “ Anglicé, the Muscovy duck, not because 
it is brought from Muscovy, but because it exhales a 
somewhat powerful odour of musk.” Button describes 
and figures it of a- blue-black, with white shoulders, 
and this figure agrees. with Marcgrave’s description, 
who states it to be a native of Brazil and Guiana, and 
terms it ‘ Anas sylvestris, magnitudine anseris,’ a wood- 
duck, as large.as a@-goose. According to Button, it 1s 
the Ypeca-guacu-of Pison. In Guiana it is said to 
tenant the flooded savannalis, and to build its nest upon 
the trunks of decayed trees. When the young are 
hatched,.the parent-is. said to take them one after an- 
other in her beak and put them on the water. It 
would appear that they are there lable to destruction 
from alligators, for flocks of young are seldom seen 
exceeding five or six, though the eggs are more nu- 
merous. Their food in the savannahs consists of the 
erain of a sort of grass called wild rice. In the morn- 
ing they visit the 1mmense inundated prairies, and fly 
towards the sea as the evening comes on, but the hottest 
hours of the day are passed on the leafy branches of 
trees. They are fierce and wild, and will not allow 
themselves to be approached. (See Button.) We know 
nothing respecting the domestication of this bird, nor 
the precise time of 1ts introduction to Europe. Lin- 
naeus, in the ‘ Fauna Suecica,’ says, ‘In preediis mag- 
nataum culta, nullibi Suecia spontanea,’—it is reared 
on the*farms of the gentry, but is not indigenous in 
Sweden. Buffon says that these birds appeared in 
France in the time of Belon (about 1540), who calls 
them “Canes ‘de Guinée.” In the time of Ray they 
were known in England; he terms the species “ Anas 
sylvestris Braziliensis.” 

Mr. Eyton, in his work on the duck tribe, states that 
these birds “‘are supposed to have heen originally 
natives of South America ;” but he does not assert this 
as a positive fact; and it 1s strange that no wild speci- 
mens appear to have been received from that country, 
as might be expected. ‘The truth is, that considerable 
obscurity still envelopes the history of this bird. The 
musk duck has a fierce expression, and is Indeed by 
no means gentle,—being quarrelsome and easily ex- 
cited to rage, when it depresses its head, and utters 
deep hoarse notes in the lowest tone. Its flesh 1s said 
to be good, as is that of the mixed breed between this 
and the common-kind. 

‘* Among the wild water-fowl of our country, the teal 
(Querquedula Crecca) is celebrated for the goodness of 
its flesh. It is one of the smallest, and at the same time 
one of the most beautiful of our ducks, and might be 
easily domesticated, as it bears confinement well, and 
becomes very familiar. This species is distributed over 


MAGAZINE. [OcTOBER 9, 
a great part of Europe, Northern Asia, and America ; 
and multitudes every winter visit the fens of our island. 
Jt breeds also with us in the marshes of the northern 
counties, but not in great numbers. The teal, however, 
is less abundant in our island in winter than the wigeon 
(Mareca Penelope, Selby). This bird, though it does not 
breed on our shores, flocks to them during the colder 
months, and takes up its abode on rivers, fens, and 
lakes, as well as along the whole circuit of our coast. 
Vast numbers are annually killed, yet the losses seem 
to be annually recruited, for we observe no diminution 
of numbers. During the early part of the winter the 
flesh of these birds 1s good; but it is said to become in- 
ferioy after Christmas, owing to the failure of fresh 
vegetable food, which necessitates them to devour ma- 
rine vegetables, and perhaps molluscs and crustacea— 
at least such is Mr. Selby’s opmion. The wigeon ap- 
pears in our latitudes at the latter part of September, 
and returns northward to ‘its summer haunts early im 
March. In their habits they are, greatly nocturnal, 
night being the time in which they seek their food; 
and their whistling note, as they fly in compact bodies 
overhead, may be: heard by the wanderer along the 
shore after sunset. From this note the wigeon is often 
called the Whew-duck.: This species is easily domes- 
mary and has been known to pair with the common 
uck, 

Our plate represents the tame swan; the domestic 
goose ; the musk or Muscovy duck, male; the tame 
duck, male; the wild duck, male ; the wigeon, male and 
female ; and the teal, male. 


The Statere and Weight of Man at Different Ages.—M. 
Quetelet, of Brussels, who lately has published the result of his in- 
vestigations on this subject, found for 63 male children, and 56 
female, newly born, the following quantities :— 


Weight, Stature, 
lbs. avoird. Imp. feet. 
Male children 7°057536 1°62732 
Female 6°4179468 . 1°58467 
The extremes arc— 
Boys. - Girls. 
Minimum . 0°1608232 Ibs. . 2°4'701367 Ibs. 
Maximum 9-92466 9°936329 


From a table which M. Quetelet has drawn up on the same 
subject, we find—lst, that at an equality of age the male is 
generally heavier than the female. 2udly, That the male attains 
the maxinium weight about the age of forty years, and that he 
begins to lose weight in a very sensible manner towards his six- 
tieth year; and that at the age of eighty years hé has lost about 
13°23288 Ibs. avoirdupois, the stature being also diminished 
2°75604 inches. drdly, That the female attains the maximum 
weight later than the male—towards the fiftieth year. 4thly, 
That when the male and female have assumed their complete 
development, they weigh almost exactly twenty timés as much 
as at the moment of their birth, while their stature is only three 
and a quarter times what it was at the same period. Children 
lose weight during the first three days after their birth; at the 
age of a week they begin sensibly to increase; after one year 
they have tripled their weight; then they require six years to 
double the weight of one year, and thirteen to quadruple it. 
The inferior parts of the body are developed more than the su- 
perior. Ina child the head is equal to a fifth part, and in a 
full-grown man to an eighth of the whole height of the individual. 
The mean stature is a little more among persons in easy circum- 
stances than among the indigent populationn—Jamieson's Philo- 
sophecal Journal, 


Gratuitous Exhibitions.—In accordance with the suggestions 
of a parliamentary committee, the dean and chapter of Durham 
have thrown the cathedral (with the exception of the Chapel of 
Nine Altars) open to the public, for the purpose of enabling 
them to view the building, monuments, &c. 


1841. ] 











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"Workhouse of the Windsor Union.) 


TWO HOURS AT A UNION WORKHOUSE. 


THE name which some persons have attempted to fix 
upon the Workhouses of the Unions formed under the 
New Poor-Law is Bastile. The Bastile, as our readers 
know, was the state prison of Paris. It consisted of 
eight towers, united by masonry of great thickness, 


This building was surrounded witha fosse, or ditch, , 
one hundred and twenty feet wide, and twenty-five feet : 


deep; and beyond the ditch was a stone wall, thirty-six 
feet high. The eight towers contained several stories 
of octagonal rooms, each having a loopholed window, 
unglazed, pierced through a wall six feet thick. There 
was no chimney or fireplace in the rooms; and the 
only furniture was an iron grating, raised about six 
inches above the floor, on which the mattress of the 
prisoner was placed ; and on this grating he slept by 
night and sat by day. ‘The Union Bastiles are soine- 
what differently constructed. The engraving at the 
head of this paper 1s an accurate representation of the 
Workhouse erected for the Windsor Union. It is situ- 
ated in the parish of Old Windsor, on the verge of the 
Great Park, at a spot known as Beayr’s Rails. The 
road which passes it leads to Bishopgate and Englefield 
Green, where the stranger finds himself amongst the 
beautiful scenery with which the neighbourhood of 
Windsor abounds, particularly in this localty, which 
is the scene of Denham’s celebrated poem of ‘ Cooper’s 
Will’ The Union Workhouse harmonizes with the 
cheerful peeps over the valley of the Thames, and the 
massive and venerable trees which form the charm of 
these woodland sohtudes. It is built in the style of 
two centuries anda half ago, when comfort and ele- 
eance, the growth of security, had displaced the rude 
fortress-inansions of the feudal lords. The area 
which surrounds it 1s separated from the public road 
only by light palings. The court before the central 
building is bright with flowers and green turf; and the 
well-directed industry of the inmates is rapidly con- 
verting two large plots of waste land, above and. below 
the building, into profitable kitchen-gardens. But let 
us enter. 

At the central door we are met by a porter, who 


communicates to the master of the workhouse our wish 
to see the building. We are shown into a neat room 
(that on the night of the door); the opposite room is 
the master’s office. The inmates have recently dined. 
We taste the food which has constituted their meal ; 
and we acknowledge that the suet pudding, the bread, 
and the cheese are, in quality, equal to what may be - 
found in the larders of the wealthiest. But then, the 
quantity? How many poor children get up hunery 
trom this scanty meal? How many aged persons want 
some comforts besides soup, and gruel, and pudding, 
aud boiled beef? We have been taught, very indus- 
triously, to think that there is a pinching dietary in these 
workhouses; and though the food 1s unquestionably 
2ood, is there enough of 1t? Such thoughts must cross 
the mind of the stranger who has heard of anti-poor- 
law orators and writers. The sight of this building 
has dispelied some of his prejudices; and he can no 
longer begin his apostrophe to the miseries ofa Union 
Workhouse with Eloise’s lamentation, 
¢ Relentless walls! whose durksome round contaiis,”’ 


&c. &c. But there may still be a great deal of misery 

though the rooms are cheerful, lheht, ary, clean even 
toa Dutch housewife’s cleanliness. Let us proceed. 
The men’s dining-rooms on the left of the centre are 
empty. We go onward to their sitting-rooms, which 
communicate with yards or courts, in front and behind. 
The men are separated into two classes—the able- 
bodied, and the aged and infirm; and each have their 
allotted stations. The old and infirm are quietly sit- 
ting after their meal,—some in the bright sunshine, 
some in their ward. A few are reading. The able 

bodied (at this season a small number) have gone to 
their allotted work, either in the garden, or in picking 
oakum, or in cleaving wood, or, if they practise any 
trade of general utility, such as that of the tailor or 
shoemaker, in labouring for the common benefit. The 
boys are with the schoolmaster. We see here a healthy 
set of lads, well clothed, perfectly clean, with smiling 
and assured faces, learning to read, to write, to cipher, 
ander the direction of an intelligent young man, who 


looks, in the performance of his duty, as active and 


cheerful as the boys themselves. We proceed up 


398 


stairs to the sleeping-rooms. The whole upper range 
of the building, which is about three hundred and sixty 
feet long, is a series of rooms, accessible by several 
staircases, but communicating, in their entire length, 
with the master’s and imatron’s apartmeuts in the 
centre. These rooms, as the lower rooms, are sub- 
divided into the bed-rooms of the able-bodied men, the 
aged, the infirm, and the boys. On the opposite side 
of the central building are the sleeping-rooms of the 
aeed and infirm women, the able-bodied, and the girls. 
Throughout the entire range each has a separate bed ; 
and in looking at these beds (and we were invited to 
a careful examination of them), it 1s impossible to 
doubt that the most vigilant cleanliness presides over 
the establishment. The ventilation of these sleeping- 
rooms is perfect. Upon descending into the ground- 
floor on the right of the centre, we are in the female 
day-apartments. These are upon the same plan as 
those of the males. The old women who are not in- 
firm are comfortably seated at their knitting and sew- 
ing; some are reading the Book of Life,—that best 
consolation under every condition ; some are walking 
in their sunny court, and perhaps the thought of their 
tea (for they have tea) 1s a pleasant anticipation. The 
sirls are with the schoolmistress. They are learning 
to knit, to sew, to read, and to write. All can now 
write. A year ago, when the Union was first opened, 
scarcely any could write. An intelhgent girl or boy, 
who desires to know something more than is to be found 
in the school-books, may have a book outof the library, 
and so may the adults. 

We have seen nothing yet of actual misery; we 
have scarcely observed a face in which there is a lurk- 
ing discontent. The food, though not luxurious or 
improvidently distributed, must be abundant; for we 
have beheld nothing but health. We know that health 
is dependent upon cleanliness, ventilation, and sufficient 
food. Here are undoubtedly cleanlinessand ventilation ; 
and the food must be ample for the purposes of health, 
or there would besickness. But there is an infirmary 
to beseen. Here, indeed, there 1s some wretchedness, 
but it is that suffering which we find in the wards of a 
well-conducted hospital. ‘The sufferer has come here 
for relief. Here is the paralytic, whose continued abid- 
ing amongst us must be rendered as little burdensome 
as may be; here isthe cripple, who is incapable of labour 
or of exercise, and his pains must be soothed under the 
eye of surgical skill; here is one who Jost the use of his 
limbs in the last hard winter, and he is fast recovering 
his strength and his ability to work. The patients tell 
us that every comfort which they require is within 
their reach; that every nourishment or even indulgence 
which they want is instantly given, upon the order of 
the medical officer. We are satisfied that the sick are 
well cared for. The kitchen, the laundry, and the 
chapel complete the inspection of the building. 

Is the Workhouse of a Union, then, in which the phy- 
sical condition of the poor is so much better looked 
after than in their own dwellings, a place which the 
poor will desire to pass their daysin? Assuredly not. 
If it were so,it would be a greater curse to the com- 
munity than the filth, the ignorance, the vice, the suf- 
fering of the old parochial workhouses, where the 
only thing which the parish officers required was that 
the poor should be fed. To the able-bodied the most 
comfortable Union Workhouse must be an irksome 
place. Its strict classification, Its regulated supply of 
food, its unvarying uniformity of discipline, its en- 
forcement of labour, its seclusion from the rest of the 
world, must offer restraints which few would encounter 
who have the means of earning their own living. The 
dirty vagabond who occasionally demands the shelter 
and food which are offered to all, even to the non-paro- 


chial wayfarer, likes not the cleanliness and order | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[OcToOBER 9, 


which must accompany the satisfaction of his physical 
necessities. He abides not here. Butto the-worn-out 
solitary man, and the sick,—the orphan, and widow, the 
Union Workhouse must be an incalculable blessing. 
The education of the children of these Bastiles will 
raise the standard of intellect and morals in the whole 
community. Such workhouses as we have thus hastily 
noticed must realize the true object of such institutions 
—‘‘not to repel the really destitute, nor to attract those 
who have any other lawful means of procuring sub- 
sistence.” 


THE ISLANDS OF ENGLAND. 


Unper this head it is intended to include only the 
islands and islets, great and small, situated in the seas 
and channels within the southern division of Great 
Britain, or England. The numerous islands belonging 
to the northern section of Great Britain, or Scotland, 
would require a separate article. 

Beginning, therefore, on the western side of england, 
and in the waters that he to the south of Scotland, and 
called the Irish Sea, the IstEe or Man is the first that 
presents itself, and which is the largest of the islands 
of England (with the exception, perhaps, of Anglesea, 
or Anglesey), and the most remarkable for its historical 
facts and relations. Its extreme length is about 
thirty miles, with an irregular breadth, varying from 
six to twelve or thirteen; its length extending in 
a northerly and southerly direction, with the northern 
part inclining towards the east. Its position is due 
west from the southern part of Cumberland and 
the northern extremity of Lancashire, the distance 
from the island to the nearest part of the English 
coast being from thirty to thirty-five miles. It is 
also about the like distance from Galloway, in the 
south of Scotland; and the same from Anglesea, in 
North Wales. From Ireland the distance 1s somewhat 
ereater, being more than forty miles from the nearest 
point of the Irish coast. It is stated by some of the 
old historians that the Irish on one occasion put ina 
claim for this island, on the plea that it lay as near to 
their country as it did to either of the other rival na- 
tions, England and Scotland; when a rather singular 
mode of settling the dispute was had recourse to—not 
that of measuring the distance, as would have been 
the case now-a-days—but by introducing venomous 
reptiles into the island; and as they were found to 
thrive and propagate their species, the Irish people 
were satisfied to forego their claim, believing it to he 
beyond the limits of the influence of their country’s 
patron and guardian, St. Patrick. 

The earliest mention made of this island is found in 
Cesar’s ‘ Commentaries,’ where it is called Mona, 
which name has also been applied to the island of 
Anglesea by some of the ancient writers. About the 
close of the first century, when the ancient Druids were 
expelled from North Wales, they took shelter in the 
northern part of this island, and soon found means to 
bring the inhabitants under a mild form of government 
which they instituted along with their superstitions and 
religious ceremonies. In the fifth century the Scots 
transported themselves thither, and for a considerable 
period afterwards the princes of the island appear to 
have been of the same line as the kings of Scotland. 
It was afterwards ravaged by Edwin, king of Northum- 
berland, when there sprang up a second race of princes, 
said to be descended from Orri, the son of the king of 
Norway. 

Subsequently the princes or governors of the Isle 
of Man were called kings; and a line of these is said 
to have sprung from Goddard Crownan, son of Harold 
the Black, of Iceland, who took shelter here after Harold 
had defeated the Norwegians at Stamford. But these 
kines were feudatories, in some degree, to the kings 


1841.] 


oi Iingland. Bunt Alexander III. of Scotland, who had 
conquered the isles, scized this also; when it after- 
wards eame into the hands of Edward I., who direeted 
the warden to restore it to John Baliol, who had pre- 
viously done homage to him for the kingdom of Scot- 
land. It afterwards was claimed in descent, and finally 
was adjudged by parliament, in the 7th of Edward III, 
to William de Montacute, and conveyed to him by 
letters-patent in the same year. It afterwards, by sale 
or forfeiture, changed hands several times, and was 
held by the Stanley family, of whieh the Earls of Derby 
became the head, till the reign of Elizabeth; and it 
finally came into the possession of the Duke of Athol. 
It was purchased of the Athol family by government, 
in 1764, for 70,000/.; but in 1792, on its being made 
apparent that it had been disposed of beneath its real 
value, an additional compensation of 30007. per annum 
was granted by the crown to the duke’s family for 
ever. ‘The manorial rights, and eertain privileges and 
immunities, still continue in the Athol family. 

The inhabitants of this island are still on’ different 
footing from the rest of the subjects of Great Britain 
and her islands (except the Channel Islands); for in- 
stead of being represented in the British parliament, 
they have a governor and council who superintend 
public affairs, and twenty-four persons who form what 
is called a House of Keys, who were originally the re- 
presentatives of the people, but at present a permanent 
and self-constituted body. These, together with two 
officials called deemsters—the judges of the north and 
south districts respectively, who decide causes as the 
deem conseientiously right—form what is ealled the 
Linwald Court, so named from the Islandie ting, an 
assembly, and wald,atence. This eourt meets annually 
in the open air, on Tinwald Hill, three miles from 
Pecl, on the road to Douglas. It is at the meetings of 
this court that all new laws, or Acts of Tinwald, are 
promulgated. ~ 

The deemstcrs are judges both in civil and criminal 
cases ; and, until lately, barristers and attorneys were 
wholly unknown, every one pleading his own cause. 
The civil divisions of the island consist of six sheadings, 
each having an anne, or coroner, whose duties are simi- 
lar to those of sheriffs; besides which thcre are as 
many moats and captains as there are parishes, the 
former superintending the revenue, while the latter 
act as captains of militia. The ecclesiastical divisions 
extend to seventecn parishes. 

Viewed from a distance, the general aspect is tame 
and uninviting ; for the mountains, which extend nearly 
through the entire length of this island, although of 
a considerable altitude, neither tower up with suf 
ficient abruptness nor assume picturesque forms. 
The highest point of the range is Snowfield, which is 
nearly two thousand feet above the sea; and the ex- 
tremities of this range, the Barrules, are searcely a 
couple of hundred feet lower. Under Snowfield, 
Barrule, and Carrahan, three mighty kings of the island 
are said to le buried, who gave their names to these 
mountains; and so vain and superstitious are the 
natives, that they still are willing to believe that these 
huge natural piles arc artifieial barrows raised in 
honour of their meinories. - 

This range of mountains and hills occupies a con- 
siderable portion of the superficial area of the island, 
and no doubt affects the clhinate unfavourably. How- 
ever, from their sides and bascs issue many springs and 
rivulets which afford a supply of fresh water in every 
pirt of the island. Some of the larger streams are 
stocked with trout and other species of fresh-water fish, 
The names of the principal are the Neb at Peel, the 
Colby near Ramsey, and the Black and Grey Waters 
near Douglas. The valleys are some of them tolerably 
fertile in grass and pasture; and where the land is 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


399 


tolerably level, grain is frequently ‘cullivated. The 
northern district of the island is not so fertile as the 
southern; but there is more timber there, for the soil 
is of a sandy character, and consequently suited to the 
srowth of the fir-tree. On some of the uplands there 
is an abundance of peat-soil, whieh the inhabitants dig 
for fuel; and it isno unusual thing to discover beneath 
two or three feet of this peat, larger trees, both fir and 
oak, than are now growing in the island. 

Lead, copper, and iron are among the mincral pro- 
ductions; besides which there is no searcity of stone 
of several sorts, ineluding. limestone and blue roofing- 
slate; marl is likewise met with. The eattle of the 
island are small, chiefly of the Kyloe or Galloway 
breeds, and the sheep which are pastured upon the 
hills are of the small coarse-woolled breed, with blaek 
or grey faces. The horses are small, but they are 
remarkably hardy; and there is a breed of small swine 
. cas island, much esteemed for the excellence of their 

esh. 

The area of the whole island has been estimated at 
140,000 acres; with a population exceeding 30,000. 
Lhe language spoken by the natives is called Manks, 
or Manx, being a dialect of the Erse; but, from the 
influx of strangers, it is now dashed with English and 
other tongues. The people too are called Manx, but 
they are evidently of a very mixcd origin. Many of 
them engage in the herring fishery, which eommences 
in July and lasts till Allhallows, and 20,000 barrels 
have been cured and exported in a season, employing 
000 boats of two tons burthen each. 

Though the bishop takes the title of Sodor and Man, 
the Hebrides, which formerly were called Sodor (or at 
least one of the principal of them was so named), have 
no longer any connection with Man; but the name 
(Sodor) has been applied in modern times to a small 
island within musket-shot of the main one, which was 
called by the Norwegians Holm, and upon which the 
cathedral is situated; but the bishop’s residence is in 
the parish of Kirk Michael. The eapital, if it may be 
so ealled, is Castle Town, or Rushin, at the head of a 
bay on the south of the island. The castle is a build- 
ing of considerable extent, and is the residence of the 
governor, and is stated to have been built by Gutterd, 
king of Man, a.p. 960, who was interred within its 
walls. Derby Haven, the most secure harbour in 
the island, lics about a mile from Castle Town. 

Douglas, on the east coast, although by no means so 
well built as Rushin, is the ehief emporium of trade. 
Mona Castle, in the neighbourhood of this town, is a 
seat of the Duke of Athol. - 

Peel, on the west, is protected bya castle situated 
upon the rocky island referred to as the site of the 
eathcdral. Ramsey hes on the north of the island, at 
the bead of a spacious bay, and has a harbour secure 
from every wind but a north-casterly one. 

Balla Salla was oncc distinguished by Rushin Abbey, 
the burial-place of the kings of Mona, but at present 
few vestiges of its former grandeur are remaining. 

Since the introduction of steam-boats, the Isle of Man 
has emerged, as it were, from a state of comparative 
obscurity, and thousands of persons have visited this 
place who never would have seen it but for the faeili- 
ties which steam-power has afforded. There is scareely 
a day now upon which several steamers do not touch 
at one or the other ports of this island, for as it hes not 
far out ofthe dircet route from Liverpool to the south 
and west of Scotland, as well as the north of Ireland, 
where great expedition 1s not a material object the 
boats eomimonly touch at this island. Besides these there 
are several coasting steam-vessels which ply from Port 
Carlisle, Whitehaven, Lancaster, and other places, 
which either make oeeasional excursions to the Isle of 


| Man, or take it im their regular routes as one of the 


400 


places to call at; so that its intercourse with the three 
neighbouring kingdoms is now frequent and regularly 
established. It is not, however, a place of fashionable 
resort ; for its climate is by no means in its favour, vast 
quantities of rain falling for seven or eight months of 
the year, and oceasionally it is visited with a long con- 
tinuance of eold easterly winds; while the society of 
the island, although much improved from what it was 
formerly, still continues a sort of city of refuge for 
decayed debtors and outlawed individuals, who find 
protection here from the laws of the United Kingdom. 

Neither of the Acts of parliament which transferred 


the island from the Athol family to the crown interferes - 


with private laws and immunities, except as regards 
the excise and revenue laws, and hence it is that it still 
continues an asylum for persons of a certain order and 
character. 

WALNEY ISLAND. 


Directly eastward from the Isle of Man, though at 
the distance of more than thirty miles, hes the island of 
Walney. It is situated on the north of the entrance 
into Morecambe Bay, and is separated from the main- 
land by a narrow strait fordable at low-water. The 
length of this island is nearly ten miles, but It 1s very 
narrow, in some places less than half a mile, and rarely 
extending toa mile. Its soil is sandy, and it lies so 
low, and so completely exposed to the winds blowing 
in from the Irish Sea, that the waves sometimes 
threaten to roll directly over it; and instances are on 
record of the sea rushing across it in one or two plaees. 

The distriet of country to which it les- contiguous 
is that detached portion of Lancashire called Lonsdale 
north of the Sands; but this particular part of it is 
known by the name of Low Furness, and is a very fine 
agricultural district. The island of Walney is, how- 
ever, comparatively barren; for notwithstanding some 
of the inhabitants raise more or less grain, the ground 
generally is mown or pastured, and large nuinbers of 
rabbits do not add to its fertility. 

On the island are three or tour small villages or 
hamlets, with here and there a small cottage-farmer. 
A small chapel for the convenience of the inhabitants 
stands nearly in the middle of the island. The south 
end of the island, which les at a greater distance from 
the mainland, curves inward, something in the shape 
of the head of a bent walking-cane, and within this 
curve a harbour is formed where coasting vessels often 
resort for shelter and safety. Between this part of 
Walney and the mainland are two or three smaller 
islands, the largest of which (about a mile long) is 
called Old Barrow ; while another, named Foulney, is 
somewhat smaller, but, as its name implies, is the 
resort of vast numbers of wild-fowl. Indeed, all these 
islands are frequented by large numbers of sea-fowl, 
particularly gulls of two or three varieties; and the 
only remarkable objeet they present at a distance are 
the old walls of Peel Castle, or, asit is commonly called, 
the Pile of Fouldry. The bwilding has been based 
upon an irregular rock, but at present the ruinous 
walls rise to no great height, although the Pile, or 
‘The Peel’ (as it is called), may be seen from the 
vicinity of Lancaster on the opposite side of Morecambe 
Bay, and it serves as a signal-tower by which mariners 
are guided in this intricate and dangerous channel. 


ISLAND OF ANGLESEA, OR ANGLESEY. 


This is one of the islands of the Irish Sea, and is the 
largest of the islands belonging to England. Itis one 
of the six counties of North Wales, being situated at 
the north-western extremity of that principality. A 
long and narrow chaunel separates it from the main- 
land. By some of the old Roman authors it was named 
Mona; but the ancient Britons gave it the name of 
Ynys Dowyll, or Shady Island; the name, no doubt, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[OcroBER 9, 


being derived from the groves and woods with which 
it once abounded. 

The shape of this island is an irregular triangle, in- 
dented throughout with bays and creeks. From north- 
west to south-east its length is twenty miles; and its 
breadth from north-east to south-west is about sixteen 
miles, with a superficial area of about two hundred 
thousand acres. It contains two market-towns, Beau- 
maris and Holyhead; and although the former is the 
county town, the latter is far more populous. It is 
divided into six hundreds, which contain seventy-seven 
parishes. The population of the whole island does not 
fall far short of forty thousand. In the island are no 
streams of any importance to navigation, although it is 
eenerally well watered by numerous small brooks and 
rivulets. Thestrait which separates it from the main- 
land in breadth scarcely exceeds a good-sized river, 
but 1t serves the purposes of navigation to sinall ves- 
sels connected with the trade of neighbouring seaports. 
The bridge of Menai, which has been thrown across 
this strait, is one of the greatest monuments of art con- 
nected with modern tiunes;-for while it in noway 
interrupts the navigation of the channel, it forms an 
easy and safe communication with the mainland, which 
had long been much needed. 

The elimate of Anglesea is considerably milder than 
the adjacent counties of North Wales; but owing to 
the prevalence of the autumnal fogs, the inhabitants 
are subject to attacks of agues. Excepting the dis- 
trict of country bordering on the strait, which is still 
interspersed more or less with woods, the country on 
the whole presents a naked and uninviting appear- 
ance, though in the time of the Druids most of it pro- 
duced abundance of timber-trees, among which were 
the “ shady oaks” with which the island is said to have 
once abounded; and among which were erected those 
rude temples where they practised their peculiar reli- 
fious rites and ceremonies, until they were eventually 
driven to seek refuge in the Isle of Man. Though 
much of the ground presents an uneven suriace, there 
are no hills of much note or of considerable elevation ; 
nothing to be compared with the mountains of the 
neighbouring counties of Wales. 

The soil for the most part is tolerably productive ; 
but farming until within a very recent period made 
but little progress towards those vast improvements 
which have been effected in other parts of the country ; 
and even yet the agricultural condition of Anglesea is 
much behind that of many parts of the country whieh 
cannot boast of so good a soil. The greater portion of 
itis a sandy loam, and the corn produced consists of 
wheat, oats, and barley, of which a considerable quan- 
tity is annually exported to the mainland. The cattle 
raised here are yearly sent to the English markeis 
in considerable numbers; for although a great number 
of sheep are kept upon some of the poorer lands of this 
island, the value of the cattle exported greatly exceeds 
that of sheep, for it is not from this part of the prin- 
cipality that the noted Welsh mutton is derived. 
Neither game nor fish (fresh-water) 1s very plentiful, 
but the sea yields a good supply of most kinds of fish 
common to our coasts; and Anglesea is reckoned a 
Cheap place for provisions generally. 

The mineral productions of the island are various, 
and some of them ofa valuable nature. There are some 
marble-quarries that have been worked with suecess, 
as well as others which yield breccia for millstones. 
But the most valuable production of the island is its 
copper, of which large quantities have at times been 
raised, Some in a native state, but most generally in 
veins mixed with sundry other matters. Lead too is 
among the mineral products; and eoal, though not of 
the best quality, isfound within the limits of the island. 


(To be continued.) 


1841. ] THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 401 







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ON GALLINACEOUS BIRDS INCLUDED for some protection, it cannot be doubted that many 
species would soon become extirpated in our island ; 


UNDER THE HEAD OF GAME. and a few perhaps, without incessant care, and a Cor- 


Many birds of the gallinaceous order are valuable, | responding expense, would from various incidental 
and therefore protected by man, though they cannot | causes become gradually diminished, and at last be 
be said to be reclaimed. These birds, coilectively | rare in the extreme, if not altogether extinct within 
termed ‘ Game, are in our country and some others | the limits of our shores. We here allude more parti- 
regarded as the property of the landed proprietor on | cularly to the Pheasant (Phastanus Colchis), which 1s 
whose estate they are found; and laws arbitrary | not an aboriginal of this country, though it has been 
and severe, the relics of feudal times, when it was | long naturalized both in this country and in all the 
more pardonable for a ‘ villain’ or ‘serf’ to kill a man } adjacent parts of the Continent. 

than a deer, are still to a certain extent in force. But| The pheasant is a native of Western Asia; and its 


No. O12. Von. X.—3 F 


402 


first introduction to Europe appears to have been by 
the Greeks at an early part of their history. It 1s not 
improbable that it was first brought to Greece by the 
adventurers of the Argonautic expedition under Jason 
io Colchis, in the year 1263 n.c.; the real object of 
which appears to have been the establishment of com- 
merce with that country. Colchis was a country bor- 
dering the Euxine Sea on the east, and includes the 
present Georgia, Mingrelia, &c. 

Through that country flows the river called Phasis ; 
and from the banks of the Phasis was brought the bird 
called ®aciavoe, or Phasianus, so remarkable for its 
beauty—the Pheasant in our language. Pliny termed 
these birds Phasiane aves ;, that 1s, birds of the river 
Phasis, thereby indicating their primitive locality. 
At present the pheasant is found wild in China, and 
throughout the immense tract of country on the north- 
west of that empire, now termed Independent Tar- 
tary. 

= naturalization in our island gives the pheasant 
the claim to a place among our British birds; and 
Selby and Gould have admitted it, though they have 
excluded the common fowl, the pea-fowl, the guinea- 
fowl, and the turkey, which on the same grounds ought 
to be recognised. The pheasant, though it roosts at 
night on trees, is terrestrial in its habits, resorting to 
dense underwood, thick brambly copses, and places 
overgrown with long grasses, tall ferns, and wild rasp- 
berries, where it lies concealed during the day. In 
these ‘preserves’ it breeds, making a loose nest on the 
eround. 

The male is polygamous, and during the mating 
season claims to himself the possession of a certain 
territory or beat, from which he drives off all im- 
truders, giving battle to his rivals who venture within 
certain limits. At this scason, the latter end of March 
and begmning of April, the crowing of the pheasant 
in token of defiance may be heard; and combats often 
take place, not only between rival male- pheasants, 
but between these and the domestic cock of the adja- 
cent farm-yard. 

During the winter the males associate together dis- 
tinct from the females. The latter at first are joimed 
by the young birds of both sexes; but the young 
males, which acquire at the autumnal moult the full 
plumage, afterwards leave their society. The feeding- 
time of the pheasant is early in the morning and late 
in the evening, just before sunset. The birds at those 
times quit the thicket or preserve, and hasten to the 
neighbouring fields; when disturbed they run swittly 
along, and only rise 1f pursued, or when near their 
wooded retreat. The male, when retiring to his branch 
to roost, utters a loud chuckle, which too often betrays 
him to the poacher. Roots and insects constitute the 
summer fare of the pheasant; bulbous roots, and espe- 
clally the common tulip-root, are great favourites. 
And in order to obtain these it digs with its beak and 
scratches vigorously with its feet. Grain forms its 
winter diet, and with this the birds in preserves have 
to be duly supphed. 

The plumage of the pheasant is too well known 
to need description.’ It may be here observed, how- 
ever, that there are two varieties, one distinguished 
by a white ring round the neck. Female birds with 
the male plumage are not unfrequent; but in these 
instances the ovaries are always found to be diseased. 

Young pheasants are not always easily reared, and 
are peculiarly hable to the presence of a parasitic 
worm allied to the fluke (a species of fasciola) in the 
trachea, adhering there by a sucker. The cure recom- 
mended is the subjection of the affected birds to the 


pees of tobacco; but this must be done very care- 
ully. 


The pheasant is a woodland bird, though terrestrial; | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[OcTroBER 16, 


but the partridge is essentially the tenant of open 
corn-lands. This weli-known species of ‘ game’ is 
common in the corn counties of our island and on the 
adjacent Continent, being in fact most abundant 
Where the labours of the ploughman are most exten- 
sive, 

Except during the breeding season, partridges asso- 
ciate in flocks or ‘coveys.’ In February the pairing 
takes place, and the males often fight obstinately with 
each other. The female lays her eggs at the latter 
part of May or beginning of June, selecting a shallow 


excavation under a tuft of herbage for their reception. 


The male leaves the work of incubation entirely to his 
mate, but joins her when the brood is hatched, aud 
unites with her in its protection. Few birds are more 
solicitous in the rearing of their young, and many are 
the stratagems which the parents will practise to draw 
off attention from the brood, which by signal-notes is 
scattered and recalled. ‘ It is not uncommon,” says 
Markwick, in his notes upon White’s ‘Selborne,’ “ to 
see an old partridge feign itself wounded, and run 
along the ground fluttering and crying before either 
dog or man, to draw them away from its helpless un- 
fledged young ones. I have often seen it, and once in 
particular I saw a remarkable instance of solicitude in 
the old bird to save its brood. As I was hunting with 
a young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small 
partridges ; the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumb- 
ling along just before the dog’s nese, till she had 
drawn him to a considerable distance, when she took 
wing and flew still farther off, but not out of the field. 
On this the dog returned to me, near the place where 
the young ones lay concealed in the grass. This the 
old bird no sooner perceived than she flew back again 
to us, settled just before the nog’s nose, and by rolling 
and tumbling about again drew off his attention from 
the young, and thus preserved her brood a second 
time. I have also seen, when a kite has been hovering 
over a covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up 
at the bird of prey, screaming and fighting with all 
their might to preserve their brood.” 

Selby mentions a well-authenticated instance in 
which two partridges, in defence of their brood, gave 
battle to a carrion-crow, and actually held the mis- 
creant till taken from them by the spectator of the 
scene. 

Like the pheasant, the partridge feeds early in the 
morning and late in the evening—the covey resting 
during the day among herbage, or basking on dry 
banks, or, hke the fowl, dusting their plumage and 
cleaning their feathers. At night they generally choose 
the middle of a large field as their roosting-place, and 
sit crowded together. The call of the partridge is 
usually heard before the covey retire to rest; they 
answer each other, and thus the stragglers are col- 
lected. The partridge is greatly esteemed for its flesh. 
An old distitch says,— 

“ If partridge had the woodcock’s thigh, 
“T'would be the best bird ere did fly.” 

Its colours are well known. 

Within the last fifty years a Continental specics, 
termed the Red-legged Partridge (Perdix rubra, 
Briss.), lias been introduced into our island, to the 
disadvantage of the common bird, which it drives 
from the Jands and enclosures where it establishes 
itself. 

The red-legged partridge (a native of France and 
Southern Europe, and the Isles of Guernsey and Jer- 
sey) was first introduced into this country by the Mar- 
quis of Hertford and Lord Rendlesham, about the year 
1780, They procured the eggs of the species on the 
Continent, and had them placed under the common 


‘hen: the former nobleman, at one of his shooting resi- 


dences in Suffolk ; the latter, at an estate in the sanie 


1841. ] 


county. From these two spots the specics has gra- 
dually extended itself; and in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, 
and the adjacent counties, is now very abundant. The 
flesh of this bird is much prized by some, being whiter 
than that of the common partridge ; it is, however, in- 
ferior in richness of flavour, and is less juicy. 

The red-legged partridge considerably exceeds the 
ordmary species in size, and is a bolder, more alert, 
and vigorous bird. It is consequently more difficult 
to bring down with the gun. It not only rises ata 
distance before the dogs, but after alighting from its 
sweep runs swiitly for any yards, and that with the head 


and neck erect, and with cyes attentive to the motious of 


the dogsand sportsmen. Like our own indigenous spe- 
cies, it frequents corn-lands, and especially somewhat 
elevated fields. It brecds amidst growing corn or clover, 
the female making a nest of dried grasses and leaves. The 
parents are very assiduous in the care of their young, 
which, lke those of the common partridge and fowl, 
run about as soon as excluded from the egg. During 
the winter the coveys scatter themselves over fallow- 
lands and turnip-fields; and in severe weather retire 
to the shelter of copses, hedgerows, warm banks, and 
shrubby declivities facing the south. At this time, 
especially if snow be on the ground, they rise with less 
alacrity on the approach of the sportsman than in the 
autumn, and are more easily shot down. The extirpa- 
tion of this bird is indeed desired by many sportsmen, 
who are unwilling to see the original partridge cede 
its native districts to a usurper. 

The red-legged partridge is a very elegant bird. 
The general colour of the wpper surface is reddish- 
brown; of the under, rcddish-yellow: the feathers of 
the sides are ornamented with a series of transverse 
crescent-shaped bars of black, white, and chestnut; the 
throat is white, bordcred by a deep band of black; the 
centre of the breast is of a bliish-ash colour, mottled 
above with black. Thc bill and lIcgs are red. 


[To be continued. ] 


DOMESTIC ECONOMY OF THE ESTHONIANS. 


Tue following details of the domestic economy of an 
Esthonian landowner’s household at the present day 
may scrve to give our rcaders an idea of the duties 
which the good housewife was called upon to perform 
mi Wugland three centuries ago. In a few of the 
remotcst spots in Grcat Britain something lke this 
system of living independent of shops and markets 
may still in part exist, but the most wealthy find 1t 
more convenient to live “from hand to mouth.” If 
the victualling of a man-of-war requires no ordinary 
excrcise of intelligence and foresight, an English 
housewife of the sixteenth century had almost as great 
a task to perform, and one wluch demanded no or- 
dinary share of thoughtfulness, judgment, and expe- 
rience. What the influencc of these manifold and all- 
engrossing domestic cares may have been upon the 
charactcr of women in that day, and what influence a 
release from these dutics has had upon those of our 
own times, is a subject which we have not at present 
space to discuss. 


« After taking a review of the dwelling-rooms and bed-rooms, 
all spacious and airy, and wanting nought save that most desir- 
able of all bed-rooin requisites, privacy, my hostess led the way 
to her schafferei, or store-room, and, unlocking the door with a 
slight solemnity of manner, ushered me mto a crowded treasury 
of honsehold goods. The room was a very warehouse, hung 
round, fitted up, and strewed about with the numerous items of 
a housekeeper’s economy, to which those who only consume them 
often attach too little importance, and those who have to provide 
them too much. Side by side on the floor stood big-bodied 
bottles of spirit and liqueur, rolls of coarse linen, jars of pickles 
and preserves, hanks of wool, loaves of sugar, aud bundles of 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


403 


fiax. In deep chests around was the Moscow flour, salt, SAZO, 
saffron, starch, &c. &c., while tiers of drawers displayed large 
provisious of native dried apples, pears, cherries, peas, beans, 
birch-twigs, applied asa decoction for wounds—in short, a pertect. 
hortus siccus for kitchen use. Around huug balls of twine and 
yarn, nets, corks, candles of as many colours and sizes as those 
oftered to the Virgin of Casan, tanned sheep-skins, both black and 
white, and uumberless other pendeut treasures, while one side 
was fitted up im numerous partitions, where the raisins, figs, and 
spices for daintier palates were stored. This schaffere: is the 
particular sanctuary of the lady of the house, who, if she do all, 
has enough business to transact. For the duties of an Esthonian 
wirthschaft, or menage, are not confined to ordering dimmer or 
scolding servants, but, like those of our grandmothers a few 
generations back who directed the weighty concerns of a large 
country residence, include the weaving of linen, the making of 
candles, the boiling of soap, brewing of liqueurs, &c.; and, 
communication with distant towns being “necessarily seldom, it 
requires no small forethought to provide that, during the long 
mouths of winter, the family shall never fail in sugar or plums, 
nor the many hangers-on in the back settlements of the house in 
the more stable articles of subsistence. It is true every lady has 
her housekeeper to advertise her that there is 10 more home- 
brewed vinegar in the bottle, or home-made starch in the tub, or, 
if she be unusually wealthy, an extra assistaut, emphatically 
styled a Mamselle, on whom all these base cares descend; but 
housekeepers and mamselles will be human as well as their mis- 
tresses, and sometimes all three unite in forgetting some im- 
portant trifle which equally spoils the dimer and the temper of 
the Hausherr for several days. 

All these grave responsibilities render the post of a baron’s 
lady one, however honourable, but of little rest. The very word 
wirthschaft possesses a talismanic power. By growing girls, who 
trust ere long to superiutend one of their own, it is pronounced 
with a mixture of reverence and apprehension ; by young brides, 
fresh in office, with a sententious consequence, as the password of 
their newly-acquired dignity ; and by older versed matrons with 
a glee and evident inward gratulation which makes me suspect 
they are very glad of so convenient and comprehensive a word to 
absulve them from all other duties. In its various mysteries and 
details, however, there is much that is both interesting and in- 
structive ; and a clear-headed practical woman, with a solid 
education, will, by generalizing one department, dispensing with 
another, aud making use of her own sense in intricate cases, strip 
the term of half its terrors. Education has not hitherto been 
considered a necessary portion of an Ksthonian lady's dowry, and 
in old times it was thought the greater the simpleton the better 
the housekeeper; but the progress of enlightenment, and a few 
solitary intermarriages with women from a more advanced 
coutry, have aroused the first suspicion of a fact, not perhaps 
sufficiently acknowledged anywhere—that educated persons 
excel in the meanest things, and that refined minds possess the 
most common sense.—JLetters from the Baltic. 





Gardens of Hindostan.—Amoug the enjoyments of the upper 
classes I should not omit their gardens, which, though always 
formal, are nevertheless often pleasing. They are divided by 
broad alleys, with long and narrow ponds or canals enclosed with 
regular stone and stucco work running up the centre, aud on 
each side straight walks between borders of poppies of all colours, 
or of other flowers in uniform beds or in patterns. Their sum- 
mer-houses are of white stucco, and, though somewhat less heavy 
and inelegant than their ordinary dwellings, do not much relieve 
the formality of the garden; but there is still something rich 
anc oriental in the groves of orange and citron trees, the mixture 
of dark cypresses with trees covered with flowers or blossoms, the 
tall and graceful palms, the golden fruits and highly scented 
flowers. In the heats of summer too the trellised walks, closely 
covered with vines, and the slender stems and impervious shade 
of the dreca-tree, afford dark and cool retreats from the intolera- 
ble glare of the sun, made still more pleasant by the gushing of 
the little rills that water the garden, and by the profound silence 
and repose that reign in that overpowering hour. I have great 
doubts whether the present kind, of gardens has not been intro- 
duced by the Mussulmans, especially as I remember no deserip- 
tion in the poets that are translated which suggests this sort of 
formality.—Llphinstone’s Hist. of India. 


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THE NAPOLEON COLUMN AT BOULOGNE. 


THE mutability of human affairs is a common-place 
topic enough, and the history of this column only con- 
firms what is sufficiently proved without it. In i803 
the army and fleet destined by Buonaparte for the in- 
vasion of England were assembled in the harbour and 
on the shore of Boulogne, under the command of 
Marshal Soult; ‘and if,” says a writer in the Magasin 
Pittoresque, ‘“ unforeseen circumstances had not forced 
him to abandon the intention, our glorious rival had 
perhaps been struck to the heart, and the political state 
of the world been totally changed.” Jf and perhaps 
are noted peace-makers; and the “unforeseen circum- 
stances” having taken place, instead of invading Eng- 
land, our neighbours resolved to erect a column. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[OcrosBER 16, 


“An historical fact of such importance,” proceeds the 
writer, ‘deserved to be transmitted to posterity by 
some durable memorial. The national feeling was so 
unanimous, that, on the lst Wendemiaire, an x11I.,™ 
the expeditionary army (the fourth corps of da grande 
armée) voted a monument to the honour of Napoleon, 
its general, who had been proclaimed emperor in the 
preceding year; and they chose for its site a little hill 
near their camp, situated about 200 yards west of 
Boulogne, on the road to Calais. This monument, 
therefore, is not, like most of those of its kind, ordered 
by the power and conceived by the ambition of a chief; 
it owes its existence to the spontaneous enthusiasm of 
a whole army.” 

But all this enthusiasm was not sufficient to com- 
plete the pillar: the subscriptions came in but lan- 
euidly, and the work alternately preceeded slowly or 
stopped altogether. In the following November, 
Marshal Soult, surrounded by the army, laid the first 
stone, on which, in French, was the following inscrip- 
tion :— | 

The first stone 
of this Monument, devoted 
by the expeditionary army at Boulogne 
and the flotilla 
to the Emperor Napoleon, 
was deposited by Marshal Soult, commander-in-chief, 
on the 18 Brumaire, an 13 (9 Novembre, 1804), 
the Auniversary of the Regeneration of France. 


The base and the shaft of the pillar were at length 
raised. Some part of the base was of black marble, 
found in the Boulonnais, and the shaft was of a greyish- 
yellow marble, capable of receiving a high polish, from 
the quarries of Marquise, in the vicinity. Beyond this 
httle was done more than recording the “historical facts” 
of what was intended; and we here again recur to the 
writer in the Magasin Pitioresque. ‘*‘ According to the 
origmal design, the base was to have been ornamented 
on three sides with bas-rehefs: the first, which repre- 
sented the homage rendered by the army to its chief, 
was the only one executed, and was destroyed in 1815. 
Of the other two bas-reliefs, one was to have been a 
bird’s-eye view of the port of Boulogne, the flotilla, 
and the line of batteries; the second was to have re- 
presented the expedition on the English shore; the 
fourth was to have borne the inscription relative to its 
erection: the bronze eagle, with its wings displayed, 
and surrounded by crowns, surmounting the base; 
with the crowned and robed statue of Napoleon, sup- 
ported on its tablet by eagles, also in bronze, were 
never carried further than the design.” 

The restoration of the Bourbons occasioned a change 
in the name and destination of the column. Its com- 
pletion was strongly urged as a beautiful work of art, 
and it was even proposed to convert it to the purposes 
of a lighthouse, but the expense of the latter project 
prevented its adoption. In 1818 the town of Boulogne 
petitioned the Chamber of Peers that, “as it was one of 
the first to witness the return of our beloved monarch 
to his dominions in 1814, when he was meditating that 
immortal charter which he projected giving to his 
people,” this column should be dedicated to Louis 
XVIII, “the restorer of the monarchy and the pro- 
tector of public liberty ;’ and in 1819, after other most 
loyal petitions, of the sincerity of which Louis appears 
to have entertained many reasonable doubts, orders 
were given to complete the column to commemorate 


* Sept. 22, 1804, the first day of the year, according to the 
French Republican Calendar. 

+ It has been said that the column was originally intended to 
commemorate also the institution of the Legion of Honour, but 
this was not stated at the time, and appears to have been an 
after-thought, the first distribution of the decorations of that 
order having taken place on the 16th of the preceding August. 


1841.) 


his “return to his dominions.” A hole was now cut 
in the stone staircase, and a box deposited containing 
coms of Louis X VIII., crystal portraits of the members 
of his family, and a bronze plate with a detail of the 
commencement, progress, and completion of the co- 
hunn. It was then proposed to surmount it witha 
statue of Louis XVIII. le Desiré, but he had the good 
sense to decline the doubtiul honour ; and, after many 
other proposals, a gilt globe five feet six inches in 
diameter was determined upon. It was embellished 
with four fleurs-de-lys, and four others were sculp- 
tured at the four angles of the tablet of the capital. 
Bas-relieis were ordered to be prepared commemo- 
rating the return of the Bourbons, and one of the base 
was destined to receive the following inscription :— 
This Column, 
voted by the army assembled at Boulogne, 
from whence it threatened England, 
was commenced in 1804. 
Become a monument of peace by the restoration 
of the throne of the Bourbons, 
it has been completed under tlre auspices 
of His Majesty Louis XVIII., 
and consecrated to the recollection, always dear to 
the French, of his happy return to his dominions 
in 1814, 

The column had now become the Colonne des Bour- 
bons, and was opened to public view on August 24, 
1814; but the revolution of July, 1830, restored it, to 
a considerable extent, to its original purposes: the 
fleurs-de-lys were knocked away immediately, and stars 
substituted. Shortly afterwards the French Chambers 
voted sums for the completion of the design. The exe- 
cution of the statue of Napoleon was entrusted to 
Baron Bosio. The emperor is represented in un- 
perial costume; he holds a sceptre in one hand, and 
in the other the order of the Legion of Honour. The 
statue is sixteen feet in height, and has a magnifi- 
cent and impressive appearance, though the 1mpe- 
rial robes, by concealing so much of the figure, give 
it a somewhat heavy effect. The bas-reliets have 
been reduced to two; that on the principal face, con- 
fided to M. Bra, represents the homage of the army as 
in the former one that was destroyed; Napoleon 1s 
seen sitting on his throne, surrounded by his generals, 
who present the plan of the column dedicated to him 
by the army. On the opposite face is represented the 
distribution of the crosses of the Legion of Honour in 
August, 1804, by M. Lemaire. The bas-reheis are 
in bronze, but the surrounding ornaments are sculp- 
tured in the marble hke the Egyptian hieroglyphics. 
The two other faces are occupied with the following 
inscriptions. On the south side, in French :— 

Upon this shore, 
on the 16th of August, 1804, 

‘Napoleon, in the presence of the Grand Army, 
distributed the decorations of the Legion of Honour 
to the soldiers, to the citizens, 
who had merited well of their country. 





The Fourth Corps, commanded by Marshal Soult, 
and the Flotilla, under the orders of Admiral Bruix, 
desirmg 
to perpetuate the memory of this event by a monument, 
Louis Philippe I., king of the French, 
completed this column, 
consecrated 
by the Grand Army to Napoleon, 
M.DCCC.XLI. 


On the north side, in Latin :— 
Louis Philippe IL, 
King of the French, 
On the spot where the Emperor Napoleon from his 
throne distributed the Insignia of the Legion of 
Honour to his illustrious and unconquered 
army, the defenders of their country ; 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


405 


That the memory of that day, the 16th August, 1804, 
and the glory of the army, might he delivered to 
posterity by a monument consecrated to them, 
Caused THis Column, begun by the army, November 
9, 1804, but unfinished through various causes, 
To be completed and dedicated, 
In the year 1841. ~ © 


In August last, on the anniversary of the first dis- 
tribution of the orders of the Legion of Honour, the 
statue was placed on the pillar, and this ceremony was 
made the occasion of a festival at Boulogne, lasting 
several days. The account of these rejoicings does not 
come within our province, and they have been already 
sufficiently described by the newspapers and other 
publications. Our purpose has been to notice the 
curious changes connected with this column: to record 
the distribution of the insignia of the Legion of Honour 
by Napoleon, is to preserve the connection between the 
inonument and his memory, without pandering to na- 
tional jealousy and love of war. Works of art ought 
not to be desecrated by a perversion of their original 
purposes: there is more of real dignity in preserving 
these magnificent records of the opmions of by-gone 
times, than, by attempting to destroy or pervert them, 
acknowledging a sense of humiliation in their pre- 
sence, and perpetuating more strongly and exten- 
sively the intentions of the original founders. 

Next to the Monument of London, the Napoleon 
Column is the highest in Europe. The base is 34 
feet in height, the shaft 126 feet, and the statue, as we 
have already said, is 16 feet; giving a total of 176 feet. 
The Monument is about 26 feet taller. 


THE ISLANDS OF ENGLAND. 
[Continued from p. 400.] 


Hontyueap correctly speaking is an island, al- 
though it is generally considered as a peninsula be- 
longing to Anglesea. It is, however, separated from 
the larger island by a very narrow creek or channel, 
over which is a bridge with one arch of moderate span, 
by which route the mail used to travel on its way from 
London to Ireland. Except a few persons who during 
the summer come here for the sake of sea-bathing, it 
isnot a place of much resort. Sometimes it is sought as 
a place of refuge by vessels caught in a storm upon 
this dangerous coast ; and in the herring-fishery season 
a few boats are sometimes successfully employed. 

Holyhead lies nearer to Ireland than any other part 
of Wales: the distance to Dubln, which is situated 
nearly due west, is little over sixty miles; and east- 
ward to Liverpool the distance is nearly the same. 
The island upon which the town is built, not far from 
the northern extremity, is six or seven miles long, and 
more than one across 1n most places. Towards the sea 
it is high and rocky; and it 1s only where the town is 
situated that ships find a safe harbour. A large church 
stands at the bottom of the rock, and towards the 
southern extremity of the island is a small chapel. 
There is a small garrison kept here, and a hghthouse 
and signal-station are among the dions of the place. 
There are several caverns in the ledges of rock; and 
upon the whole, it may be considered a place present- 
ing more to engage the attention of the curious than 
many other places that have obtained a more romantic 
reputation. 

A few miles to the north of Holyhead are some den- 
gerous rocky islets, called THE SKERRIES, upon one 
of which has been erected a hghthouse. They lie 
distant from, the north-western extremity of Anglesea 
scarcely over a mile, and are directly in the route of 
vessels coming up St. George’s Channel, after passing 
Holyhead, on their way to Liverpool. There are also 
a few more small rocky islets along the coast, east of 


406 


the Skerries, but not so directly in the route of vessels, 
and therefore considered of smaller importance. 

It may be mentioned, also, in reference to Anglesea, 
that 1n a morass of considerable extent, which still re- 
mains undrained and uncultivated, on different occa- 
sions oak-trees of a tolerably large size have been dug 
out in a state of uncommon preservation, and, from 
appearances, in precisely the situation they had been 
prostrated to the earth. The cromlechs, the supposed 
altars of the Druids, are still more numerous here than 
elsewhere in Great Britain. The larger ones are 
formed by one very large flat stone, at one end of 
which isa smaller one, but both placed in an inclining 
position, and surrounded by eight or ten upright ones 
at no great distance. 


BARDSEY ISLAND. 


Pursuing a southern course on quitting Holyhead, 
this small island, which 1s scarcely two miles long by 
one broad, is the next that presents itself. It is situ- 
ated at the south-western extremity of Cacrnarvon- 
shire, about a mile from the mainland, from which it 
is separated by a rapid current. A lheghthouse stands 
on a conspicuous part of it; and though little cultiva- 
tion 1s attempted, it affords tolerable pasturage for 
sheep, and is inhabited by about twenty famihes. It 
was once resorted to asa place of religious sanctity ; 
and it is said that 20,000 Britons, persecuted by the 
Saxons, sought refuge here, and he buried within its 
narrow circuit. A monastery is reported to have ex- 
isted here, and there are still numerous grave-stones; 
and a building supposed to have been the abbot’s 
lodge and oratory is the only visible remains of such 
a consecrated edifice. In the part supposed to have 
been the oratory one of the peasants of the island per- 
forms the religious service. 

During a portion of the year the inhabitants employ 
themselves in the dangerous pursuit of taking the 
eges from the nests of the numerous wild-fowl which 
frequent the rocks, and deposit their eggs upon nar- 
row ledges, which can only be reached by means of 
long ropes, by which these daring people are let 
down. 

THE Bishop AnD His CLrerxs.—This is the name 
given to a cluster of rocky islands of the most westerly 
part of Pembrokeshire, and on the northern side of St. 
Bride’s Bay, and at no great distance from the town 
of St. David’s. They are all uninhabited, but some of 
them offer a little pasturage for afew sheep. They, 
like most rocky islands near the mainland, are much 
frequented by large numbers of sea-fowl, which are 
an object with the inhabitants on the opposite shore, 
who come over and secure their eggs, and destroy 
some particular sorts for the sake of their feathers and 
down. The navigation is of so dangerous a character, 
that it was deemed expedient to erect a hghthouse 
there, which was built in the year 1777. 

On the south side of the same bay are several more 
small islands, which he at a short distance north-west 
of St. Ann’s Point, at the entrance into Milford Haven, 
the most capacious harbour in Great Britain. 

Caupy IsLAnp also hes off the same coast, but more 
to the eastward, and nearly south of the ancient town 
of Tenby. It 1s a mile and a half in length, and-half 
a mile in breadth, and something over a mile from the 
nearest point of land. Some part of this island 1s under 
cultivation, and a few families reside here. A priory 
once existed upon this agreeably situated island, the 
site of which is still marked by the remains of a tower 
and some fragments of the foundation-walls. 

Lunpy Istanp.—This island, which is five miles 
long and two broad, is situated at the distance of 
eleven or twelve miles from the nearest land, and at 


the outward entrance into that spacious arm of the sea | used to be carried to a considerable extent. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


f OCTOBER 16, 


usually known as the Bristol Channel. It is encom- 
passed by lofty rocks on every side, except at one place 
where there is a very narrow opening, which admits of 
a landing, but affords no harbour for vessels in distress. 
Formerly there was a small chapel upon this solitary 
island, which is now in ruins. ‘There is a lighthouse 
upon the island, and a pyramidal rock, called the Con- 
stable, is of considerable clevation ; so that by night or 
by day this island may be descried at a considerable 
distance : itis, indeed, frequently the first land that the 
British homeward-bound vessels make in returning 
from an Atlantic voyage. A few families commonly 
reside here where a portion of the island is cultivated ; 
but the greater part of it is pastured by sheep, the 
exposed situation being better adapted for pasturage 
than cultivation. The landing-place lies on the south- 
east part of the island, or north-west of Barnstable Bay. 

Tur Hous, which lic farther up the Bristol Chan- 
nel, consist of the islands known as Steep Holm, Flat 
Holm, and the Wolves, which, from their situation in 
the middle of the estuary, serve to impede the naviga- 
tion and render it more dangerous. Steep Holm isso 
named from the elevated character of growud, some of 
which rises upwards of 200 feet above the sea. The best 
part of the land is in possession of a farmer’s family, who 
are the only inhabitants of the island. It hes west of the 
flourishing litle town of Weston-super-Mare, in So- 
merset, nearly five miles; from whence, during the 
simmer, parties of pleasure frequently make excur- 
sions to this and its neighbouring island, Flat Hohn. 
Its extreme length is over half a mile, and the breadth 
half as much. 

I’iat Hoxim hes north of the former, at the distance 
of considerably more than a mile, and is scarcely so 
large as its neighbour, and, as its name seems to imply, 
is a low and level island. It 1s more in the middle of 
the Channel than the other island ; and in consequence 
of this, and the low character of the land, a lighthouse 
has been built upon it, which can be distinctly seen 
from both the Welsh and English coasts. <A vast 
number of sea-gulls and some other sorts of wild-fow] 
frequent those islands, where they breéd in the summer 
season. 

THE Wo.Lves are two or three very small isiands 
lying north-west of Flat Holm, distant about two miles, 
and not much farther distant from the north shore of 
the Channel. These last mentioned are of no import- 
ance, except that they add to the danger of the naviga- 
tion of the British Channel. In the vicinity of those 
— the Channel is about twelve or thirteen miles 
wide. 

There are two or three other small islands westward 
of the islands just mentioned, along the coast of South 
Wales, but none of any such note as to deserve parti- 
cular notice here. 


SCILLY ISLANDS. 


These islands, which form a numerous cluster at 
the distance of more than thirty miles from the Land’s 
End in Cornwall, are a very interesting group; buta 
description of them has been given in the ‘ Penny 
Magazine,’ vol. 1., p. 203, so that a few words may 
suffice in this place. Six of the principal ones are in- 
habited, which are generally considered to rank thus: 
St. Mary’s, Trescau or Tresco, St. Martin’s, St. Agnes, 
Sampson, and Brehar; and these altogether contain 
a population exceeding 2000. From the more clc-. 
vated places in Cornwall, near the Land’s End, these 
islands are visible in clear weather; but they only 
appear lke a cluster of rocks. There are sevcral 
churches and chapels on the principal islands, and 
inost of the land is cultivated; but many of the inha- 


bitants engage in fishing, and the manufacture of kelp 
Many 


1841. ] THE PENNY 
ships have been lost among the Scilly Islands; the 
navigation in their immediate vicinity is of so danger- 
ous a eharacter, that few ships—cxeept aceidentally— 
ever approach them. The voyage from Penzance in 
favourable weather is made in four or five hours. St. 
Mary’s (whieh contains more than one-half of the whole 
population) is the principal island; but its length is 
only four miles and a half, and its breadth two miles 
and a half. These islands are eonsidered part of the 
eounty of Cornwall ; but they have eertain aneient and 
local privileges that are peculiar to themselves. 


THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 


In treating of the Islands of England, it becomes a 
matter of eonsiderable doubt whether or not these 
islands ought to be included. It is true that they be- 
long to England, and that they are situated in the 
English Channel; nevertheless they lie much nearer 
the eoast of Normandy in [ranee, and anciently be- 
longed to that prineipality. Moreover the inhabitants, 
who are evidently of Norman descent, eontinue to 
speak the language of that country; while the same 
laws continue in force to which they were subjected 
while still under the Norman power. Hence it 
would rather appear, that although these islands be- 
long to Great Britain, still, geographieally considered, 
they ought not to be ranked among the Islands of 
Eneland. 

Though there are some smaller ones, and several 
detached rocks, the four principal islands are usually 
elassed as follows: namely, Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, 
and Sark. But as a full description of them has already 
appeared in. the Gth volume of the ‘ Penny Magazine,’ 
at pp. 329, 336, 357, and 384, all that need here be 
done 1s to refer the reader, as above enumerated, for 
a full and interesting description. 


ISLE OF PORTLAND. 


Although there are several rocky islets both on the 
north and south side of the peninsula formed by the 
counties of Cornwall and Devon, none of them appear 
to deserve a plaee in these remarks. But eontinuing 
eastward along the Enghsh Channel, the Isle of Port- 
land presents itself as worthy of eonsideration. Though 
we commonly find it classed as an island, it is more 
properly a peninsula, since it is not totally severed 
from the mainland; for a narrow ridge of pebbles, 
which goes by the name of the Chesil Bank, and which 
extends westward many miles, leaving a narrow ehan- 
nel between it and the mainland, ealled the Fleet, 
connects Portland to the southern part of the county 
of Dorset. This island or peninsula is of a triangular 
shape, the greatest length of which is about four miles 
from north to south, and two miles across from east to 
west. It has long been noted for the beautiful free- 
stone that it yields, many thousand tons of which are 
annually quarried and exported to London and various 
other places. Most part of the male population is 
employed in the quarries upon different parts of the 
island, while the tillage of the crops is left almost en- 
tirely to the women. The wall of rock serves to pro- 
tect this island everywhere from the sea, except ata 
landing-place on the north, where Portland Castle, a 
plaee of great strength, is situated, and which eom- 
pletely commands Weymouth Roads, and lies three 
niles south of Weymouth. There are several villages 
and hamlets upon the island; and besides the corn 
raised by the inhabitants, a considerable number of 
sheep are pastured. The navigation in the immediate 
neighbourhood is very dangerous; henee two light- 
hauses have been erected on the southern part of the 
island. (See ‘Penny Magazine,’ vol. vi, pp. 57, 68, 


d 86. 
and 86.) [To be continued. J. 


MAGAZINE, 407 


Tie PUR RA. 


Tue Purrali 1s a secret society in Africa among the 
Neeroes. | 

Many of our readers, having been in the habit of 
regarding such societies as belonging to an interme- 
diate state of eivilization, higher than any which Negro- 
land exhibits, will hear withsurprise of their existence 
among the blacks. Yet the Purrah is not the only 
Seeret society among them; and, in truth, although 
such societies continue into the intermediate state of 
eivilization, and may even survive, as a form, in the 
most civilized conditions of soeiety which have yet 
been known, yet such societies commence in a more 
rude state of society than has been generally imagined. 
They have not only been found among the Negroes, 
but among the savages of the Pacific Islands. 

All seeret societies appear to have originated either 
in the desire to preserve and to transmit religious 
mysteries whieh were not known, and whieh, it was 
supposed, might not be safely made known to the mass 
of the people ; or else to concentrate and to exercise a 
politieal eontrol over the government, or over the eon- 
dition and destinies of a nation. Both objects might 
be, and often have been, combined in the same institu- 
tion. 

Our own Freemasons offer the example of a secret 
society, which by virtue of its traditions and eeremo- 
nies continues to subsist long after its original object 
is evaporated. For although, in modern times, the 
organization of this great body, and its signs of secret 
recognition, may in foreign eountries have been used 
ov abused for politieal purposes, there ean be little 
doubt to careful inquirers that the original object of 
its institution was to preserve among polytheists the 
doctrine that THERE IS BUT ONE Gop. In those times 
this was a great secret, whieh eould not be openly pro- 
mulgated without danger. Now it is believed by half 
the world, by Christians and Moslems. It is, thereforc, 
no longer a secret ; yet we are persuaded that this, and 
no other, is the great historical secret of the Freemasons, 
kept up formally as sueh, long after the dogma itself 
has become a subject of popular belief. That there has, 
therefore, been no real secret to tell, is, no doubt, the 
best reason for the careful manner in which the eon- 
ventional seeret has been preserved ; none of the body 
being willing to admit—and no one being ready to be- 
lieve the admission if made—that the wonderful seeret 
of which so much had been said, was, in fact, a matter 
whieh now everybody knew. 

But it is time to introduce the reader to the Purrah. 

This institution is partly religious, but more politi- 
eal. Its range is limited to the country whieh extends 
from Sierra Leone southward to Cape Mount. This 
country is occupied by Bulloms and Suceoos, and 1s 
divided into several small states. This institution 
eonsists of members from each of these states; that 
is to say, the Purrah drawn from such state exer- 
eises its functions upon that state or eanton to which 
its members belong; while a grand council, elected 
from the senior members of all the sectional associa- 
tions, exereises its authority over the whole. This last 
supreme body is presided over by a ehiet, or Grand 
Purrah-man, whose real power greatly excceds that of 
any sovereign in those parts. 

The whole number of initiated Purrah-men is sup- 
posed to be about 6000, in the five nations which are 
under the operation of the system. But the secret 
tribunal, or proper Purrah, eontains but twenty-five 
members in each of the five sections; and the Grand 
Purrah is eomposed of five senior members trom each 
of these, and eonsequently also eontains twenty-five 


} members. 


No one can become a member of the sectional Pur- 


408 


rah until thirty years of age, nor of the Grand Purrah 
until the age of fifty. The admission into the seneral 
body is earlier, and a kind of noviciate ; for it may be 
commenced even in boyhood. No one is fully admit- 
ted into this institution until such of his friends as 
already belong to it bind themselves by an oath to put 
him to death should he betray the secrcis of the conie- 
deracy, or shrink durimg the progress of his initiation. 

In each of the districts comprised within the limits 
of this association, there is a sacred grove set apart to 
the use of the Purrah. To this wood the candidate is 
conducted, and is there obliged to remain in a place 
appropriated for him. In a solitary and contracted 
habitation he is confined several months. He receives 
his food from men in masks, who preserve the most 
impenetrable silence ; and the candidate himself dares 
neither speak nor to quit for a moment the hut in 
which he has been placed. Should he attempt to pene- 
trate into the forest by which he is surrounded, he is 
instantly struck dead, and is heard of no more. 

It is remarkable that some sucha preparatory period 
of solitude and mortification has been a preliminary to 
initiation in almost every secret and mystic stitution, 
obviously with the intention of working the candidate 
into a fitting frame for receiving the iull force of the 
impressions which the ceremonies of imitiation are in- 
tended to convey. 

After several months of this preparation, the candi- 
date is admitted to the trial, in which his resolution 
and courage are put to the most severe and terrible 
proofs which the African mind has been able to devise. 
No one has been able to ascertain all the particulars, 
it being difficult to obtain exact information concern- 
ing this and other operations of the Purrah, and often 
dangerous to make mquiries. It is however said, that 
lions and leopards only partially confined are employed 
on this occasion; the sacred wood resounds with the 
most frightful howlings; and during the night vast 
conflagrations are seen in different quarters, seeming 
to indicate a general destruction ; while at other times 
firc is seen to pervade the mysterious wood in all 
directions. But if curiosity or ignorance attracts any 
one within the sacred grove, he 1s sacrificed without 
mercy; and proofs are not wanting that on such occa- 
slons many indiscrect persons have disappeared, and 
have been heard of no more. 

When the candidate has passed through his terrible 
probation, an oath is extracted from him, binding him 
to preserve inviolate all the secrets which have been 
or may be committed to him, and to execute with blind 
obedience the decrees.and orders of the association of 
his own tribe, as well as those of the grand council. 

On entering the society, every member lays aside his 
former name, and assumes a new one; and to call him 
by his old name afterwards is considered an insult. 

The object of this institution appears to be, to keep 
in check the local government and its officers—the 
sectional Purrah in its own state, and the grand Pur- 
rah (which only meets on great occasions) over the 
whole; by sitting as a tribunal of secret justice, not 
only on private crimes, but on public transactions, and 
executing its own decrees with the certainty of fate. 
Resembling in this and in some other respects the 
Secret Tribunal which formerly existed in Germany, 
it takes special cognizance of murder and witchcraft, 
and employs the utmost vigilance in watching the con- 
duct of its own members, whose slightest act of con- 
tumacy or disobedience is visited with inconceivable 
rigour. : 

The sentence of this tribunal upon those whom it 
dooms is never known until it is inflicted. The only 
punishment which such a tribunal can inflict is death; 


and the death which it dooms falls upon the victim in | 


a Manner so secret, so sudden, and so unexpected, that 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[OcTOBER 16, 


the perpetrator is never known. Indeed, such is the 


; awe inspired by this institution, that they are never 


inquired after. 

The most beneficial part of this society’s opera- 
tions results‘from its frequent interference in putting 
a stop to wars and family feuds. In such matters 
it does not indeed interfere until secretly solicited: 
but then its interference is final and effectual. As if 
of its own mere motion, the Purrah meets and declares 
that 1t cannot suffer hostilities to continue between 
those who should live in friendship together ; and that 
it is determined to put an end to such excesses. Both 
parties then lay down their arms, and the Purrah gene- 
rally spends a month in investigating the grounds and 
merits of the quarrel, and sometimes pronounces a 
severe judgment upon the aggressors, the execution of 
Which it entrusts‘to the warriors of their own body, 
who always act with masked faces. 

The mcetings of the Purrah are held in the most 
retired spots, amid the gloom of night, and are carried 
on with the most inquisitorial secrecy. When the 
Purrah comes into a town, which is always at night, 
it is accompanied by the most dreadful howlings, 
screams, and other horrid noises. Such of the inhabitants 
as do not happen to belong to the society are obliged to 
keep within doors. Should any one be found without, 
or attempting to peep at what is going on, he would 
most certainly be put to death. To restrain the curio- 
sity of the women, they are not only bound to stay 
within doors, but to keep up an incessant clapping 
with their hands as long as the Purrah remains. 

A power so secret and so irresponsible cannot but be 
often abused—cannot, indéed, but become a tyranny 
both to people and to governments, with whatever good 
intentions it may have been originally founded. Hence 
it is regarded with unmitigated horror by the people, 
who cannot even speak of it without manifesting tokens 
of terror and apprehension. They believe, in fact, that 
the Purrah-men have constant intercourse with demons, 
who are subject to their orders and control; and this 
is a belef which, since it strengthens their power, the 
Purrah itself is by no means anxious to discourage. 


Discourse.—Some in their discourse desire rather commenda- 
tion of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judg- 
ment, in discerning what is true; as if it were a praise to kuow 
what might be said, and not what should be thought. Some 
have certain common-places and themes, where they are good, 
and want variety; which kind of poverty is for the most part 
tedious, and, when it is once perceived, ridiculous. The honour- 
ablest part of talk is to give the occasion; and again to modesate 
and pass to somewhat else, for then a man leads the dance.— 
Bacon’s Essays. - 


Sun-Rise on Mount Etna.—The gradual manner in which the 
curtain of the night is drawn up, and the enormous landscape 
exposed to view, from such an elevated station as Etna, is what 
no imagination can pretend to conceive—no experience in the 
smallest degree prepare us for. We have the authority of Cap- 
tain Smyth, the great surveyor, for saying that the radius of 
vision from that spot is about one hundred and fifty miles—or, 
in other words, that the eye takes in, at one view, a range of the 
earth’s surface three hundred miles in width! It will be easily 
understood that certain parts of this gigantic panorama eujoy the 
touches of the coming day long before others. The highest and 
the most eastern, of course, are the first lighted up—but owing 
to the shaded sides of all objects situated in that direction being 
turned to the spectator, very curious modifications take place, 
and give to those elevated spots which lie to the westward a 
priority of distinctness in their details which we should not have 
anticipated. As the fields and towns, and the various indenta- 
tions of the coast become visible, and the colours of the fotiage 
begin to show themselves, we are apt to fancy the sun must be 
close at hand; but it is generally long after this period that he 
actually appears—such is the surpassing splendour of his rays. 
This effect is perhaps increased by the clearness of the air at 
ereat altitudes.—Captain Basil Hall’s Patchwork. 


1841.] 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


409 






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[John Kelsey.] 


MENTAL DELUSIONS. 


THE reply of the madman, who, when asked why he 
was confined, replied, “I thought the world mad, and 
the world thought me mad, and they outvoted me,” 
serves to describe very accurately a species of mono- 
mania which is often occurring. It is that wherein an 
individual devotes himself enthusiastically to the pur- 
suit of an object, possibly desirable in itself, but either 
altogether impracticable, or for the attamment of which 
the aspirant has neither qualifications nor opportunity 
of effecting; it also takes the form of error as to per- 
sonal identity, the delusion leading to a claim of rights 
and the adoption of ideas which would fitly belong 
to the personage the individual supposes himself to 
be. We do not here include instances of religious 
delusion or fanaticism, or cases of mere imposture, but 
those concerning temporal affairs, in which indivi- 
duals have displayed a stubbornness and disinterest- 
edness in opposing the arguments and the power of 
their fellow-men which can only proceed from their 
own conviction of being in the right, and their more 
numerous adversaries in the wrong. To a minor de- 
gree of this class belong the mere projectors—seekers 
of perpetual motion, or matters of a similar character 
—and displaying in many cases an equal amount of 
self-sacrifice, though perhaps not without an eye to 
ultimate advantage. Such cases, however, are oftener 
witnessed in private life than brought before the eye 
of the public; the individuals fail, and probably die 


No. O15, 


unknown, while ihe occasional occurrence of a man of 
genius working through difficulty and hardship to 
some glorious consummation, reconciles them to thei 
fate, and seems to sanctify their pursuit. From:some 
recorded cases of such descriptions we select a few 
curious examples. 

In the ec Anne, a gentleman named Stukely left 
his practice as a barrister and retired into the country 
to perfect his discovery of the perpetual motion, and 
never left it but once for thirty years, when he took 
the oath of allegiance to George I., and on which oc- 
casion, for the only time, he shaved, and changed his 
shirt and clothes. Before he died, he had abandoned 
his pursuit of the perpetual motion, and would i 
at his own folly in confining himself in doors; but # 
replaced his project by a close study of the economy 0 
ants, increasing their colonies to such an extent as to 
cause the destruction of the fruit in the neighbouring 
gardens; and when he died, he was occupied in build- 
ing a house with walls seven feet thick. 

In 1810, Simon Southwood, a miller, died in Horsham 
raals aiier a confinement of forty-three years. He 
fancied himself Earl of Derby and King of Man; he 
is described as having a commanding appearance, as 
being of affable manners and polite bearing, but apt to 
be wrath when any doubt was expressed as to his 
dignity. He was addressed by his fellow-prisoners, as 
well as by the governor of the gaol, as ° My Lord, 
and would answer to no other address even to strangers. 
He was supported by a stipend from the parish of 


VoL. X.—3 G 


410 


Boxgrove, which he managed with the greatest eco- 
nomy, but supposed himself a state prisoner, and would 
never accept of any favour, not even of a meal, or of 
clothes, under any form but that of its coming from 
his cousin the king. 

But these instances affect only personal objects or 
pursuits; in others it takes a wider range, and 1s di- 
rected to public interests. Richard Brothers aifords a 
curious éxample of the growth of such delusions. 
After having served for several years in the British 
navy, a scruple as to taking an oath, required on re- 
ceiving his pension, brought him into controversy with 
the Lords of the Admiralty, and his objection was in 
part so well founded, that the use of the word volun- 
tarily, as the oath was declared to be taken, was ordered 
to be discontinued; but his objections increased, he 
declined taking an oath at all, even though almost 
dying with hunger, and was only rescued from death 
by being taken to a workhouse. This was in 1789, 
and in 1790 he announced that he had a mission for the 
restoration of the Jews, to make Jerusalem the capital 
of the world, and to notify the same to the king, the 
ministers, and the House of Commons, for their 
euidance. The latter part he executed with a zeal 
which was at length rewarded by an imprisonment in 
Newgate. From thence he was at length released, and 
occupied himself for the rest of his hfe in prophesying 
and forwarding the objects of his mission; but as “he 
was unassuining in his manners, careful not to give 
personal oifence, and courted retirement rather than 


publicity,” the world were contented to smile at rather 


than to punish him for opinions as to which, though 
himself retaining a clear conviction of their truth, he 
was so evidently outvoted. 

At an earher date, Roger North, in his ‘ Life of Sir 
Dudley North,’ his brother, relates a curious example 
of this species of delusion as occurring at Constanti- 
nople, but where it was not treated with so much mo- 
deration as in London :—‘“In this time (during the 
embassy of Lord Winchelsea, about 1680) one John, 
a Quaker, went on a sort of pilgrimage to Constanti- 
nople for converting the Great Turk, and the first 
scene of his action was standing up in a corner of the 
street, and preaching to the people. They.stared at 
him, and concluding him out of his wits, he was taken 
and carried to the mad-house; there he lay six months. 
At last some of the keepers heard lim speak the word 
English, and told it so as it came to the ambassador’s 
ear, that he had a subject in the mad-house. His lord- 
ship sent and had him to his house. The fellow stood 
before the ambassador with a ragged dirty hat on, and 
would not put it off, though he was so charged and ad- 
monished; thereupon the ambassador ordered him 
down, and had him drubbed upon the feet, after the 
Turkish manner. Then he was anything, and would 
do anything, and afterwards did own that that drubbing 
had a great effect upon his spirit. Upon searching 
him, there was found in his pouch, among a few beans, 
a letter to the Grand Signor, very long and canting; 
but the substance was, to let him know that he was 
the scourge in God’s hand with which he chastised the 
wicked Christians; and now their wickedness was so 
rreat, that God by the Spirit had sent him, to let him 
know that he must come forthwith to scourge them. 
He was sent for England, but got off by the way, and 
came up a second time to Constantinople, from whence 
he was more surely conveyed; and some that knew 
John, told Sir Dudley North they had seen him on the 
Kixchange, where he recognised the admirable virtue 
of Turkish drubbing.” 

Caulfield, m his ‘Remarkable Persons,’ says the 
hame of this person was Kelsey, and gives the portrait 
of him, which we have copied. 

A case has also recently occurred, and has ap- 


TERE PENN Y 9 MiG as. 


[OcTOBER 23, 


peared in the newspapers, which belongs to the same 
class as the above. A Swiss Roman Catholic priest, 
named Louis Waters, was charged at a police-office 
with fraudulently collecting subscriptions towards a 
mission for converting the Chinese, to which he stated 
he had been appointed by the Rev. Dr. Griffiths, the 
Roman Catholic vicar apostolic of London. We copy 
the proceedings as given in the newspapers of August 
dl :— | 

“Mr. Lee, private secretary to Dr. Griffiths, caine 
forward to state what he knew of the defendant’s pro- 
ceedings. [for some months past the defendant had 
been daily in the habit of calling with a letter at Dr. 
Griffiths’s house, on the subject of lis wish to be ap- 
pointed Chinese missionary. From all that witness 
had been able to collect, and judging principally from 
the unvarying tenor of his daily letters, he was of opi- 
nion that the defendant laboured under a kind of delu- 
sion, and that his mind was rather weak upon mis- 
slonary matters. Whien first he corresponded with Dr. 
Griffiths, he wished to go out to Russia to convert the 
Russian Emperor ; but when China became the leading 
topic of the day, then he all at once grew importunate 
for leave to go out as a missionary there. 

“ Mr. Lee here displayed a number of letters 
received from the prisoner. One of them was nota 
little curious. It was addressed to her Majesty Queen 
Victoria, who was further described as Empress of all 
the Russias. 

“Mr. Lee said he thought it would be advisable to 
apprise the defendant’s friends in Switzerland of the 
state of the defendant’s mind, for 1t appeared to hin 
very imprudent to leave the defendant without control. 

“Mr. Maltby, taking up one of the defendant’s let- 
ters, asked him why he had in so many places addressed 
her Majesty as Queen Victoria, Empress of all the 
Russias. 

“The defendant, in broken English, said, when he 
wrote the letter he had great hopes of inducing her 
Majesty to accept the hand of the Crown-Prince of 
Russia, and when her Majesty was ‘ elevated,’ that she 
would take him over, and assist him in the project of 
converting the Russians to the true faith. But his 
hopes in this respect had been blighted by the union of 
her Majesty with Prince Albert. 

“Mr. Maltby.—As I should be reluctant to inflict the 
punishment awarded to the offence of which you are 
accused, on a person stated to be, as you are, labouring 
under a delusion and of weak mind, will you, if I con- 
sent to let you off, undertake to go back to your friends 
in Switzerland? 

‘“Defendant.—I ondertake noting but de Shinese 
mission. 

‘Mr. Maltby being of opinion that the defendant was 
really of weal mind, sent for his papers, m order to 
make some arrangement to place the defendant within 
the reach of his friends.” 

This is certainly a kinder proceeding than that of the 
Turkish drubbing; and goes far to prove that the 
world has now at least the appearance of possessing 
not only the majority of votes on such matters, but also 
a kind, and therefore the more likely to be a right, 
feeling and judgment. 


Recollections of Canonbury.—Canonbury, the place so well 
known as the residence of Goldsmith, in one of the rooms of the 
tower of which was written, under a pressing pecuniary necessity, 
that most admirable of fictions, the ‘ Vicar of Wakefield.’ These 
pressing necessities unfortunately occurred very often; and an- 
other and less agreeable memory of Canonbury House than that 
of the composition of the ¢ Vicar of Wakefield,’ is, that Goldsmith 
here frequently hid himself for fear of arrest. The warm-hearted 
bookseller Newberry, for whom Goldsmith wrote so much, then 
rented the house. From hence the poet was frequently accus- 
tomed to set out, with some or other of his numerous and distin- 


1S41.] 


guisiied list of friends, on excursions through the surrounding 
country. ‘The beauties of Highgate and Hampstead, distinctly 
visible from his windows, no doubt were often a temptation to 
hin to throw aside his books. Various other literary men have 
lived at Canonbury; among whom we may mention Chambers, 
the author of the Cyclopadia known by his name. Nor are in- 
teresting names belonging to men of a different class wanting. 
Here the * Rich Spencer,” for instance, of whom and his mode- 
rate-minded daughter we have spoken in a former paper, lived, 
and has bequeathed to Cananbury some noticeable recollections. 
In a curious pamphlet, entitled ‘The Vanity of the Lives and 
Passions of Men, by D. Papillon, gent., 1651,’ occurs the follow- 
ing remarkable passage, in connection with this great millonaire 
of the sixteenth century :—* In Queen Elizabeth’s days a pirate 
of Dunkirk laid a plot, with twelve of his mates, to carry away 
Sir Jolin Spencer; which if he had done, fifty thousand pounds 
had not redeemed him. He came over tlie seas on a shallop 
with twelve musketeers, and in the night came into Barkmeg 
Creek, and left the shallop in the custody of six of his men, and 
with the other six came as far as Islington, and there hid them- 
selves in ditches near the path in which Sir John always came 
to his house; but, by the providence of God, Sir John, upon 
some extraordinary occasion, was forced to stay im London that 
night, otherwise they had taken him away; and they, fearing 
they should be discovered in the night time, came to their 
shallop, and so came safe to Dunkirk again.” The author adds 
that he obtained this story from a private record. At Sir John’s 
death in 1609 some thousand men were present, in mourning 
cloaks and gowns, amongst whom were three hundred and 
twenty-four persous who had each a basket given to him con- 
taining a black gown, four pounds of beef, two loaves of bread, 
a little bottle of wine, a candlestick, a pound of candles, two 
saucers, two spoons, a black pudding, a pair of gloves, a dozen 
of points to tie his garments with, two red herrings, four white 
herrings, six sprats, and two eggs. We must add to these re- 
miniscences of the family, that his daughter, the writer of the 
letter transcribed in ‘ Crosby Place,’ is said to have been carried 
off from Canonbury in a baker’s basket by Lord Compton, who 
became her husband, and who at her father’s death was unable 
to bear with equanimity the immense fortune that devolved to 
him: he was distracted for some time afterwards. His death 
happened under strange circumstances :—“ Yesterday se nnight 
the Earl of Northamptoa (he had now succeeded to this earl- 
dom), Lord President of Wales, after he had waited on the King 
at supper, and he had also supped, went in a boat with others to 
wash himself in the Thames, and so soon as his legs were in the 
water but to his knees, he had the colic, and cried out, ‘ Have 
me into the boat again, or I am a dead man!’ and died in a few 
hours afterwards, June 24, 1630,"—London, No. 28. 


Sight of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.—Beyond this we 
came into an open region, where uothing but cedar and thorns 
grew; and here I saw whortleberries for the first time in Central 
America. In that wild region there was a charm i seeing any- 
thing that was familar to me at home, and I should have per- 
haps become sentimental, but they were hard and tasteless. As 
we rose, we entered a region of clouds. Very soon they became 
so thick that we could see nothing; the figures of our own party 
were barely distinguishable, and we lost all hope of any view 
from the top of the volcano. Grass still grew, and we ascended 
till we reached a belt of barren sand and lava; and here, to our 
great joy, we emerged from the region of clouds, and saw the top 
of the volcano, without a vapour upon it, seeming to mingle with 
the clear bluesky; and at that early hour the sun was not high 
enough to play upon its top. Mr. Lawrence, who had exerted 
himself in walking, lay down to rest, and the doctor and I walked 
on. The crater was about two miles in circumference, rent and 
broken by time or some great convulsion; the fragments stood 
high, bare, and grand as mountains, and within were three or 
four smaller craters. We ascended on the south side by a ridge 
running east and west, till we: reached a high point, at which 
there was an immense gap in the crater, impossible to cross. 
The lofty point on which we stood was perfectly clear; the at- 
mosphere was of transparent purity; and, looking beyond the 
revion of desolation below us, at a distance of perhaps two thou- 
sand feet, the whole country was covered with clouds, and the 
city at the foot of the volcano was uivisible. By degrees the 
more distant clouds were lifted, and over the unmense bed we 
saw at the same moment the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, This 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


411 


was the grand spectacle we had hoped, but scarcely expected, to 
behold. My companions had ascended the volcano several 
times; but, on account of the clouds, they had only seen the 
two seas once before. The points at which they were visible 
were the Gulf of Nicoya and the harbour of San Juan, not di- 
rectly opposite, but nearly at right angles with each other, so 
that we saw them without turning the body. In a right line over 
the tops of the mountains, neither was more than twenty miles 
distant; and, from the great height at which we stood, they 
seemed almost. at our feet. It is the only point in the world 
which commands a view of the two seas; and I ranked the sight 
with those most interesting occasions when, from the top oi 
Mount Sinai, I looked out upon the desert of Arabia, and from 
Mount Hor I saw the Dead Sea.—Stephens’s Incidents of Travel 
a Central America. 


Shakspere not a Horse-boy.—Although John Shakspere, at the 
time of his son’s early marriage, was not, as we think, ‘in dis- 
tressed circumstances,’ his means were not such probably, at any 
time, as‘to have allowed him to have borne the charge of his 
son’s family. That William Shakespere maintained them by some 
honourable course of industry we cannot doubt. Scrivener or 
schoolmaster, he was employed. It is on every account to be 
believed that the altered circumstances in which he had placed 
himself, in connection with the natural ambition which a young 
man, a husband and a father, would entertain, led him to Lon- 
don not very long after his marriage. There, it is said, the 
author of ‘Venus and Adonis’ obtained a subsistence after the 
following ingenious fashion :—*‘ Many came on horseback to the 
play, and when Shakspere fled to London from the terror of a 
criminal prosecution, his first expedient was to wait at the door 
of the playhouse, and hold the horses of those who had no 
servants, that they might be ready again after the performance. 
In this office he became so conspicuous for his care and readi- 
ness, that in a short time every man as he alighted called for 
Will Shakspeare, and scarcely any other waiter was trusted with 
a horse while Will Shakspeare could be had.” Steevens objects 
to this surpassing anecdote of the horse-holding, that the practice 
of reding to the playhouse never began, and was never continued, 
and thav Shakspere could not have held horses at the playhouse- 
door, because people went thither by water. We believe there 
is a stronger objection still: until Wl Shakspere converted the 
Knglish drama from arude, tasteless, semi-barbarous enter- 
tainment, into a high intellectual feast for men of education and 
refinement, those who kept horses did not go to the public 
theatres at all. There were representations in the private 
houses of the great, which men of some wit and scholarship 
wrote, with a most tiresome profusion of unmeaning words, 
pouitless incidents, anc vague characterization,—and_ these 
were called plays and there were ‘storial shows’ in the 
public theatres, to which the coarsest melo-drama that is 
now exhibited at Bartholomew Fair would be as superior as 
Shakspere is superior to the highest among his contemporaries. 
But from 1580 to 1585, when Shakspere and Shakspere’s boys 
are described as holding horses at the playhouse-door, it may be 
affirmed that the Knglish drama, such as we now understand by 
the term, had to be created. We believe that Shakspere was in 
the most eminent degree its creator. . . . It has been dis- 
covered by Mr. Collier that, in 1589, when Shakspere was only 
twenty-five, he was a joint proprietor in the Blackfriars theatre, 
with a fourth of the other proprietors below him im the list. 
. . .« It appears to us not improbable that even before Shaks- 
pere left Stratford, he had attempted some play or plays which 
had become known to the London players. Thomas Greene, who, 
in 1586, was the fourth on the list of the Blackfriars share- 
holders, was said to be Shakspere’s fellow-townsman, But the 
young poet might have found another and more important friend 
in the Blackfriars company—Richard Burbage, the great actor, 
who in his own dav was called ‘ the English Roscius,” was also 
of Shakspere’s county. Oe oe bee perfectly clear therefore 
that Shakspere, from the easy access that he might have procured 
to these men, would have received inviting offers to join them in 
London, provided he had manifested any ability which would be 
useful to them. That ability, we have no doubt, was mani- 
fested by the production of original plays (as well as by acting) 
some time before he had attained tne rank and profit of a share- 
holder in the Blackfriars company.—Life of Shakspere, in * Store 
of Knowledge.’ 





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[Stoke Church.] 


RAILWAY RAMBLES. 
STOKE. 


To the north of the Great Western Railway, after the 
station at West Drayton is passed, and continuimg on- 
ward to Maidenhead, the traveller sees a gently rising 
tract of country forming im the distance a long Jinc of 
woodland. This table-land, which is two or three miles 
in width, terminates in a western direction with the 
abrupt hills of Hedsor and Cliefden, which are the 
great charm of the scenery of the Thames from Marlow 
to Cookham. In this upland district there is much to 
be seen which is beautiful in itself, and is connected 
with interesting remembrances; and as Slough, which 
is the nearest point to this district, may be reached from 
London in forty minutes, at the cost of half-a-crown, 
we may probably have the satisfaction of pomtimg out 
a& hew direction to those who have a holiday at their 
command. The reader who has no holiday in prospect 
may find some little amusement in what we have very 
briefly to describe. 

Close to the station at Slough there is a bridge over 
the Railway. The road to which it belongs leads to 
the village of Stoke. The rambler sees a pretty white 
spire peeping out of the woodland before him, at the 
distance of about a mile and a half. The road leads to 
Stoke Green. Alas! we may lament for what 1s no 
more, and the name is a mockery. There was a village 
ereen some twenty years ago—the prettiest of greens ; 
but there is now a strait road between two tall hedge- 
rows; and the cheerful spot wherc the noise of crickct 
and bass-ball once gladdened the ear on a summer eve 
is now silent. We pass on through some shady lanes, 
and across a field or two; and we are at one of the 
entrance-lodges of Stoke Park, the seat of Mr. Gran- 
Ville Penn, a descendant of the great Penns of Penn- 
sylvania. We enter; for the road also leads to the 
Village church. It is impossible for any church and 


Stoke. The church itself is very old; and it has a 
venerable look, with its antique windows and its mas- 
sive wooden porch. The tower, too, is as old as any 
part of it; but the spire is modern. The churchyard, 
= moderate-sized inclosure, is surrounded with the 
soberest of trees, yew, and cypress, and dark pine ; and 
the grassy graves lie solemnly beneath their thick 
shadows. But all around is brightness; verdant 
clades dotted with magnificent elms, with a fine man- 
sion in the background. But yet the church and the 
churchyard absorb all our interest. This, we beheve, 
is the scene of one of the most popular poems in the 
English langnage—the ‘ Elegy written in a Country 
Churchyard ; and here is the author of that poem 
buried. 

“ Tt is said that within the precincts of the church of 
Grantchester, about two miles from Cambnidge, Gray 
wrote his Elegy. The curfew mentioned by the poet 
was of course the great bell of St. Mary’s.” So we are 
informed in a note to Mr. Mitford’s edition of Gray's 
works. But when we look at the artificial character 
of most of Gray’s poems, and of parts of this Elegy, we 
are inclined to think that— 


“ The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,” 


is merely one of those se¢ poetical images with which 
the mind of Gray was imbued. All that is natural and 
therefore truly descriptive in this poem might have 
been furnished by Stoke churchyard. We have here 
“the ivy-mantled tower” (for, as we have said, the 
spire is modern); we have here the “ rugged elins, 
and the “ yew-trees’ shade :” the “frail memorial of 
the poor— 


« With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,” 


is commen to all country churchyards. But in this 
Elegy there is a description, which is true to the letter, 
of the scenery in the neighbourhood of Stoke, amidst 


churchyard to be more beautifully situated than this of | which Gray passed all his college vacations during the 


1841.] 


life of his mother, and which he has himself described 
in his letters. We shall compare a well-known pas- 
sage in the Elegy with the prose description, which is 
less generally familar :— 


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Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 
Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, 
To meet the sun upon ¢he upland lawn. 


There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 
His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 


Hard by yor wood, now smiling as in scorn, 
Mutt’ring his wayward fancies he would rove , 
Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, 
Ory craz’d with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. 


One morn I miss’d him on the custom’d InH, 
Along the heath, and near his fav’rite tree ; 
Another came; uor yet beside the rill, 
Nor up the lawn, uor at the wood was he.” 


The letter to which we refer is one written by Gray : 


from Burnham, a village at a short distance from 


. Tamale A TT cigainuacancX Nii 5 LO | 
Stoke, to his early friend Horace Walpole. It 1s dated |.) jived with his mother at Stoke. In Stoke church- 


September, 1737, when the poet was twenty-one years of 
age: 

Pe] have, at the distance of half a mile, through a 
green lane, a forest (the vulgar call it acommon) all my 
own, at least as good as so; for I spy no human thing in 
it but myself. It isa little chaos of mountains and 
precipices ; mountains, itis true, that do not ascend 
much above the clouds, nor are the declivities quite so 
amazing as Dover Cliff; but just such mls as people 
who love their necks as well as 1 do may Venture to 
climb; and crags that give the eye as much pleasure as 
if they were more dangerous. Both vale and hill are 
covered with most venerable beeches, and other very 
reverend vegetables, that, like most other ancient peo- 
ple, are always dreaming out their old storics to the 
winds, 


« And as they bow their hoary tops, relate, 
In murm’ring sounds, the dark decrees of fate ; 
While visions, as poetic eyes avow, 
Cling to each leaf, and swarm on every bough.” 


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MAGAZINE. 413 
At the foot of one of these squats Me I* (il penseroso,, 
and there grow to the trunk for a whole morning. The 
timorous hare and sportive squirrel gambol around me 
like Adam in Paradise before he had an Eve; but I 
think he did not use to read Virgil, as I commonly do 
uneres 

The four stanzasin the Elegy, and the passage in the 
letter to Walpole, arc equally descriptions of Burnham 
common or Burnham beeches—one of the most: splen- 
did-little bits of wild forest scenery that can be ima- 
eined—to which we shall by and by conduct our ram- 
bling friends. 

There was a stanza in the original manuscript of the 
Ivlegy, afterwards suppressed, which appears to us sin- 
fvularly to describe the solemn and secluded character 
of Stoke churchyard :— 


“ Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around 
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease ; 
In still small accents whispering from the ground 
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.” 


About the period when Gray wrote, or rather com 
pleted the Elegy (for it wassome time 1n hand, accord- 
ing to his fastidious taste in composition), his aunt died, 


yard that aunt was buried. Upon the occasion of this be- 
reavement he wrote to his mother, ‘“ However you may 
deplore your own loss, yet think that she 1s at last easy 
and happy.” The churchyard through which she passed 
to her Sabbath devotions was 


‘“ A grateful earnest of eternal peace.” 


Where she rests, Gray’s mother also rests ; and the son 
has inscribed upon the plain flat stone which covers 
her raised tomb one of the most simple and therefore 
affecting epitaphs in our language :— 


In the vault beneath are deposited, 
In hope of a joyful resurrection, 
the remanis of 
Mary Antrobus. 
She died, unmarried, Nov. v.. MDCCXLIX. 


* This seems to have been a sort of cant phrase of the day. 
It occurs in Smollett’s translation of * Don Quixote,’ and is 
found earlier in Cibber. 


Foote also uses it. 


















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‘Monument to Gray at Stoke? 


Aged LXVI. 
In the same pious confidence, 
Beside her friend and sister, 
Here sleep the remains of 
Dorothy Gray, 
Widow, the careful tender mother of many cluildren, 
One of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her. 
She died, March xi, MDCCLIX., aged LXVII.” 


Under the same stone, without any record, is buried 
Thomas Gray, the author of the ‘Elegy written in a 
Country Churchyard.’ .A small tablet recently inserted 
in the wall of the church, records that he is buried in 
the same tomb with his mother and aunt. The memo- 
rial was scarcely necessary. Beleving this to be the 
scene of his most beautiful poem, we may say of him, 
as is said of Sir Christopher Wren in Saint Paul’s, 


“Tf you seek his monument, look around.” 


The late Mr. John Penn, justly fceling that the me- 
mory of Gray lent the highest value to the beautiful 
domain of which he was the possessor, erected a monu- 
ment to the memory of the poet, ina spot not far re- 
moved from the churchyard. This stands in a pretty 
cvarden, into which the stranger may walk, and refresh 
himself with the recollections of the poet, by reading 
lines from the ‘Elegy,’ and the ‘Ode on a distant 
Prospect of Eton College,’ inscribed on its four sides. 


ON GALLINACEOUS BIRDS INCLUDED 
UNDER THE HEAD OF GAME. 


[Concluded from page 403.] 


CiLosELy allied to the common partridge is the quail 
(Coturnix dactylisonans), which is one of our summer 
visitors, and perhaps not strictly to be numbered 
among our feathered zame: its flesh is excellent. 
The quail is much less than the partridge, being only 
about seven inches in length; it however resembles 
that bird in its form and modes of life. It is widely 
spread, being found throughout the whole of southern 
and temperate Kurope, and the greater part of Asia 
and Africa, but it is everywhere migratory. 

In our island the quail makes its appearance in 
May, but not in great abundance, and, as it is said, less 
so than formerly. Richly cultivated lands are its 
favourite localities, and especially extensive wheat- 
fields. The species is polygamous, in which respect it 
differs from the partridge, and, on their first arrival, 
the males may be heard uttermg their whistling call- 
notes in defiance of each other. In France, whence 
the London markets are principally suppled with 
these birds, advantage is taken of the note of the 
males to lure them under nets, the bird-catchers hav- 
ing acall made to imitate it. As by this device few 
excepting the males are captured, we may easily ac- 
count for the fact that out of the hundreds kept alive 
by the London poulterers for sale, the number of fe- 
males is very inconsiderable. 

The female makes an artless bed in a slight hollow 
of the ground for her eggs, which are of a green tint, 
and vary in number from eight to twelve or even 
fifteen. In the month of October the quail departs. 
Africa is undoubtedly the great winter abode of this 
species; and it is across the Mediterranean, the Black 
Sea, and the Red Sea that countless multitudes, pass- 
ing to that country from Europe and Asia, and return- 
ing from it to their summer haunts, wing their flight. 

During their passage across the Mediterranean, they 
rest on different islands, to some of which the ancients 
gave the name of Ortygia, from the Greek word oprvi, 
a quail, Varro gives us an account of the arrival in 
Spring, and departure in autumn, of quails in prodi- 
gious multitudes on various islands bordering the 
southern coast of Italy, where they were accustomed 
to rest during their migratory journeys. M. Godehen 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[OcTOBER 23, 


(‘Mém. de Mathém. et Physique’), in confirmation of 
Varro’s statement, observes that he has seen these 
birds continually passing to Malta in the month of 
May, carried by certain winds, and again repassing in 
the month of September. Among other islands, that 
of Capri (near the Gulf of Naples) is celebrated for 
the multitudes which periodically visit 1t; and at 
Nettuno and other places along the Italian coast, in- 
credible numbers make their appearance. In the 
neighbourhood of Nettuno, within an area of four or 
five miles, 100,000 are said to have been taken ina 
single day. On the coast of Provence, vast flocks also 
appear, and the birds are often so exhausted with their 
flicht as to suffer themselves to be taken by the hand. 
According to Baron de Tott, no country abounds more 
in quails than the Crimea; they arrive there in spring, 
crossing the Black Sea, and return southwards in 
August. At the close of a “serene day, when the wind 
blows from the north at sunset and promises a fine 
night, they repair to the strand, take their departure at 
six or seven in the evening, and have finished a journey 
of sixty leagues by break of day.” The flights cf 
quails, which were brought by a wind from the sea, as 
a supply to the Israclites in the desert, were evidently 
directing their course northwards from Abyssinia, 
Nubia, and the southern districts of Arabia. 

In Portugal the quail is said to be stationary ; it is 
not so, however, in Sicily or Italy. Plny, who com- 
ments on the vast flocks of quails which passed across 
the Mediterranean, informs us that the Romans did 
not use them as food, accounting them unwholesome, 
in consequence of their feeding on the grains of the 
hellebore, and being subject to epilepsy; they kept 
them, however, for the purpose of making them fight 
with each other, which the males will do with great 
resolution; and a similar practice is said to exist 
among the Chinese. The pugnacious habits of the 
males in spring and summer are notorious, and the 
ancients had a proverb—‘ as quarrelsome as quails in 
a cage.” The quail is too well known to need, in this 
place, a detailed description of its prettily marked 
plumage. 

From the pheasant, the partridge, and its alles, we 
may now pass to the grouse tribe, of which several 
species are in high esteem, and rank among the fore- 
most of our feathered game. Of these, one species. 
the red grouse ( Tetrao Scoticus), 1s exclusively peculiar 
to the British Islands, being found in no part of the 
Continent. This beautiful and valued bird is common 
on the high moorland districts of the northern counties 
of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, where the 
heath affords it shelter and concealment. During the 
autumn and winter, it associates in flocks or packs, 
which are often wild and shy, and not easily approached. 
Early in the spring, the sexes pair; the female lays her 
egos in March, making a rude nest of sprigs of heath 
and grass upon the ground, under the shelter of a tuft 
of heath or of the bilberry plant (Vaccinium Myr- 
tillus). The young are strong on the wing by August. 
As is the case with the partridge, the male takes no 
part in the labour of incubation, but joins the female 
and the young brood as soon as hatched. The red 
erouse feeds upon the tender shoots of heath, on bil- 
berries, whortleberries, and the berries of other species 
of Vaccinium, and occasionally upon oats, for which it 


} will sometimes visit the stubble lands bordering the 


moors. Its flight is rapid and powerful. 

During the months of August and September, the 
slaughter made on the moors among the red grouse 1s 
very great, so that were it not carefully protected 
during the breeding season, the species would soon be- 
come extinct; of this at present, however, there is little 
danger. 

The plumage of the red grouse 18 very rich, the ges 


1841.] THE PENNY 
neral tint being deep chestnut, diversified with zigzag 
bars and dots of black. The legs and toes are thickly 
clad with hair-like feathers, and a bright scarlet-fringed 
skin, largest in the male, surmounts the eye. 

Yhe Ptarmigan (Lagopus mutus) is closely allied to 
the red-grouse. This bird inhabits the Highlands of 
scotland, and the adjacent isles, and is spread through- 
out the mountain-districts of Norway, Russia, and the 
colder regions of Europe. Instead of frequenting 
moorlands, it resorts to the rocky summits of wild and 
sterile mountains, where, amidst fragments of rock and 
rough stones, it seeks concealment. The ptarmigan 
pairs early in the spring, the female making no nest, 
but laying her eggs on the ground amongst the rough 
stones. Ihe young brood continue associated together 
till the succeeding spring; and usually several broods 
join so as to form a large flock. When the snow covers 
the ground, these birds burrow beneath it, not only 
in quest of food, but for the sake of the warmth and 
security thus afforded. They subsist on the shoots of 
mountain-plants and various berries. One of the most 
remarkable facts connected with the history of this 
species js its change from a rich and spotted livery, its 
suinmer dress, to one of pure white. In spring, for 
example, the plumage is varied with black and deep 
reddish yellow, the quill-feathers being white with 
black shafts. ‘Towards autumn the yellow gives place 
to greyish white, and the black spots become irregu- 
larly broken, till at last they disappear, the plumage 
whitening to the purity of snow. At the same time 
if acquires greater fulness; and the legs and fect are 
‘so densely clad as to resemble those of a hare. As 
spring returns, the ptarmigan begins to lose the pure 
white of his plumage, and regain his summer dress. 
The process is gradual, and not produced, as in winter, 
by an alteration of the colouring of the feathers them- 
selves, but by the acquisition of new ones, in their turn 
to become white. The ptarmigan utters a loud harsh 
call-note. Its flesh is very inferior to that of the red- 
grouse. 

Two forest-grouse next demand our notice, the 
Capercaillie and the Black-Grouse. 

The Capercaillie (Terao urogallus), one of the no- 
blest of its tribe, was formerly common in the pine- 
forests of Scotland and Ireland, is now no longer to be 
met with, having been extirpated for several years. 
Attempts however have been recently made, we be- 
hheve, to restore the species to some of the wocds in 
scotland, but with what success we know not. 

In the forests of Sweden, Norway, and Russia the 
capercaillie is very common, and is found also in the 
pine-woods of the Alps. 

The adaptation of the toes of this bird, and also of 
the black-grouse, for the branches, is very curious. 
Their edges are all fringed with hard rough promi- 
nences, which, though the toes have little prehensile 
he give sccurity to the footing on the slippery 
bark, 

The male capercaillie is nearly as large as a turkey, 
weighing from eight to twelve pounds ; but the female 
is considerably smaller. The colour of the male is on 
the upper parts a chestnut brown, finely marked with 
blackish lines. The breast is glossy greenish black, 
passing into black on the under surface. In the female 
the head, neck, and back are marked with transverse 
bars of red and black, and the under surface is pale 
orange yellow barred with black. The pairing season 
of this species is early in the spring. “From February 
to the end of March the silence of the black and gloomy 
forest is broken by the voice of the male calling to his 
mates from some stuinp or branch, as soon as morning 
dawns, and before evening closes. With tail spread 
out, and quills lowered to the feet, the neck protruded, 


and the feathers of the head ruffled, he utters a ery 


MAGAZINE. 415 
not unlike the whetting of a scythe, but so loud as to 
be heard at a great distance, all the while throwing 
himself into strange attitudes, strutting and whecling 
about with great stateliness. To the singular con- 
struction of the trachea or windpipe this loud and 
harsh-toned note is doubtless owing. This organ makes 
a loose fold of two curves before it enters the chest, sa 
as to gain a great increase of length, and moreover is 
governed by a certain apparatus of muscles.” 

The loud call of the capercaillie or wocd-grouse 
often leads to its destruction, bringing the sportsman 
to the spot, and who, concealed from observation, takes 
a fatal ain. 

It is principally from Norway that the London poul- 
terers are supphed with this noble bird. 

The black-grouse is still found in the pine-woods 
of our island. It is common in the Highlands of Scot- 
land, Northumberland. and some parts of Derbyshire, 
and occurs also in Hampshire and Surrey. “ The 
bases of hills,” says Selby, “ heathy and mountainous 
districts, which are covered with a natural erowth of 
birch, alder, and willow, and intersected by morasses 
clothed with long coarse herbage, as well as the dcep 
wooded glens so frequently occurring in such exten- 
sive wastes, are the best suited to the habits of these 
birds, and most favourable to their increase.” Their 
food consists of mountain-berries, the shoots cf heath, 
fir, birch, and alder, together with grain. In manners 
this bird resembles the wood-grouse. The males asso- 
clate in flocks during winter, but separate in March, 
each choosing a station from which he drives all rivals, 
not however without many contests for his territory. 
Ixach male mates with several females. The plumage 
is at this seasou of the richest lustre, and the skin over 
the eye of the deepest scarlet. The female, terined the 
Grey-hen, forms a loose nest under the shelier of a 
bush or tuft on the ground, and lays from six to eight 
eggs. Both the wood-grouse and the black-grouse 
resemble, in many particulars connected with their 
habits, the wild turkey of the forests of America. 

The plate represents—the Capercaillie or Wood- 
grouse, the Red-grouse, the Black-grouse, the Ptar- 
migan, the Pheasant, the Quail, the Red-legged Par- 
tridge, and the common Partridge. 


THE ISLANDS OF ENGLAND. 
{Continued from page 407.) 
ISLE OF WIGHT. 


Tuis is the third island in point of size, and the first 
probably in point of interest, among the Islands of 
Iingland; but as this island has been pretty fully de- 
scribed in the ‘ Penny Magazine,’ at pp. 337 and 377 
of vol. v., a very brief notice need only be bestowed 
upon it. 

It 1s situated off the coast of Hampshire, in the 
Iinglish Channel, of which county it forms a part. 
The strait which separates it 1s of unequal breadth, 
varying from one to seven miles; and the island 
itself is about twenty-one miles along by thirteen 
across—the length ranging east and west, and the 
breadth north and south. The island is much fre- 
queuted by strangers, both for the beauty of its scenery 
and the salubrity of its climate; and now that the 
Southampton Railroad has been opened, a journey 
from the metropolis to the Isle of Wight may be per- 
formed in five or six hours. Some portiou of it 1s well 
cultivated and very fruitful; but there are tracts of 
high and bleak downs, which afford pasturage to con- 
siderable numbers of sheep. The principal towns are 
Newport, Cowes, Ryde, and Yarmouth; besides which 
there are several villages and places of less note. 


PORTSEA ISLE. 
This island is situated to the north of the Isle of 


416 Tae Pe 
Wight. It is about six miles long from north to south, 
and about four miles across. A very narrow channel 
or creek, over which there is a stone bridge, separates 
it from the mainland on the north, and on the east 1t 1s 
bounded by Chichester Bay, and westward by the spa- 
cious harbour of Portsmouth. A very narrow channel 
at its south-eastern extremity separates it from Hay- 
ling Isle (which lies in Chichester Bay) on the east; and 
on the west it is divided from the mainland by the en- 
trance into Portsmouth harbour, opposite to Gosport. 
The land of Portsea Isle generally lies low; but it 1s 
from the town of Portsmouth, on the south-western 
part of the island, the first naval. sea-port in the United 
Kingdom, that it derives its chief claim to notice. In- 
deed it is more commonly looked upon as a peninsula 
than an island, from the nature of the narrow creek 
which separates it from the country which hes to the 
northward. 


HAYLING ISLE. 


This island lies east of Portsea, their southern extre- 
mities being separated from each other by a narrow 
opening leading into Chichester Bay. Like the former 
island, it is divided from the mainland by a narrow 
channel, and in size is nearly of similar dimensions. 
It contains nothing of peculiar interest, the land lying 
low, and the shores being generally marshy. There 
are two or three small villages on the island; and be- 
sides the employment that a portion of the mhabitants 
find in fishing, during the winter season, the reeds and 
shallow waters are frequented by large numbers of 
aquatic birds, which afford a source of amusement to 
the neighbouring sportsmen when other kinds of shoot- 
ing fail, and a source of profit to the more needy part 
of the inhabitants. 


THORNEY ISLE. 


This is a much smaller island than Hayling, and hes 
in the same bay, but farther east, and nearer to the 
Sussex than the Hampshire coast. Its soil and general 
character are of the same nature with Hayling, but it 1s 
separated from the mainland by a broad channel. 
There is but one small village upon it, of the name of 
Thorney, where there is a small chapel for the use of 
the inhabitants. Fish and wild-fowl are, at particular 
seasons, very abundant in the vicinity of this small 
island, which is nearly two miles long by one broad. 


~ 


ISLE OF THANET. 


Continuing eastward along the English Channel, 
and so through the Straits of Dover, we meet with no 
other island until the north-eastern part of the county 
of Kent is reached, where is the Isle of Thanet. 
Though this small division of the county, which 1s 
nine or ten miles long, by six or seven wide, 1s deno- 
mited an island, it is in reality nothing of the sort, 
though geographers usually account it such. But 
having introduced a notice of it in this place, 1t may be 
as well to explain its pretensions to the name of island, 
and then leave the reader to judge of the applicability. 

The Stour, a river of very moderate size, after pass- 
ing Canterbury several miles, separates into two 
streams; the principal one, meandering through low 
marshy lands, falls into the sea below Sandwich, and 
the smaller branch, which takes the name of the Sair 
or Nethergoing, flows north, and falls into the sea at 
the village of Reculver. The rest of this tract of land 
is surrounded by the sea; but it surely is necessary that 
a more important separation should be present, in 
order to give to a section of country the character of 
island. Two very noted watering-places, namely, 
Margate and Ramsgate, are situated within this dis- 
trict, which is also noted for its crops of wheat. It 
stretches farther eastward than any other part of Kent, 
the North Foreland being its most easterly extremity. 


MAGAZINE. [OcTOBER 23, 


SHEPPY ISLE. 


This island, like Thanet, is not surrounded by the 
sea, and therefore the notice taken of it will be more 
brief. It likewise forms part of the county of Kent, 
lying a few miles north of the road from Rochester to 
Canterbury. Itis about seven miles long and four 
wide; the soil for the most part is of a good quality. 
It is situated at the mouth of the Thames where the 
Medway falls into it; and it is an inferior branch of 
the latter river which cuts it off from the mainland, 
and gives to it some pretensions to be reckoned among 
the islands. This branch of the Medway is known by 
the name of the Hast Swale, and in some places is of 
considerable breadth, and throughout is acted upon by 
the flux and reflux of the tides ; but nevertheless it is 
too narrow insome places to give to Sheppy the ge- 
neral features and characteristics of an island, though 
certainly more deserving of that appellation than the Isle 
of Thanet. The principal places it contains are Sheer- 
ness and Queenborough; the former occupying the 
north-western point of the island, where there is a 
gvovernment dockyard and other public works; while 
the latter is situated a little farther up the Medway, 
near to where the branch called the East Swale di- 
verges from the main channel. There are some small 
marshy islands formed by other branch channels of 
the Medway, but none of an importance to deserve 
being enumerated among the islands of England. 


(To be continued.) 


Peasantry of the Pyrenees.—The peasants of the Pyrenees have 
all which their necessities demand within themselves. They 
crow their own flax, and one of their most busy occupations is to 
dress it. They do not steep it in water before beating it, as in 
England, but spread it on some sloping field or hill-side, where 
it undergoes no other process than what is effected by exposure 
to the weather. Not only is the flax prepared and woven for 
their own use, but the wool of the mountam sheep, undyed, is 
made into jackets, trowsers, and petticoats, as well as into various 
other articles of clothing. Thus supplied with the most common 
and necessary kinds of dress, their wants are equally simple as 
regards their furniture and food. A few brass or copper vessels, 
for their milk, are always used by those who make cheeses, as 
many of the peasants do, not only of the milk of cows, but of 
that of sheep and goats. For a churn they have a very simple 
substitute, being no other than a dried sheep’s-skin. For keeping 
wine the skins of kids are frequently used, with the hair inside : 
and the same article is also converted into a large pocket or 
knapsack, which the little girls carry at their backs. The skin, 
when used in this manner, is kept entire, either the head or the 
tail of the animal being folded over the opening of the knapsack. 
All implements of husbandry used amongst the Bearnais 
ure equally simple in their character. The pole of their 
little carts is often nothing more than the stem of a tree 
cut off where it has divided into two branches, so that the ends 
of the two forks connect with the axletree; and the forks 
with which their hay is made are branches, or stems of the same 
description, on a smaller scale. Their ploughing, such as it is, 
is effected by a sort of double process, requirmg four oxen,— 
two to go before with the coulter, and two others with another 
implement to turn over the soil. Both these are generally con- 
ducted by women. For millet and buckwheat, which succeed 
immediately to the earliest crops, the soil is merely tuined over 
with a shovel, after which the earth and stubble are burnt in 
heaps, and strewn upon the field. The process of preparing the 
grouud for wheat and oats is simple in the extreme. Both the 
seed and the manure are strewn upon the land, ploughed im to- 
gether, then harrowed, and all is finished. The labour of carry- 
ing and spreading manure is performed almost exclusively by 
women, who sometimes carry it ona sort of hurdle into the fields, 
but more frequently im sacks on their heads. In the valley 
d’Aspe it is taken to the fields in large woollen sacks placed 
upon the backs of donkeys.—Summer and VWanter in the Py- 
renees, by Mrs. Ells. 


1841.] 


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‘a, Wild Raonits ana Young; 0, Hares ana Leveret, 


THE HARE AND THE RABBIT. 


Frw animals are better known than the hare and the 
rabbit, which, though closely allicd to cach other, and 
belonging to the Rodent order of quadrupeds, exhibit 
very different instincts and opposite modes of Hife. 
Both, in their natural state, are regarded as private 
property, at least in our island, and are protected from 
the unlicensed by the same laws as are the pheasant, 
partridge, and grouse. The hare (Lepus taumidus) was 
one of the “beastis of venerye” among our chase- 


No. 614. 


loving forefathers, and indeed it appears evcr to have 
been regarded as “game,” and hunted for the sake of 
the sport its pursuit affords. The earlicst notice of 
hare-hunting is by Xenophon, in his ‘Cynegeticus;’ he 
there enters with evident feelings of pleasure into the 
details of the sport, and gives many observations on 
the animal’s habits, with which he was clearly well 
acquainted. 

The Romans, like ourselves, considered the flesh of 
the hare a delicacy. It would seem, however, that 
the ancient Britons abstained from it on religious 


Vou. X.—3 I 


418 


erounds, and we know that it was one of the forbid-- 


den meats among the Jews, and also among the 
Mohammedans. 

Timid and defenceless, and surrounded by numerous 
enemies, exclusive of man, the hare is well endowed 
with the means of escape. It is both watchful and 
swift, and its brown fur assimilates m colour with the 
herbage amongst which it makes its “form.” 

The external characters of the hare are too well 
known to need any details: its senses of hearing and 
sight are very acute; its eyes are large and prominent ; 
its ears very long; its hind limbs elongated, muscular, 
and formed for speed; its fur consists of hair of two 
kinds, one straight and of a yellow-brown colour, the 
other long, wavy, and tipped with black, giving a pecu- 
liar mottled appearance. The ears are tipped with 
black. 

The hare is crepuscular and nocturnal in its habits. 
During the day it crouches in its “form,” or habitual 
resting-place, which is sometimes a spot selected 
among fern and other herbage, sometimes among the 
underwood of a “preserve,” and sometimes on the 
eround without other covering or concealment than is 
given by the unevenness and rough condition of the 
site. From this “form,” a regular track 1s made by 
the animal to its adjacent feeding-grounds, for it goes 
and returns upon its own footsteps. | Where hares are 
plentiful, their tracks leading from preserves to their 
usual evening haunts are so numerous and definite as 
to strike the eyes of the most unobservant, and the 
poacher is at once directed where to place his net or 
noose. It need not be said that the food of this animal 
consists exclusively of herbage. Young wheat often 
suffers extensively from the ravages of hares where 
numerous; indeed we have known fields of this grain, 
adjacent to extensive wooded preserves, totally ruined 
for the season by their nocturnal depredations. Plan- 
tations of young trees also are often greatly mjured by 
their habit of gnawing the bark; and the farmer’s 
garden, especially during hard winters, when food is 
scarce, 1s very liable to their invasion. At this part of 
the year hares scatter themselves abroad, and wander 
farther than during the summer; we have observed, 
besides, that they are then more diurnal, seeking their 
food even during the middle of the day; and we have 
surprised them busy among the culinary vegetables of 
the garden. 

The hare is very playful. Often during a fine 
moonlight evening, have we, unobserved, been amused 
and delighted by watching a numerous assemblage of 
them gambolling and sporting with each other, in 
the exuberance of animal enjoyment. The least noise 
was sufficient to check them and render them still and 
attentive; our appearance would put them to instan- 
taneous flight. 

It has been noticed by several writers that the hare 
takes fearlessly to the water, and will swim well. 
Instances are recorded of its having resorted to the ex- 
pedient of swimming across a pool to the shelter of 
rushes when the hunters’ horn had alarmed it; and 
Mr. Yarrell Gin Loudon’s ‘ Magazine,’ vol. v.) relates 
a circumstance, quoted by Mr. Bell, of a hare which 
came down from the hills to the sea-shore early in the 
morning, took the water at high tide, and swam to the 
nearest point of an island a mile distant from the 
mainland. We have ourselves known them to cross 
a broad stream, though we have not seen them in the 
act of swimming. 

Wild and timid as this animal is, it 1s not unsuscep- 
tible of domestication. The poet Cowper, as is well 
known, kept tame hares. SBorlase informs us (‘ Nat. 
Hist. of Cornwall’) that a tame hare in his possession 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[OcTroBER 30, 


take food and exercise in the garden, returning always 
to the house. A greyhound and a spaniel were its 
companions, and the whole three played together, and 
at night often stretched together on the hearth. It 1s 
remarkable, however, that both the greyhound and 
spaniel were used in the field, and often went out se- 
cretly in pursuit of hares by themselves, though they 
never attempted to injure their playfellow and com- 
panion. Sonnini had a tame hare which lved witha 
hound and two Angora cats; and Dr. Townson jad 
one as playful and familiar as a kitten. A person of 
our acquaintance had at different times two tame 
hares, both remarkable for their docility, but of very 
different tempers; one was very gentle, the other 
would resent any molestation~by biting, which it did 
very severely, at the same time pertinaciously follow- 
ing up its attack. Cowper's male hare, when annoyed 
by the cat, would drum upon her back so violently 
with his fore-paws as to compel her to escape and hide 
herself. 

The hare breeds when about a year old, and pro- 
duces three broods in the course of the spring and 
summer; but the males and females do not pair nor 
form permanent associations. ‘The female, after about 
thirty days’ gestation, brings forth from three to five 
young. ‘hese are born covered with fur and with the 
eyes open, and in less than a month leave their parent 
and trust to themselves. Leverets, as the young are 
termed, are peculiarly hable to destruction, and one of 
their most dangerous foes is the weasel, at the sight of 
which the helpless creatures seem paralysed with fear. 
Many instances have occurred in which the weasel has 
been killed in the act of draining the lite-blood from 
the neck of his victim. The wiles and doubles of the 
hare, when chased by dogs, are so well known and so 
often noticed, that we need not here detail them; the 
more especially as we cannot help connecting them 
with the fear and agony it experiences while straining 
every nerve, and using every artifice to escape its pur- 
suers. 

The fur of this animal is valuable, and the market is 
supplied not only with skins collected in our island, 
but with others imported in abundance from the Con- 
tinent. The hare is found in our island and throughout 
Europe, as well as in many parts of Asia. Mr. M‘Clel- 
land states that 1t occurs in Assam, but of degenerate 
size, measuring only from seventeen to nineteen inches 
in length (instead of twenty-one inches). “It is not 
esteemed as an article of food; the ears are more uni- 
formly grey than in the European variety” (‘ Proc. 
Zool. Soc.,’ 1839, p. 152). We suspect the Assam hare 
here noticed to be a distinct species. We may here 
remark that the common hare of Jreland, indeed the 
only hare found there, is specifically different from the 
English species, Lepus timidus, and it 1s remarkable 
that its distinctness was not recognised till the year 
1833. 

“In the year 1833 the Earl of Derby, then Lord 
Stanley, and president of the Linnean Society, sent to 
that Society a specimen of the hare of Ireland, which 
his Lordship had obtained at Liverpool.” This speci- 
men was described by Mr. Yarrell, who subsequently 
had opportunities of examining others. In the ‘ Proc. 
Zool. Soc.,’ July, 1833, p, 88, the following passage 
occurs: — “A specimen was exhibited of the Inrsh 
hare recently presented to the Society by Mr. Yarrell, 
who pointed out the characters by which it is distin- 
geuished from the common hare of England and the 
Continent of Europe. Its head is shorter and more 
rounded; its ears still shorter than its head; and its 
timbs less lengthened. The fur also differs essentially 
from that of the common hare, and is useless as an ar- 


Was so fainiliar as to feed from the hand; its ordinary | ticle of trade.” 


reireat was under a chair in the parlour, but it would 


This species (Lepus Hibernicus, Bell; in ‘ British 


1841.] 


Quadrupeds’) is somewhat larger than our English 


hare, with a very short head and very short ears; a. 


uniform soft fur, and comparatively short hind limbs, 
which do not much exceed the fore limbs in length. 
That it is a distinct species no one can doubt who has 
compared it with its English relative, as we ourselves 
have done repeatedly. There is yet another very dis- 
tinct species within the limits of our Islands; we allude 
to the Alpine or varying hare (Lepus variabilis). This 
species 1s common in the mountain districts of Sweden, 
Norway, Lapland, and Kamtchatka. It is found in 
the Alps, and it occurs in the northern parts of Scot- 
land, and is sometimes seen on the mountains of 
Cumberland. The Alpine hare is intermediate in size 
between the rabbit and the English hare. In Suther- 
landshire and other parts of the Scottish highlands it 
tenants the summits of the mountains, hiding in the 
clefts of rocks or among rocky fragments. During 
the winter lichen is its staple. food. At this season it 
descends to a lower and less exposed station; and its 
fur, gradually losing the light fulvous-grey of summer, 
becomes of a snowy white, the tips of its ears (which 
are shorter than the head) remaining black. Thus, 
then, we have three distinct species of hare within the 
limits of the British Islands, namely, the common hare, 
the Irish hare, and the Alpine hare,—of which, as re- 
spects external characters, the two latter more nearly 
resemble cach other than they do the former. 

From the hare let us turn to its ally the rabbit (Lepus 
Cunrculus, Linn.). Size excepted, the rabbit closely re- 
sembles the hare in all its principal characters. It 
may, however, be at once distmguished by the compa- 
rative shortness of the head and ears, as well as of the 
hinder limbs; the absence of a black tip to the ears; 
and by the brown colour of the upper surface of the 
fail. Its habits and general economy are totally op- 
posite to those of the hare; and its fiesh, instead of being 
dark and highly flavoured, is white, and, though deli- 
cate, somewhat imsipid, especially that of the tame 
breed. ‘The flesh of the latter is indeed preferred by 
some, but we agree with M. Ude in thinking it very 
inferior. 

It would appear that the rabbit is not an aboriginal 
of our Island, but the date of its introduction is un- 
known. In the year 1309, at the installation feast of 
the Abbot of St. Austin’s, six hundred of these animals 
‘Were provided, at the then great cost of 15/.; the price 
of each, sixpence, being that ofa pig. It is gencrally 
believed that the rabbit was first introduced into Spain 
from Africa by the Romans, whence it gradually 
spread, naturalising itself in temperate climates. 

This animal is eminently gregarious; and, as is well 
known, makes extensive burrows, in which it habitu- 
ally dwells and rears its young. Sandy soils, with a 
superficial layer of fine vegetable mould clothed with 
thyme, fine grass, and other herbage, which at the 
same time afford food and are easily mined, are favour- 
able spots for the increase of the rabbit. They delight 
in steep sandbanks overhung with brushwood and 
furze; and we have remarked that when the old red 
sandstone crops out and is rendered friable, or some- 
what decomposed by the action of the atmospheric 
elements, rabbits are very numerous, burrowing with 
great facility. They abound also in woods, especially 
such as clothe the declivities of hills, whence, like the 
hare, they make incursions into the adjacent corn-lands. 
A rabbit-warren, that is, a wide sandy heath, or exten- 
sive common, devoted to their increase and feeding, when 
visited at the close of day or by moonlight, affords an 
amusing spectacle. Hundreds may be seen of all 
sizes, gambolling and sporting, and chasing each other 
with astonishing rapidity. When alarmed, they take to 
their burrows, disappearing as if by magic. 

The fecundity of the rabbit is very great. The female 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


419 


is capable of breeding at six months old; and four or 
five litters, cach litter consisting of about five young, 
are annually produced. We have stated that the hare 
produces her young clothed, capable of seeing, and 
soon in a condition to shift for themselves. With the 
rabbit circumstances are widely different. The young 
are born blind and naked, and totally helpless. The 
female forms a separate burrow, at the bottom of which 
she makes a nest of dried grass, linine it with fur 
taken from her own body. In this nest she deposits 
her young, carefully covering them over every time 
she leaves them. It is not until the tenth or twelfth 
day that the young are able to see; nor do they leave 
the burrow till four or five weeks old. The precaution 
of forming a separate burrow, the entrance of which is 
concealed, has induced the belief that the male parent 
will destroy the young, should he chance to discover 
them. This, however, is not probable. We know in- 
deed that the female domestic rabbit will often devour 
her offspring, 1f molested at an early period, urged by 
the instinctive solicitude for their welfare taking a 
morbid and unnatural direction; and we believe that 
the domestic male is apt to destroy them—but from 
facts like these we can form ho safe deductions as to 
the propensities of the animals in a state of nature. 
Wild rabbits, for example, pair—a male and female 
uniting together; but in a state of domestication this 
instinct is lost. 

The rapid multipheation of the rabbit would soon 
render it, as Mr. Bell observes, one of the greatest 
scourges of our agriculture, were its destruction not 
effected by wholesale. It isthe prey of the weasel, the 
stoat, the polecat, the hawk, and the owl; and man, though 
he protects it, thins its numbers, both for the sake of 
its flesh and fur. With respect to the latter, the home 
supply is by no means adequate to the demand, and, as 
is the case with the skins of the hare, thousands are 
annually imported from Germany and other parts of 
the Continent, where myriads of rabbits are bred for 
this purpose. 

In some notes on the ‘Mammalia of Ireland,’ by 
W. Thompson, Esq., vice-president of the Nat. Hist. 
Soc. Belfast (‘ Proc. Zool. Soc.,’ 1837, p. 52), 1t 1s stated 
that “persons who take rabbits in the north of Ireland 
distinguish two kinds; the one they call the burrow- 
rabbit, the other the bush-rabbit. The meaning of the 
former term is obvious; but of the latter it may be 
stated that the animal 1s so designated in consequence 
of having a form like the hare, which is generally 
placed in bushes or underwood.” Something like this 
we have ourselves observed, though we believe there 
are not two species. We have in certain parts of Eng- 
land known rabbits solitary (instead of gregarious), 
and thinly scattered about the steeps of rocky moor- 
lands, crouching under bushes, or among fragments of 
rock, and having no burrow, which, indeed, in the 
deep peat would be difficult of excavation, as this is 
oozy and boggy. In adjacent spots, where the ground 
permitted it, their burrows were numcrous. 

Though the rabbit is not capable of the exertion of 
the hare, it is nevertheless very swift for a short dis- 
tance; and, as we know by experience, when crossing 
a path in the woods at full speed is not easily hit by 
the sportsman. From this circumstance rabbit-shoot- 
ing is with some a favourite sport, as It serves to dis- 
play their skill. The usual way of taking rabbits for 
sale is by ferrets and nets, or by traps of various con- 
struction. 

The wild rabbit is undoubtedly the ongin of our 
various domestic breeds. Tame rabbits indeed easily 
resume their natural state of freedom, and return to 
their instinctive habits. Albinoes are common in a 
state of domestication, and it often happens that one or 
two appear in a litter when neither of — parents are 

3H2 


420 


so. Domestic rabbits are not unfrequently fierce: we 
had a male of the Angora breed, which would fearlessly 
attack any cat, and always come off victorious. We 
once saw it lacerate a large cat in a cruel manner with 
its sharp incisors. 

The wild rabbit is about sixteen inches in the length 
of the head and body, but some of our domestic breeds 
nearly equal a hare in magnitude. Our sketch repre- 
sents two hares and a leveret in the foreground, and a 
eroup of rabbits beyond. 





THE ISLANDS OF ENGLAND 
(Concluded from page 416.) 


CANVEY ISLAND, FOULNESS ISLAND, MERSEY ISLAND, 
HORSEY ISLAND, &c. 


Procrrpine tothe northward of the river Thames, 
along the south-eastern district of Essex, there are 
many low and marshy islands, the principal of which 
however are named as above. 

Canvey Island is situated on the north side of the 
Thames, midway between Gravesend and Southend ; 
and although five miles long and two miles broad, be- 
ing merely separated from the mainland, which like 
itself is low and marshy, bya creek, few persons navi- 
gating the river Thames are aware of this bemg an 
island, as 1t presents no such appearance from the 
main channel of that river: it, like marsh land in 
general, is mostly devoted to pasturage. 

There are several low and swampy islands where the 
river Crouch disembogues into the sea, the principal 
of which are Jfoulness and Wallasea, the former of 
which is five miles long and from two to three wide, 
contains a church, and is divided into two parishes. 
The creeks and pits connected with the river Crouch, 
and also the river Blackwater, which forms an estuary 
that runs as far inland as Malden, yield considerable 
quantities of oysters. 

Mersey Island is nearly as large as Foulness, and is 
situated ten miles south of Colchester, and between 
the rivers Blackwater and Coln. It contains two 
villages, East and West Mersey, whose inhabitants are 
principally engaged in the oyster fishery. There are 
two or three smaller islands farther up the estuary of 
the Blackwater, the largest of which are Northey and 
Osey. The oysters brought to the London market 
from the various creeks and banks in the neighbour- 
hood are sold under the name of Colchester oysters. 

Horsey Island 1s situated in a small gulf or inlet, 
about seven miles south of Harwich. Its situation 
from the sea may be known by the Walton tower or 
Naze lighthouse, which stands on the shore of the 
mainland, two miles east of Horsey Island. There are 
some other small islands in the same inlet, separated 
from each other by narrow shallow channels. It may 
here be observed, that it is entirely owing to the low 
situation of the south-eastern portion of Essex, and 
the want of a greater fall in the waters of the various 
sluggish streams and rivers, that we find so many 
islands formed in the vicinity of their mouths or com- 
munications with the sea; and here, as is usually the 
case on the coast of low lands of this description, sand 
and mud banks extend to a distance from the shore, 
which render the navigation both difficult and dan- 
rerous. 

From the Essex coast northward there is no detached 
land met with that deserves the appellation of island, 
until arriving at the mouth of the river Tees, which 
separates Yorkshire from the county of Durham; and 
even then the only low plot of barren ground within 
the mouth of thai river, between the villages of Salt 
Holme and Seaton Snook, and at high water separated 
from the north or Durham side of the river by a chan- 
nel of several hundred yards in breadth ; and although 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. [OcronER 30, 
in reality an island, it commonly goes by the name of 
the Salt Holmes, or the Salt Marshes; and except that 
it serves to impede the navigation of this part of the 
river, it isa place of little or no umportance. 


COQUET ISLE. 

This is a small island lying a couple of miles east of 
the mouth of the Coquet river, off the coast of North- 
umberland. In its greatest extent it 1s scarcely over 
half a mile; but itis surrounded by deep water, and 
some parts of it are elevated to a considerable height 
above the sea. There are, however, dangerous clusters 
of rocks, both on the north and south of the mouth of 
the Coquet river, and hence vessels navigating this 
part of the coast rarely attempt to find a passage be- 
tween the mainland and the island; but a hghthouse 
has been recently erected for the safety of mariners. 

Near the village of Warkworth, at a short distance 
from the mouth of the river, is Warkworth hermitage, 
consisting of three separate rooms cut out of the solid 
rock, a work of immense labour for the hands of a 
solitary recluse. This romantic place is visited by nume- 
rous strangers, from whence an excursion 1s commonly 
made to Coquet Isle, where there still are the remains 
of some ancient walls of a building supposed to have 
been in some way connected with the original occupier 
of the lonely hermitage. 


THE FARNE ISLANDS, WITH HOLY ISLAND, OR 
LANDISFARN. 

These ‘islands have already been described in the 
‘Penny Magazine ;’ the former in No. 586 of the new 
series, and Landisfarn at page 282 of vol. vi. They, 
like Coquet Island, lie off the coast of Northumber- 
land, in the North Sea; and, like most of that coast, 
are of a rugged and rocky character; and the Farne 
Islands in particular, from their distance from the 
shore, and the dangerous rocks in their vicinity, render 
the navigation of this portion of the coast both difficult 
and perilous. 

The circuit of IXngland is complete with this brief 
notice of Holy Island; we commenced with the Isle of 
Man, situated in the Irish Sea, and opposite to the 
southern part of the west coast of Cumberland; and 
having traced our progress southward, and then east- 
ward, and lastly northward, have, on reaching Holy 
Island, done all that we proposed at the outset, that 
is, given a short sketch of all the Islands of England; 
for although there are clusters of rocks among the 
few miles of English coast northward of Holy Island, 
they are but mere rocks, and hence do not properly 
come under the denomination of islands; nor have we 
omitted, we believe, any name of importance, but 
have included all that from size or otherwise appeared 
worthy of attention. 


Valley of Cashmere.—How different was the aspect of a vil- 
lage viewed from a distance, and wnen I entered it. The noble 
groups of palms, poplars, and fruit-trees; the curious mosque, with 
its quaint alleys and flower-garden, where the chrysanthemum 
and tagetes were in full bloom, notwithstanding the lateness of 
the autumn; the whole scene surrounded with verdant meadows, 
through which ran a brook with its water-mill, and rows of wil- 
lows planted along its banks ;—such objects as these would lend 
to the villages a friendly and hospitable look. But im place of 
this lovely exterior, how moumful a spectacle would frequently 
meet my eye asJ rode into the place. Then all was hfe; now all 
death : the mill-whceel stood still, many of the houses were rvin- 
ous, while others, with doors and windows open, offered a refuge 
only to the wild beast. In many a hamlet there was not a mortal 
to be found, with the exception of an old fed-up Fakir, squatted at 
the eutrance of a mosque, or a Brahmin wasted toa skeleton, con- 
uing prayers out of his Veda. The first would rise, screech out 
Allaho- Ackbar, and importune for alms, while the other con- 
tinued to bear his far greater misery with uncomplaiming re- 
sisnation.—Hugel’s Travels in Cashmere from Foreign Quarterly 
Review, 


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1847.] 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE! 





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VF, f ; 4 f Ts j 
Ais uy, f Mh 
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[V. Greatrakes.—From a portrait prefixed to his account of himself.) 


VALENTINE GREATRAKES. 


THE desire to escape from pain has led mankind, in 
all ages, to adopt, without sufficient investigation, any 
means which promised to effect a cure, or to give 
relief in the most certain and speedy manner. From 
sacrifices to pagan gods, to gifts to witches, no absurdity 
has been too great to be adopted ; but as the knowledge 
attendant upon civilization extends, credulity must be 
acted upon by means less rude, and more in accord- 
ance with the position and ideas of society. While in 
Eneland the shrines of saints are altogether abandoned, 
in some parts of the Continent their beneficial powers 
are still confided in, and many well-attested cases are 
continually published of diseases cured by visiting 
such places, as is asserted; of such cases there is 
never any want, whatever be the means proposed for 
securing a restoration to health, from the affidavits of 
the common quack, to the exhibitions of the scientific 
believers in the wonders of animal magnetism. In all 
cases alike, however, the effects which it 1s acknow- 
ledged are actually produced, are no doubt the results 
of a powerful action of the imagination, sometimes 
assisted by accidental circumstances. 

Among the disorders particularly subject to the influ- 
ence of a charm, the most common in England were 
the king’s evil and the ague. Tivery old woman hada 
charm for the ague, and in rural districts there are 
some yet existing; but the more serious evil was only 
to be remedied by the hand of the sovereign, and hence 
itsname. This power was exercised with much cere- 
mony, a special prayer being provided for it in the 
Liturgy, till the extinction of the Stuart family. Dr. 
Johnson, when a child, was touched for that disorder by 
Queen Anne; and Charles Edward, though only pre- 
terding to be Prince of Wales, exercised the power 





mpm a Te a agp SE EEE 


effectually at Holyrood House, in October, 1745. That 
in many cases persons recovered their health after this 
process, is not contested, but not so as to the power by 
which they were effected: at an earlier period it was 
attributed to the high sanctity vested in the kingly 
office ; by others, to a direct miraculous interference oi 
the Deity; by others, with ourselves, to the influence 
of the imagination ; and recently it has been connected 
with the phenomena of animal magnetism, and this 
connection is certainly established to a large extent by 
the cures recorded to have been performed by Valen- 
tine Greatrakes,* who assumed to have become pos- 
sessed of the power of touching, which had hitherto 
been the prerogative of the sovereign alone. 

From his own statement, Valentine Greatrakes (or 
Gratrax) was a native of Ireland, being born in 1628, 
at Affane, in the county of Waterford. Having re- 
ceived a decent education at home, he was sent, when 
about the age of thirteen,’ to the university of Dublin. 
Here he remained but a very short time, as the death 
of his father, and the breaking out of the Irish rebel- 
lion in 1641, forced his mother, with the rest of the 
family, to seek refuge in England. Young Great- 
rakes continued to live with the family in Cheshire for 
about six years, when he resolved to return to Ireland, 
“to recover,” as he says himself, in a work to which we 
shall have occasion to refer more fully hereafter, “the 
fallen fortunes of my house.” He found affairs in 
such confusion, that he retired to the castle of Capo- 
quin, and “spent a year’s time in contemplation..... 
My soul was as weary of this habitation of clay as ever 
the galley-slave was of the oar.” This love of solitude 
never entirely left him, and appears to have laid 


* Greatrakes is cited as an important instance of the posses- 
sion and use of animal magnetism, in the second volume of the 


| *History of Animal Magnetism, by M. Deleuze 


422 THE PENNY 
the foundation for the enthusiasm that afterwards de- 
veloped itself. He subsequently held a commission un- 
der the Parliamentarians in Lord Broghill’s regiment, 
and served till they were disbanded im 1656, when he 
retired to his patrimony, which he seems to have nearly 
eutirely recovered, married, was appomted a magis- 
trate, and filled other official situations. On the Re- 
storation he was deprived of all his offices, and his 
want of employment probably reproduced his habits of 
contemplation, and in 1662 he began to feel a sort of 
impulse or inspiration within him that he could cure 
diseases by the touch. An accidental case of a scro- 
fulous person applying to his wife as the Lady Bountiful 
of the village, enabled him to test his belief. In a few 
days a large tumour burst, discharged itself, and was 
healed, by the application of his hands; aresult not very 
wonderful, if the tumour had arrived at a proper state. 
Numerous cases now followed in rapid succession, till 
at leneth, about three years later, an epidemic fever 
broke out in his neighbourhood, and he believed lim- 
self called upon to visit the sufferers: he did so, and 
cured a great number of them. From this time he 
undertook the cure of all sorts of diseases, and no 
longer restricted his practice to the king’s evil or 
scrofula. This affair occasioned his beg cited into 
the ecclesiastical court of Lismore, for having pre- 
tended to act by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 
This was denied by Greatrakes; but vexation at the 
proccss, and an invitation from his old commander 
Lord Broghill, now Earl of Orrery, to come to London 
to undertake the cure of the Countess Conway, deter- 
mined lim, in 1666, to quit Ireland. His reputation 
had preceded him in London, aud his reception was 
extraordinary: Charles II. received him at Whitehall, 
but his pretensions do not appear to have been admitted 
or believed in by the court. He now visited the hos- 
pitals every day, and is said to have cured many. 

Such pretensions did not, of course, remain unnoticed 
by the press. In the same year, 1666, he was attacked 
by an anonymous writer, now said to be a Dr. Lobb, a 
physician of some eminence. In this book, called 
‘Wonders no Miracles, Dr. Lobb makes the same 
objections to the process which were afterwards made 
against the early uses of amimal magnetism, asserting 
that many of the patients, probably those unreleved, 
made “horrid complaints of his indecent and intolerable 
handlings of all their parts.” The book is abusive in 
its style, and by no means remarkable either for fulness 
of facts or closeness of reasoning. He accuses Great- 
rakes of extortion, asserts that “all that he doth is by 
raising people's imagination ;” that “ accidents may 
perform many of his slight cures, and yet he have the 
credit of it ;” that he pretended to derive his power from 
a voice from heaven; and imputes to him the having 
made a wound ina man’s knee which he did not cure, 
and which had nearly occasioned the loss of the limb. 

Greatrakes’s defence, the work to which we have 
already alluded, was written in reply to this attack. 
It is entitled ‘ Valentine Greatrakes’ Great and 
Strange Cures, in a Letter from Himself to the Hon. 
R. Boyle,’ Lond., 1666; and in it he indignantly repu- 
diates the call from heaven, and produces a certificate 
from the then Bishop of Chester, who says, “ The 
letter which I received from him had no such passages 
savouring of fanaticism as a pretended voice from 
heaven and a vision do import.” His defence as to the 
man’s leg is curious, and shows, as well as others of 
his cases, that he used both surgery and medicine as 
auxiliaries. Ile says:—‘*] made a small incision a 
little above the pan of the knee (as I take it), which 
was full of small conereted juices like measles; and it 
may be, as it is usual (where thcre is any humour), 
that the place where the orifice was did swell, grow 
red and fiery, as it must consequently before the 


MAGAZINE. [OcToBER 30, 
tumour comes to a suppuration (which, in laying my 
hands of it, and spitting thereon, would, as it is usual, 
immediately have ceased) ;’ and then goes on to deny 
the gangrene and danger to the limb, appealing to a 
statement attested to have come from the man himself, 
with whom he had also been accused of tampering: if 
he did so, he does not seem to have been very suo 
as the man, even by the report of the partial reporter, 
only denies having used some strong terms of reproach 
towards Greatrakes; “ but when Mr. Greatrakes told 
him that he doubted not but to allay the inflammation 
with his hand, the said person desires Mr. G. to excuse 
him, for the doctor and surgeon had been with him, 
and applied medicaments unto him; and he durst not 
take them off, for fear of their displeasure,” &c. (p. 14). 

But though Greatrakes declines acknowledging a 
direct miracle in endowing him with his extraordinary 
power, yet he attributes it not to the temperature of 
his body, but to the gift of God; for which he gives as 
a proof, that ‘‘ before the time of his first receiving the 
Impulse, when, having been afflicted with violent head- 
aches for many years, he had put his hand to his head a 
thousand times without producing any effect, but now 
when so troubled, he no sooner puts his hand to his 
head, but the pain is removed and run out.” THe also 
adds, ‘There are some pains which afflict men after the 
manner of evil spirits, which kind of pains cannot en- 
dure my hand, nay, not even my glove, but fly imme- 
diately, though six or eight coats and cloaks be put 
betwixt the patient’s body and my hand” (p. 32); an- 
other close approximation to the wonders of Mes- 
merism. 

To this work is affixed an Appendix of certificates 
of cases occupying fifty pages of small quarto, attested 
by numerous respectable witnesses, among whom we 
nay mention the Hon. R. Boyle, the natural philoso- 
pher, Dr. Ralph Cudworth, the acute metaphysician, 
Andrew Marvell, the witty and clear-sighted patriot, 
Dr. Wilkins, and Bishop Patrick. Marvell signs two 
certificates in one day (April 10, 1666), of cures effected 
on Dorothy Pocock of a tumour in the breast as large 
as a pullet’s egg, by twice stroking, and of Mr. Nichol- 
son of Cambridge, whose gencral soreness and pains 
in the body were “run out” by a similar application. 
“Some remarks written in the fly-leaf ofa copy we have 
seen (says a writer in the ‘Penny Cyclopzdia,’ vol. v., 
article ‘ Robert Boyle’) will make a good resumé of the 
evidence :—‘In looking over the cases stated in this 
pamphlet, attested as they are by the most learned and 
plulosophical individuals of that period, it 1s impossible 
to deny the existence of the facts as attested, without 
rejecting zn toto the evidence of every historical record. 
Credulity may have distorted and exaggerated the 
reality, as witnessed by such men even as Boyle, Cud- 
worth, Wilkins, Patrick, &c.; but doubtless the facts 
are essentially true as reported, and as certainly to be 
accounted for on the principle of mental and physical 
sympathy, the imagination of the patient being wrought 
upon by the powerful emotions excited by expectation. 
Half a hundred works of the most philosophical and 
scientific physicians might be cited in confirmation ot 
the astonishing effects of that agitating excitement of 
the nervous system produced by operating upon the 
lmagination; which perfectly explains all the wonders 
of animal magnetism,’ ” 

Nor were advocates wanting in his defence. The 
learned G. H. Stubbes, in a little work called the ‘ Mira 
culous Conformist,’ pours out an immense deal of quota- 
tion from classical and Scriptural sources to prove that 
similar wonders have been witnessed before, and may 
therefore be believed now. He describes Greatrakes 
as a “man of graceful personage and presence ;” says 


-in his cures he uses ‘‘ no charms—no unlawful words,” 


but attributes his power to the temperature of his 


1841. ] THE PENNY 
budy, or, as he himself styles it, “a ferment implanted 
in his (Greatrakes’) body.” It is curious to observe a 
learned man deceiving himself by the use of mere 
words, without one exact idea, as in the following pas- 
sage, by which he probably persuaded himself into the 
credibility of Greatrakes’ pretensions :—“ One may con- 
ceive how, upon the efficacious touch of Mr. Great- 
rakes, he resuscitating the blood and innate tempera- 
rure, the morbifique ferment may be ejected, and the 
remaining gross body, by a transposition of its texture, 
and a new 1mpregnation of vitality, be re-imbibed into 
the blood, and become nutritious” (p. 20). 

Unitike Mesmer and some other later pretenders, 
Greatrakes 1s favourably distinguished by his disin- 
terestedness. He took no moncy, and the accusation of 
extortion only amounts to large sums having been ex- 
pended by persons coming trom great distances with- 
out receiving any benefit; and even the attention he 
attracted by his pretensions seems to have been offen- 
sive to his habits of seclusion and contemplation. He 
therefore returned to Ireland in 1667, where he was 
siill living in 1680, but the time of lis death is un- 
known. There is no record of his having exercised his 
gift after his return to private hfe, but it 1s probable 
that he did do so among his poorer neighbours, for all 
the siatements unite in attributing to him great bene- 
volence, while he refused money and avoided fame. 
Thus actuated by none of the common stimulants 
which produce or foster similar pretensions in general, 
he departed, leaving his gift to be succeeded by some 
other pretension more novel though not nore pro- 
bable, to be again believed in by a public still cre- 
dulous though continually deceived. 


THE LAC INSECT AND ITS PRODUCE. 


THERE 1s a substance of frequent use in the arts, the 
nature and source of which are but little known even 
to those who use it—we mean Jac. 

Lac is a compound substance—sometimes called a 
guin, but erroneously, for it is neither a guin nor a 
resin—prepared by the female of a minute insect, 
known by the several names of the coccus ficus, coccus 
lacca, and chermes lacca. These insects are found on 
several species of trees in and near the East Indies, by 
which they appear to be nourished, and to the succu- 
lent extremities of the young branches of which they 
affix themselves. Around their edges they are envi- 
roned by a tenacious semi-pellucid hquid, which seems 
to glue them to the branch; and it 1s the gradual ac- 
cumulation of this hquid, forming a complete cell for 
cach insect, which produces the substance called gum- 
lac. When the cells are formed, the insect has the 
appearance of an oval, smooth, red bag, without life, 
about the size of a small cochineal insect, and full of a 
beaufiful red liquid. When the eges are hatched 
within the cell, the young insects, after feeding upon 
and consuming this red liquid, pierce a hole through 
the cell, and issue forth to open day one by one, leay- 
ing a white membranous substance in the cell. The 
lac thus appears to furnish a kind of nest or dwelling 
for the young insects in their earliest state. 

Dr. Roxburgh once had some sinall branches of the 
mimosa cinerea given to him, on which were some 
pieces of very fresh-looking lac; and he carefully 
watched the processes which ensued. At the end of 
fourteen days, he observed myriads of exceedingly 
minute animals creeping about the lac, and more still 
issuing from small holes over the surface of the cells. 
The insects, when single, ran about pretty briskly ; 
but in general they are so numerous as to be crowded 
over one another. On opening the cells, he found 
that the substance of which they were formed bore 
much resemblance to amber; the external covering 


MAGAZINE. 423 
was remarkably strong and resisting, but the partitions 
between the cells were thinner. The cells were in 
general irregular squares, pentagons, and hexagons, 
about an eighth of an inch in diameter, and a quarter 
deep; and no communication existed from one to an- 
other. ‘The cells which were opened during the issue 
of the minute insects seemed to be occupied in two 
different ways. One half of each cell contained a 
small bag filled w:th a thick red jelly-like liquor, 
replete with what Dr. Roxburgh considered to be 
eggs; the bag adhered to the bottom of the cell, and 
had two necks, which passed through perforations in 
the external coat of the cell. The other half of each 
cell had a distinct opening, and contained a white sub- 
stance like a few filaments of cotton rolled together, 
and also numbers of the insects themselves ready to 
make their exit. On the following day the insects 
continued issuing from their cells in great numbers, 
of a deepened red colour, and more lively in theiv 
movements than those before observed. The insccts 
were contained in a wide-mouthed bottle, and small 
twigs of the mmnosa and other trees were put in the 
bottle with them ; and on the third day small winged 
insects were secn to issue from the lac, evidently 
forcing for themsclves a passage with some strug- 
eling. 

The lac of which the cells are formed thus seems to 
be a “residue which, after serving as a nest for the 
young, is left as valueless by the insects. Ina cou- 
mercial point of view there are four sorts of lacs, but 
all are derived from these cells. In the first place 
there is the stick-lac, which is the lac in its natural 
state, obtained in pretty considerable humps, with much 
of the woody parts of the branches on which it is 
formed adhering to it; secondly, the seed-lac is a col- 
lection of granules, obtained from the former after the 
colouring-matter has been extracted by water ; duny- 
lac is the secd-lac after it has been purified by fire, 
and formed into cakes; lastly, shell-dac is the purified 
lac, or the cells liquefied, stramed, and formed into 
transparent lamine. 

The stick-lac is collected in Eastern countries twice 
aycar; and the only trouble in procuring it is in 
breaking down the leaves and branches, and carrying 
them to market. When the twigs or sticks are large, or 
only partially covered, the lac is frequently separated 
from them to lessen the expense of freight to Europe. 
The shell-lac is produced from this crude material by 
the following processes: Itis broken into small pieces, 
picked from the branches and sticks, and put into a 
sort of canvas bag or tube, about four feet long and 
six inches in circumference. ‘Two of these bags are in 
constant use, and each of them is held by two men. 
The bag is placed over a fire, and frequently turned, 
till the lac is liquid enough to pass through its pores, 
when it is taken off the fire, and squeezed by two men 
in different directions, dragging it along the convex 
part of a plantain-tree prepared for the purpose. 
While this is doing, the other bag is being heated, to 
be treated in the same manner. The dragging of the 
baes over the surface of the plantain-tree has the 
effect of depositing a layer of the mclted lac upon It; 
and the thickness of this layer depends on the degree 
of pressure exerted on the bag. The fineness of the 
resulting shell-lac depends on the fineness or porosity 
of the bag through which it 1s strained. 

The native Indians employ Jac ina great varicty of 
ways, as a material for ornaments, as a varnish, and as 
adye. They use the lump-lac in making bangles, or 
ornaments in the form of rings, for the arms of the 
lower class of females; the best shell-lac being used 
in manufacturing these ornaments for the superior 
classes; as also beads, spiral and linked chains for 
necklaces, and other ornaments. As a varnish, the lac 


fe THE PENNY 


is used in a curious manner: it is first formed by melt- 
ing small picees together into stieks, something like 
our sealing-wax, which are coloured with cinnabar or 
any other pigment. The box, eabinet, or piece of 
wood which is to be varnished is heated by means of a 
charcoal fire, and then rubbed over with a stick of lae ; 
the smooth regularity of the lae being ensured by 
rubbing it over with a piece of folded plantain-leaf. 
Ornamental figures are frequently formed of coloured 
lac drawn over the heated surface of the article to be 
ornamented. In ornamenting their images and rell- 
rious houses, the Hindoos frequently make use of very 
thin beaten lead, which they colour with various var- 
nishes made of coloured lac; the leaf of lead is laid 
upon asmooth iron heated from below while the var- 
nish is being spread on it. - 

Lae is sometimes curiously applied in the making of 
the polishing grindstones used by the lapidaries of the 
East. The natives'take three parts of river sand to 
one of seed-lac, mix them in a vessel over a fire, and 
form the mass into the shape of a grindstone. A square 
hole being made in the centre of the grindstone, it is 
fixed on an axis; and by warming the surface of the 
lac, the grindstone inay be brought toa right form. 
The grindstones vary in the proportion and quality of 
the sand mixed with the lac, according as they are to 
be employed for cutting or for polishing. It will be 
evident that the lae here plays no other part than that 
of a cement whereby the particles of sand are com- 
bined into a solid substance. 

When stiek-lac 1s reduced to powder, ana water is 
poured on it, the liquid immediately begins to be 
tinged with red, and the addition of heat produces a 
deep-coloured crumson solution. This colouring sub- 
stance 1s the source of much of the value whieh at- 
taches to lac; and enables it to be used both as a 
coloured pigment and as a dye by the natives of 
India. The colouring-matter, whieh is extraeted 
in various ways, is formed for sale into small square 
cakes or pieces, like those of indigo, which obtain 
the name of lac-dye, lac-lake, or cake-lake. These 
cakes when broken appear dark-coloured, shining, 
smooth, and compact, and when scraped or powdered 
present a bright red colour, approaching to that of car- 
mine. The seed-lac and the lump-lae are less used as 
a colouring than as a kind of varnish, for they con- 
sist principally of the resinous portions left after the 
colouring-matter has been obtained. Mr. Kerr de- 
seribes the mode of native dyeing with the lae-dye as 
follows :—They take one gallon of the red liquid; and 
add to it three ounces of alum. Three or four ounees 
of tamarinds are boiled in a gallon of water, and 
strained. Jiqual parts of the red liquid and of the 
tamarind-water are then mixed over a brisk fire ; and 
the pieces of silk or cotton-eloth to be dyed are dipped 
and wrung alternately, until they have reeeived a pro- 
per quantity of the dye. To increase the colour, they 
inerease the proportion of the red liquid, and lengthen 
the time during which the cloth remains immersed in 
it. To render the colour binding in the silk, a handful 
of the bark called ‘load’ is boiled in a little water, 
and the silk dipped in the decoction several times. 

It is partly as a dye and partly as a varnish that lae 
comes to this country; the latter being used in the 
manufacture of some kinds of liquid varnish, in the 
manufacture of the best sealing-wax, and, within the 
last few years, in the hat manufacture. As a dye, the 
colour given by lac is less beautiful, but more dura- 
ble than that given by cochineal. Some persons have 
recomimended its adoption as avehiele for colours in 
painting, for which it appears to have certain favour- 
able qualities. . 

Mr. Crawfurd says, “The lac insect exists in most 
of the forests of the Indian Islands, but especially in 


MAGAZINE. [OcroBER 30, 13841. 
those of Sumatra and the Malayan Peninsula. Its 
produce is however inferior to that of Bengal, and es- 
pecially of Pegu, whieh countries chiefly supply the 
large consumption of the market of China, while the 
Jae of the Indian Islands is principally eonfined to 
home consumption.” Mr. Milburn states that it is 
produced on the cultivated mountains on both*sides of 
the Ganges, in such abundance, that were the consump- 
tion ten times greater than it is, the markets might be 
supplied. 





Phosphoric Lichens.—Several varieties of lichens, particularly 
the saubcorticahs. the subterranea, and the phosphorea, are occa- 
sionally phosphorescent, and’ are more or less lummous in the 
dark. They often spread themselves to a great extent in caverns 
and mines, where they create an extraordinary degree of splen- 
dour. It is said that these lichens are so abundant and yield so 
much hght in the coal-mimes in the vicinity of Dresden, as at 
first to dazzle the eyes of the beholder.—A7. Erdman. 


Balsas of Peru.—As the heavy surf occasioned by the swell 
of the Pacific renders landing with boats always dangerous, and 
often impracticable, balsas are used along this coast. These 
balsas differ in materials aud form on the different parts of the 
coast. In Chile and the southern coast of Peru, the balsa is a 
kind of sea-balloon, consisting of seal-skins made air-tight, and 
inflated like a bladder: they are so light that they float over the 
heaviest surf without danger. Two of these bladders are fas- 
tened together, and a sort of platform made of cane is fixed on 
them. ‘These balsas hold from two to three persons. The balsa 
of the northern coast of Peru is a raft consisting of mime logs of 
the cabbage-palm secured together by lashings, with a platform 
raised about two feet, on which the goods are placed. They are 
employed for coasting along the shore, and have a lug-sail, which 
is most used in landing. The wind beimg along the shore enables 
them to run through the surf and on the beach with ease and 
safety. At Lambayeque, wnere the surf is very heavy, a kid 
of balsa is used called cabalhto: it consists of bundles of reeds 
fastened together and tumed up at the bow. Being very light, 
it is thrown on the top of the surf upon the beach, and the fish- 
ermen who use them jump off and carry them on their shoulders 
to their huts. It seems that each bay or road has its pecnhar 
balsa.—Penny Cyclopedia. 


Steppes of the Ukrame.—The uniformity of the landscape is 
well calculated to weary the traveller, more particularly such a 
traveller as my compamon, who had explored nearly all the 
steppes of the vast Russian empire; but, for my part, I found the 
journey anything but tedious. The consciousness that 1 had at 
length reached the genuine steppe, the scene of so many yet un- 
explained movements of the human race, was alone sufficient to 
keep my mind in an agreeable state of excitement. These 
boundless grassy plains, on which blade succeeds to blade for 
hundreds of leagues, and on which a calf may eat his way from 
the base of the Carpathian Mountains, till he arrive a well fat- 
tened ox at the foot of the great Chinese wall, afforded a never- 
ending theme for my imagination. I was never tired of coutem- 
plating the countless herds of oxen and wild horses, and the 
flocks of fat-tailed sheep. Even the vast extent, the apparent 
endlessness of the steppes was to me a source of pleasurable 
fancy. The horses gallop away, and the carriage rolls hghtly 
over the ground, yet we seem never to stir from the spot. On 
we fly, yet all around remains unchanged. ‘The optical illusions, 
also, that frequently present themselves, contribute not a little to 
the traveller’s amusement.’ Sometimes a solitary figure, a man 
or a ‘0x, will present itself on the edge of the horizon, as a huge 
spectral form, as though it were raised on stilts of enormous di- 
mensions, or floated unsupported through the air. The appear- 
auce of lakes and large masses of water presented at times so 
complete an illusion, we could scarcely persuade ourselves that 
we did not behold some wide-spreading inundation before us. 
More particularly when there happened to be herds of cattle 
near, for the legs of the cows seemed to disappear in the water. 
Ettot tolko ot sontse, tak pokasivayet (it is the sun makes it look 
so; it is no real water), said our postilion, and he went on to 
assure us that the cattle were never led astray by the appearance 
of a mirage, which, by the scent alone, they were able to distin- 
guish from real water. — Kohl’s Travels in Southern diussia ; 
from the Foreign Quarterly Review. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


GRATUITOUS EXHIBITIONS. 


THE CARTOONS’ AT HAMPTON COURT 
(Concluded from v. 38-4.) 


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{Death of Ananias,) 


THE next of the Cartoons undertakes to portray the | beauty of holiness,” there was certainly no earthly in- 


ferrible judgment of God upon the first Hypocrites 
whose name occurs in the history of the Christian 
Church. 

After the splendid miracle which the last of our 
Cartoons recorded, the doctrines of Christ continued, 
through the pr eaching of the Apostles, to make very 
rapid progress in Jer usalem ; ; and alrcady Christ’s own 
prediction, —*AndI, 4 I be hited up [in crucifixion], 
will draw all men unto me,”’—began to be very strik- 


ingly fulfilled. As many of the converts were in very 


humble circumstances, those who were rich deemed 


that a rcligious profession which taught them to tram- 
ple the idols of the world under their feet, required 


them, under the circumstances of the time, to throw 


their property into a common stock, that all might 


equally be benefited; and real property not being sus- 
ceptible of this employment, those who possessed lands 
sold them, and cast the money they produced into the 
common fund. There was no rule or order on the 
subject. Every one was at liberty to do what he 
pleased with his own property; but as every one was 
pleased to do this, such a rule as arises from usage, 
which makes it difficult for one not to do what ever 
one else docs, came in time to be established. The 
distribution of this fund was confided to the Aposiles 
but ultimately finding that the increase of the converts 

caused this service to occupy more of their time than 
they thought right, seven trustworthy disciples were 
specially chosen to have the charec and distribution of 


the common stock. 


It was Sree this was done; 


for, 


perhaps without intending it, the disinterestedness of 
the Apostles has thus been manifested to all eyes. This 
was, however, after the incident which our Cartoon 
aduin brates. 


Among the converts was one called Ananias. We 


have no right to doubt the sincerity of his convictions ; | 


for unless the doctrine of Christ had been evident to 
his conscience, and his eye had been opencd to see “ the 


Old. 


| 





ducement—there could be nonc—to draw him into a 
body which was every day exposed to the prospect, and 
often endured the reality, of persecution and distress. 
He had faith to take the right road, but not encugh to 
- prevent him from casting manya longing ‘lingering look 
behind on the fair and broad road he had abandoned— 
not enough to live by, as he walked in the way he had 
chosen. The practice which had arisen for those who 
had property to throw it into the common stock formed 
his great stumbling-block and difficulty. On the one 
hand he was not at all willing to forego that good re- 
pert, and® character for disintercstedness and faith, 
which those who thus disposed of their property justly 
acquired. The credit which had been acquired by 
Barnabas, who had just before sold a valuable estate 
and placed the produce at the disposal of the Church, 

also enhanced the temptation and the difhiculty. For 
while he thus coveted a good reputation in the Church, 

he loved money and dreaded want. ‘Thus divided be- 

tween God and Mammon, he took the worst course, and 
almost the only absolutely criminal course which it was 
possible for him to have taken. He sold his property ; 
but with the concurrence, and very possibly at the 
suggestion of his wiic, he kept back a portion of the 
price, and with a sanctimonious hypocrisy, the very idea 
of which is appalling, he offered the other part as the 
whole produce of the sale, and as a proof of his de- 
votedness to Christ, declaring indeed, by this preten- 
sion, that, like the Apostles themselves, he had left all 
to follow Him. 

It is difficult to conceive a deeper crime of the 
mind, or one which in its effects was more calculated 
to be dangerous to the infant Church. It required, 
therefore, ‘to be checked at once by some marked testi- 
_mony of the Divine displeasure. 

When, therefore, Ananias repaired to the place where 
the Apostles were usually in attendance to receive the 
| offerings of the rich, and to dispense them to the poor, 


Von | 


426 TET Ey aN NS 
to lay at their feet his now polluted offering, how great 
was his consternation to hear the stern reproof of Peter: 
‘¢ Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to he to 
the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of 
the land. While it remained, was it not thine own; 
and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? 
Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart ? 
THOU HAST NOT LIED UNTO MAN, BUT UNTO GOD.” 

This man, who was not habitually unprincipled or 
hardened, but whose weakness 1n one matter had drawn 
hin into an act of dreadful meanness and crime, was 
struck to the very heart to see that crime placed 1n this 
view before him, and to know that his whole course of 
action and feeling in this matter was known to those 
whose good opinion he the most desired. The agony 
of that moment was too great for him to bear: con- 
science-stricken, he fell to the ground, dead, like one 
whom a sudden blow had destroyed. 

This scene has been represented by the painter with 
great truth and effect. No one can suggest how the 
incident could be told with more distinctness, or point 
out how its general effect might be improved. Ob- 
jections of details might be started. There are, for 
instance, perhaps, more solecisms of costume in this 
picture than in any other of the series; but taken in 
the whole, there 1s none in the set more creditable to 
the zrvention of the painter, because there 1s no other of 
the subjects in which it was so difficult to make the 
picture tell its own tale with distinctness. It is for this 
reason, probably, that the subject has rarely been ven- 
tured upon by any artist; and in the few instances 
known to us in which the attempt has been made, the 
failure has been lamentable. The Death of Anamnias 
will assuredly never be better represented than in this 
Cartoon of Raffaelle. 

In the scene ot the transaction we trace the usual 
care of this great artist to be real and accurate. We 
admit, indeed, that there are some points which we are 
unable to understand with reference to the usual ar- 
rangements of an Oriental chamber. But the inten- 
tion is evident,—to represent the principal or public 
room of an astern house. At the upper end of such 
a room, and there only, are the windows, as in the Car- 
toon; and at the same end is a dais, or raised floor of 
more or less extent, and this is the place of honour, 
where the master of the house is usually stationed, 
and where he receives his visitors. This 1s very pro- 
perly introduced in the Cartoon, and gives the artist 
an opportunity of giving a conspicuous and distin- 
guishing station to the Apostles, without interfering 
with the truth of the action. 

The principal action is brought forward into due 
importauce. The words which smote the hypocrite 
have but just left the lips of Peter, and the conscience- 
stricken Ananias has fallen back dead; and notwith- 
standing the mechanical effort, which the hands indicate, 
to sustain himself, it 1s evident that in another moment 
he will be extended on the floor. The whole appear- 
ance 1s that of a man struck dead suddenly in “life’s 
high noon:” this 1s more manifest in the painting 
than 1t can be made in any engraving, which cannot, 
like colour, imitate those shght indications which dis- 
tinguish death from a swoon. In the picture there can 
be no mistake: death has set its seal upon Ananias, 
and the mortal pallor—the hue of the dead—which is 
cast over him, indicates, with even more precision 
than the dropped head and orbless eyes, that the action 
of the figure is the last convulsive movement of a dead 
man. The suddenness of the effect is manifested by 
the unconsciousness of what has passed by all but the 
few persons immediately near; and among these, the 
horror-struck recoil of the young man (supposed to 
be Barnabas) who had evidently been kneeling beside 


Ananias on the step of the dais, affords one efficient | 


MAGAZINE. [OcroszErR, 1841. 
contrast of figure and attitude which claims especial 
admiration. Instinct with life, he has started back from 
the spot, from which the other has fallen back dead. 

In one thing the painter appears to have erred in 
the story, whether from design or inadvertence. He 
evidently represents Peter as dcoming Ananias to the 
death he has received : and this, in fact, is the ordinary 
impression. But, indeed, Peter only placed before 
him the heinousness of his offence, without saying 
aught which could lead any one to expect that the man 
would die. As we view it, he died conscience-stricken : 
—died from the mingled feeling of shame at finding 
his secret sin revealed, and horror at perceiving the 
enorinity of the crime, which he had probably led him- 
self to consider as venial as it was convenient. 

The scenes to the right and left of the dais are epi- 
sodical, and afford an exceedingly proper as well as 
beautiful relief to the principal action. That to the 
left is in itself a picture. It was a beautiful thought 
(says Cattermole) to place the tender-hearted John 
apart from the main action at such a moment. In that 
terrible retributive process He could not have shared 
without peculiar pain; while it goes on, therefore, he 
is engaged, more suitably to his character, in relieving 
and blessing the distressed objects of the common 
bounty. The venerable individual who assists St. 
John in the business of ministering to the necessitous 
members of the Church is probably intended for his 
brother St. James. The persons who appear on the 
right of the Apostles represent the wealthier mem- 
bers of the Church. Among these the most remarkable 
is the woman employed in counting money. Irom the 
scrupulous care with which this is done, and the vexa- 
tion expressed in her countenance at the prospect of 
parting with her treasure, she has been commonly sup- 
posed to represent Sapphira, the wife of Ananias. Ac- 
cording to the letter of the Sacred History, Sapphira 
did not come into St. Peter’s presence until “ about the 
space of three hours after” her husband’s death; on 
which account, some critics, as 1f afraid to make the 
painter guilty of an anachronism, have seemed willing 
to doubt whether she be really the person designed. 
It was, however, quite consistent with the superior 
eenius of Raffaelle, thus to dispense with exactness 
in an unimportant incidental fact, in order to accom- 
plish a much higher object. 

The three remaining Cartoons belong to the history 
of St. Paul, and im all of them he is the principal per- 
sonage. They have also one common character in this 
respect, that they all represent this great man in his 
proper and peculiar vocation as “the Apostle of the 
Gentiles ;” in each of them he 1s among Gentiles, and 
in a Gentile city. 

For three or tour years after his miraculous conver- 
sion near Damascus, we know very little concerning 
Saint Paul’s movements and operations. We only 
know that when ke returned to Jerusalem he was in- 
troduced to the Apostles by Barnabas ; and that after- 
wards, on account of the peculiar animosity which his 
presence and preaching provoked there, he was ad- 
vised to withdraw, for a time, to his native city of 
Tarsus in Cilicia. Meanwhile, in the persecution 
which arose about the proto-martyr Stephen, the disci- 
ples, who had hitherto remained chiefly at Jerusalem, 
were scattered abroad, repairing chiefly into Pheenicia, 
and toCyprus and Antioch. Wherever they went, they 
preached Christ, and obtained many converts; but as 
yet they addressed themselves only to the Jews found 
in those quarters. At Antioch, the capital of Syria, a 
church was soon formed, and when tidings of this 
reached the parent church, which had again collected 
at Jerusalem, Barnabas was sent to that great city to 
settle the converts in the faith. He did much good 
there; but soon feeling the need of an efficient coad- 


SuPPLEMENT. | 


jutor, he went over to Tarsus, the native city of Paul, 
and having found him there, took him back to An- 
tioch. Here, from their frequent mention of the name 
of Curist, the name of CHRISTIANS was derisively ap- 
plied to the followers of Jesus, who continued to call 
themselves “ Brethren ;’ but ultimately, feeling the 
want of a distinctive denomination, they submitted to 
receive that which had in the first instance been im- 
posed upon them without their consent. The Jews 
called them NAzARENES. 

A prophet named Agabus having foretold a famine, 
in which the poor church at Jerusalem appeared 
likely to suffer much, the rich church at Antioch made 
up a pursc for its relief, and resolved to forward this 
benefaction by the hands of Barnabas and Paul. Hav- 
ing discharged this duty, they returned to Antioch, 
taking with them Mark (who was the nephew of Bar- 
nabas) as their assistant. 

While they continued at Antioch, Paul was called to 
eo forth on his great mission to the Gentiles, and Bar- 
habas was joined to him in this great work. Strong 
for that work, and dauntless for that high warfare he 
was called to wage, the Apostle departed,—not then 


‘To the farthest verge 
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, 
Rivers unknown to song,” 


but—far harder task !—to the high places of intellect 
and litcrature—the chief seats of civilization and of 
the arts belonging to it, where a stcrile philosophy had 
filled and hardened the minds of those who thought; 
where idolatry, under the most seducing aspects in 
the world, was interwoven with the whole ideas and 
habits of the mass of the people ; and where the teachers 

and disciples of the Academy and the Stoa believed 
- themselves the wise ones of this world, and that all 
were fools beside. 

There was, no doubt, a design in this choice. As an 
eloquent writer remarks :—“ If St. Paul had declined 
visiting the learned and polished regions of Greece, 1t 
might have been produced against him, that he care- 
fully avoided those cultivated citics where men were 
best able to judge of the consistency of the Gospel 
doctrines with its precepts, and of the truth of those 
miracles by which its divinity was confirmed. The 
Greeks might have urged it as an argument against 
Paul’s integrity, that he confined his preaching to the 
countries which they called barbarous, knowing they 
would he less acute in discovering inconsistencies, and 
more easily imposed upon by impostures, which men 
of liberal education would have immediately detected. 
His visiting every city famous for literature, science, 
and philosophy would also be a complete refutation of 
any such charge in after-ages.”* 

Paul and Barnabas first crossed over to the island of 
Cyprus, where there were many Jews, and to which 
Barnabas himself belonged. They landed at Salamis 
(now Famagusta), on the cast side of the island, and 
tarried there awhile, preaching in the synagogues of 
the Jews; after which they crossed over the island to 
Paphos, “‘ where the most impure worship was offcred 
to the most impure deity,” which alone might have 
seemed a great discouragement to Paul; but knowing 
that things which seemed hopeless to man were very 
possible with God, his zcal was never cooled by seem- 
ing improbabilities of success. Paphos was also the 
seat of the Roman governor, by name Sergius Paulus. 
He soon heard of the strange doctrines taught by the 
Apostle; but being “an intelligent man,” forbore to 
interfere, until he should learn for himselt, how far 
such doctrines required the cognizance of a public 
magistrate. From what Galen says respecting this 


* Hannah More's ‘Essay on the Charactcr and Practical 
Writings of St. Paul,’ 1815, vol. i. p. 182. | 


THI, PENNY MeaiGAZIN®G. 


424 


sane proconsul of Cyprus (‘ Anat.’ i., clied by Wetstcin), 
it would appear that he was a man well versed in natural 
philosophy. This fact is important in this place, as 
it furnishes a reason for his cultivating the society of 
the Jewish philosopher Bar-Jesus, better known by 
his honorary surname of Elymas,* or “ the magus ;” 
and asa person of his cultivation and character was 
probably conscious of the folly of the common poly- 
theism, it may be expected that he had heard with 
pleasure, from this person, of the One God whom the 
Hebrews worshipped. This person trembled for his 
influence ‘with the proconsul, and, animated by the 
enmity against Christ and his doctrine which the Jews 
In general manifested, opposed the Apostles with grcat 
vehemence and virulence at the intervicw with the 
governor. At last Paul—feelmg in himself that in- 
fluence from above, which indicated and authorised 
his course of actiovi— fixed his eyes on him,” and con- 
cluded a short but stern reproof with the awful words 
—‘ And now, behold the hand of the Lord is upon 
thee, and thou shalt be blind—vzot seeing the sun, tor a 
season.” And, it is added, ‘“‘Immediately there fell on 
him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking 
some one to lead him by the hand.” Astonished both at 
the doctrine which he heard and the miracle which he 
saw, Sergius Paulus became our Apostle’s first recorded 
convert to the faith, What became of Elymas we 
know not with certainty; but there is much probability 
in the early tradition that he was himself converted, and, 
after a while, restored to sight by St. Paul. Indeed 
the denunciation itself declared the blindness should 
be but temporary (“ for a season’), being evidently in- 
tended for conviction rather than for judgment. 

The representation has given the artist an oppor- 
tunity of diversifying his scenery and costume, by the 
necessary introduction of Romans and the representation 
of a Roman pretorium; and the mixed effect thus 
produced is very good. The ample description which 
this picture has already received in the ‘ Penny Maga- 
zine’ (No. 81), leaves but little room for observation. 
What chiefly engages the attentlon—engages it even 
more than the grand arid almost awtful figure of the 
Apostle—is the wonderful representation of the effects 
of sudden blindness in the figure of Elymas. We not 
only see that the man has that instant been stricken 
blind, but we sce that the blow has crushed him. The 
sentiment of astonished and bewildered deprivation 
pervades every part of the figure, and speaks in every 
line of the countenance; his very soul scems stricken 
with blindness, as well as his body. 

In all the subjects which represent miracles of mercy 
or of judgment, great effect 1s produced by the develop- 
ment of the different impressions, and different mani- 
festations of the same impression, on the part of the 
spectators. This is finely instanced in the present 
Cartoon, where these unprcssions are shown in forms 
more marked and distinct than, we think, in any other. 
In all of them there is one man who 1s bent on satisfy- 
ing himself by a more close ocular inspection of the 
fact. In the Death of Ananias, in Elymas struck Blind, 
and in the Sacrifice at Lystra, the men making this 
inspection are clearly distinguished, and they all ex- 
press the same feeling of conviction and astonishment : 
yet how different in every respect are these three 
figures ; how different in attitude, countenance, charac- 
ter, and even in their different modes of conveying the 
same impression. This is one unmistakeable evidence 
of the great opulence of Raflaclle’s mind, the abund- 


* Elymas (from the Arabic dliman, “ wise”) means Magus, 
a title given to Eastern philosophers, especially such as culti- 
vated uatural science. It is unfortunately rendered by “sorcerer,” 
as the reader is thus kept ignorant of the real cause of his influ- 
ence with the proconsul. The original is "EAvpag, 0 payoe, 
“ Klymas, the magus.” 


312 


428 


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ance of his resources. In the present instance, the 
sturdy conviction and intense astonishment of the 
Iman who bends forward to look into the sightless eyes 
of Elymas, forms a figure which in fulness of expres- 
sion is only inferior to that of I lymas himselt. 

Leaving Cyprus, Paul and Barnabas sailed north- 
ward to the coast of Pampnylia (Asia Minor), and 
landed at the port of Perga. From thence they pro- 
ceeded to Antioch in Pisidia, and after some memora- 
ble transactions there, and subsequently at Iconium, 
they proceeded to Lystra of Lycaonia—an important 
city then, but the very site of which is now a matter of 
some doubt. Here, wpon a poor cripple, “ who had 
never walked,” Paul performed a miracle of healing, 
almost exactly similar to that which Peter and John 
had performed at the Beautiful Gate in Jerusalem. 
This made a prodigious sensation; and the immediate 
effect was not less unexpected than horrifying to Paul 
and Barnabas. The people, whose mythology taught 
them that their gods often came down to walk the 
earth in the form of men, found little difiiculty in con- 
cluding that those who could work such wonders were 
really gods; and they raised acry, “The gods are come 
down to us in the likeness of men !?—Bar nabas, from 
lis grave demeanour and dignified port, they deemed 
to be Jupiter ; and they were no less certain that the 
eloquent Paul—* the chief speaker” of the two—must 
be’Mercury himself, the interpreter of the gods. The 
priests of Jupiter hastened with their oxen and oarlands 
to offer sacrifices, in behalf of the people, to “the de- 
scended gods. Shocked beyond measure, the Apostles 
rent their clothes, and rushed in among the people, en- 
treating thein to desist. The language which Paul used 
was, as usual with him, admirably adapted to the occa- 
sion and to the audience. “ Short, plain, and simple, 
yet passionate and energetic; so plain as not only to 
be understood, but felt, by the meanest auditor; yet 
s0 powertul, that, when aided by a miracle of mercy, 


% 


which he wrought before them, he scarcely restrained 
them from offering him divine honours.” 

Not long after, Paul was stoned and left for dead, by 
the people who but a little while before had been ready 
to worship him asa god. But the appointed work of 
this wonderful man was not yet accomplished ; nor his 
appointed time yet come. While therefore the disciples 
stood sorrowing around his apparent corpse, he rose up, 
as one who felt no h arm, and went back into the city 
with them. 

The moment in which Paul rends his clothes, before 
rushing forward to stay the sacrifice, is that to which 
the action of this picture belongs. The able writer 
who previously wrote of this Cartoon in the ‘Penny 
Magazine,’ thinks that Paul is not rending his clothes, 
but is simply baring his breast to show “that he is a 
man, in accordance with the words which he is sup- 
posed to be uttering. - But we prefer the common in- 
terpretation. Jor Paul certainly did rend his clothes, 
but we know not that he bared his breast; baring the 
breast is an action not once named in all the Scripture, 
whereas rending the clothes was a common expression 
of concern or grief; and, above all, the exposure 
of his breast could satisf; y them of nothing but what 
they already knew; they already believed that Paul and 
Barnabas had human bodies—were men; but doubted 
whether their bodies, their manhood, had not been put 
on, like a dress, by higher beings. In other respects the 
admirable ‘description which the writer to whom we 
refer has given of this Cartoon has anticipated nearly all 
we could wish to say in reference to it. We shall, how- 
ever, venture to call attention to one or two points, by 
which we have been ourselves the most impressed. 

And, first, the figure of the healed cripple engages 
our interest. In our remarks on the picture of the 


| Beautiful Gate, we noticed the characteristic deforinity 


of the features of the two cripples. It 1s evident that 
the man now before us—also acrippie from his birth— 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


had been similarly marked in his countenance. But 
his face, as well as his limb, has undergone the healing 
process; and although not handsome, he is no longer 
deformed. In his relieved, wnbent, open, and radiant 
countenance, as well as in the posture of his hands and 
feet, we see that he will rejoice to honour his deliverer 
in whatever character he chooses to be honoured— 
—whether as God or man. By one of those touches 
which we seldom find out of Hogarth, the recovered 
leg—and a very handsome leg it is—is planted be- 
tween the crutches lying on the ground, which were 
formerly its substitutes. Attention is further drawn to 
the recovered limb by the act of the very respectable 
person who, in accordance with the remark which was 
lately made, gently lifts up the corner of the man’s 
skirt to satisfy himself by ocular inspection concerning 
the miracle which has been performed. We sce by 
the movement of his left hand that he 7s satisfied. The 
full, well-rounded leg, which supplies the place of the 
previously-wasted limb, furnishes evidence not to be 
mistaken. This person’s curiosity is shared by others 
who stand near; and among those whose regards are 
rather turned to the Apostle, we are struck by the action 
of the fine young man who, obviously impressed by his 
act and words, stretches forth his arm to arrest the blow 
of the sacrificer. This person is supposed to be de- 
signed to represent the young Timothy, who was a 
native of the place, and who may very well have im- 
bibed his first impressions of Christian truth on this 
occasion, although his name does not occur until the 
subsequent visit of St. Paul to Lystra. 

The scene of the sacrifice itself, which fills the body 
of the picture, is beyond all comparison the finest and 
most accurate representation of the ancient sacrificial 
ceremonies which we possess. It is copied, in great 
part, from an ancient basso-relievo since published ; 
but this, so far from being a reflection wpon his in- 
vention, is highly to the credit of his wish and deter- 
mination to be accurate; and this was the only way 
in which he could be so. This fact confirms all our 
preceding observations on this subject. By this 
measure he has given a reality to the scene, and an 


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4 


429 
antiquarian value to this Cartoon, which we know no 
that any other picture possesses. Instead of being’ 
as most pictures are, an eye-sore and a grievance to 
one acquainted with ancient customs, it possesses great 
interest to him, and would be a valuable study for him. 
Any one might, merely in the way of comment upon 
this picture, produce a most curious and satisfactory 
account of ancient sacrifices. In the painting itself, 
the concentrated muscular energy and definite pur- 
pose, to strike true and sure, of the sacrificer, attracts 
much notice; and scarcely less admirable is the look 
and figure of the man who keeps the ox quict—an im- 
portant function, as the least indication of repugnance 
or restlessness in the victim was regarded as a bad and 
fatal omen. 

Aiter leaving Lystra, Paul and Barnabas do not 
appear to have made any farther progress into the 
interior of Asia Minor. They revisited successively 
the places at which they had been before; and at last 
reached Aitalia, a port of Pamphylia, where they em- 
barked on their return to Antioch. In that metro- 
pohs Paul remained for several years, with the only 
known interruption of a journey which he made to 
Jerusalem in company with Barnabas, to have a con- 
ference with such of the Apostles as had remained there. 

At length, in the year 52 a.p., Paul proposed to Bar- 
nabas that they should undertake a tour of the several 
cities which they had previously visited, that they might 
learn how the churches which they had there founded 
prospered. Barnabas was willing; but he wished his 
nephew Mark to be of the party, and to this Paul was 
disinclined, on the ground that Mark, who had started 
with them in the previous journey, had abandoned 
them at Pamphylia, and returned home. Barnabas, 
however, persisted; and it is lamentable to add, “ the 
contention was so sharp between them,” that they 
“parted asunder, the one from the other.” By this, 
however, we are not to understand that they parted in 
anger, but that they agreed to divide the proposed 
object between them; Barnabas undertaking to visit 
the churches in his native Cyprus, and Paul those in 
Barnabas took Mark with him, and 


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[Sacrifice at Lystra. 


430 


Paul made choice of Silas for his companion in this 
journey. 

This time Paul travelled by land through part of 
Syria, and through his native province of Cilicia, to 
the quarter containing the cities which he had visited 
before. Finding that their churches were m a pros- 
perous and increasing condition, the apostle enlarged the 
original object of his journey, and proceeded through 
the extensive regions of Phrygia and Galatia, every- 
where preaching the doctrine of Christ. He would 
have gone into Bithynia; but being prevented by one 
of those supernatural intimations to which he was ac- 
customed to give good heed, he turned aside and 
traversed the Propontic province of Mysia, until he 
found himself near the sea at Troas, a common point 
of embarkation for Grecce. 

It should have been mentioned, that in his second 
visit to Derbe, near Lystra, Paul had induced a young 
convert, named Timothy, to join. his missionary party. 
Timothy was the son of a Greck father and Jewish 
mother, and proved a young man of fine character, 
who became affectionately attached to Paul, who on 
his part loved him as his own son. We may well be- 
lieve that the company of this faithful follower was a 
ereat comfort and refreshment to the Apostle. At Troas 
the party was joined by Luke, the author of the history 
(in the Acts of the Apostles) which we follow, and 
who henceforth continues the narrative in his joint 
person. 

While at Troas Paul received one of those intima- 
mations to which we have already alluded, and by 
which he was induced to embark for a new and im- 
portant field of labour—GREECE. 

setting sail, therefore, from Troas, they went straight 
across to the island of Samothrace, and from thence to 
Neapohs m Macedonia; and next to Philippi, the 
chief city of this part of Macedonia. It was formerly 
called Crenides, from the numerous springs which 
join and form a river noticed by the sacred historian 
(Acts, xvi. 13), though not in the maps, and affording 
a good proof of his geographical accuracy. After some 
interesting occurrences at this place, they departed; 
and travelling through the country by way of Amphi- 
polis and Apollonia, came to Thessalonica, a maritime 
city, and the metropolis of that district of Macedonia, 
where a large number of Jews were settled. Some of 
them and a larger number of Greeks were converted, 
and attached themselves to Paul and Silas; but the 
great body of the Jews raised a tumult against them 
and their friends, which compelled them to quit the 
city and go to Berea. There similar success was fol- 
lowed by a similar tumult, stirred up by unbclieving 
Jews who had followed them from Thessalonica, so 
that the brethren there deemed it prudent that Paul 
should leave the place. They escorted him along the 
sea-side to Athens, while Silas and Timothy remained 
behind with directions to follow him as soon as pos- 
sible. 

“Though the political and military splendour of 
Athens had declined, and the seat of government, after 
the conquest of Grcece by the Romans, had been trans- 
ferred to Corinth, yet her sun of glory was not set. 
Philosophy and the liberal arts were still carefully 
cultivated; students in every department, and from 
every quarter, resorted thither for improvement, and 
her streets were crowded by senators and rhetoricians, 
philosophers and statesmen. 

“ As Paul visited Athens with views which had in- 
stigated no preceding, and would probably be enter- 
tained by no subsequent traveller, so his attention in 
that most interesting city was attracted by objects far 
different from theirs. He was, in all probability, qua- 
lified to range, with a learned eye, over the exquisite 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[OcToBER, 1841 


remains of literature, —-theatres, and temples, and 
schools of philosophy, sepulchres and cenotaphs, 
statues of patriots and portraits of heroes; monuments 
by which the artist had insured to himself the immor- 
tality he was conierring. Yet one edifice alone ar- 
rested the Apostle’s notice—an altar of the idolatrous 
worshippers. One record of antiquity alone invited 
his critical acumen—the inscription, ‘To THE UN- 
KNOWN Gop!’”* 

While Paul waited at Athens for his companions, 
“his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city 
wholly given to idolatry ;” or rather, “ filled with tem- 
ples, altars, and idols.” He could not withhold his 
testimony to the truth. In the synagogues he debated 
with the Jews and proselytes; and in the market- 
places, with the people who congregated there. A 
stranger with a strange doctrine soon attracted the 
attention of the most idle, curious, and critical popu- 
lation in the world; for as the sacred writer, with 
characteristic accuracy, remarks, “ All the Athenians 
and strangers which were there, spent their time in 
nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new 
thing.” Among the rest the Apostle encountered 
some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers: and when 
they heard him preach of Jesus and the Resurrection, 
some said, ‘What meancth this babbler to say?” 
Others, ‘‘ He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange 
demons.” The former were probably Epicureans, who 
denied the possibility of a resurrection, which they 
stigmatised as “ the hope of worms; and the latier, 
Stoics, who considered Jesus as a demon or hero, ac- 
cording to their own theology. 

The Greeks held that demons were a middle class of 
beings between gods and men, and regarded them as 
mediators or agents between both. Of these they 
belheved there were two sorts, terrestrial and celestial : 
the former were considered to be the spirits of emi- 
nently good men, advanced to the honour and dignity of 
demons; the latter were supposed to he of a higher 
order of spirits, who never had been encumbered with 
a body, and from whom the guardian demons, or 
angels, as we should say, of men were chosen. Such, 
for instance, was the celebrated demon of Socrates. 
This heathen doctrine of demons was well understood 
by Paul, who was versed in the learning and philosophy 
of the Greeks, and who makes frequent allusions to 
this belief in his Epistles. 

The charge of being a setter forth of strange demons 
was of a very serious nature. On such a charge 
Socrates had been condemned to death.t ‘There ap- 
pears, however, to have been considerable relaxation in 
this respect since that time: and although the philo- 
sophers invited or required Paul to proceed to the 
Areopagus, to give an account of his doctrine, we do 
not suppose that 1t was the intention to bring him, then 
at least, to a formal trial before the supreme and 
august tribunal which sat there. That might have 
been the ultimate result; and this contingency, toge- 
ther with the opposing opinions and high education of 
his audience, made the occasion sufficiently solemn and 
trying, and called for all the tact and all the abilities 
with which the Apostle was so eininently gifted. Nor 
did they fail in this emergency. The consummate 
address with which St. Paul acquitted himself on this 
new and difficult occasion, and the readiness with 
which his opulent mind found resources equal to its 
demands upon him, has won the admiration and ap- 
plause of all ages. 

The writer whom we have already more than once 

* ¢ Essay on the Character of St. Paul,’ p. 207. 


+ “The sentence was, “ Socrates is guilty of not holding those 
to be gods whom the city holds; and of introducing other new 


:; | demons; he is guilty also of corrupting the youth.” Xenoph., 
pieces of art, and to consult and cnjoy the curious | 


| Menge, 1.1. 


SuPPLEMENT. | 


quoted in this present Supplement, has finely charac- 
terised the discourse which he there delivered :— 
“The disposition of this people, their passion for 
disputation, their characteristic and proverbial love of 
novelty, had drawn together a vast assembly. Many 


of the philosophical sects eagerly joined the audience. 


Curiosity is called by an ancient writer the wanton- 
ness of knowledge. These critics came, it 1s lkely, 
not as inquirers, but asspies. The grave Stoics pro- 
bably expected to hear some new unbroached doctrine 
which they might overthrow by argument; the lively 
Iepicureans, some fresh absurdity which would afford 
a new field for diversion;* the citizens, perhaps, 
crowding and listening, from the mere motive that 
they might afterwards have to tell the new thing they 
should hear. Paul took advantage of their curiosity. 
As he habitually opened his discourses with great 
moderation, we are the less surprised at the measured 
censure, or rather, the implied civility of his intro- 
ductron. The ambiguous term (translated) ‘ super- 
stitious, ‘? which he employed, might be either con- 
strued into respect for their spinit of religious Inquiry, 
or into disapprobation of its unreasonable excess; at 
least he intimated that they were so far from not 
reverencing the acknowledged gods, that they wor- 
shipped one that was UNKNOWN. 

“With his usual discriminating mind, he did not 
reason with these eloquent and learned polytheists 
‘out of the Scriptures,’ of which they were totally 
ignorant, as he had done at Antioch and Cesarea 
before judges who were trained in the knowledge of 
them; he addressed his present auditors with an elo- 
quent exposition of natural religion, and of the pro- 
vidential government of God, politely illustrating his 
observations by citing passages from one of their own 
authors. Even by this quotation, without having re- 
course to Scripture, he was able to controvert the 
Hpicurean doctrine, that the Deity had no interference 
with human concerns; showing them, on their own 
principles, that ‘we are the ofispring of God,’ and 
that ‘in him we live, and move, and have our being; 
and it 1s worth observing that he could select from a 
poet sentiments which come nearer to the truth than 
any from a philosopher. 

“The orator, rising with his subject, after briefly 
touching on the long suffermg of God, awfully an- 
nounced that ignorance would be no longer any plea 
for idolatry; that if the Divine forbearance had per- 
mitted it so long, it was in order to make the wisest 
not only see but feel the insufficiency of their own 
wisdom in what related to the great concerns of reli- 
eion; but He now ‘recommended all men, every- 
where, to repent.’ He concludes} by announcing the 
solemnities of Christ’s future judgment and the re- 
surrection from the dead. 

“In considering Saint Paul’s manner of unfolding 
to these wits and sages the power and goodness of that 
Supreme Intelligence who (as the Unknown God) was 
the object of their ‘ ignorant worship,’ we are at once 
astonished at his intrepidity and his management: in- 
trepidity, in preferring this bold charge against an 
audience of the most accomplished scholars in the 
world—in charging ignorance upon Athens! blindness 
on ‘ the eye of Greece ’—and management, in so judi- 
ciously conducting his oration, that the audience ex- 


* We are not quite sure that Hannah More appears to have 
clearly understood the Epicureans and their doctrines ;—but let 
that pass. 

+ The word used by Paul, deoidtapwy, is one of middle sig- 
nification, and susceptible of two senses—“ religiously disposed,” 
or “ superstitious: our translators have chosen the bad. sense ; 
but the good one was more probably intended. 


+ So his discourse, as it stands, concludes; but he would | yc 
| fused over their countenances, by a recent admission 


manifestly have said more had he not been interrupted. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


431 


pressed neither impatience nor displeasure till he 
began to wifold the most obnoxious and unpopular of 
all doctrines—Jesus raised from the dead.” 

As the philosophers of the time, however much they 
disagreed among themselves, all joined in con- 
temning this one doctrine of Christianity—the re- 
surrection from the dead, which every sect alike con- 
ceived to be the most inconsistent with their own tenets 
and the most unsatisfactory to general philosophical 
principles, we are not surprised to learn that “ When 
they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked : 
but others said, We will hear thee again concerning this 
matter.” As, however, the Apostle had proved that so 
tar from being “a setter forth of strange gods,” he had 
only sought to make known that God whom they had 
worshipped without knowing, he was allowed to depart 
undisturbed. Amid the general unbelief, some joined 
him and believed, among whom were Dionysius the 
Areopagite and a lady named Damaris. 

The representation of this scene—Paul preaching at 
Athens—torms what will seem to many persons the 
ereatest of all the Cartoons. Indeed, we know not 
that the whole range of art contains a picture so 
wntellectual as this. Few artists have lived who would 
not have shrunk from undertaking to represent the 
impressions produced upon men of cultivated in- 
tellect, but of very different opinions and characters, 
by a new and striking doctrine, when first brought 
before them. But no undertaking was too great or 
too arduous for Raffaelle, and in this his success 
has been wonderful. It is justly remarked by the 
writer whom we more than once quoted in the last 
Supplement, that “The Paul preaching at Athens 
might of itself be made the study ofa life. It contains 
such a collection of heads as is not to be found toge- 
ther in the whole world besides, and every one of 
which is worthy of an essay on its individual charac- 
ter, and on its connection with the others that sur- 
round it.” 

As it 1s not our present purpose to write such essays, 
we shall be content to copy a few of Cattermole’s re- 
marks upon some of the principal characters. With 
reference to Paul himself, he observes :—“It is not 
merely the imposing dimensions and pre-eminent situ- 
ation of St. Paul which point him out as the hero of the 
piece, but likewise his distinguishing attitude and ex- 
pression. What is chiefly to be admired in this fine 
figure is its characteristic propriety. In this respect it 
has never been surpassed. The St. Paul of Raffaelle 
is not merely an orator, although in action, attitude, 
and expression inspired by the noblest spirit of elo- 
quence ; he is not merely a prophet, though in the mild 
sublmity and mysterious penetration of his glance the 
prophetical seems the leading characteristic ; he is not 
merely a philosopher, and yet the love of truth, ac- 
quaintance with its profound revelations, and intrepid 
devotedness to its cause, animate every part of his 
figure. He is all these and more. We at once recog- 
mise in him the embodied idea of an Apostle—the 
ereatest of the Apostles. If, beginning with 
the persons placed behind the Apostle, the eye be 
carried round to the other extremity of the semi- 
circle, we shall immediately be struck with the beauti- 
ful gradation, from the extreme of bigoted resent- 
ment to the most unreserved and affectionate faith. 
The group which occupies the latter point consists of 
the two figures in the foreground. These are Diony- 
sius, a member of the court of Areopagus, and Da- 
maris, Whom the sacred historian has recorded among 
the converts at Athens. In both these persons is dis- 
covered a virtuous disposition, exalted by the refine- 
ments of education, adorned with external beauty, and 
now further enhanced by the sweet complacency dif- 


432 THE PENNY 
to the enlightening truths and ennobling hopes of 
Chr istianity. The head of Dionysius is exquisite for 
drawing and colouring. Not less worthy of remark 
are the corresponding ‘action and expressive drawing 
of the hands; while, as usual in these works, his gar- 
ments seem to partake of the general sentiment. 
Again, what consistency and charm in Damaris. The 
perfect sweetness and ingenuousness of her counte- 
nance seem, as it were, to “How down over the hair and 
drapery. In the former, especially, which (stmplex 
munditiis) is freely but neatly arranged, is indicated a 
character of female purity and candour, adinirably 
contrasted with the majority of persons introduced into 
the picture ;—suchas the Dionysius and Damaris of this 
work, we feel assured must have been those individuals 
who were the first-iruits of St. Paul’s ministry Ny the 
most tasteful and intelligent of the Grecian cities.” 

We abstain from particular remark on the other in- 
dividuals introduced in this grand work, but cannot 
altogether pass by the group of four philosophers iin- 
mediately 3 in front of the Apostle. “ Perhaps (says the 
author we have just quoted) art presents nothing more 
pe inteflecuaan than this wonderful group of “think- 

g figures, each so absorbed in attention, yet all so 
villied and individualised.” 

In this picture Paul is certamly represented as 
preaching, not pleading , and the audience is a mixed 
assembly of philosophers and others, not of judges. 
On ths ground the judgment and accuracy of the 
painter has been assailed (among others by a corre- 
spondent in No. 58 of this Magazine). Certainly the 
alternatives of interpretation are open; but it does 
happen that the view which Raffaelle was induced to 
take of the transaction is that which the best biblical 
critics for the last two centuries have been upon the 
whole agreed in adopting. 

It is very true that Paul was taken to “ Mars’ Hill,” 
the place where the supreme court of Areopagus held its 
sittings, which court had cognizance of all grave offences 
against morals and religion; but there is not the least 


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evidence that the court was then sitting, or that the 
proceeding was at all judicial. Indeed, it strikes us 
as conclusive on this point, that Paul was taken or 
invited to Mars’ Hill by day—tor it was after he had 
been preaching in the market-place— whereas the 
court of Areopagus always held its sittings in the pig 
of the night. It would, therefore, appear, that as 
body of philosophers, including many Areopagisis as 
such, they invited Paul to give an account of his doc- 
trines, that they might ascer tain whether they contained 
matter of which the Areopagus might ultimately, asa 
court of justice, be expected to take cognizance. The 
place where the court sat, being near at haud, vacant by 
day, and appropriated to such inquiries, might easily 
occur as a suitable place for hearing the Apostle. 

In conclusion, we may be excused for desiring to 
fortify our concurrence with Raffaelle, by producing 
the testimony of a learned annotator, whose work 
happens to be the first to which we have turned :—‘ It 
is probable that their curiosity was strongly excited, 
and that the better inclined brought Paul before the 
Areopagus in order to obtain a fuller explanation of 
the doctrines propounded by him, while others might 
only have in view an occasion of ridicule. Nor is 
there anything in the whole narration that indicates a 
trial: we have neither the indictment of accusers nor 
the interrogatories of judges. Paul does not address 
them as judg es; neither does he attempt any exculpa- 
tion of his conduct. Indeed, I suspect that Paul was 
not brought to Areopagus as before the court of Areo- 
pagists, but that the place was selected as a proper one 
for such a public inquiry, and the Areopagisis who 
sat there sat uot ex officio, but as philosophers. In 
short, the whole seems to be an affair with philoso- 
phers, and not with judges.’* 

In concluding this notice if the Cartoons, we cannot 
do better than advice such of our readers as have not 
seen them, to go aiid look at them; and those who 
have al same: seen them, to go and see them again. 


* Bloomfield’s Recens:o S: ae in Acts, xvi. 19, 


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(Porrrarr of Richard Iff., from-a fine picture published by the Royal Antiquarian Society: the arms from adesign composed from contemporary 
authorities, by J. R. Planché. Esq. | At top—Bosworth Field, from a drawing by G.F. Sargent, Esq. At the bottom—Ludlow Castle, aud Richard’s 


Lodging House at Leicester, from views by Britton. } 


LOCAL MEMORIES OF GREAT EVENTS. 


THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FIELD. 


Tue scene of the battle, so important in its results, as 
terminating the long and bloody strife which desolated 
England during the contentions of the houses of Lan- 
caster and York, is a plain commencing about a mile 
southward from the agreeable town of Bosworth, in 
Leicestershire, or, as it 1s commonly called, to distin- 
euish it from another place of the same name, Market 
Bosworth. This is the place mentioned in Domesday 
under the appellation Boseworde, where, in reference 
to this and some other demesnes, the account states 
that “all these lands Saxi held, and might go whither- 


soever he pleased.” The plain or battle-field is fine ' 


No. 616. 


and spacious, of an oval form, about two miles Jong, 
and one broad, and is almost surrounded by hills. 
From the colour of the soil, it was known, prior to the 
reat event which now gives it the name of Bosworth 
Field, as Redmore Plain. Nor is that the only change 
the spot has experienced. At the period of the battle 
it was one broad sweep of uncultivated land, having 
neither hedges nor trees. Now the progress of culti- 
vation has altered its aspect in every particular except 
the general form and outlines. 

But little more than two years had elapsed from the 
date of his coronation, when Richard received intelli- 
gence that Richmond, whom he had driven from the 
court of Brittany, where he had so long received 
shelter, had succeeded in reaching the territories of 


Vou. X.—3 K 


434 THE PENNY 
the French kinz, and been welcomed there not merely 
with kindness, but with offers of assistance both as to 
money and soldiers. Three thousand Normans, he was 
informed, men whom the French historian Comines 
describes “as the loosest and most profligate fellows of 
all that country,” were already assembled under Rich- 
mond’s bauners at Harfleur, and preparing for the 
descent upon England. Richard proved himself fully 
equal to the emergency, and acted with a promptitude, 
ability, and decision worthy of a betier cause. He 
issued a proclamation, in which he denominated Rich- 
mond as “one Henry Tudor, descended of bastard 
blood, both by father’s and mother’s side, and who 
therefore could never have any claim to the crown of 
England but by conquest.” He asserted that this 
Henry Tudor hoped to achieve his false intent by the 
aid of the ancient enemies of England, and had pur- 
chased such aid by covenanting to give up in perpe- 
tuity to France all rights to Normandy, Anjou, Maine, 
Guienne, and even Calais, and to dissever the arnis of 
France from those of England for ever; that he had 
promised and given away to traitors and foreigners 
archbishopries, bishoprics, duchies, earldoms, baronies, 
and other inheritances of knights, esquires, and pri- 
vate gentlemen; that he intended to change and sub- 
vert the ancient laws and liberties; that he was coming 
with bands of robbers and murderers, and with rebels 
attainted by the high court of parhament, of whom 
many were known for open cut-threats, adulterers, 
and extortioners. He called upon his subjects, lke 
true and good Englishmen, to arm for the defence of 
their wives, children, goods, and hereditaments, and he 
promised, like a diligent and courageous prince, to put 
his most royal person to all labour and peril necessary 
in their behalf. The proclamation was altogether 
drawn up with great skill, and he promised no more 
for himself than most men knew he would perform ; 
but he was without money, and had little dependence 
on his officers. Some forced loans were now raised 
among the citizens of London, and by that means what 
little popularity he possessed among them was de- 
stroyed. Richard’s plan was to intrust the defence of 
the sea-coasts to his friends; for being uncertain as to 
where Richmond might land, he could not venture to 
assume that duty himself, lest the invaders might 
escape him; and then to collect under his own banners 
a great army in the centre of the kingdom, ready to 
march whenever it might be requisite. Most of these 
friends betrayed their trust, and Richmond, on the 7th 
of August, 1484, landed without opposition at Milford 
Haven, with only three thousand Normans, and about 
two thousand English who had joined him. - His trust 
evidently was in the general feeling that he believed 
existed in his favour. Richard, who had been joined 
by the people of the north under the earl of Northum- 
berland, marched to attack him, and on his way was 
inet at Leicester by additional reinforcements under 
the command of the duke of Norfolk, the lord Lovel, 
and Brackenbury, consisting mainly of levies from 
the eastern counties, from Hampshire, and from Lon- 
don. Many other lords and sheriffs of counties had 
been summoned, but neglected to obey; and Lord 
Stanley, the husband of Richmond’s mother, was among 
them: he sent, however, to regret his non-attendance, 
which he attributed entirely to the sweating sickness 
that confined him to his bed. Lord Strange, a son of 
Lord Stanley, was in Richard’s camp; him the king 
seized in the very act of attempting to fly, and obtained 
from him a confession that all the family were leagued 
with the invader, excepting its head, Lord Stanley, who, 
he said, would soon join King Richard. He now wrote 
to hasten his coming, being in the meanwhile kept a 
close prisoner. 


MAGAZINE. { NovEMBER 6, 
joined by the Talbots and a few other families, pressed 
on to meet his formidable antagonist. His force was 
still very inconsiderable as compared with Richard’s, 
but the conviction he had of the instability of the latter 
assured him. On the 21st of August he was at Tam- 
worth, from ,which he marched to Atherston, where 
swarms of deserters from the king’s camp swelled his 
numbers, and inspired them with eager anticipations 
of success. The armies were now approaching each 
other. On the same day that Richmond quitted Tam- 
worth, Richard set out from Leicester, and whilst the 
former stopped for the night at Atherston, the latter 
encamped near the town of Bosworth. The final posi- 
tion was not yet taken by either party. ‘‘ The fame 
went,” says the picturesque old chronicler Hall, “that 
he (Richard) had the same night a dreadful and terrible 
dream; for it seemed to him, being asleep, that he saw 
divers images like terrible devils, which pulled and 
hauled him, not suffering him to take any quiet or rest. 


‘The which strange vision did not so suddenly strike his 


heart with a sudden fear, but it stuffed his head and 
troubled his mind with many dreadful and busy imagi- 
nations; for incontineut after, his heart being almost 
damped, he prognosticated before the doubtful chance 
of the battle to come, not using the alacrity and mirth 
of mind and of countenance as he was accustomed to 
do before he caine toward the battle. And lest that it 
might be suspected that he was abashed for fear of his 
eneinies, and for that cause looked so piteously, he re- 
cited and declared to his familiar friends in the morn- 
ing his wonderful vision and terrible dream.” The ad- 
mirable use Shakspere has made of Hall’s narrativé in 
this passage will be evident to all who are familiar with 
either the written or the acting version of the play on 
this subject. It is the same with some other of Hall’s 
most interesting passages. The cloud, however, soon 
passed, and Richard was, in the poet’s words, “himself 
again,” when his soldiers beheld him on the following 
morning riding on horseback through their ranks, 
bravely apparelled, with the crown on his head, and 
marshalling all into due order. Both armies were 
early in motion, and, after a short march, faced each 
other on Redmore Plain. The plan in the opposite 
page, copied from Nichols’s ‘ Leicestershire,’ shows the 
relative positions of the different leaders. 

Hall’s account of the subsequent events is so full of 
spirit, that we cannot do better than borrow largely 
trom it. ‘“ When the one army espied the other, Lord, 
how hastily the soldiers buckled their helms! how 
quickly the archers bent their bows, and frushed their 
feathers! how readily the billmen shook their bills and 
proved their staves! ready to approach and join when 
the terrible trumpet should sound the bloody blast to 
victory or death. Between both armies there was a 
ereat morass, Which the Earl of Richmond left on right 
hand, for this intent, that it should be on that side a 
defence for his part; and in so doing, he had the sun 
at his back, and in the face of his enemies. When 
King Richard saw the earl’s company had passed the 
morass, he commanded with all haste to set upon thei ; 
then the trumpets blew, and the soldiers shouted, and 
the king’s archers courageously let fly their arrows. 
The earl’s bowmen stood not still, but paid them home 
again. The terrible shet once passed, the armies 
jomed and came to hand strokes, where neither sword 
nor bill was spared; at which encounter the Lord 
Stanley joined with the earl, having three thousand 
men with him. The junction at this moment had been 
sagaciously planned, not only from the greater effect it 
would have, but also as offering a reasonable chance of 
escape for Lord Stanley’s son from the vengeance of 
the king.” | 


Richard’s cause was now desperate; he saw in front 


Richmond, having erossed the Severn, where he was | many a banner displayed against him, which but a few 


1841.1 


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Lord Stanley’s Camp 3 


hours before was sifted in his favour. He saw belund 
dismay and disorder among the troops faithful to him, 
from the desertion of entire bands of those who had 
been hitherto on their side. The Duke of Norfolk and 
his son the Earl of Surrey were the only noblemen 
really true to Richard; aud they gave carnest of what 
might have been the result of the battle of Bosworth if 
there had been a few more like them. Norfolk’s 
attack upon Richmond’s van was highly successful, but 
no other leader supported him, and the moveinent 
ended in nothing. A bold stroke alone could redeem 
to the king the fortunes of the day. So “being admo- 
nished by his explorators and especials that the Earl of 
Richmond, accompanied with a small number of men- 
al-arms, was not far off; and as he approached and 
marched toward him, he perfectly knew his personage 
by certain demonstrations and tokens which he had 
learned of others; and being inflamed with ire and 
vexed with outrageous malice, he put his spurs to his 
horse, and rode out of the side of the range of his 
battle, leaving the avant-gardes fighting, and lke a 
hungry lion ran with spear in rest towards him. The 
Earl of Richmond perccived well the king coming 
furiously towards him, and by cause the whole hope 
of his wealth and purpose was to be determined by 
battle, he gladly proffered to encounter with him body 
to body, and man to man. King Richard set on so 
sharply at the first brunt, that he overthrew tlic earl’s 
standard, and slew Sir William Brandon, his standard- 
bearer, and matched hand to hand with Sir John 
Cheinye, a man of great force and strength, which 
would have resisted him, and the said John was by him 
manfully overthrown, and so he making open passage 
by dint of sword as he went forward, the Earl of Rich- 
mond withstood his violence, and kept him at the 
sword’s point without advantage longer than his com- 
panions either thought or judged ; which being almost 
in despair of victory, were suddenly recomforted by 
Sir William Stanley, which came to succour with 
three thousand tall men, at which very instant King 
Richard’s men were driven back and fied, and he him- 
self manfully fighting in the middle of his enemies, 
was slain, and brought to his death as worthily he had 
deserved.” 


Time PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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Lord Stanley now picked up the battered and blood- 
staincd crown, and placed it on Richmond’s head, 
amidst enthusiastic shouts of “Long live King Henry 
The Duke of Norfolk, Lord Ferrers, Sir Richard Rat- 
cliffe, Sir Robert Brackenbury, and a few other knights, 
shared the fate of their master; and in all about three 
thousand men perished in the conflict. The body of 
Richard was now stripped, laid across a horse’s back 
behind a pursuivant-at-arms, who, thus mounted, rode 
after the new king into Leicester. After exposure for 
two or three days, “ that all men might behold it,” it 
was buried with little respect in the church of the 
Grey Friars. It is supposed that Richard was in his 
thirty-third year when he diced. 

The localities of some interesting memories of the 
battle are still pointed out. The place where Lord 
Stanley crowned Richmond is known by the appella- 
tion of Crown Hill. A well obtained the name of 
King Richard’s well, from the tradition that the king 
had quenched his thirst at it during the battle. 
When Dr. Parr visited Bosworth Field in 1812, he found 
that it had been drained and closed up some six or 
seven years before. By the zeal of the learned doctor 
a subscription was raised for the erection of a suitable 
monument on the spot, for which he wrote an appro- 
priate Latin inscription. In digging and ploughing 
the soil of Bosworth Field, many tokens of the battle 
have been discovered, including shields, crossbows, 
arrow-heads, halberds, pieces of armour, rings, spurs, 
and occasionally human bones and skeletons. 


7 THE MANTIS. 


Mosr of our readers know that the Greek name of 
Mantis, which signifies soothsayer, or prophet, has been 
eiven to a genus of hemipterous insects, which con- 
tains upwards of sixty species. These insects are 
found in all warm countries, and are remarkable not 
only for their very singular forms, but from the gyro- 
tesque attitudes which they usually assume, and which 
are often so significant as to seem to the ignorant, in 
different countries, to indicate peculiar faculties and 
powers of a higher order than any part of the history of 
nature has been found to exemplify. Three different 
species have been, and are, regarded with — de- 
3K 2 





436 


grees of superstitious regard, amounting in some cases 
to something very like actual worship. Hence the 
name mantis; and hence the surnames of religiosa, 
precaria, sancta, religious, praying, holy, which some 
of the more marked species have obtained. The pe- 
culiarities which have procured this superstitious 
regard are chiefly two:—1. That of erecting the tho- 
rax at an angle with the body, and placing the large 
forelegs together, like the hands of a person when at 
prayer, and which has actually led to the notion of its 
being engaged in an act of worship or invocation. 2. 
The habit of stretching the forelegs sometimes to the 
left and sometimes to the right side, which has been 
taken for a benevolent intention to point out the right 
road to way-lost passengers. 

The superstition respecting the Mantis begins in 
Southern Europe, and, in our progress over the world, 
is found almost wherever a characteristic species of the 
insect is found. : 

In Languedoc and other southern provinces, where 
the Mantis is very abundant, both the characters we 
have indicated are ascribed to it by the peasantry, who 
give it the name of Le Prie Dieu, as if it prayed to 
God. Here, as wherever else this superstition pre- 
valled, it 1s considered a great crime to injure the 
Mantis, and as, at least, a very culpable neglect not to 
place it out of the way of any danger to which it seenis 
exposed. 

The Turks and other Moslems have been much 
taken by the actions of the Mantis, which greatly resem- 
ble some of their own attitudes of prayer. They readily 
recognise intelligence and pious intentions in its ac- 
tions, and accordingly treat 1t with respect and atten- 
tion—not indeed as in itself an object of reverence or 
superstition—but as a fellow-worshipper of God, 
whom they believe that all creatures praise, with more 
or less of consciousness and intelligence. 

But it is in Africa, and especially in Southern 
Africa, that the Mantis receives its highest honours. 
The attention of the missionaries in that quarter was 
necessarily much drawn to the sort of religious vene- 
ration paid to an insect, and from their accounts some 
curjous information may be collected. 

Dr. Vanderkemp, in his account of Caffraria, after 
describing the msect, says that the natives call it 
Oumtoanizoulou, the Child of Heaven; and adds that 
“the Hottentots regard it as almost a deity, and offer 
their prayers to it, begging that it may not destroy 
them.” Mr. Kirchener, speaking of the same people, 
reports, “They have no idea whatever of the Supreme 
Being, consequently they practise no kind of worship : 
they have, however, a superstitious reverence for a 
little insect, known by the name of the Creeping Leaf, 
a sight of which they conceive indicates something 
fortunate, and to kill it they suppose will bring a 
curse upon the perpetrator.” 

Here the Mantis is undoubtedly intended, for, as 
perhaps we should have previously noticed, these 
insects (especially the Mantis stccifolia) have obtained 
much notice by their resemblance to the leaves of 
trees, so as to be mistaken at a little distance for them. 
Some early travellers have thus declared that they saw 
the leaves of trees become living creatures. Many of 
the natives of South America believe that they grow 
like the leaves on the trees, and that when they have 
arrived at maturity, they loosen themselves, and fly or 
crawl away. From the name of Creeping Leaf, it is 
not unhkely that the South Africans have a similar 
notion. | 

In the same quarter, if the Mantis alights upon a 
traveller, he immediately becomes, in the eyes of the 
natives, a kind of saint—one especially favoured by 
Heaven. | 

One missionary, of the name of Evan Evans, gives 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[ NovEemMBER 6, 


an account of a conversation which he had with the 
Hottentot driver of his waggon, which seems to make 
out the claim of the Mantis to be regarded as the god 
of the Hottentot. The driver directed his attention to 
‘‘a small insect which the farmers call the Hottentot’s 
god,” and alluded to the notions he had in former times 
connected with it:—‘I asked him, ‘ Did you ever wor- 
ship this insect then?’ He answered, ‘ O yes, a thou- 
sand times; always before I came to Bethelsdorf. 
Whenever I saw this little creature, I would fall down 
on my knees before him and pray.’ ‘ What did you 
pray to him forY’ ‘I asked him to give mea good 
master, and plenty of thick milk and flesh.’ © ‘ Did 
you pray for nothing else?’ ‘No, Sir; I did not then 
know that I wanted anything else.’..... ‘ Whenever 
I used to see this animal’ (holding the insect still in his 
hand), ‘J used sometimes to fall down immediately 
before it; but if it was in the waggon-road or in a foot- 
path, I used to push it up as gently as I could, to place 
it behind a bush, for fear a waggon should crush it, or 
some men or beasts should put it to death. Ifa Hot- 
tentot, by some accident, killed or injured this creature, 
he was sure to be unlucky all his lifetime, and could 
never shoot an elephant or a buffalo afterwards.’ ”’ 

In its private character the Mantis has little claim 
to the reverence which it has acquired. A more pug- 
nacious and rapacious little creature does not live, and 
its cannibal propensities—the disposition to prey on its 
own species—have been established beyond a doubt. 
If two or more be shut up together, they will attack 
each other with the utmost animosity, until one of the 
combatants falls in the conflict. Dr. Smith, in his 
‘Tour on the Continent,’ speaks of a gentleman who 
caught a male and female Mantis, and put them toge- 
ther in a glass vessel. The female, which in this, as in 
most other kinds of insects, 1s the largest, after’ a while 
devoured first the head and upper parts of her com- 
panion, and afterwards the rest of the body. Several 
experiments have proved that they will devour each 
other less from hunger than from savage wantonness. 
Roésel, who kept some of these insects, remarks that 
in their mutual conflicts their manoeuvres very much 
resemble those of hussars fighting with sabres; and 
sometimes one cleaves the other through with a single 
stroke, or severs the head from the body. During the 
engagement their wings are generally expanded ; and 
when the battle is over, the conqueror devours his an- 
tagonist. 

Aware of this quarrelsome temper of the Mantis. 
the Chinese use them for a similar entertamment to 
that which is afforded by making cocks and quails fight 
together; for there is little doubt that it 1s this insect 
which is intended by Mr. Barrow, when, in describing 
the gambling propensities of the Chinese, he writes :— 
“ They have even extended their inquiries after fight- 
ing animals into the insect tribe, and have discovered 
a species of locust that will attack each other with 
such ferocity as seldom to quit their hold without 
bringing away at the same time a limb of their antago- 
nist. These little creatures are fed and kept apart in 
bamboo cages ; and the custom of making them devour 
one another is so common, that during the summer 
months scarce a boy can be seen without his cage of 
crasshoppers. ” 

We ought not to conclude this paper without letting 
the reader into the secret of the praying attitude which 
has attracted so much attention to the Mantis. Ii has 
been found by careful observation that this is no other 
than the posture which the creature assumes for the 
purpose of seizing upon its prey, for which, after fixing 
its eyes upon the victim, it will thus wait patiently, 
even for hours. 





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(Bursting of St. Anthony’s Dyke.—From au etching by P. Nolpe.*} 


INUNDATIONS IN HOLLAND IN 1825. 


A GREAT part of the fertile and cultivated soil of 
Wolland, as is well known, has been anciently re- 
deemed from the ocean, or from the stagnant waters of 
the rivers by which it is intersected; and this uncer- 
tain domain is still, at short intervals, claimed by its 
former masters. Its present proprietors, thereiore, 
unable to rely on their prescriptive rights, are obliged 
always to guard their possessions with vigilance, and 
often to repel encroachments with activity and vigour. 
From the port of Ostend to the mouth of the Ekms— 
along a line of coast which, including the circuit of the 
islands at the mouth of the Scheldt, the Meuse, and 
the Zuider Zee, extends several hundred miles—there 
is no barrier against the invasion of the sea, except a 
continued range of dykes or mounds of sand, raised by 
the art and preserved by the industry of man. By 
miracles of enterprise and perseverance the Hollanders 
have thus been able to say to the raging ocean, without 
presumption or blasphemy, “Thus far shalt thou 
come, and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves 
be stayed.” Within this lne we find fertile fields, ex- 
tensive meadows, magnificent pleasure-grounds, noble 
parks, smiling villages, and populous cities. No 
landscape is more rich; no country of the same extent 
supports such a number of inhabitants, or contains 
such an accumulation of the fruits of industry and the 
materials of happiness. From the top of several of 
the town spires you can see nearly all the great cities 
of Holland, spread out before you on a surface as level 
as the ocean; and can trace the line of the ocean itself 


* The print is described as “taken from the life,” and as re- 
presenting the bursting of St. Anthony’s Dyke, just without Am- 
sterdam, occasioned by a high-water flood on the 5th of March, 
1651, and which was three inches higher than a previous remark- 
able high-water in 1570. Through this breach the water burst 
so impetuously as to force away every obstacle in its course, and 
covered the country to the depth of thirty feet. Even the Diemer- 
meer Dyke was broken, and inundated to the depth of sixteen 
feet, so that the water ran over St. Anthony’s Mart and the New 
Dyke, to the great damage of the landed proprietors and neigh- 
bourhood generally. 


by the range of yellow sand eminences destined to act 
as a bulwark against its waves. At flood-tide, or with 
the wind blowing in a particular direction, the level 
of the waters beyond the dykes becomes higher than 
the dry land within them. You may, therefore, hear 
the waves beating against the barrier above your head, 
and see that nothing but its height and strength can 
protect you from their violence. To this enemy from 
without, the Dutch have to add one frequenily no less 
terrible from within. “ Your kingdom,” said Napoleon 
to his brother Louis, “may be defined as the alluvium 
of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt; the great 
arteries of my empire.” The contents of these great 
“arteries” are drained off in a thousand minute raini- 
fications (so as to form canals and lines of communi- 
cation between city and city, between village and 
village, nay, even between street and street, and field 
and field), and pass with diminished power, and by 
almost imperceptible degrees, into the German Ocean 
or the Zuider Zee. But when their volume is violently 
increased by storms in the higher regions of Europe, 
or their discharge interrupted by tempests on the 
coasts, a great part of the country is exposed to as 
much danger from their overflow as from the agitated 
waters of the sea. The soil of Holland, thus rescued 
and protected, bears everywhere the marks of its ori- 
ein. It consists of either pure sand, as if it bad re- 
cently been raised from the bottom of the sea; or of a 
mossy black mould, as if formed from the inundation 
ofariver. The care of supporting the dykes and pro- 
tecting the land, which is liable to be mundated several 
times in the year by the sea or the rivers, 1s Intrusted 
to a permanent administration called the Waterstaat. 
Obliged to watch their dykes, sluices, and water-works, 
as the garrison of a besieged fortress stations sentinels 
on its ramparts, this body must be always ready and 
always efficient. But notwithstanding all the care and 
all the precautions taken by this well-organised body of 
inspectors and engineers to resist or to repel their 
watery enemy; notwithstanding the ample funds and 
eyeat physical force placed at their disposal, and ready 


1 to be employed at their bidding, the violence of the 


438 THE PENNY 
elements often sets all their vigilance, skill, and power 
at defiance, sweeping away their strongest bulwarks, 
and threatening their country with a general imun- 
dation. 

The end of the year 1824 and the commencement of 
1825 will be long remembered in other parts of Europe 
as well as Holland. About the beginning of the winter 
months, extraordinary storms prevailed over all parts of 
the Continent, but particularly in its higher regions 
and mountain-ranges. Water-spouts and torrents of 
rain descended in Switzerland and the Black Forest, 
not only suflicient to damage the districts on which they 
fell, but to overthrow dykes and embankments, to 
cover whole valleys, and sweep away whole villages, 
with their inhabitants and cattle. Wirtemberg, Baden, 
and the countries situated near the Alps first felt this 
dreadful visitation. The valleys of the Necker and the 
Rhine, towards Heidelberg and Mannheim, were en- 
tirely overfiowed and dreadfully damaged. Similar 
calanuties were experienced in Hanover, Prussia, and 
other parts of Germany. The people of Holland heard 
such accounts with dismay, particularly the intelligence 
of the ravages committed by the Rhine in the upper 
part of his course. In his irresistible fury he had over- 
leaped or demolished his embankments a thousand feet 
above the level of the sca; and what might not be 
dreaded from the force of his accumulated waters de- 
scending on the Dutch territory, the highest point of 
which is only about thirty-two feet above the same 
level. The height of their dykes and causeways along 
his banks is not more than twenty-four feet; and if the 
water exceeded this elevation, their wealthiest towns and 
most prosperous villages must have been overwhelmed 
in one common ruin. The water in most places had 
actually ascended to the top of the dykes. In some 
parts of the country these ramparts threatencd to yield, 
in others they had even been slightly broken: every 
stream was covered with wrecks; every canal leaned 
against a tottering embankment. A wind suddenly 
springing up, and blowing these accumulated waters 
into the sea, saved the country from the threatened in- 
undation. This blessed wind was aided by the most 
active exertions of the Waterstaat. Breaches in the 
dykes were filled up, the windmills assisted the dis- 
charge, and the threatening danger was for the present 
averted. 

It was not for nearly six weeks afterwards, and then 
not from the same quarter, that devastation and misery 
came. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th of February, 1825, were 
the fatal days for the coast of Holland, and a tempest 
occurring at spring-tide was the cause. On the Ist 
and 2nd of that month the wind blew from the south- 
west, and the weather was extremely mild. The waters 
of the canals and rivers were thus discharged into the 
sea in great abundance, and without danger. On the 
evening of the 2nd the wind veered round to the north- 
west, where it continued till the night of the 5th. The 
direction of the wind, the violence of the storm, and 
the state of the tide, caused at Amsterdam, and along 
the whole sea-coast, the greatest alarm on the morning 
of Wednesday the 3rd. The flood of Wednesday rose 
higher than any ordinary spring-tide. But a greater 
tide was still to be dreaded, and on the morning of 
Friday (the 5th) the water rose twenty-six inches 
higher than on any former day. The wind still con- 
tinued in the north-west, accompanied with storms of 
thunder and lightning ; so that from the direction of 
the gale the waves did not subside at low-water to 
imore than half their usual ebb. ‘The tide of Friday 
evening (the 5th) was to be the highest, and was looked 
forward to with proportional alarm. It rose higher by 
six inches than during the destructive tempests of 
1808, and higher than any of which there are authentic 
records. The cause of this no doubt was the accumu- 


MAGAZINE. [NovEMBER 6, 

lation of waters in the North Sea and Zuider Zee, by 
the prevalence of south-west winds, and their precipi- 
tation on the Dutch coast by the change of their direc- 
tion from south to north. In the night of the 5th all 
was confusion and terror at Amsterdam. In some 
places the waves had surmounted their barriers, an 
the cellars of some of the lower parts of the town were 
flooded. In other places the water had got up to the 
doors. Half an hour longer of continued storm, or the 
slightest rise in the tide, must have laid the greatest 
part of the Dutch capital and of its treasures under 
water. Nothing could have prevented this catastrophe 
but the change of wind, which suddenly took place a 
little after midnight. 

The capital was thus saved; but as soon as the tem- 
pest permitted communication from without, the cry 
was heard from the opposite side of its harbour that a 
door-braak ot the dykes had taken place, and _ that 
the fairest portion of its neighbourhood was imun- 
dated. 

On the 4th the violence of the waves had burst 
through the causeway or mole of Durgerdam, a village 
on the Zuider Zee, about six or seven miles cast of 
Amsterdam, and poured irresistibly upon North Hol- 
land, spreading from the dyke which encloses one side 
of the harbour of Amsterdam to the beautiful town of 
Alkmaar on the north-west, to Edam on the east, and 
to Beverwyk on the west. The inundation thus spread 
over more than a third part of North Holland, extend- 
ing upwards of twenty miles from north to south, and 
about twenty-five miles from east to west, and covering 
a space of more than twice the size of the sea of Haar- 
lem, which is stated to contain about sixty thousand 
acres. Within this circuit are the considerable towns 
of Edam, Monnikendam, and Purmerende, which be- 
came a prey to the deluge; the celebrated village of 
Brock, the manufacturing villages of Wormerveer, 
Zaaddyk, and many others were likewise overflowed. 
The inundation did not, of course, rise to an equal 
height, or produce an equal havoc over the whole of 
this space. Two or three of its most fertile districts 
were entirely protected by their own local dykes, 
propped up, repaired, and defended by the enterprise 
and activity of the peasants, In some other quarters of 
it the waters did not rise so high as materially to. 
damage the houses, while over a large portion of its 
southern and eastern divisions the waves mounted 
nearly to the tops of houses and trees, and produced a 
total devastation. ‘ The wretched inhabitants were i 
eeneral saved by the rapidity of their flight te the. 
nearest little eminences above water, or the activity of 
the boatmen of Amsterdam, joined to those of their 
own neighbourhood. A great portion of the cattle 
were likewise rescued by the same means; so that by 
this part of the inundation not more than five or six 
persons were drowned, and about a thousand head of 
cattle lost. The damage, however, in other respects 
was immense. 

(To be continued. } 


INDIAN ROSES AND OTTO (ATTAR) OF 
ROSES. 


THERE is a town called Ghazcepore, situated a few 
miles north-eastward of Benares in India, which has 
rained a distinguished name for the attar of roses pre- 
pared there ; the cultivation of the roses, and the dis- 
tillation of the attar, forming important parts of the 
employment of the inhabitants. 

It is probably known to most persons that roses are 
capable of imparting their fragrant odour to water, by 
a particular mode of treatment, and that rose-water 1s 
the result; but it may not be so well known that the 

| attar is a kind of cream or oily essence, which collects 


1841.1] 
at the top of the distilled rose-water. The mode in 
which these products are obtained, and the commercial 
arrangements by which the trade is governed, will 
afford us subjects for a few interesting details. 

The cultivators of the roses are seldom the same 
partics as the manufacturers of the attar and rosc- 
water; the roses being generally purchased by the 
latter at a particular stage in their growth. In the 
vicinity of the town of Ghazeepore are about three 
hundred deegahs (each beegah being equal to about 
half an acre) of land laid out in small detached fields. 
These fields constitute rose-gardens, and are sur- 
rounded on all sides by high mud-walls and prickly- 
pear fences, to keep out cattle. The gardens belong 
to proprietors called Zemindars, who plant the rose- 
trees (one thousand to each beegah of ground), and then 
Jet them out annually, at the rate of about five rupees 
per begah of land, and twenty-five rupecs for the rosc- 
trees—the rupee being cqual to about two shillings 
Enghsh. The cultivator thus hires the ground, as well 
as the young rosc-trecs planted on it; and his object 1s 
to procure such a number of roses from the trces as 
will pay this rental, and afford him a remuncrating 
price for his time and trouble in attending to the cul- 
tivation. If the season be favourable, it is expected 
that the thousand rose-trees to cach beegah of ground 
will yield a Zac, or one hundred thousand roses; and 
this quantity will gencrally bring in the market from 
forty to seventy rupces. 

At the commencement of the rose season, about the 
month of March, when the rose-trees come into flower, 
the distillers from Ghazeepore, of whom there are about 
thirty or forty, proceed to the gardens, and arrange for 
the purchase of the roses. The zemindars or land- 
owners, the cultivators, and the distillers, all meet to- 
gether ; and, according to the relation between supply 
and demand, a price is agreed upon, by which the sub- 
sequent purchases are regulated. After a purchase 1s 
made, men, women, and children proceed to the gar- 
dens early in the morning, pluck the roses, and put 
them into large bags, and carry them to the houses of 
the purchasers. 

Dr. Jackson, the Company’s civil surgeon at Gha- 
zecpore, describes the distilling apparatus as being 
very simple. It consists of a large copper or 1ron 
boiler, well tinned, and capable of holding from eight 
to twelve gallons, having a large body with a rather 
narrow neck, and a mouth about eight inches in dia- 
mcter. On the top of this is fixed the head of the still, 
which is nothing more than an old dekchee, or cooking 
vessel, with a hole in the centre to receive the tube or 
worm; it is well luted to the boiler by a cement of 
clay, or of flour and water. The tube is composed of 
bamboo, coated on the outside to prevent the escape of 
the vapour; one end of it is fastened to the opening 
in the still, and the other end descends into a long- 
necked vessel or receiver called a bhubka. This latter 
is placed in a vessel of cold water, which, as soon as 
its temperature is raised by the condensation of the 
vapour in the still, is changed, and replaced by a fresh 
supply of cold water. | 

The rationale of this arrangement is, that when 
roses are put into the boiler, water added to them, and 
both raised to a high temperature, the steam which 
evaporates from the water, carrying with it the odorife- 
rous principle of the roses, passes up the still, and 
thence through the tube into the long-necked vessel : 
here the action of the cold water in the exterior of the 
vessel condenses the vapour, and the result 1s rose- 
water. Colonel Polier states the proportion as fol- 
lows :—Forty pounds of fresh roscs, with their calices 
attached, but the stems cut close, are put into the 
boiler with sixty pounds of water. The mass 1s then 
well mixed together with the hands, and a gentle fire 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


£39 


is made under the boiler. When the water begins to 
grow hot, and steam to arise, the cap or upper part is 
put on, and the pipe attached. When the impregnated 
water begins to pass over into the receiver, and the 
apparatus is very hot, the fire is lessened by degrees, 
and the distillation continucd till thirty pounds of rose- 
water are produced, which generally takes about four 
or five hours. The rose-water thus produced is poured 
again into a fresa quantity (forty pounds) of roses; and 
trom fifteen to twenty pounds of more richly impreg- 
nated rose-water results. 

Dr. Jackson’s account of the proceedings differs in 
some slight details from the preceding; but we need 
not notice the difference here. We proceed to the 
method of procuring the attar from the rose-water. 
The rose-water is put into a large metal basin, which 
is covered with wetted muslin to prevent the ingress 
of insects or dust. This vessel is let into damp ground 
about two fect, and allowed to remain there a whole 
night. In the morning, when the vessel is taken up 
and opened, a thin film of congealed creamy substance 
is found on the surface; this is the attar, which is carc- 
fully skimmed off by means of a thin shell or some 
sunilar instrument, and placed in asmall phial. When 
a certain quantity has thus been obtained, the water 
and sediment are separated from the clear essence or 
attar, the first by cold and the second by heat. The 
attar being made to congeal by exposure to cold air, 
the water 1s easily poured from it; and afterwards, by 
melting the attar, the sediment falls to the bottom, and 
may then be removed. The attar, kept in small phials, 
at first presents a pale greenish hue, but this changes 
in a few weeks’ time toa pale-yellow. The price at 
which this costly perfume is sold is enormous. Dr. 
Jackson states :-—-‘‘ From one J/ac of roses, it is gene- 
rally calculated that one hundred and eighty grains, or 
one tolah, of attar can be procured; more than this 
can be obtained if the roses are full-sized, and the 
nights cold to allow of the congelation. The attar pur- 
chased in the bazar is generally adulterated, mixed 
with sandal-oil or sweet-oul. Not even the richest 
native will give the price at which the purest attar 
alone can be obtained; and the purest attar that is 
made is sold only to Europeans. During the past 
year (1838), it has been selling from cighty to ninety 
rupees the folah; the year before, it might have been 
purchased for fifty rupees.” Now taking the rupee at 
two shillings English, and the highest price mentioned 
above, viz. ninety rupees for one hundred and eighty 
grains, we have the startling price of one shilling per 
grain for this substance, or six times the value of pure 
sold. Colonel Polier makes the folah equal to about 
half an ounce English, which would give the price per 
erdin about nine-pence, instead of one shilling. 

That such a costly substance should be adulterated 
for cominerce, 1s What we may very reasonably suspect. 
Colonel Polier says that it is customary to add to the 
roses, when put into the still, a small quantity of san- 
dal-wood raspings; this wood contains a great deal of 
essential oil, which comes over freely in the common 
distillation, and, mixing with the rose-water and essence, 
becomes strongly impregnated with their perfume. 
In Cashmere, instead of using sandal-wood, they some- 
times employ a sweet-scentcd grass, which does not 
communicate any unpleasant scent, and gives the attar 
a high clear green colour. Dr, Jackson supposes that 
the best rose-water sold in the bazar at Ghazecpore 
bears the proportion of about one thousand roses to a 
seer of water, a scer being about two pounds English 
avoirdupois; but most generally a larger quantity of 
water to the same number of roses is the proportion 
from whence the rose-water is obtained, and even from 
this the attar, comprising the most fragrant part, has 


| been removed. — 


« 
340 


One of the modes of adulteration adopted in Ghazee- 
pore is, to put a considerable quantity of sandal-oil into 
the receiver before the distillmg process commences ; 
and when it is completed, the oil in the reeeiver is 
separated from the distilled water. The water, although 
robbed of much of its odoriferous principle by the oil, 
is nevertheless sold in small bottles as rose-water, while 
the fragrant oil is sold as sandal-attar. ‘The sediment 
obtained in preparing the true attar is also preserved, 
as a stronely odorous substanee. 

Dr. Jaekson considers the value of the roses sold for 
the manufacture of rose-water at Ghazeepore to amount 
to from fifteen to twenty thousand rupees per annum; 
and from the usual price charged for the rose-water, 
he estimates the profit at forty thousand rupees. Re- 
specting the use of the rose-water among the natives, 
he observes, “‘ The chief use the natives appear to make 
of the rose-water, or the sandal-attar, as they term it, is 
at the period of their festivals and weddings. It-is then 
distributed largely to the guests as they arrive, and 
sprinkled in profusion in the apartments. The natives 
are very fond of using the rose-water as medicine, or 
as a vehicle for other mixtures; and they consume a 
eood deal of the petals for the eonserve of roses, or 
Gooicund, as they call 1t. A large quantity of rose- 
water is sold at Benares, and many of the native rajahs 
send over to Ghazeepore for its purehase. Most of 
the rose-water, as soon as distilled, is taken away, and 
after six months from the termination of the manufae- 
ture there are not more than four or five places where 
it is to be met with.” 


The Medicine-bag of the Indians.—The medicine-bag, then, is 
a mystery-bag; and its meaning and importance necessary to be 
understood, as it may be said to be the key of Indian life and 
Indian character. These bags are constructed of the skins of 
animals, of birds, or of reptiles, and ornamented and preserved 
in a thousand different ways, as suits the taste or freak of the 
person who constructs them. These skins are generally attached 
to some part of the clothing of the Indian, or carried in his hand. 
Every Indian in his primitive state carries a medicine - bag 
in some form or other, to which he pays the greatest homage, 
and to which he looks for safety and protection through life— 
and, in fact, it might almost be called a species of idolatry ; for 
it would seem, in some instances, as if he actually worshipped it. 
Feasts are often made, and dogs and horses sacrificed to a man’s 
medicine; and days and even weeks of fasting and penance of 
various kinds are often suffered to appease his medicine, which he 
imagines he has in some way offended. The manner in which this 
curious and umnportant article is instituted is this: a boy at the 
age of fourteen or fifteen years is said to be making or “ forming 
his medicine,” when he wanders away from his father’s lodge, and 
ahsents himself for the space of two or three, and sometimes even 
four or five days; lying on the ground in some remote or se- 
cluded spot, crying to the Great Spirit, and fasting the whole 
time. During this period of peril and abstinence, when he falls 
asleep, the first. animal, bird, or reptile of which he dreams (or 
pretends to have dreamed, perhaps), he considers the Great Spirit 
has designated for his mysterious protector through life. He 
then returns home to his father’s lodge and relates his success; 
and, after allaying his thirst and satiating his appetite, he sallies 
forth with weapons or traps, until he can procure the animal or 
bird, the skin of which he preserves entire, and ornaments it ac- 
cording to his own fancy, and carries it with him through life 
for “ good luck” (as he calls it); as his strength in battle—and 
in death his guardian spirit, that is buried with him; and which 
is to conduct him safe to the beautiful hunting-grounds which 
he contemplates in the world to come. The value of the medi- 
cine-bag to the Indian is beyond all price; for, to sell it, or give 
it away, would subject him to such, signal disgrace in his tribe, 
that he could never rise above it; and again, his superstition 
would stand in the way of any such disposition of it, for he con- 
siders it the gift of the Great Spirit. An Indian carries his medi- 
cine-bag into battle, and trusts to it for his protection; and if he 
loses it thus, when fighting ever so bravely for his country, he 
suffers a disgrace scarcely less than that which occurs in case he 
sells or gives it away ; his enemy carries it off and displays it to 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[ NovEMBER 6, 


his own people as a trophy; whilst the loser is cut short of the 
respect that is due to other young men of his tribe, and for ever 
subjected to the degrading epithet of “a man without medicine,” 
or “‘ he who has lost his medicine,” until he can replace it again, 
which can only be done by rushing into battle, and plundering 


one from an enemy whom he slays with his own hand.—Caélin’s 
North: American Indians. 





The Natives of New Zealand.—Their services for all sorts of 
purposes were always at our command for a moderate remuue- 
ration, We employed them chiefly in shooting, fishing, hunting, 
cutting fire-wood, and building houses. At first they were con- 
tent to be paid with food only. By degrees their wants increased, 
and they required various goods, such as tobacco, clothing, and 
hardware. All this took place at our first squatting settlement, 
on the banks of the Hutt; latterly, after the bulk of the settlers 
were established at Wellington, the natives had begun to require 
money wages im return for their labour. A similar change took 
place with regard to trade. At first all our exchanges with the 
natives were made by barter only, bunt long before my departure 
they had begun to comprehend the use and value of money. 
This knowledge at last extended in some cases to the regular 
employment of our currency. One native resident at Welling- 
ton purchased a horse which had been imported from New South 
Wales, and used to let it out for hire; and another had an ac- 
count with the bank. Great numbers were in possession of money, 
which they usually carried about with them in a handkerchief 
tied round the neck. During the first months of our imtercourse 
with the natives, they usually carried muskets; but apparently 
from mere habit, and not on account of any fear of violence {rom 
us. We never carried arms, and the custom has now been quite 
abandoned by the natives of Port Nicholson. The best proof, 
however, of their own feeling of security is, that they are gradu- 
ally destroying the stockade defences of their villages. Not that 
they ever feared, probably, that we should attack them; but 
they feel that our presence is a perfect security against aggression 
from distant and hostile tribes. ‘It seemed to me that the whole 
character of this people was undergoing a rapid change; and 
that in all probability the next generation will to a great extent 
amalgamate with the colonists.—Account of the British Settle- 
ments in New Zealand, by the Hon. H, W. Petre. 


Iron-Trade of America.—There are no data by which we 
can ascertain the quantity of iron produced in the United States 
prior to 1810. At that time, according to the cfficial returns, 
the quantity of bar-iron made in this country was 24,471 tons, 
then valued at 2,640,778 dollars, of which 10,969 tons were 
made in Pennsylvania. From that time to 1830, the quantity 
had increased to 112,866 tons; in addition to which, 25,250 
tons of castings were also made—the value of both amounted to 
13,329,760 dollars: ni making this quantity, 29,254 men were 
employed, and 146,273 subsisted, whose annual wages amounted 
to 8,776,420 dollars, and that in their support the farmer fur- 
uished food to the value of 4,000,490 dollars. The average 
quantity of hammered iron imported into the United States 
from 1821 to 1830 was about 26,200 tons annually, and of 
rolled iron about 5600 tons—making together 31,860 tons, 
valued at 1,762,000 dollars. The whole quantity of hammered 
and rolled iron consumed in the United States in 1830 may be 
estimated at about 144,666 tons. The value of the various 
foreign manufactures of iron consumed in this country, on au 
average, from 1821 to 1830, was about 4,000,000 dollars yearly 
—making the whole amount of foreign iron and its manufac- 
tures annually cousumed in the United States, say 5,762,000 
dollars. If the whole quantity made in the United States in 
1830 were computed in pig-iron, it would amount to 191,536 
tous—produced from 239 furnaces, averaging fifteen and a half 
tous each furnace per week—two-fifths of this quantity were 
made in Pennsylvania. The quantity made in all the States in 
1837 may be fairly taken at 250,000 tons.—Serivenor’s Hist. 
of the Iron- Trade. 


Amerian and English Women contrasted.—Our girl, with her 
delicate features aud nymph-like figure, is far more lovely in 
her first freshness than the English; but the English woman, in 
her ripeness and full development, far surpasses ours. She is 
superb from twenty to forty-five.-—Miss Sedgwick. 





1841.) 





THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 








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THE ARTESIAN WELL AP GRENELLE, 
PARIS: 
ARTESIAN Wells are so called from the probability 
that they were first constructed in Artois, although, 
from the authority of several ancient writers, they 
appear to have been in use in the earliest ages. The 
Artesian well at Grenelle, of which the above wood- 
cut is a representation, has lately been completed, after 
eight years of constant labour and repeated difficulties. 
The south-western portion of Paris was but very poorly 
supplied with water, and at Grenelle, a suburb 1mme- 
diately adjoining the city, this deficiency was so seriously 
felt that it became an object of the greatest importance 
to find means of remedying the evil. M. Mulot, an 
experienced geologist, being consulted as to the prac- 
ticability of constructing a well on the Artesian prin- 
ciple, stated that the perforation would necessarily be 
of extraordinary depth, owing to the nature of the dis- 
trict, We extract from the ‘ Magasin Pittoresque ’ 
the following geological description of the basin of 
Paris:—“‘ Two conditions, as it is well known, are 
requisite for the formation of an Artesian well: first, 
the existence of a pervious stratum, such as gravel, 
placed between two impervious strata, such as clay ; 
secondly, the percolation of the water through the per- 
vious stratum from a point higher than that to which 
it is required to rise. The basin of Paris 1s in the form 
of a hollow plate (B, B) formed by a stratum of chalk. 


No. 617. 





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In this basin have been successively deposited the ter- 
tiary strata, in the centre of which Paris is situated. On 
a circular space bounded by the towns of Laon, Mantes, 
Blois, Sancerre, Nogent-sur-Seine, and Epernay, these 


Nogent- Bar-sur- 


Paris. Provins. 


sur-Seine. Troyes. Lusigny. Seine. 
* ’ . 


* Plateau de Langres. 


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agove the chalk; B, B, chalk or cretaceous lime- 
saud and clay; E, E, oolite and Jura limestone ; 
angres to Paris; A, M, level of 


[A, A, Tertiary strata 


stone; C, C, D, D, green. 
A, E, general slope of the country from L 


the sea.] 

strata appear at the surface, and conceals the chalk, 
but on the other side of the towns we have mentioned, 
the edge of the basin being passed, the chalk is found 
menerally on the surface. If we look at the order 
>, which the tertiary strata occur, we shall then coin- 
rehend the obstacles M. Mulot had to overcome, and 
the probability of the ultimate success of his under- 
Leaving unnoticed the surrounding hills, we 
eof the soil which composes the 


Vou. X.—3 L 


taking. 
will examine the natur 


442 


Plain of Grenelle. On the surface it is formed of 
eravel, pebbles, and fragments of rock, which have 
been deposited by the waters at some period an- 
terior to any historical record. Below this suriace M. 
Mulot knew, by geological inductions and previous 
experience, that at Grenelle marl and clay would be 
found in place of the limestone which in gencral forms 
the stratum immediately beneath. M. Mulot was 
aware he must bore about four hundred and forty 
yards in depth, before he should mcet with the sources 
(S$), which flow in the gravel below the limestone and 
supply the wells of St. Ouen, St. Denis, and Stains. 
Beneath the marl and clay, the boring-rods had to per- 
forate pure gravel, plastic clay, and finally chalk, which 
forms the bottom of the basin in which the tertiary strata 
have been deposited. No calculations or geological 
knowledge could determine the thickness of this stratum 
of chalk, which from its powers of resistance might pre- 
sent a nearly insurmountable obstacle. The experience 
obtained in boring the wells of Elbeuf, Rouen, and 
Tours was in this respect but a very impericct guide. 
But supposing this obstacle to be overcome, was he 
sure of finding a supply of water below this mass of 
chalk? In the first place, the strata (C, D) below the 
chalk possessed, as we shall sce, all the necessary con- 
ditions for producing Artesian springs, namely, succes- 
sive layers of clay and gravel, or pervious and imper- 
vious beds. M. Mulot confidently relied upon his for- 
mer experience of the borings of the wells at Rouen, 
Elbeuf, and Tours, where abundant supplies of water 
had been found below the chalk between similar strata 
of clay and gravel. 

But one other. condition is requisite to effect the 
rising of the water in an Artesian well, viz. that the 
point of infiltration should be higher than the orifice 
above which the water is to rise. This also was the 
case at Grenelle. In fact, M. Arago had shown that 
the water of the spring in question would necessarily 
rise to the surface, because, in the well at Elbeut, 
which is nearly nine yards above the level of the sea, 
the water rises from twenty-seven to twenty-nine yards 
above the surface of the earth, and consequently from 
thirty-six to thirty-eight yards above the level of the 
ocean. Now, as the orifice at Grenelle is only thirty- 
four yards above this same level, it follows that if the 
same spring were met with, the water must rise above 
the surface of the earth at Grenelle. 

The necessary works were now commenced with 
hboring-rods about nine yards long, attached to each 
other, and which could be raised or lowered by mecha- 
nical means; and an ingenious method was adopted 
for giving them a circular motion. The diameter of 
the bore-hole was about six inches. The instrument 
attached to the end of the lowest boring-rod was 
changed according to the different strata which were 
successively reached, the torm adapted for passing 
through the softer materials of the surface being un- 
suitable to boring through the chalk and flint, a hollow 
tube being used for the former, while the latter was 
penetrated by a chiscl-shaped instrument. The size of 
the rods diminished in proportion to the depth, and as 
the subterranean water was not reached so soon as was 
expected, it became requisite five several times to 
enlarge the diameter of the bore, to admit of the work 
being successfully continued. Accidents occurred 
also, which tried the utmost patience of the projectors. 
In May, 1837, when the boring had extended to a depth 
of four hundred and eighteen yards, the holiow tube, 
with nearly ninety yards of the boring-rods attached 
to it, broke, and fell to the bottom of the hole, 
and it was necessary to extract the brcken parts 
before any further progress could be made. The 
difficulty of accomplishing this may be conceived when 
it is stated that the different fragments were not with- 


THE gPENIN GY 


MAGAZINE. ( NovemBer 13 
drawn until after the lapse of fifteen months. <A de- 
scription of the ingenious mode by which this was 
effected would be too technical for our work. Again, 
in April, 1840, in passing through the chalk, the chisel 
attached to the boring-rod became detached, and before 
it could be recovered several months were spent in 
excavating round it. <A similar occurrence created 
an obstacle which impeded the work for three monihs, 
but instead of being withdrawn, the detached part was 
driven literally into the stratum, which happened to 
be gravel. At length, in February, 1841, after eight 
years’ labour, the rods suddenly descended several 
yards: they had pierced the vault of the subterranean 
waters of which M. Mulot had been so long in search. 
In the course of a few hours the water rose to the sur- 
face, and discharged itself at the rate of 600,000 gallons 
per hour. The depth attained was six hundred and two 
yards, or about three times the height of St. Paul’s. 
The pipe by which the water reaches the surface has 
recently been carried to a height nearly on a level with 
the source of supply. The pipe, as it rises from the 
rround and the scaffolding which supports 1t, are shown 
in the cut. At present the water fiows into a circular 
iron reservoir at the top of the scaffold, and it is thence 
conveyed by another pipe to the ground. The water 
is of good quality, and well adapted for culinary and 
domestic purposes. There is no fear of the supply 
proving deficient, as it is derived from the infiltration 
of a surface of country nearly two hundred miles 
in diameter. The Artesian wells of Elbeuf, Tours, 
and Rouen, which were formed many years ago, 
flow in an invariable volume. The ancient Arte- 
sian well at Lillers, in the Pas de Calais, has for above 
seven centurics furnished a constant and equable sup- 
ply: When the source of supply is less extensive, these - 
wells may be subject to variations, but the probability 
of this may generally be foreseen by the geologist and 
the engineer. 

The opportunity of ascertaining the temperature 
of the earth at great depths was not neglected during 
the progress of the works at Grenelle. Thermo- 
meters placed at a depth of thirty yards in the wells of 
the Paris Observatory invariably stand at 53° Fahren- 
heit. In the well at Grenelle the thermometer was 
74° at a depth of four hundred and forty-two yards, 
and at five hundred and fifty yards it stood at 
79°. The depth attained being six hundred and 
two yards, the temperature of the water which rose to 
the surface was 81°, corroborating previous calcula- 
tions on the subject. Now that the patient labour of 
so inany years is brought to a close, our ucighbours 
regret that 1t was not hecessary to go to a depth of 
about one thousand yards for a supply, as the water 
would then have been at a temperature of 104°, and 
immediately applicable to bathing establishments and 
other places in which warm water 1s required. 


CHAUCER'S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE SHIPMAN. 


“© A SHIPMAN was there woned* far by west ; 
For ought I wote he was of Dartemouth. 
He rode upon a rouncie f as he couthej, 
All ma gown of falding§ to the knee ; 
A dagger hanging by a lace had he 
About his neck, under his arm adown. 
The hotte summer had made his hue all brown, 
And certainly he was a good felléw. 
Full many a draught of wine he hadde draw 
From Bourdeaux ward, while that the chapmen sleep; 
Of nicé conscience took he no keep. 
* Lived. 
+ A common hackney horse. 
t That is to say, as well as he was able. 
§ A kind of coarse cloth. 


1841.) 


If that he fought, and had the higher hand, 

By water he sent them home to every land. 
But of his craft to reckon well his tides, 

His streames and his strandes him besides, 

His herberow™, Ins moon, and his lodemanagef, 
There was none such from Hull unto Carthage. 
Hardy he was and wise, I undertake; 

With many a tempest had his beard been shake. 
He knew well all the havens as they were 
From Gothland to the Cape de Finisterre, 

And every creek in Britain and in Spain: 

His barge ycleped was the Magdalen.” 


Commerce about and a litle prior to the period of 
Chaucer made so great an advance, that the Shipman 
was doubtless an linportant, and, considering the dan- 
gers of his avocation and the variety of adventures he 
was constantly meeting with, a very interesting cha- 
racter, The magnet only became known in Europe 
towards the end of the twelfth century, and did not, it 
is supposed, get into familiar use before the middle of 
the thirteenth. Chaucer, indeed, and his Scottish con- 
temporary Barbour, are the first British writers who 
notice it. From the description we perceive some of the 
channels in which the commerce of the fourteenth cen- 
tury flowed. English vessels passed to and fro between 
our country and France, Spain, and the places along 
the coast from “Gothland to Finisterre ;’ and among 
the ports Hull and Bourdeaux are particularly men- 
tioned. A peculiarity of the mercantile navy at this 
period was its bemg frequently employed in warlike 
expeditions ; aud to that circumstance we owe the pre- 
servation of many particulars as to its extent, &c. 
When Henry III., in 1253, ordered all the vessels in 
England to be seized and employed against the rebel 
barons in Gascony, their number, according to Matthew 
Paris, was above a thousand, of which three hundred 
were large ships. When Edward III. was besieging 
Calais, he had with him 710 vessels belonging to Eng- 
lish ports, with crews to the number of 14,151 persons. 
Jt may be interesting to see the relative proportion of 
the men and ships furnished by the different places ia 
England, as it may be taken asa tolerably exact cri- 
terion of their relative maritime importance. London 
sent 25 ships with 662 men; Margate, 15. with 160; 
Sandwich, 22 with 504; Dover, 16 with 336; Win- 
chelsea, 21 with 596; Weymouth, 20 with 264; New- 
castle, 17 with 4)4; Hull, 16 with 466; Grimsby, i1 
with 171; Exmouth, 10 with 193; Dartmouth, 31 with 
fore tlymouth, 26 with G03; Looe, 20 with 323; 
Fowey, 47 with 170; Bristol, 24 with 608; Shoreham, 
20 with 329; Southampton, 21 with 572; Lyme, 16 
with 482; Yarmouth, 43 with 1095; Gosport, 13 with 
403; Harwich, 14 with 283; Ipswich, 12 with 239; and 
Boston, 17 with 361. In the whole there are scarcely 
twenty men to a ship, so that the vessels gencrally must 
have been small. Later in the same century, and 
during Chaucer’s life-uume, 1360, Edward issued a si- 
milar, order to that before mentioned, for arresting all 
the vessels in his dominions ; the largest were now di- 
rected to carry forty mariners, forty armed men, and 
sixty archers. Such a ship must have been of very re- 
spectable dimensions for its more peaceful and legiti- 
mate avocations. Of the kind of articles which formed 
the staple comimodities of commerce during the period 
of the poet, we have a sufficiently exact account in the 
Records of the Exchequer for the year 1354, the oldest 
document we possess of the kind. From them it ap- 
pears that the exports of that year were—31,6514 sacks 


* Harbourage. 

+ Even so late as the reign of George II]. we find this word 
in use in the sense in which Chaucer applies it, namely, pilotage. 
See the stat. 3 Geo. I., c. 10. From the same idea, that of 


leading, the north star is called the /ode-star, and the magnet the | 


loadstone, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


443 


of wool, at G/. per sack ; 3036 cwt. of wool, at 40s. per 
cwt.; 65 woolfels, at a total value of 21s. Sd.; hides to 
the value of 897. 5s.; 47743 pieces of cloth, at 40s. each 
(of the same kind as the Shipman’s “ falding” perhaps) ; 
and 80612 pieces of worsted stuff, at 16s. Sd. each: total 
value of the exports, 212,338/. 5s., paying customs to 
the amount of 81,8462. 12s. 2d. From these figures it 
appears that wool constituted about thirteen-four- 
teenths of the entire exports of England. The imports 
consisted of 1831 pieces of fine cloth, at 62. each; 
3972 cwt. of wax, at 40s. per cwt.: 182934 tuns of wine, 
at 40s. per tun; and linens, mercery, grocery, &c. to 
the value of 22,9437. Gs. 10d.: making a total.value of 
38,3832. 16s. 10d. The wines here referred to, and 
which appear to have formed the chief commodity with 
which our shipman was concerned, were those ot 
Frauce, Spain, Greece, and Syria. 

For ought he knows, says the poet, the shipman was 
of Dartmouth; a glance at the comparative import- 
ance of Dartmouth among the chief maritime places 
of England, as shown above, will explain ts remark. 
Dartmouth contributed a more important total of ships 
and men than any other place in England, with the 
exception of Yarmouth. It was, no doubt, looked on 
through the country as peculiarly the seaman’s home. 
Shipmen and Dartmouth were ideas probably as faimi- 
har to our countrymen in Chaucer's time as sailors 
and Portsmouth now. This position Dartmouth owed, 
no doubt, to the convenience of its harbour, which can 
still accommodate 500 ships. As to Bourdeaux, where 
the Shipman has been accustomed to leave such a very 
equivocal reputation behind him, we may observe that 
it then belonged to the English, and that wine is still 
the staple export of the city. The touches of character 
by which Chaucer so happily marks all his creations 
are not wanting here:—the Shipman’s ridimg as well 
as he could ; no doubt succeeding as well as your true 
seaman is generally accustomed to succeed on horse- 
back ;—the ‘brown hue, and the beard that has been 
shaken by many a tempest,—all show how accurately 
Chaucer drew from the life, how he must ever kave 
described that alone which he saw. 


Life of the Hushandman in Hindostan.—The husbandman mses 
with the earliest dawn, washes, and says a prayer, then sets out 
with his cattle to his distant field. After an hour or two he eats 
some remnants of his yesterday’s fare for breakfast, and goes on 
with his labour till noon, wheu his wife brings out his hot din- 
ner; he eats it by a brook or under a tree, talks and sleeps till 
two o’clock, while his cattle also feed and repose. From two ti4] 
sunset he labours again; then drives his cattle home, feeds them, 
bathes, eats some supper, smokes, and spends the rest of the 
evening in amusement with his wife and children or his neigh- 
bours. The women fetch water, grind the corn, cook, and do the 
houschold work, besides spiming and such occupations. —Eiphin- 
stone's Hist. of India. 


So 


Those who, in confidence of superior capacities or attainments, 
disregard the common maxims of life, should remember that 
nothing can atone for the want of prudence ; that neghgence and 
irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit 
ridiculous, and genius contemptible. —Johnson. 





It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract a sentiment 
of piety from the works and the appearances of uature. It has 
the authority of the sacred wnters upon its side, ancl evel our 
Saviour himself gives it the weight and the solemnity of his ex- 
“ Behold the lilies of the field; they toil uot, neither do 
yet your heavenly Father careth for them.” He ex- 
patiates on a single flower, and draws from it the delightful 
arzument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste 
may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may be 
occupied with all that is serious in the contemplations of religion, 
and be at the same time alive to the charnis and the loveliness of 


nature.—Dr. Chalmers. See. 
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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 





{ NovEMBER I3, 


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{Remains of Stoke Manor-House.] 


RAILWAY RAMBLES. 


STOKE. 


Ata short distance from the churehyard the stranger 
may see some aneient ehimneys (of those beautiful 
forms whieh give our old architecture a eharacter some- 
thing different from the square lumps of briek of mo- 
dern times) rising out of the masses o: trees whieh 
form a pieturesque baekground to the chureh. These 
chimneys belong to what remains of the fine old manor- 
house of Stoke—a place full of the most interesting 
assoeiations. The history of the place is thus told by 
Lysons, 1n his ‘ Buckinghamshire ’— 

“ Amieia de Stoke brought the manor of this plaee 
in marriage to Robert Poges, who was ehosen one of 
the knights of the shire in the year 1300; his grand- 
daughter and heir, Egidia, married Sir John Molins, 
knight-baronet and treasurer of the ehamber to king 
Eidward III. In 1331 he had the royal licence for for- 
tifying and embattling his mansion at Stoke; and in 
1346 he procured a eharter that Stoke and Ditton, 
where also he had a seat, should be exempt from the 
authority of the King’s Marshal. From Sir John 
Molins this manor deseended by female heirs to the 
families of Hungerford and Hastings. Henry Hastings, 
earl of Huntingdon, rebuilt the manor-house in the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth. The estate was soon after- 
wards seized by the erown for a debt. King James the 
First, about the year 1621, granted the manor in fee to 
Lord Chief Justiee Coke, who appears to have held it 
many years before as lessee under the erown. In 1601, 
being then Attorney-General, he entertained Queen 
Filizabeth very sumptuously at this place, and pre- 
sented her Majesty with jewels to the value of 10004. 
or 1200/. In 1625, this celebrated lawyer, having quitted 
his high station, and being out of favour with the court, 
was obliged, mueh against his will, to serve the offiee 
of sheriff for the county; and it was thought by his 
friends a great degradation, that he, who had filled one 
of the highest situations on the beneh, should attend on 
the judges at the assizes. Sir John Vilhers, elder 
brother of the Duke of Buckingham, married Sir Ed- 
ward Coke’s only daughter, and this manor (then held 
by lease) having been settled on him at the time of his 
marriage, he was, in 1619, ereated a peer by the title 


of Baron Villiers of Stoke-Poges, and Viscount Pur- | Wyatt. 


beek. Lord Purbeck suecceded to this estate after the 
death of Sir Edward Coke, which happened in 1634, at 
his seat at Stoke-Poges. The house, it appears, was 
settled on his lady, who was relict of Sir William 
Hatton. 

“In 1647 Stoke House was for a short time the resi- 
denee of the unfortunate King Charles, when he was a 
prisoner in the power of the army. Not long after the 
death of Lord Purbeek, which happened in 1656, the 
manor of Stoke was sold by his heirs to John Gayer, 
Esq., elder brother of Sir Robert Gayer, K.B., who 
afterwards possessed it. It was purehased of the Gayers, 
about the year 1720, by Edward Halsay, Esq., one of 
the representatives of the town of Buekingham, whose 
daughter Anne married Lord Cobham. Stoke House 
and the manor were sold by her heirs to William Penn, 
Esq., ehief proprietor of Pennsylvania.” 

When Gray resided at Stoke, the old Manor-house 
was oecupied by Lady Cobham; and the poem of the 
‘Long Story’ was founded upon a visit which two 
ladies residing at the Manor-house paid the poet at 
his mother’s cottage. The opening of the poem 1s very 
spirited; and it gives a fine poetieal notion of what 
the old mansion was :— 


“ In Britain’s isle, no matter where, 
An ancient pile of building stands : 
The Huntingdons and Hattons there 
Kmploy’d the power of fairy hands 


To raise the ceiling’s fretted height, 
Kach panel in achievements clothing, 
Rich windows that exclude the light, 
And passages that lead to nothing. 


Full oft within the spacious walls, 
When he had fifty winters oer him, 
My grave Lord-Keeper led the brawls; 
The seals and maces danced before him. 


His bushy beard, and shoe-strings green, 

His high-crowird hat, and satin doublet, 

Mov’d the stout heart of England’s Queen, 
Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it.” 


With the exception of one wing, the Manor-housce 
was pulled down in 1789; and a modern house, with 
portico and eupola, was erected at some distanee, by 
We believe that if the old house had endure? 





1841.] 


to our own time, sucha destruction would not have 
taken place. The new mansion has a more command- 
ing site; and is one of those pretty things which the 
age of George II]. produced—having no characteristic 
of nation or age—bad copies of exotic originals. But 
it gives us nothing that can compensate for the sweep- 
ing away of the fabric which told the story of one of 
the most striking periods of our annals, and of more 
than one of the really great men of a great age. It is 
gone. We have an old kitchen left, capacious enough 
for the hospitality of an attorney-general who had a 
queen for his guest; and the wide fire-place is still 
remaining with its heraldic sculptures. 

























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ob aR eT bg Mant f. Ny BS? 20 a em WU el 
Pesci). NL 3, PE) SS Hn [anes WAL Thy 
on ly: wel a - (fi €: gow! 7 op Ay i DATTA 
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“nee 


In a small room: on the second floor there are some 
rude paintings, also heraldic, on the plastered walls, 
with the initials E. R.; on another side are some 
quaint inscriptions, amongst which we deciphered — 


‘* FEARE THE LORDE, 
OBEY THE PRINCE. 
LOVE THINE ENMIS. 
BEWARE OF PRIDE. 
SPEKE THE TRUETH. 
BEWARE OF MALLIS.” 


The scenery immediately surrounding the old Manor- 
house is exceedingly picturesque. 

About half a mile from the church 1s the house in 
which Gray resided. It is called Westend Cottage ; 
and is now a very commodious villa, with pleasing- 
grounds and ornamental water. The house, however, 
has been much enlarged and modernized. It appears 
to us that Gray meant to describe it in the following 
passage of a letter to his friend Palgrave :— 

“IT do not know how to make you amends, having 
neither rock, ruin, or precipice near me to send you; 
they do not grow in the South: but only say the word, 
if yon would have a compact neat box of red brick 
with sash-windows, or a grotto made of flints and shell- 
work, or a walnut-tree with three mole-hills under 1t, 
stuck with honeysuckles round a basin of gold fishes, 





THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 445 
and you shall be satisfied; 
Edinburgh coach.” 

The walnut-tree still remains; and so docs the 
sulmmer-house or grotto. 


they shall come by the 


THE RAIN-GAUGE, OR PLUVIOMETER. 
VHERE are but few of us who would not be glad to know 
whether and when “ it is going to rain,” but we are not 
yet in a condition to lay down rules in the matter. It 
is not known what is the total quantity of rain which 
falls, nor how far it differs in different ycars at the same 
place; neither is it certain that all the causes which 
tend to produce rain are known to us. Much, very 
much, has yet to be done before these points can be 
determined ; and the only mode of determining them 
1s by careful observations on the phenomena of weather, 
by the aid of well-constructed instruments. One of 
the most obvious of these instruments, so far as rain is 
concerned, is the ratn-gauge or pluviometer, concern- 
ing which we shall here offer a few explanatory obser- 
vations. 

The rain-gauge, however it may be formed, is an in- 
strument or vessel for catching the rain as it falls, with 
a view of determining, at the end of any given 
period, the quantity of rain which has fallen within 
that period. This quantity is not measured by the 
gallon or other analogous measures, nor by weight, 
but by depth in inches; that is, if a large flat-bottomed 
vessel were exposed openly to the rain, and the rain- 
water could be prevented from evaporating, how many 
meches depth of water would there be in it at the end 
of a given period? It is evident that this depth would 
be the same whether the vessel was a yard square or a 
foot square, provided the shape and position of the two 
were alike. In practice, however, it is necessary to 
guard against the effect of evaporation, and also to pro- 
vide the means of conveniently measuring the quantity 
of rain which has fallen. These objects have given 
rise to the various forms of rain-gauge. 

Most rain-gauges consist of a funnel whose stem 
descends into a bottle or other close vessel beneath. 
In an instrument invented by Mr. Pickering during the 
last century, the rain was received in a tin funnel only 
one inch square, and thence descended into a graduated 
glass tube half an inch in diameter; by observing the 
height at which the water stood in the tube at the end 
of any given time, and comparing the diameter of the 
tube with the dimensions of the funnel, the number of 
inches of rain fallen was ascertained. In the old rain- 
gauge at the Royal Society’s apartinents, the rain was 
received in a conical funnel twelve inches in diameter, 
strengthened at the top by a brass ring twelve inches in 
diameter; the sides of the funnel and the inner lp of 
the brass rmg were inclined to the horizon at an angle 
of 65°, and the outer lip at an angle of 50°, with a view 
both of preventing the ram which fell within the 
funnel from being splashed out, and of preventing the 
introduction of that which fell on the outer lp. 

Dr. Heberden used a tin funnel, the stem of which 
consisted of a very long tube, which passed into a 
bottle through a cork, to which it was exactly fitted ; 
the tube went down very near to the bottom of the 
bottle, and therefore the rain which fell into it would 
soon rise above the lower end of the tube, so that the 
water was nowhere open to the air, except for the 
small space of the area of the tube : scarcely any evapo- 
ration could take place from such an mstrument. Dr. 
Gordon employed a rain-gauge consisting of a copper 
funnel five inches in diameter at the top, and mseried 
at the bottom into a tube of the same metal. This tube 
was thirty inches in length, one and a half in diameter, 
and furnished with a stop-cock at the lower end. It 
was examined every morning at ten o’clock, and if any 
rain had fallen during the twenty-four hours, it was 





446 


measured by letting it off through the stop-cock into a 
elass tube half au inch in diameter, with an attached 
scale of inches and tenths. By tlis means the rain that 
fell in a circular area five inches in diameter was col- 
lected in an area half an inch in diameicer (one-tenth 
as much); and as the superficial area of the one was a 
hundred times that of the other, inches and tenths of 
water in the tube correspouded to hundredths and 
thousandths of an inch of rain on the surface of thie 
ground. To prevent waste by evaporation, the com- 
munication between the funnel and the copper tube 
Was made very narrow; and the upper edge or rim of 
the funnel was bent so as to prevent the splashing of 
the water. 

Dr. Trail describes the following form of rain-gauge: 
—lt consists of a cylindrical copper vessel, rather less 
than four inches in diameter; upon the upper part of 
which a funnel of the same metal, with an upright 
brim, exactly one foot in diameter, 1s fitted. A hollow 
vessel of metal, or a piece of cork, serves as a float, to 
support a rod of box-wood graduated in tenths of au 
inch. The water which falls into the funnel finds its 
way into the cylinder, and raises the float. The quan- 
tity is read off the rod at a stay placed across the fun- 
nel; and froin the relative proportion of the cylinder and 
the funnel, each one-tenth of an inch is equivaleut to 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[NovemBER 13, 


made between the quantity of rain which fell in two 
places in London, about a mile distant from one an- 
other, it was found that the rain in one of them con- 
stantly exceeded that in the other, not only every 
month, but almost every time that rain fell. As the 
gauges were exactly alike, and were observed in a Si- 


milar manner, attempts were made to ascertain the 


cause of the difference. One of the gauges was fixed so 


high as to rise above all the neighbouring chimneys; | 


the other was considerably below them; and there ap- 
peared reason to beheve that the difference in the 
quantity of rain in these two places was owing to this 
difference of height. To test this opimion, three rain- 
rauges were regularly observed for twelve months, 
from July, 1766, to July, 1767; one being placed on the 
square part of the roof of Westminsier Abbey, another 
npon the top of a dwelling-house, and the third not far 
from the ground. Each rain-gauge was examined once 
a month, and it was found, at the end of the year, that 
while twenty-two inches of ran had fallen into the 
lowest gauge, only eighteen had fallen into the middle 
one, and twelve in the uppermosi. 

Mr. Barrington, a year or two afterwards, made some 
experiments to show that this difference of quantity 
does not depend on the actual difference of level be- 
tween the stations, considered with reference to a truly 


one-hundredth of an inch of water entering the mouth | horizontal plane, but on the difference of the height at 


of the funnel. 

A rain-gauge recommended by Mr. Howard is the 
following :—The funnel is fitted on the neck of a glass 
bottle, by means of an exterior tube which 1s soldered 
to the funnel, and prevents the entrance of water into 
the vessel except through the mouth of the funnel. 
The quantity of rain 1s ascertained by a graduatcd glass 
measure, the divisions of which correspond to one-hun- 
dredths of an inch falling on the mouth of the funnel. 

Professor J. Phillips, having in his researches on 
rain, conducted at York under the auspices of the 
British Association, been led to notice the unportance 
of determining the direction in which rain falls, as well 
as the quantity, constructed a very ingenious rain-gauge 
with this object in view. It consists of a compound 
gauge, having five equal receiving funnels and tubes: 
one with a vertical tube and horizontal aperture; the 
other four with tubes recurved, so as to present the 
openings of the funnels in four vertical planes, directed 
to four quarters of the horizon. Tach tube has a cock 
at the lower end for drawing off the water into a gra- 
duated tube. Now, it is obvious from such an arrange- 
ment, that the funnels will receive diferent quantities 
of rain durig any one shower. If the rain descend 
perpendicularly, none will fall into any of the lateral 
funnels (the rims of which are vertical); if it descend 
obliquely from east to west, consequent onan east wind, 
some will fall in the east funnel, but none in the other 
three lateral funnels; if it come from a direction a 
little southward of east, a small quantity will fall in the 
south funnel, and a larger in the east; if the rain veer 
about in different directions during a shower, it is just 
possible that all the lateral funnels may receive por- 
tions of it. The rain which falls in the funnels being 
carefully measured after each shower, the observer is 
able immediately to determine the direction and incli- 
nation of the rain. 

So lone as one raim-gauge is employed at any one 
station, the results which it affords are of but partial 
benefit ; but when different gauges are placed near each 
other, but at different heights, some very remarkable 
phenomena are observed. Jt is found that more rain 
falls at the earth’s surface than at several feet above 
the surface. This has been decisively shown by Mr. 
Phillips’s rain-gauge experiments at York ; but the fact 
was observed seventy ycars ago by Dr. Heberden and 
Mr. Daines Barrington. A comparison having been 


which the instruments stood from the ground. Two 
facts were adduced in support of this. Two rain-gauges 
were placed, the one upon Mount Rennig in Wales, 
and the other in the plain below, at about half a mile’s 
distance ; the perpendicular height of the mountain 
being about thirteen hundred feet, and the gauges being 
placed respectively at equal heights above the surface 
of the ground at the two stations, it was found that 
the quantity of rain received in the two gauges was very 
nearly equal. The second fact was, that of the two 
rauges experimented on at the two houses in London, 
that one into which the greater quantity of rain had 
fallen, although placed at a lower part of the house to 
which it was attached, was in reality fifteen feet above 
the level of the other, which, in anothcr part of Lon- 
don, was placed above the top of the house, and into 
which the lesser quantity always jell. 

Repeated observations of this kind have been since 
made, but a good deal of doubt has existed as to the 
correctness of the registers kept. Recently, however, 
Mr. Philips has observed these phenomena, at York 
with very great care. In the year 1832 he placed three 
rain-cauges at different elevations at York: one on the 
top of the Minster, at a height of twe hundred and 
forty-two feet from the level of the river; one on the 
top of the Yorkshire Museum, at a height of seventy- 
three feet; and the other in a garden, at the height of 
twenty-nine feet. Each gauge consisted of a cubical 
box of tin, measuring ten inches each side, open at top, 
and receiving, at an inch below its edge, a funnel 
sloping to asmall hole in the centre. The water which 
entered the funnel was poured into a cylindrical glass 
vessel graduated to cubic inches and fifths of cubic 
inches. Hence one inch depth of rain in the gauge was 
measured by one hundred inches of the graduated ves- 
sel; and one-thousandth of an inch of rain was easily 
read off. With these instruments Mr. Philhps found 
that one year’s rain in the three gauges was about six- 
teen, twenty, and twenty-four inches respectively, the 
lowest gauge receiving the largest quantity. The next 
year gave (in round numbers) fifteen, twenty, and 
twenty-six inches; and subsequent years have given 
proportions more or less analogous to these. 

The circumstance is therefore no longer doubted that 
rain does fall more plentifully at the level of the ground 
than at a greater elevation, and many tlieories have 
been started to explain it. Mr. Phillips thinks the 


1811.1 


whole difference in the quantity of rain, at different 
heights above the surface of the neighbouring ground, 
Is caused by the continual augmentation of each drop 
of rain from the commenceinent to the end of its 
descent, as it traverses successively the humid strata of 
alr ata temperature so much lower than that of the 
surrounding medium, as to cause the deposition of its 
moisture on its surface. The arguments which have 
been adduced in confirmation of or in opposition to this 
opinion we shall not here detail, as the subject is yet 
in its infancy. 

In some ‘Instructions for making and registering 
Meteorological Observations,’ circulated by the South 
African Literary and Philosophical Institution, esta- 
blished at the Cape of Good Hope, are the following 
remarks relating to the rain-gauge :—“ The rain-gauge 
is an instrument of such extremely easy construction, 
that any person who lives near a tinman can procure 
one. In arid climates, it must, however, be remem- 
bered that it will often need examination and cleansing, 
owing to long intervals of disuse, in which insects and 
dust may lodge. It-will often happen too that the 
slight rain of one day, if left unregistered, may be en- 
tirely lost by evaporation in the next; nay, that slight 
and transient showers may never enter it, being eva- 
porated from itas they fall. The effect of copious dew, 
too, must be separated from that of rain, so that the 
mere registry of the contents of the gauge is not of itself 
a sufficient indication whether rain has fallen in the 
night or not. However, there are usually good reasons 
for decision on this point from other indications. 
Attention to the amount of dew is very necessary, not 
only because the meteorological questions involved are 
of a high degree of interest generally, but because in 
arid climates the dews are of almost as much import- 
ance to the maintenance of vegetation as the rain. In 
stating the quantity of rain daily received in the gauge, 
the height of the receiver above the soil should be 
mentioned, experience having shown that the quan- 
tities of rain which actually fall in a given area on the 
sround, and at a very moderate height above it, often 
differ materially. In some localities and circumstances 
the rain-drops receive accession from the air as they de- 
scend, in others they undergo partial evaporation. The 
former is generally the case in cool moist climates.” 


% 


INUNDATIONS IN HOLLAND IN 1823. 


{Concluded from page 438.) 


Ir would have been happy for the Dutch if this had 
been the whole or even the greater part of the damage 
done to their country at the beginning of F ebruary, 
1825, but this was only a small portion of the calamity. 
The same high tide, the same violent tempest of wind 
and rain, and the same irresistible pressure of the 
Water against the dykes, extended round the whole 
interior of the basin of the Zuider Zee. In many 
places its sea-bulwarks were driven down; in others 
the waters rose above them and poured over them with 
a full flood into the devoted country below for five or 
six hours without obstacle or interruption. The con- 
sequence was that a large portion of the extensive pro- 
vinces of Overyssel, Friesland, and Groningen was 
deluged in a single night, and filled as brimful to the 
ht of the sea as if no barrier had existed to check its 
ury. 

In East Friesland and Overyssel especially, the in- 
undation was terrific, and the damage immense... Out 
of the thirty-two lordships of which the former con- 
sists, only five escaped the flood. The rest were all 
partly or entirely overflowed, and more than one hun- 
dred thousand acres of their most fertile land con- 
verted-into a salt-water lake. The flood in this quarter 





THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 447 
rose four feet above the dykes, and poured in upon 
the country below in a continnous stream. It was 
impossible to resist, and difficult by the most rapid 
flight to escape itsfury. Men, cattle, and every living; 
thing fell a sacrifice to its rage. In many of the vil- 
lages and farm-steadings nota house was left standing, 
nor was a head of cattle saved. The number of men 
who perished in the water, or were crushed to death by 
their falling houses, amounted to about one hundred. 
In one lordship only the number of black cattle 
drowned amounted to more than athousand. In some 
places the villages and churches were raised a little 
above the level of the fields and meadows. Thither 
the peasants, therefore, ran for safety. In the church 
of the village of Wolvega, for instance, four hundred 
of these wretched beings took refuge from the sur- 
rounding flood, without being able to carry with them 
a single article of food or rag of clothing, and re- 
mained benumbed with cold or perishing with hunger 
till the arrival of means of relief. 

In other cases, four or five hundred of them were 
found crowded together in the market-places, among 
falling houses, exposed to the inclemency of a wintry 
sky, and every sort of physical destruction. In one 
case, where a multitude had retreated to the shelter of 
a church, its roof was set on fire by hghtning. The 
miserable victims of the inundation thus saw their 
lives contested by the two fiercest elements of nature, 
and were threatened to be burned in the midst of the 
deluge. These sacred edifices, though often raised on 
higher ground, and made of more durable materials, 
than the cottage of the peasant, or the houses of the 
village, were sometimes, like them, unable to with- 
stand the weight of the flood, and, falling down, again 
exposed the wretched refugees to the mclemency of 
the storm. Sometimes, when the houses left standing 
were sufficient to receive the shivering outcasts of 
those which had fallen, the churches were converted 
into cow-houses or stables for the remnant of the 
rescued cattle ; for such deep and overpowering cala- 
mities confound all conventional distinctions of places 
and things, and substitute an irresistible and unrea- 
soning necessity for sentiment and feeling. The 
devouring element, which had swallowed up the dwell- 


‘ings of the living, and even disinterred the coffins of 


the dead, left neither time, power, nor inclination to at- 
tend to the sacredness ofan openasylum. The churches, 
where found standing, were converted indiscriminately 
into hospitals, stables, or storehouses. To what other 
purpose could they now be destined? The dreadful 
catastrophe happened near the close of the week. In 
afew hours the Sunday approached, and the village 
bell would have called the people to the house of 
prayer; but it had previously sounded the tocsin of 
alarm, and hastened them to other scenes. Instead of 
indulging in peaceful worship, they were now called 
to fly from their homes, or to struggle for their lives— 
to hear the bellowing of their drowning cattle, or the 
crash of their falling houses-—-to escape in crowded 
boats over their flooded farms, or to attempt a safe 
standing on the labouring dykes, against which they 
saw their household furniture, their agricultural im- 
plements, their winter stores, their all, dashed like the 
foam of asurf. In such a scene of suffering, in such 
an immeasurable desolation, “waste and wild,” the 
strong walls of the churches, instead of being profaned, 
were doubly consecrated by offering a place of refuge. 
Many of the houseless outcasts of the inundation con- 
tinued to occupy this kind of retreat till the middie of 
March, supplied with clothes and food by the charity 
of their less suffering neighbours. 

As the district called Hestslellengwerf suffered more 
than most of the other districts ot this province, we 
may just state the amount of the damage. It lost 836 


448 THE PENNY 
horned cattle above two years old, and 549 below that 
age, or in all 1383; 18 horses, 265 sheep, and 54 goats ; 
15,177 roods of peats, and mere than a million of 
pieces of timber. * Besides this, 166 farm-steadings and 
hamlets were injured, damaged, or entirely swept 
away. In two small hamlets 400 cattle were lost. In 
two other districts upwards of a thousand of the pre- 
viously wealthy inhabitants remained towards the mid- 
dle of March, deprived of all their property, destitute 
of everything, and dependent for their daily support 
on the charity of others. The breaches made in the 
dykes, the carrying off of farm produce, the loss in 
provisions, fuel, and furniture,the destruction of trees 
—whose roots the salt water had withered—and the 
ruin of more than twenty square miles of excellent 
land, for a year or two to come, presented an over- 
whelming mass of damage in this province, of which 
it would be difficult to calculate the amount. 

But the devastation of Friesland was small com- 
pared with that of Overyssel, though the extent of th- 
inundation was greater. In the latter province, ac 
cording to official reports, more than two hundred and 
fifty men were known to be drowned, and others had 
disappeared who were supposed to be lost; ninety 
thousand acres of the best land were deluged; fifteen 
hundred houses were entirely swept away, and double 
the number greatly damaged ; fourteen thousand large 
cattle destroyed, besides sheep and smaller animals; 
and four thousand families, previously in wealthy or 
comfortable circumstances, entirely ruined, and left to 
depend on public charity or national compensation. 
The loss in manufactories, magazines, tanneries, salt- 
works, windmills, stores, trees, dykes, and other esta- 
blishments, was almost incalculable. 

In the higher province of Gelderland the inunda- 
tion was likewise frightful and destructive, though not 
so extensive nor ruinous as in the two bordering 
states. It drowned about thirty persons, and carried 
off more than one thousand cattle. It advanced so 
far as to threaten even the dykes of the province of 
Utrecht. Groningen, East Friesland, and I:mden 
likewise suffered severely; all the country at the 
mouth of the Ems, and for several miles into the in- 
terior, being laid under water both from the sea and 
the river. 

The province of Zealand, which includes Walcheren 
and the other islands at the mouths of the Scheldt and 
the Meuse, sustained great damage in the breaches 
made in its dykes and bulwarks, and in the destruction 
of inanimate property, though only one hie was lost, 
and no extensive ruin occasioned. The streets of 
Middleburg and Flushing were laid under water, and 
considerable injury was done to the houses. The ac- 
tivity of the burgomaster and the zealous co-operation 
of the inhabitants of the latter place, prevented more 
extensive calamities, by filling up the breaches as soon 
as they were made. The whole island was in most 
imminent danger. The islands of Schowen, Tholen, 
and South Beveland had likewise to lament the vio- 
lence of the storm, and the pressure of the waters upon 
their bulwarks. But the most extensive inundation 
which took place on the western side of the United 
Provinces was that which proceeded from the over- 
flowing of the Bieschbosch near Dort, itself an inland 
sea, proceeding from a similar convulsion, which is 
said, in 1425, to have occasioned the destruction of 
seventy-two villages, and the death of one hundred 
thousand inhabitants. The deluge of February, 1825, 
covered about six thousand acres of fertile land, and 
threatened with destruction the city and island of Dort. 
The water rose ten feet in the streets of the suburbs. 
Considerable damage was done both here and on the 
Meuse at Rotterdam. 


All along the coast of the German Ocean from | 






MAGAZINE. [NovEMBER 138; 


Ostend, the ramparts of which were partially damaged 
and seriously endangered, to the Helder, in North 
Holland, and the islands which act like breakwaters at 
the entrance of the Zuider Zee, the tempest extended, 
and the sandbanks and dykes were injured. At the 
Helder, the immense blocks of granite brought from 
Norway to compose a durable sea-wall were unable 
to withstand the violence of the waters, and were scat- 
tered about like pebbles. Most of the cluster of 
islands which we have mentioned (we mean the Texel, 
Flieland, Terspelling, and Ameland) were inundated 
and greatly damaged. | 

Since the year 1170 there have been nine great in- 
undations of different provinces of the Netherlands, 
more or less destructive, namely, those of 1170, 1404, 
1421, 1470, 1531, 1532, 1570, 1592, and 1633; but none 
of them, with the exception perhaps of that which 
created the great lake near Dort, in 1421, committed 
such dreadful havoc on the defences of the country and 
the property of the people as that of February, 1825. 
Only a wealthy and industrious people could repair 
the public injury, or enable the sufferers to support 
their individual losses. 


Chinese Idea of Death—A Chinese, convicted of a cruel 
murder, had been sentenced to transportation for life. His 
friends, who sought to procure a mitigation of his punishment, 
solicited my supposed influence as an Englishman with the 
Governor on their behalf. I urged the aggravated nature of the 
offence as a reason why I could not even conscientiously ask 
such a thing, if I were sure of success; and suggested that it 
ought to be a matter of thankfulness he was not hanged. He 
immediately replied, that he considered this a much severer 
punishment than death; for in that case his parents, who were 
living, might have performed his funeral rites aud the usual 
offices at the tomb, of which he was now deprived, while they 
would also be totally cut off from all intercourse with their son 
after death as well as in life-—China, by Professor Kidd, 


Language of England.—At this extraordinary period, when 
England was a foreign kingdom, the English people found some 
solitary friends—and these were the rustic monk and the itinerant 
minstrel, for they were Saxons, but subjects too mean and remote 
for the gripe of the Norman, occupied in rooting out their lords 
to plant his own for ever in the Saxon soil. The monks, who 
lived rusticated in their scattered monasteries, sojourners in the 
midst of their conquered land, often felt their Saxon blood tingle 
in their veins. Not only did the filial love of their country 
deepen their sympathies, but a more personal indignation rankled 
in their secret bosoms, at the foreign intruders, French or Italian, 
—the tyrannical bishop and the voluptuous abbot. There were 
indeed monks, and some have been our chroniclers, base-born, 
humiliated, and living in fear, who in their leiger-books, when 
they alluded to their new masters, called them “the conquerors,” 
noticed the year when some “ conquerors” came in, and recorded 
what the “conquerors” had enacted. All these ‘ conquerors” 
designated the foreigners, who were the heads of their houses. 
But there were other truer Saxons. Inspired equally by their 
public and their private feeling, these were the first who, throw- 
ing aside both Latin and French, addressed the people in the 
ouly language intelligible to them. The patriotic monks decided ’ 
that the people should be reminded that they were Saxons, and 
they continued their history in their own language. . . The true 
language of the people lingered on their lips, and it seemed to 
bestow a shadowy independence to a population in bondage. The 
remoter the locality, the more obdurate was the Saxon; and these 
indwellers were latterly distinguished as “ Uplandish” by the in- 
habitants of cities. For about two centuries “ the Uplandish ” 
held no social connection; separated not only by distance, but by 
their isolated dialects and peculiar customs, these natives of tlie 
soil shrank into themselves, intermarrying and dying on the same 
spot; they were hardly aware that they were without a country. 
—D' Israeli’s Amenities of Literature. 





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CHAUCER’S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 


THE HABERDASHER, ETC. 


In this group of portraits Chaucer has not attempted 
to give us any individuality; no doubt, none knew 
better than himself that m describing one of these 
“ warm comfortable men,” he described all; whilst by 
“massing them,” he brought out still more strongly 
the chief and common feature-—their wealth. 


“¢ An haberdasher and a carpenter, 
A webbe™, a dyer, and a tapiserf, 
Were all yclothed in one livery 
Of a solemn and great fraternity. 
Full fresh and new their gear ypikedt was. 
Their kmves were ychaped§ not with brass, 
But all with silver wrought full clean and well : 
Their girdles and their pouches every de]| 
Well seemed each of them a fair burgéss 
To sitten ina guildhalle on the dais ; 
Kverich for the wisdom that he can 
Was shapelich for to be an alderman. 
For cattle hadden they enough and rent; 
And eke their wivés would it well assent : 
And elles certainly they were to blame. 
It is full fair to be yeleped Madame, 
And for to go to vigils] all before, 
And have a mantle royally ybore.” 


The best illustrations of this passage of the prologue 
will perhaps be a few notices of the trades and com- 





* Weaver. + Maker of tapestry. } Picked ; spruce. 
§ Furnished; mounted. || Livery del, every part, or every 
bit. @| The eves of festivals. 


No. 615. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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panies to which these civic pilgrims belonged, and ol 
the aldermanic rank to which they, and more par- 
ticularly their wives, aspired. 

The haberdashers were perhaps the principal of the 
trade associations with which we have here to do. 
They were originally a branch of the mercers, and 
dealt, like them, m small wares. Lydgate, in his well- 
known ballad of ‘ Lykpenny’s Adventures in London,’ 
places their stalls in the ‘Mercery,’ at Cheap. About 
the time of Chaucer they divided mto two fraternities, 
dedicated respectively to St. Catherine and St. Ni- 
cholas ; one branch consisting of the hatters or hurrers, 
and the other of the dealers m miscellaneous articles, 
who were also called milliners, from their importing 
Milan goods for sale, such as broaches, aiglets, spurs, 
glasses, &c. Pins formed an important article of the 
haberdashery trade at this period, having not long 
superseded the points or skewers made of thorns, by 
which ladies were previously obliged to fasten their 
earments. With respect to the carpenters of the four- 
teenth century, we have only to mention that the toois 
of an individual engaged in that trade m Colchester 
consisted mercly of a broad axe, value five pence, an- 
other three pence; an adze, two pence; a square, one 
penny, a navegor (probably a spokeshave), one penny : 
making the total value of his implements one shilling 
A carpenter of the present day would be puzzled toa 
perform all the variety of operations required of him 
with such tools only: Azs chest is a somewhat expen- 
sive affair. The weavers’ guild was one of the oldest 
associations of the kind of which we have any account ; 


VoL. X.—3 M 


450 


and we possess a record in connection with them 
which is interesting in several pomts of view. We 
allude to the particulars of a case brought before the 
Justices Itinerant sitting at the Tower of London, in 
the reign of Edward II. On this occasion “ the wea- 
vers were required to show by what authority they at 
this time claimed to have their guild in the city, and by 
virtue of the same guild to have yearly the right of 
electing from amongst themselves bailiifs and mims- 
ters; and the same so elected to take and swear in 
faithfully to execute their offices before the mayor af 
London? By what right also they claimed to hold 
their courts from week to weck of all that pertained to 
their guild, and that none should intermeddle with their 
ministers in London, Southwark, or the parts adjacent, 
unless by their own permission, or that it were done by 
one of the guild; and that persons of the same guild 
should not be impleaded by others of matters concern- 
ing the mystery, except in the courts of the guild, or be 
elsewhere accused and answered? Why none might 
have working implements in their possession uiless 
the same were testitied to be good and honest, and that 
all of the mystery should be forced to contribute to 
the king’s ferme? Why no stranger was to be ad- 
mitted as a manufacturer amongst them without pro- 
ducing letters testimonial of good conduct, and the 
reasons of his coming? Why the working implements 
of such of the mystery as were in arrears of their 
fermes might be distrained by the bailiffs of the guild ? 
....It was further demanded, why, if any one 
manufactured cloth of Candlewick Street, he ought to 
be overlooked by the bailiffs of the guild, whether or not 
his work was bad, and to the damage of the people; 
and if so, that it should be proved before the mayor of 
London, and the offender fined in half a mark; and 
moreover that such workmen should be brought be- 
fore the bailiffs of the guild, according to the Constitu- 
tions ; and whatever cloth or piece of cloth should be 
found to be of Spanish mixed with English wool, con- 
trary to proper usage, might be adjudged to be burnt ? 
. . . « Why those of the guild might sell without con- 
trol in London all things belonging to the mystery ? 
And, lastly, why none were allowed to work between 
Christmas and the Purification, or at night by candle- 
hght, at other times proscribed?”’* The weavers 
pleaded in answer a charter of Edward I., in which 
were recited charters of Henry IJ. and Henry I.; but 
the jury decided in a great measure against them with 
regard to the privileges claimed, and declared that the 
business was managed by the weavers “to their own 
profit and the common hurt of the people.” Of the 
Dyers’ Company, we need only remark that it possessed 
the peculiar privilege of keeping swans on the Thames. 
Some idea of the respective footing of these Companies 
in Chaucer’s time is afforded by a paper in the City 
Records, showing the number of persons sent by each 
to the Common Council. The Haberdashers and 
Hurrers, the Weavers, and the Tapisers, or Tapestry- 
makers, sent four from each Company; the Joiners, 
or, we presume, Carpenters, two; whilst the Dyers’ 
Company was not at all mentioned. 

It appears from the text that aldermen’s wives were 
honoured with the title of Madame, and that they took 
precedence in attending vigils, and of course on other 
public occasions. The qualifications required from per- 
sons elected asaldermen were, acertainnumber of cattle 
anda certainamount of rent. According to Stow, it was 
necessary also that the person proposed for alderman 
should be without deformity in body, wise and discreet 
in mind, wealthy, honourable, faithful, free, and of no 
base or servile condition; that no disgrace which 


* Herbert's ‘ History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies,’ 
vol. i., p. 18. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[NovemMBER 20, 


might happen to him on account of his birth, might 
thence redound on the rest of the aldermen or the 
whole city. And hence it came to pass that none was 
made apprentice, or at least admitted into the liberty 
of the city, unless he was known to be ofa gentleman- 


like condition; or if, after he had been made free, it 


came “to be shown that he was of servile condition, for 
that very thing he lost the freedom of the city.”* 

About the period Chaucer is supposed to have been 
writing the ‘Canterbury Tales’ (1386), 1t was ordered 
that in the taking of apprentices, and also in the 
admitting to freedom, that ancient custom should 
be observed thenceforward. There seems indeed every 
reason to suppose that the title and person of an alder- 
man were as yet looked upon with high respect, and 
that its old baronial dignity was far from being for- 
SOULE. 

About 1350, Stow says the ancient and honourable 
custom with regard to the burial of aldermen was still 
observed; and he gives a case in point:—“ In the 
church where an alderman was to be buried, one armed 
with his arms, bearing in his hand a standard on an 
horse with trappings, carried aloft his shield, helmet, 
and his other arms with the standard, as the manner 
yet is of burying the lord barons.” 


PAINTING IN FRESCO. 

THERE is a kind of painting which 1s very little known 
in England, but which, in foreign countries, has been 
made the vehicle of some of the noblest of pictures,— 
we mean /resco. This word does not very well express 
the nature of the process, since it is merely an Italian 
term equivalent to our word for fresh; but 1t seems to 
have been applied on account of the colours, in this 
mode of painting, being laid on damp fresf plaster. 

Painting in oil was not, as far as we at present 
know, executed until about the thirteenth century ; 
and therefore all the pictures painted before that time 
were in fresco, distemper, enamel, encaustic, &c. 
Many ancient paintings, in Egypt, in Herculaneum, 
in Pompeii, and other places, executed many centuries 
ago, and only brought to light in modern times, are 11 
fresco, and exhibit colours ef extraordinary bright- 
ness. During the dark period which intervened be- 
tween the time of the Romans and the revival of the 
fine arts in Italy in the fourteenth century, fresco- 
painting shared the lot to which all the other branches 
of art were doomed, and was forgotten ; but Raffaelle, 
Michael Angelo, and other great painters, not only 
revived the art, but brought it to a pitch of perfection 
which excelled anything previously, or indeed sub- 
sequently, achieved. It was a kind of painting so con- 
genial to the vast mind of Michael Angelo, that he 
deemed it the only one worthy of a great artist, paint- 
ing in oil being “ only fit for women and children.” 

This opinion as to the pre-eminence of fresco over 
oil-painting arose in great measure from the difficul- 
ties which surround the former, and which can only be 
surmounted by a man of great talent. It is the pecu- 
lar and distinguishing feature of this kind of painting, 
that the colours must be laid in while the plaster is 
wet, or at least damp, in order that they may dry with 
the plaster, and in so doing combine firmly with it: 
and as the plaster dries in the course of a few hours, 
the production of a large picture becomes a sort of 
patchwork, each day’s painting being distinct and de- 
tached from the rest, and executed in a portion of 
plaster which has been laid on the same day. The dif- 
ficulties which thence result have been thus alluded to 
by a writer on the subject :—“ There is no beginning 
in this hy drawing in the whole of the parts at one time 
aud correcting them at leisure, as is the custom of oi]- 


* ¢ Survey of London,’ b. 5. 





1841.] 


painters, who may therefore proceed to work without a 
sketch. Here, all that is begun in the morning must 
be completed by the evening, and that almost without 
cessation of labour, while the plaster is wet; and not 
only completed in form, but a difficult task, nay, 
almost impossible without a well prepared sketch, 
must be performed, viz. the part done in this short 
time must have so perfect an accordance with what fol- 
lows or has preceded of the work, that when the whole 
is finished it may appear as if it had been executed at 
once or in the usual mode, with sufficient time to har- 
monise the various forms and tones of colour. Instead 
of proceeding by slow degrees to illuminate the objects 
and increase the vividness of the colours, In a manner 
somewhat similar to the progress of nature in the 
rising day, till at last it shines with all its intended 
effect, which is the course of painting in oi]; the artist 
working in fresco must at once rush into broad day- 
hght, at once give all the force in light and shade and 
colour which the nature of his sudject requires; and 
this without the assistance, at least in the commence- 
ment, of contrast to regulate his eye.” 

Fresco-paintings are usually executed on the walls 
of buildings, such as churches, galleries, corridors, 
saloons, &c.; and the routine of proceeding is some- 
what as follows:—The artist first prepares a sketch, 
embodying the subject which he wishes to represent. 
He next draws the outline of the design on a cartoon, 
or piece of paper, exactly the size of the intended fresco. 
The word cartoon, which has almost a magic effect in 
connection with the fine arts, is literally nothing more 
than a modification of cartone, the Italian name for a 
large sheet of paper. (The cartoons of Raffaelle, 
described in our Supplement tor September, are simi- 
larly sheets of paper, the designs on which were to 
serve as originals from which tapestries were to be 
copied.) 

While the sketch and the cartoon are in course of 
preparation, the wall on which the labours of the 
painter are to be directed is also being prepared. 
One indispensable requisite is, that the wall should be 
free from damp, for fresco-paintings, from the nature 
both of the colours and of the plaster in which they are 
laid, are very susceptible of injury from damp; indeed, 
one reason assigned for the non-prosecution of this art 
in England is the dampness of the climate. When the 
fitness of the foundation is ascertained, a preparatory 
layer of plaster is laid on, which varies according to 
the material of which the wall is composed. Brick is 
deemed the best foundation, because, from the smallness 
of the size of the bricks, the interstices between them 
are numerous, which greatly assists in retaining the 
plaster in adherence. If the wall consist of smooth 
stones, it is customary to chisel holes or grooves in it, 
or adopt other means whereby the plaster may be made 
to cling to the foundation on which it 1s laid. Precau- 
tions of this kind are very necessary to prevent the 
cracking of the composition. This preparatory plaster 
consists sometimes of well-washed chalk made into a 
cement with pounded brick or river-sand; some paint- 
ers have used pounded sea-sand and chalk or hme; 
while others have employed somewhat analogous ma- 
terials, varied in minor details. 

When the preparatory layer of plaster is dry, the 
second or finishing layer is applied, the surface of the 
first layer being slightly wetted to aid the adhesion of 
the two. ‘The materials are nearly the same as for the 
first layer, but more carefully prepared; and the art of 
laying 1t on is one of great micety, for 1t must be free 
from lumps, spread evenly and simoothly, and laid on 
in no greater quantity, or over no greater an extent of 
surface, than the artist can colour before the plaster 
dries, which it does in from five to eight hours, accord- 
ing to the season. The plaster is laid on with a trowel, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


-mences his labours. 
| wall, and traces the outlines of the figures or other 


45) 


and is afterwards smoothed over with the same instru- 
ment, a plece of paper being laid between the trowel 
and the paper. 

When the plaster is sufficiently firm to bear the 
pressure of the finger, but still damp enough to allow 
the colours to incorporate with it, the painter com- 
He places his cartoon agaiust the 


objects on the design, either by pricking with a pin 
through the paper at numerous pots, or by passing a 
hard point over the lines of the cartoon. By either of 
these means a faint impression 1s made in the plaster, 
sufficient to guide him in the application of his colours. 

The colours employed in fresco-painting are wholly 
of inmeral origin, no animal or vegetable colours being 
admitted. Chalk and marble-powder for white; ver- 
milion, burnt and unburnt ochres, burnt and raw 
sienna, Spanish red, &c., for red and brown; ultra- 
marine and smalt for blue,—are among the colours 
employed; while greens, yellows, blacks, &c. are pro- 
duced from analogous earthy or crystalline bodies. 
The colours are ground very fine, and mixed with 
water, and arranged on a pallet or in small vessels, as 
for other kinds of painting. Prepared water-colours 
used on paper or ivory, and oil-colours used on pre- 
pared canvas, present nearly the same tint when dry as 
when wet; but in fresco and in distemper painting this 
is not the case, since all the colours become much 
lighter when dry than when wet. To be certain, there- 
fore, of the resultant hue, the painter usually has a 
piece of some absorbent, earthy substance, such as tile 
or brick, at hand, on which he can try the tint yielded 
by any combination of his colours. 

The artist proceeds tu work out his design with the 
colours just alluded to, and on the foundation of damp 
plaster; but here the genius of the painter 18 called 
into action, and technical description fails of conveying 
an adequate idea of his labours.. The excellence and 
defects of fresco-painting have been thus stated by a 
writer familiar with the subject: As theartist 1s obliged, 
from the nature of this kind of painting, to proceed 
with rapidity in its execution, it has necessarily more 
spirit and vigour than paintings in oil, which may be 
repeated and re-touched as often as the artist fancies 
he can improve or heighten their effect; there 1s not 
time to meddle with and disturb the freshness of the 
colonr, or the fullness and freedom of the touch. But, 
on the other hand, there can be no minute detail of 
forms, or extensive variety in the gradation of tints; 
the beauties of neatness and delicacy of finish make no 
part of the excellencies of this branch of art; 1t will 
not bear the close examination which well-finished 
pictures in oil do; and there is something dry and 
rough in its appearance, when inspected from too 
short a distance. Though the colours have more tresh- 
ness of hue than those used in oil-painting, yet, as their 
number is comparatively smaller, their united power 
of imitating nature is not so complete. 

To enumerate all the eminent specimens of fresco, 
ancient and modern, would require a voluine. We 
can therefore only mention, that after a temporary 
cessation of the art for some time, it has been lately 
revived with extraordinary effect in Bavaria, where 
the enlightened king is enriching his capital, Munich, 
with almost innumerable specimens of this branch of 
art. In our Nos. 270 and 271 will be found descrip- 
tions of two new gallerics at Munich, one for pictures 
and the other for sculptures; and both of these gal- 
Jeries, as well as two new palaces belonging to the 
king, a chapel-royal, an arcade, and other buildings, 
have been decorated with magnificent series of frescoes, 
mostly embodying some historical or allegorical sub- 
jects. Of these frescoes we have given specimens In 
Nos, 292, 294, 295, and 297, together with — of 

3o M2 


492 


the historical poem from which they are taken. Whether 
we shall ever see a school of fresco-painting in England, 
depends principally, we imagine, on the kind of patron- 
age bestowed upon the art. Unless the walls of large 
buildings are decorated with frescoes, this branch of art 
is not likely to flourish. We may hope for the best, as 
in a recently published Report of the Parliamentary 


THE PENNY 














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MAGAZINE. { NovEMBER 20, 
Committee on the Fine Arts in connection with the New 
Houses of Parliament, the opinions of many of our 
principal artists, especially Mr. Eastlake, are given on 
the expediency of decorating the interior of those 
buildings with frescoes. Although the difficulties are 
not lost sight off, yet the general impression seems to 
be in favour of such a plan. 





























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ist. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, 1841.] 


oT. JOHN’S GATE. 


A RECENT number of the periodical work entitled 
‘London’ contains an article on St. John’s Gate; the 
greater part of which is devoted to an account of the 
priory of St. John of Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell, in 
connection with the history of the Knights of St. John, 
subsequently the Knights of Rhodes and the Knights 
of Malta; which history has been fully given in the 
‘Penny Magazine.’ There has been some talk of re- 
viving the institution, with a Prince of the Blood as 
‘the Prior” in England. It will be perceived that 
such playing at chivulry is not original: and that the 
very ground which these knights of old occupied is 
already the scene of a very respectable travestie of the 
heroic ages. 

When Samuel Johnson first saw St. John’s Gate, 
he “beheld it with reverence,” as he subsequently told 
his amusing biographer Boswell. But Boswell gives 
his own interpretation of the cause of this reverence. 
st. John’s Gate, he says, was the place where the 
‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ was originally printed: and 


he adds, “I suppose, indeed, that every young author popular improvement on the other. 


has had the same kind of feeling for the magazine or | 


periodical publication which has first entertained him.” 
He continues, with happy naiveté, “I myself recollect 
such impressions from the ‘Scot’s Magazine”” Mr. 
Croker, in his valuable notes to Boswell’s ‘ Johnson,’ 
has a very rational doubt of the correctness of this ex- 
planation: “If, as Mr. Boswell supposes, Johnson 
looked at St. John’s Gate as the printing-office of Cave, 
surely a less emphatical term than reverence would 
have been more just. The ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ 
had been, at this time, but six years before the public, 
and its contents were, until Johnson himself ‘contri- 


| 


3 


buted to improve it, entitled to anything rather than 
reverence; but 1t 1s more probable that Johnson’s 
reverence was excited by the recollections connected 
with the ancient gate itself, the last relic of the once 
extensive and magnificent priory of the heroic knights 
of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, suppressed at 
the dissolution, and destroyed by successive dilapi- 
dations.” 

A century is passed away since Johnson, from what- 
ever motive, beheld with reverence the old gate of the 
hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. There it still re- 
mains, In a quarter of the town little visited, with 
scarcely another relic of antiquity immediately about 
it. Extensive improvements are going forward in its 
neighbourhood ; and it may probably be one day swept 
away with as ruthless a hand as that of the Protector 
Somerset, who blew up the stately buildings of the 
hospital to procure materials for his own palace in the 
Strand. May it be preserved from the most complete 
of all destroyers—the building speculator! It has to 
us a double interest. It is the representative of the 
days of chivalrous enthusiasm on the one hand, and of 


The Order, which 


dates from the days of Godfrey of Bouillon, has perished, 


even in our own time—an anomaly in the age up to 
which it had survived. The general desire for know- 
ledge, which gave birth to the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ 
is an increasing power, and one which depends upon 
no splendid endowments and no stately mansions for 
its maintenance and ornament. Cave, the printer, was 
the accidental successor of the Prior of the Hospital of 
St. John. But, representing the freedom of public 
opinion, he was the natural successor of the despotic 


| power of a secret society. At any rate, the accident 
'invests St. Jobn’s Gate with an interest which would 


1841.] 


not otherwise belong to it; and in its double character 
we may not be ashamed to behold it “ with reverence.” 
Before we carry oursclves and our readers into the 
past, we must, howevcr, request their companionship 
while we examine what St. John’s Gate now is. At the 
head of this paper they have a representation of its 
present external appearance: but a peep into the in- 
terlor may furnish some amusing contrasts with the 
days of the Edwards and Henries. 

Turning out of St. John’s Street to enter St. John’s 
Lane—a narrow street which runs obliquely from that 
wide thoroughfare—the Gate presents itself to our 
view, completely closing the road, and leaving a passage 
into St. John’s Square only through the archway. The 
large masses of stone of which the Gate is composed 
are much decayed; but the groined arch has recently 
been restored. This restoration, which appears to have 
proceeded from a desire to preserve this monument as 
public property, seems out of character with the pur- 
poses to which the Gateway is devoted. A huge board 
which surmounts the archway informs us that we may 
here solace ourselves with the hospitalities of the 
Jerusalem Tavern; and, that we may understand that 
the entertainment which may be set before us will not 
be subjected to any of the original notions of abstinence 
which a pilgrim might once have been expected to 
bring within these walls, a window of a house or bulk, 
on the eastern sidc of the Gateway, displays all the at- 
tractions of bottles with golden labels of “ Cordial Gin,” 
“Pineapple Rum,” and “Real Cognac.” We pass 
under the arch, and perceive that the modern hospitium 
runs through the eastern side of the Gateway, and con- 
nects with premises at eitherend. Weare here invited 
“To the Parlour;” and we enter. <A comfortable 
room is that parlour, with its tables checkered with 
many a liquor-stain; and genius has here its due 
honours, for Dr. Johnson’s favourite seat is care- 
fully pomted out. But the tavern has higher attrac- 
tions than its parlour-fireside with Dr. Johnson’s 
corner; it has a “ Grand Hall,” where the “ Knights 
of Jerusalem” still assemble in solemn conclave every 
Monday evening. It was long before we ventured, to 
ask whether any uninitiated eyes might see that Grand 
Hall; but we did take courage, aud most obligingly 
were we conducted to it. We ascended the eastern 
turret by a broad staircase (but certainly not one of 
the date of the original building), and we were soon 
in the central room of the Gateway. It isa fine lofty 
room, and, if there be few remains of ancient mag- 
nificence—no elaborate carvings, no quaint inscrip- 
tions, no “storied windows,”—the spirit of the past 
has been evoked from the ruins of the great military 
order, to confer dignities and splendours ou the peace- 
ful burghers. who are now wont here to congregate. 
Banners, gaudy with gold and vermilion, float upon 
the walls; and, if the actual “ armoury of the invin- 
cible knights” be wanting, there are two or three 
cuirasses which look as grim and awful as any 


‘¢ Bruised arms hung up for monuments.” 


Nor are the fine arts absent from the decoration of 
this apartment. Sculpture has here given us a 
coloured efiigy of some redoubted Hospitaller; and 
Painting has lovingly united ‘under the same ceil- 
ing the stern countenance of Prior Dockwra, the 
builder of the Gate, and the sleek and benign like- 
nesses of the worshipful founders of the modern Order. 
Their names nay one day have a Europcan tame, like 
those of Fulk de Villaret and Pierre d@’ Aubusson ; but 
in the meanwhile history records not their exploits, 
and we shall be silent as to their names. They are 
quict lawgivers, and not rampaging warriors. Thcy 
have done the wise thing which poetry abhors— 
changed “swords for ledgers.”’ 


THE PENNY 


Instead of secret 


MAGAZINE. 453 
oaths and terrible mysterics, they invite all men to 
cnter their community at the small price of twopcnce 
each night. Instead of vain covenants to drink nothing 
but water, and rejoice in a crust of mouldy bread, the 
visitor may call for anything for which he has the 
means of payment, even to the delicacies of kidneys, 
tripe, and Welsh rabbits. The edicts of this happy 
brotherhood are inscribed in letters of gold for all men 
to read; and the virtuous regard which they display 
for the morals of their community presents a striking 
contrast to the reputed excesses of the military Orders. 
The code has only four articles, and one of them is 
especially directed against the singing of improper 
songs. Here then is mirth without licentiousness, 
ambition without violence, power without oppression. 
When the Grand-Master ascends the throne which is 
here erected as the best eminence to which a Knight 
of Jerusalem may now aspire, wearing his robes of 
state, and surrounded by his great commanders, also 
in their ‘weeds of peace,’ no clangour of trumpets 
rends the air; but the mahogany tables are drummed 
upon by a hundred ungauntleted hands, and a gentle 
cloud of incense arises from the pipes which send 
forth their perfume from every mouth. Would we 
had partaken of that inspiration! After the third hour 
the dimensions of the “ Grand Hall” of the Jerusalem 
Tavern would have expanded into the form and pro- 
portions of the “Great Hall” of the Priory of St. John. 
The smoke-coloured ceiling would have lifted itself 
up into a groined roof, glorious with the heraldry of 
many a Crusader or Knight of Rhodes. The drowsy 
echoes of “tol de rol” or “ derry down” would have 
melted into solemn strains of impassioned devotion : 
and the story three times told, how Jenkins beat his 
wife and was taken to the police-station, would have 
slided into a soft tale of a Troubadour discovering his 
lady-love who had followed him through Palestine as 
a pretty page. Slowly, but surely, the green coats 
and the blue, the butcher’s frock and the grocer’s 
apron, would have become shadowed into as many 
black robes ; and in the very height of our ecstacy the 
white cross would have grown on every man’s breast 
out of its symbolical red field. Then the “ order, 
order” of the chairman would have become a battlc- 
cry; the knock of his hammer would have been the 
sound of the distant culverin; the hiccups of the far- 
gone sipper of treble-X ale would have represcnted 
the groans of the wounded. We should have fallen 
asleep, and have dreamt a much more vivid picture of 
the ancient glories of the Priory of St. John of Jcru- 
salem than we can hope to present with the ald of 
obscure chronicles and perishing fragments — the 
things which the antiquary digs up, and, when he has 
brought them to hght in his erudite pages, has the 
satisfaction to be called “ onc of those industrious who 
are only re-burying the dead.” 


THE USE OF WATER TO VEGETATION. 


Tue ancient Eastern philosophers, who rcgarded water 
as one of the four elements of which the world was 
composed, werc loud in their praises regarding the 
wonderful effects they witnessed water produce upon 
the rich soils of Eastern climes. During many suc- 
cecding ages it was a common opinion that water 
alone was able to support vegetation ; among a host of 
eminent names, we may select Van Helmont, Duha- 
mel, and Boyle. These men deceived themselves, 
however, by not paying sufficient attention to the 
purity of the watcr in thelr various experiments, or 
not guarding against error with a sufhcient degree of 
accuracy. Van Helmont’s noted cxperiment upon a 
willow-trce was considered as convincing evidence. 
He filled an earthen vessel with two hundred pounds 


454. 


of soil, which had been thoroughly dried in an oven, 
which he afterwards moistened with rain-water. In 
this vessel he planted a willow weighing five pounds, 
and plaeed a covering over the vessel so as to exclude 
dust and all other extraneous matter. Here the wil- 
low continued to grow for five years, moistened occa- 
sionally with rain or distilled water, when it was taken 
out and found to weigh rather more than one hundred 
and sixty-nine pounds, although the carth in which it 
had been planted, after being thoroughly dried, was 
found to have lost only acouple of ounces in weight. It 
was argued from this that an increase of one hundred 
and sixty-four pounds had taken place, although the 
only food of the willow had been water, and conse- 
quently that water only was a sufficient support to 
veectation. 

It was, however, afterwards ascertained that the rain 
water employed was so far from being cheinically pure, 
that it contained suffieient earthy matters to supply the 
increased weight of the willow-tree; and 1t was shown 
that common earthen vessels will unbibe and transmit 
moisture abounding with such solid matters as are 
usually found in ordinary vegetable productions. 

Still more recent discoverics have satisfactorily 
proved, that something more than water, when 
chemically pure, is necessary tor the general pur- 
poses of vegetation; for wherever experiments have 
been tried with perfectly pure water—that is, water 
divested of all extranecons matters and substances— 
the result has been the same, the plants only vege- 
tating for a ceriain tine, never arriving at maturity, 
nor ever perfecting their seed. The florist, without 
possessing any knowledge of chemical science, is well 
aware that such bulbous roots as hyaeinths, tulips, &c., 
which are frequently met with im glass vessels con- 
taining water, refuse to blossom unless they are planted 
in the earth every other year. JEvery attempt to make 
plants flourish in what are denominated the pure earths 
has failed where they have been watered with pure 
water; while an opposite result has been produced 
where water containing its usual impurities has been 
employed. | 

Without introducing any of the vast number of 
recorded experiments, from the writings of Dr. Thom- 
son, Saussure, or others of equal authority, it 1s quite 
certain that pure water is incapable of wholly sup- 
porting the growth of trees or plants. Its uses, how- 
ever, to vegetation are many and important, and it is 
now generally believed that water is decomposed by 
plants,—the oxygen becomimg partially evolved, and 
the hydrogen becoming in some degree assimilated 
with carbon and oxygen into a variety oi vegctable 
substances, most of them contaiming hydrogen under 
some:form or other. That distinguished philosopher 
M. Berthollet was of opinion, that when cxposed to 
the light of the sun plants posscss the power of decom- 
posing water; while Dr. Thonison, as 1t were 1n corro- 
boration of the above opinion, remarks,—“ Jf we con- 
sider the great quantity of hydrogen contained in 
plants, it is difficult to conceive how they should obtain 
it, provided the water they absorb does not contribute 
to furnish it.’ Sir H. Davy, in one of his lectures, 
remarked,—‘ We can only reason from facts, we cannot 
imitate the powers of composition belonging to vege- 
table structures; but, at least, we can understand them ; 
and as far as our researches have gone, it appears that 
in vegetation compound forms are uniformly produced 
from simpler ones; and the elements in the soil, the 
atmosphere, and the earth, absorbed and made parts of 
beautiful and diversified structures.” 

Although, as has already been stated, pure water 
alone is not sufficient to support vegetation,—the most 
ignorant and the blindest observer of nature’s handy- 


work cannot but be aware that the health and luxuri- | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[NovEMBER 20, 


ance of vegetation greatly depend upon a regular and 
copious supply of water, in one shape or another ; and 
that-in all hving plants water forms no inconsiderable 
part of their bulk or solid contents: without moisture 
veectation languishes and dies. It matters but little 
in what form, whether it be that of rain, or dew, or the 
water from tlie neighbouring brook or river, that it is 
supplied to the necessities of vegetation, though all 
waters are not, as they are ordinarily found, 1mpreg- 
nated with the same earths or salts, nor contain those 
bodies in equal quantities; but the water which con- 
tains the largest' quantity of earthy soluble matter is 
commonly considered as the most fertilizing. 
Vegetation, being generally exposed to the atmo- 
sphere, can under no cireumstances be destitute of a 
larger or smaller supply of water, for the atmosphere 
is always more or less charged with aqueous vapours, 
and so strong is the attraction which plants have for 
water, that their roots and leaves are constantly absorb- 
ing it from the atmosphere or the soil that 1s moistened 
with it; and nothing more clearly exhibits the beau- 
tiful arrangement of creative wisdom than this ar- 
rangement with regard to the moisture contamned in 
the atmosphere, for during the hottest and driest of 


the summer months the quantity of aqucous vapour is 


by far the greatest, and if such were not the case the 
produce of the soil would become parched and burned, 
and vegetation would wither and dic. In proportion 
as the evaporation is the greatest, so is the quantity of 
moisture contained in the atmosphere. Upon this 
point Sir H. Davy makes some observations to this 
effect :—When the soil is dry, and the life of plants 
seems to be preserved by the absorbent power of their 
leaves, it is a beautiful circumstance in the economy 
of nature that aqueous vapour is most abundant in the 
atmosphere—when it is most needed for the purposes of 
life, and that when other sources of supply are cut off, 
this is the most copious. 

The quantity of water absorbed by plants under or- 
dinary circumstances is very considerable ; and it has 
been asecrtained that most plants transmit into the 
atmosphere by insensible vapour a large quantity of 
water daily. A cabbage, for instance, has been found 
to transmit half its weight daily; and a sunflower of 
three feet in height has been ascertained to transpire 
nearly two pounds of water in the same period; while 
a sprig of spearmint, weighing twenty-seven grains, 
has been found to evolve during a long period a quan- 
tity of water amouuting on the average to about 
ninety-one grains daily! 

Attempts have been unsuccessfully made to induce 
plants to vegetate in earth which is periectly dry, or in 
air from which all the aqueous vapour has been ex- 
tracted. It may be true that there are certain plants 
in Eastern countries, and some mosses 11 our Own, 
that are known to retain the vital principal for months 
or years after their removal from the places where” 
they grew; but then the atmospheric air is not ex- 
cluded from them in their severed state, so that re- 
quiring but a small amount of moisture to preserve 
hfe in them, this small quantity they still continue to 
imbibe from the surrounding atmosphere. 

As the earths generally are soluble 1 water, if is 
through this medium that the different materials which 
constitute the solid portion of trees, shrubs, and plants 
are taken up and conveyed to every part of the struc- 
ture; for without a fluid medium 1t would be impos- 
sible for lime, silica, or clay to be conveyed from the 
ground upon which plants grow, to the extremities of 
the finest arteries that extend to the offshoots and 
slenderest branches. 





1841.] 


THE COCHINEAL INSECT, AND ITS 
PRODUCE. 


WueEN the Spaniards first visited Mexico, they were 
struck with the beautiful crimson-scarlet colour of 
many of the articles of furniture, cloth, ornaments, 
&c. possessed by the natives. Eager to possess such 
a beautiful dye, they received orders from the Spanish 
Cortes to attend to its production, and to forward sup- 
plies of it to Kurope. The Spaniards found that the 
dye was obtained from little hemispherical shrivelled 
erains, about an eighth of an inch in length, roundish 
and wrinkled on one side, and flattish on the other. 
For some time these little grains were supposed to be 
the seeds of an Indian plant; but itat length became 
known that each apparent grain is the female of a small 
insect found in Mexico and the neighbouring coun- 
tries; that the insect had been killed and dried for the 
market; and that the colouring-matter was obtained 
from it by steeping or by boiling in water. 

Such was the origin of our knowledge of the true 
nature of Cochineal, a name which is given to these 
insects when in a marketable state. The researches of 
Tiumboldt and other travellers in Mexico have enabled 
us to understand the mode in which the natives cul- 
tivate this valuable produce. 

All the cochineal grains are the females only of the 
insect called the coccus cactz; the males being found 
deficient in the colouring-matter for which alone the 
insect is valuable. The insect, ina natural state, at- 
tains to maturity, performs the ordinary functions of 
hfe, deposits eges, and then dics—all within the space 
of two months; and the time of gathering is just be- 
fore the laying of the eggs, when the insect has swelled 
toa great size. After the laying, the female becomes 
a mere husk, and is, as weil as the male, of no value in 
a commercial point of view. It appears, therefore, as 
if the unborn insects furnish the principal part of the 
colouring-matter, and that only a sufficient number of 
the females are allowed to produce their brood to con- 
mnue the race. 

This being the source from whence the dye is ob- 
tained, we may proceed to describe the operation of 
the Mexicans in its cultivation. There is a wild species 
of cochineal, which feeds upon inost of the species of 
cacti found in Mexico, requires no particular atten- 
tion, and is gathered six times in the year. But the 
cultivated cochineal is the product of slow and pro- 
gressive improvement on the breed of the wild species, 
and is found only in the gardens and plantations of 
Mexico, where, provided with its choicest food, and 
sheltered from the inclemencies of the seasons, it at- 
tains nearly double its original size. This feeds only 
on one species of cactus, the cochenilifer, or Nopal, and 
produces only three broods in the year. 

In different parts of Mexico the natives follow some- 
what different plans in the cultivation of the cochineal ; 
but in the intendency of Oaxaca the chief features are 
as follow:—The Indians establish their Nopalertes (or 
plantations of Nopals) on the slope of mountains, or 
in ravines, two or three leagues distant from their vil- 
laces. After cutting and burning the trees which may 
have covered the ground, they plant the young No- 
pals (a kind of small prickly-pear tree), and tend 
them carefully at intervals for three years, at the end 
of which time the sap or juice is plentiful enough to 
support the insects. The proprietor of the Nopalery 
then purchases, about the month of April or May, some 
branches of the Tuna de Castilla, laden with young 
cochineals, called semzlla, recently hatched, which feed 
for the time on the jwiece of the branches. These 
branches, with the insects adhering to them, are hung 


up in caverns, or under a shed covered with a straw 


roof, or in the interior of a hut, for about twenty days; 


A 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 455 


after which they are exposed to the open air. The 
insects grow very rapidly, and by about the month oa. 
August or September they are in a fit state to be 
taken to the Nopalery. for this purpose they are 
placed in nests, made of a species of Tillandsia called 
paxtle, and are carried to the nopalery, which, as we 
have said, is generally two or three leagues from the 
Villages. The insects are placed among the leaves of 
the Nopal, to which the females immediately attach 
themselves, and never afterwards seem to wish to leave 
the precise spot where they first fix themselves. Here 
the insects are carefully watched during the short time 
which elapses before they lay their eggs: the utmost 
efforts of the natives being necessary to preserve them 
from other insects. The women squat down by the 
side of the nopal-trees for hours together, cleaning the 
branches from intrusive visitors by means of a stag’s 
or squirrel’s tail. 

When the female insect has arrived at the state most 
profitable for the cultivator, it has swelled to such a 
size In proportion to its infant state, that the legs, an- 
tennee, and proboscis are scarcely discoverable without 
the aid of a microscope. Theyare in that state removed 
from the nopal leaves by means of a blunt knife, and 
placed in earthenware pots, whcre they are carefully 
kept for ashort time. Ina certain stage of their pro- 
gress they are killed in one of three ways, viz. by im- 
mersion in hot water, by exposure to fire, or by expo- 
sure to fierce rays of the sun; and it is owing to these 
different processes that the cochineals are sometimes 
of a deep and at others of a bright red. In the first- 
named made, the insects are put into a bag, which is 
immersed in scalding water; in the second, the insects 
are placed upou shovels, which are introduced into an 
oven moderately heated,—the fine quality of the cochi- 
neal depending greatly on the temperature of the oven ; 
in the last method, they are simply placed so that the 
scorching heat of the sun may act uninterruptedly upon 
them. Thus are these poor little creatures scalded or 
roasted to death, in order to furnish us with carmine 
and scarlet dyes. 

As it 1s necessary, in order to perpetuate the race, 
that the gathering should not take place too soon, it is 
customary to effect it when the females have deposited 
about half the number of their eggs, which eggs are 
euarded as the source of a future harvest. In a good 
season they reckon that one pound of young cochineals, 
placed in the nopal-tree, produces, in three months, 
twelve pounds of mother-cochineals, rich in colouring- 
matter, together with sufficient progeny for the next 
oathering. 

There are, of the culizvated cochineal, only three 
1arvests or gatherings in a year; and at the last of 
these a certain number of females are left adhering to 
branches of the nopal, which are then broken off, and 
kept carefully under cover in the huts dure the 
rainy season. But there are some districts, particu- 
larly around the town of Oaxaca, where the cochineal 
cultivators, called Nopaleros, cause the insects to travel 
during the rainy season. In that part of the country 
the rain falls, in the plains and valleys, from May te 
October, while in the neighbouring mountains of Iste- 
peje the rainy months are from December to April. 
Instead, therefore, of allowing the cochineals to remain 
within the huts during the rainy season of the plains, 
the Nopaleros remove them. They place them, covered 
with palm-leaves, in canastos, or baskets made of very 
flexible claspers, which they carry on their backs as 
quickly as possible to the mountains above the village 
of Santa Catalina, nine leagues distant from Oaxaca. 
The mother-cochineals produce their young by the 
way ; and on opening the canastos they are found full 
of young insects, which are immediately placed in the 
nopal-trees of the mountains. Matters thus remain 


456 


till the month of October, when the cultivators remove 
the insects back to the nopaleries of Oaxaca. Itisa 
practice analogous to that followed with the Merino 
sheep of Spain. 

Before speaking of the purposes for which cochineal 
is imported into Europe, we will make a short extract 
from Ward’s ‘ Mexico,’ tending to show the value of 
the commerce in these insects:—“ The plantations of 
the cochineal-cactus are confined to the district of La 
Misteca, in the state of Oaxaca. Some of these Haci- 
endas de Nopales (nopalcries, or nopal plantations) 
contain from fifty to sixty thousand plants, arranged 
in lines, like the aloes in the Maquey plantations, 
which J have already described, and cut down to a 
certain height, in order to enable the Nopaleros to 
clean them more easily. In the year 1758 a govern- 
ment registry-office was established at Oaxaca, 1n con- 
sequence of the complaints of some English merchants, 
who had received cargoes of adulterated cochineal, in 
which all the cochineal produced in the province was 
ordered to be examined and registered. By the official 
returns which J possess, it appcars that the value of 
the cochineal entercd upon the’ books of this office up 
to 1815, was 91,308,907 dollars, which, upon filty-seven 
years, gives an average of 1,601,910 dollars per annum, 
without making any allowance for contraband, which 
has always been carried on to the amount of nearly 
half a million more. The number of pounds collected 
during the same time was 37,835,104.” Mr. Ward, 
taking the amount of cochineal registered, and com- 
paring it with the quantity known to be exported, 
estimates the value of cochineal annually sold in 
Mexico at more than two millions of dollars. It is 
such facts as these, taken in conjunction with the small 
amount of capital and labour required in the produc- 
tion, which have induced another writer to say that 
“ the cochineal insect, considered as an article of com- 
merce and manufacture, is of far greater importance 
to mankind than any other of the insect race;” and 
that “ the discovery of this valuable insect has contri- 
buted more efficiently to enrich the posterity of the 
Spanish adventurers in the new world, than the wealthy 
mines of Pern and Mexico.” 

Our dyers and colour-makers purchase cochineal of 
the merchants, for the purpose of producing a brilhant 
crimson-scarlet colouring substance. The colouring- 
matter may be extracted from the dried insects either 
by water or alcohol; the solution or decoction pro- 
duced having a very rich colour, and being capable of 
combination with other substances in a great variety 
of ways. The beautiful pigment called carmine, used 
principally in miniature and watcr-colour painting, 
and sometimes as rouge, to give a fictitious bloom of 
health to a blanched cheek, is a preparation of cochi- 
neal; it is a light, soft, velvety powder, of a most rich 
and magnificent scarlet, inclining a little to crimson. 
It is produced in various ways, each manufacturer 
deeming his own the best; but it is understood to be 
the result of boiling the cochineal in pure water for a 
certain time, adding alum and one or two other sub- 
stances, evaporating the solution, and preserving the 
sediment in the form of carmine. After the finest 
quality has been thus produced, a repetition of the 
process produces a second quality; and evcn after this 
there is sufficient colouring-mattcr to assist in the 
preparation of the water-colour pigment called Jake, 
which is a term applicd to a mixture of alum, or 
of some metallic oxide, with a solution of a vegetable 
or animal colouring-substance. 

The natural colour of cochineal is crimson, and until 
a peculiar mode of combining it with another substance 
was found out, the colour at present called scarlet was 
hardly known. K 
have discovered accidentally, about two centuries ago, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


Keffler, a German chemist, is said to | 


[NOVEMBER 20, 


that a solution of tin would exalt the crimson colour of 
cochineal into a scarlet. He brought his secret 
to London; and the first establishment for dyeing 
scarlet in this country appears to have been at the 
village of Bow, whencc it obtained for a long time the 
name of the Bow-dye. About the year 1667 a Fleming 
named Brewe, invited over by Charles II., with the 
promise of a large salary, is said to have brought the 
art of scarlet-dyeing to great perfection. 

A chemical analysis of the constitution of the cochi- 
neal, and a summary of the commercial statistics of the 
tradc at the present day, will be found in the ‘ Penny 
Cyclopedia.’ 


MOLES. 


A CORRESPONDENT from Wix, near Harwich, has com- 
municated to us soinc curious facts respecting moles, 
and in defence of their utility. The subjcct is of suffi- 
cient importance to induce us to lay the writer’s idcas 
before the public, and the morc so as the late James 
Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was of nearly the same 
opinion. He had observed that in lands tenanted by 
the mole, the foot-rot in sheep was much less preva- 
lent than where they had been extirpated. 

“In the article on Molc-catching, in No. 608, you 
have considered the mole as always injurious to 
the occupiers of land. But from long and attcntive 
observation, J feel satisfied: that no animal is more 
beneficial in its calling. The farmer, I think, igno- 
rantly and wantonly causcs it to be destroyed; but 
were he to reflect a little and make a few observations, 
he would in most cases protect and not destroy those 
innocent and very interesting assistants to his labours. 
They destroy the wire-worm and all kinds of grubs de- 

osited in the ground; and so beneficial is this, that I 
lave seen many fields of corn greatly injurcd, i not 
ruincd, by the moles not being permitted to work in 
them; but I never saw a field of corn injured by their 
working to any extent worth speaking of. If I can 
avoid it, I never allow them to be trapped; but the 
year before last, J had one field of wheat in which they 
were busily at work. I was anxious to preserve them, 
but in my abscnce a neighbouring mole-catcher en- 
trapped them. Exactly at the place whcre J saw their 
little hills of earth, and for about an acre farther into 
the field, the-wire-worm entirely destroyed my wheat. 
Last spring was very dry, and the wire-worm was very 
prevalent. I had some oats greatly injured by them, 
but the poor moles were destroyed in an adjoining 
neighbour’s ficld; and I made it my business to ex- 
amine many places in the neighbourhood where traps 
were set. In onc ficld J saw eight traps set in a circle 
nearly, surrounding about an acre of wheat. I ex- 
amined the spot, and found the worm at the roots of 
almost all the plants; yct the farmer was destroying 
the only friends that could have prescrved his grain. 
Sevcral other fields I] examincd where traps were sct 
in the same manner, and the result was always the 
same. Some years since, in passing with a bailiif over 
a large field that had been a wood, he observed that it 
would grow nothing on account of the wire-worm. I 
said to him, ‘Get some moles and turn them into it.’ 
‘Why,’ said he, ‘we cannot kcep them out—we destroy 
scorcs every year init.’ J said again, ‘ Do not destroy 
them.’ The bailiff followed my advice, let the moles 
have their full play in the field, and from that time the 
crops have been exccllent. Should you, therefore, write 
again in your excellent Magazine on this subject, I 
hope you will say a word in favour of the poor perse- 
cuted. but useful and innocent mole.” 


1841.] | THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 457 


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‘a, Polecat; b, Stoat; e, Beech Marten; d, Ferret; e, Weasel. 


: would be more formidable than the hon or the tiver, 
See weee. GE OF THE BRITISH | and infinitely more destructive, as_ they kill, when op- 


ISLANDS. portunity offers, by wholesale, sucking the blood and 
By thie weasel tribe we mean the ferocious bloodthirsty} devouring only a portion of their victims, thereby 
little animals included by authors in the genus Mustela, | effecting a waste of life within the sphere of their pre- 
of which we have in England, including the domesti-| datory operations. 
cated ferret, six species, namcly, the weasel, the ermine! Subtle and bold, the weascl tribe usually take their 
or stoat, the polecat, the ferret, the beech marten, and| prey by surprise, and no animals are better endowed 
the pine marten, the two latter constituting a sub-| by nature for an insidious attack. Their form is long 
genus, and slender; and such is their snake-hke phabiltty, 
Were these carnivorous creatures as- large and | that they can twist themsclves in the most extraordmary 
powerful as they are active, wily, and daring, they | manner, and insinuate themselves into holes or crevices 


No. 619, Vou. X.—3 N 


458 THE PENGaY 
which one would think it impossible for them to enter. 
The liunbs are short but powerful, and the toes are 
arined with sharp claws; hence they climb trees, or the 
sides of rough walls or buildings, with great agility. 
In their movements they appear to ghde along, but 
they can bound and spring with considerable vigour, 
and know well how to fasten on their adversary. 

In attacking their victim they generally ann at the 
neck, below the ear, where they pieree the large veins 
with their teeth; or they fix upon the back of the head, 
and drive their canine teeth throveh the skull. 

Their habits are nocturnal or erepuscular. The 
day is passed in their retreats, such as the hollows of 
decayed trees, burrows in the ground, holes in walls 
and ruined masonry, and fissures in rocks. As evening 
shades prevail, they rouse from their repose and begin 
their prowl. 

A polecat in the neighbourhood of a farm-yard is as 
mischievous as a fox, and even more so; whole broods 
of chickens are often all destroyed durme a single night, 
and the bodies left on the spot. The shortness of the 
muzzle, the arrangement of the teeth, and the solidity 
of the skull, afford a good index of the natural habits 
of these animals. In the skull of the common polecat 
(Mustela Putortus) we find the distance froin the an- 
terior edge of the orbit tothe front teeth three-quarters 
of an inch, while from the same point to the back of 
‘the skull or oeciput the admeasurement is two inches 
and one-eighth. The skull is long and Sattened in its 
contour, and a broad space of seven lines intervenes 
between the orbits. The dentition 1s as follows:— 
upper jaw, incisors six; canines on each side, one; 
false? molars on each side, two; followed bya tricuspid 
laniary molar, to which succeeds a bi-lohed tubereular 
molar. In the lower jaw the false molars are three. 
The subgenus Martes is distingnished bv the muzzle 
being somewhat more lengthened, and by an additional 
rudimentary false molar in each jaw. 

In aceordance with the contour of the skull, the head 
presents a tnangular flattened shape, and, terminates 
along fiexible neek. The eyes aresharp and piercing ; 
the cars small; and the senses of sight, smell, and hear- 
ine are acuic. In all the species the subcaudal glands 
secrete a fluid of unpleasant odour, and especially so 
in the polecat. 

The polecat, or, as it is called m various counties, 
fitchet, or foumart, is very common in some parts of our 
island, where the farmer and the sportsman make eom- 
mnon eause against it; for both hold it as detestable 
‘ vermin.” To the farmer, indeed, it often occasions 
serious losses. We have often heard persons in the 
wilder parts of Derbyshire lament, with sundry vows 
of vengeance, the desolating results of a meghtly visit 
of one of these pests to the poultry-yard. Poultry, 
young and old, ducks, and even gcese and turkeys, 
falla prey to its sanguinary disposition ; nor is it con- 
tented with killmg one and making a meal, but all 
within its reach are sacrificed. Mr. Bell instances one 
case in which sixteen large turkeys were killed bya 
polecat during the course of one meht; and another 
in whieh ten ducks were sunilarly destroyed; and the 
perpetrator of the outrage, when in the morning the 
door of the outhouse in which they were shut was 
opened, marched out, licking his bloody jaws, without 
the slightest alarm. Many snmilar instances have 
come under our own personal knowledge. The pre- 
dilection of the polecat for the brains and the blood of 
poultry is well known: it seldom touches the rest of 
the carcass; and we may here observe that rats display 
the saine taste for the brains of birds. We could ad- 
duce inany instances, within our own knowledge, in 
which birds kept in aviaries have been destroyed by 
rats, the brain of the victims being in every case eaten 
out of the skull. 


ig 


-_ 


MAGAZINE. 


(NoveMBER 27 


It is generally in winter that the polecat haunts the 
farm-yard ; im summer it resorts to plantations, woods, 
and preserves of game, where it makes sad havoc 
among leverets, young partridges, and pheasants; 
nor are the nests of birds safe from its attacks, the eggs 
or callow brood being equally acceptable. No aninal 
Is SO permcious m a rabbit-warren ; it can follow its 
prey throughout their subterranean galleries, which 
the fox cannot do; besides which its love of slaughter 
seems insatiable. Buffon imdeed with some justice ob- 
serves that a single polecat will speedily depopulate a 
warren of considerable extent. It would seem that 
the tenants of the water are not safe from the attacks 
of this animal; Mr. Bewick, on his own testimony, 
affirms that in one instance eleven fine eels were dis- 
covered in the retreat of one which inhabited a bank 
near a rivulet, to which its nocturnal visits were 1en- 
dered apparent by tracks m the snow, both of its feet 
and of the writhing ecls. In Loudon’s ‘ Magaziie’ 
(vol. vi., p. 206) an instance is 1elated in which the 
nest of a female polecat was opened, contaimne five 
young ones; while m a side hole were packed forty 
large frogs and two toads, barely alive, each having 
been paralyzed by a bite through the brain. 

The polecat makes a vigorous resistance when at 
tacked either by a dog or man, and will defend itself 
to the last. 

The female breeds in the spring, making a nest of. 
dry grass in her burrow; the young are from thee 
to five in number. The adult polecat measures about 
one foot four or five inches, exelusive of the tail, which 
is comparatively short. The body is covered with a 
woolly under coat ; and this, with the base of the lone 
hairs which form an outer garment, is of a pale yel- 
low; the extremities of the long hairs are of a deep 
elossy blackish brown. The margins of the ears and 
part of the lps are white. Though by no means so 
valuable as that of the sable or marten, the fur of this 
annunal (known generally by the name of Fiteh) 1s im- 
ported very extensively from the North of Europe, 
and is abundant in the furrier’s shops in our metropolis. 
Closely allied to the polecat is the ferret (Mustela 
Faro); so closely decd, that many naturalists regard 
them as mere varieties of the same species ;— the more 
especially as a mixed breed between them may be pro- 
cured, This opinion however is not, we think, eorrect ; 
the polecat is a native of temperate and northern 
Europe.; the ferret, of Africa, whence, as we are told 
by Strabo, it was umported into Spain for the purpose 
of destroying rabbits, with which, at one period, that 
country was injuniously overrun. From Spain it has 
spread through the rest of Europe, not as a wild, but 
as a domesticated animal. From the earliest times 
the ferret was used in the capture of rabbits, by being 
turned muzzled into their burrows. Pliny alludes to 
the practice in his eighth book. 

The colour of the ferret is yellowish-white, but we 
have frequently seen specimens of a brown eolour; 
these indeed were said to be of the mixed breed be- 
tween the polecat and ferret, and probably were so, 
as they were always larger and stouter than the white. 
One of the brown kind, in the possession of a rclative 
of the writer's, was so tame as to be allowed the lberty 
of the house, and it slept in his chamber—a dangerous 
experiment, as instances have been known of their 
attacking persons and wounding them severely. An 
instance m which an infant nearly fell a saerifice to a 
ferret is related by Mr. Jesse in his ‘Gleanings,’ and 
quoted by Mr. Bell The child had the jugular vein 
and the temporal artery opened; the face, neck, and 
arms lacerated, and the sight of one eye destroyed. 
The ferret 1s not only employed by the warrener, but 
also by the ratcateher, who prefers the mixed breed. 

The ferret is very sensitive of cold, and requires to 


1S41.] THE PENNY 


be kept snug and warm, especially during winter, as 
it perishes if exposed to the severity of the season. 


The weasel (Alustela vulgaris) is so well known, - 


that any description of its form and colour is useless. 
Small as this animal is, it has all the courage and 
ferocity of its race, and will prey upon leverets, 
chickens, young pigeons, and ducklings; its favourite 
food however are mice, rats, water-rats, and even 
moles. In the farmer's stack-yard and granary it is of 
the greatest utility, and well repays by valuable ser- 
vices the occasional abstraction of a chicken, a pigeon, 
or afew eggs. OF this indeed many farmers are well 
aware, and encourage it for the sake of the incessant 
warfare it keeps up against mice and rats, which, from 
their excessive numbers, often occasion a scrious loss 
in grain, besides undermining the barns and out- 
houses. 

The weasel climbs trees and runs up the side of a 
wall with facility, its movements being singularly 
graceful. When it attacks its prey, it fixes its teeth on 
the back of the head, and pierces the brain, which it then 
devours. Itis said to prefer putrid flesh to that just 
killed, but this is very doubtful, and has arisen most 
probably from the circumstance of dead. birds in a 
putrid state having been found in its hole or near its 
retreat, left by their destroyer. The weasel hunts by 
the scent, like a dog; and follows mice and moles with 
the utmost perseverance, tracking them through all 
their runs or winding galleries. It will even cross the 
water in the pursuit, if its prey be in sight, nor does 
swiftness avail, for onwards will the weasel travel, till 
its victim fails from exhaustion. The wolverene of 
North America (Gulo arcticus) pursues the beaver and 
Other prey in a similar manner. 

Instances are on record in which several weasels 
have united in attacking men, who with difficulty have 
prevented the fierce little animals from lacerating their 
throats, and certainly twelve or fifteen weasels would 
prove no mean adversaries. 

The weasel often falls a prey to hawks, owls, and 
kites; but sometimes succeeds in coming off victo- 
rious. Many anecdotes are on record of weasels and 
stoats bringing eagles or large hawks to the ground— 
and Mr. Bell gives an instance, assuring us of its truth, 
in which a kite that had seized a weasel and mounted 
into the air, was observed to wheel irregularly, and at 
length to fall to the ground dead; the determined little 
animal have torn open the skin and large blood-vessels 
under its wing. 

The weasel breeds two or three times in a year, 
having a litter of five at each birth. She makes her 
nest of dried herbage; a hole ina bank side, among 
brambles, or in an aged tree, 1s the usual place of her 
retreat ; and when molested, she defends herself and her 
progeny with indomitable courage. 

The stoat (Mustela erminea) 1s allied very closely to 
the weasel], but is considerably larger, being upwards 
of nine inches long, excluding the tail. Its habits are 

recisely those of the weasel, but it preys habitually on 
arger game, as hares, leverets, &c., not excluding the 
rat and water-rat. Of the latter, indeed, it destroys 
great numbers, following them into their burrows. It 
hunts its prey by the scent. Some idea of the extent of 
the depredations of this animal may be conceived from 
the circumstance of two leverets, two leverets’ heads, 
two young partridges, and a pheasant’s egg having been 
found in the retreat of one. In our climate the stoat 
becomes partially white during the winter, but in more 
northern:regions this change is complete, the tip of the 
tail alone remaining black. In this state it 1s called 
the ermine. Large importations of ermime-fur are 
made from Russia, Norway, and Siberia to our coun- 
try. In 1833, the importation amounted to 105,139 
skins. 


MAGAZINE. 


459 


The beech marten (Murtes Fagorwzm) and the 
pine marten (Martes Abietum) are both natives of our 
island; but the former, distinguished by a white 
breast, 1s said to be the most common. The pine mar- 
ten is distinguished by a yellow breast and throat. It 


‘must be confessed, however, that the specific distinc- 


tion between these two animals is by uo means very 
apparent, nor indeed 1s it admitted by many. We 
have many times seen the yellow-breasted or pine 
marten in the fir-woods which clothe the sides of some 
of the hills in Derbyshire, and especially near Buxton. 
It prefers wild and unfrequented places, deep wooded 
clens, and the depths of forests; and is common 
throughout northern Europe. The beech marten also 
frequents woods, but not so exclusively as the former, 
and often lurks about farm-houses and destroys poultry. 
Both are destructive to game. They take up their 
retreats in hollow trees or holes in rocks, and the female 
makes a nest of leaves and moss for her brood. The 
agility and gracefulness of these animals are remark- 
able; they climb trees with the ease of the squirrel, 
and traverse their branches or leap from bough to 
bough with admirable address and celebrity. Their 
fur, especially that of the pine marten, 1s full, deep, 
and soft, and of a beautiful brown, and not far inferior 
to that of their immediate ally the sable. The marten 
exceeds the polecat in size, and the tail is long and 
bushy. The ears are large and open, and the eyes 
bright and lively. In general instincts they agree with 
the other Mustele. 

Our plate represents the Beech Marten, the Pole- 
cat, the Ferret, the Weasel, and the Stoat. 


The Norwegian Bonder, or Small Landowner.—If there be a 
happy class of people in Europe, it is the Norwegian bonder. He 
is the owner of his httle estate; he has no feu-duty or feudal 
service to pay to any superior. He is the king of his own land, 
and landlord as well as king. His poor-rate and tithes are too 
inconsiderable to be mentioned. His scat or laud-tax is heavy, 
but everything he uses is in consequence so much cheaper; and 
he has that which renders the heaviest tax lght,—the manage- 
meut of it by his own representatives, and the satisfaction of 
publicity and economy in its application. He has the satisfac- 
tion of seeing, from Storthing to Storthing, that the taxes are 
diminishing, and the public debt paying off. He is well lodged ; 
has abundance of fuel; and that quantity of land, in general, 
which does not place him above the necessity of personal labour, 
but far above want or privation, if sickness or age should prevent 
him from working. He has also no class above lim; uobody 
who can look down upon him, or whom he or his family look up 
to, either to obtain objects of a false ambition or to umitate out of 
a spirit of vanity. He hasa greater variety of food than the same 
class in other countries; for besides what Ins farm produces, 
which is mostly consumed in his housekeeping, the fjelde, the 
lakes and rivers, and the fiords afford game, fish, and other 
articles. He has also variety of labour, which is, perhaps, among 
the greatest enjoyments in the life of a labourmg man; for there 
is recreation in change. His distaut seater (tract of land on the 
moors), his wood-cutting for fuel, his share of the fishery in the 
neighbouring river or lake, give that sort of holiday-work which 
is refreshing. His winter toil is of the same kmd; as steady 
agricultural labour in the field is out of the question. It con- 
sists i making all the implements, furniture, and clothing that 
his family may require; threshing out the crop, attending to the 
cattle, distilling his potatoes, brewing, and driving about to fairs 
or visits. ‘The heaviest part of it is driving wood out of the 
forests, or bog-hay from the fjelde. He has no cares for his 
family, because he knows what their condition will be after his 
death. He knows that his wife succeeds to him, and as long as 
she lives uumarried the only difference made by his death is, 
that there is one less in the family. On her death or second mar- 
riage, he knows that each of his children has a right to a share of 
his property ; and according to their number he makes his arrange- 
ments for their either living ou the laud as before, or dividing it, 
or for being settled in other occupations, and taking a share of 
the value when it comes to be divided.—Lazng's ON 

3 2 


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{Miller, Manciple, and Reve.]} 


CHAUCER'S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 


THE MILLER AND THE REVE. 


SCARCELY has the good Kmeght told his noble story of 
‘Palemon and Arcite,’ and the Host expressed his de- 
hght at the manner in which his scheme has been 
practically carried out, before 
‘The Miller, that for drinking was all pale, 
So that unethes* upon his horse he sat,” 


begius to swear rudely that he too can telia tale, in 
return for the Kinght’s. The Host, not a httle indig- 
nant at this insubordinate conduct, but like a man 
whom experience in the matter had taught wisdom, 
gently endeavours to keep him within duc bounds, and 
tell his tale at the proper time. But the Miller is ob- 
durate, so the host testily cries out— 


“Tell on a devil way, 
“ m8) 
Thou art a fool; thy wit is overcome ; 


and the Miller begins. We shall have occasion again 
to return to this story; in the mean time, here is 
Chaucer’s portrait of the relater :— 


‘The Miller was a stont carle for the nones ; 
Full big he was of brawn and eke of bones; 
That provéd well, for over all there he came.t 
At wrestling he would bear away the ram. 


* Uneasily. 
+ Or, in other words, was the tallest as well as biggest of the 
pilgrims. 


He was short shouldered, broad, a thické guarre™, 
There n’as no door that he n’old heave off bar, 
Or break it, at a running, with Ins head. 

His beard as any sow or fox was red, 

And thereto broad, as though it were a space. 
Upon the cop F right of his nose he had 

A wart, and thereon stood a tuft of hairs 

Red as the bristles of a sowés ears. 

His nosé-thirlést blacké were and wide ; 

A sword and buckler bare he by his side. 

His mouth as wide was as is a furnace, 

He was a jangler § and a goliardeis, 

And that was most of sin and harlotries. 

Well could he stealen corn, and tollen thrics||. 
And yet he had a thumb of gold, pardié. 

A white coat and a blue hood wearéd he. 

A baggepipe well could he blow and soun, 
And therewithal he brought us out of town.” 


The wrestling matches here alluded to, and the prize 
rencrally awarded to the conqueror, are genuine old 
English customs. About a hundred and sixty years 
before the period of the composition of the ‘Canter- 
bury Tales,’ we find recorded the particulars of games 
of this kind held at Westminster, which were attended 
by serious consequences. Stow, in his ‘Survey of 
London,’ says, “I read that in the year 1222, and the 

* A guarre is a hard knot in a tree; it seems here to illustrate 
the round, rough, and muscular character of the Miller’s body. 

+ A Saxon word, signifying the top of anything. 


t The old form of the word nostrils. -™ 
§ Babbler. || That is to say, cheat in his reckoning. 


1841.] THE PENNY 
6th of King Henry III., on St. James’s day, the citizens 
of London kept games of defence and wrestling, near 
to the hospital of Matilda, at St. Giles in the Fields, 
where they got the mastery of the men in the suburbs. 
The bailiff of Westminster, desiring to be revenged, 
proclaimed a ganie to be at Westminster upon Lammas 
day, whereunto the citizens repaired.” When they 
had played awhile, the bailiff and the men of the 
suburbs, armed, treacherously fell upon the unsus- 
pecting citizens, and drove them into the city; anda 
formidable riot ensued, in which many houses were 
pulled down. The ringleaders in the riot were 
hanged. 

The Miller, it appears, is a “ goliardels,” an appel- 
lation derived, according to Tyrrwhitt, from a jovial 
sect, who borrowed it from Golias, the real or assumed 
hame of a witty writer of the latter part of the twelfth 
century, who published several pieces in burlesque 
Latin rhyme; but the original source of the Iinglish 
word seems to be the French goulis, greedy, which is 
supported bya very pertinent passage in ‘P, Plowman’s 
Visions 7’ — 

« Then grieved him a Goleardeis, a glutton of words.” 


With respect to the allusion in the text to the 
“thumb of gold,” Mr. Tyrrwhitt says, if it refers, “as 
is most probable, to the old proverb, ‘ Every honest 
miller lias a thumb of gold,’ the passage may mean, 
that our Miller, notwithstanding his thefts, was an 
honest miller, that is, as honest as his brethren ;” to 
ourselves it appears much more probable that the line 
coming immediately after the notice of his thefts— 


« Aud yet he had a thumb of gold, pardié,” 


is a bit of satire directed either at the Miller’s own 
pretensions to honesty, or at the pretensions of his 
brethren of the white coat gencrally. On this subject 
we have also the followimg curious and interesting 
illustration in Mr. Yarrell’s beautiful work on ‘ British 
Fishes :—‘‘ It is well known that all the science and 
tact of a miller are directed so to regulate the machinery 
of his mill that the meal produced shall be of the most 
valuable description that the operation of grinding 
will permit when performed under the most advan- 
tageous circumstances. Huis profit or his loss, even 
his fortune or his ruin, depends upon the exact adjust- 
ment of all the various parts of the machinery in ope- 
ration. The muller’s ear is constantly directed to the 
note made by the running-stone im its circular course 
over the bed-stone; the exact parallelism of their two 
surfaces, indicated by a particular sound, being a 
matter of the first consequence ; and his hand is con- 
stantly placed under the meal-spout, to ascertain by 
actual contact the character and qualities of the meal 
produced. The thumb, by a particular movement, 
spreads the sample over the fingers: the thumb 1s the 
gauge of the value of the produce; and hence have 
arisen the sayings of ‘Worth a miller’s thumb,’ and 
‘An honest miller hath a golden thumb,’ in reference 
to the amount of the profit that is the reward of his 
skill. By this incessant action of the miller’s thumb, 
a peculiarity in its form is produced, which is said to 
resemble exactly the shape of the head of the fish con- 
stantly found in the mill-stream, and has obtained for 
it the name of the miller’s thumb, which occurs in the 
comedy of ‘Wit at several Weapons,’ by Beaumont 
and Fletcher, act 5, scene 1; and also in Merrett’s 
‘Pinax.’ Although the improved machinery of the 
present time has diminished the necessity for the 
miller’s skill in the mechanical department, the thumb 
is still constantly resorted to as the best test for the 
quality of flour.” 

The spade-like beard remained till a comparatively 


very recent period, to form the name of one of the. 


MAGAZINE. 4G] 


distinctive modes of dressing that appendage. Such 
is the man who now interferes to tell his tale out of 
due course; and having obtained perinission, precisely 
because it was useless to refuse it, he begins, ‘* Now 
hearkeneth” all and some :— 


‘¢ But first I make a protestation 
That I am drunk, I know it by my souan; 
And therefore if that I mis-speak or say, 
Write it the ale of Southwark, I you pray.” 


With this very prudent warning, he continues— 


* For I will tell a legend and a life 
Both of a carpenter and of lis wife,’ &c., 


when he is himself interrupted by the Reve; and for 
a reason which the description in the prologue will 
make apparent :— 


The Revé was a slender choloric man, 

His beard was shav’d as nigh as ever he can; 
His hair was by his earés round yshorn; 

His top was docked like a priest beforn. 

Full longe were his legges, and fall lean. 
Ylike a staff, there was no calf yseen. 

Well could he keep a garner and a bin: 
There was no auditor could on him win. 
Well wist he by the drought, and by the rain, 
The yielding of his seed and of his grain. 
His lordes sheep, his neat*, and his dairy, 
His swine; his horse, his store, and his poultry, 
Were wholly in this Revé’s governing ; 

And by his covenant gave he reckoning, 
Since that lis lord was twenty years of age : 
There could no man bring him in average. 
There uas bailiff, ne herd}, ne other kinef, 
That he ne knew his sleight and his covme ¢: 
They were acdread|| of him as of the death. 
His wonning was full fair upon an heath, 
With greené trees yshadowed was his place: 
He coulde better than his lord purchase. 
Full rich he was ystored privily ; 

His lord well could he pleasen subtilly, 

To give, and lean4] him of his owen good, 
And have a thank, and get a coat and hood. 
In youth he learned had a good mistere**, 
He was a well good wright, a carpenter. 
This Revé sat upon a right good stot T, 
That was all pomelee{{ gray, and highté Scot. 
A long surcoat of persed$ upon he had, 

And by his side he bare a rusty blade. 

Of Norfolk was this Reve, of which I tell, 
Beside a town men clepen Baldeswell. 
Tucked he was, as is a frere, about, 

And ever he rode the linderest of the rout.” 


The Miller’s remark, however, soon brings him for» 
ward. The cautious, calculating, reserved Reve, stung 
by the anticipated ridicule of the class to which he had 
once belonged, forgets alike his reserve, his schemes, 
aud his caution, and amidst the ill-suppressed mirth of 
the pilgrims, calls out,— 

“ Stint thy clappe, 
Let be thy drunken harlotry,” &c. 


But he has a man to deal with whom nothing can 
move from his purpose, and who is still less hkely to 
‘ stint” when he sees so much matter for malicious en- 
joyment before him. The tale he tells is one of Chaucer’s 


* Neat cattle. + Herdsman. {obhiid. 

§ His secret contrivances or tricks. | Afraid. 

€— lhicline, or bend him to lis (the Reve’s) own good or pur- 
poses. ** Mystery, or trade. 

¢+ In the North this word is still used, but in connection 
with a bullock only. In Sir David Lyndsay, as well as in 
Chaucer, we find it applied toa horse. There is little doubt the 
word came from beyond the border, for in the next line we see 
the animal is “ highte Scot.” 


tt Dappled. §§ A bluish-grey or sky colour, 


462 EE oie 
richest and broadest, and the laugh at its conclusion 1s 
loud and long. The Reve alone looks gloomy,— 


‘¢ A little ire is in his heart yleft.” 
But says he,— 


“Full well could I him quite, 
With blearmg of a proud miller’s eye, 
If that me list to speak of ribaldry. 
But Iam old; me list not play for age; 
Grass time is done, my fodder is now forage™: 
This white top writeth mime oldé years, 
Mine heart is also moulded as mine hairs.” 


In a similar strain he continues for some time to 
pour forth his reflections (one fine line we must not pass 
urnoticed,— 


“We hop alway, while that the world will pipe”’),— 


till the host, who has a mortal dishke of “ sermoning,” 
calls out,— 
‘What amounteth all this wit? 
% - 2 i 

Say forth thy tale, and tarry not the time. 

Lo! Depéfordy, and it is half way prime: 

Lo! Greenewich; there many a shrew is m1: 

Tt were all time thy talé to begm.” 


Thus admonished, the Reve commences a story, 
which certainly does not spare, by reflection, the Miller, 
or fail to requite him in his own coin. 

In the Sutherland manuscript, “the Reve” presents 
us with an admirable portraiture of Chaucer’s pilgrim. 
He is evidently as choleric as he is thin. He is repre- 
sented closely shaved, his hair rounded about the cars 
Nike the “ crop-ears” of a later time, and docked at the 
top lke a priest. Ile wears a blue garment, scarlet 
hood, and scarlet stockings ; also a sword of enormous 
size. Warton’s observations on this character are so 
just, apposite, and complete, that we cannot better 
conclude than by transcribing them :—“‘He was an 
oiicer of much greater trust and authority during the 
feudal times than at present. His attention to the care 
and custody of the manors, the produce of which was 
then kept in hand for furnishing his lord’s table, per- 
petually employs his time, preys upon his thoughts, 
and makes him lean and choleric. He is the terror of 
bailiffs and hinds, and is remarkable for his circum- 
spection, vigikance, and subtlety. He is never in ar- 
rears, and no auditor is able to over-reach or detect 
lum in accounts; yet he makes more commodious pur- 
Chases for himself than for his master, without forfeit- 
ing the good will or bounty of the latter. Amidst these 
strokes of satire, Chaucer’s genius for descriptive 
painting breaks forth in the simple and beautiful de- 
scription of the Reve’s rural habitation,— 


‘“*« He bad his wonuing fatr upon an heath, 
With greené trees yshadowed was his place.’ ” 


Tk ANEMOMETER, OR WIND-GAUGE. 


THERE may be many persons who are unable to con- 
ceive the use of a wind-gauge or wind-measurer, since 
Wind 1s nothing more than the motion of particles of 
alr; a motion, too, singularly variable and unequal. It 
18, however, possible that if by careful observation we 
could discover any law in the fluctuation cither of the 
force or direction of the wind, considerable aid would 
be afforded in the solution of many problems relating 


* “Fodder, being a general name for meat given to cattle in 
winter, and of affinity with food applied to man and beasts, doth 
only signify meat. And so the sense is, my meat is forage, that 
is, my Meat ts such hard and old provision as is made for herses 
and cattle in winter.—F*, Thynne’s Animadversions. 

7 The spelling here is a proof, if any were needed, of the 


origin of the name Deptford. 


MAGAZINE. [NOVEMBER 27, 
to the weather; and meteorologists have therefore de- 
vised instruments called wind-gauges, or ‘ anemome- 
ters” (aneasurers of wind), for determining in some 
degree the force of the wind. 

Livery one 1s aware that a vane tells us the direction 
from which the wind blows, and no other instrument is 
therefore necessary for this purpose; but to determine 
the force of the wind, other arrangements are necessary. 
It has been found that a wind moving at the rate of 
twenty fect per second exerts a moving force equal to 
twelve ounces on a flat surface one foot square opposed 
perpendicularly to it; and this furnishes something like 
a standard by which other velocities of wind may be 
measured. Dr. Lind, of Edinburgh, measured the 
moving force of wind by its pressure on the surface of 
water. His anemomceter consists of two glass tubes 
five or six inches in length, and half an inch bore, con- 
nected together at the bottom lke a siphon by means 
of a small tube one-tenth of an inch bore. From the 
upper part of one leg of this siphon a bent tube pro- 
jects nearly horizontally, something like the spout of a 
tea-kettle; and this spout is turned towards the 
quarter from whence the wind is blowing. A certain 
quantity of water being introduced into the siphon, the 
wind, entering one of the legs at the open orifice, 
presses on the water, and forces an additional portion 
up the other leg of the siphon. The difference in the 
levels of the water in the two branches, occasioned by 
this displacement, affords the means of measuring the 
force and velocity of the wind. 

Bouguer, a French philosopher, contrived an ane- 
mometer in which the wind pressed against a wooden 
board, whose movement consequent on this pressure 
was resisted by a spring; anda dial-plate and index 
were so placed as to indicate the force with which the 
board had been pressed by the wind. 

Mr. Martin, during the last century, devised an 
arrangement by which a wheel of four sails, set in 
inotion by the wind, caused a cone to rotate on its axis, 
and to draw up a weight by a rope coiled round the 
cone. As the weight was wound up, the rope passed 
rradually to a larger and larger part of the diameter of 
the cone; and this diameter was made to measure the 
force by which the sails were propelled. 

sir Jolin Leslie, having found in the course of his 
expernnents on heat that the cooling power of a current 
of alr is exactly proportional to its velocity, derived 
from this principle the construction of a new anemo- 
meter, which was in fact nothing more than a thermo- 
meter witha large bulb. The instrument was held in 
still calm air, and the temperature noted ; the bulb was 
then warmed by the hand, and the time noted which it 
took to cool back to the former point; it was then 
exposed to the wind, and the cooling effect marked. 
From these combined operations, aided by a little cal- 
culation, an approximation was obtained to the velo- 
city of the wind which had been blowing on the 
bulb. 

But all these instruments, aud many others which 
we shall refrain from describing, were so defective, and 
rave results so little to be depended on, that meteoro- 
logists took very little account of theni; and it was 
not until the British Association commenced its labours 
that any marked improvement was made. We per- 
haps cannot better give an idea of the anemometer as it 
at present exists, than by tracing the proceedings of the 
Association in this matter. 

In 1832 Professor Forbes said :— J think that if the 
anemometer is ever to become an available meteorole- 
gical instrument, it must be on some principle of seli- 
registration, such as I proposed about two years age. 
Inither by a piece of clock-work, or some sunple movye- 
ment put in action by the wind itself, I proposed that 
small spherules of wood or other hght matter, or even 


1S41.] 


shot, should be let fall through a free space, suppose of 


three feet, and that the force and direction of the wind 
should at once be measured, at every interval of the 
falling of a spherule, by the amount and direction of 
the defiexion produced, and which should be ascer- 
tained by the dividing into compartments a platform 
arranged to receive them.” We are notaware that this 
plan has ever been carried out in practice, though Pro- 
fessor Forbes thinks that it is a method admitting of 
Pie a ACCULaACcy. 

At the Dublin meeting in 1835, Profcssor Whewcll 
described the construction and purpose of an anemo- 
meter, which seems destined to render important ser- 
vice to meteorological science; he stated that several 
were in the course of construction, with a view to their 
being tried in different places; and he hoped that in 
the following year some additional information might 
be obtained respecting its action. Accordingly, at the 
Bristol meeting in 1836 further details were given 
concerning the instrument. Its object is not to deter- 
mine the actual force of the wind at any given moment, 
but to obtain a record of the total amount of aérial 
current which passes the place of observation in any 
piven direction. It performs fonr offices, viz. to show 
the direction from which the wiid blows, the succes- 
sive changes in that direction, the amount of wind in 
each direction, and records its own results with a 
pencil. These objects are attained in a very ingenious 
manner. The instrument consists of a small whcel 
(ike a windmill with eight sails), which is kept towards 
the wind bya vane. The rapid rotation of the wheel 
by the action of the wind is, through the medium of a 
train of toothed wheels and screws, converted into a 


slow vertical motion, which is imparted to a piece of | 


crayon or other pencil. The number of teeth m the 
wheels and threads in the screws is such, that ten 
thousand revolutions of the wheel produce a vertical 
motion of only one-twentieth of an inch in the pencil. 
The peneil, as it travels downwards, traces a line on 
the surface of a white-varnished vertical cylinder, 
which has an axis coincident with the axis of the vane. 
The consequences of this arrangement are, that the 
greater amount there may be of wind, the lower does 
the pencil-mark descend on the cylinder; and that 
when the wind changes is direction, the mark falls on 
a different part of the circumference of the cylinder. 
As a record of the phenomena, therefore, the extent of 
vertical motion shows the amount of the wind; and 
the part of the circumference of the cylinder in which 
the trace lies shows the direction. In giving the 
results numerically, the vertical height of the hne is 
measured by means of a graduated seale attached to 
the instrument; while the part of the circumference on 
which it is traced is indicated by the points of the 
compass depicted on it. It will be evident from this 
description that the instrument does not measure the 
length of time during which any one wind is blowing, 
but the amount of force or power cxerted by it before 
it changes its direction. | 
It was announced at the samc meeting that anemo- 
meters of this coustruction were to be erected, and 
regularly observed, at Cambridge, York, and Ply- 
mouth, and that the results would be given at the next 
meeting. Accordingly, at the Liverpool mecting in 
1837 it was stated that the instruments were in active 
use, and that Professor Challis had obtained a sort of 
map of the winds, as given by the anemometer at Cam- 
bridge. This was deemed very important, because it 
eave the actual quantity of wind blowing from each 
qnarter; whereas in the ordinary way of registering 
even the direction of the wind, which is by stating the 
length of time it blows from a certain point of the 
compass, the velocity of the wind is altogether left out 


of account, and the “ high wind” or “ storm” of one | 


THE PRNNY MAGAZINE. 


403 


day is placed on a par with the “ gentle breeze” of the 
QUES be 

The Association placed 102. at the disposal of Mr. 
Snow Harris, for the perfection of the anemomeier at 
Plymouth ; and at the Newcastle meeting, in the next 
year, a very extensive serics of tables indicative of the 
results obtained was given to the Association. 

Last year, at the Glasgow mecting, Mr. Snow Harris 
made a report on certain improvements which had 
been made in the instrument, and on the result ob- 
tained; and he there made a remark with which we 
shall conclude onr notice of this insirument :—“ The 
want of an instrument which could figure at once the 
direction and proportionate velocity of a given current, 
so as to obtain an integral result, has been long felt in 
meteorology. Common anemomeiers merely register 
the tune of a given wind from a certain point, and 
leave its velocity out of the question; and althoueh 
others of amore improved kind register also its piessure 
on a given area, thereare none, so faras J know, which 
eive the complete and truly valuable result obtained 
from Mr. Whewell’s, viz. the total quantity or integral 
effect of the wind at a given place.” 

But there 1s another form of anemomcter which has 
been brought into use principally by the encocurage- 
ment of the British Association, and which is con- 
sidered to possess valuable propertics, viz. that of 
Mr. Osler. This instrument was placed in the Philo- 
sophical Institution at Birmingham in 1837, and a 
description of it given at the Liverpool meeting. The 
direction of the wind is obtained by ineans of a vane, 
which is attached to a supporting tube, and makes the 
latter rotate with it. At.the lower extremity of this 
tube is a small pinion working ina rack, which sl.des 
backwards and forwards as the wind moves the vanc; 
and to this rack is attached a pencil, which marks the 
direction of the wind on a paper ruled with the cardi- 
nal points, and so adjusted as to progress at the rate of 
one inch per hour, by means of a clock. So far for 
the direction of the wind; the /force is registered as 
follows :—This force is ascertained by a plate, one foot 
square, placed at right angles to the vane, supported 
by two light bars running on friction rollers, and com- 
municating with a spiral sprmg-in such a way that the 
plate cannot be affected by the wind’s pressure, without 
instantly acting on this spring, and comniunicating the 
quantum of its action, by a light wire passing down 
the centre of the tube, to another pencil below, which 
thus registers the degree of force. There is also a 
provision for measuring the quantity of rain which 
falls; but with this we have nothing further to do 
here. 

There are in this instrument, it will be seen, four 
separate provisions with regard to the wind: the vane 
indicates the direction in which the wind is blowing; 
the square tablet, the spring, and the wire, indicate the 
force of the wind; the two pencils record these indi- 
cations on the paper; and the equable motion of the 
paper by wheel-work apportions the several gradations 
of direction and force to the time of the day when they 
occurred. These objects are so numcrous, and the 
arrangements of the instrument so complicated, that 
considerable difficulty has been experienced in bringing 
it to working condition. .Forty pounds were placed 
by the Association in the hands of Mr. Harris for the 
construction of an anemometer on Mr. Qsler’s plan; 
and in the two following years, very copious registers 
were presented to the Association, of observations on 
the wind made by this instrument at Plymouth; while 
at the 1840 meeting a similar register was given of the 
observations made at Birmingham. These latter ob- 
servations were characterised by Sir D. Brewster at 
the same meeting as “ observations of inestimable 
value, which exhibit more important results respecting 


464 THE, PENNEY 
the phenomena and laws of wind than any which have 
been obtained since meteorology became one of the 
physical sciences. ” 

We may look forward in future to much improvc- 
ment in those columns of our almanacs and calendars 
which relate to the wind, both from the use of such 
instruments as these, and from the careful observations 
which are being made both in this country and on the 
Continent. As a proof of the advances which are 
now being made, we may adduce a few instances given 
by Professor Forbes in his Report on Meteorology, 
1840. M. Dove, of Berlin, has shown that when the 
wind changes, it generally does so from rzght to left, 
rather than from left to night; that 1s, it appears to 
shift its quarter in the direction which the hands of a 
watch take. But he further remarked that this direc- 
tion is changed in the southern hemisphere, being 5., 
E., N.,W., instead of S., W., N., E., as in the northern. 
It is not meant to infer that in England, for instance, 
which is in the northern hemisphere, a wind when it 
changes from S. always veers towards W.; but that it 
has a tendency rather to do so than to veer towards Iz. 
The manner in which these various winds affect the 
pressure, temperature, and humidity of the air, or are 
affected by them, is yet very httle known ; but M. Dove, 
from a long series of observations, has been led to tle 
conclusions that in the northern hemisphere — 

The Barometer falls during E., S$. E., and E. winds ; 
passes from falling to rising during 5. W.; rises with 
W., N.W., and N.; and has its maximum rise with 
N.E. wind. 

The Thermometer riscs with E., $.F., and S. winds ; 
has its maximum with S.W.;3 falls with W., N.W., and 
N.; and is at minimum at N.E. | 

The elasticity of vapour increases with E., 5.E., and 
S. winds; has its maximum at $.W.; and diminishes 
during the wind’s progress by W. and N.W. to N.: at 
N.E. it has a minimum. | 

Time, which has so many offices to fill in dispelling 
doubts and developing truths, must decide whether 
these results of Dove’s accord with those obtained, or 
to be obtained, from other quarters. We may confi- 
dently look to the British Association for valuable 
accessions to our knowledge on this important subject ; 
and indeed the meeting recently held at Plymouth tur- 
nished some very new and remarkable features, which 
will probably be given in the Report. 





Scenery of « Norway Fiord.—¥irst, the farm-house, with its 
surrounding buildings, its green paddock, and shining white 
beach, was‘hidden behind the projecting rocks. Then Thor islet 
appeared to jo with the nearest shore, from which its bushes of 
stunted birch seemed to spring. Then, as the skiff dropped lower 
and lower down, the interior mountaims appeared to mse above 
the rocks which closed in the head of the fiord, and the snowy 


MAGAZINE. [ NovemMBER, 1841. 


. . » Farther on, a still and somewhat dreary region, where there 
was no motion but that of the sea-birds, which were leading their 
broods down the shores of the fiords, and of the air, which appeared 
to quiver before the eye, from the evaporation caused by the heat 
of the sun.— Miss Martineau's Feats on the Fiord. 


Enghsh Veracity——English valour and English intelligence 
have done less to extend and to preserve our Oriental empire 
than English veracity. All that we could have gained by imi- 
tating the doublings, the evasions, the fictions, the perjuries, 
which have beeu employed against us, is as nothing when com- 
pared with what we have gained by being the one power in 
India on whose word reliance can be placed. No oath which 
superstition cau devise, no hostage however precious, inspires a 
hnndredth part of the confidence which is produced by the ¢ yea, 
yea, and ‘nay, nay, of a British envoy. No fastuess, however 
strong by art or nature, gives to its inmates a security like that 
enjoyed by the clnef who, passing through the territories of 
powerful and deadly enemies, is armed with the British gua- 
rantee. The mightiest princes of the East can scarcely, by the 
offer of enormous usury, draw forth any portion of the wealth 
which is concealed under the hearths of their subjects. The 
British government offers little more than four per cent., and 
avarice hastens to bring forth ten millions of rupees from its most 
secret repositories. A hostile monarch may promise mountains 
of gold to our Sepoys on condition that they will desert the 
standard of the Company. The Company promises only a mo- 
derate pension after a long service. But every Sepoy knows that 
the promise of the Company will be kept; he knows that if he 
lives a hundred years, lis rice and salt are as secure as the salary 
of the Governor-general; aud he knows that there is not another 
state m India which would not, in spite of the most solemn vows, 
leave him to die of hunger ma ditch as soon as he had ceased to 
be useful. The greatest advantage which a government can 
possess, is to be the one trustworthy government im the midst of 


governments which nobody can trust.—dinburgh Review, No. 
142. 


Manna.,—At a distance of fifteen miles from, and at an‘eleva- 
tion of about two thousand feet above the level of the sea, I first 
saw the tree which produces the manna. This remarkable sub- 
stance is secreted by several trees, and in various countries 1m the 
East. In some parts of Persia it 1s believed to be an insect secre- 
tion, and is collected from a shrub called gavan, about two feet 
high, bearing a striking resemblance tothe broom. In the hilly 
district of Looristan, as in Mesopotamia, we find it on several 
trees of the oak species, which there, however, are of more stunted 
growth than those of England. From these the manna is col- 
lected on cloths spread beneath them at night, and it then bears 
the form of Jarge crystal drops of dew, such as we see on plants 
in England in the early part of morning. Burckhardt observes, 
that at Erzroum a substance resembling manna in taste and con- 
sistence distils from the tree which bears galls, and with which 
the inhabitants of the country form one of the principal articles 
of their food. These would appear to be different from the 5i- 
cilian manna used for medicinal purposes, and which botanists 
have considered as a vegetable gum, procured in Calabria and 
Sicily, and to be exuded from the Fraxinus ornus, or flowermg 
ash. A supposition has, however, been started, that this might 
be also the production of the aphes tribe.—Lveut. Wellsted’s Tra- 
vels in Arabia. 


peak of Sulitelma stood up clear amidst the pale-blue sky ; the |. 


glaciers on its sides catching the sunlight on different pomts, and 
clittering so that the eye could scarcely endure to rest upon the 
mountain. . .. Every crevice of the rocks, even where there 
seemed to be no soil, was tufted with bushes, every twig of which 
was bursting into the greenest leaf, while here and there a clump 
of dark pines overhung some busy cataract, which, itself over- 
shadowed, sent forth its httle clouds of spray, dancing and ghit- 
tering in the sunlight. A pair of fishing eagles were perched on 
a high ledge of rock, screaming to the echoes, so that the dash of 
the currents was lost in the din. . . Lower down, it was 
scarcely less beautiful. The waters spread out again to a double 
width. The rocks were, or appeared to be, lower; and now and 
then, in some space between rock and rock, a strip of brillant 
green meadow lay open to the sunshine; and there were large 
fiocks of fieldfares, flying round and round, to exercise the 
newly-fledged young. ‘There were a few habitations scattered 
along the margin of the fiord; ayd two or three boats might be 
seen far off, with diminitive figures of men drawing their nets. 


Moral Influence of Foreign Commerce.—It is unquestionably 
true that wealth produces wants, but it is a still more important 
truth that wants produce wealth. Each cause acts and re-acts 
upon the other; but the order, both of precedence and of im- 
portance, is with the wants which stimulate to industry ; and 
with regard to these, it appears that, instead of being always 
ready to second the physical powers of man, they require for their 
development “ all appliances and means to boot.” The greatest 
of all difficulties in converting uncivilised and thinly peopled 
countries into civilised and populous ones, is to inspire them 
with the wants best calculated to excite their exertions in the pro- 
duction of wealth. One of the greatest benefits which foreign 
commerce confers, and the reason why it has always appeared an 
almost necessary ingredient in the progress of wealth, 1s its ten- 
dency to inspire new wants, to form new tastes, and to furnish 
fresh motives for industry.—Malthus'’s Poltical Economy. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


Meeey AL A 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


465 


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(Tobacco Warehouse.—London Docks.: 


In inviting the reader to accompany us in a rapid 
review of the processes by which tobacco, cigars, and 
snuif are produced, we feel that we must not indulge 
in many remarks on either the use or the abuse of this 
plant. There is certainly a strong temptation so to do, 
when we are told in ‘ Dr. Everard, his discourse of 
the wonderful Effects and Operation “of Tobacco,’ that 
the use of this plant will stay hunger and thirst, cure 
the dropsy, ease diseases of the head, catarrhs, and 
headache, cure dimness of sight, deafness, redness of 
the face, toothache, ulcerated gums, swelling of the 
throat, diseases of the chest, stomach pains, ” surfeit, 
swooning, colic, diseases of the liver and of the spleen, 
sciatica, burns, wounds, scalds,—and likewise effect 
cures of all sorts of complaints m all sorts of animals. 
But unfortunately we have the fear of King James’s 
‘Counterblast to Tobacco’ before our eyes, as well as 
the anathemas of sundry other writers, a few illustra- 
tions of which will be found in two of our former 
Numbers (18 and 220). We must therefore be con- 
tent to treat the matter in a commercial and manufac- 
turing character; previously quoting Mr. Porter’s 
remark, that ‘“ Tobacco 1s, perhaps, an object of more 
general use than any other es of the vegetable 
kingdom ; and if we consider that in no sense can it 
be classed among articles necessary for human sub- 
sistence, this fact is calculated to excite our surprise as 
well as interest. The love of tobacco 1s evidently an 
acquired taste; yet it is one so easily and universally 
acquired, that this weed forms a luxury which is en- 
joyed in common by the African negro, the unclothed 
and houseless wanderer of Australia, the hardy Ame- 


620. 


rican Indian, the slothful Asiatic, and every class of 
people throughout the more polshed countries of 
vurope.” 

It has happened in inany of our former Supple- 
ments that a notice of manufacturing processes did 
not involve the necessity for a description of the raw 
materials operated on. For instance, in an account of 
the operations conducted at a Brewery, we felt no 
necessity for beginning with the cultivation of malt 
and hops, the substances from which the flavour and 
qualities of the brewed liquor are derived. But in 
treating of tobacco the same remark cannot apply; for 
it is the actual leaf of the plant which is consumed, 
and not a particular substance extracted from it. 
Moreover the processes whereby the leaf is brought 
into a prepared state are partly performed at the Ame- 
rican plantation whence it 1s derived; and these must 
be glanced at before the subsequent pr ocesses can be 
understood. Although, therefore, we have given to 
this paper a title in conformity with the series to which 
it belongs, yet the details will carry us to different 
quarters, “instead of being confined within the limits of 
one establishment. 

The botanical name for the tobacco plant is Nico- 
tiana, given to it in honour of Jean Nicot, Lord of 
Villemain, who was ambassador from france to Por- 
tugal about the time when the plant was first brought 
to Europe. It 1s supposed that he introduced 1t first 
into France, as Sir Walter Raleigh did into England. 
There are seven species of the NG icotiana, of which 
only one, the Nicotiana Tabacum, need be particularly 
described. There are two varieties of this species, both 


Vou. X.—3 0 


466 


annual herbaceous plants, rising with strong erect stems 
to the height of from six to nine feet, their fohage being 
fine and handsome. When full grown the stalk near to 
the root frequently attains a size greater than an inch 
in diameter; it is surrounded by a hairy clammy sub- 
stance of a greenish-yellow colour. 
are of a light green, grow alternately at intervals of 
two or three inches on the stalk; they are oblong and 
spear-shaped ; those lowest on the stalk are about 
twenty inches long, and they decrease 1n size as they 
ascend, the top leaves being only ten inches long and 
five broad. The young leaves, when about six inches 
long, are of a deep green colour, and rather smooth ; 
but as they approach maturity, they assume a yellowish 
tint, and have a rougher surface, The flowers grow In 
chisters from the extremities of the stalks; they are 
yellow externally, and of a delicate red within; the 
edges, when they are full blown, rather inclining to 
purple. These flowers are succeeded by kidney-shaped 
capsules of a brown colour, each one of which contains 
about one thousand seeds, so that the whole produce 
of a plant has been sometimes estimated at three hun- 
dred and fifty thousand seeds. 

Such is the appearance which the plant presents, 
and which may perhaps be better understood by com- 
paring this description with the wood-cut given 1n one 
of the numbers before alluded to. In Virginia (the 
centre of the tobacco-growing districts) the kinds of 
soil chosen for the cultivation of the plant are the 
chocolate-coloured mountain-lands, and the light 
black soil in the coves of mountains and the richest 
low grounds. The ground is prepared in two ways, 
one for the seed, the other for the transplanted sprouts. 
The seed is sown in nursery-beds, called patches, bor- 
dered by some plant which will arrest the progress of 
the ravaging fly ; and is effected generally about March 
or April. Ina month’s time the young sprouts being 
ready for transplanting, ground is prepared for their 
reception. Hullocks, about eighteen inches high, are 
raised in parallel lines, four feet apart in one direction, 
and three feet in another, The sprouts, being about 
five inches high, are carefully taken out of the ground 
without injury to their tender rootlets, and conveyed 
to the field ina basket. One person places a sprout 
upon every hillock; and others, who follow him, make 
a hole with the finger in the centre of each hillock and 
deposit the tobacco-plant in an upright position, press- 
ing the earth round the root with the hands. This 1s 
an operation of great delicacy, as the leaves are excced- 
ingly tender at this time, and any injury sustained by 
them would endanger the safety of the plant. 

Incessant attention 1s required to the young plants 
by weeding, earthing, stirring the soil about the roots, 
removing dead leaves, renloving superfluous sprouts 
called suckers, defending the plants from grubs and 
worms, &c. When the plant has attained the height 
of about two feet, it 1s topped, that 1s, the upper part is 
cut or pinched off, leaving such a portion of the stem 
as contains from five to mine leaves. 

When the plants are in a fit state for being cut (at 
which time the leaves have changed their colour to a 
yellowish-green, the substance of the leaf is thickened, 
and the web more prominent), the cutters, each of 
whom is furnished with a sharp strong knife, proceed 
regularly along the rows of plants, cutting only such 
as appear to be ripe, leaving the rest for future opera- 
tions. This selection is necessary, because if the 
tobacco be cut before it is fully ripe, it will not assume 
~ a good colour, and will be liable to rot when packed 
in the hogsheads. The stalks are cut almost close to the 
eround ; and such of them asare sufficiently thick are 
sht down the middle, in order to admit the more un- 
obstructed access of air and the evaporation of natural 
Inoisture. ‘The cut and divided stalks are then laid 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


The leaves, which | 


[NoveMBER, 184} 


down in regular order on the ground, the extremities 
of the leaves all pointing in the same direction, that 
they may be more easily gathered. This gathering is 
effected after a short exposure to the sun. 

The next part of the process is the curing of the to- 
bacco, which 1s carried on in large barns, whose sides are 
left partially open to allow a free circulation of air; and 
the internal area of the building, including the roof, is 
occupied by horizontal poles stretching across the barn. 
in a parallel direction, aud four feet asunder. These 
poles are connected together by cross-pieces called 
tobacco-sticks, upon which the leaves are hung in order 
to be cured. There are several stages of these poles 
and sticks, one above another, a perpendicular space of 
four feet being left between them. The plants are 
carried to the curing-house as soon as the leaves have 
lost so much of their rigidity and brittleness as to 
bear handling without breaking; and the operation of 
hanging them is then effected, by suspending the plants 
upon the sticks with the points of the leaves downwards, 
resting them either by the stalk of the lowest leaf, or 
by the sht which has been made in the stem. Each 
stick, after being loaded with plants placed four or five 
inches apart, is conveyed to the stage of poles to which 
it belongs; and the whole area of the barn becomes 
thus filled with the plants, no two touching each 
other. 

The unassisted action of the atmosphere produces, in 
a general way, that effect for which this process 1s un- 
dergone; but it 1s sometimes necessary to have small 
smothered fires of rotten wood or bark in the barn, to 
counteract the effects of an unfavourable state of the 
weather. An exposure to the air for a period of about 
five weeks makes the leaves of tobacco elastic and 
tough, and slightly covered with a glossy kind of mois- 
ture. The tobacco is then said to be 27 case, and is 
taken down from the sticks, 1n order that the stalks 
may be separated from the leaves. The general plan 
is, for a party of negroes—inen, women, and children— 
to sit in a circle on the floor of the tobacco-house, and 
to pull the leaves from the stalks, handing the former 
to two men placed in the centre, who distribute them 
into separate heaps according to their qualities. The 
lower or ground leaves, being generally soiled and 
torn, are separated from the rest; while of those pro- 
duced in the higher part of the stalk, some are inferior 
to others; the whole are therefore distributed into 
three heaps. 

At this stage in the proceedings it is necessary to 
mention a difference in the form in which tobacco is 
imported from the plantations. Our manufacturers 
distinguish between ‘strip’ and ‘leaf,’ or ‘strip-leat,’ 
and ‘ hand-work,’ the former of which is the technical 
name for tobacco from which the stem of the leaf has 
been taken away before the latter is packed in the 
hogshead; whereas ‘hand-work’ is the name applied 
when the leaf is packed whole, stem and all. The 
stripping is effected by taking the leaf in one 
hand, and the extremity of its stem in the other, in 
such a manner as to tear them asunder in the direction 
of the fibre, a process requiring some degree of expert- 
ness: but whether the leaves are stripped or not, the sub- 
sequent processes are nearly the same. The leaves are 
tied up in small bundles by a bandage at their thicker 
end, a sinall leaf being employed for that purpose by 
twisting it round the others, and securing its end in 4 
kind of knot. Each little bundle of those leaves from 
which the stalks have not been removed, is called a 
hand, and is, at the end where it is tied, somewhat 
thicker than a man’s thumb, the length being from one 
to two feet, according to the kind of leaf. ‘The 
‘strip-leaf’? presents a shehtly different appearance. 
All the buudles are then thrown together in heaps on 
a wooden platform, where they undergo the process of 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


sweating, which is in its nature a shght degree of fer- 
entation, 

Packing for shipment is the next operation. The 
tobacco is packed in hogsheads, and there are three 
reasons why it 1s desirable to compress it into as small 
a Space as possible—the expense of freight is consider- 
ably lessened by lessening the bulk, the tobacco is ren- 
dered less liable to external change by the air being 
nearly expelled, and the reccption of moisture, or of 
Injury from without, is rendered less likely to occur. 
Mr. Porter states that instances have occurred where 
vessels have been stranded, and their cargoes of tobacco, 
although long covered by sea-water, have yet been 
found on examination to be only very partially damaged 
on the outside ; the middle, from one or two inches in- 
ward, proving perfectly sound and dry. The casks are 
made perfectly dry for the reception of the tobacco, which 
is then deposited in them, the little bundles or hands 
being ranged one by one parallel to cach other across 
the hogshead, the points all in the same direction. The 
next course or layer is reversed, the points being in 
the opposite direction; and any small spaces that may 
occur are filled up with bundles of less size, so as to 
bring all to a level. When the hogshead is about one- 
quarter filled in this way, a powerful lever-press is 
applied to the surface of the tobacco, so as to reduce 
the thickness from about twelve inches to three. The 
lever is kept in its position for several hours, in order 
that the tobacco may become so completely consolidated 
that it will not spring up again Bhen the pressure is 
removed. J*resh portions are then laid in the hogshead, 
aud treated in a similar manner, until the whole space 
is filled with a dense and compact mass of tobacco- 
leaves. A hogshead, forty-eight inches in length, by 
thirty or thirty-two in diameter, will hold one thousand 
pounds weight of tobacco, when compressed in this 
Way. 

We have now seen our tobacco packed in hogsheads, 
and shall here take leave of the plantations. Mr. Ta- 
tham, in his ‘ Essay on the Cultivation of Tobacco,’ 
details the mode of examination to which the hogs- 
heads of tobacco used to be subjected before they were 
allowed to be shipped from Virginia; but as many 
changes have taken place in the tobacco-trade during 
the forty years which have elapsed sinee Mr. Tatham 
wrote, and as this mode of examination is in some re- 
spects similar to that which is at present acted on in 
the London Docks (of which we shall presently speak), 
any further notice respecting the proceedings previous 
to shipment may be dispensed with here. Referring 
to Mr. Porter’s valuable volume on ‘ Tropical Agricul- 
ture’ for more minute details respecting the cultivation 
and curing of tobacco, we will suppose a cargo to have 
arrived at London, and will follow it in its subsequent 
career. 

Among the wonders which arc presented by the nu- 
merous docks at the east cnd of the town, few are so 
remarkable as the tobacco-warehouses at the London 
Docks. In Pennington Street, Ratcliffe Highway, is 
one of the entrances to the London Docks, very near 
the tobacco-warchouses. ‘These warehouses he at the 
Jeft hand of the entrance gates, and are entered 
through an archway. After going a few yards through 
a path bounded on cithter side by hogsheads of tobacco, 
we come to a vast area of ground whose appearance is 
indeed bewildering. Almost as far as the eye can 
reach, southward and eastward, are ranges, tiers, or 
alleys of hogsheads, whose number is immense. Pas- 
sage after passage occurs, each scveral hundred feet in 
length, and only wide enough to admit the necessary 
traffic; all parallel one to another, and all bordered on 
both sides with close and compact masses of hogsheads, 
ceencrally two in height. 
roof, or rather one succession of roofs; and on the Ist 


a 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


The whole are under one. 
| servation, 


467 


of the present month (Nov., 1841) there were more 
than twenty thousand hogsheads, averaging twelve 
hundred pounds of tobacco cach. 

Those who are unacquainted with Customs’ and 
Excise regulations, may perhaps not deem it imma- 
terial to know why this enormous quantity of tobacco 
is kept in one place. The duty paid on every pound of 
tobacco is very large; but this duty is not demanded so 
lone as the tobacco remains at the docks, or rather in the 
warehouses attached to the docks. As soon as it is landed 
at the docks from the ship and placed in the warehouses, 
it is considered to be 72 bond, under the care of the state, 
and cannot be removed thence till the duty is paid. 
A small vent is paid during the time that it remains 
in the warchouses. Permission is given for the trans- 
ference of samples from hand to hand, wnder cer- 
tain regulations; but the bulk of the tobacco must 
remain until the somewhat inordinate demands of the 
state are satisfied. 

Searcely any other article of consumption pays a 
duty so enormous when compared with the cost price, 
as tobacco. The avcrage value of the tobacco brought 
to England, including the profits of the cultivator, 
the ship-owner, and all parties concerned, 1s about 
sixpence per pound; but the duty paid on it is now 
three shillings and twonence per pound, being more 
than six times the full value of the article itself. 
We have heard of an instance, at a tine when the duty 
was somewhat higher than it is now, of tobacco worth 
only twopence halfpenny per pound, paying a duty of 
four shillines,—ninecteen times the value of the com- 
modity! The expediency or inexpediency of this im- 
post, in a fiscal point of view, it is no part of our pir- 
pose to descant on here; but it is necessary to mention 
these matters in order to understand certain curious 
effects which result therefrom. If by any circumstance 
the whole ora portion of a hogshead o7 tobacco be- 
comes injured, previous to its arrival at the docks, the 
owner would rather lose it altogethcr than pay the 
enormous duty on the damaged portion. Were the 
duty very small, it is possible that the damaged portion 
might be sold at a price which would more than cover 
the duty on it; but as it is, the duty 1s too igh to per- 
mit of such a speculation. The state allows the 
damaged portion to be burned, without any duty having 
been paid on it; and we proceed to describe the arrange 
ments whereby this 1s effected. 

In various parts of the warehouses are large scales 
for weighing the hogsheads of tobacco, together with 
other apparatus connected with the examination of its 
quality. At cach of these stations isa small temporary 
room or counting-house, for the accommodation of the 
supervising officer, under whose lmimediate inspection 
the examination proceeds. A hogshead of tobacco 
having been brought to one of these stations, the head 
of the hogshead is knocked out, some of the staves 
loosened, and by a dextcrous management the hogshead 
is taken completely oif the tobacco, leaving the Jatter 
standing upright as a brown-coloured mass of tobacco- 
leaves, uncommonly dense and impenctrable. As we 
before observed, such a mass, four feet high and less 
than three feet in diameter, weighs as much as a thou- 
sand pounds. By an examination of one end of this 
cylindrical mass, we can see the manner im which the 
little bunches of tobacco-leaves are ranged layer 
upon layer, and compressed very tightly together. The 
examination then proceeds, ot which we can of course 
say very little in words, since it 1s only by long experi- 
ence that the nature and extent of afl damage which 
the tobacco may have received can be appreciated. Let 
us suppose, however, that a portion of the exterior has, 
through the action of seca-water, bad packing, or any 
other cause, became so damaged as to be not worth pre- 
In such casc two men, provided with long 

302 


468 


cutting instruments, stand on opposite sides of the 
cylindrical mass of tobacco, and chop away all the in- 
jured part, by small bits at a time. The compression 
to which the tobacco has been subjected, gives such a 
solidity and denseness to the mass, that very powerful 
blows are required to chip off the damaged surface, 
especially at the cylindrical parts, for there the cutting 
is effected crosswise to the direction of the stalk and 
leaf. When we visited the warchouses, we saw a mass 
of tobacco which was being cut away to the depth of 
eight inches on one side; so deep had the injury 
extended. 

When the damaged portion is all cut away, the 
remainder is carefully weighed, in order that the 
amount of duty accruing to the state may be deter- 
mined; and samples are then frequently taken from 
the hogshead, which suffice to effect a sale between the 
vendor and the buyer of the hogshead of tobacco. The 
opened and loosened cask is next slipped over the mass 
of tobaeco, and fastened as closely to it as 1s necessary, 
by the aid of the hoops; the head of the hogshead being 
also fixed in at the same time. Jn our frontispiece 
we have represented some of the operations incident 
to the examination of the tobacco in the warehouses ; 
the weighing by means of large scales; the cutting 
away of the damaged tobacco from the surface of the 
mass; and the pressure of the tobaceo into the hogs- 
heads again after examination, by a powerful screw- 
press worked by four men situated on a platform 
above. A walk through the warehouses at the London 
Docks brings us to many different spots where these 
operations are going on. 

But what becomes of the damaged tobacco? Is it 
swept away, or sold as a perquisite? Neither. Damaged 
though it may be, 1t would still be worth a price suffi- 
cient to create a branch of trade, which, supposing no 
duty to be paid on the damaged tobacco, would lead to 
various plans injurious to the revenue. It is all burned 
within the walls of the warehouses. Not far from the 
north-east corner of the warehouse a door inscribed 
with the words “To the Kiln” points out the spot 
wLere this burning is effected. The kiln isa building 
of a form somewhat circular; so dark that its interior 





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arrangements can with difficulty be seen until the eyes 
are accustomed to the dusky hght; and provided with 
a furnace and several troughs Here the superintend- 
ent points out to a visitor the ‘ Queen’s tobaceo-pipe’— 
a joewlar name apphed to the chimney and the fur- 
naee in which the damaged tobacco is consumed. The 
tobacco is brought to the kiln, placed on the floor, and 


thence thrown into the furnace by an open door, and | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


° 


(NovemBeER, 1841 _ 


burned. As the smoke arising from this combustion is 
of a deleterious character, the chimney of the kiln is 
carried to a considerable height in order to convey the 
smoke to a sufficient height for avoiding unwholesome 
effects. ‘The greater part of the tobacco is thus con- 
sumed ; but an ash remains, which is from time to time 
drawn out of the furnace, and thrown into the bins or 
troughs at the side. These ashes are by no means 
valucless; they are sold as manure, for which they 
possess good qualities ; one ton of ashes being used to 
manure four acres of ground. The ashes also constitute 
a useful kind of tooth-powder. 

Thus much for the operations which the tobacco un- 
dergoes before it comes into the hands of those who are 
termed “snuff and tobacco manufacturers.” It will 
be seen by these details why it is that a notice of the 
processes carried on in any onc establishment would 
necessarily fail in conveying an accurate idea of the 
routine by which the simple plant is brought into a 
state fit for use. The tobacco is in fact half-manufac- 
tured before it leaves the warehouses. 

The leaf being brought to the manufacturer in 
hogsheads, he proceeds to give it one of the three forms 
in which it is used, 7.e, tobacco, cigars, and snuff. 
Most persons are probably aware of the main points of 
difference between these thrce forms of the plant; but 
as all are not so, we may shortly state that common 
smoking tobacco is the leaf, generally divested of the 
stalk, and also gencrally cut up into shreds or filaments ; 
cigars are bundles of the tobacco-leaf, divested of the 
stalk, and wrapped up into the close and well known 
form which those articles present; snuff? is formed 
partly of the stalks of the leaves, and partly of the 
leaves themselves, cut and ground into the state of 
powder. These are the distinctive qualities in which 
the three commercial forms of the plant differ one from 
another; but each one of the three has many varieties, 
arising partly from differences in the quality of the 
original leaf, partly from the manner in which the 
leaf is cut, and partly also from the processes prepara- 
tory or subsequent to the cutting. It may hkewise be 
here remarked that the manufacture of the leaf and 
stalk into the three forms in which the plant is used 
generally devolves upon three classes of persons. The 
same man who makes cigars does not generally pre- 
pare the tobacco which is smoked in pipes, while the 
ervinding of snuff is a different occupation from either. 
The processes, too, are conducted in a somewhat dif- 
ferent manner in different houses. We shall there- 
fore state in asimple form the gencral nature of the 
processes; acknowledging the kindness of Messrs. 
Rogers and Son of Oxford Street, and Mr. Pell of the 
Borough, in permitting us to view the processes of the 
tobacco manufaeture. 

A hogshead of tobacco being opened, and ready for 
preparation, the plant is dug out piecemeal by the aid 
of an iron instrument. The bundles of leaves are, as 
we before observed, compressed so powerfully to- 
ecther, that they become almost one mass; and indeed 
without the aid of moisture it would be almost impos- 
sible to separate them. The heaps or pieces are 
sprinkled with water, a process technically termed 
‘liquoring ;’ by which the bunches of leaves may be 
separated one from another. If the tokaeco is in the 
form called ‘strip-leaf, in which the stalk has been 
removed before the leaves were packed in the hogs- 
head, each separate leaf or half-leaf becomes loosened 
from the others by the operation of liquoring ; but if it 
be ‘hand-work,’ 7.e. retaining the stalks, and bound 
up in bundles called « hands,’ the liquoring in the first 
place loosens the bundles one from another, and these 
being untied, the leaves theniselves are separated. 

The ‘hand-work’ must become ‘strip-leaf’ before 
the tobacco is in a fit state for use, or in other words, 


SuPPLEMENT. | 


the stalk must be taken out, either at the plantations 
where the plant is grown, or in England after impor- 
tation. The strippmg or taking off of the stalk is 
effected generally by women or boys. The leaf is 
folded along the middle, and by means of a small in- 
struinent, and a dexterous manoeuvre acquired only by 
practice, the stalk 1s stripped from the Jeaf, and laid 
on one side,—the leaf bemg laid mm another place 
by itself. One particular kind of tobacco, however, 
known to consumers by the fanciful name of ‘ bird’s- 
eye, contains a portion of stalk as well as leaf. To 
produce this form of the ‘ Virginian weed,’ the 
various processes are performed on the leaf without 
the previous extraction of the stalk. The action of 
the cutting-machine, presently to be described, pro- 
duces a large number of round, hght, and exceed- 
ingly thin sections or slices of stalk, which become 
mixed up with the fine thread-like fibres into which 
the leaf itself is cut, and thus produce an ap- 
pearance which has given rise to the name of this par- 
ticular form of the plant. Let not the reader, curious 
in the philosophy of tobacco, hope however to meet 
with the brilliance of a bird’s eye in these shces of 
stalk. He will meet with no such thing. The workers 
in polished woods have also appropriated this simile, 
by giving the name of ‘ bird’s-eye maple’ to a spotted 
variety of that wood. The birds liave no reason to be 
proud of the compliment in either case. 

The cutting of the leaves into those fine shreds 
which form the greater part of smoking-tobacco is not 
effected leaf by leaf; but a large number of leaves are 
pressed together in the form of a cake, and then cut. 
The leaves, after having been separated one from 
another, and stripped of their stalks, are moistened to 
a certain degrec, cither by sprinkling or by immersion 
in a liquid prepared for that purpose. ‘This proccss 


not only gives to the leaves a degree of moisture 
which enables them to cake well togethcr, but also 
has an influence on their subsequent flavour, and is 
therefore of considerable importance in the manufac- 


& 


ture. 






14 


ye 


, Halt 


The cutting-machine by which the thread-hke fibres 
are produced is represented in the annexed cut, and 
the mode by which the tobacco 1s brought into a form 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


469 


fit for placing in the machine is as follows:—On one 
side of the tobacco manufactory is a powerful press, or 
a series of presses, capable of operating on a surface 
fourteen or sixteen inches square. The leaves are 
taken up out of a trough, in a damp state, and laid in 
a ‘mortar-press, layer after layer being piled up 
to a certain height. The whole are then subjected to 
pressure, by means of an iron plate which descends 
into the press upon the tobacco, and is connected 
above with the screw of the press. The tobacco is 
then removed from the ‘ mortar-press’ to the ‘ stand- 
ing-press,’ where it is pressed into a mass one-third of 
the thickness which it originally presented. ‘The mass 
of leaves is allowed to remain in the press several 
hours, in order that it should not spring up or loosen 
when the pressure is: removed. 

The cake, pressed as hard as a board, but clammy 
and wet from the previous sprinkling of the leaves, 
is then laid in the bed of the cutting-engine, in order 
to be cut into shreds. These engines, like most other 
engines used in manufactures, have undergone con- 
siderable changes as improvements became introduced. 
Originally tobacco uscd to be cut by means of a lone 
knife worked by hand. After a time a hand-engine 
was used, in which the workmen had nothing to do 
but to turn a winch-handle, the arrangement of the 
machine serving both to cut the tobacco and to shift 
the cake along as it became cut. Then horses weie 
used to turn the machine, mstead of applying human 
labour. Lastly, the power of steam was apphed, by 
which the whole work was brought within the scope 
of this moving-power; the attendance of mcn being 
required only to place the cake in the engine, to attend 
it while at work, and to remove the tobacco when 
cut. 

But the hand-engine, the horse-cngine, and the 
steam cutting-engine, however different in their mov- 
ing-power, all cut the tobacco nearly in the same man- 
ner. The cake is laid on an iron bed, which 1s suscep- 
tible of a slow progressive motion by means of a screw 
passing beneath it. This screw is connceted at one 
end with a cog-wheel, in such a manner that while 
the machine is working, the bed on which the tobacco 
is laid is urged slowly forward. Another part of the 
mechanism gives motion to a sharp blade, rather 
longer than the width of the cake. This kmfe or 
blade has a reciprocating vertical notion, or rather, 
a motion somewhat similar to that of a pair of nut- 
crackers, inasmuch as there is a hinge or fulcruni at 
one end. 

The cake being placed on the bed of the engine, 
confined in a kind of case or box, the motive-power 
is applied, and the process of cutting 1s 1mmedi- 
ately commenced. The cake is about two inches 
thick, and each action of the cutting-blade slices off a 
thin film from one end of the cake. As the cake itself 
is composed of a very large number of separate leaves 
of tobacco, it follows that each film or shaving taken 
from the edge, generally at right angles to the surface 
of the leaves, must be formed of separate pieces, In no 
case larger than filaments or fibres. The thickness of 
these fibres is regulated in a very ingenious manner, 
Immediately after the blade or knife has made one 
cut, the cake is moved forward a minute distance, so 
that the next followmeg cut of the blade may be distant 
some sinall space from the former. It depends upon 
the number of cogs in the wheel at the end of the 
under-lying screw, whether this distance, and conse- 
quently the diameter of the fibres of tobacco, shall be 
greater or smaller. For one kind of tobacco the cog- 
wheel contains about thirty cogs, for another about 
thirty-six; and these produce fibres whose diameters 
differ in the ratio of thirty-six to thirty, or six to five. 
To explain minutely how this difference 1s brought 


470 


about is no easy matter. Those who are acquainted 
with the action of wheel-work will readily under- 
stand the nature of this effect; while those who are 
not, could scarcely understand it from mere descrip- 
tion. 

When the cake is entirely cut up into shreds, or 
when, as it is technically termed, the ‘ box 1s out,’ the 
engine is stopped, and the cut tobacco, in a clotted and 
dainp state, 1s taken up and put into a trough or case. 
A new cake is then adjusted to the bed of the engine, 
and the operations proceed as before. At Messrs. 
Rogerss manufactory there are two cutting-engines 
ranged side by side, the beds being at a height of about 
two feet from the floor, and both worked by one steam- 
engine, through the agency of wheels and bands of the 
usual kinds. In our cut we have, however, represented 
one of the hand-engines, worked by means of a winch: 
the principle of the cuttmg part 1s the same as in the 
other, and more easily understood when divested of the 
mechanisin connected with the steam-engine. 

The various kinds of tobacco ordinarily used for 
smoking owe their dificrent qualities to many different 
circumstances ; some depending on the kind of leaf, 
some on the colour of the leaf, some on the retention 
of the stalk, some on the extent to which the leaf 
is ‘ liquored,’ and some on the relative fineness of the 
fibres into which itis cut. ‘ Bird’s-eye’ is, as we have 
before stated, produced by cutting up the stalk toge- 
ther with the leaf, a plan which is, we believe, never 
adopted with any other form of tobacco. That kind of 
tobacco whichis called ‘ returns’ is made of the lightest- 
coloured leaf, selected from the hogshead; and this 
light colour is preserved by caution in the subsequent 
arrangements. A considerable quantity of water in the 
process of ‘ liquoring’ has a tendency to darken the 
colour of the leaf, as has likewise an excessive amount 
of pressure when in the form of acake ; by using a small 
amount both of moisture and of pressure, therefore, 
Jightness of the colour of ‘returns’ is preserved. The 
very strong kind of tobacco called ‘ shag,’ which is 
used both for chewing and smoking, owes its quality 
io different circwmstauces, the first of which is the 
choice of the darkest-coloured leaves in the hogshead. 
In the subsequent processes the tobacco is well ‘ liquor- 
ed,’ and screwed down in the press with great force. 
This kind of tobacco is subdivided into two sorts, ‘ fine’ 
and ‘common,’ the chief difference between which js 
in the diameter of the fibres into which the leaves are 
cut, the ‘ fine’ being cut by the engine when the bed is 
pushed forward by a wheel having more cogs than for 
cutting the ‘common’ kind. 

Many of the names by which tobacco is known were 
eiven from the names of the places whence it was 
wrought, and trom other circumstances having but 
jittle reference to the quality of the tobacco. ‘ Oronoco,’ 
a name given to one kind of tobacco, was probably 
derived from the South American river of that name. 
‘ Kanaster’ or ‘ Canaster’ was originally the name 
given in America to baskets of rushes or cane, in 
which they put the tobacco sent to Europe; and hence 
the designation of‘ Kanaster tobacco’ was given to the 
leaves imported in those baskets. At present the two 
kinds known by these respective names are manufac- 
tured from the best leaf, generally from Havannah. 
Oronoko is cut finely, somewhat similar to fine ‘ shag,’ 
but Kanaster 1s much coarser. This forms the chief 
difference between the two kinds, the quality and pre- 
paration of the leaves being in other respects about 
equal. 

We must not omit to mention a kind of tobacco 
which glories in the name of ‘ pig-tail,’ and which 
perhaps is about equally well named with ‘ bird’s-eye.’ 
Pig-tail tobacco is a rope or cord, about equal in dia- 
meter to the thicker end of a common tobacco-pipe, 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


(NOVEMBER, 1841 


and of as great a length as the manufacturer may 
hoose to make it. The manufacture of this article 
eyulres the simultancous aid of a man and two boys 





The bench employed is several yards in length, and at 
one end of itis a kind of spinning-wheel, which is kept 
in rotation by one of the boys. The other boy has 
Tee out before him a supply of leaves, deprived of 
the stalks, and in a damp state. He opens the leaves 
one by one, and lays them down on the bench, end to 
end. The man follows him, and rolls up these suc- 
cessive leaves into the form of a cord, by a very 
peculiar motion of both his hands. The length of ‘ tail’ 
which happens to have been made at any one moment 
is kept constantly rotating by the action of the wheel, 
and the man, adding leaf after leaf to it with the lett 
hand, presses and roljJs it by means of a palm of leather 
or wood held in his nght. The manoeuvre is so quick 
and so dexterous, that a spectator can hardly sce where 
or how the leaf becomes absorbed into the ‘ tail,’ and 
made part of its substance: it 1s one of those operations 
of which manufactures present such numerous ecxam- 
ples, in which considerable skill and ‘ knack’ are re- 
quired for an apparently simple operation. As the 
tobacco is spun, 1t becomes wound off at the same time 
on a frame connccted with the spinning-wheel. The 
pig-tail is afterwards wound or twisted up into a hard 
close ball, and has a black colour given to it by 
steeping in tobacco-water. 

Of all the various ways in which tobacco is used in 
England, none has made a more striking advance 
within the last few years than c7gars. However much 
this form of the plant may be used in Spain and in the 
tropical regions of America, it was till a few years 
azo scarcely known in Iingland, except to the higher 
class of smokers; but now every stripling who is just 
shooting up into manhood thinks a cigar indispensable, 
as a symbol whereby the world may know that he has 
at length become a man; and lest this important piece 
of information should not be diffused widely enough by 
his remaining within doors, he exercises his new voca- 
tion in the open strect. 

The reader, by referring to one of our back 
numbers, will find a notice of the large extent to 
which cigar-making is carried on at Seville ; but be it 
where it may, the process is pretty nearly the sanie. 
In the next two cuts we have represented a man pre- 
paring the leaves for the cigar-maker, and another 
making the cigars. - The unstripped leaves, 7.e. the 
leaves from which the stalks have not yet been re- 
moved, are placed in front of the first-mentioned 
workman; he takes up the leaves one by one, folds 
them, strips off the stalk by a quick and dexterous 
movement, throws the stalks on his right hand, and 
lays the stripped leaves smoothly on his left. He is 
on the left side of the cigar-maker, to whom he hands 
up the leaves as fast as they are wanted. 

The cigar-maker is seated on a low stool in front or 


a+ 
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SUPPLEMENT. | 


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a low workbench, which has raised ledges on three of 
its sides, but is open at the side next the workman. He 
takes a leaf of tobacco, spreads it out smoothly before 
him on the bench, and euts it to a forin somewhat hke 
that of one of the gores or stripes of a balloon. He 
then takes up a few fragments of tobacco-leaf, eonsist- 
ing of various small cuttings, lays them on the spread 
leaf, and rolls them up into a form nearly resembling 
that of a cigar. He next places this cigar against a 
gauge or guide, formed of a piece of iron, and cuts it 
toa given length. Finally, he lays a narrow strip of 
leaf on the bench, and rolls the cigar spirally in it, 
twisting one end to prevent the leaf from beeoming 
loosened. All this is done with great rapidity, a few 
seconds only being required for the making of one 
cigar. When the cigars are made, they are dried in 
different ways, according to the time when they are 
wanted for sale. The rate of duty on foreign eigars, 
as well as on all kinds of tobacco manutaetured 
abroad, is so enormous (nine shillings per pound— 
probably sixteen or eighteen times the real value of 
the leaf itself), that the quantity imported from abroad 
is very small compared with that of tobacco in the 
leaf. Only one hundred and fifty thousand pounds 
weight were entered for home consumption two or 
three years ago, although the unmanufactured tobacco 
amounted to sixteen millions of pounds. This rate of 
duty has therefore given rise to an extensive home- 
manufacture of cigars. 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


471 


We have next to direct our attention to the third 
form in whieh the plant is used, viz. suff This 
article has been the theme of as many grave accusa- 
tions as tobacco in the form for smoking; but the 
crave accusations have been as fruitless in the one 
case as the other. Some have treated the matter in a 
medical point of view ; others, in reference to the wel- 
fare of the purse; while Lord Stanhope has taken the 
following curious statistical estimate of the inatter :— 
“Tvery professed, myecterate, and ineurable snuff 
taker, at a moderate computation, takes one pinch in 
ten minutes. Every pinch, with the agreeable cere- 
mony of blowmg and wiping the nose, and other inei- 
dental circumstances, consumes a minute and a half. 
One minute and a half out of every ten, allowing six- 
teen hours to a snuff-taking day, amonnts to two hours 
and twenty-four minutes out of every natural day, or 
one day out of every ten. One day out of every ten 
amounts to thirty-six days anda half ina year. Hence, 
if we suppose the practice to be persisted in for forty 
years, two entire years of the snuff-taker’s life will be 
dedicated to tickling his nose, and two more to blow- 
ing it. The expense of snuif, snufi-boxes, and hand- 
kerehiefs will be the subject of a second essay, in 
which it will appear that this luxury encroaches as 
mitch on the income of the snuff-taker as it does on his 
time; and that by a proper application of the time and 
nioney thus lost to the public, a fund might be consti- 
tuted for the diseharge of the national debt.” We 
eannot enter upon this “ seeond essay,” hor upon the 
patriotic plan alluded to in the last sentence, but must 
at onee proceed to the only part of the subject whieh 
this paper relates to, viz. the commercial and manu- 
facturing arrangements by which these luxuries are 
produced. 

Snuff is made from stalks alone, from leaf alone, 
or from leaf mixed with stalk,—circumstances which 
render the whole of the imported leaf valuabie: in 
every ease a greater amount of care is required in the 
preparation of snuff than of tobacco. The various quali- 
ties of snuff are due to a great variety of elrcum- 
stanees, principally under the control of the manu- 
faeturer. The purest kind of snuff is that which goes 
by the name of “¢ Seotch,’ which is either made entirely 
of stalks, or of stalks mixed with a small proportion of 
leaf; in cither case there is very little ‘liquoring’ 
applied to the tobacco, as that would darken the 
eolour of the snuff. There are many kinds of snuff 
called ‘ high-dried,’ such as ‘ Welsh’ and ‘ Lundytoot ’ 
(the latter being named after a celebrated maker). 
These owe their qualities chiefly to the eireumstance 
that they are dried so much as to acquire a shicht 
flavour of scorching. 

The snuffs called ‘ rappee,’ of which there are two 
kinds, ‘brown’ and ‘black,’ are made ehiefly from 
leaf, to which is added the ‘smalls,’ or broken fibres of 
tobacco, which are too small to be smoked conve- 
niently ina pipe. The dark colour 1s principally pro- 
duced by wetting the powdered tobacco in a bin or 
box, and allowing it to remain for a eonsiderable time, 
turned occasionally with a shovel; during which time 
it undergoes a slight degree of fermentation, which 
darkens the colour. | 

The original quality of the leaf 1s as. mueh attended 
to as the subsequent processes. Scotch snuff is made 
prineipally from the stalks of lght dry leaves; 
whereas ‘rappee’ and the darker snuffs are inade 
from the darker and ranker leaves. A process of 
scenting, too, has great influence on the flavour of 
the snuff, since the manufacturer can introduce any 
kind of scent which he thinks may please his eus- 
toners. Thus, ‘Prince’s mixture,’ among the low- 
priced snuffs, and the interminable varieties of ‘ fancy 
snuffs, owe no small part of their flavour to the kinds 





of scent introduced. Other kinds, however, such as 
‘high-dried,’ ‘Welsh,’ ‘ Lundyfoot,’ &c., are chiefly 
dependent on the peculiar circumstances under which 
they are dried. In relation to the last-named snuii, 
Mr. Barlow states—“ The celebrated Lundyfoot snuif 
derives its particular flavour chiefly from having the 
fermentation carried to a very high pitch before the 
batch is turned; and it is said that its first discovery 
was owing to the neglect of the mnan attending upon 
the batches, and who, by getting drunk, made his 
master’s fortune. Another story also prevails with 
respect to the discovery of this snuff, so much esteemed 
by inveterate snuff-takers, which attributes it to an 
accidental fire, which, by scorching some hogsheads of 
tobacco, gave them a peculiar flavour when manu- 
factured. This story is, however, evidently without 
foundation, as the snuff manufactured by Lundyfoot 
still continues to retain a peculiar flavour which can- 
not be imitated by other manufacturers; a circum- 
stance which is not likely to continue if the effect 
imply depended upon the degree of drying.” 

It is a curious circumstance, and one little suspected 
by those who are in the habit of using snuif, that almost 
the whole of that which is sold in the metropohs, either 
wholesale or retail, is ground in or near the town of 
Mitcham in Surrey; owing to the excellent water- 
power afforded by the river Wandlc, which passes 
through the town. Many manufactories on the Wan- 
dle derive their mechanical power from water-wheels, 
which were almost invaluable before the use of steam 
became prevalent. The advantage of employing a 
particular class of persons for grinding snuits, instead 
of each manufacturer grinding his own, 1s easily un- 
derstood. Few manufacturers dispose of enough snuff 
to keep a grinding-mill constantly employed ; and 
under such circumstances it is generally cheaper to 
obtain the aid of another person whose premises and 
arrangements are devoted wholly to that occupation. 
Such is the case with regard to the snuff-mills on the 
Wandle. There are several of these establishments 
to which the London manufacturers send their snuff in 
a certain stage of preparation. 

The mills are provided with two different kinds of 
gerinding-machines, such as are represented on a 





small scale in the annexed cut. In one of them a pair of 
cylindrical stones, several feet in diameter and a foot or 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


| NovEMBER, LE41. 


more in thickness, are set up on edge on a slab or 
bed beneath, and have then a two-fold motion given to 
them, resembling that of the wheel ofa carriage which 1s 
eoing round in a small circle. By means of a horizon- 
tal axis passing through the centre of the stones, the 
stones wheel along the surface of the bed; and by 
ceiving to the axis itself a motion round another but 
vertical axis, the stones are carried round in a small 
circle. The snuff to be ground is laid on the bed or 
support, and the broad edge of the heavy stone passes 
repeatedly over it, by which the particles are reduced 
to powder. 

In the other form of grinding-mill, the snuff is put 
into a kind of cell or mortar, in which it is ground by 
a pestle moved in a singular manner. The pestle is 
connected with a set of jointed arms or levers, so ad- 
justed one to another as to give to the pestle a motion 
best calculated to effect the grinding of the snuff. 
Every establishment for grinding snuff contains a con - 
siderable number of both these machines; since some 
kinds of snuff are best ground by the one, and others 
by the other. 

Beyond the grinding, and a preparatory drying, 
nothing is done to the snuff at the suuti-mills. The 
proprietor brings it-to a certain stage of preparation 
before it is sent to the mill, and in most cases passes it 
through some finishing operations after it is brought 
from the mill. The high-dried snuffs, such as Lundy- 
foot, Welsh, Scotch, &c., are sometimes made from 
stalks, which, before grinding, are cut into fine shreds; 
but very often the entire stalk is dried so intensely that 
it may easily be ground to powder without the prepara- 
tory shredding. In such case the lghtest and finest 
stalks are presented. 

Many of the London manufacturers have small mills 
on their own establishments, for grinding small quan- 
tities of snuff, or for passing through any particular 
process the various kinds of fancy snufis; but we are 
not aware that there is a single establishment in Lon- 
don where the main bulk of the snuff is ground. 

The Excise regulations relating to tobacco, which 
were formerly very burdensome, are now much less 
vexatious. Indeed, so far as regards the mode of 
collecting, there is probably no other imstance in which 
a revenue of three millions sterling per annum from 
one article is obtained with less personal annoyance. 
Here is one of the old laws by which the operations 
of the manufacturer used to be controlled :—* Ivery 
manufacturer shall give notice in writing to the officers 
Gif in London six, in cities and market-towns twelve, 
and elsewhere twenty-four hours) before he shall begin 
to strip, spin, or press any tobacco for cuttmg ; or make 
any tobacco into carrots, or flatten any stalks for 
Spanish; and shall express therein the weight of cach 
article, and the time he intends to begin. And the 
officer shall attend accordingly, and he shall begm 
within one hour of the time so mentioned, and shall 
proceed without delay.” And here is another :—* Every 
manufacturer may have a store-room for keeping dried 
Scotch snuff; but the same shall have but one door or 
opening, which shall be locked up, sealed, and secured 
by the officer; wherein may be deposited Scotch snuff 
returned directly from the mill for six months, without 
being taken as part of the stock. And when the same 
is intended to be taken out of such room, notice shall 
be given to the officer, who shall attend and open such 
room; and such snuff shall be taken out in his pre- 
sence.” These embarrassing regulations are no longer 
acted on; although similar plans still disgrace the 
modes of collecting the duty in the glass-manuiacture, 
the soap-manufacture, and many others. 


4 


DecemBer 4, 1841.] 


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[The Great Storehouse, asit appeared on Fire on the night of the 30th of October, 1841.] 


THE TOWER OF LONDON. 


Wx extract the following from the periodical work 
entitled ‘London,’ in which it is proposed to give a 
series of papers on the Tower and its associations :— 

“The great fire at the Tower on the 30th of Octo- 
ber, 1841, has fixed the public attention, with an ear- 
nestness previously unknown, on this most interesting 
of all the monuments of our ancient history. It is not 
to meet the demand of a mere temporary excitement 
that we intend devoting a Series of Numbers to a view 
of the Tower under its most important aspects. Sooner 
or later we should have taken up this large subject, and 
have exhausted it, as far as was compatible with the 
plan of our work. But the resent destruction of ‘the 
Great Storechouse’—which is sometimes also named 
‘the Small-Arms Armoury~—not only forces upon our 
attention the present state of the multifarous buildings 
which form what is called ‘the Tower; but the his- 
torical associations of those buildings lead us to con- 
sider what the Tower ought to be as a great national 
monument. In detailing to the reader the course which 
we intend to purse in the treatment of this subject, we 
shall also very slightly indicate our general views of 
what a government that rightly estimates the value of 
patriotic feelings ought to do in reference to any plan 
for the repair of the recent damage. 

«The brief history which we have given of the pro- 
eressive increase of the Tower has purposely avoided 
any notice of the surpassing historical associations which 
belong to this fortress. We reserve those for two or 
three successive papers. They will group themselves 
somewhat as follows:—We shall first regard the Tower 
as the ancient palace of the English kings. All the 
fortress buildings which remain once constituted a 
portion of that palace; for in the days of arbitrary 
power the notions of a palace and a prison were by no 


No. 621. 


means dissociated. But the White Tower, especially, 
was achief part of the palace, with its hall, its chapel, its 
council chamber. Here some of the greatest events in 
English history took place. Here Richard II. resigned 
his crown to Bolingbroke; the protector Gloucester 
bared his arm before the assembled council, and, accus- 
ing Hastings of sorcery, sent him within the hour to the 
block inthe adjoining court. What is the White Tower 
now ? Its walls remain ; but modern doors and windows 
have taken the place of the old Gothic openings; and 
within, the fine ancient apartments are divided and 
subdivided into various offices. The chapel, one of the 
most striking remains of our early architecture, 1s fitted 
up as a depository of Records ;—and the vaulted rooms 
upon the basement are filled with military stores and 
eunpowder. To none of these places are the public 
admitted; nor, if they were, could they form any no- 
tion of the ancient uses of the building. It would be 
a wise thing in the government to sweep away all that 
encumbers and destroys the interior of this edifice ; 
and to restore it as far as possible to the condition in 
which it was at some given period of our history—in 
the time of Richard II. for example. And for what? it 
will be said, —to make a show-place? Unquestionably. 
There are buildings, or there ought to be, where Re- 
cords could be better preserved, because more con- 
veniently : but there is no building which can be shown 
to the people as so complete a monument of the feudal 
times ; or which could be so easily restored to its former 
conditions. Let the people here see, as far as possible, 
what royal state was, three, four, or five centuries ago. 
Let one room be fitted up as in the days of Henry IIL. ; 
another as in the times of the Wars of the Roses; and 
another as in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth. Dur- 
ing the last ten or fifteen years all the ancient armour 
of the Tower has been beautifully arranged, in a chro- 
nological series; and the visitor can understand better 


VoL. X.—3 P 


474 


than by the best description what the warfare of our 
ancestors was,—and what were the appliances of their 
minic wars of tilts and tournaments. In the same 
way let them be instructed in the domestic history of 
their country, by walking under the same roof be- 
neath which their old kings sate, surrounded with 
the same rude magnificence, the same mixture of 
erandeur and meanness, arras on the walls and dirty 
rushes on the floor. We would go beyond the resto- 
ration of the White Tower: and ask that ‘the Queen's 
Garden’ of 1599 should be restored; and that the 
ancient courts, which have been destroyed that paltry 
houses may occupy their site, should again be formed, 
to show how power was obliged to hem itself round 
with defences, and how its commonest recreations 
were mingled with fears and jealousies which could 
never be removed till constitutional government was 
firmly established. In connection with the palatial 
character of the Tower, the exhibition of the Crown 
Jewels should be regarded. They were formerly kept 
in a place more immediately appurtenant to the White 
Lower. Their history is united in the mind of every 
child in the kingdom with the daring attempt of 
Colonel Blood to steal them, in the days of Charles IT. 
How easy. would it be to restore the Jewel Office 
exactly to the condition in which it was in those days! 
Again, the Mint formed a part of the Tower as the 
chief ancient seat of royalty. The actual coining of 
money has been very properly removed to a more con- 
venient building. But let one of the ancient towers 
be fitted up for the display of the former rude imple- 
ments in the manufacture of money and for the exhi- 


bition of the British coins and inedals, from the Saxon - 


penny to the coronation medal of Victoria. The ‘ lions’ 
departed from the Tower to die of the damps of the 
Zoological Gardens. But they were a part of the 
ancient regal magnificence, and we think they ought 
not to have been removed. We could wish again to 
see the living emblem of England in his ancient cell. 
Lhe glory of the place seemed to us to have departed 
when the last old king of beasts left his miassy stone 
dwelling in the Lion Tower, where his predecessors 
had dwelt for centuries with the kings of men—to take 
up with a wooden box, and to be fed by subscription. 
‘But there are more solemn lessons to be learnt at 
the Tower by people who go there for real instruction. 
It was the great State Prison of England; and here 
the most illustrious victims in the world have suffered 
and perished. With the exception of a room or two in 
what 1s now called ‘ Queen Elizabeth’s Armoury,’ the 
public see none of the interesting remains which are 
full to overflowing with these sublime associations. 
Lhe room whose walls are covered with the pathetic 
inscriptions of those who here waited for death—where 
we may actually look upon the lines which the delicate 
fingers of Lady Jane Grey traced in her solitude—is a 
mess-rooimn for the officers of the garrison. The Beau- 
chanip Tower, a most. important prison, is inaccessible, 
Again, the chapel or church of St.Peter — the little build- 
ing to the west of the large storehouse recently destroyed 
—1is the bunal-place of the most renowned victims of 
their own ambition, the jealousics of power, or the sad 
hecessities of state, that have fallen beneath the axe, 
from the days of ‘ poor Edward Bohun’ to those of 
Lord Lovat. This chapel—perhaps, altogether, the 
place in all England most interesting in its associa- 
tions—is fitted up with modern pews; and nota stone 
is there to tell who lies in that blood-tempered dust. 
What a noble work it were for a great nation to con- 
ecrate this chapel anew as a Temple of Toleration ; 
to erect monuments here to every illustrious sufferer, 
whether Protestant or Catholic, Republican’or Jacobite. 
During the contests in which they perished was slowly 
built up the fabric of our liberties, and, like the old 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. DECEMBER 4, 
bulwarks we have described, it is not now to be shaken 
by any common storm. The more the people are con- 
versant with our national antiquities, and have an 
abiding historical knowledge impressed upon them by 
associations which all can understand, the more will 
the foundations of this fabric be strengthened. 

“The last point of view in which we purpose to re- 
gard the Tower is that ofan Arsenal. A great deal has 
been very wisely done of late years to display and 
classify the many curious relics and spoils of war of 
the English army, from the days of Cressy to those of 
Waterloo. Some valuable things have been lost in 
the recent fire; but many of the most valuable have 
been preserved. We trust that, im any plans for re- 
pairing the destruction, the notion of making the Tower 
a depository for arms and stores for present use will be 
abandoned ; but that ina few years niay be here found 
the finest ancient Armoury in Europe.” 


LIVERIES. 


Tue term livery, as applied to the dress of servants, is 
of French origin, being derived from the verb livrer, 


to deliver. At the plenary courts of France, under the 


first two races of monarchs, the king was accustomed 
to deliver to the servants of the royal family particular 
clothes which were called “livreés,’ because given at 
the king’s expense. The nobilty and gentry in like 
manner presented to their dependents hveries, which 
term sometimes denoted both food and clothes, but 
usually clothes alone, or even only a particular mark 
or badge for the clothes. Various colours were 
adopted by different masters to distinguish each other's 
servants. Menestrier, in his account of Carousals, de- 
tails at length the mixture of colours found in the 
liveries. By the National Constituent Assembly 
liveries were abolished in France as signs of servitude, 
but they were soon after reintrodticed in that country. 
The use of liveries has long been known in England, 
but the application of the term has not always been 
confined to menials: thus Chaucer, in the Prologue to 
the ‘Canterbury Tales,’ says: 


‘“ An haberdasher and a carpenter, 
A webbe, a deyer, and a tapiser, 
Were all yclothed m a liverie 
Of a solemyne and grete fraternite.”’ 


Indeed the term by a secondary appheation is fre- 
quently used by the poets to signify to clothe or deck. 

Mr. Douce, in reference to the passage in the ‘ Tam- 
ing of the Shrew,’—* Let their heads be sleekly comb’d, 
their &lue-coats brush’d,” makes some interesting re- 
marks on the use of liveries in England :— 

“The practice of .giving liveries to menial servants 
has not originated in modern times. It is mentioned 
in some of the statutes of the reign of Richard II. In 
that of Edward IV. the terms hvery and badge seem 
to have been synonymous. The badge consisted of the 
master’s device, crest, or arms, on a separate piece of 
cloth, er sometimes silver, in the form of a shield, fas- 
tened on the left sleeve. In Queen Ehzabeth’s tune 
the nobility gave silver badges, as appears from Hentz- 
ner’s ‘Travels.’ This foolish extravagance was not 
confined to persons of high rank. Fynes Morison, 
speaking of the English apparel, informs us that 
‘the servauts of gentlemen were wont to wear blew 
coates, with their master’s badges of silver on the left 
sleeve, but now they most commonly wear coats 
ruarded with lace, all the servants of one family wear- 
ing the same livery for colour and ornament.’ We 
are therefore to suppose that the sleeve-badge was leit 
off in the reign of James I. a 

“The custom of clothing persons in liveries was not 
confined to menizl servants. Another class of inen, 


1841.) 


called refainers, who appear to have been of no small 
iunportance among our ancestors, were habited in a 
similar manner. They were a sort of servants, not 
residing in the master’s house lke the menials, but 
attending occasionally for the purposes of ostentation, 
and refained by the annual donation of a livery, con- 
sisting of a hat or hood, a badge, anda suit of clothes. 
As they were frequently kept for the purpose of main- 
taining quarrels, and committing other excesses, it 
became necessary to impose heavy penalties on the 
offenders, both masters and retainers.” 

The retainers were not always of lowly condition ; for 
Jervis Markham, as quoted by Douce, speaks of the 
squire’s son Wearing the knight’s livery; and adds, 
“Yea, [know at this day, gentlemen, younger brothers, 
that wear their elder brother’s blew coate and badge, 
attending him with as reverent regard and dutiful 
obedience as if he were their prince or sovereign.” 

The old ballad ‘ Time’s Alteration,’ thus alludes to 
the coats and badges :-— 


‘The nobles of our land 

Were much dehighted then, 

To have at their command 
A crew of lusty men; 

Which by their coats were known, 
Of tawny, red, or blue, 

With crests on their sleeves shown, 
When this old cap was new.” 


Several of-the more powerful of the nobility had so 
great a number of retainers constantly at their coim- 
mand, that they were often enabled to set the law at de- 
fiance, and become formidable even to their sovereigus. 
Several statutes were passed in the reigns of Richard 
feedeumey seana lenry Vi.,in order to limit 
the numbers and restrain the violence of these retain- 
ers, but with little or no effect. That politic prince 
Henry VIJ., opposed a rigorous hand to this evil, and 
even severely fined the Earl of Derby, his father-in- 
law, for infringing the laws he had laid down upon 
this subject. Henry VIII., fearing less the power of 
the nobility, and fond of pomp and show, permitted 
these large retinues again to be assembled. Their 
frequent quarrels and licentious excesses, however, 
led to the plan of permitting only certain licensed 
pens to maintain retainers. Strype blames Queen 
Mary for a too great laxity im this respect. 

«She granted,” he says, ‘more by half im her short 
five years than her sister and successor in thirteen. 
For in all that time there were but fifteen granted, 
whereas Queen Mary had granted thirty-nine. She 
was more liberal also in yielding to the number of re- 
tainers to each person, which sometimes amounted to 
two hundred. Whereas Queen Elizabeth never 
granted above one hundred to any person of the great- 
est quality, and that rarely too. But Bishop Gardiner 
began that ill example, who retained two hundred 
men, whereas under Elizabeth the Duke of Norfolk 
retained but one hundred, and Parker, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, but forty.” 

Stowe, in his ‘Survey of London,’ gives several in- 
stances of the excess to which the practice of wearing 
liveries had extended a little before and within his own 
meinory. Neville, earl of Warwick, came into town 
in the reign of Edward IV. with six hundred men, all 
in red jackets, having his cognizance, the ragged staff, 
«embroidered before and behind. The Bishop of Ely 
(1532) kept one hundred servants, to each of whom he 
eave for a winter gown or livery four yards of broad- 
cloth, and for his summer coat three yards and a half. 
The Earl of Derby had three hundred men who wore 
his liverv. Lord Chancellor Audley, in the reign of 
Henry VIII., gave to his gentlemen who rode before 
hin coats guarded with velvet, and chains of gold ; and 


PHP ln NY MEAG AZIN E. 


igs) 


to his yeomen who rode after him he gave similar 
hvery, not guarded. Paulet, marquis of Winchester, 
gave his gentlemen and yeomen a livery of “Neading 
tawny.” The livery of Cromwell, earl of Essex, was 
a grey marble cloth, that of the gentlemen guarded 
with velvet, of the yeoman with the same cloth; “yet 
their skirts large enough for their friends to sit upon.” 
The Earl of Oxford came to his house at London Stone, 
in the city with fourscore gentlemen before him, in 
hveries of Reading tawny, and chains of gold about 
their necks, and one hundred tall yeomen behind him, 
in the like livery, without chains, but all having his 
cognizance of the blue boar embroidered on the left 
shoulder. 

“The badge occurs,” says Douce, ‘in all the old 
representations of posts or messengers. On the latter 
of these characters it may be seen in the fifty-second 
plate of Strutt’s work upon the dress of the English, 
where, as in the most ancient instances, the badge is 
affixed to the girdle ; but it is often seen on the shoul- 
der, and even on the hat or cap. These figures extend 
as far back as the thirteenth century; and many old 
German engravings exlnbit both the characters with a 
badge, that has sometimes the dévice or arms of the 
town to which the post belongs. We has generally a 
spear in his hand, not only for personal security, but 
for repelling any nuisance that may impede his pro- 
gress. Among ourselves the remains of the ancient 


| badge are still preserved in the dresses of porters, fire- 


men, and watermen, and perhaps in the shoulder-knots 
of footmen.” 


Utility of the Rook,—Al\though at certain seasons of the year 
rooks do considerable mischief, yet they make ample compensa- 
tion in the end by destroying the grubs of the cockchaffer and 
other underground-ieeding msects, which if left to themselves 
would utterly destroy the crops which the rooks only partially 
injure. Mr. Yarrell, in his ‘ History of British Birds,’ says :— 
‘¢On some very large farms in Devonshire the proprietors deter- 
mined, a few summers ago, to try the result of offering a great. 
reward for the heads of rooks; but the issue proved destructive 
to the farms, for nearly the whole of the crops failed for three 
successive years, and they have since been forced to import 
rooks and other birds to re-stock their farms with. A similar 
experiment was made a few years ago in a northern county, 
particularly in reference to rooks, but wih no better success ; 
the farmers were obliged to reinstate:the rooks to save their 
crops.” 


meth 


Improvers of Agriculture—It 1s cunious that many to whom 
improvements in agriculture are traced were not professional 
farmers, but men engaged in other pursuits, who, with culti- 
vated minds, turned their attention also to the subject. Thus, 
the first English Treatise on Husbandry was written by Sir A, 
Fitzherbert, Judge of the Common Pleas in 1584, and from this, 
Harte, Canon of Windsor, in his Essays on Agriculture, dates 
the revival of agriculture in England. ‘Tusser, the author of 
‘Five Hundred Points of Husbandry,’ published in 1562, was a 
scholar of Eton, and afterwards of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 
before he applicd to farming and literature. Sir R. Weston, 
who was ambassador from England to the Elector Palatine and 
king of Bohemia in 1619, introduced clover ito England; his 
‘Discourse on the Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders’ was 
published in 1645, and is said to mark the dawn of the vast im- 
provements which have since becu effected m Brita. Evelyn, 
who *¢s considered one of the greatest encouragers of Improve- 
ments that has ever appeared, was, as is well known, a gentle- 
man attached to literature and science, aud often employed in 
the public service. He published, i 1664, his ‘Sylva, or a 
Discourse on Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in 
his Majesty’s Dominions,’ with many other works, which had a 
ereat influence in the improvement of the country. Jethro Tull, 
who introduced the drill husbandry, and published lis work on 
Horse-hocing Husbandry in 1731, was bred a barrister; he first 
made experiments on his own estate, and then practised farming. 
—Royle on the Productive Resources of India, 

ok 


476 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 





(DECEMBER 4, 


{Portrait of John Tavlor, the Water-Poet.} 


TAYLOR, THE WATER-POET. 


Ir is our intention, in the two succeeding numbcrs, to 
give an account, with extracts, of a journey made by 
this extraordinary man from London to the Highlands, 
in which he undertook to perform this exploit in the 
days of bad roads, with a horse and servant, without a 
penny in his pocket, and engaging not to receive any 
alms. The hospitality of his countrymen welcomed 
him throughout this pilgrimage, and he appears not 
only to have suffered very few privations, but to have 
lived upon the fat of the land for many weeks. His 
account of this journey, which is partly in prose and 
partly in verse, is a very remarkable picture of man- 
ners. Some notion of the man himself, which we 
extract from the ‘Book of Table Talk,’ may fitly pre- 
eede it, 

“This choice ‘son of Apollo and darling of the 
Delian deity,’ was called the Water-poet, not because 
he drank water, but because he went upon water. In 
short he was a London waterman, and, during a part 
ef his poetical existence, he got his living by rowing 
on the Thames. Pope has given him a lft towards 
‘mmortality, with other deadly-lively writers, in his 
Dunciad : 


“ Taylor, their better Charon, lends an oar, 
Once swan of Thames, though now he sings no more.” 


Book iii., v. 18. 


‘But his contemporary and boon-companion Will 
Winstanley says, more in detail, ‘Some perhaps may 
think this person (John Taylor) unworthy to be ranked 
amongst those sons of Apollo whom we mentioned be- 
fore ; but to them we shall answer, that, had he had 
learning according to his natural parts, he might have 
equalled, if not exceeded, many who claim a great 
share in the temple of Muses. Indeed, for aught I can 
understand, he never learned no further than his 
Accidence, as we may learn from his own words in one 
of his books :— 


“ ¢T must confess I do want eloquence, 
And never scarce did learn my accidence ; 
For, having got from possum to posset, 
I there was gravel’d, could no further get.’ 


‘“‘ He was born in Gloucestershire, where he went to 
school ; and was afterwards bound apprentice to a water- 
man of London, a laborious trade: and yet though it 
be said that ease 1s the nurse of poetry, yet did he not 
only follow his calling, but glsc plyed’ his writings, 


which in time produced above fourscore books,* which 
I have seen; besides several others unknown to me; 
some of which were dedicated to King James and 
King Charles I., and by them well accepted, consider- 
ing the meanness of his education to produce works of 
ingenuity. He afterwards kept a public-house in 
Phoenix-alley, by Long-acre,‘? continuing very con- 
stant in his loyalty to the king, upon whose doleful 
murthur he set up the sign of the Mourning Crown ; 
but that being counted malignant in those times of re- 
bellion, he pulled down that and hung up his own 
picture, under which were writ these two lines: 


‘¢ ¢ There ’s many a king’s head hang’d up for a sign, 
And many a saint’s head too, then why not mine ?’ 


“Tle dyed about the year 1654, upon whom one be- 
stowed this epitaph : 
‘© ¢ Here lies the Water-poet, honest John, 
Who rowed on the streams of Helicon; 
Where having many rocks and dangers past, 
He at the haven of heaven arriv’d at last.’ 
“ JVinstanley’s Lives of the Poets, p. 167. (ed. 1687.) 


« Sir Egerton Brydges, in his ‘Censura Litteraria,’ 
has given a long list of the Water-poet’s pieces; and in 
his ‘ Restituta ’ the same diligent explorer of the recon- 
dite and dusty paths of literature has laid before usa 
marvellous exploit of old John’s (in his character of a 
waterman, notin his poetical capacity), together with 
an abstract of another work of Taylor’s not entered in 
the ‘ Censura.’ 

‘This scarce tract is entitled, ‘John Taylor’s last 
Voyage and Adventure, performed from the twentieth 
of July last, 1641, to the tenth of September following. 
In which time he passed, with a sculler’s boat, from 
the citie of London to the cities and townes of Oxford, 
Gloucester, Shrewsbury, Bristol, Bathe, Monmouth, 
and Hereford. The manner of his passages and en- 
tertainment to and fro, truly described. With a short 


touch of some wandring and some fixed schismatiques ; 


such as are Brownists, Anabaptists, Famalies, Hu- 
morists, and Foolists, which the author found in many 


* < He wrote fourscore books in the reign of James J. and 
Charles I.”.— Notes to Dunciad. 

+ * He afterwards (like Edward Ward) kept an ale-house in 
Long Acre.”—Notes to the Dunciad. Ned Ward was a wit, and 
the calling of tapsters or of publicans seems to have been a pretty 
common resource for poor wits and poets. If they had poets 
only for their customers, we doubt whether they prospered 
much. : 


1841.] THE PENNY 


laces of his voyage and journey. Printed at London 


y F. L. for John Taylor, and may be had at the 
shoppe of Thomas Baites in the Old Banly, 1641, 8vo., 
Dp. 32.” 


“ Some people who are acquainted with the run ofour 
English rivers, and the paucity of canals in those days, 
inay wonder how John made his voyage ; but the truth 
is, whenever it suited*him, he put his boat into a wag- 
eon, and voyaged on dry land until he came to another 
river. Thus, on reaching the head of the Isis, or the 
spot above Oxford, where that river ceased to be navi- 
cable, he hired a waggon which carried him with his 
boat and boys to the stream of the Stroud. On his 
return, when he reached Hereford, he fell into “a 
quandary or brown study,” as to whether it were better 
to sell his boat there, and return to London by land, or 
to bring the memorable wherry home agaiu, either by 
land or water, or both, or how he could. His love of 
fame surmounted his dread of difficulties, and he 
resolved that the boat should be restored to its parent 
Thames, on which he had so long rowed and rhymed. 
The following extract will give an idea of the course 
he pursued, and of his manner of writing prose :— 

“On Friday, the 27 of August, I passed doune the 
river of Wye, to a place called Jackson Wearc, where 
with great entertaimment and welcome I was lodged, 
and my men also, at the house of one master Aperley, 
dwelling there ; to whom for many favours I doe ac- 
knowledge myself to be extraordinarily beholding. 
And on the Saturday I came to Lidbrook, to my for- 
mer-hoste, Master Mosse, where understanding and 
knowing the passage down Wye and up Severne to be 
very long and dangerous, especially 1f stormy weather 
should arise; the boate being split, torne, and shaken, 
that she did leake very much. These things con- 
sidered; and that I was within five miles of Severne 
by land to Newnham, and that by water thither there 
was no less than 50 miles, I hired a wayne from Lid- 
brook to Newnham; and on Monday, the 30 of Au- 
rust, I passed up Severne by Glocester ; and, working 
all night, came in the morning betimes to Tewxbury, 
‘to another river called Avon; which, by the great 


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MAGAZINE. 477 
charge and industry of Master Sands, 1s made naviga- 
ble many mites up into the country. ‘Tuesday, the 31 
of August, I came toa market-towne m Worcester- 
shire called Pershore. On the first of September, I 
came to the auncient towne of Evesholm, (corruptly 
called Esham,) and seeing that river to bee further out 


of my way home, I hired another wayne from Esham 


to Burford, where I found a crooked brook calied 
Windrush ; in which brook, after one night’s lodging, 
with my appendixes, having taken each of us to Bur- 
ford bait, we passed many strange letts and hindrances 
into the river of Isis or Thames. Againe, at New- 
bridge, 12 or 14 miles from Oxford by water : by which 
university I past to Abingdon, the fourth of Septem- 
ber, where I stayed till Wednesday the eight day: 
from thence wasI with my boate at home on the Friday 
following. And thus, in lesse than twenty days’ labour, 
1200 miles were past to and fro, in most hard, difficult, 
and many dangerous passages, for the which I give 
God most humble and hearty prayse and thanks” 

“The account of this famous voyage was not all in 
prose ; the subjoined lines from it may give an idea of 
John’s verse :— 


“ <Of rivers many writers well have doue: 
Grave Camden, Drayton’s Polyolbion ; 
And painefull Speede doth in his mappes declare 
Where all these brooks and waters were and are.’ 


« And again, where he speaks of former exploits in 
the boating line :— 


« ¢ And with a pair of oares to that mtent 
I once from London into Lincoln went ; 
Whereas a passage* seven miles was cut throwe 
From Lincoln into Trent, and to Gainsborowe. 
That way I went, and into Humber past 
To Hull, from thence to Ouse, and Yorke at last. 

Another voyage to the West againe, 

I, with a wherry, past the raging mame. 
From London to the Isle of Wight, and thence 
To Salisbury—with time and coynes expense.’ ” 


* Called the Foss-dyke. 


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{Palace-Yard Stairs, 164i, ; 


478 


SPECIMEN OF PICTORIAL SILK-WEAVING. 


Tue figure and fancy weavers of Spitalfields are now 
engaged in the manufacturing of a splendid piece of 
the above description, which they anticipate will be 
far superior to anything ever produced of the kind 
either in France or this country. They are determined 
to make it well worthy the acceptance of royalty, and 
it is their intention to present it to her majesty Queen 
Victoria. It appears that our weavers have been in- 
duced to undertake this great work, for a great work 
we shall presently show that it 1s, partly out ofa laudable 
spirit of rivalry as respects the artisans of Lyons, and 
partly for the purpose of proving to their countrymen 
and countrywomen, that they are at least equal, if net 
superior, to the silk-weavers of France. In 1840 the 
weavers of Lyons produced a piece of figured silk of 
a workmanship so exquisitely finc, that its like was 
never seen. It is a portrait of the inventor of the 
Jacquard-loom—an excellent likeness—and in effect 
it is said equal to the finest mezzotint engraving. It 
is a small picture not more than a foot long. The 
same artisans also produced in weaving a copy of the 
will of Henry IV. of France, the letters of which can 
scarcely be distinguished from the original, or those 
written by a pen. These exquisite productions of the 
Ly onese, as we have before intimated, induced our own 
weavers to attempt a piece of workmanship which 
will, when finished, far excced in skull, effect, and mag- 
nitude, the French productions we have alluded to. 
In furtherance of this object a meeting of the figure 
and fancy weavers of Spitalfields was held about this 
time last year, for the purpose of hearing the report of 
a committee, appointed at a former meeting “ with the 
view of causing to.be produced a splendid piece of 
workmanship that should be worthy of Her Majesty’s 
reception, and the inspection of the nobility, gentry, 
and the British public in general.” From this Report 
we learn, that the patronage and support of all the 
principal silk-manufacturers have been obtained. It 
appears that the gentlemen who have thus come for- 
ward with their support are also warm friends to the 
school of design in Spitalfields, from which they antici- 
pate great benefits will arise to the silk-trade of this 
country. 

The production in question will be a pictorial spe- 
cimen of silk-weaving, and will, no doubt, from the 
design which we have seen, present a gorgeous and 
brilliant appearance. The picture will be four fcet in 
width and five feet six inches in depth, and it will 
take machinery to the enormuus amount of eight 
thonsand four hundred cards to make it. The ma- 
chinery alone has cost many hundred pounds. It is 
entirely a new construction, and of meet, English in- 
vention. The number of cards which are required to 
form the different figures are from eighty to a hundred 
thousand. The rule paper (or the paper upon which 
a magnified drawing is made for the purpose of work- 
ing from) measures seventy-two feet in width and 
ninety feet in length, or in other words this drawing 
will occupy no less than six thousand four hundred 
Square feet of paper. The picture when finished will 
unquestionably be a specimen of workinanship of the 
greatest art and magnitude ever produced in this or 
any other country. 

The design ig the production of a young self-taught 
English artist of the name of Voyer, who is employed 
as a paper-designer. In the foreground, if we may 
so call it, on the right hand, is Neptune in his car, 
and above are medallions, being good likenesses 
of Nelson, Collingwood, Jervis, Howe, &c. On the 
leit side we have Mars in his car, supporting 
medallions of Wellington, Abercromby, Moore, Wolfe, 
&c. Between the cars of Neptune and Mars, and 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. [DECEMBER 4, 
a little above them, is a scroll with an appropriate 
inotto, under which is a beehive representing industry. 
In the iniddle distance the Queen is seen sitting, and 
by her majesty’s side Prince Albert stands, one hand 
resting on a marble slab, and the other grasping a 
sword. On the left hand side of the Prince is a figure 
of Time with his scythe, but between him and the 
royal pair guardian angels intervene. Over the royal 
group a dove 1s seen descending. A little above tke 
middle distance, on each side of the picture, are groups 
of aérial beings representing Harmony and Honour. In 
the extreme distance is a view of Windsor Castle. The 
picture is surrounded by a rich brocade border in the 
style of Lows XIV:, which is cut off from the picture 
by lincs. At the top of the border we have the royal 
arms of England, at the bottom the order of St. George. 
the border is principally composed of scrolls of 
foliage, interspersed with bouquets of flowersin various 
colours, rich and gorgeous. The picture is in self- 
colour. This work will occupy a great deal of time in 
completing, and will cost some thousand pounds. 


LUMINOUS OR PHOSPHORESCENT AP- 
PEARANCE OF THE SEA. 


THE attention of mariners, when ont at sea, is fre- 
quently directed toa peculiar luminosity on the surface 
of the ocean, the cause of which has been the subject 
of much superstitious conjecture among the simple- 
minded seamen, and of inquiry among scientific men. 
We will first describe the general nature of the pheno- 
mena; and afterwards give two or three particular 
instances, with the results of inquiry into their causes. 

The appearance of this luminosity is by no means 
uniform. Sometimes a vessel, in traversing the ocean, 
seems to mark outa trace of fire ; while each stroke of 
an var emits a light, sometimes brilliant and dazzling, 
at other times tranquil and pearly. These lights are 
grouped in endless varicty. Pcrhaps, at one time, in- 
humerable shining pomts fioat on the surface, and 
then unite into one extensive sheet of light. At an- 
other time the spectator fancies he sees large sparkling 
figures, like animals in pursuit of each other, incessantly 
vanishing and re-appearing. It is customary among 
seamen to speak of a luminous sea as being “all on 
fire ;’ but this expression gives a very inadequate idea 
of the true appearance it presents, the light it emits 
being rather a pale yellow or greenish sickly and 
almost supernatural gleam. The surface of the water 
will often exhibit extensive and distinct patches of 
luminous fluid, seen at a considerable distance from 
the ship, and which the latter passes through; or, the 
luminosity being less local and permanent, the wake 
of the passing vessel presents a broad and lengthened 
stream of vivid light; while, midst the darkness of 
night, a splendid spectacle is often presented by brilliant 
ridges of hght, raised by the agitation of the billows, 
whose crests they illuminate. : 

These being the most usual appearances, it is not 
cause for wonder that various modes of explanation 
should have been offered. Mayer and some others 
considered that this phenomenon depended on the same 
cause as the light emitted by the diamond and other 
substances after exposure to the sun’s rays: he sup- 
posed that the sea-water absorbed light, which it after- 
wards gave out. Others supposed that sea-water is 
endowed with that peculiar light-emitting property 
which is possessed by phosphorus. <A third party has 
advanced the opinion that the development of elec- 
tricity in the water is, in some unaccountable way, the 
cause of the luminosity; while others again refer it to 
a kind of decomposition of the water. 

But in modern times naturalists have sought ina 
different direction for the cause. They have regarded 


18t1.] 


not so much the sea itself, as organic subtances con- 
tained in the water. 
carciul examinations, showed clearly that sea-water 
which contains any animal substances in a dead and 
putrifying state has the property of becoming luminous. 
In proportion as the sea becomes zreen, which seems 
<0 be the result of some admixture of foreign matters, 
hvimng or dead, or both, its tendency to show light in- 
creases, and is greatest when it is milky, at which time 
it is known to contain myriads of such bodies. The 
remains of fishes are known to become luminous at a 
certain period after death; and there thus seems to be 
tolerably satisfactory evidence that this furnishes one 
source of the luminosity of the sea. 

But there seenis also abundant evidence that this 
cause alone isnot sufficient to explain the phenomenon ; 
for independent of the objection that we can hardly 
suppose the sea so toabound in dead fishes as to become 
extensively luminous from this cause only, several 
navigators have collected fishes which, while living, 
shed a bright and brilhant hght. Dr. MacCulloch 
collected &@ great number of luminous animals, the 
species of which he has described; but it will perhaps 
lead toa clearer comprehension of the subject, if we 
sive a recorded instance or two, with all the accom- 
panying circumstances. 

Dr. Francis Buchanan states (Edin. Phil. Journ.) that 
wlule voyaging on one occasion in the northern part 
of the Indian Ocean, at about seven in the evening, the 
sea was observed to be remarkably white. The sky 
was everywhere clear, exeept around the horizon, 
where, for about 15°, it was covered with a dark haze, 
as 1s usual in such latitudes. The whiteness gradually 
increased till past eight. The sea was then as high- 
coloured as milk, not much unhke that portion of the 
heavens called the ‘ milky-way,’ the luminous appear- 
ance very inuch resembling the brighter stars in that 
accumulation. It contmued in this state till past mid- 
night, and only disappeared as daylight advanced. The 
whiteness prevented the persons on board from being 
able to see either the break or the swell of the sea, 
although both, as was indicated by the noise and the 
motion of the ship, were considerable. ‘There was 
much leht upon deck, so much, indeed, that the sea- 
men could discern all the ropes with great distinctness. 

Asa means of determining the probable cause of this 
phenomenon, Dr. Buchanan drew up several buckets 
of the water while in a luminous state. There ap- 
peared in the water a great number of small luminous 
bodies, the bulk of which did not appear to be more 
thana quarter of an inch in length, by nearly the same 
in breadth; some, however, were an inchand a half 
long, but the same breadth as the others. They were 
seen to move in the same manner 4s a worm does in 
water When taken up on the finger, they retained 
their shining faculty even when dry. When brought 
near a candle, their ight disappeared ; but, by minute 
attention, an extremely fine white filament could be 
observed and lifted upon the point of a pin; 1t was of 
a uniform shining colour and form, and about the 
thickness of a spider’s thread. Ina gallon of water 
there were about four hundred of these luminous ani- 
mals; although the water itself, when in the bucket, 
presented a natural appearance. 

Ifere the light-emitting animals were found to be 
of a very small size; but the following incident relates 
to others of a larger size. Mr. I’. D. Bennett (Narra- 
tive of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe) states, that 
when he was near the western side of Cape Horn, ona 
dark and calm night, the sea presented an unusually 
Juminous appearance. While undisturbed, the ocean 
emitted a faint gleam from its bosom; and when agi- 
tated by the passage or the ship, flashed forth streams 
of light which illuminated the sails and shone in thie 


Dr. MacCulloeh, after a series of 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


er ee A ef ga de pep 


EO ——— 


| 


479 


ship’s wake with great intensity. A net, towing along- 
side, had the appearauce of a ball of fire followed by a 
long and sparkling train; and large fish, as they darted 
through the water, could be traced by the seintillating 
lines they left upon its surface. ~ 

My. Bennett found, on investigation, that the light 
was emltted fron: fish of the Medusu kind, flat and ecir- 
cular in torm, light-pink colour, and eight inches in 
circumference. The body was undulated at the mar- 
gin, spread with small tubercles on its upper surface, 
and bordered with a row of slender tentacles, each five 
feet long, and stinging sharply when handled, When 
disturbed, this medusa emitted from every part of its 
body a brilliant greenish light, which shone without 
Intermission as long as the irritating cause persisted; 
but when that was withdrawn, the luminosity gradually 
subsided. ‘The luniinous power seemed to reside in a 
shmy secretion which enveloped the animal, and which 
was freely communicated to water. When thus de- 
tached, 1t could be made to exhibit the same luminous 
phenomena as the Medusa itself; and Mr. Bennett 
found, in confirmation of his opinion, that linmersing 
the medusa in perfectly pure and fresh water commu- 
nicated to that fluid all the scintillating properties of 
a luminous sea. 

But these were not the only species of fish which 
exhibited the phenomena. By the aid of a tow-unet, 
ten or twelve specimens of a kind of Scopelus, about 
three inches in length, were caught. T hey were co- 
vered with scales of a steel-grey colour; the fins were 
spotted with grey; and on each side of the margin of 
the abdomen was a single row of small circular de- 
pressions, of the same inetallic grey hue as the scales: 
a few similar depressions being also scattered on the 
sides, but with less regularity. The fish were taken 
alive, and swain actively on being placed in a vessel of 
sea-water. When handled, as likewise when swim- 
ming, they emitted a vivid phosphorescent light from 
the scales or plates covering the body and head, as well 
as irom the circular depressions in the abdomen and 
sides, and which presented the appearance of as many 
small stars spangling the surface of the skin. The 
luminous gleam, which had sometimes an intermittent 
or twinkling character, and at others shone steadily tor 
several minutes together, entirély disappeared after the 
death of the fish. 

Ip another part of his narrative, Mr. Bennett de 
scribes three or four other kinds of Meduse, whose 
phosphorescent powers were more or less considerable. 
One 1s about the size of a crown-piece, with a broad 
flat margin, which, when viewed at night, and in the 
hving animal, is seen to be studded with a row of lu- 
minous dots, placed equidistant, and shining with a 
delicate blue light. When the ercature is suffered to 
be quiet, the luminous display is confined to the serics 
of dots; but when irritated, the entire body emits a 
powertul light. The slimy secretion which covers this, 
as well as the first-named kind of Medusa, shincs 
brightly when rubbed, and appears like many twink- 
ling stars, vanishing and again lighting up, and seem- 
ing to run from spot to spot. When assembled in 
their natural element, these creatures present as many 
circular patches of light, gleaming brightly, and the 
nore vividiy where the sea breaks most; their lights 
undulating with the waves, and alternately appearing 
and vanishing. 

Were we to detail the theories which have been 
formed respecting the chemical nature, the seat, the 
control by the will, and the purpose of the phospho- 
rescent substance, if substance it be, it would carry us 
to a length which general readers would little suppose. 
We will therefore merely state the substance of the 
view which one writer (in the ‘ Edinburgh Cyclop.’) 
takes of the purpose for which this luminosity is in- 


£30 


tended. It is supposed that light does not possess the 
property of penetrating to a greater depth than one 
thousand feet in the sea, and that consequently all be- 
neath that depth is in profound darkness. ‘This circulh- 
stance. and the prevalence of great darkness even at 
the surface of the sea in high latitudes, during certain 
seasons of the year, leads the writer here alluded to 
to suppose that the power of emitting ight 1s given to 
these animals asa means of seeking for prey. “ The 
main purpose of it seems to be to indicate the presence 
of the object which forms the prey, to point out where 
the pursuit is to be directed. For that reason it seeins 
to be particularly brilliant and decided in those inferior 
animals which, from their astonishing powers of repro- 
duction, and from a state of feelmg apparently little 
superior to that of vegetables, appear to have been in 
a great measure created for the supply and food of the 
more perfect kinds. Thus also 1t Js diffused through 
every, even the minutest, animalcule, as all these seem 
in their turns to be destined to the same end, among 
others, mutual enjoyment and mutual destruction.” 

But, separating that which is now pretty well made 
out from that which is still purely hypothetical, we 
may probably say that the luminosity of the sea pro- 
ceeds from three sources, viz.: from the phosphores- 
eence which has been long known to be emitted from 
dead fish; from a peculiar light-emitting faculty pos- 
sessed by living fish ; and from a slimy substance which 
the water sometimes imbibes from some species of the 
fish last alluded to. 


i eel 


Province of Ladakh.—The province of Ladakh, on the table- 
land of the Himéleh, has a length of about 250 miles from east 
to west, and a breadth of 200 from the mountains of Carakorum 
to the fort of Trankar in Piti. The physical character of the 
country’ is thus desernbed :—Although the country of Ladakh 
lies at a lower clevation than the mountain ranges which serve 
as ramparts to its northern and southern frontier, yet 1ts general 
character is that of its gigantic neighbours, and its lowest levels 
are in the vicinity of perpetual snow. It is, m fact, a series of 
narrow valleys, situated between mountains not of very great 
altitude as compared with the land at their feet, but ordinarily 
towering to a height above the sea wluch surpasses that of the 
pimacles of the Alps. The elevation of Lé itself is more than 
eleven thousand feet above the sea, aud some parts of the northern 
pergana of Nobra are two thousand feet above that level. The 
passes that lead into Ladakh on its southern frontier are above 
sixteen thousand feet high; and there are several mountains 
within the country which are crossed in travelling from one 
valley to another, as the Kandu La, Chang La, and Parang La, 
which are of still greater altitude. The valleys vary in extent ; 
they are sometimes little better than deep ravines or defiles, and 
even at their greatest expanse they do not exceed a few hundred 
yards in breadth: occasionally a smal! plain is left by the re- 
ceding hills of a mile or two in chameter, but such spots are 
very rarely met with. The general character of the surface 1s 
extreme inequality, consisting of steep and bare mountains capped 
with snow, and close and rocky dells, with rapid torrents or deep 
rivers rushing along their hollows. The streams running down 
the narrow valleys of Ladakh are all torrents fed by the snows, 
and swell at times with a surprising and dangerous rapidity. 
‘The general aspect of the country is bare and sterile; willow 
and poplar are the only trees: the tataric furze, the dog-rose, 
hyssop, and wormwood thrive in the fissures of the rocks, and 
indicate the small extent of productive soil. The winter is 
severe—ice 1s sometimes formed on the rivers even in June, and 
snow falls all the year round on the higher mountains; yet 1 
the valleys the summer heat is intense, and barley 1s in sone 
places ready for the sickle two months after the time of sowing. 
But notwithstanding all the disadvantages of a sterile soil and 
comparatively dry climate, the people manage their resources 
so well as to reap tolerably good harvests. One feature of their 
rural economy, deserving imitation in Alpine countries, is thus 
described :—The first step in the process of tillage 1s_ to 
clear the ground of its incumbrances, and, as far as possible, 


equalize the surface. The larger blocks of stone are left undis- | 


turbed, but the smaller fragments are collected and arranged in 


THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. [ DECEMBER, 4, 
longitudinal piles or walls, traversing the face of the declivity 
which every field more or less presents, forming a series of 
parallels, the space between which is made as level as possible 
by conveying materials from the upper to the lower edge of 
the slope. In this mamner a succession of terraces 1s constructed, 
each supported by a stone breastwork, and down which stone 
channels comimunicating with some spring or natural reservoir 
on the higher ground conduct a pleutilul supply of water. 
This is the disposition of the grounds in the vicinity of the 
villages and towns which are situated in the different valleys 
forming the inhabited and cultivable portion of Ladakh; but 
even in solitary spots, remote from hunian habitatious, stone 
dykes may be observed crossing the sloping sides of moun- 
tains uear their base: these are constructed by the peasants to 
assist the deposit of soil and gravel by the melting snows, and 
they are thus left for many years, perhaps for some genera- 


‘tions, for the operation of natural agency to prepare for the 


labour of man, and the more ready conversion of an abrupt and 
sterile declivity into an accessible flight of terraces of cultiva- 
tion.—These terraces are regularly irrigated, and the growing 
crops are weeded with great care, as the scarcity of fodder gives 
value to every green leaf.—Jfoorcroft and Trebeck's Travels in 
the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan. 


Fruits in England in the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centurres.— 
The only kinds named are apples and pears: three hundred 
of the latter were purchased at Canterbury; probably from 
the gardens of the mouks. It is believed, however, that few 
other sorts were generally grown in England before the latter 
end of the fifteenth century ; although Matthew Paris, deserib- 
ing the bad season of 1257, observes that “ apples were scarce, 
and pears scarcer, while quuuces, vegetables, cherries, plums, 
and all shell-fruits were eutirely destroyed.” Thiese shell-fruits 
were probably the common hazel-nut, walnuts, and perhaps 
chestnuts; in 1236 the sheriffs of London were ordered to buy 
two thousand chestnuts for the king’s use. In the Wardrobe 
Book of the 14th of Edward the First before quoted, we find the 
bill of Nicholas, the royal fruiterer, in which the only fruits 
mentioned are pears, apples, quinces, medlars, and nuts. The sup- 
ply of these, from Whitsuntide to November, cost 212, 14s. 13d. 
This apparent scarcity of indigenous fruits naturally leads to the 
inquiry, what foreign kinds besides those included in the term 
spicery, such as almonds, dates, figs, anc raisins, were imported 
into England in this aud the following century ? In the time of 
John and of Henry the Third, Rochelle was celebrated for its 
pears and couger-cels; the sherifls of London purchased a hun- 
dred of the former for Henry, in 1223. In the 18th of Edward 
the First, a large Spanish ship came to Portsmouth; out of the 
cargo of which the queen bought one frail of Seville figs, one 
frail of raisins or grapes, one bale of dates, and two hundred and 
thirty pomegranates, fifteen citrols, aid seven orANGES. The 
last item is important, as Le Grand d’Aussy could not trace the 
orange in France to an earlier date than 1333; here we find it 
known in England in 1290; and it is probable that this was not 
its first appearance. The marriage of Edward with Eleanor of 
Castile naturally led to a greater mtercourse with Spain, and, 
consequently, to the introduction of other articles of Spanish 
produce than the leather of Cordova, olive-oil, and rice, which 
had previously been the principal imports from that fertile 
country, through the medium of the merchants of Bayonne aud 
Bordeaux. It is to be regretted that the series of Wardrobe 
Books is incomplete, as much additional information on this 
point might have been derived from them. At all events it 
appears certain that Europe is indebted to the Arab conquerors 
of Spain for the introduction of the orange, and not to the Portu- 
guese, who are said to have brought it from China. An English 
dessert in the thirteenth century must, it 1s clear, have been 
composed chielly of dried and preserved fruits—dates, figs, 
apples, pears, nuts, and the still common dish of almonds and 
raisins.—-Manners and Household Expenses in England i the 
Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, by Mr. J. H. Turner, from 
Original Records. 


= 


Fans.—In the south of Italy men still continne to use the 
fan, and in hot weather one may often see a captain of dragoons, 
moustached and “bearded like the pard,” fanning himself with 
all the graces and dexterity of a young coquetfe. — Book of Ta- 
ble Talk. 





1841. 


| 





/ 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


481 








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(The Prioress and the Wife of Bath.] 


CHAUCER'S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 


THE MANCIPLEE. 


THE name of this officer of our old inns of court, 
colleges, &c., whose business it was to purchase their 
provisions, 18 supposed to be derived from the Latin 
word mancens, which signified more particularly the 
superintendent of a public bakehouse, and from 
thence a baker generally. The office still exists, as 
for instance at the London Charter House. 


« A gentle Manciple was there, of a temple 
Of which achatours* mighten take example 
For to be wise in buying of vitaille. 

For whether that he paid, or took by tailley, 
Algate ¢ he waited § so in his achate, 

That he was aye before in good estate. 

Now is not that of God a full fair grace, 
That such a lewed || manne’s wit shall pace | 
The wisdom of a heay of learned men ? 

Of masters had he more than thries ten, 
That were of law expert and curious, 

Of which there was a dozen in that house 
Worthy to be stewardes of rent and land 
Of any lord that is in Engle-land. 


* Purchasers. 

+ That is to say, ou credit, usmg the ¢ad/ly as the mode of 
reckoning. 

{ Always. 

§ Watched, or, in other words, was ever so attentive to Ins 
business. 

{| Unlearned. 


No. 622. 


@| Pass or surpass. 


i 


To meken him live by his proper good, 

In honour debteless, but if he were wood”, 
Or live as scarcelyf as him list desire’; 
And able for to helpen all a shire 

Tn any case that mighte fall or hap, 

And yet this Manciple set their aller, cap ;” 


or, as we should now say, made fools of them. Jn the 
absence of any necessity for illustrating this descrip- 
tion, the tale told by the Manciple may furnish matter 
for a few extracts and observations. This is a curious 
medley. Phoebus, it appears, once dwelt “in earth 
adown,” and had a house, and a wife, and various other 
domestic comforts. He had also— 


“In his house a crow, 
Which in a cage he fostered many a day, 
And taught it speaking, as men teach a jay. 
White was this crow, as is a snow-white swan, 
And counterfeit the speech of every man 
He coulde, when he should tell a tale. 
Therewith in all this world no nightingale 
Ne coulde by an hundred thousand del _ 
Singen so wondrous merrily and well.” 


And it would appear that all crows prior to this 
yeriod possessed the same beauty of voice and feather 
But a dark fate overhangs Phoebus and the poor crow. 
For— 

God it wote there may no man embrace 
Ne to distraine a thing, which that natdre 


Hath naturally set in a crefture ;” 
* Mad, + Sparingly. 


Vou. X.--3 Q 


482 THE PENNY 
and the story continues with the following sweet 
passage, for which, indeed, we chiefly refcrred to 1t:— 
‘Take any bird, and put it in a cage, 

And do all thine intent and thy corage* 

To foster it teuderly with meat and drink, 

Of alle dainties that thou canst bethink, 

And keep it all so cleanly as thou may ; 

Although the cage of gold be never so gay, 

Yet had this bird by twenty thousand fold 

Lever in a forest that is wild and cold, 

Go eating worms, and suche wretchedness. 

For ever this bird will do his busmess 

To escape out of his cage when that he may: 

His liberty the bird desireth aye.” 


Pheebus, overlooking or not caring for all this, does 
“ distrain” the poor crow, and the consequence is that 
Nature punishes his violation of her laws, by making 
the crow inform him of his wife’s faithlessness in his 
absence, and he immediately kills her. Remorse now 
seizes him, and he believes unjustly that the crow has 
told him false. So after bewailing his loss with great 
grief and lamentation, he turns to the poor crow :— 
“© O, falsé thief, said he, 
TI will thee quite anon thy falsé tale 
Thou sung whilom hke any meghtingale ; 
Now shalt thou, falsé thief, thy song foregone, 
And eke thy whité feathers every oue. 
Ne never in all thy life ne shalt thou speak ; 
Thus shall men on a traitor be awreket. 
Thou and thine offspring ever shall be black ; 
Ne never sweeté noisé shall ye make, 
But ever cry against tempést and rain, 
Yn token that through thee my wife is slain.” 


And so, in effect, ends this veritable sad history. 


THE PRIORKESS. 


«“ THERE was also a nun, or prioress,” says Chaucer, in 
ihe commencement of his description of that delicate, 
tender-hearted, sentimental personage, one of the most 
celebrated, and at the same time one of the happiest of 
the great poet’s dramatic creations. The word ‘ nun,’ 
(Latin, nonna) 1s said to be derived from Egypt, and to 
signify a virgin; other accounts make the original 
meaning of the Latin word ‘a penitent.’ The earhest 
phase of female monachism appears to have been the 
custom common to all the religions of antiquity, of 
virgins dedicating themselves to the performance of 
divine worship, and which, in reference to Christianity, 
had become by the latter part of the third century a 
matter of frequent occurrence, as we learn from the 
writings of Cyprian and Tertullian. At that period 
also, whilst some of the ecclesiastical or canonical vir- 
eins, as they were denominated, continued, after their 
vows of self-sacrifice, to reside under the parental roof, 
others had already adopted the example of the monks, 
and formed themselves into communities. Irom that 
time their lnstory becomes a part of the general history 
of monachism. 

Nuns, like monks, had on their entrance into the 
cloister to undergo a novitiate of from one to three 
years before their admission into the order, to take the 
three vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and to 
receive the tonsure. In the government of these 
houses there were sometimes, as in the case of the 
Gilbertines, no Jess than three prioresses associated 
together, taking the active duties of the office in rota- 
tion. These comprised matters of a varymg kind. 
There were the nun’s vestments, for instance, on the 
one hand, to cut out, to see to thei making, and when 
made, to divide among the members; on the other, 
there were the chapters to be held, penances to be en- 
joyed, licences or allowances to be granted or refused, 


* Or, in other words, all that thy mcelination or heart prompt. | 


4 


Avenged. 


MAGAZINE. [DECEMBER 1], 
sick to be visited and comforted. Of course respect 
and obedience were paid by all the nuns to their 
prioress ; although she too had to walk circumspectly 
by the rules set down. She was not at liberty to sit 
near any man in the, convent without some discreet 
sister between, nor elsewhere if it could be con- 
veniently avoided ; a cogent reason, by the way, for the 
presence of the nun, the prioress’s chaplain, who is 
always by the side of the fair governor, in the pilgrim- 
age to Canterbury. The prioress was not even per- 
mitted to leave the dormitory of the convent after 
dinner without the company of some of her sisters. 
We:must not omit to mention that among her duties 
was at one period that of hearing confessions; but this 
was at last done away with for an amusing reason. It 
was found there was no end to the questions which 
female curiosity induced them to put. Weshould fear 
Chaucer’s gentle Prioress could not be quite absolved 
from this charge :— 


‘“¢ There was also a nun, a prioress, 
That of her smiling was full simple and coy, 
Her greatest oath was but by Saint Eloy ; 
And she was cleped Madame Kglantine. 
Full well she sang the servicé divine, 
Entuned in her nose full sweetely. 
And French she spake full fair and fetisly 
After the school of Stratford atte Dow: 
For French of Paris was to her unknow.” 


The seminary which Chaucer so pleasantly satirizes 
for its bad French, is supposed by Mr. Warton to have 
been a fashionable place of imstruction for nuns or 
novices; and the idea is not unsupported by the known 
facts. ‘The ancient Benedictine nunnery of “ Stratford 
atte Bow” as famous in Chaucer’s time, and not im- 
probably on account of its educational character. 
Philippe de Mohun, duchess of York, who died in 
1431, bequeathed to the prioress five shillings, and to 
the convent twenty shillings; a shght but sufficient 
testimony perhaps of the grateful remembrance of 
instruction received there. 

The Prioress’s very pretty little oath, when she dic 
swear—and it must be remembered our Enghsh ladies 
were not at all particular in such matters, even down 
to the times of good Queen Bess—has excited more 
contention among the commentators than one would: 
have thought such a imatter deserved. Warton says 
that St. Loy, which is the form in which the word ap- 
pears in all the manuscripts, means St. Lewis: but in 
sir David Lyndsay, St. Eloy appears as an independent 
personage, having some undefinable connection with 
horses or horsemanship : 


“ Saint Eloy, he doth stoutly stand, 
Ane new horseshoe in his hand.” 


And again: 
‘¢ Some makis offering to Saint Eloy, 
That he their horse may well convoy.” 


The scrupulous nicety visible in the Prioress’s oaths, 
in her smging, and in her pronunciation of the Strat- 
ford-atte-Bow French, extends to her behaviour at 
table, where she is a perfect example of what was good 
breeding in the fourteenth century : 


“¢ At meate was she well ytaught withal; 
She let no morsel from her lippes fall, 
Ne wet her fingers in her saucé deep. 
Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep, 
Thatte no drop ne fell upon her breast. 
In courtesy was set full much her lest*. 
Her over-lppe wipéd she so clean, 
That i her cuppe was no farthing seen 
Of greasé, when she drunken had her draught. 
Full semely after her meat she raught.” 


* Pleasure. 


1841. | 


And her mental characteristics and her dress are in 
fine harmony with her inanners: 


¢ And sikerly she was of great disport, 
dnd full pleasant, and amiable of port ; 
Aud pamed her to counterfeiten chicer 
Of court, and be estatelich of mamuicre, 
And to be holden digne of reverence. 
But for to speaken of lier conscience, 
She was so charitable and so pitedus, 
She woulde weep if that she saw a mouse 
Caught in a trap, if it were dead or bled. 
Of smalle houndes had she, that she fed 

y With roasted flesh, and milk, and wastel bread™. 
But sore wept she, if ove of them were dead, 
Or if men smote it with a yerdef smart. 
Aud all was conscience and tender heart. 
Full seemely ter wimple ypmiched was, 

Her nose iretist ; her eyen grey as glass ; 
Her mouth full small, and thereto soft and red ; 
But stkerly she had a fair forehead : 
It was almost a spanne broad, I trow, 
For hardily$ she was not undergrow. 
Full fetise was her cloak, as I was ware. 
Of smalle coral about her arn she bare 
A pair of beades gauded all with green, 
And thereon hung a broach of gold full sheen, 
At which was first ywritten a crowned A, 
And after, Amor vincit omnia.” 


The same tender motto appears to be referred to in 
‘The Squire of Low Degrec,’ where we find the fol- 
lowing passage :— 

“in the midst of your shield there shall be set 
A. lady’s head with many a fret ; 
Above the head written shall be 
A reason for the love of me; 
Both O and R shall be therein, 
With A and M it shall begin.” 


Beads thus “ gauded all with green,” or silver gilt, 
or gold, are frequently mentioned in old wills, as in 
that of Eleanor de Bohun, duchess-of Gloucester, 1399: 
** Item, J devise to Madame and mother, the Coun- 
tess of Jerford, a pair of paternosters of coral of fifty 
beads, ornamented with gardes of gold,” &c.; and in 
other old writers of Chaucer’s period, as in the pages 
of Gower, &c. | 

Our host, Harry Bailly, is evidently much struck 
with the Prioress, and ncthing can be more courteous 
or gallant than his bearing towards her. 

Addressing her, continues the poet, 


** As courteously as it had been a maid,” 


after the Shipman’s tale, he says— 
“‘ ®1y Lady Prioresse, by your leave, 
So that I wist I should you not agrieve— 
I woulde demen that ye tellen should 
A talé next, if so were that ye would. 
Now will ye vouchsafe, my lady dear ?” 


Who could reply otherwise than pleasantly to such 
insinuating politeness? ‘ Gladly,” says the amiable 
Prioress ; and immediately tells a tale founded on an 
incident peculiarly calculated to arouse her feminine 
sympathies—the murder of a Christian child by the 
Jews in some far-off country. The Sutherland manu- 
script represents her thus engaged, with her right 
hand uplifted, as if calling the particular attention of 
the pilgrims to what she was saying’; a little evidence 
of her habitual authority, perhaps unconsciously, break- 
ing out: whilst in her left hand are seen the beads of 
coral. The artist has made her belong to the Benedic- 
tine Nuns, by the dress he has given to’ her—a black 
cloak over a white tunic. 

* A kind of cake-bread made from the finest flour, 

+ A rod. * Long and well proportioned. 

§ Certainly, 





THE PENNY 


MAGAZINE. 483 


TAYLOR'S PENNYLESS PILGRIMAGE. 


THE very curious tract to which we referred in our 
Jast number 1s entitled ‘The Pennyless Pilgrimage, or 
the Moneyless Perambulation of John Taylor, alias 
the King’s Majesty's Water-Poet; how he travelled 
on foot irom London to Edinburgh in Scotland, not 
carrying any money tod or ire, neither begging, bor- 
rowing, or asking meat, drink, or lodging.’ Taylor, 
in an address which precedes this description of lis 
travels, says they “were not undertaken neither in 


imitation or emulation of any man. but only devised 


by myself, on purpose to make trial of imy triends, 
both in this kingdom of England and that of Scot- 
Jand.” IJfis travels were thus a test of the hospitality 
of the country in the year 1618; in which year, on the 
evening of the 14th of July, he took his 
“Jatest leave, thus late 
At the Bell Inn, that ’s extra Aldersgate.” 


Iiis companions were his man, and a horse that car- 
ried his “provant,” which consisted of bacon, biscuit, 
cheese, and good aqua-vite. If the hospitality of the 
country had failed, therefore, the provident poet had 
taken some security against starvation. His journeys 
were not, however, very laborious: he went that night 
as far as Islington. The next morning he took his 
way through Holywell (now called Holloway), High- 
gate, and Whetstone, on to St. Alban’s, 

“Where Master Taylor, at the Saracen’s Head, 
Unask’d (aupaid for), ine both lodgd and fed.” 
This was the second night of his free quarters. The 
next day was a weary one; he went twelve miles 
without any one asking him to drink; and he and his 
man were fain to resort to the “provant” in the knap- 
sack, with no better shelter than a hedge. But the 
night solaced him; he established himself at the 
Queen’s Arms at Stony Stratford, and again had no- 
thing to pay. Of Daventry he gives a bad account: 
he describes it as “that stony town,” and the hearts of 
the people appear to have been as stony as the streets. 
The hostess of the Horse-Shoe, with the tapsters, 
ostlers, and chamberlains, stared at him as ata 
monster; and they never said to him, “Come near the 
house, my friend.’ The poet is indignant at this, and 
he consigns the hostess to 1mmortal infamy by de- 
scribing a great wart on her nose. Thus it is that our 
personal feelings too often direct the taste and jude- 
ment: had the hostess been kind, the wart might have 
become a beauty, or at any rate have been unseen 
amidst her 
““ Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe’s clicek, 
Aud love to live in dimple sleek.” 

In the absence of rest and merriment at Daventry, 
the poor waterman-poet, whose [¢et were unused to 
this sort of exertion, made a shift to hobble on seven 
miles farther, where he bivouacked on JDunsmore 
Heath. The next day, however, he was in a happier 
plight: 

“Through plashes, puddles, thick, thm, wet, and dry, 
I travell’cd to the city Coveutry. 
There Master Doctor Holland caus'd me to stay 
The day of Saturn and the Sabbath-day.” 

It is pleasant to sce the learned and laborious trans- 
lator thus welcoming his humble brother in the re- 
public of letters. Dr. Philemon Holland was the 
master of Coventry Free-School; and there, practising 
physic at the same time, he went on adding folio to 
folio, till he had made many of the Latin and one or 
two of the Greek classics familiar to his countrymen. 
The wis laughed at lus useful labours: it was of him 
they wrote— 

* Pitlemou with translations does so fill us, 
He will not let Suetonius be Tranquillus,” 


9 oO 


484 








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[Edinburgh in the beginuing of the Seventeenth Century.] 


At Lichfield Taylor was again fortunate ; a friendly 
joiner gave him welcome; but ‘in the country which 
we now call the Potteries, the pilgrim found lenten 
entertainment. Stone gave him nothing; neither did 
Newcastle (which he takes care to explain is not New- 
castle-upon-Tyne). So far we have travelled with our 
poet in verse, which sometimes limps, like his wearied 
self; but he now gives us an adventure in plain prose. 
“Tn this town of Newcastle I overtook an hostler, and I 
asked hum what the next town was called, that was in 
my way toward Lancaster; he, holding the end of a 
riding-rod in his mouth, as if it had been a flute, piped 
me this answer, and said, ‘Talk on the hill; I asked 
him again what he said: ‘Talk on the hill.’ I de- 
manded the third time; he answered me as he did 
before, ‘ Talk on the hill.’ [I began to grow choleric, 
and asked him why he could not talk, or tell me my 
way, aS Well there as on the hill. At last J was re- 
solved, that the next town was four mules off me, and 
that the name of it was‘ Talk on the Hill.’” Will some 
good dweller in the town of Talk inform us if the joke 
is still current? 

At Adlington, near Macclesfield, Sir Urian Legh 
entertained the pilgrim for four days :— 


« At his own table I did daily eat, 
Whereat, may be supposd, did want no meat ; 
He would have giv’n me gold or silver either, 
But I, with many thanks, received neither.” 


In recompense for this hospitality Taylor bestows 
upon his host some forty hnes of commendation; and 
we must do the poor waterman the justice to say that 
they are written in a manly tone of gratitude, and that 
he properly appreciates the praise which would be 
welcome to a soldier and a gentleman. Near Man- 
chester he was again entertained at a private house ; 
but at Manchester, when steam-engines and jennies 
and power-looms were things undreamt of, and the 
town was a dull trading-place, hke many other inland 
towns, the most prodigal hospitality was poured upon 
the traveller; and he went on eating and drinking, 
like the shepherd of Arcadia piped, “as if he should 
never grow old :’— 


‘*T must. tell, 
How men of Manchester did use me well, 


Their loves they on the tenter-hooks did rack, 

Roast, boiled, bak’d, too, too much, white, claret, sack ; 
Nothing they thought too heavy or too hot, 

Can followed can, and pot sueceeded pot.” 

At Preston the pilgrim was again received with 
feasting and worship; he lodged at the Hind, anil the 
mayor waited upon him to show his respect. At Lan- 
caster he was welcomed as if he had been a lord. For 
all this hospitality he fairly owns he was indebted to 
the recommendation of Sir Urian Legh; and with the 
same passport he went on gallantly through Westmore- 
land. At Penrith (he spells it Peerith, which is still 
the local pronunciation of the word) he was again 
lodged and boarded ; and welcome was he made also at 
merry Carlisle. Onward he went through the thinly 
populated country that lies between Carlisle and 
Edinburgh; though, as he describes it, “a fertile 
country for corn and cattle.” At last he enters Edin- 
burgh, worn out with fatigue and altogether money- 
less, His old good luck soon befalls him; and he is in 
comfortable quarters. The description of Edinburgh 
more than two centuries ago will amuse our Scotch 
friends. ‘So leaving the castle, as it is both de- 
fensive against any opposition, and magnifick for 
lodging and receipt, 1 descended lower to the city, 
wherein I observed the fairest and goodliest street that 
ever mine eyes beheld, for I did never see or hear of a 
street of that length Qwhich is half an English mile 
from the castle to a fair port which they call the 
Neather Bow), and from that Port, the street which 
they call the Kenny-bate is one quarter of a mile more, 
down to the King’s Palace, called Holyrood House, 
the buildings on each side of the way being all of 
squared stone, five, six, and seven stories high, and 
many bye-lanes and cleses on each side of the way, 
wherein are gentlemen’s houses, much fairer than the 
buildings in the High Street, for in the High Street the 
inerchants and tradesmen do dwell, but the gentle- 
Inen’s mansions and goodliest houses are obscurely 
founded in the aforesaid lanes; the walls are eight or 
ten feet thick, exceeding strong, not built for a day, a 
week, a month, or a year; but from antiquity to pos- 
terity, for many ages. There I found entertainment 
beyond my expectation or merit, and there is fish, 
flesh, bread, and fruit, in such variety, that I think 1 
imay offenceless call it superfluity or satiety.” 


1841. ] THE PENNY 

From Edinburgh Taylor proceeds to Leith, where 
he is welcomed by Master Barnard Lindsay, one of 
the grooms of his majesty’s bedchamber. His notice 
of the commerce of Leith presents a curious contrast 
to the Leith of the present day: “I was credibly in- 
formed, that within the compass of one year there was 
shipped away from that only port of Leith fourscore 
thousand boles of wheat, oats, and barley into Spain, 
France, and other foreign parts, and every bole con- 
tains the measure of four English bushels, so that from 
Leith only hath been transported three hundred and 
twenty thousand bushels of corn; besides, some hath 
been shipped away from Saint Andrews, from Dundee, 
Aberdeen, Disert, Kirkady, Kinghorn, Burnt Island, 
Dunbar, and other portable towns, which makes me 
to wonder that a kingdom so populous as it 1s, should 
nevertheless sell so much bread-corn beyond the seas, 
and yet to have more than sufficient for themselves.” 

At Burnt Island Taylor found many of his especial 
eood friends, acquaintances that he had made about 
the court of James J., gentlemen that he had probably 
rowed from Palace Yard to Bankside. Amongst 
others was Sir Henry Witherington. Taylor, 1t seems, 
had been at the taking of Cadiz, and was in the same 
ship with Witherington. The old shipmates compared 
notes of their voyage; and Taylor tells a story of land- 
ing on one of the Azores with fourteen others, in the 
expectation of finding fruit. Te shall relate the pith 
of his adventure in his own words:—“ In the mean 
space the wind did blow so stiff, and the sca was so 
extreme rough, that our ship-boat could not come to 
the land to fetch us, for fear she should be beaten in 
picces against the rocks: this continued five days, so 
that we were almost famished for want of food; but at 
last (I squandering wp and down) by the providence ot 
God, I happened into a cave or poor habitation, where 
I found fifteen loaves of bread, each of the quantity of 
a penny loaf in England, I having a vahant stomach 
of the age of almost a hundred and twenty hours’ 
breeding, fell to, and ate two loaves and never said 
grace ; and as I was about to make a horse-loaf of the 
third loaf, I did put twelve of them into my breeches 
and my sleeves, and so weit mumbling out of the cave, 
leaning my back against a tree, where upon the sud- 
den a gentleman came to me, and said, ‘ Friend, what 
are you eating?’ Bread’ (quoth I). ‘ For God's sake,’ 
said he, ‘give mesome.’ With that, I put my hand 
into my breech ‘(being my best pantry), and I gave 
him a loaf, which he received with many thanks, and 
said, that if ever he could requite it, he would. I had 
no sooner told this tale, but Sir Henry Withcrington 
did acknowledge himself to be the man that I had 
given the loaf unto two and twenty years before.” 

[To be continued.] 


SEWERS. 


In treating on the construction and management of 
sewers, the name will be used in the limited sense In 
which it is commonly applied to the subterrancous 
passages formed for the drainage of towns; and the 
sewers of London, being the most important, and those 
respecting which most information can be procured, 
will form the principal subject of this notice. 

Covered drains or sewers of great size, and of very 
solid construction, still exist under the strects of some 
ancient Roman cities, and especially of Rome itself. 
The cloacee or sewers of Rome are so capacious that, 
barges are said to have been floated through them ; 
and their magnitude has led to the conjecture that, 
although their origin is usually attributed to the time 
of Tarquin, they are in reality the remains of some 
older city; their dimensions being considered dispro- 
portionate to the extent of the then infant city of Rome. 

In modern times the sewers of London stand unri- 


MAGAZINE. A425 
valled for extent and exccllent construction, although 
much yet remains to be done to render them adequate 
to the necessities of an immense and constantly in- 
creasing population. It will be scen that the early 
legislative enactments relating to sewers, so far as 
they provide for draimage at all, do so for the drainage 
of the surface only; while, from the practice so com- 
mon in London, of building not only cellars, but 
habitable apartments also, much below the level of 
the ground, convenient means of drainage to a con- 
siderable depth are essential to the health and coinfort 
of the inhabitants, and the dryness and stability of the 
houses themselves. Although additional powers have 
been from time to time conferred upon some of the 
commissions by which the sewage of the metropolis 
is managed, this defect is far from being completely 
remedied. A little consideration as to the circum- 
stances under which the duties of the commissioners 
have gradually changed and extended, will tend to 
account for many of the defects of the existing system, 
which deserves admiration for its comparative excel- 
lence, rather than calls for any expression of dissatis- 
faction at its admitted dcfecis. Mr. Walker, the 
engineer, in evidence before a parliamentary commit- 
tee in 1834, stated that when, in the previous year, 
some French engineers were sent over to ingland by 
their government, nothing seemed to attract their 
attention more than the sewage of London, the drain- 
age of Paris being a subject then wnder consideration ; 
“but,” he adds, “ their ideas of the proposed drainage 
never extended to more than taking away the surface 
drainage, and they seemed astonished when I told 
them that the water from our lowest cellars drains 
into those great sewers.” It is very curious to trace 
the effect of the extension of population in and about 
London in converting what were, a few centuries ago, 
streams of pure water, into receptacles and channels 
for the filth and refuse of a densely inhabited district, 
until they have become so oftensive, and so inadequate 
to the offices required of them, as to render neccssary 
the substitution of deep and wide subterrancous chan- 
nels, or arched sewers, for the once healthy, but now 
pestilential rivulets. This has been done by the writer 
of a paper in Knight’s ‘ London (No. 13), to which 
we are indebted for the following particulars respect- 
ing the watercourse now known as the Fleet Ditch 
or Sewer, which affords the most striking example of 
these changes. Stow tells us that “ Anciently, until 
the time of the Conqueror, and two hundred years 
later, this city of London was watered (besides the 
famous river of Thames on the south part) with the 
river of the Wells, as it was then called, on the west ; 
with a water called Walbrook running through the 
midst of the city into the river of Thames, severing the 
heart thereof; and with a fourth water, or bourn, 
which ran within the city through Langbourn Ward, 
watering that part in the east. In the west suburbs 
was also another great water, called Oldborn, which 
had its fall into the river of Wells.” In this passage, 
which enumerates the principal natural watercourses 
of the old city, the Fleet is designated by a title indica- 
tive of the “ choice fountains of water, sweet, whole- 
some, and clear,” which, from the northern suburbs of 
the city, contributed their tributary rills to the main 
stream, which descended from the high ground about 
Hampstead. However clear and sweet this river may 
once have been, it was early rendered otherwise by the 
extension of population on its banks. The paper alluded 
to above tells us that “so early as 1290 the monks of 
White Friars complained to the king and parliament 
that the putrid exhalations arising from it were so 
powerful as to overcome all the frankincense burnt at 
their altars during divine service ; and even occasioned 
the deaths of many of the brethren,” Many attempts 


486 THE PENNY 
were made to cleanse the Fleet river, and restore it to 
its ancient coudition of utility as a navigable stream ; 
but they proved unavailing, and the stream, which 
formerly conducted vessels with merchandize as far 
as leet Bridge and Old Borne (now Holborn) Bridge, 
if not farther, became, in the language of Pope, 


“ The king of dykes! than whom uo sluice of mud 
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.” 


The total surface which is drained into this stream 
in the Holborn and Finsbury districts of sewage is 
stated to be about 4444 acres, of which about 1788 
acres are now covered with streets and houscs; while 
in 1746 the surface so built upon was only about 4600 
acres. This increase of buildings, besides greatly aug- 
menting the ordinary drainage from the surtace, by 
reducing its absorption, has rendered necessary seme 
provision for carrying off the refuse water and filth 
from thousands of habitations. The Fleet dyke or 
ditch has therefore been, for several years past, in 
course of conversion into a great arched sewer, of 
which only a small portion now remains incoinpicte. 
In 1826 it was determined to enlarge this sewer for a 
Iength of nearly 16,000 fect, from Holborn to Kentish 
Lown ;—the expense was estimated at 46,6822. The 
greater part of this work has been alrcady executed, 
the remaining length being chiefly in the direction of 
the intended new street north of Farringdon Street. 
The commissioners make it a principle, wherever it is 
practicable, to form their covered sewers under the 
pavement of streets; a circumstance which occasion- 
ally deters them from covering sewers in districts 
where the arrangement of the sircets is not fully 
decided on, although the increase of population niay 
render the open channels a great nuisance. 

The sewers of London and iis suburbs are divided 
among seven trusts or commissions, and it has long 
been cousidered that the system of management is 
capable of considerable improvement; as the want of 
uniformity of plan, and of cordial co-operation in the 
several districts, is hable, in various ways, to lead to 
inconvenience. A sclect committee of the House of 
Commons was appointed in 1834 “ to inquire into the 
state of the law respecting sewers in and near the me- 
tropolis, and into the administration of the same by the 
various Boards of Commissioners of Sewers, with a 
view to suggest such amendments in both as shall be 
dcemed advisable ;” and this committee, after a careful 
investigation, pronounced their opinion that the law 
1s especially deficient in three points. These defects 
ure, Ist, a want of uniformity, the law 1iself varying in 
different districts, or, if not so, being variously inter- 
preted by their respective commissions; 2nd, the want 
of publicity and responsibility, there being some of 
the trusts in which the courts are not open to the 
public, and where the right of the rate-payers to inspect 
the accounts is not admitted; and, 3rd, equality of 
ratcage with mequahty of advantages, it being the 
usual practice to rate all houses whicli either receive a 
benefit from the sewers or avoid a damage. On this 
system very few houses are exempt, as all may be con- 
sidered to derive benefit more or less from the surface 
drainage of the streets. So long as merely the surface 
drainage of the town, was attempted, this principle 
might be considered cquitable; but as the sewers are 
how used for other important purposes, and it 1s highly 
desirable that every house should have an underground 
communication with tliem, it appeared to the committee 
unjust that the sanic rate should be levied upon houses 
possessing this advantage, and upon such as neither 
have it, nor, without great additions to the present 
scwage, can be supplicd with it. In some cases the 
comhussioners appear not to be possessed of necessary 
powers for making new sewers, or cven covering in 
Existing open sewers; while the law provides no 


levels. 





MAGAZINE. [DECEMBER II, 
means of compelling the builders of new streets to 
provide them with proper drainage, or even of en- 
forcing communication with a scwer when made. A 
striking illustration of the cvils arising from the want 
of unity of plan among the various commissions is 
afforded by tlie fact stated in evidence before the com- 
mittee, that the improvement and enlargement of the 
sewers mm the Holborn and Finsbury divisions, which 
communicate with the Thames through those of the 
City of London commission, occasioned so great an 
influx of water to the latter, that they became totally 
unable to discharge it; and consequently their contents 
were, during heavy falls of rain, forced into the neigh- 
bouring houses. This circumstance has rendered ue- 
cessary the construction of cnlarged sewers through 
the city at great expense; “ but,” as obscrved in the 
Report, “if anything like combination had existed 
previously, the improvements would have been carried 
on simultancously, and the inconvenience would never 
have occurred.” The evidence given on this occa- 
sion proved that much was being done to remedy 
the defects of the sewage, both by decpening, en- 
larging, and othcrwise improving old sewers, and 
by making new ones. Mr. Daw, chairman of the City 
of London cominission, stated that full one-third of the 
sewers in the city had been made in the ten years pre- 
ceding 1834. A return made by the officers of the 
Westminster division shows that, between 1807 and 
1834, there had been built, within the Ranelagh Level,* 
2692 feet of open and 6886 feet of covered sewers, 
making a total length of 9578 feet, at the cost of the 
commissioners; while the length made during the same 
period by private persons was 91,708 feet. Froma 
letter printed in the Appendix to the Report of the 
Committee, respecting the district drained by that 
portion of the Fleet ditch which is within the jurisdic- 
tion of the commissioners for the Holborn and Finsbury 
divisions, it appears that no Icss than 31,000 feet of new 
scwers were made in that district between 1822 and 
and 1831, at a cost of more than 23,0002. Since the 
year 1824, iniprovements have been going on rapidly 
in some districts. In the Tawer Hainicts division, as 
appears by the evidence of the surveyor before the 
sclect Committee of the House of Commons on the 
Health of Towns, in 1840, nearly 25,000 feet of new 
sewers were proposed in 1834 or 1835, of which four- 
fifths were completed by 1840. ‘There do not appear 
to be published data from which the total extent of 
the sewers in the metropolitan districts can be ascer- 
tained; but by the courtesy of Mr. Roe, surveyor of 
the Holborn and Finsbury divisions, we are enabled to 
state that the total length of the main covered sewers 
in those districts, downto April, 1$41,was as follows :— 
leet. Miles. 





Finsbury division. . 220,885 .... 41¢ 
Total . 488545) ]sssseeeeeeenneneanee 


Of thesc main sewers nearly one-half have been 
made within the last twenty years, and ten miles and 


; three-quarters in tlie three ycars from January, 1838, 


to December, 1840. In addition tosthese, there are 
sixteen miles of small sewers to carry off the surface 
water from the streets and roads, and two hundred and 
fifty-four miles of drains leading from houses to the 
main sewers, (London, No. 13, p 231.) 

(‘fo be Continuad. 


* Level is an arbitrary term, originally applied to the district 
drained by a particular sewer, although there are now several 
outlets for the dramage in many districts that bear the name of 
In the Ranelagh district, for instance, besides the prin~ 
cipal outlet, which is called the Ranclagh sewer, the Commis- 


-sioners’ map shows six minor openings into the Thames, three of 
| which receive the sewage from several branches. 


































































































































Pp — = 
3 OPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN— 
a! aces 
. CENSUS OF 1841. WALES. 
AL PULATION, accordin: =< 
June, 1841, of each County in ficat Brie BS Persons, i841. [4 5 amen pe aaiae le 
and Ie ines - also the Number ae Te en distinguishing Males Counties. [eee rere =? a lfouses, 1841. re 
Buiiding. This Return includ ises Inhabited, Unimhabited, and Males Te | rr eee = 
el ion cludes ouly such part of ¢] pie emales. | Totala. {Inhabite Unin- | Buailn- > 
and Merchant Seamen as we } he Army, Nav ————— | thabited.| ) 7). Pt 
A loin s were at the time of the Census on abcd Anglesey. 2 . + +4 24,269 = a me oH | ee 
5 - Drceorweee . ! eo aD Or 30, oa y 11,4838 ~ie | 198% = . | Sie 35 2R2SES8 a5 5SRBE2RSSR 
Cardigan : w6,911 2b, 284 53,2 ee 126 135 Sedirs | Glts 2 =]. See. ae ees 
UNGLAND eee 37.997 | 36,383 ee 10,63: 83 we SE LRSM ative Sala Ses 
ee saa Chute so. . ae 59,657 | 1064 142 Bee ee 12) a ee aa oe © ee 
et | a ee 21,463 | slo68 | 16,869 1382) 225 | . “2 
Persons, 1841. Flint . oo. — ad, O1% 44,674 89,29] 18485 vt 13d — ‘ 
Ilouses, 15-1. Glamorgan ; ae 33,636 22,911 65,517 DA eae 167 ite | 
Counties. = M 2 to tere 69,028 Bt 43g 4 13,320 446 101 ae AVIANNS 
——_ Terioneth 2 . 6. 19 245 rk 03,402 33,209 | 1,466 528 “(SR So tee 2 oe aie 
Males. | F — | Montgomery. . Pe iaisions sana | “sizey | 'oi7| a2 BS fee ee 
. emales. Totals. Inhabited. Unin- |Build- Pembroke ea? : - 43 31,08 5 ey oat ee * be va) ae of a oy 5 <> ee = c ” cot a = ae 
habited.| tadnor ped ale 919 83,26: Qs 33 a = Se Te =3 01 
bited, We. ° ° e re ps ip Fries 12 ' B eb 18,882 } O25 143 am) er | fon’ | a 
Bedford. . Tots HS | 25185, 4,087 234 19 ie | 7 
Berka yeeieune eM cca 101 ce pan el iee2 9 otal. . . . ° 447,533 | 463,783 | 911,521 | ¥s3,196 | 10,133 3 
. Buckingham . . e : 90,552 ieee ‘ 3) 470 dnl 211 ae 03,196 | 10,183 | 1,769 —= IR AMF 7 
EK) Cambridge. . ‘ 1316 19,003 155.939 k : 3107] 1,906 200 = i> 19 BRBBASERBS Mr NSAI 
'~ Chester SS ee eee Pe, Meet 1,157 | 198 B a Sai SRR RSS SOBRE 
noe 193,099 | 202,211 | 395,300 83,112 | L218 | 207 = Seuss geen eas 
NN Cum! , i 2 2) wees | ivéeis | 3u1726 73,390 | 5,845 | 523 SCOTLAND 5) 28 ae ) Sens a. 
<{ ae : re = 36, i 206 91:706 ie oie bo, G41 4,950 928 cS 1... eee en ¢ : - . 
. ~ ° e 1 2 fd, ‘ t ae ’ 
com) Devon. . ee os Boh 1003 242,202 52 10 sy we Persons, 1841 TS = 
5 : : B32 ~ - Fi = 4) 2543 UTS 3, 1071. . a. 
= Dasha a 3,442 “OL 301 a ie 24.68: 6,117 $0 Counties — ya = 
t ° e ~ é é t ‘ = : = 
Peas o 8 oe 159) S74 164 "403 g04 957 : | J 2,012 29] . a ; = — 
b Gratestes ee «| 172,299 72,696 ee 57,450 Bele aad wes Males. | Females. | Totals. | Inhabited. Unin- | Build- = 
ya Huerti@ed ca) oa) eee 905,37 4 925,933 rae 67,602 2,482 507 Neer Sa habited. ing. = 
cs aT: fee: |e) + Tea 57,18 ee 80,856 | 9,790 mae on oe 89,523 102.7 1D 9 x. ane — ~ 
ertfurd. . . ots i 114, ee 93 46] 2 Ooh Aleve we. Oo 192,283 32.193 = 
~ Huntingdon a 7,619 (9,613 | 157 23,461 | 1,423 | 123 | Ayr 47,654 419,486 97,140 2,193 | 1,095) 233 = 
om KK a 20) 134 00 545 ix 30,155 1.303 183 XE Benes) <6 0% KR O7() Bs 259 yd ght 18,514 17 meee a 
A cer | CW eeroange| 2:5'748 “eh ig 11,497 } 37 BY |e ress CUE 53°495 | 26-631 164,522 J 20,247 | 1,297 60 wd 
Laneaster - : . : 814.85 " Th O18 Tel Q5 347 ~ 01 69 Berwick , ; 2 16507 <0, C91 50,076 | 298 "478 J wot 
rz) pe oa 105, 613 it me 1,667,064 | 289,166 ae aa . Me GOIEC? oe) Ae ae ye 34,427 7405 ane a = 
incoln - 3 242 | 215,855 | 44,649 | 3. ,831 | Caithness H 8,537 | 15,695 2 ORT ve 28s 
a Pate) 6. ares 181.802 180 ¢ = 44,649 3 960 ee I Ss ee 16,993 10,0. a 3,067 93 2 on 
pd Middlesex ma 80,915 362,717 mop ye = 457 ;| Claekm os Lect 36,197 - Of: lo i) 
ee ae 733, Ply, 73,088 2 as annals. ; =e pls 6,962 2] ¢ ; 
EF Monmouth 5 + + + | 70 “508 a oy 1,576,616 | 207,670 Aco ee. cae ee peel “saoteen, || da seen ae 1101 6 ie 
Novfolk. 2 2 2 | 1994055 741 | 135,389 | Sore peels oo eat ee ee ee a ees 295 | 7,936 | 372 | 101 a” a — oe 
ae thampton . . . 98°336 100, Ree 412,621 83,922 : 1] pees Bdinburgh ean 102709 oc eae Tipe ye. 14,3i5 Os ay mS) . : 
a ~ . t 121,271 123'907 199,061 40/903 See ane Higin. . . . 16.07] 739 ig 225,623 38,903 9 36] i < Bg gee ae 
Nottingham + | 121,600 | 12s, 7 | 250,268 § 48,704 ae. oe. oe eee 34991 | 3,133 | 370] 59 oe des see & 
Oxon es 2 2 S| BUS | “Shugo ) TeLsrs | Sa 719 | 216 | Haddington +: 65,705 | Theis | Wos1o | 2863 | Loz) 139 Rereerrereer eee ress 
utianc a \ 91.97% 32 14] a ~ addington . ee Foie 70,380 36.152 9 ~ mae a) = OS (Sem 265 = Case 22 
Salop > ® e 9743 10 07 21.34 hs 1,440 0] lnve i a e253 18.52 8 Qn 5 givY 2,050 pees rat zis es 2 Se aS Be ie Se 
a een ae 0 4,297 5 : nyerness . =m c9, 181 8,009 ye = 2352234252 = Be oes 
Somerset “=: a 209, pe 119,637 637 £39,014 47208 j 10 al Kineardine 2. ace 52,109 97,615 19,182 ee 29 te pean ebe Ssaae eee a 
outhampton . . . V7 704 30°2 98 ] 436, 002 81632 ie 298 lvinross | ae 1104 17,238 33,052 O74 314 uid 3 ed ee 
Stafford. 6 6 5 + | 238 apa | o5lar7 | 530° Ma oe oe a 1509 | “sze3} 106} ia] io 2 aA k= 0 eS 
hifoli . -«.«.« ». « 154, 107 161. aoe 510,206 97,676 5 155 500 Stewartry OL. 18.828 e ~ . . 
pee « « « . | 278,166 504° Ss mel 4) 64.081 231% re Laniigic ae. Gs .  « Be Fam 41,099 8159 216 a = 8 > 2 , 
Wiatee 147,572 | 152,198 29070 | SLOG foe ogre) ae | 13,766 Teihse| | moses | e300 3064 | 963 @ fee ce a - 
t a Fe " a 195 Pe, td : 5 ye Linc € ° s ie a si ~ 4 z 0) 27 Ea i 2 ~ ten 
ae any | “esags | “ar460 iaas | 6809 | Gor | Peebles = Shotant | seat | 233543 AY 2,396 109} BS | % ieee 
ee meats) 6.469 "(aie pee ( eebles . S Od yD 0,007 ie ody ; . 5 = 
as 128 ,904 ie : )52 10,848 870 eS 122 ae 11,426 9) > o as a 
VV . = ws AST wd Ly e 
Wolke eae 1a 131.103 | 260,007 | 50,086 | 2.149 Re ee Me) ce cote WP aa rie) Yk 2 
oe Riding) .| 95,446 | 98,28 oa3,4g1 | 46962 | 2/922 | 35 ume ce. . ee eee 138,151 | 29,172 | 1,793 | — 80 2 a 2” = es 
ity of York and ? »~30) 193,676 38,390 G75 351 Ross aud Cromarty. “6 449 Aha 151,. 39 4, "B95 1,092 99 ms | _ . Ep é 2 
se sithstey 18,176 | 20,14 426 | Roxburgh... «| 21957 | 24 a Bo tee 465| 158 8 5 a =e 
_, Xone’ Soa nisi’ | 0get | ausos1 | sous ey ae “Sor | 77999 wi] us 51 | 2 2 2 2 8 3 
a k (West Riding ~04,662 9 Fe Mite «4 <3 me a ru) re oS Z 3 oS 
= WY. | Bravse7 | ssosoy | aistoed | gecars | 1s’s70 | 2,221 Sutherland / | 41070 | 41,169 2149 af 44 ae 8 £ 2 8 
A Goal) .- 7,321,875 | 7,673,633. 924 | 2647S | 18,870 | 2,221 | Wigtown ; | ey 13,359 | 24,666 a ap : . ae 
aS ee 7,673,633 5 5 hm coe nie. - | 7 HOt | MBs: 4.4 S 
pe ee ee ee ee pn Barracks. 6. 6 | 3,82 | 993 41,068 o6{ 56 & | 
See Le ee eS ——EE — - i. FE 
i a pa 
{ a ee ee 1,245. 427 + | Le: aU 2 623,95 207 > 60 a 
_ = He é Ping 
Y 





[DEcEMBER II, 


CoMPARATIVE SvaTEMENT of the Population in 1S61, 181], 


18? 1, Se me 
1831, and 184], showing the Increase or Decrease in each County. | ) 


Increase per 




























































E PENNY MAGAZINE 


H 


i 


488 


























































































































| WALES. ‘on 
| 1801.7! 1811. | @sel. | deel. | tem. nS : 
I ‘(i= . ‘ a 5 a, ~ 
ENGLAND. | Counties. = ce] oo | a ard Sa a iS % | 
sali! —~ /_ ann ” re. _ 
: — z|B/2 3 | & |fe *|dat lg 
I . _— ~——|-—|_—_}___. op = _- 
Get. =| Anglesey « . . | 33,806] 37,045] 45,063] 48,325} 50,990/10 [21 | 7 | 5-3 Ss | = a = 
Brecon. . . . | 31,683] 37,735] 48,603] 47,763) 53,295]19 |16 |10 /11°5 3 > 
Counties. 1801. | 1911. (Se 7) Agsi. | Jem Golipem = | Aereab)) 90,260) 57,784) Gt, 780| SOB .qs0l17 PUI) | amp : 45 } 
we.) it. Carmarthen. . . | 67,317) 77,217} 90,239] 100,740] 106,482 115 |17 |12 | 6 Soy cea |. . | a ae 
= ie We CGawmeemvon . . . 41,521) 49,336] 57,958! 66,448] 81,068]19 |17 |15 j29- A. oD 00 | SHC be | Stirs ties 
t 1 ov SH | ° i ? 22 aos S oe pad m= et pas 
saint, Denbighe «© . . { 00:352/ 64,240) 76,511) 83,629} 89,291] 6 {19 | 8 | 6°7 av] ag | | 
B | & (S| & Flint. . « © «| 39,622| 46,518! 53,784) 60,012! 66,547|17 113 |11 {10-8 Sy — rere mas meee 
= =; “ — a Se Glamorgan. . . {| 71,525) 85,067} 101,737; 126,612] 173,462 }18 |19 124 37- GO 2. 3383 = . 
Bedford . . | ©G8,30gM 970.013] 88'71G; Sama} JOmOS7MM 19 |14ing- | PMlerionelly - - «Yo (se8l) 00,008) 34,082) sbsa15) Oye) 4 jl 3 {el ao Ss oe ae 
Berks . . . | 100,215| 118,277| 131,977] 145,389] 160,226] 8 (11 {1010-2 | Montgomery: + . | 47,978) 51,931) 59,899) 66,482) 69,220) 8 [5 | 9 | 4-1 sf 8 |&S :|582 ls 
Buckingham . | 107,444] 117,650] 134,063]  146,529| 155,989/ 9 |14 | 9/g-4 | Pembroke ~ . . | 26,690; 60,615) 74,009/ 81,425| 88,262) 7 [2 | 9 | 7-9 Se | BAA | & 
Cambridge. . | 89,346] 101,109} 121,909] 143,955] 164,509/13 [20 [isija-g | Radnor « + . «4 19,090) 20,900 22,459} 24,651| 25,1861 9 | 7} 9 | 2-3 a 2 Qe BE 
Chester . 2 e{ I91,751) 227,081 270.098; 334,391 395,300/18 [19 [2418-4 Wal _ 541.5461 G1L7 oe, ip 4 + 2 sb 3 
vornwall . . 138,269 216,667 207,447 300,938 3-41,269/15 19 117/13°3 QiCS ew ogi, 11,788) 717,438; 806,182! 911,321°13 |7 |12 |128 op “s ae | | | 
Cumberland . 117,230| 133,744 156,124 169,68] 177,912114 117 10) 4-8 y | To eo = a: won | . 
Derby . . . | 161,142! 185,487| 213,333] 237,170 272,208 15 {15 filj14-7 — w= Soe G TT? tl 
i ae * 24, 44,499] 159,252 74,743] 8 [16 1.9 9: ent. : ~ | 
Durham. ". | 160,361) 177,625] 207,673) 253,910) 824,277)11 17 azlov.4 | SCOTLAND. 101. | Ugll. | 1821, | 13). | aed. iia eee SE ane 
Essex « « « | 226,487] 252,473/ 299,424) 317,507 3.4,995/11 |15 [10] 8-6 | = Ess 3 = ee a 
‘loucester » F 250,309} 285,514 335,843 387,019 431,307112 118 |1511°4 Counties. 1 Za = = os nae) oie 
tereford . . {| 89,191/ 94,073; 103,243] 111,211] 114,488] 5 |10 | 7 2-0 = H | Jo | eid — < 
Hatta | sya] Cus) TARP MEL 2 eo S| ea eam aa) Et (| CPOE 
ngdon 7,5¢ 2,208! 48,771} 53,192] 58,6 10°3| Aberdeen . . e« | 123,082} 185,075] 155,387! 177,657| 192,283/LOHL5!14; 8°2 how = 
eet rs ae ee Bie oe 426,016) 479,155) 548,161)2] 14 1214-4 | Argyll 2. 6. 71,859} 83,585] 97,316} 100,973} 97,140/19114) 4) 39% TSE Ss & re ee | : 
ob os 6 on 23,309 1,052,859 1,336,854 1,667,064 23 [27 27/247 PO. Dees, es 84,306] 103,934 nz 299) 145.055 164,522 23122|14:1)3°4 D1 | 5 Ae ne 
ee: 130,081} 150.419; 174,571) 197,003) 215,855/16 j16 }13/ 9-5 | Banff. . . . «| 35,807) 36,668 43,561! 48,604} 50,076] 2/19/12) 3- pee, Pas | : 
Lincoln . «| 208,557] 237,891|  283,058| 317,465) 362,717 /14 |19 12)11¢i | Berwick. . . - | 30,621] 30,779) 33 '385} 34,048{ 34,427! 1] St al 1d Ee enna een 
Middlesex . . | 818,129) 953,216) 1,144,531] 1,358,330) 1,576,616|17 20 [19|16- | Bute. . . . | 2,791} 12,083) 13,797) 14,151, 15,695] 2115| 310-9 By |B | = 
fonmouth . | 45,582] 62,127 71,833} 98,130] 134,849/36 115 [36/26-9 | Caithness » 2 | 22,609] 23:419} 30,2381 34,529] 36,197| aleotial 4-5 eeA = ieee | oe 
Roe - «| 273,371] 291,999) 344,368) 390,054) 412,621) 7 |18 113) 5*7 Clackmannan . . | 10,858] 12,010! 13,263 =14:729] 19,116 |11/10}11\29-7 sup 2 {Sn ?|BS:1: 
Fe vorthampton. | 13],757; 141,953) 162,483] 179,336} 199,061] 7 /15 |10/10-9 | Dumbarton. . . 20,710{ 24,189] 27,317! 33,211| 44,293417|13122/33-3 ctf td 7 | 
orthumberland | 157,101] 172,161 193,965 222,912 290,268} 9 |15 |]21];9-2 Dumfries ... 54,597 62,960 70,878! 73,770 72,895|15113] 4| 1-3% SE q Gs a 
Ot ae - | 240,350} 162,900) 186,873] 225,327) 249,773/16 115 j20/10°3 | Edinburgh . . . 122,954] 148,607} 191,514] 219345] 225,623/21/29115) 2-8 aot 8 
oe - « {| 109,620] 119,191] 186,971] 152,156] 161,573) 9 |15 jl] 6-1 | Elgm. J 2. «| 26,705} 28,108} 31,162} 34,231] 34,994] 5]11]10} 2-2 Oo) Gene eee 
Rutland . 16,336] 16,380] 18,487 19,385} _21,340].. [13 | sige | Fite. . . . «| 93,743] 101,272] 114,556] 128,839} 140,310] 2I13}12) 8-9 Cease | oe | a 
alop + + + | 267,639) 194,608) 206,153] 222,938 239,014)16 | 6 |) 8 7-2 | Forfar . . . «| 99,127) 107,264) 118,430) 139,606) 170,380} 8] 6/1329- Sr=8 ce 
Somerset + + | 273,750) 303,180] 355,314! 404,200] 436,002) 12 [17 |13) 7-8 | Haddington .....| 29,930} 31,164) 35,127) 36,145) 35,781] 4/13} 371 *# ge apo ~ 
Soe DIGD. - 219,656 | 245,080] 284,208] 314,280] 354,940/12 |154/11)12-9 | Inverness , . «| 74,292} 78,336] 90,157} 94,797] 97,615} 512) 5| 3- aN oo BS 
afford. . | 239,153) 295,153} 345,895} 410,512) 510,206]21 |17 |19j24-2 | Kincardine . .. . | © 26,349/ 27,439] 29,118) 31,431] 33,052) 4] 6] 8] 5-1 oe | ~~ on 
Suffolk, . . | 210,431{ 234,2 270,5421 296,317! 315,129)11 1%5 | oh6-3 | Kimross. . 2... 6,725 7,245 7,762 9072 8763| 8| Wiz 3gse SI ay i{RS 
Sure . + «| 269,043] 323,851) 398,658] 486,334] — 582,613/20 [23 |22|19-7 | Kirkcudbright. .| 29,211] 33,684 38,903] 40.590 41,099/15/15) 4) 1-2 SS | is a 
Sussex » = 159,311} 190,083) 233,019) 272,340) 299,770/19 [22 [i7jlo-0 | Lanark . . . «| 146,699} 191,752) 244,387] 316,319] 427,113/31|27|30134-8 a 24 i a 
ae ks 208,190 nee 274,392} 336,610] 402,121 710 20 |23)19-4 | Linlithgow. . . 17,844; 19,451 22,685| 23,291] 26,848! 9117] 3115-2 eof Te, 
Vesimore and, apna ee 31,359 55,041 56,469'10 1127 7] 2-5 | Naim... : 8,259 8,291 9,006 9,304 9,9231..| 9} 41 6° so § os. ee 
See 85,107) 193,828) 222,157) 240,156} 260,007) 5 5 | 8) 3-2 Orkney and Shetland] 46,824 46,153] 53,124] 58'239| 60,0071. .{15|10] 3° = i 9 Se 
Tar ba 139,333] 160,546) 184,424) 211,365] 233,484 115 [15 |15/10-4 Peebles —.. roe 7 gee 10,046] 10,578] 10,520/14) 1] 5) 5° * BS i er 
Di Me | ajimoy. . . »| 126, 3] 139,050| 142,894] 188,151] 7] 3] 3] 3.4* : Ho § & 
one? . | 110,992] 134,437} 154,010} 168,891}  193,676/16 |14 |10,14-6 | Renfrew. . . . | 78,056] 92,596] , 112,175! 133,443] 154,755{19]21/19 15:9 a ° ‘Se Se 
ere |, | ae ; . Ross and Cromarty | 55,343] 60,853} 68,828! 74,920} “78,058/10(13/ 9, 4-3 £5 3s 
won ao 94,393 27,304 30,451 ooeae Bsa ere 27 S-3 le Ree ae oars ies: 40,892 43,663 46,062)11]10) 7| 5:4 : ~ “". ese 
: io: , Malin, 6. 070 8 6,637] 6,833} —_'7,989|16]13) 2116- “4 Bay 
Riding). . | 153,225] 169,30} 187,452| 190,756! 204,602 7 [11 | el 7-2) Stiting | 2 1 2] suises| sgicdl osvar6| re'eal| seetrolalhilis, Zoom Bas 
ae West | | Cae “es Sutherland. . . | 23,117} 23,629 23,840] 95,318] 24,666] 2l..| 7| 3-4* =F He EA Sa 
iding) . . | 960,282) 695,042} 801,274) 976,350] 1,154,924 [16 22 \2418°2 | Wigtown . . . 22,918] 26,891} 33,240] 36,258]  44,068117|23) 9.21-5 3 Bee stars 
a : Semin -~—~ oe In Banseekss 2 =. rs S _ ~~ Daila is pas 
England . ‘8,331,434! 9,538,827 |11,261,437 |13,091 ply 14,995,508) ‘Lagl i7aligl14-5 a a ae 
| al Scotland. . 11,599,008 | 1,805,683 | 2,093,456 | 2,365,114 2,628,957 (i4[16]13,11 °1 











" Ditvese. 


1841.] THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 489 


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‘ Through beather, mosse,mongst frogs, and bogs and fogs, 
*Mongst craggy cliffes, and thunder-battered hills, . 
| Hares, hinds, bucks, roes, are chas’d by men and dogs. 
Taylor’s Sonnet. 


TAYLOR’S PENNYLESS PILGRIMAGE. 
{Concluded from page 483.] 


his delightful book on Deer-Stalking, are small mat- 
ters compared with the mighty hunt at which the 


Watcr-poet was present. He tells his story weil; and 
Tur Water-poet proceeds to Dunfermline. He goes | we will not injure it by curtailment:—“ For once in 


also to see Sir George Bruce’s coal-mine, of which he | the year, which is the whole month of August, and 
speaks in terms which may sound somewhat extrava- | sometimes part of September, inany of the nobility and 
gant in the present day. The Castle of Stirling he gentry of the kingdom (for their pleasure) do come 
compares to Windsor for situation; and the hall sur- | into those Highland countries to hunt, where they do 
passes all the hallshe ever saw. From Stirling he rode | conform themsclves to the habit of the Highlandmen, 
to St, Johnston (Perth), where his host told him that the | who for the most part speak nothing but Irish; and in 
Fay] of Mar and Sir William Murray were gone to the | former time were those cople which were called the 
great hunting at “ the Brea of Mar.” The Londoner’s | Red-shanks. Their habit is shoes with but one sole 
surprise when he gets into the land of mountains is a~piece ; stockings (which they call short-hose) made 
highly amusing. ‘* Shooter’s Hill, Gadshill, Highgate | of a warm stuff of divers colours, which they call tar- 
ill, Hampstead Hill, are but mole-hills in comparl- | tan; as for breeches, many of them, nor their fore- 
son.” But in the midst of these mountains he saw a fathers, never wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuff 
sight that was well worth his journey from London. | that their hose is of, their garters being bands or 
Me was in the midst of a goodly company of Highland | wreaths of hay or straw, with a plaid about their 
chieftains, bearing the honoured names of Icrskine, | shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours, much 
Stuart, Gordon, Murray, with hundreds of other finer and heghter stuff than their hose, with blue flat 
knights, esquires, and their followers, The modern caps on their heads, a handkerchief knit with two knots 
deer-drives, such as are described by Mr. Scrope in! about their neck; and thus are they attired. Now 


No. 625. VoL. X.—3 R 








490 THE PENNY 
their weapons are long bows and forked arrows, swords 
and targets, harquebusses, muskets, dirks, and Loch- 
aber axes. With these arms I found many of them 
armed for the hunting. <As for attire, any man of what 
deeree soever that comes amongst them, must not dis- 
dain to wear it; for if they do, they will disdain to hunt, 
or willingly to bring in their dogs: but if men be kind 
unto them, and be in their habit, then are they con- 
quered with kindness, and the sport will be plentiful. 
This was the reason that I found so many noblemen and 
rentlemen in those shapes. But to proceed to the 
hunting. 

“ My good Lord of Mar having put me into that 
shape, I rode with him from his house, where 1 saw the 
ruins of an old castle, called the Castle of Kindroghit. 
It was built by King Malcolm Canmore (for a hunting 
house), who reigned in Scotland when Edward the Con- 
fessor, Harold, and Norman William reigned in Eng- 
land : I speak of it because it was the last house that I 
saw in those parts; for I was the space of twelve days 
after, before I saw either house, corn-field, or habitation 
of any creature, but deer, wild horses, wolves, and such 
like creatures, which made me doubt that I should 
never have seen a house again. 

«“ Thus the first day we travelled eight miles, where 
there were small cottages, built on purpose to lodge 
in, which they call ‘lanquhards.’ I thank my good 
Lord Erskine, he commanded that I should always be 
lodged in his lodging, the kitchen being always on the 
side of a bank, many kettles and pots boiling, and 
many spits turning and winding, with great variety of 
cheer, aS venison baked, sodden, roast, and stewed 
beef, mutton,’goats, kid, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, 
hens, capons, chickens, partridge, moorcoots, heath- 
cocks, caperkellies, and termagants (ptarmigan) ; good 
ale, sack, white, and claret, tent (or allegant), with 
most potent aqua-vite. 

«All these, and more than these, we had continually 
im superfluous abundance, caught by falconers, fowlers, 
fishers, and brought by my lord’s tenants and pur- 
veyors to victual our camp, which consisteth of four- 
teen or fifteen men and horses. The manner of the 
hunting is this: five or six hundred men do rise early 
in the morning, and they do disperse themselves divers 
ways; and seven, eight, or ten miles compass, they do 
bring or chase in the deer in many herds (two, three, 
or four hundred ina herd) to such or such a place as 
the nobleinen shall appoint them; then wnen the day 
is come, the lords and gentlemen of their companies 
do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up 
to the middle’ through bourns and rivers: and then 
they being come to the place, do le down on the 
eround till those foresaid scouts, which are called the 
Tinkhell, do bring down the deer. But asthe proverb 
says of a bad cook, so these Tinkhell men do lick their 
own fingers; for besides their bows and arrows, which 
they carry with them, we can hear now then a harque- 
buss or a musket go off, which they do seldom dis- 
charge in vain. Then after we had stayed there three 
hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer ap- 
pear on the hills round about us (their heads making 
a show like a wood), which being fullowed close by 
the Tinkhell, are chased down into the valley where 
we lay; then all the valley on each side being way-laid 
with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they 
are let loose as occasion serves upon the herd of deer, 
that with dogs, guns, arrows, dirks, and daggers, in the 
space of two hours, four score fat deer were slain, 
which after are disposed of some one way, and some 
another, twenty and thirty miles, and more than enough 
left for us to make merry withal at our rendezvous.” 

The sport was so exciting to the pilgrim, that he pro- 
duced two sonnets on the occasion, one of which, at 


MAGAZINE. [DECEMBER 18 
the best part of the sport for Taylor, with all his poeti- 
cal sympathy, is clearly the eating and drinking which 
accompanies it—‘ such baking, boiling, roasting, and 
stewing.” The scene is altogether most exhilarating ; 
and “after supper a fire of fir-wood as high as an in- 
different May-pole.” But his welcome, when the 
hunting was over, in fair and stately houses, was as 
congenial as the banquets of the field. At Balle 
Castle there were threescore dishes at one board ; with 
a train of footmen and horses daily feeding that must 
have exhausted the land lke an imvading army. 
His whole stay in the Highlands was five and thirty 
days; and at length he returned to Edinburgh, 
where, he says, “I stayed eight days to recover my- 
self of falls and bruises which I received in my 
travel in the Highland mountainous hunting.” At 
Leith he meets his “long approved and assured good 
friend Master Benjamin Jonson ;” and it is delight- 
ful to have it recorded that the fine generous old 
dramatist gave his humble brother “a piece of gold of 
two and twenty shillings to drink his health in Eng- 
land.” The pilgrim took a less wearisome mode in 
his progress back to London. He was invited by one 
of his Scotch friends to ride in his company, and to be 
provided by him with everything on the road. The 
waterman was, no doubt, a most amusing fellow, full 
of quaint and original observation, as his book shows 
him to be; or he might have fared worse, in spite of 
the hospitality of that age. We conclude with his 
general description of the hospitality of Scotland, which 
is as curious and withal as pleasant a picture of the old 
times as it has been our fortune to meet with. We do 
not remember to have seen any reference to the more 
remarkable passages in the ‘Pennyless Pilgrimage,’ 
by any recent author. Probably Scott was familiar 
with it; butif so, we think he would have mentioned 
the deer-hunt and the description of old house-keeping. 

“Tam sure that in Scotland, beyond Edinburgh, i 
have been at houses like castles-for building; the 
master of the house, his beaver being his blue bonnet, 
one that will wear no other shirts but of the flax 
that grows on his own ground, and of his wife’s, 
daughters’, or servants’ spinning; that hath his stock- 
ings, hose, and jerkin of the wool off his own sheep’s 
backs; that never (by his pride of apparel) caused 
mercer, draper, silkman, embroiderer, or haberdasher 
to break and turn bankrupt: and yet this plain home- 
spun fellow keeps and maintains thirty, forty, fifty ser- 
vants, or perhaps more, every day relieving three or 
fourscore poor people at his gate ; and besides all this, 
can give noble entertainment for four or five days 
together to five or six earls and lords, besides knights, 
eentlemen, and their followers, if they be three or four 
hundred men and horse of them, where they shall not 
only feed, but feast, and not feast, but banquet: this is a 
man that desires to know nothing so much as his duty 
to God and his king, whose greatest cares are to prac- 
tise the works of piety, charity, and hospitality: he 
never studies the consuming art of fashionless fashions; 
he never tries his strength to bear four or five hundred 
acres on his back at once; his legs are always at 
liberty, not being fettered with golden garters and 
manacled with artificial roses, whose weight (some- 
time) is the reliques of soine decayed lordship. Many 
of these worthy housekeepers there are in Scotland; 
amongst some of them I was entertained ; from whence 
I did truly gather these aforesaid observations.” 

The return of the Water-poet to London is charac- 
teristic of the man and of the age. The reluctance 
with which he goes back to his business exhibits much 
of the ease of mind which belongs not to our days of 
inveterate competition. He sneaks into London, after 
being absent three months, to a house within Moor- 


least, does no discredit to his versifying abilities. But] gate, where he borrows money; and then returns to 


1841.] THE PENNY 
his inn at [slington, where he jovially stays two more 
days, on the last of which his friends come out to meet 
him, thinking he had just returned from his pilgrim- 
are. “With all love I was entertained with much 
good cheer; and after supper we had a play of the 
‘Life and Death of Guy of Warwick,’ played by the 
Right Honourable the Earl of Derby his men.” 





SEWERS. 
[Concluded from page 463.] 


Wu1xe such facts as the foregoing show that much has 
been done of late years in extending the benefits of 
underground drainage, there are still many densely 
peopled districts, both in London and in some of the 
principal provincial towns of the kingdom, which are 
either entirely without sewers, or in which the sewage 
is extremely defective. The witnesses examined in 
1840 by the Committee on the Health of Towns brought 
forward numerous instances of this kind, in which the 
worst effects were produced on the health and morals 
of the people by the contaminated atmosphere and the 
filthy condition of the houses in which they are com- 
pelled to live. A Report on the Sanitary State of the 
Labouring Classes, by Dr. Southwood Smith, expresses 
a very strong opinion as to the injurious effect of de- 
ficient drainage ; and so intimate does that gentleman 
conceive its connection to be with the presence of dis- 
ease, that he observed, in his evidence before the com- 
inittee alluded to, “ If you were to take a map and 
mark out the districts which are the constant seats of 
fever in London, as ascertained by the records of the 
Fever Hospital, and at the same time compare it with 
a map of the sewers of the metropolis, you would be 
able to mark out invariably, and with absolute cer- 
tainty, where the sewers are, and where they are not, 
by observing where fever exists; so that we can always 
tell where the commissioners of sewers have not been 
at work by the track of a fever.” For instances to bear 
out this assertion, the reader is referred to the evidence 
itself, in which many scenes are described that are too 
filthy and disgusting for repetition; and abundant 
proof is given that the evils complained of are as de- 
basing to the character as they must be destructive 
to the health of the poorer classes; for, as remarked 
by Dr. Arnott, “ where filth is unavoidable, it makes 
people careless of making a little addition to it; it does 
not shock their feelings as if all was clean.” 

As sewers are, from their peculiar situation and use, 
more difficult to examine aud repair than many other 
structures of brickwork, while a defect may be produc- 
tive of very scrious injury before it attracts notice, it is 
especially desirable that they should be constructed in 
the most perfect and durable manner; while the ne- 
cessity of providing for the passage of water from ex- 
isting branches, and from such as may be constructed 
at a future time, requires great care im adjusting the 
dimensions, inclination, and level. All the sewers con- 
structed by the metropolitan commissions of late years 
are of such dimensions as to allow a man to pass through 
them, for the purpose of inspecting or cleansing them. 
From a statement in the Appendix to the Report of 
the parliainentary committee of 1834, it appears that 
the smallest sewers in the City of London division are 
about four feet three inches high by two feet three 
inches wide, the dimensions being increased, according 
to circumstances, up to eight feet six inches by seven 
feet, which are the general dimensions of the new sewer 
from Moorfields to London Bridge, although at the 
mouth it is increased to ten feet by eight feet. The 
water brought down by the Fleet Ditch is conducted 
from Holborn Bridge by two sewers, from twelve to 
fourteen feet high, and six feet six inches wide, one on 
each side of Farringdon Street. These sewers unite, 


WEG AZINE. 4951 
towards the mouth, into one passage about eighteen 
feet by twelve; and even that, the surveyor states, is 
sometimes insufficient to carry off the water. When 
a storm occurs at high-water, the quantity brought 
down by the Fleet Ditch will, he says, raise the water 
in the lower part of the sewer five teet almost instan- 
taneously; and under such circumstances, the water 
has been occasionally forced up through the commu- 
nicating drains, so as to flood the surface. In the dis- 
trict under the management of the Westminster com- 
mission, the common sewers are built of the form 
represented by the annexed transverse section, which 
represents, on a scale of a quarter of an inch to a foot, 
a sewer of the larger sort, the greatest height being five 






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feet six inches, and width three feet. Smaller sewers 
are made of the same form, but only five feet igh, and 
two feet six inches wide. The regulations for building 
sewers, issued by the commissioners, require that the 
bricks used be “ good, square, hard, sound, and well- 
burnt stock bricks, and be properly laid in well-com- 
pounded mortar, made of one part of goud strong stone 
lime, and two parts of clean river sand; the workman- 
ship to be of the best description, the bricks of each 
arch to be well bonded, and the bricks of the arch at 
the bottom of the sewer to be laid close at the top edge, 
and to an even curvature on the upper surface, bedded 
in mortar and grouted.” It is further ordered that 
when Roman cement shall be used in the works, “ it 
shall be of the best quality, and shall not be mixed 
with more than one-haif of clean river sand.” This 
form of sewer has been, we believe, generally adopted 
in London; but Mr. Roe, surveyor to the Holborn and 
Finsbury commission, who has introduced several im- 
portant improvements in the construction and manage- 
ment of sewers, has suggested that it isa form not 
calculated to give the greatest strength, and states that 










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The sides of these sewers form curves of large radius, struck 
from centres on the line aa; the radius for the larger size being 
about thirteen feet, and that of the smailer size in proportion. 


omit 2 


492 


in some cases the sides have given way to the pressure 
of the earth behind them. He therefore prefers an 
oval form, as represented in Figs. 2 and 3, which are 
copied from the regulations recently issued by the 
commissioners for the construction of new sewers and 
drains. These are drawn to the same scale as Mg. 1. 
The part in which the joints are marked in the cut 1s, 
according to the directions, to be worked in blocks 
with cement. 

The regulations of this commission require that 
every main or leading sewer “ which may receive the 
sewage from streets and places containing more than 
two hundred houses, shall be of an oval form, five feet 
in height, and three feet in width in the clear; the in- 
vert thereof to be worked one brick in substance, and 
the springing walls thereof to be worked one brick 
and a half in substance, and bonded, and the crown 
thereof one brick in substance, in two separate hal{- 
bricks,” conformably with the transverse section copied 
in the preceding cut, Fig.2. All branch sewers which 
may receive the sewage from streets containing less 
than two hundred houses, are required to be four fect 
six inches in height, and two feet six inches in width 
in the clear; the whole being worked one brick in 
substance, the bottom and springing walls being bonded, 
and the crown worked in two separate hali-bricks. 
The section of this, which is called the second size, is 
represented in Fig. 3. Mr. Roe states, in the paper 
in which this new form of sewer is recommended, that 
its adoption would effect a saving of one shilling and 
sixpence per lineal foot in sewers of the first size. The 
expense of building sewers of course varies greatly, 
according to their depth and other contingent circum- 
stances; but in 1834 (before Mr. Roe’s improvements 
were introduced), the average cost of the larger sewers 
in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions was stated to be 
from twenty to twenty-five shillings per foot, and of the 
smaller sewers from twelve to fifteen shillings per foot. 
In the Tower Hamlets district, the ordinary dimensions, 
as stated to the committee of the House of Commons 
in 1834, are four feet six inches by three feet for the 
larger, and four feet by two feet six inches for the 
smaller sewers. The inverted arch which forms the 
bottom of a sewer, besides adding to its strength, is 
useful in increasing the force of the current, and en- 
abling it to carry away the ponderous matter that would 
otherwise settle and choke up the sewer. In the evi- 
dence before the committee on the Health of Towns 
(p. 127), Mr. Newman, one of the surveyors of the 
Surrey division, stated that the badness of the soil in 
vhat district, and the existence of quicksands, increased 
the difficulty and expense of constructing the sewers, 
and rendered necessary the adoption of cast-iron bot- 
toms. 

The inclination of sewers must vary greatly in dif- 
ferent districts, but should always, if possible, be suf- 
ficient to enable the water to run freely, and to carry 
off the solid matter that usually enters with it. The 
regulations of the Holborn and Finsbury commis- 
sloners require that the inclination “ be not less than 
one-fourth of an inch to every ten feet in length, and 
as much more as circumstances will admit, in those 
portions that are in a straight line; and double that 
fall in portions that are curved.” Those issued by the 
Westminster commission in 1836, state that the current 
required for sewers, in all cases, is one inch and a 
quarter to every ten feet in length; but probably this 
has been ascertained to be a greater inclination than is 
necessary, as the more recent regulations order “ that 
the current of allsewers to be built be regulated by 
the commissioners according to the surface required to 
be drained,” ‘without specifying any particular in- 
clination. : 
will admit of ample fall and depth of sewer, there shall 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


| below the high-water mark of the Thames. 


These also require that, where the situation 
|other, or where a turn is required, shall be formed 


[DECEMBER 18 


be at least three feet of depth between the upper part 
of the crown of the arch and the surface of the road. 
In some cases it is very difficult ‘to obtain sufficient in- 
clination in a sewer, and still to make it deep enough 
to drain the basement story of neighbouring houses, 
which may be readily conceived from the fact that 
some parts of London are below the level of high 
water. Considerable portions of the district comprised 
in the Surrey and Kent commission of sewers, by which 
the drainage of the whole of London south of the 
Thames is effected, are below that level; and the sur- 
veyor of the Tower Hamlets commission states that in 
some parts at Wapping the pavement is five feet 
(‘ Report 
on Health of Towns,’ p. 125.) The greater part of the 
district drained by the Blackwall or Poplar commis- 
sion would be inundated but for the river walls; so 
that in this division the duties of the commissioners 
consist, as intimated by the old laws relating to sewers, 
as much in the maintenance of embankments as in 
making provision for drainage. To prevent the tide 
ftom entering sewers that drain low ground, it is he- 
cessary to close their lower ends with heavy flaps, 
which are opened by the attendants, or flap-keepers, at 
eee times, so as to allow free exit for the sewage at 
ow-water. -Wherever it is practicable, new sewers are 
built at a considerable depth from the surface. The 
depth of that in Watling Street, in the city of London, 
which is an extraordinary case, is from thirty-three to 
thirty-five feet. Some difficulty not unfrequently 
occurs in crowded districts, where deep and capacious 
sewers are especially needed, owing to the danger 
attending their construction. In many cases, particu- 
larly in the older streets of the city, it 1s necessary to 
shore up the houses by a massive frame-work of tim- 
ber, to prevent their falling while the sewer is in pru- 
eress; and in some instances it has been considered 
unadvisable, solely on this account, to attempt their 
construction, even where they were much needed. The 
want of sewers in some parts of London obliges the 
inhabitants to use force-pumps to relieve their cess- 
pools, a practice which, besides being very expensive, 
is injurious to health,as the filthy water so pumped 
out runs along the open gutters until it reaches a 
eully-hole. This operation is performed at might, by 
which the evil is rendered less apparent; and it has 
been proposed, in some cases, to lay an iron pipe 
beneath the foot pavement to carry off the water so 
pumped out, that it might not run on the surface. 

It is highly desirable, where a sewer must deviate 
from a straight line of direction, to effect such devia- 
tion by means of regular curves; and also to make 
branch sewers enter the main line by a curved instead 
of an angular junction. Mr. Roe ascertained, by eéx- 
periment, that the time occupied in the passage of an 
equal quantity of water along similar lengths of sewer 
with equal falls, was as follows :— 


Along a straight line 
With a true curve : 1G0” ow 
With a turn at right angles 140 _—sC==»; 


It is therefore evident that the occurrence of angular 
or ill-formed turns in a sewer must have a similar 
effect to diminishing its capacity, as such parts of the 
sewer will not pass so much water as the straight 
parts; and it also has the disadvantage of occasioning 
the deposition, in the form of sediment, of matter that 
would otherwise pass off with the water. This evil may 
be met by giving a greater fall to curved than to 
straight portions of the sewer. -The new regulations oi 
the Holborn and Finsbury commnissioners, in which the 
improvements of Mr. Roe are embodied, require that 
the curves in sewers passing from one street to an- 


90 seconds. 


184i.] 


with a radius of not less than twenty fect, and that the 
inclination or fall shall be increased at the junction. 

Where private drains are to be laid into a sewer for 
the purpose of draining houses, it is necessary that the 
lowest pavement or floor of the building be at least 
four feet above the level of the sewer, measuring to 
the bottom of the side wall, or commenceiient of the 
invert; because the house would otherwise be liable to 
be flooded with water from the sewer, when unusually 
full, The regulations for private drains, issued by the 
Westminster commission, require that the bottoms of 
such drains shall be twelve inches above the bottom of 
the sewer with which they are intended to communi- 
cate, and recommend that they have a fall of at least 
a quarter of ari inch inafoot. This fall, in a length of 
sixty feet, amounts to fifteen inches, by adding to 
which thirteen inches for the height of the drain and 
brick arch over it, eight inches for the depth of ground 
and’ paving over the upper end of the drain, and twelve 
inches between its lower end and the bottom of the 
sewer, we obtain the necessary total fall of four feet. 
The Holborn and Finsbury commissioners require 4 
space of two feet between the bottom of the drain and 
the bottom of the sewer; but the total difference of 
level between the sewer and the basement floor is only 
two inches greater than that mentioned above; the 
prescribed fall being only a quarter of an inch in a 
yard, or five inches in a length of sixty feet. To pre- 
vent injury to the sewers, it is always required that the 
brick rings at the junctions of private drains, and 
about three feet of the drains ierrisel ved. shall be 
made by the commissioners; a fixed price being paid 
to them by the individual for whom the drain is con- 
structed. The metropolitan commissioners of sewers 
are required to furnish builders, on application, with 
information as to the lowest level to which they can 
supply the means of drainage; but, under the present 
state of the law, they have no power to prevent the 
excavation of ground for buildings, or the forination 
of cesspools, to a greater depth than can be drained by 
the sewers; although they may refuse permission for 
the construction of private drains openmg into the 
sewer in such cases. The disinclination evinced by 
imany proprietors of houses to avail themselves of the 
facilities offered by the construction of new sewers, for 
improving the drainage of their property, is truly sur- 
prising, and shows how imperfectly the advantages of 
rood sewerage are appreciated. A remarkable case 
was mentioned to the Committee on the Health of 
Towns, in which a new sewer nearly a mile and a half 
long had been made, in the parish of Cainherwell, on 
the urgent application of the inhabitants, and yet only 
one application had been made for a private drain in 
the whole distance. Drains leading from private 
houses are usually of a circular form, and nine inches 
in diameter, though some are of greater size. In this, 
as in almost every other point of detail, the various 
metropolitan commissions are far from being uniform. 
While the Holborn and Finsbury commissioners will 
not allow, except in special cases, a private drain of 
more than nine inches in diameter, those for the Tower 
Hamlets allow nothing under twelve inches, and admit 
drains of fifteen or even cighteen inches diameter. 

The construction of gully-holes and shoots for con- 
ducting the surface drainage of the strects into the 
sewers, and a variety of other matters, vary consider- 
ably in the different commissions. It has been usual 
in all, until very recently, to make apertures or man- 
holes at convenient distances, to enable persons, when 
uecessary, to enter and cleanse the sewers. In tle 
regulations of the Westminster commission, it is ordered 
that these apertures be formed at or near to every 
intersection of the sewers, and also that they be at dis- 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


tances not exceeding ene hundred and eighty feet from | 


flushes. 


493 


each other. They are built in the form of oblong shafts 
of brickwork, up to within about eighteen inches of the 
surface of the road, and covered with cast-iron plates, 
over which the roadway is made good. The inconve- 
nience attending the use of these apertures, in order to 
open which it is necessary to break up the carriage- 
way, might be avoided by the general adoption of side- 
entrances, which form an important feature of the im- 
oroved system now being introduced in the Holborn and 

insbury commission. These are passages extending 
from the side of the sewer to the foot-pavement, through 
which they may at any time be entered by unlocking and 
Opening a cover or trap-door, consisting of pieces of flag- 
stone mounted in au iron frame. When a person enters 
the sewer by one of these openings, the cover is held 
open by a self-acting catch, and an iron-grating, which 
admits light and air, rises to its place, and serves to 
prevent any passenger from accidentally talling in, 
it is proposed in some cases to combine the side- 
entrances with the gully-holes, by which some expense 
may be saved. The advantages of an easy access to the 
sewers at all times are very great; and the positive 
saving of expense by the adoption of this system is ex- 
pected, as appears from the Report in which it is re- 
commended, to be considerable. 

The last-mentioned improvement 1s intimately con- 
nected with another, which promises to be of great 
value—a method of cleansing sewers by using water in 
A great quantity of solid matter enters the 
sewers with the water which they are intended to carry 
off; and as their current is usually very trifling, it 1s 
deposited in the form of a sediment. This takes place 
especially at the points of junction of branch sewers, 
rullies, and private drains ; and it has often happened 
that the deposit has gone on accumulating until it has 
reached the level of the private drains, the consequent 
choking up of which has given the first mtimation of 
the state of the main sewer. Besides the injurious 
effect of this accumulation of filth upon the health of 
persons residing near the sewer; such a state of things 
is productive of great expense, it being sometimes 
necessary to break up the road, and open and rebuild 
both the sewer and, occasionally, the drains opening 
into it. But the evil doés not rest here; for it has 
been a cominon practice to spread the deposit of filth 
on the surface, instead of carting it away, whereby its 
noxious effluvia have become productive of disease to 
the neighbourhood. Although in general the current 
of water in the sewers is not sufficiently rapid to carry 
off this solid matter, Mr. Roe, conceiving that it night 
be made so by damming it up, and then letting it off 
in flushes, tried a series of experiments on the velocity 
of water in sewers when dammed up to various 
heights, by which he found that he could, by a head of 
water varying from ten inches to four feet, obtain a 
velocity of from thirty to eighty-six inches per second. 
The power of running water is stated to be such, that a 
velocity of three inches per second is sufficient to enable 
a current of water to tear up fine clay; and that a 
stream running at the rate of three feet per second will 
tear up beds of loose stones of the size of an egg. It 
is therefore evident that, by a moderate head of water 
in a sewer, a current may be produced of sufficient 
force to tear up and carry away a considerable deposit 
of sedimentary matter. The average annual deposit is 
stated to be nearly an inch and a half in thickness—a 
quantity which might be readily removed by flushing 
once a year only; but far better by repeating the 
operation, as it 1s proposed to do, three or four times 
in a year, which will prevent its ever accumulating in 
considerable quantity. To show the effect of the 
operation in practice, we quote the particulars of three 
experiments, from a report presented by Mr. Roe to 
the commissioners :— 


494, 


ist Experiment. Water backed up 70 feet; head, 
13 inches; quantity, 26 hogsheads; which, when let 
off, cleared away rather more than 1} inch of deposit 
from 370 feet of sewer, having a fall of a quarter of an 
inch in each ten feet, and being the whole length that 
needed cleansing. | 

2nd. Head of water, 18} inches; quantity, 45 hogs- 
heads; cleared away 14 inch of deposit from 300 feet 
of sewer ; part of the bottom on a dead level. 

3rd. Head of water, 10 inches; quantity, 20 hogs- 
heads ; deposit heavy ; flush cleared away 1} inch from 
330 feet of sewer. 

The necessary head of water is produced by simply 
accumulating the ordinary contents of the sewer, which 
may be done either by a cast-iron gate, fitting closely 
to a frame-work built into the sewer, and rising to the 
height that the head is required to be, or by a drop 
plank or gate of the same material, sliding up and 
down in nearly vertical grooves. In either case the 
apparatus may be managed, by means of the side 
entrances before alluded to, with the greatest facility. 
The drop plank may, it 1s stated, be drawn up In two 
seconds and a half, and the gate may be thrown open 
in less than one second; and, as the height of each 
head is regulated by the level of the private drains 
near it, no injury is done if the water rise to the top of 
the gate, so as to run over it, before the attendant is 
ready to let it off; so that one person 1s enabled to set 
a number of stop-gates, and return to let them off in 
succession. In the report alluded to, Mr. Roe gives a 
detailed calculation to prove the superior economy of 
this plan of cleansing, and concludes his recommenda- 
tion of it by observing “ that irrcspective of any saving 
to be effected by flushing the sewers with water, he 
considers that the prevention of a large quantity of foul 
deposit from remaining in a state of fermentation for 
years together beneath the streets, and the consequent 
removal of a great cause of offensive effluvia, together 
with avoidance of large quantities of slop being laid 
out on the surface (as is the case in the ordinary mode 
of cleansing), would be benefits of such worth as to 
warrant the utmost use of stop-planks and water for 
keeping sewers free from deposit.” 
of water in the sewers has hitherto been found sufficient 
for the purpose; but in case of its proving otherwise, 
a supply of water for flushing might be readily pro- 
cured from the water companies.— Penny Cyclopedia. 


THE SIROCCO OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. 


THE islands situated near the southern extremity of 
Italy, especially Sicily and Corfu, are frequently visited 
by a wind of a remarkable character, to which the 
name of Sirocco, Scirocco, or Schirocco, has been ap- 
phed. It blows from a point of the compass a little to 
the southward of south-east, and therefore not far dis- 
tant from south. 

Sicily appears to be the spot where this wind is ex- 
perienced in its greatest force. Brydone has given a 
vivid description of the effects produced by it; and al- 
though he has been accused of distorting -the truth in 
other matters, yet the observations of more recent tra- 
vellers seem to confirm his remarks concerning the 
Sirocco. Brydone describes this wind, as experienced 
by him at Palermo in Sicily, as being singularly heat- 
ing, relaxing, and oppressive in its effects; not much 
unlike the subterranean sweating-stoves at Naples, but 
hotter. In afew minutes, those who are exposed to it 
find every fibre relaxed in a strange degree, and the 
pores are opened in such a manner as to lead to the 
expectation of a profuse perspiration. The thermo- 
meter rises toa great height, but the air is generally 
thick and heavy. It seldom lasts more than thirty or 
forty hours at one time; but during that period the 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


The ordinary run’ 


[DECEMBER ]6, 


people confine themselves within doors; the windows 
and -doors are shut close, to prevent as much as pos- 
sible the external air from entering ; and where win- 
dow-shutters are wanting, the inmates hang up wet 
cloths in the inside of the window. In the better sort 
of houses, servants are employed in sprinkling water 
through all the apartments to cool the air. Notwith- 
standing the scorching heat of the sirocco, it 1s seldom 
known to produce any epidemical disorder in Sicily, 
or to do any injury to the health of the people; they 
feel indeed very weak and relaxed after 1t; but a few 
hours of the tramontane, or north wind, which generally 
succeeds it, soon braces them up again, and restores 
them to their former state. 

There are peculiar circumstances attending this 
wind, which have led some persons to identify it with 
a scorching wind experienced on the opposite coast of 
Africa, situated at no great distance from Sicily. On 
this point Dr. Benza, an Italian physician, states :— 
* When the sirocco has been impetuous and violent, 
and followed by a shower of rain (as is almost always 
the case), the rain has carried with it to the ground an 
almost impalpable red micaceous sand, which I have 
collected in large quantities more than once in Sicily. 
This sand fell abundantly at Palermo in 1811; and in 
March, 1819, when J was on a visit to my friends, it 
fell in such a quantity in the interior of the island, that 
I collected more than three ounces of it. The appear- 
ance of this sand is quite different from what is found 
either in Sicily or Malta; and I see nothing para- 
doxical in admitting (seeing its impalpable state, and 
the short distance it has to travel) that 1t has been car- 
ried over from Africa by the violence of the wind, and, 
when this ceased, to have fallen down with the rain.” 

When we direct our attention to the island of Corfu, 
situated some distance eastward of Sicily, we find the 
sirocco assuming a somewhat different character. 
When compared with the sirocco of Sicily, and parti- 
cularly of that part of the island where Palermo is 
situated, the more eastern sirocco might be called a re- 
freshing breeze; yet it is accompanied with other cir- 
cumstances which make it more deleterious to the 
human frame, especially in reference to the moisture 
with which, unlike the Sicilian sirocco, it is loaded. 
All winds blowing between south and east have, in 
these islands, more or less of the sirocco character; 
but the genuine or black sirocco (as it 1s called) blows 
from a point between south-east and south-south-east ; 
and of this sirocco, as experienced at Corfu, Dr. 
Hennen (‘ Medical Topography of the Mediterranean) 
states the characteristics to be as follows:— Without 
affecting the thermometer or barometer in any re- 
markable degree, the sirocco almost invariably gives 
the sensation of burning heat and oppression at the 
chest, accompanied with languor and a propensity to 
perspire with the slightest exertion. Almost every 
individual is more or less sensible to these effects ; 
some, who have felt them but slightly on their first 
arrival, have become exquisitely sensible to them 
after some time; many can foretel the approach of a 
sirocco some hours before it begins to blow, by the 
peculiarities of their feelings; and there are few in- 
deed who cannot at once decide that this wind has 
commenced without making any reference to external 
objects; but it is by the sick and the weakly conva- 
lescent that its depressing effects are most severely 
experienced. It has been particularly remarked that 
wounds and diseases of the skin generally deteriorate 
during the prevalence of a sirocco; and also, that if 
vaccination or inoculation be performed at this period, 
they are extremely liable to tail; and indeed uf they 
succeed, the progress of the pustule 1s often suspended, 
ten or twelve days often elapsing before 1t reaches that 
state commonly attained in six or eight. 


; 


1841. | 


Dr. Hennen remarks, “ That tae southerly wind in 
general, and this modification of it in particular, is 
unfavourable to the health and spirits of man, is an 
opinion upon which all classes of persons with whom 
I have conversed throughout the Mediterranean are 
unanimous. All the ancient physicians who have 
written upon Mediterranean diseases, from Huppo- 
crates downwards, give their testimony to the same 
effect, and speak of the pestilential nature of the 
southerly wind as perfectly familiar.” 

The sirocco of Corfu produces many curious effects 
in relation to the domestic and other arrangements of 
the Corfiotes. Bakers diminish the quantity of their 
leaven during the sirocco, as dough is found to fer- 
ment sufficiently without it. No carpenter uses glue 
in the sirocco, for it does not adhere. No painter wil- 
lingly exercises his vocation at this period, for his 
paint will not dry; indeed the natives assert that if 
paint, applied during a sirocco, does happen to dry by 
intense heat and a change of wind, it always oozes 
again on the return of the sirocco; and Dr. Hennen 
once found that paint, applied to some articles of his 
own at this period, remained for three months as wet 
as when it was first applied. The walls of nouses, 
stone floors, and pavements invariably become moist 
when the sirocco blows. The stone floors in the town 
of Corfu are sometimes absolutely wet at this time, 
without any rain having fallen; and gentlemen who 
have made hygrometrical experiments state that the 
instrument has frequently fallen from ten to twenty 
degrees during the prevalence of this wind. Although 
this sirocco, unlike that of Sicily, is so charged with 
moisture, yet vegetables, especially that part of them 
exposed to its action for any length of time, appear 
quite shrivelled and burnt up, and very frequently 
they are destroyed altogether. Wine, bottled during a 
sirocco, is greatly injured and often destroyed. Meat 
taints uncommonly soon during its prevalence; and a 
prudent housekceper never salts meat at this time, for 
it either becomes tainted at once, from not receiving 
the salt, or else 1t keeps very badly. 

Several theories have been promulgated as to the 
cause of the phenomena counected with this wind, but 
at present the subject is surrounded with so many dif- 
ficulties, that any certain conclusions cannot yet be 
safely made. The phenomena must be closely exa- 
mined by accurate observers, in different places, at 
different ‘times, and in different modes, before mate- 
rials for grounding a correct explanation can be 
found. 


CHAUCER’S PORTRAIT GALLERY. 
THE WIFE OF BATH. 


THe masculine character of “this fair but not bash- 
ful pilgrim,” as Mr. Todd calls the Wife of Bath, is 
happily shown by the artist of the drawing in the 
Sutherland manuscript, who represents her, like the 
prioress and the nun, on horseback ; but not, like them, 
riding in the modern way. At the same time he has 
remembered she was fair, and accordingly represented 
her with a very winning countenance, which 1s finall 

set off by her remarkably large and broad black hat. 
Her wimple is not unlike what we should call a mob- 
cap. Her fote-mantel, or outer petticoat, is blue, and 
is bound round the hips by a golden girdle, from which 
it falls over her feet, so as to hide the scarlet ‘‘ hosen.”’ 
One of herspurs alone is there visible. The stirrup of 
her saddle is gilded, and she holds in her hand a whip. 
From such a picture our reader will expect an ori- 
ginal of some wealth and consequence; and the Wife 


of Bath, as Chaucer has described her, will not dis- | 


appoint them : 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


495 


“ A good wife was there.of besidé Bath; 
But she was somdel deaf, and that was scathe™ ; 
Of cloth-making she had such a haunt}, 
She passéd them of Ipres and of Ghent. 
In all the parish, wife ne was there none 
That to the off ring before her shouldé gone ; 
And if there did, certain so wroth was she, 
That she was out of alle charity. 
Her coverchiefs weren full five of grund: 
I durste swear they weigheden a pound, 
That on a Sunday were upon her head. 
Her hosen were of fine scarlet red, 
Full strait ytied, and shoon full moist? and new : 
Bold was her face, and fair, and red of hue. 
She was a worthy woman all her live: 
Husbands at the church-door had she had five, 
Withouten other company in youth ; 
But thereof needeth not to speak as nouthe§. 
And thniés had she been at Jerusalem. 
She hadde passéd many a strange stream. 
At Romé she had been, and at Bologne, 
In Galice at St. James, and at Cologne ; 
She coulde much of wand’ring by the way. 
Gat-toothed was she soothly for to say. 
Upon an ambler easily she sat, 
Ywimpled well|}, and on her head a hat 
As broad as is a buckler or a targe. 
A fote-mantel@ about her hippes large, 
And on her feet a pair of spurres sharp. 
In fellowship well could she laugh and carp**, 
Of remedies of love she knew perchance.” 


Bath, we need _ scarcely observe, was formerly very 
famous for its cloth manufacture. The cloth chiefly 
made in England at this early period was of a coarse 
kind, which was produced in sufficient quantity to ex- 
port: the finer cloths it was usual to import, chiefly 
from Flanders. In 1261 an attempt was made by 
Henry III. to prevent the exportation of English wool, 
and to cause cloth of English manufacture alone to be 
used in this country, but with little success. Soon 
after this, a scarcity of woad for the purposes of dyeing 
occurred, and the unusual spectacle of persons of rank 
and wealth dressed in cloth of the natural colour of the 
wool was seen about the streets of our large towns. 
The great baron Simon de Montford professed to be an 
admirer of this simplicity in dress, and was accustomed 
to maintain that foreign commerce was unnecessary. 
His conqueror Edward I. appears to have had similar 
views, and to have adopted very vexatious modes of 
carrying them into effect ; such, for instance, as issuing 
an order that all foreign merchants should sell their 
goods within forty days after their arrival. 

In Chaucer’s lifetime, Edward III. made an equally 
petty and annoying regulation, when he insisted upon 
a prescribed measure being adopted tor all foreign 
cloths wherever made, and directed his “ aulnagers” 
to seize for his use all those that should be found of 
different dimensions. From the little trait of her cha- 
racter given in the limes referring to her want of 
charity, 1f any of her female neighbours ventured to 
take precedence in going to “offerings” and other 
assemblages, we may be sure the Wife of Bath would 
look with no very favourable eyes on these foreign in- 
terlopers; indebted though she was, in common with 
all of her trade, to a couple of foreigners for the great 
extension of the English woollen manufacture which 
took place in the early part of the fourteenth century. 
Edward III. having made most advantageous offers to 
foreign cloth-workers and others, two weavers trom 


* Hurtful or bad. + Custom. 

t Fresh. In the Manciple’s prologue we have the word used 
in a similar sense to distinguish fresh from old ale. 

§ Now. || Well covered about the neck with her wimple. 

€| Supposed to be a sort of riding petticoat. 

** Valk or prattle. 


496 


Brabant came over in 1331, and settled at York. By 
their superior skill, and by their willingness to com- 
municate what they knew to others, a great impulse 
was given to native talent and industry. 

In mentioning the number of husbands the Wife of 
Bath has had, the poet incidentally refers to a curious 
old marriage custom. Formerly the bride and bride- 
groom stayed at the church porch during the earlier 
portion of the ceremony; and it was not till the cler- 
gyman reached the part which is now followed by his 
going up to the altar and repeating the psalm, that 
they entered the sacred edifice. “At the southern 
entrance of Norwich cathedral,” says Warton, “a re- 
presentation of the espousals, or sacrament of marriage, 
is carved in stone ;” for here the hands of the couple 
were joined by the priest, and great part of the service 
performed. Here also the bride was endowed with 
what was called Dos ad ostium ecclesiz. This cere- 
mony 1s exhibited ina curious old picture engraved 
by Mr. Walpole, where King Henry VII. is married 
to his queen, standing at the facade or western portal 
of a magnificent Gothic church. The entire form of 
matrimony also, as celebrated at the church door, is 
described in certain Missals referring respectively to 
the cathedrals of Hereford and Salisbury. 

We commenced the present series with some obser- 
vations showing the comparative ease with which the 
difficulties attending the study of the works of the great 
Morning Star of our poetry might be overcome; and 
we trust our readers have partially, at least, expe- 
rienced their truth. In dismissing the subject from 
our pages, we would once again impress upon all those 
whom Chaucer’s wit, or humour, or marvellous delinea- 
tion of manners and character, have delighted, and 
perhaps for the first time, that he cannot be thoroughly 
appreciated or enjoyed in any other dress than his 
own, and that there is really no sufficient reason for 
desiring that he should be. We have before given the 
testimony of the poet's admirable biographer Godwin 


with the evidence of the eminent historian of English 
poctry, Warton; whose remarks generally will be 


found deserving attentive consideration. With these 
we conclude -—~ 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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“Spenser copied the language of most of the elder 
Enghsh: poets, but not ‘without distinction; Chaucer 
was the source from whence he confessedly drew the 
largest draughts of the well of English undefiled. T 
cannot dismiss this section without a Wish, that this 
neglected author, whom Spenser proposed as the pat- 
tern of his style, and to whom he is indebted for many 
noble inventions, should be more universally studied. 
This is at least what one might expect in an age of 
research and curiosity. Chaucer is regarded rather as 
an old, than a good poet. We look upon his poems as 
venerable relics, not as beautiful compositions; as 
pieces better calculated to gratify the antiquarian than 
the critic. He abounds not only in strokes of humour, 
which is commonly supposed to be his sole talent, but 
in pathos and sublimity not unworthy a more refined 
age.. His old manners, his romantic arguments, his 
wildness of painting, his simplicity and antiquity of 
expression, transport us into some fairy region, and 
are all highly pleasing to the imagination. It is true 
that his uneouth and unfamiliar language disgusts and 
deters many readers; but the rincipal reason of his 
being so little known and so om taken in hand, is 
the convenient opportunity of reading him with plea- 
sure and facility in modern imitations. For when 
translations, as such imitations from Chaucer may be 
justly called, at length become ’substituted as the means 
of attaining a knowledge of any difficult and ancient 
author, the original not only begins to be neglected 
and excluded as less easy, but also to be despised as 
less ornamental and elegant. Thus the public taste 
becomes imperceptibly vitiated, while the renuine 
model is superseded, and gradually gives way to the 
establishment of a more specious, but false, resem- 
blance. Thus, many readers, happy to find the readiest 
accommodation for their indolence and illiteracy, think 
themselves sufficient masters of Homer from Pope’s 


translation; aud thus, by an indiscreet comparison, 
: ) _Pope’s translation is 
to this effect; we now fortify our position still further | 


S commonly preferred to the Gre- 
Clan text, 1n proportion as the former is furnished with 


‘more frequent and shining metaphors, more lively de- 


scriptions, and in general appears to be more fuil and 
florid, more elaborate and various.’—Warton’s Essay 


on Spenser's Fairy Queen, 


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THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


467 





[St. George’s Hall and New Assize Courts, Liverpool.] 


PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS. 1841. 


Tue progress of the New Houses of Parliament is now 
likely to excite more general interest. The building 
begins to show itself, at least in the east wing, forming 
the Speaker’s residence, at the end next Westminster 
Bridge; which, though comparatively a very small 
portion of the whole, would of itself form a noble piece 
of architecture—a fine specimen of the style adopted. 
This, and the corresponding wing to the west, together 
with the whole of the river front, are carried up to the 
height of the top of the first-floor windows, and far sur- 
pass any idea that can be derived from drawings. Of the 
Bolsover stone, the species here used, the texture and 
colour are admirable, and with tints passing off from 
ochre to a bright silvery grey. No less admirable is 
the execution of the masonry, and the skill shown in 
the workmanship of all the ornamental details. Several 
large panels, each consisting of a single stone carved 
with a coat of arms in bold relief, are intended to be 
placed between the lower and upper windows of. the 
two principal floors, and will represent the arms of all 
the English sovereigns, to Queen Victoria inclusive. 
Of the other important structure now erecting im the 
metropolis, the Royal Exchange, everything prepara- 
tory to the rearing of the superstructure has been 
done. The exterior of the building, with the exception 
of the socle, or stylobate (which is to be of granite), 
will be of Portland stone, of the best quality, and care- 
fully selected at the quarries, it being found that this 


stone varies much as to excellence and durability ac- 


cording to the beds from which it is procured. Of the 
Nelson Column in Trafalgar-square, as yet only the 
pedestal iserected. Theidea of improving the interior 
of Guildhall by a new ceiling, or open timber-work 
roof, has been abandoned for the present. A very 
desirable improvement would be a new front to be 
substituted for the present one, more especially as it 
terminates one of the most favourable vistas in the 
metropolis for architeetural display. 

The widening of Cateaton-street, by taking down 
and rebuilding the houses on the north side, and the 
widening of the south end of Bartholomew-lane, will 


No. 624. | 


add greatly to the public convenience. In Thread- 
needle-street a very spacious structure is In progress, 
on the site of what was once the French Protestant 
Church, where, in clearing away the old foundations, 
a fine Roman tessellated pavement was discovered, 
which is now deposited in the British Museum. The 
building in question will be one of the most striking 
and costly decorated specimens of architecture 1m the 
metropolis, and the upper part of the front will be 
enriched with a bas-relief, 73 feet in length, with 
fizures of the size of life. The destination of this 
edifice is at present unknown. 

The necessity of affording protection to foot-passcn- 
gers at the end of Prince’s-street, near the Bank, where 
several lines of strect meet, has induced the Common 
Council to resolve upon erecting at their own expense 
a statue of William IV., protected from carriages by 
cannons fixed into the ground as posts. The entire 
monument, if it may be so called, will be forty feet 


in height from the level of the pavement, the statue 


a a a 


itself being fourteen feet. Instead of adopting the 
usual pedestal form, the architect has imparted some 
novelty to his design by making it circular, and divid- 
ing it into three parts or stages, each successively di- 
minishing in diameter. The diameter of the lower 
socle will be 21 feet, or rather more than halt the entire 
height, so that the whole will have a striking pyramidal 
effect, and appear very firmly based. Immediately 
around the pedestal will be four others, rising to about 
half its height, and square in plan, contrasting with the 
larger circular mass: thcy are intended to support 
gas-lamps. 

Not the least important public improvement and 
embellishment of the east end of the town, will be the 
Victoria Park, for which 100,000/. has bcen voted by 
Parliament. Its extent will be about 290 acres, or 
rather more than the area of St. James's Park; and it 
will be bounded on the west by the Regent’s Canal, on 
the south by Sir George Ducket’s Canal, and on the 
north by Grove-street Lane. As it is proposed that it 
shall be skirted on the south by terraces or ranges of 
houses, and that there shall also be detached villas, a 
superior neighbourhood will be created in that district. 


VoL: X,.—3 S 


498 THE PENNY 
similar places of recreation are spoken oif for the 
boroughs of Lambeth and Finsbury. 

A very extensive pile of building is in progress at 
the south-west corner of Wandsworth Common, on 
ninety-six acres of Jand purchased by the county of 
surrey for the site of a lunatic asylum. The design 1s 
of the latest Tudor period, and the facade, which 1s 
935 feet in length, consists of three principal masses, 
namely a centre and two wings, the latter 310 feet 
apart and projecting 85 feet. The middle portion or 
body between those advanced parts is subdivided into 
three others, that in the centre being distinguished 
irom the other two not only by its greater loftiness, 
but by being brought forward, although not so much 
as the extremities. Other parts of the design, which 
we need not detail in this place, contribute towards 
diversity of outline; the general combination giving a 
certain degree of lively varicty and picturesque rich- 
ness, and the whole having an air of cheerfulness and 
comfort. The number of patients for whom accommo- 
dation is provided is three hundred, and the entire cost 
of the building will be about £63,000. 

Leaving the metropolis and directing our attention 
to the architectural improvements which are in pro- 
ress in the country, we have first to notice the new 
building erecting at Liverpool, of which we have 
siven a perspective sketch at the head of this notice. 
The order adopied for St. George’s Hall and the Assize 
Courts 1s Corinthian, continued throughout, and ar- 
ranged so as to produce a very rich polystyle compo- 
sition, possessing more than an ordinary degree of 
variety and contrast. The eastern fajade, or the 
longer side of the building, is 420 feet, or only 38 less 
than that of the National Gallery, and much loftier, the 
columns being 45 feet high and 4 feet 6 inches in dia- 
meter. The south front, which, owimg to the great 
fall of the ground at the end of the site (about 
16 feet), has the appearance of being raised upon a 
terrace, and thereby acquires both additional dignity 
and picturesque effect, consists chiefly of an hexastyle 
monoprostyle portico, recessed within so as to make its 
entire depth 24 feet. The columns are raised upon a 
stylobate 10 feet high, and continued along the other 
tronts, and the height from the ground-line to the apex 
ef the pediment is 95 feet, which is only 6 or 7 less 
than that of the dome of the National Gallery. This | 
front alone would constitute an imposing plece of 
architecture—and is upon a scale greatly surpassing 
anything of the kind yet erected in the metropolis,— 
yet it appears little more than a subordinate portion of 
the whole when compared with the eastern facade. 
Independently of its beauties of design, this latter has | 
the merit of clearly expressing the general internal 


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MAGAZINE. [DECEMBER 25, 
arrangement of the plan: the advanced or monopro- 
style colonnade in the centre is 200 feet in length, and, 
being recessed, forms within an ample sheltered ambu- 
latory 26 feet in depth; this corresponds with St. 
George’s Hall, which comes in between the two Assize 
Courts, and defines itself externally in the composition 
by being carried up higher than the rest. This division 
of the front consists of 15 intercolumns, and the one on 
either side of it of 5 more. The architect has placed 
here square pillars, between which an ornamental. 
screen 1s carried up below, while the upper part of 
their shafts is insulated; thus a double contrast is 
produced, first between the columns and the square 
pillars, next in respect to the closed and open spaces 
between the latter. The north front presents a pro- 
jecting hemicycle in which the order is continued in 
attached columns; a very agreeable variety is thus 
produced, and the view of the building from the north- 
east differs considerably from that from the south-east 
given in our cut. The northern portion of the plan will 
form a concert-room, and it makes the entire extent 
from north to south, including the steps leading up to 
the south portico, 500 feet. Taking into account its 
unusual altitude, this structure will in point of mag- 
nitude alone have very few rivals in the kingdom. 

As regards the interior, St. George’s Hall, measur- 
ing 161 by.75 feet, and 75 high, will be further ex- 
tended along the upper part of its sides by a series of 
recesses 13 feet deep, apparently obtained out of the 
thickness of the walls, but in reality coming over the 
corridors which surround this part of the interior, and 
both separate 1t from, and connect it with, the two 
Law Courts. On the west side of the hall the light 
will be admitted laterally through windows within 
those recesses, and on the opposite one through small 
domes, one in each recess. During the assizes this 
spacious hall will be opened to the public as the ap- 
proach to both the courts. At other times it will be 
appropriated, at the discretion of the council, to public 
or private meetings. The two courts, which are 
lighted from above, are similar in size, viz. 60 by 50 
feet, and 35 high; and the concert-room at the north 
end of the building is 75 feet from east to west, and of 
the same extent in the other direction, measured 
through the spacious hemicycle on its north side. 
The other principal apartments are also of large 
dimensions. 

The Liverpool Collegiate Institution, in the Tudor 
style, has three distinct elevations, of which the west 
or principal one faces Shaw-streeit. The first stone 
was laid, October 22, 1840, by Lord Stanley, with an 


inscription upon it purporting that the institution is 


for “the education of the commercial, trading, and 























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working classes, in accordance with the doctrines and 
principles of the Church of England.” ‘The fagade is 
iu uniform composition, 280 fcet in extent, collegiate 
in its aspect, and consistently decorated throughout. 
The lofty oriel windows carried up through two stories 
acquire additional effect in consequence of there being 
no windows below them on the ground-floor, a circum- 
stance that gives solidity and repose to the angles of 
the structure. The elevation contains three tiers of 
windows, those of the two upper floors being com- 
bined together into a general composition producing 
the effect of a single range of lofty windows. The 
apartinents on the ground-floor are 14 feet high, and 
consist of six school-rooms (two 25X20 feet, two 
40X25, and two 50X25), dining-rooms, and keepers’- 
rooms, besides vestibules, waiting-rooms, and others 
of a subordinate nature. On the first-floor are—the 
board-room, secretary’s rooin, nine school-rooms (two 
50X25, three 40X25, and four 23x20), lecturers’ 
room, laboratory, &c., all 17 feet high. On the second 
are nine school-rooms, all 14 feet high. The theatre, 
which is an octagonal building afiording seats for two 
thousand persons, communicates with both the first 
and sccond floors, and behind it is a spacious music- 
room capable of being thrown open to or shut off 
from it at pleasure. There is besides a third or attic 
floor, containing several spacious rooms, lighted from 
the roof, intended to serve as a museum, rooms for 
drawing, &c., and a sculpture gallery, which last is 
115 fect in length. The material used for the building 
is red-sandstone from the neighbourhood; and the 
works were contracted for at 21,3792. 

At Oxford several architectural works are in pro- 
gress, or have been completed. A new building, in 
the Tudor collegiate style, containing fellows’ apart- 
ments, has been added to University College, at the 
west end of the front towards High-street, on the site 
of some old tenements. The Taylor and Randolph In- 
stitute is now proceeding rapidly. The Taylor build- 
ing, or east wing, will contain the curator’s residence, 
six lecture-rooms, and a library 40 feet cube. The 
Randolph building, comprising the centre and other 
wing, will be appropriated almost entirely to galleries, 
those for sculpture below, and those for paintings on 
the upper floor. The Protestant Memorial, In imita~ 
tion of the Eleanor Cross at Waltham, has been com- 
menced. The neighbouring church of Saint Mary 
Magdalene has been considerably altered. ‘The north 
aisle, now distinguished by the naine of the Martyrs’ 
Aisle, has been rebuilt and enlarged, in the style of 
the ‘early decorated,’ with the view of thereby making 
it harmonize better with the ‘Memorial; but this 
attention to congruity between the two distinct objects 
has occasioned the disregard of it in the church itself ; 
for the south aisle, which has lately becn carefully 
restored, is in the later decorated style. 

There has been erccted at Ilam, in Staffordshire, to the 
memory of Mrs.Watts Russell, of Nam Hall, a singularly 
elegant Gothic structure, resembling in its gencral 
character the Eleanor Crosses, without being a direct 
imitation of any one of them. 





The Twenty-first Annual Report of the Church 


Comunissioners shows that 23 churches have been | 


completed within the elapsed twelvemonth, providing 
accommodation for 21,636 persons, of which one-half, 
or 10,933 sittings, are free. Thus altogether, 251 
churches and chapels have been erected, affording sit- 
tings for 349,889 persons, of which 193,412 are free 
seats. Unfortunately, among the three hundred new 
structures of this class erected under the authority of 
the commissioners, there are very few that claim notice 
on account of their architecture, or are satisfactory in 
their design. Nota few of them, in fact, are decidedly 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


499 


the reverse, although for such defects limited funds 
afford no excuse, there being hundreds of examples all 
over the country, of churches which, though plain, are 
not mean ; and which, though exccedingly homely in 
appeararice, are certainly not vulgar. As one work of 
the kind, which 1s at least stamped by some originality 
of feeling andof design, we may instance the new chureh 
at Streatham. The architcct, feeling that the proposcd 
fund would be altogether insufficient for carrying into 
effect, upon the same scale, a design founded upon 
any of the modes belonging to our English Gothic, 
were it to be properly and consistently treated, has 
here adopted one which has enabled him to confer 
unity of expression upon the whole of his fabric, to 
make it all of a picce, and to make the exterior and in- 
terior perfectly correspond with each other. Though 
simple almost to severity, nothing is omitted that the 
design obviously demanded. Thechurch forms a snnple 
parallclogram, and the monotony that might arise from 
this uniformity of plan is counteracted by the campa- 
nile being made to project from-the south-east angle. 
This campanile is 15 feet square, and 85 high, or, 
measured to the summit, 113. The decoration else- 
where adopted in the church is resorted to both in the 
upper part of the campanile and in its spire, which last 
shows an inlay surface of red and white brick forming 
a chevron patternon it. The altar recess 1s semi-- 
circular, covered with a semi-dome, and lighted by 
seven windows, three of which will be filled with rich 
painted glass, representing the Transfiguration. 

St. Mary’s church, in St. George’s parish, South- 
wark, also shows a sound discretion in not attempting 
too much, but endeavouring to produce effect rather 
by form than by decoration. The architect has accord- 
ingly omitted the usual appendage of a steeple or 
tower, and, contenting himself with placing a small 
bell-turret over the gable of the west end, has com- 
pensated for the plainness of the design im other 
respects by variety of outline. The style adopted 1s 
early Enghsh, with high-pitched roof and gable, and 
the plan (86 feet in length internally) cruciform, owing 
to which, and to the transepts being somewhat lower 
than the body of the church, considerable variety 1s 
piven to the whole exterior. The east end will be 
faced with flint-work. 

St. Chad’s, Birmingham, is remarkable for the splen- 
dour of the interior, not as regards architecture only, 
but also the decorations peculiar to Roman Catholic 
worship. The front is70 feet wide, and may be described 
as divided by buttresses into three compartments, the 
centre one containing the entrance, with a spacious 
window over it, and gable above, whose apex 1s about 
80 feet from the ground; and each of the others, as 
having a very lofty window, above which they are car- 
ried up as towers flanking the gable, and having two 
belfry-windows on each of their sides. Thesc towers 
rise 85 feet, and are surmounted with spires, making 
the total height of those parts 150 fcet; and they and 
some other parts of the composition partake more of 
the Continental than of our own English Gothic. 

The interior, which is cruciform im plan, consists of 
nave, side aisles, transcpt, choir, and two lateral cha- 

els. There is no clerestory, but the pillars and arches 
supported by them are carried up to the roof open, all 
the braces of which are carved, and the principal 
rafters, tie-bcams, and other framing, dressed and 
chamfered. The surfaces between the rafters are 
coloured bluc; and it is intended to enrich both them 
and other parts of the roof, the spandrils, arches, and 
walls, with painting and diapering. Against one of 
the great pillars at the junction of the nave and tran- 
sept, to the right hand on entering, 1s the pulpit, a 
magnificent specimen of oak carving, originally be- 
longing to a church im Belgiun, i a pur- 


O00 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[DEcEMBER 25, 1841, 





[St. Mary’s Church, Old Kent Road, Southwark.) 


chased and presented to this building by the Hari of 
Shrewsbury. It is hexagonal in plan, and four of the 
sides are enriched with fohage and tabernacle work. 
The choir is divided from the nave and transept by a 
rich screen of open work 18 feet high, and consisting 
of seven arches, of which the larger one in the centre 
forms a doorway, closed with folding gates, and the 
whole is surmounted by tracery, canopies, and images, 
and by a parapet of rich open panels, forming the front 
of the gallery or rood-loft over the screen, and from 
which rises (to the height of 50 fect from the floor) the 
ercat rood or crucifix, with an image of the Saviour of 
the size of life. On either side of the choir beyond this 
magnificent screen is a range of ancient carved stalis 
of claborate design, the workmanship of the fourteenth 
century, brought from Cologne ; and immediately over 
them are screens of panel-work, surmounted by per- 
forated tracery. Beyond these stalls are three sedilla 
for the officiating priest, deacon, and sub-dceacon, copied 
from the niches forming what is called Sebert’s tomb, ou 
the south side of the choir at Westminster Abbey. Cp- 
posite these sedillais the bishop’s throne, a work of ela- 
borate design and masterly execution, brought from 
the same church as the stalls. There 1s besides a /ec- 
toriwm of solid brass, the gift of the Earl of Shrewsbury, 
and formerly belonging to the cathedral of Louvain. 
The stained glass of the three windows over the altar 
has been principally copied from the examples at 
Bristol and Tewkesbury, and was presented by the 
noble donor just mentioned. The altar itself, and its 
accompaniments, are not at all inferior in splendour or 
costlness to the other ornainents of the church: around 
the altar are placed four pillars, 13 feet high, each 
composed of four large and four lesser shafts, with foli- 
ated caps, the smaller shafts surmounted by images 
coloured and gilded, and the others by figures of an- 
eels bearing caldlesticks. The Lady-Chapel on the 
f“ospel side of the altar (or to the left on entering the 
church) is enclosed from the transept by a carved oak 
screcn, consisting of a doorway, and four compartments 
of open tracery, with gables, pinnacles, and canopies, 
surmounted by images. Within this chapel are an 
altar and altar-screen of stone, the latter of which is 


adorned with niches, figures, and sculptures, intended, 
when the funds shall permit, to be further embellished 
with colours and gilding. A font of elaborate design 
will also be erected at some future opportunity. As 
the building stands upon a declivity, the architect has 
availed himself of this circumstance to construct an 
undercroft or crypt beneath the whole of his edifice, 
not only as a place of sepulture, but for subterraneous 
chapels and chantries; and its solemnity is greatly in- 
creased by all the windows being filled with staiied 
mosaic glass. ; 

Annexed to this church is the residence of the 
bishop and officiating clergy, which is a good specimen 
of the style and character of similar structures 1n the 
fifteenth century. The bishop's sitting-rooms have oriel 
windows towards the strect, partly filled with-stamed 
class, and the fire-places are of carved stone. The pub- 
lic rooms consist of a library, chapel, diming-hall, and 
audience-room ; the first of which has a’ timber ceiling 
springing from braces.. Adjoining, and immediately 
communicating with that apartment, is the chapel, small 
but lofty, having a tracery window filled with stained 
vlass over the altar, an altar-screen of stone, carved 
with rich tabernacle-work. A portion of the floor is 
laid with incrusted tiles, which have various orna- 
mental devices. This chapel also contains some pic- 
tures of religious subjects by early German masters, 
presented by the Earl of Shrewsbury. The dining- 
hall, which has been built in strict imitation of an an- 
cient refectory, has an open roof framed with massive 
timbers, and has at its lower end,a screen with folding 
doors, comninicating with the kitchen offices, and 
over it three figures of angels bearing the cross of St. 
Chad. At the other or upper end of this apartment 
is a raised dais, on the right hand of which is a bay- 
window filled with devices in stained glass, while above 
the dais is another window of three lights, which also 
contains several coats of arms, besides those of her 
present Majesty. The side windows also contain 
mottoes and devices in stained glass. The lower part 
of the walls is wainscoted and panelled, and the fire- 
place, which is very large, is entirely of carved stone. 
The other rooms are quite plain. 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


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{Coach-Makers’ Loft.~ 


Accorpine to the mformation of Stow, the business 
of coach-making arose more suddenly in England than 
has commonly been the casc in the annals of our ma- 
nufactures. “ In the yeere 1564,” says he, “ Guylham 
Boonen, a Dutchman, became the queene’s coach- 


manne, and was the first that brought the use of 


coaches into England. And after a while, divers great 
ladies, with as great jealousie of the queene’s displea- 
sure, made them coaches, and rid in them up and 
downe the countries, to the grcat admiration of all the 
beholders ; but then by little and little they grew usual 
among the nobilitie, and others of sort, and within 
twentic yeeres became a great trade of coach-making.” 
The fashion gained a permanent footing, notwithstand- 
ing the opposition of watcrmen and chairmen, and the 
vituperation of Taylor the ‘ watcr-poet,’ who reviled 
the new-fashioncd coach as a‘ great hypocrite, for it 
hath a cover for knavery, and curtains to vaile and 
shadow any wickedness. Besides, like a perpetual 
cheater, it wears two bootes and no spurs, sometime 
having two pair of legs to one boot, and oftentimes 
(against nature) it makes faire ladies weare the boote ; 
and if you note, they are carried back to back, like 
people surprised by pyrats, to be tyed in that miscrable 
manner, and thrown overboard into the sca. More- 
over, it makes people imitate sea-crabs, in being drawn 
sideway, as they are when they sit in the boot of the 
coach; and it isa dangerous kinde of carriage for the 
commonwealth, if it be considered.” 

We shall attempt to convey to the reader some idea 
of the mode of constructing these “ great hypocrites ;” 
but that our account must be nothing morc than a 
cursory glance will be evident when it is considered 


: 


| 


a a 


that the construction of a coach requires the aid of | 


No. 625. 


carriage-makers, coach-smiths, 


coach-body makers, 
coach-carvers, coach- 


coach-platers, coach-beaders, 
trimmers, coach-lacc makers, coach-lamp makers, 
harness-makers, coach-wheelwrights, coach-painters, 
hcrald-painters, and various others whose occupations 
form morc or less distinct branches of trade. The 
more prominent only of these can be here noticed. 

Perhaps the simplest modc of vicwing the construc- 
tion of a coach is in reference to the materials used. 
These arc principally timber, iron, plated metal, 
leather, pamt, varnish, and woven matcrials. The 
main parts of a vehicle are constructed of wood, 
whether in relation to the body (the part in which the 
travellers are seated), the under framc-work, or the 
wheels. Iron is however used in considerable quan- 
tity, not only for the springs, but in almost every part 
of the vehicle, in order to cnable the latter to bear the 
very severe strain to which it is subject. Plated metal 
is used principally for ornament, such as beadings, 
&e., in addition to its cmployment for handles, hinges, 
and various other small pieces of mechanism. Leather 
is used for covering the upper part of the body of the 
best coaches, for suspending the body im its supporting 
frame, for attaching the horses to the vehicle, and 1m 
a small degree for the mternal trimmings of “the 
coach, Paint and varnish are of course used for the 
customary purposes, in preserving and beautifying the 
surfaces of the wood and iron. Woven materials, such 
as carriage-lace, fine woollcn-cloth, silk, SC., are em- 
ployed in the internal decoration or * trinming of a 
coach. 

It may now be asked whether these VarioliS Operas 
tions are ever carried ou under one roof, and by one 
establishment ; or whether, in order to see the different 


Vou. X.—~3 T 


processes of coach-making, it would be necessary to 
Visit as many different tradesmen as were cnumeraied 
in aformer paragraph. No one establisuiment makes 
all the various parts ofa coach; and great differences 
exist in the extent to which the connection of the 
branches is carried. Some of the smaller manuiac- 
turers merely put together the parts which have been 
procured ready made from other persons, while the 
larger firms embrace several differcnt deparuinents, 
whereby the parts of a coach are, for the jnost part, 
entirely made within onc faetory. We have hence 
thought it desirable to describe thc operations of an 
establishment of the latter kind; and have been fa- 
voured by Messrs. Pearce and Countze, of Long Acre, 
with permission to select their factory for this purpose ; 
a factory conducted on a large scale, and embraeing a 
ereat number of departments. 

We are not antiquarians cnough to know whcther 
Long Acre has, from the time of its formation, bcen a 
bazaar for coach-makers, but certain 1t is that at the 
present day coach-making operations form the most 
remarkable feature in that street. Out of about a 
hundred and forty houses which the street contais, 
more than fifty are occupied either by coachmakers, 
so designated, or by manufacturers of the lamps, 
fringe, harness, &c. for coaches. The firm which we 
have just named occupies two of these houses, togethcr 
with a large range of back premises, adjacent to Cross 
Lane. We will rapidly glance through the factory 
before detailing the processes of manuiacture. 

The first portion of the premises 1s occupied, as in 
other factories of a similar kind, by finished: carriages 
of various forms, sueh as coaches, chariots, phaetons, 
cigs, cabriolcts, curricles, tilburys, &c. Behind this 
is an open court or quadrangle, to which entrance is 
Obtained from Cross Lane, and from whence stairs and 
passaves lcad to the various rooms oi the factory, which 
wre scen on all four sides of the central court. Beyond 
this, still on a level with the ground, isa large warc- 
room or shop, into which the carriages are lowered 
when completed in the upper rooms. A trap-door of 
large size is seen overhead, from whieh descends an 
inclined wooden railroad or ‘ shoot,’ for the lowering 
of the carriages, by the aid of tackle im the rooni 
above. Still farther towards the north, and extending 
to the narrow street called Brokers’ Row, 1s the thmver 
store-room, around which on every side are stored the 
mahogany, oak, ash, elm, deal, and other woods em- 
ployed in the making of carriages. Most of this timber 
is kept here several years before use, in order to cn- 
sure its dryness; and it is cut into planks m1 saw-pits, 
with whieh this part of the prenses 1s provided. 

Returning nearer to the front of the building, we 
ascend a staircase which leads to the workshops and 
show-rooms on the first floor. At the head oi the stairs 
is the ‘harness department,’ where the numerous 
traces, bands, straps, and other articles of leather for 
carriages are made. The middle of the rooni is filled 
with harness in a more or less prepared state ; and 
around the room arc small work-benchcs, eaeh occu- 
pied by one man. All the harness required for the 
carrlagcs is madc within the building. Beyond the 
harness-workshop is a gallery or passage, ighted on 
onc side by a row of windows, and lined on the other 
by glass cases filled with specimens of the more deco- 
rative parts of carriage furniture and harness. This 
gallery leads to the ‘ carriage show-loit,’a very exten- 
sive room filled with carriages nearly in a finished 
state ; it 1s occupied, as the name imports, principally 
as a show-room; but somc parts of a carriage are fitted 
to their proper places in this room, and there are me- 
chanical means for receiving carriages from the floor 
above, and lowering them to the floor below. 

A door on the lett-hand side of the ‘ show-loft’ leads 


le ene 


MAGAZINE. (Dec., 1841. 
to the ‘smith’s shop,’ a large square building of two 
stories, fitted up with every convenience for the 1mani- 
facture of lron-work, Almost every particle of iron 
uscd in the construction of carriages by this firm is 
madc within their own premises: axles, cranes, bars, 
stays, plates, bolts, and various other forms im which 
the metal 1s used, are made in this shop. The upper 
story 18 a ‘ filing and turning’ shop, and the Tower 
a ‘forging’ shop. The latter is provided with eight 
forges or fumaces, ranged conveniently round the 
sides; and near each forge is a gas-branch, together 
with anvils and the requisite utensils, for the working 
of the mcn in ihe evening as well as by day. All the iron 
and steel employed is brought in in the form of bais 
two or three mehes wide: the former to be worked into 
axles, bolts, S&c., and the latter into springs, which form 
a very Important part of the fittings of a eoaech. When 
the various articles of steel and iron are brought to a 
certain stage 1n this lower shop, they are carried to the 
upper, where there are two or three powerful lathes 
for turning the metal, together with vices and benches 
at which men are engaged in filing and finishing the 
mctal-work. The smiths and their assistants, of whom 
we saw between twenty and thirty.in these two shops, 
form a class of workmen who can command higher 
wages than alinost any other workers in iron. 

‘The lower floor of the smith’s shop cummunicates 
With a tunber-loft, and the upper floor with the show- 
lott, into which we now return, and proceed up another 
flight of stairs to the next higher story of the factory. 
This story 1s occupied as the ‘coach-making loft,’ and 
1s represented in our frontispiece. All the wood-work 
belonging to the ceaches, the wheels and some srnailer 
portions exeepted, is fashioned and put together in this 
workshop ; it 13 therefore the most important part of 
the iactory. It extends perhaps eighty or nincty iect 
in length, and contains all the implements and avr- 
rangements for forming the wood-work of vehicies. 
Coaehes, ehariots, cabriolcts, and other forms of ve- 
hicle, are seen mm varlous parts of the shop or loit, and 
111 Various stages of progress. Work-benches are placed 
round the sides, on whieh the pieces of wood are 
fashicned and prepared; whilc the centre contains the 
carriages 1n progress. 

Again we ascend to another story equal in size to tlie 
lower, and occupying the upper part of the building. 
This story is appropriated to two distinct workshops or 
loits, the ‘painting-loft’ and the ‘trumming-loft.’ The 
former of these is nothing move than a large painting- 
shop, so iar as regards the general arrangement. The 
coaches and other vehicles, in a certain stage of pro- 
gress, are drawn up into this upper floor in order to be 
painted. In walking through this room we observed 
coaches undergoing the process of painting—others 
that of varnishing—others drying between the coats of 
paint or of varnish—others under the hands of the 
herald-painter. The ‘ trimmuing-loit,’ on the saime floor, 
is the room in which all the interior fittings of a eoach 
arc complcted. Piles and rolls of morocco leather, of 
coach-lace, of silk, of broad-cloth, are lying around on 
benches and tables, and workmen are engaged in fitting 
the linings, cushions, fringes, and other interior deco- 
rations of private carriages. 

After having quitted the main building of the factory, 
we cross the court-yard to the ‘ plater’s loft.’ This is a 
workshop in which many of the brass, steel, and plated 
articles belonging to a coaeh are cither manufactured 
or else brought into a form fit for the coach-maker's 
use. It contains a ‘drawing-bench,’ for making the 
beading which is used so extensively at the edges of a 
coach, as well as other mechanical arrangements for 
working in metal. 

It will thus be seen that the operations carricd on 
within the walls of the factory are very varied, and 


SUPPLEMENT. | 


cinbrace the mannfacture of articles differing totally 
in their materials and formation. Let us now proceed 
somewhat more into detail. 

The first thing to be done in building a coach—as in 
building a house or a ship—is to draw the design, to 
display taste and invention in the plan and proportion, 
s0 as to combine comfort with clegance to the greatest 
possible degree. There must be an architect for a 
coach as well as for a house ora ship, and he is re- 
quired to possess inventive ingenuity, as well as know- 
Jedge of geometrical forms. The working-drawing or 


design for a coach is sketched with chalk on a large | 


smooth black board, and on the same scale as the ve- 
hicle to be constructed. The party for whom the coach 
is to be made has thus an opportunity of seeing the 
plan and proportions, and of suggesting alterations 
before practical operations are commenced. The cle- 
geance and costliness of a well-built private carriage 
render it quite as much an obicct of taste as of con- 
venience ; and thus the ingenuity of the coach-designer 
is constantly at work to devise improved forms and 
modes of arrangemeut in the varions parts of a car- 
riage. In addition to its elegance, too, a coach is con- 
structed In «a manner more and Imore conducive to the 
comfort of the inmates—a mecd of praise which we 
annof always give to the prevailing form of hats and 
coats, for the latter often teach us that fashion is an 
uncomfortable tyrant. 

When the form and proportions are definitely ar- 
ranged and clearly sketched on the board, a plan is 
adepted very similar to that observed in building a 
ship. The pattern of a ship (as we explained in the 
May ‘Supplement’) is drawn the rull size, and a mould 
is formed of pieces of thin wood, adapted to all the 
chalk-marks in the sketch, and serving as euides to 
the shipwright in fashioning the hull of a ship. So it 
is with the coach-builder. He prepares a mould of a 
coach, that is, he places a series of thin pieces of wood 
to the chalk-marks on the board, shaping them in 
such a manner as to guide the saw and plane of the 
workmen hereafter. The chief reason for this simi- 
larity in the operation of the shipwright and the coach- 
puilder, so far as regards the commnencement of his 
operations, is found in the tortuous forms of the pieces 
of wooed used in the structure. Without any further 
allusion to a ship, we may merely observe, that there 
is scarcely a right angle or a straight line throughout 
a coach. Curvatures of the most remarkable and 
complicated kind occur, which cannot be expressed in 
feet and inches; and thus it hecomes necessary to have 
a type, a mould, a pattern of some kind or other, to 
transfer the required forms from the chalk sketch to 
the rough wood on which the workman is allerwards 
employed. 

Lhe sketch being formed, and the pattern-piecces 
prepared in conformity with it, the wood 1s selected 
fitted for the purpose. In the factory whose arrange- 
ments we have described above, there are two saw- 
pits—one for cutting wood in the ‘round,’ and the 
other for ‘converting.’ The ‘ round’ is the technical 
appellation for wood just in the form in which it is 
cut, before being squared, and in this form a large 
quantity of timber 1s stowed away in the factory. The 
operations of the sawyer, by which the trees are cut into 
planks, are of the usua! kind, and require no particular 
nicety. 

When the wood is cut into planks, if is ‘ converted’ 
in the other pit. This term (which is also used by ship- 
wrights in an analogous manner) relates to the cutting 
of the planks into the required forms by incans of the 

attern-pieces, and requires much more taste and 
judgment; the rougher and larger pieces only are cut 
here, the smaller being shaped above-stairs. A word 
or two may here be said on the varicties of wood em- 


SME PENNY MAGAZINE. 


| 


Dee eee eee ae 


503 


ployed by the coach-builder. Ash is used very lareclyin 
the construction of coaches ; the quality called ‘hedgec- 
row ash is a tough fibrous wood, with which the prin- 
cipal parts of the frame-work of a ceach are con- 
structed; 1f 1s not lable to warp or twist, and thus 
becomes for many purposes a valuable kind of timber. 
Beech is a cheap kind of wood, never used by builders 
of the best coaches. Tlm is employed for planking in 
those parts of the body of a coach requiring much 
strength, as also for the naves of wheels. Oak, in simi- 
lar manner, is employed in various parts of coaches 
wherein strength and durability are required. Maho- 
gany furnishes the material for the panels of the best 
coaches—those broad, smooth, and delicately curved 
surfaces which form the most conspicuous part of the 
body of acoach. Spanish mahogany, which the cabinet- 
inaker selects as the most beautiful for his purposes, is 
not so useful to the coach-builder as the kind called 
Honduras, on account of the unfitness of its curled and 
twisted grain to conform to the bending which coach- 
panels receive. Deal and a few other kind of timber 
are used to a limited extent im coaches; but ash and 
mahogany are the two principal kinds. 

The proper timber being selected for the various . 
parts of a coach, it 1s taken up to the coach-making 
lott, where the operation of the maker commences. It 
may be here stated that the term ‘carriage’ is used by 
the workman ima sense different from that commonly 
employed. We speak indifferently of a coach or a car- 
riage; but the coach-builders apply the latter term 
only to the frame-work which hes beneath or around 
the body, and which serves both to support the body 
and to connect it with the wheels, pole, &e. Hence 
there are two classes of workmen cmployed, the one 
called § body-inakers,’ and the other ‘carriage-makers ; 
the one employed principally on delicate frame-work 
and ‘panclling, the other on stouter masses of wood. 
Body-makers may be regarded as the principal arti- 
sans employed in a coach-factory. They are required 
to possess a practical knowledge of comphecated gev- 
metrical forms, and a very accurate hand and eye. The 
body of a coach is first put into shape by a skeleton 
frame-work of ash, every piece of which 1s morc or less 
curved in one direction or another, and sometimes in 
double curvature. The mectine edges of the various 
pieces of wood are seldom at right angles to the sur- 
face, and various methods of joming are thereby ren- 
dered necessary; 1n some parts glue, in others bolts, 
nails, or screws; and in others those kinds of joints 
known to workmen by the names of the tenon-anc- 
mortice joint, the lap-joint, and the groove. In form- 
ing the several pieces for the body of a coach, the 
workman makes constant use of the pattern or mould- 
pieces, by which he is guided in the curvatures given 
to the different parts. The actual working of the wood 
does not differ much from the operation of a Joiner, 
planes and the customary joining tools being alike 
employed by each. Not only are the skeleton picces 
of the frame-work jointed together with great micety, 
but equal or even still greater care 1s required in pre- 
paring the grooves for the reception of the mahogany 
panels. The panels themselves are brought to the 
symmetrical and elegantly curved forms which they 
present, partly by the plane, and partly by the umited 
action of heat and moisture. Ifa thin plank be wetted 
on one side and heated on the other, it will speedily 
become convex on the moistened side and concave on 
the other: and the workman is enabled to make these 
forms permanent. | 

The experience and tact requisite for this depart- 
ment of coach-building have the usual effect on the 
relation between master and workman; the latter can 
command a high rate of wages, as high, we believe, as 
from three to five guimeas per week. Coach-body 

oP 2 


O04 


makers, indeed, rank among the highest order of Lon- 
don.artisans ; the number of first-rate workmen in that 
branch is limited, and does not appear lkely to in- 
crease in any great degree. 

The reader will then understand that the body of a 
carriage, 2.e. that part in which the sitters are placed, 
is made bya class of workmen different from those 
who make the under part of a carriage; that the wood 
of which the body is principally formed (in the larger 
and more important factories) is principally ash and 
mahogany; that the workman fashions the various 
pieces by the aid of a pattern-board, as in the process 
of ship-building: that the actual process of working 
the wood is a superior kind of joimer’s work: and that 
the operations are conducted in that floor of the build- 
ing called the ‘ coach-making loit.’. While the body of 
a coach is thus in the process of formation, the other 
parts are being made by other sets of workmen; the 
‘carriage-makers’ are employed on the complicated 
mechanism beneath the body; the smiths are preparing 
the numerous pieces of iron required in various parts 
of the coach; and the wheelwrights are making the 
wheels. Perhaps we may as well introduce in this 
place the few observations we have to offer on the sub- 
ject of wheel-making. The business of a wheelwright 
is totally distinct from that of a coach-builder ; no esta- 
blishment of the latter kind, we believe, being in the 
habit of making the wheels for their own coaches. But 
although the operations of the wheelwright are thus 
not strictly connected with the title of this paper, yet 
we think it desirable to put our coach upon wheels 
before presenting it to the reader; and shall therefore 
briefly describe the operations of wheel-making as car- 
ried on at the extensive factory of Messrs. Curll and 
Glover, Sutton Street, Soho. 

A coach-wheel is a remarkable instance of hghtness 
combined with strength; and not less remarkable for 
the accuracy of hand and cye required in its construc- 
tion. As a matter of principle, a large flat circular 
piece of wood, with a hole in the centre, would form a 
wheel; and in inany countries forms the only kind of 
wheel used at the present day; but practice shows that 
a much smaller quantity of material 1s capable of being 
wrought into a wheel excclling not only in elegance, 
but also in durability, such rude productions. The 
essential parts of a modern wheel are the nave, the 
spokes, and the felloes, corresponding to the centre, the 
radu, and the circumference of a circle. The nave is 
a short block of wood, usually elm, forming the middle 
of the whecl, and pierced with a hole to reccive the 
axle or axle-tree. The spokes are bars of oak, ra- 
diating from the nave at equal distances one from an- 
other, and extending to equal distances from the nave. 
The felloes are circular segments of ash, framed on 
the extremitics of the spokes, and joined one to an- 
other so as to form a circle. To these parts must be 
added the ¢zre, au iron hoop which binds all the fellocs 
closely together. 

The mass of elm intended for the nave is turned to 
the required dimensions and shape in a lathe, and is 
hollowed within to receive the axle. It is then fixed 
ina kind of groove, with its axis horizontal; and the 
mortices or holes are chiselled out, for the reception 
of the ends of the spokes. This is a nice and difficult 
operation, requiring a practised cye for its proper exe- 
cution, on account of the peculiar direction in which 
the spokes radiate from the nave of a wheel. If we 
stand at ashort distance behind a carriage, we shall 
perceive that the wheels are not flat, but that they are 
concave on the outer surface and convex oun the inner; 
the lower spokes are nearly in a vertical position, 
while the upper spokes branch out at a considerable 
angle from the vertical. There are various reasons 
for this form, some of which relate to the strength of 


THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 


[Dec., 1841 


the vehicle, some to the crease of room for the body 
of the coach without increasmg the width of the track 
of the wheels, and some to the preservation of the 
coach from splashing. The holes for the spokes have 
therefore to be chiselled in conformity with this 
‘dishing’ of the wheel, as the conical form is called ; 
and not only so, but half of the spokes are placed 
nearer to one end of the nave, and the other half to the 
other, for the sake of increasing the strength, and thus 
the holes have to be made at different parts of the 
nave’s length. 

The pieces of oak for the spokes are brought to the 
factory in lengths of about four feet, and are then 
shaped by hand to the hght and elegant forms with 
which we are familar. The lengths of the spokes 
must of course depend on the diameter of the wheel. 
The front wheels of a modern coach are from forty to 
forty-four inches in diameter; and the hind wheels 
from fifty to fifty-six inches. The front wheels have 
usually twelve spokes, and the hind wheels fourteen. 
A plane, the usual aid to a workman in giving a smooth 
surface to wood, cannot be employed in preparing the 
spokes, on account of the varying curvatures which 
they present; a small cutting tool called a ‘ spoke- 
shave’ is the principal instrument employed. One 
end of each spoke is formed into a tenon to fit the mor- 
tice-hole in the nave; and the spokes are fixed by the 
operation of ‘ speeching,’ or ‘ spoking,’ represented in 
the annexed cut. The nave is placed in a kind ot 





socket at a short distance above the ground, in a part 
of the workshop where a cleft 1s made in the floor to 
receive the spokes as the nave is gradually tured 
round ; and the spoke is then driven into the hole pre- 
pared for it, by repeated blows with a mallet. The 
spokes are partially shaped before being driven into 
the nave, and are finished afterwards. 

The rim of a wheel is formed of severa: distinct 
pieces called felloes, each felloe being long enough to 
receive the ends of two spokes. The ash of which they 
are formed is brought to the factory in short roughly- 
curved pieces, and are afterwards shaped to the proper 
form and dimensions by means of pattern-boards and 
various cutting tools. When the felloes are formed, 
they are fixed firmly on a low bench, and four circular 
holes are drilled in cach piece, two to receive the ends 
of the spokes, which are formed into cylindrical tenons, 
and two for joining the felloes end to end. For the 
latter purposes, short cylindrical pieces of oak, about 
three inches long, and called ‘ dowels,’ are made, and 
being fitted to corresponding holes made in the ends 





SUPPLEMENT. | 


of the felloes, serve to unite them one to another. 
Wedges are inserted when required, and the whole 
become thus firmly combined in the form of a wheel. 
But the piecemeal manner in which the circumference 
of the wheel is thus made up would ill qualify it for 
service, were not a strengthening hoop of iron fitted on. 
Formerly straps of iron, called ‘ strakes,’ were applied 
to the surfaces of the felloes, covering the joints; but 
aiter a time an unproved method canie into use, which 
consists in the application of a solid iron-hoop, which is 
put on the wheel while hot, and by shrinking as it cools, 
forces the whole of the framing together into a firm 
body. The process of ‘ hooping’ or ‘ tiring’ a wheel is 
represented in the annexed cut. 





the wheel-factory is a circular flat 1ron-plate, placed in 
a horizontal position, with a vertical axis or stem 
rising froin its centre. The wheel is placed down on 
this plate, the concave or ‘dished’ side downwards; 
the nave resting in a hole in the plate, and the wheel 
being fixed to the central stem. Imunediately adjoin- 
ing this circular plate is a small furnace adapted for 
the reception of the hoop or tire, which has been 
previously welded to the required size; and when the 
tire is brought toa proper heat, it is taken from the 
furnace, and by means of iron instruments fitted to the 
circumference of the wheel. ‘The diameter of the tire 
is such that it would not fit on the wheel while cold, 
but being expanded by heat, it encompasses the wheel, 
and gradually clings tightly to it as it gets cold. To 
aid in this, two men beat the tire with powerful ham- 
mers, while the two others cool the iron by sprinkling 
it with water. Iron pims are subsequently driven 
through the tire and felloes, one on each side of every 
joint, the points being securely riveted inside the fel- 
loes. Jron hoops are also placed round the projecting 
parts of the nave, to enable it better to resist the strain 
to which it 1s subjected. 

This brief notice will serve to convey some idea of 
the manufacture of the wheels ofa coach. The process 
of painting them is one which we need not notice here ; 
we shall therefore transfer our attention again to the 
coach-factory. The frame-work by which the body of 
a coach is connected with the wheels is, as we before 
observed, called the ‘ carriage,’ and is the production of 
a class of workmen called ‘ carriage-makers.’ These 
artisans are not required to produce such delicate work 
as the ‘ body-makers,’ the masses of wood being much 
more heavy, and the joints fewer in number. Ash and 
elm are the principal kinds of wood which they use. 
It would be quite impossible, and, if possible, wholly 
uninteresting, to enumerate here all the various pieces 
of wood which constitute the frame-work of a carriage, 
some to connect the fore and aft wheels in pairs, soine 
to connect the pairs of wheels together, some to support 
the body, others to support the coach-box, others again 
for the footman’s standing-pvlace behind, and others for 


THE PENNY 


In an open court of 


WE UET- VANE Op 503 
the attachment of the horses to the coach. It is neces- 
sary to mention, however, one peculiarity in which a. 
four-wheeled coach differs from many other forms of 
vehicle. In sone coaches the body is connected with 
the under frame-work by pliable braces of leather 
attached to the springs; and in this case, the frame- 
work which supports the fore and hind springs is con- 
nected together by a long central piece of timber plated 
with iron, and called the ‘perch.’ An iron perch, 
called a ‘ crane-neck,’ is sometimes used iustead of a 
wooden one, and is shaped so as to enable the coach to 
turn somewhat more readily in a narrow street or road, 
an advantage which is however gained at the expense 
of greater weight of material. 

As to the mode in which the carriage-mikers pro- 
ceed with their work, little need here be said. The 
planks and pieces of ash are roughly shaped by the 
saw, and are then worked to the proper contours, partly 
by planes, but much more by tools more or less resem- 
Cling spoke-shaves. 

We have before had occasion to notice the large 
quantity of iron-work prepared at the smith’s shop in 
this factory. This iron is applied to various parts of a 
vehicle, and at different periods in the progress of the 
carriage towards completion. After the perch for a 
coach is made, and before it is fitted to the other parts 
of the framing, the smith takes it in hand, and {fits side- 
plates of iron to it, for the sake of increasing the 
Strength. In like manner many other parts of the 
vehicle, as soon as the wood-work is to a certain extent 
completed, are bound, hooped, or strengthened with 
lron 1n various different ways. All the iron for these 
purposes is forged out of small bars to a form nearly 
approaching that required, and is then either turned 
or filed toa regular surface. Where a perch is made 
entirely of iron, great muscular force is requisite in 
welding the different pieces into one mass. Indeed, 
both strength and skill are required in a coach-smith, 
for he has to work large and heavy bars of iron into 
forms containing several unequal curves, and varying 
greatly in thickness. There isa curious gradation of 
talent, and consequently of wages, observable in the 
operations of coach-siniths. There are the forge-men, 
the hammer-men, and the vice-men, all earning different 
amounts of wages. A. forge-man and a hammer-man 
generally work together, the latter being subordinate 
to the former, and indeed often paid by him. The 
forge-man is the responsible workman ; he judges of 
the quality of the metal, regulates the curvatures, and 
exercises his skill in combining elegance with strength 
in the various iron-fittings required for the coach. The 
hammer-man aids him in his work, using the sledge- 
haminer under the direction of the forge-man, blows the 
bellows, keeps up the fire, and performs other offices 
subordinate to the labours of the forge-man. The 
wages of the forge-men are often from three to five 
guineas a week; but those of the hammer-men are 
very much lower in amount. The vice-men are those 
smiths whose work is at the vice imstead of the anvil, 
They file and finish the various pieces of iron when 
forged, and prepare the iron for being fixed to the 
wood-work of the coach. 

One of the most carefully executed parts of the 1ron- 
work of a modern coach is the avle or axle-tree. The 
axle is the piece of wood or iron which serves as a 
centre for the motion of the wheels. It was formerly 
made wholly of wood, and was then generally termed 
an axle-tree; but now that metal is frequently used 
instead of wood, the word ‘axle’ is more frequently 
used alone. Axles used formerly to be fixed firmly in 
the wheels, and to revolve beneath the vehicle; but 
now they are more frequently so made that each wheel 
revolves separately on them. The first 1ron axles in- 
troduced were of a rude construction, but successive 


06 THE PENNY 
improvements have brought them to great perfection. 
The axle consists of three parts: the two arms, which 
puss Into the naves of the wheels; and the ded, or cen- 
tral part, which connects the two arms together. At 
first, a hcop or ring was put within the hollow of the 
nave, to prevent the too rapid wear of the wood by the 
friction of the axle; but now the nave is lined with an 
accurately-fitted iron box, capable not only of receiving 
the axle with little friction, but also of contaiming a 
reservoir of lubricating oil. A modern construction, 
known by the manufacturers as Collinge’s patent axle, 
is a very ingenious and complete application of this 
method. The box for placing within the nave of each 
wheel is first moulded in cast-iron, and then turned in 


MAGAZINE, MBI Men ire 
faces are them ‘ middled,’ that is, shghily hollowed by 
hammering. Near cach end a sht 1s made about an 
inch long, in which a small rivet-head, attached to the 
next adjoming plate, may work. When four or more 
of sucn plates are combined, and hooped tightly in the 
centre, the ends are free to yield when any pressure is 
felt, and thns the pressnre becomes equally shared by 
all. We may illustrate this actien by the following 
supposition :—Iet a dozen laths be laid one on another, 
and bound or riveted tightly at both ends; they could 
not then be bent very tar without fracture; but let 
them be bound’ only in the centre, and the whole will 
bend nearly as casily as a single lath, because the ends 
of each lath are free to conform to the curvature pro- 





a powerful lathe to a very beanninl degree of smooth- | duced by the bending. 


ness, especially on the inner surface, in which the axle 
will work. The factory to which our attention is di- 
rected contams the necessary arrangements for making 
these axles, as well as the other portions of iron-work. 
At one end of the ‘ filyng-shop’ is a large lathe, worked 
by one cr two men at a wheel, as in the annexed cut. 


The tools for turning the metal, as well as the gencral 
mechanism of the lathe, require considerable strength 
and power. In order to make the axle work more frecly 
in the box, the inner surface of the latter Is ‘ case- 
hardened,’ that is, bya peculiar action of charcoal aided 
by heat the surface of the iron is to asmall depth con- 
verted into steel, which, being harder than the onginal 
iron, is susceptible of receiving a finer suriace, and of 
withstanding the wearing effects of friction. 

The springs form another and very important part 
of the metal-work of a coach, and require a bricf 
notice in this place. The object of a spring, whatever 
be the substance of which it is formed, is, by its clastic 
action between the wheels and the body of the coach, 
to diminish the concussion and irregular motion occa- 
sioned by the passage of the wheels over uneven ground. 
Leather might be used witha slightly elastic cffect ; 
wood is sometimes used in light one-horse vehicles ; 
but iron or stecl is the universal material for the springs 
of modern English coaches, and is generally applied in 
the form of clastic plates. The forms given to these 
steel springs are exccedingly varied, and contribute 
not alittle to the gcneral elegance of a coach. The 
earliest springs were formed of a single plate of stecl; 
but in modern manufacture several plates are laid one 
on another, all bound 1n close contact, and yet free to 
bend independently of each other, by having the ends 
loose. The steel employed is prepared expressly for the 
purpose, and is brought by the rolling-mull to the thick- 
ness of about a quarter or three-cighilis of an inch, and 
trom one and a half to three inches wide. A compound 
spring, formed of several parallel plates, 1s hooped or 
vound together with an iron hoop shrunk on hot, and 
riveted. If it be a curved spring, the external plate 
is of course longer than the others, and is formed of 
thicker steel. All the plates are forined in a similar 
way. <A piece of steel is cut to the required lenzth, 
tapered and prepared at each end, and one or both sur- 











This cut represents the mode of forming one of 
the numerous yariety of coach-springs. The assem- 
blagve of plates, after being prepared scparately aud 
laid one on another, 1s fixed firmly in a vice, and an 
1ron band or hoop is hammered on, till it clasps the 
spring at the thickest part with great closencss. Before 
this is done, each plate 1s subjected to the action of the 
fire. Jt is first heated to a certain temperature, then 
plunged into water, then heated again till such a tem-~ 
perature is acquired as will ignite a small stick. These 
processes of ‘hardening’ and ‘ tempering’ are requisite 
to the subsequent action of the spring. The plate is 
then ‘ sct,’ or hainmered perfectly straight; then filed 
in all the parts which will be visible; and the plates 
are in this state ready to be combined in the form ofa 
spring. The springs are built up much in this manner, 
Whatever be their shapes or designations. As to the 
technical distinctions of the ‘ single-elbow spring,’ the 
‘double-elbow spring,’ the ‘ under-spring,’ the ‘nut- 
cracker spring, the ‘ C spring,’ the ‘S spring,’ and 
many others, we need merely here remark that they 
are various forms, adapted for different kinds of car- 
rlages, some for the coach, some for the phaeton, some 
for the cabriolet, &c., but that all are produced by si- 
milar trains of operation. 

With respect to the numcrous other pieces of iron- 
work required in a coach, and known to the workman 
by the technical names of plates, loops, stays, hoops, 
clips, bolts, steps, treads, joints, jacks, shackles, &c., 
all we can say is that they are specimens of smith’s 
work requiring considerable skill and ingenuity. 

The labours of the’ smith aliecrnate, or rather, are 
siinultaneous with those of the ‘ body-maker’ and the 
‘carriage-maker, and theretore we cannot profess to 
follow the precise order of proceeding. At certain 


SUP2LEMENT. T.] THE PEN 
staves in the progress of the wood-work various pieces 
of ivon are worked into their proper places, before 
oiher pieces or wood arc connected together. This 1s 
par elite uly the case 11‘ carriage’ mechanisin_ beneath 
the body, 11 which a considerable quantity of ivon is 
employed, the adjustment of which alternates with the 
work of the carnmage-inaker. 

A remark may “be apphed to the 

sunilar to that .applicd to the ‘coach-smith.’  ITTis 
labours are directed not io the coach as a whole, but 
lo the several parts of it during their progress. A 
coach-carver must necessarily be a man of some taste, 
even if he only executes patterns designed by others, 
but much more so if he designs them hnusclf His 
operations are of two different k inds, the simplest being 
that of carving the beadines and mouldings of the 
body or carnage, and the more elaborate that of pro- 
ducing the fohage and ornamental tracery which add 
eo much to the beauty ofa well-built coach. In ‘state- 
coaches’ this species of decoration 1s profuse and v ery 
costly ;* but every coach, however simple, contains 
more or less carving. ‘The tools of the coach carver 
resemble those of carvers in general: they are mcre 
distinguished for their excellence than for thelr nuin- 
ber or their size; and the workinan depends more on 
his own taste and invention than on any prescribed 
rules of proceeding. ‘The coach-carver is indeed an 
artist, and as such is ehly paid. 

One of the most remarkable opcrations in the con- 
struction of a coach is that of covering the upper part 
with leather; remarkable, we incan, in respect of the 
inanual dexterity required. ‘he panels, the quarters 
or npper panels, and the roof of a coach are very 
thickly painted, both tor beauty of appearance and for 
durabiuity. But the igher class of coach-builders do 
not trust exclusively fo this external preservative ; 
they cover the roof, and the upper part of the front, 
back, and sides, with leather, previous to the process 
of painting. It might be supposed that a hide of 
leather is for this purpose cut mito pieces, one for the 
roof, one for each side, and soon; but the whole is 
covered with one Inde, free from ¢ any joints or divisions 
whatever, and yet made to adhere close ly to the wood- 
work in every part without folds or wrinkles. The 
hide, which is of a large size and sound quality, 1s first 
thor oughly moistened throu ehout and thrown over the 
top of the coach, the edges hanging down ou all sides. 
The currier then rubs or presses it down all over the 
Poommmii wit lies close and even in every part. He 
next proceeds to onc of the sides, and in hke manner 
rubs and scrapes the leather till all irregularitics dis- 
appear. The leathcr is in that soft and phable state, 
that it will yield to the movement of the tools, and 
enable the workman to fit it to every part of the coach 
with perfect closeness. .A little consideration must 
show that a superfluous fold of leather will occur at 
each corner; yet by working it towards a central point 
at the back or front, the currier succeeds in erasing or 
pressing out all irregular ities, and in producing a sur- 
face sufficiently flat and smooth for the subsequent 
operations of the painicr. The division betwecn the 
upper and lower portion of a coach is usnally covered 


‘ coach-carver’ 


by beading of some kind or other, and the Icather is | 


trimmed or cut to this line of division. This operation 
of covering a coach is as important as it is curious ; Jor 
ita puncture be made through the leather, and rain- 
water enter even in minute quantity, the surface will 
be uneven and disfigured. 

The other portions of leather required in a coach 
need not much description. They consist principally 


* The carving of the present Royal state-coach of Englana, 
which was executed about eighty years ago, cost two thousand 
five hundred pounds! 


VN Y pats AZINE. 


007 


oi )ands and straps of various kinds. The leather or 
lnac is laid out fiat on a board and cnt to the required 
shapes by means of sharp knives. Pieces are stitched 
together, or buckles, loops, rings, or straps are fas- 
tened to them, in the same manner as harness-work 
eenerally is done. The workman sits at a low bench, 
and holding the piece of leather on which he may be 
at work between a pur of clams or boards, uses the 
awl and the sewing-twine in the same manner as the 
boot-maker. A horse's collar, and the ecneral harness 
for a saddle-horse, do not come under the manutac- 
turing arrangements of the coach-builder: but at the 
factory which we here descr ibe, all the articles of leather 
required, either for the coach itself or for its attach- 
ment to the horses, are made within the walls of the 
building. A mode of employing leather in which 
much neatness and dexterity are required, is in cover- 
ing the iron rails or bars which occur in.gigs and 
phaectons, and other forms of private carriages. The 
leather, before b« cig japanned or painted, 1s cut into 
strips, corresponding with the length and circumfe- 
rence of the rails to be covered, and is then lightly 
fitted on in a moistened state, the joints and angles 
being worked np with much nicety, and the meeting 
edges being stitched closely together. 

A department of the coach-factory, very differcnt 
from those which relate to the working of wood, iron, 
and leather, 1s that im which the pamung, varnishing, ” 
and polishing are effected. The ‘ painter’s-loft’ is one 
in which a coach remains for a considerable period, 
and in which 1t receives no smail share of its beauty of 
appearance. ‘Coach-painting’ is distinguished from or- 
dinary house-painting by the large nuniber of separate 
coats of paint laid successively one on another, and by 
the high degree of purity and polish given to the suriace, 

rather than by any difference in the materials employed. 
The surfaces, whether of ash, oak, elin, deal, maho- 
gany, iron, or leather, are coated so thickly with paint, 
that the materials ihemselves are cffectually concealed. 
The paint is formed of the nsual mineral colours, mixed 
with linsced oil and turpentine; and the varnish em- 
ployed 1s that prepared from eum-copal, which, though 
slow in drying, 1s very dur able. 

The principal parts of a coach, such as the panels, 
the doors, the quarters, &c., receive as many as twelve 
or fifteen different coats of paint, each one being dried 
betore the next following one is applied, and the whole 
being repeatedly smoothed or polished with rotten-stone, 
purnice, and sunilar substances. The earlier coats, as 
in house-painting, are termed the ‘priming,’ and are 
intended to form the foundation on which the subse- 
quent coats are laid. 

The earher coats of paint arc formed of whitc-lead 
and litharge, to which snecced many coats of white-lead 
and yellow- -ocnre. When this body of paint has bcen 
dried and smoothed, the layers of grecn, brown, yellow, 
or other selected colours are applicd to those parts 
which are not customarily black, while black paint is 
laid on the parts just mentioned. A sufficient body of 
paint being thus laid on, the roof, the upper panels, 
wae the sword-case (a protuber ance,at. the back of a 

oach, introduced when gentlemen carried swords) are 
Basal with several layers of black-japan, and the other 
parts of the coach receive six or cight coats of copal- 
varnish. The final process or polishing is deferred for 
some considerable tine, to ensure the previous harden- 
ine of the varnish, 

The painting of the whecls of a coach is done either 
by the ccach-builder or the wheclwright, according to 
circumstances ; but wherever it be efrected, the process 
is nearly the same as for the ‘carriage’ part of a ve- 
hicle. ‘The part of the coach-painter’s work which re- 
quires the largest amount of care and neatness is that 
of ‘picking-out,’ or painting fine hnes, scrolls, &c. of 


508 THE PENNY 
one colour on a groundwork of a different colour. 
That portion of the painting which relates to the he- 
raldic arms and crests is altogether distinct from the 
rest, and 1s-the work of a higher class of artisans called 
‘jierald-painters,’ whose services are paid for at a high 
rate. The herald-painter can lay no claim to compa- 
ison with the portrait-painter or the landscape-painter ; 
but still, the accuracy of design, the neatness and clear- 
ness of outline, and the vividness of colour which he 
must display, require far more taste than that displayed 
by coach-painters, andggive a higher value to his time. 

Those to whom a sixpenny ride in an omnibus is a 
fuxury are but little aware of the delicacy, the ele- 
gance, and the attention to personal comfort displayed 
in the interior fittings of a pleasure-carriage. In one 
of the Comedies of the last century, there 1s a scene in 
which a ‘ fine gentleman’ laments that he has been 
unsuccessfully to all the mercers about-town, to select 
-or his coach a silk lining which would “ suit his com- 
plexion.” We do not imagine that the fine gentlemen 
of real life are so fastidious; but it 1s very certain that 
considerable taste is displayed in selecting not only the 
material, but the colour of the coach-trimmings. The 
principal materials employed in this manner are fine 
spanish cloths, rich,. plain, and embossed silks, em- 
bossed leather, richly woven lace, and horse-hair for 
stuffing cushions. The cloth is of the finest kind, and 
the silk is woven expressly for these purposes at Spi- 
talfields. The lace employed is made sometimes of 
worsted, sometimes of silk,-and in other instances of 
both combined, and it is used as a binding or edging 
for various paris of the interior; the finest is called 
‘broad-lace ;’ the next is termed ‘ pasting-lace,’ about 
half an inch broad, and is employed to cover and hide 
rows of tacks; and another kind, called ‘ seaming- 
iace, is used to cover seams and edges. The roof, 
sides, and various other parts of the interior of a 
coach are first brought to a level suriace by wadding 
and canvas, and are then lined with cloth. or silk. 
Cushions are covered with cloth, silk, or morocco 
leather, and are stuffed with horse-hair. The bottom 
of the coach, and the folding-steps which are shut up 
within the coach, are covered with carpet; and the 
neat appendages to the doors and windows are trimmed 
with cloth, lace, &c. in various ways. All these ope- 
rations resemble very much those of the upholsterer, 
the cloth, lace, silk, and carpeting being in some places 
sewn and in others tacked down in their places. 
There is also a part of the exterior of a coach on 
which the trimmer is engaged, viz. the ‘ hammer- 
cloth.” This is a cloth covering to the coachman’s 
seat, and is principally used for the more elegant 
kinds of coaches. The cloth of which it is formed is 
stiffened at the back, so as to enable it to fall in grace- 
ful folds. The upper and lower edges are trimmed 
With broad and rich lace; and the most conspicuous 
part of each side has usually an embroidered or chased 
crest. Temporary covers of oil-skin or some analo- 
fous substance are provided for the preservation of 
the hammer-cloth in wet weather. | 

A glance at the external appearance of a private 
carriage will show that iron is by no means the only 
metal employed in its construction, although it is by 


far the most important. Beading, plates, locks, hinges, | 


oe eee wee 


ee en esa ap cg 


ee 


MAGAZINE. (Dxc., 184]. 
presenting a pleasing appearance. Brass is the prin- 
cipal metal employed for such purposes, or iron plated 
with a thin sheet of brass, where strength is required. 
Copper is slightly employed; so likewise is a white 
alloy of copper called ‘ white brass,’ ‘ albata,’ or ‘ Ger- 
man silver.” A considerable quantity of semi-cylin- 
drical beading is used in various parts of a coach ; and 
this 1s formed in a simple inanner. ‘An orifice is 
formed in an iron or steel plate, the exact pattern of 
the cross-section of the beading ; and into this opening 
the end of a narrow slip of sheet-metal is introduced 
by a workman, as in the annexed cut. .This eud is 





seized by a kind of pincers on the other side, which 
are then drawn backwards by means of a winch at the 
farther end of the bench. The slip of sheet-metal is 
thus drawn forcibly through the pattern-hole in the 
plate, and acquires the required semi-cylindrical form. 
The inetal is made very hot by the compression it un-- 
dergocs. The concave side of the beading is afterwards 
filled in with some soft kind of metal, and is provided 
with points or studs for fixing it to the coach. Some- 
times the beading is made of copper, in which case it 
is afterwards painted ; sometimes of brass, if to be left 
exposed and bright; while for the best coaches the 
beading is made of a strip of sheet-copper which has 
had a sheet of thinner silver united firmly to it by 
pressure in a flattng-mill: in this case, of course, the 
beading 1s drawn with the silver side visible. 

The operation of plating, it need perhaps hardly be 
observed, is that of covering ‘some of the cheaper 
metals with a coating of silver, with a view to give to 
the article both a beauty of appearance equal to that 
of solid silver and a degree of strength not possessed 
by silver. Many articles of coach furniture are pre- 
pared in this way, the silver being first formed into 
leaves, sheets, or ribands, and then firmly united to 
the surface of the cheapet metal by a peculiar appli- 
cation of heat and dexterous manipulation. 

The chased ornaments, the coach-lamps, and ‘other 
appendages of a well-built private carriage, we must 
pass over without any particular notice. Eight pages 
form but a narrow field for the building of a coach; 


: a osale t ; 
handles, rings, buckles, crests, and ornaments of vari- ; and we can only hope to have given a few general no- 
ous descriptions, are made of one or other of the | tions on this very diverse, complicated, and ingenious 
metals susceptible of receiving a good polish and of | department of English manufacture. 


END OF VOLUME THE TENTH. 





<a, 


*.* The Office of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge is at 59, Lincoln’s Lun Fields, 
' LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT & CO., 22, LUDGATE STREET, 
Printed by Wiriram Croweks and Sons, Stamford Street, 











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