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+Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443
+       Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Robert Chambers and William Chambers
+
+Release Date: March 10, 2007 [EBook #20793]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                     CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
+
+  CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
+  INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
+
+
+  No. 443. NEW SERIES.   SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1852.   PRICE 1-1/2_d._
+
+
+
+
+PROSAIC SPIRIT OF THE AGE.
+
+
+There are some phrases that convey only a vague and indefinite
+meaning, that make an impression upon the mind so faint as to be
+scarcely resolvable into shape or character. Being associated,
+however, with the feeling of beauty or enjoyment, they are ever on our
+lips, and pass current in conversation at a conventional value. Of
+these phrases is the 'poetry of life'--words that never fail to excite
+an agreeable though dreamy emotion, which it is impossible to refer to
+any positive ideas. They are generally used, however, to indicate
+something gone by. The poetry of life, we say, with sentimental
+regret, has passed away with the old forms of society; the world is
+disenchanted of its talismans; we have awakened from the dreams that
+once lent a charm to existence, and we now see nothing around us but
+the cold hard crust of external nature.
+
+This must be true if we think it is so; for we cannot be mistaken,
+when we feel that the element of the poetical is wanting in our
+constitutions. But we err both in our mode of accounting for the fact,
+and in believing the loss we deplore to be irretrievable. The fault
+committed by reasoners on this subject is, to confound one thing with
+another--to account for the age being unpoetical--as it unquestionably
+is--by a supposed decay in the materials of poetry. We may as well be
+told that the phenomena of the rising and setting sun--of clouds and
+moonlight--of storm and calm--of the changing seasons--of the
+infinitely varying face of nature, are now trite and worn-out. They
+are as fresh and new as ever, and will be so at the last day of the
+world, presenting, at every recurring view, something to surprise as
+well as delight. To each successive generation of men, the phenomena
+both of the outer and inner world are absolutely new; and the child of
+the present day is as much a stranger upon the earth as the first-born
+of Eve. But the impression received by each individual from the things
+that surround him is widely different--as different as the faces in a
+crowd, which all present the common type of humanity without a single
+feature being alike. This fact we unconsciously assert in our everyday
+criticism; for when any similarity is detected in a description,
+whether of things internal or external, we at once stigmatise the
+later version as a plagiarism, and as such set it down as a confession
+of weakness.
+
+But although the manifestations of nature, being infinite, cannot be
+worn out, the capacity to enjoy them, being human, may decay. It may,
+in fact, in some natures, be entirely wanting, and in some generations
+at least partially so. Seamen, for instance, who live, move, and have
+their being in a world of poetry and romance, are the least poetical
+of men; even in their songs they affect the prosaic and matter of
+fact, and discard everything appertaining to the fanciful.[1] Here is
+a direct instance of the materials of poetry being present, and its
+spirit wanting. So common, however, is it to confound the poetical
+with the faculty of enjoying it, that we find a hygienic power
+ascribed as an absolute property to the beauty of that very element,
+from which they who view it, both in its sweetest and grandest
+aspects, derive no elevation of feeling whatever. Hufeland, who
+reckons among the great panaceas of life the joy arising from the
+contemplation of the beauties of nature, in estimating the advantage
+of sea-bathing as the chief natural tonic, attributes it in great part
+to the action of the prospect of the sea upon the nervous system. 'I
+am fully convinced,' says he, 'that the physical effects of
+sea-bathing must be greatly increased by the impression on the mind,
+and that a hypochondriac or nervous person may be half-cured by
+residing on the sea-coast, and enjoying a view of the grand scenes of
+nature which will there present themselves--such as, the rising and
+setting of the sun over the blue expanse of the waters, and the awful
+majesty of the waves during a storm.' Now, if all patients were alike
+impressionable, this would be sound doctrine; but, as it is, few see
+the sun rise at all, many retire before the dews of evening begin to
+condense, and almost all shut themselves carefully up during a storm.
+
+The poetry of life, we need hardly say, is not associated exclusively
+with the things of external nature:
+
+    All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
+    Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
+
+are likewise a portion of the materials which it informs as with a
+soul. For poetry does not create, but modify. It is neither passion
+nor power; neither beauty nor love; but to one of these it gives
+exaltation, to another majesty; to one enchantment, to another
+divinity. It is not the light of 'the sun when it shines, nor of the
+moon walking in brightness,' but the glory of the one, and the grace
+and loveliness of the other. It is not instruction, but that which
+lends to instruction a loftier character, ascending from the finite to
+the infinite. It is not morality, but that which deepens the moral
+impression, and sends the thrill of spiritual beauty throughout the
+whole being. But its appeals, says an eloquent writer, are mainly 'to
+those affections that are apt to become indolent and dormant amidst
+the commerce of the world;' and it aims at the 'revival of those purer
+and more enthusiastic feelings which are associated with the earlier
+and least selfish period of our existence. Immersed in business,
+which, if it sharpen the edge of intellect, leaves the heart barren;
+toiling after material wealth or power, and struggling with fortune
+for existence; seeing selfishness reflected all around us from the
+hard and glittering surface of society as from a cold and polished
+mirror; it would go hard with man in adversity, perhaps still more in
+prosperity, if some resource were not provided for him, which, under
+the form of an amusement and recreation, administered a secret but
+powerful balsam in the one case, and an antidote in the other.' Poetry
+elevates some of our emotions, disinters others from the rubbish of
+the world, heightens what is mean, transforms what is unsightly,
+
+    Clothing the palpable and the familiar
+    With golden exhalations of the dawn.
+
+It is a spiritual wine which revives the weary denizen of the vale of
+tears, and softens, warms, and stimulates, without the reaction of
+material cordials. 'It gives him wings,' says another writer, 'and
+lifts him out of the dirt; and leads him into green valleys; and
+carries him up to high places, and shews him at his feet the earth and
+all its glories.'
+
+The poetry of life, therefore, although one of those expressions that
+baffle definition, points to something of vast importance to the
+happiness of men and the progress of the race. It is no idle dream, no
+mere amusement of the fancy. Whenever we feel a generous thrill on
+hearing of a great action--that is poetry. Whenever we are conscious
+of a larger and loftier sympathy than is implied in the exercise of
+some common duty of humanity--that is poetry. Whenever we look upon
+the hard realities of life through a medium that softens and relieves
+them--that medium is poetry. Without poetry, there is no loftiness in
+friendship, no devotedness in love. The feelings even of the young
+mother watching her sleeping child till her eyes are dim with
+happiness, are one half poetry. Hark! there is music on the evening
+air, always a delightful incident in the most delightful scene; and
+here there are ruins, and woods, and waters, all the adjuncts of a
+picture. This is beauty; but if we breathe over that beauty the spirit
+of poetry, see what a new creation it becomes, and what a permanent
+emotion it excites!
+
+      The splendour falls on castle walls,
+        And snowy summits, old in story;
+      The long light shakes across the lakes,
+        And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
+    Blow, bugle blow, set the wild echoes flying;
+    Blow bugle, answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.
+
+      O hark! O hear! how thin and clear,
+        And thinner, clearer, further going;
+      O sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
+        The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
+    Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;
+    Blow bugle, answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.
+
+      O love, they die in yon rich sky!
+        They faint on field, and hill, and river;
+      Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
+        And grow for ever and for ever.
+    Blow, bugle blow, set the wild echoes flying;
+    And answer, echoes answer, dying, dying, dying.[2]
+
+This is a sample of the spiritual wine we have talked of--something to
+elevate and intoxicate. But the picture it presents does not pass away
+in the reaction of the morning. It haunts us in all after-life, rising
+up before us in the pauses of the world, to heal and refresh our
+wearied spirits.
+
+As in this poem the pleasure is caused by its appeals to the
+imagination heightening the feeling the scene naturally excites; by
+the spiritual and material world being linked together as regards the
+music; and by the connection established between the echoes and the
+sky, field, hill, and river, where they die--just so it is with the
+poetry of moral feeling. The spectacle we have instanced of the young
+mother watching her sleeping infant, is in itself beautiful; but it
+becomes poetical when we imagine the feeling of beauty united in her
+mind with the instinct of love, and detect in her glance, moist with
+emotion, the blending of hopes, memories, pride, and tearful joy.
+Poetry, therefore, is not moral feeling, but something that heightens
+and adorns it. It is not even a direct moral agent, for it deepens the
+lesson only through the medium of the feelings and imagination. Thus
+moral poetry, when reduced to writing, is merely morality conveyed in
+the form of poetry; and in like manner, religious poetry, is religion
+so conveyed. The thing conveyed, however, must harmonise with the
+medium, for poetry will not consent to give an enduring form to what
+is false or pernicious. It has often been remarked, with a kind of
+superstitious wonder, that poems of an immoral character never live
+long; but the reason is, that it is the characteristic of immorality
+to tie down man in the chains of the senses, and this shews that it
+has nothing in common with the spiritual nature of poetry. For the
+same reason, a poem based upon atheism, although it might attract
+attention for a time, would meet with no permanent response in the
+human breast; religion being Truth, and poetry her peculiar
+ministrant.
+
+Although written poetry, however, does not necessarily come into this
+subject, it may be observed, that the comparative incapacity of the
+present generation to enjoy the poetical is clearly exhibited in its
+literature. Never was there so much verse, and so little poetry. Never
+was the faculty of rhyming so impartially spread over the whole mass
+of society. The difficulty used to be, to find one possessed of the
+gift: now it is nearly as difficult to find one who is not. Formerly,
+to write verses was a distinction: now it is a distinction not to
+write them--and one of some consequence. But with all this multitude
+of poets, there is not one who can take his place with the
+comparatively great names of the past, or vanishing generation. Now
+and then we have a brilliant thought--even a certain number of verses
+deserving the name of a poem; but there is no sustained poetical
+power, nothing to mark an epoch, or glorify a name. When we commend,
+it is some passage distinct from the poem, something small, and
+finished, and complete in itself. The taste of the day runs more upon
+conceits and extravagances, such as Cowley would have admired, and
+which he might have envied. The suddenness of the impression, so to
+speak, made by great poets, their direct communication with the heart,
+belongs to another time. It is our ambition to come to the same end by
+feats of ingenuity; and instead of touching the feelings, and setting
+the imagination of the reader instantaneously aglow, to exercise his
+skill in unravelling and interpretation. We expect the pleasure of
+success to reward him for the fatigue.
+
+The same feeling is at work, as we have already pointed out, in
+decorative art; in which 'a redundancy of useless or ridiculous
+ornament is called richness, and the inability to appreciate simple
+and beautiful, or grand and noble forms, receives the name of genius.'
+The connection is curious, likewise, between this ingenuity of poetry
+and that of the machinery which gives a distinguishing character to
+our epoch. It looks as if the complication of images, working towards
+a certain end, were only another development of the genius that
+invents those wonderful instruments which the eye cannot follow till
+they are familiarly entertained--and sometimes not even then. If this
+idea were kept in view, there would be at least some wit, although no
+truth, in the common theory which attempts to account for the decline
+of poetry. Neither advancement in science, however, nor ingenuity in
+mechanics, is in itself, as the theory alleges, hostile to the
+poetical; on the contrary, the materials of poetry multiply with the
+progress of both. The prosaic character of the age does not flow from
+these circumstances, but exists in spite of them. It has been said,
+indeed, that the light of knowledge is unfavourable to poetry, by
+making the hues and lineaments of the phantoms it calls up grow
+fainter and fainter, till they are wholly dispelled. But this applies
+only to one class of images. The ghost of Banquo, for instance, may
+pale away and vanish utterly before the light of knowledge; but the
+air-drawn dagger of Macbeth is immortal like the mind itself.
+Knowledge cannot throw its illumination upon eternity, or dissipate
+the influences by which men feel they are surrounded. A candle brought
+into a darkened room discloses the material forms of the things in the
+midst of which we are standing, and which may have been involved, to
+our imagination, in a poetical mystery. But the light itself, as an
+unexplained wonder--its analogies with the flame of life--the
+modifications it receives from the faint gleam of the sky through the
+shadowed window--all are poetical materials, and of a higher
+character. Where one series of materials ends, another begins; and so
+on in infinite progression, till poetry seems to spurn the earth from
+beneath her foot--
+
+    Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
+    And in clear dream and solemn vision
+    Telling of things which no gross ear can hear;
+    Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
+    Begins to cast a beam on the outer shape--
+    The unpolluted temple of the mind,
+    And turn it by degrees to the soul's essence,
+    Till all be made immortal.
+
+Science with us, however, is a business instead of an ambition;
+ingenuity a trade rather than a taste. We go on from discovery to
+discovery, from invention to invention, with an insatiate but prosaic
+spirit, which turns everything to a profitable and practical
+account--imprisoning the very lightning, that it may carry our
+messages over land and under sea! We do not stop to look, to listen,
+to feel, to exalt with a moral elevation the objects of our study, and
+snatch a spiritual enjoyment from imagination. All with us is
+material; and all would be even mean, but for the essential grandeur
+of the things themselves. And here comes the question: Is this
+material progress incompatible with spiritual progress? Is the poetry
+of life less abundant because the conveniences of life are more
+complete and admirable? Is man less a spirit of the universe because
+he is a god over the elements? We answer, No: the scientific and the
+prosaic spirit are both independent elements in the genius of the age;
+or, if there is a necessary connection, it is the converse of what is
+supposed--the restless mind in which the fervour of poetry has died,
+plunging into science for the occupation that is necessary to its
+happiness. Thus one age is merely poetical, another merely scientific;
+although here, of course, we use, for the sake of distinctness, the
+broadest terms, unmindful of the modifications ranging between these
+extreme points. The age, however, that has least poetry has most
+science, and _vice versâ_.
+
+But man, unlike the other denizens of the earth, has power over his
+own destiny. He is able to cultivate the poetical as if it were a
+plant; and if once convinced of its important bearing upon his
+enjoyment of the world, he will do so. The imagination may be educated
+as well as the moral sense, and the result of the advancement of the
+one as well as the other is an expansion of the mind, and an
+enlargement of the capacity for happiness. The grand obstacle is
+precisely what we have now endeavoured to aid in removing--the common
+mistake as to the nature of the poetical, which it is customary to
+consider as something remote from, or antagonistic to, the business of
+life. So far from this, it is essentially connected with the moral
+feelings. It neutralises the conventionalisms of society, and makes
+the whole world kin. It enlarges the circle of our sympathies, till
+they comprehend, not only our own kind, but every living thing, and
+not only animate beings, but all created nature.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See _Journal_, No. 425. Article, 'Dibdin's Sailor-Songs.'
+
+[2] Tennyson.
+
+
+
+
+A DUEL IN 1830.
+
+
+I had just arrived at Marseilles with the diligence, in which three
+young men, apparently merchants or commercial travellers, were the
+companions of my journey. They came from Paris, and were enthusiastic
+about the events which had lately happened there, and in which they
+boasted of having taken part. I was, for my part, quiet and reserved;
+for I thought it much better, at a time of such political excitement
+in the south of France, where party passions always rise so high,
+to do nothing that would attract attention; and my three
+fellow-travellers no doubt looked on me as a plain, common-place
+seaman, who had been to the luxurious metropolis for his pleasure or
+on business. My presence, it seemed, did not incommode them, for they
+talked on as if I had not been there. Two of them were gay, merry, but
+rather coarse boon-companions; the third, an elegant youth, blooming
+and tall, with luxuriant black curling hair, and dark soft eyes. In
+the hotel where we dined, and where I sat a little distance off,
+smoking my cigar, the conversation turned on various love-adventures,
+and the young man, whom they called Alfred, shewed his comrades a
+packet of delicately perfumed letters, and a superb lock of beautiful
+fair hair.
+
+He told them, that in the days of July he had been slightly wounded,
+and that his only fear, while he lay on the ground, was that if he
+died, some mischance might prevent Clotilde from weeping over his
+grave. 'But now all is well,' he continued. 'I am going to fetch a
+nice little sum from my uncle at Marseilles, who is just at this
+moment in good-humour, on account of the discomfiture of the Jesuits
+and the Bourbons. In my character of one of the heroes of July, he
+will forgive me all my present and past follies: I shall pass an
+examination at Paris, and then settle down in quiet, and live happily
+with my Clotilde.' Thus they talked together; and by and by we parted
+in the court-yard of the coach-office.
+
+Close by was a brilliantly illumined coffee-house. I entered, and
+seated myself at a little table, in a distant corner of the room. Two
+persons only were still in the saloon, in an opposite corner, and
+before them stood two glasses of brandy. One was an elderly, stately,
+and portly gentleman, with dark-red face, and dressed in a quiet
+coloured suit; it was easy to perceive that he was a clergyman. But
+the appearance of the other was very striking. He could not be far
+from sixty years of age, was tall and thin, and his gray, indeed
+almost white hair, which, however, rose from his head in luxurious
+fulness, gave to his pale countenance a peculiar expression that made
+one feel uncomfortable. The brawny neck was almost bare; a simple,
+carelessly-knotted black kerchief alone encircled it; thick,
+silver-gray whiskers met together at his chin; a blue frock-coat,
+pantaloons of the same colour, silk stockings, shoes with thick soles,
+and a dazzlingly-white waistcoat and linen, completed his equipment. A
+thick stick leant in one corner, and his broad-brimmed hat hung
+against the wall. There was a certain convulsive twitching of the thin
+lips of this person, which was very remarkable; and there seemed, when
+he looked fixedly, to be a smouldering fire in his large, glassy,
+grayish-blue eyes. He was, it was evident, a seaman like myself--a
+strong oak that fate had shaped into a mast, over which many a storm
+had blustered, but which had been too tough to be shivered, and still
+defied the tempest and the lightning. There lay a gloomy resignation
+as well as a wild fanaticism in those features. The large bony hand,
+with its immense fingers, was spread out or clenched, according to the
+turn which the conversation with the clergyman took. Suddenly he
+stepped up to me. I was reading a royalist newspaper. He lighted his
+cigar.
+
+'You are right, sir; you are quite right not to read those infamous
+Jacobin journals.' I looked up, and gave no answer. He continued: 'A
+sailor?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'And have seen service?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'You are still in active service?'
+
+'No.' And then, to my great satisfaction, for my patience was
+well-nigh exhausted, the examination was brought to a conclusion.
+
+Just then, an evil destiny led my three young fellow-travellers into
+the room. They soon seated themselves at a table, and drank some
+glasses of champagne to Clotilde's health. All went on well; but when
+they began to sing the _Marseillaise_ and the _Parisienne_, the face
+of the gray man began to twitch, and it was evident a storm was
+brewing. Calling to the waiter, he said with a loud voice: 'Tell those
+blackguards yonder not to annoy me with their low songs!'
+
+The young men sprang up in a fury, and asked if it was to them he
+alluded.
+
+'Whom else should I mean?' said the gray man with a contemptuous
+sneer.
+
+'But we may drink and sing if we like, and to whom we like,' said the
+young man. '_Vive la République et vive Clotilde!_'
+
+'One as blackguardly as the other!' cried the gray-beard tauntingly;
+and a wine-glass, that flew at his head from the hand of the
+dark-haired youth, was the immediate rejoinder. Slowly wiping his
+forehead, which bled and dripped with the spilled wine, the old man
+said quite quietly: 'To-morrow, at the Cap Verd!' and seated himself
+again with the most perfect composure.
+
+The young man expressed his determination to take the matter on
+himself; that he alone would settle the quarrel, and promised to
+appear on the morrow at the appointed time. They then all departed
+noisily. The old man rose quietly, and turning to me, said: 'Sir, you
+have been witness to the insult; be witness also to the satisfaction.
+Here is my address: I shall expect you at five o'clock. Good-night,
+Monsieur l'Abbé! To-morrow, there will be one Jacobin less, and one
+lost soul the more. Good-night!' and taking his hat and stick, he
+departed. His companion the abbé followed soon after.
+
+I now learned the history of this singular man. He was descended from
+a good family of Marseilles. Destined for the navy while still young,
+he was sent on board ship before the Revolution, and while yet of
+tender years. Later, he was taken prisoner; and after many strange
+adventures, returned in 1793 to France: was about to marry, but having
+been mixed up with the disturbances of Toulon, managed to escape by a
+miracle to England; and learned before long that his father, mother,
+one brother, a sister of sixteen years of age, and his betrothed, had
+all been led to the guillotine to the tune of the _Marseillaise_.
+Thirst for revenge, revenge on the detested Jacobins, was now his sole
+aim. For a long time he roved about in the Indian seas, sometimes as a
+privateer, at others as a slave-dealer; and was said to have caused
+the tricoloured flag much damage, while he acquired a considerable
+fortune for himself. With the return of the Bourbons, he came back to
+France, and settled at Marseilles. He lived, however, very retired,
+and employed his large fortune solely for the poor, for distressed
+seamen, and for the clergy. Alms and masses were his only objects of
+expense. It may easily be believed, that he acquired no small degree
+of popularity among the lower classes and the clergy. But, strangely
+enough, when not at church, he spent his time with the most celebrated
+fencing-masters, and had acquired in the use of the pistol and the
+sword a dexterity that was hardly to be paralleled. In the year 1815,
+when the royalist reaction broke out in La Vendée, he roved about for
+a long time at the head of a band of followers. When at last this
+opportunity of cooling his rage was taken from him by the return of
+order, he looked out for some victim who was known to him by his
+revolutionary principles, and sought to provoke him to combat. The
+younger, the richer, the happier the chosen victim was, the more
+desirable did he seem. The landlord told me he himself knew of seven
+young persons who had fallen before his redoubted sword.
+
+The next morning at five o'clock, I was at the house of this singular
+character. He lived on the ground-floor, in a small simple room,
+where, excepting a large crucifix, and a picture covered with black
+crape, with the date, 1794, under it, the only ornaments were some
+nautical instruments, a trombone, and a human skull. The picture was
+the portrait of his guillotined bride; it remained always veiled,
+excepting only when he had slaked his revenge with blood; then he
+uncovered it for eight days, and indulged himself in the sight. The
+skull was that of his mother. His bed consisted of the usual hammock
+slung from the ceiling. When I entered, he was at his devotions, and a
+little negro brought me meanwhile a cup of chocolate and a cigar. When
+he had risen from his knees, he saluted me in a friendly manner, as if
+we were merely going for a morning walk together; afterwards he opened
+a closet, took out of it a case with a pair of English pistols, and a
+couple of excellent swords, which I put under my arm; and thus
+provided, we proceeded along the quay towards the port. The boatmen
+seemed all to know him. 'Peter, your boat!' He seated himself in the
+stern.
+
+'You will have the goodness to row,' he said; 'I will take the tiller,
+so that my hand may not become unsteady.'
+
+I took off my coat, rowed away briskly, and as the wind was
+favourable, we hoisted a sail, and soon reached Cap Verd. We could
+remark from afar our three young men, who were sitting at breakfast in
+a garden not far from the shore. This was the garden of a
+_restaurateur_, and was the favourite resort of the inhabitants of
+Marseilles. Here you find excellent fish; and also, in high
+perfection, the famous _bollenbresse_, a national dish in Provence, as
+celebrated as the _olla podrida_ of Spain. How many a love-meeting has
+occurred in this place! But this time it was not Love that brought the
+parties together, but Hate, his stepbrother; and in Provence the one
+is as ardent, quick, and impatient as the other.
+
+My business was soon accomplished. It consisted in asking the young
+men what weapons they chose, and with which of them the duel was to be
+fought. The dark-haired youth--his name was M---- L---- insisted that
+he alone should settle the business, and his friends were obliged to
+give their word not to interfere.
+
+'You are too stout,' he said to the one, pointing to his portly
+figure; 'and you'--to the other--'are going to be married; besides, I
+am a first-rate hand with the sword. However, I will not take
+advantage of my youth and strength, but will choose the pistol, unless
+the gentleman yonder prefers the sword.'
+
+A movement of convulsive joy animated the face of my old captain: 'The
+sword is the weapon of the French gentleman,' he said; 'I shall be
+happy to die with it in my hand.'
+
+'Be it so. But your age?'
+
+'Never mind; make haste, and _en garde_.'
+
+It was a strange sight: the handsome young man on one side,
+overbearing confidence in his look, with his youthful form, full of
+grace and suppleness; and opposite him that long figure, half
+naked--for his blue shirt was furled up from his sinewy arm, and his
+broad, scarred breast was entirely bare. In the old man, every sinew
+was like iron wire: his whole weight resting on his left hip, the long
+arm--on which, in sailor fashion, a red cross, three lilies, and other
+marks, were tattooed--held out before him, and the cunning, murderous
+gaze rivetted on his adversary.
+
+''Twill be but a mere scratch,' said one of the three friends to me. I
+made no reply, but was convinced beforehand that my captain, who was
+an old practitioner, would treat the matter more seriously. Young
+L----, whose perfumed coat was lying near, appeared to me to be
+already given over to corruption. He began the attack, advancing
+quickly. This confirmed me in my opinion; for although he might be a
+practised fencer in the schools, this was proof that he could not
+frequently have been engaged in serious combat, or he would not have
+rushed forwards so incautiously against an adversary whom he did not
+as yet know. His opponent profited by his ardour, and retired step by
+step, and at first only with an occasional ward and half thrust. Young
+L----, getting hotter and hotter, grew flurried; while every ward of
+his adversary proclaimed, by its force and exactness, the master of
+the art of fence. At length the young man made a lunge; the captain
+parried it with a powerful movement, and, before L---- could recover
+his position, made a thrust in return, his whole body falling forward
+as he did so, exactly like a picture at the Académie des Armes--'the
+hand elevated, the leg stretched out'--and his sword went through his
+antagonist, for nearly half its length, just under the shoulder. The
+captain made an almost imperceptible turn with his hand, and in an
+instant was again _en garde_. L---- felt himself wounded; he let his
+sword fall, while with his other hand he pressed his side; his eyes
+grew dim, and he sank into the arms of his friends. The captain wiped
+his sword carefully, gave it to me, and dressed himself with the most
+perfect composure. 'I have the honour to wish you good-morning,
+gentlemen: had you not sung yesterday, you would not have had to weep
+to-day;' and thus saying, he went towards his boat. ''Tis the
+seventeenth!' he murmured; 'but this was easy work--a mere greenhorn
+from the fencing-schools of Paris. 'Twas a very different thing when I
+had to do with the old Bonapartist officers, those brigands of the
+Loire.' But it is quite impossible to translate into another language
+the fierce energy of this speech. Arrived at the port, he threw the
+boatman a few pieces of silver, saying: 'Here, Peter; here's something
+for you.'
+
+'Another requiem and a mass for a departed soul, at the church of St
+Géneviève--is it not so, captain? But that is a matter of course.' And
+soon after we reached the dwelling of the captain.
+
+The little negro brought us a cold pasty, oysters, and two bottles of
+_vin d'Artois_. 'Such a walk betimes gives an appetite,' said the
+captain gaily. 'How strangely things fall out!' he continued in a
+serious tone. 'I have long wished to draw the crape veil from before
+that picture, for you must know I only deem myself worthy to do so
+when I have sent some Jacobin or Bonapartist into the other world, to
+crave pardon from that murdered angel; and so I went yesterday to the
+coffee-house with my old friend the abbé, whom I knew ever since he
+was field-preacher to the Chouans, in the hope of finding a victim for
+the sacrifice among the readers of the liberal journals. The
+confounded waiters, however, betray my intention; and when I am there,
+nobody will ask for a radical paper. When you appeared, my worthy
+friend, I at first thought I had found the right man, and I was
+impatient--for I had been waiting for more than three hours for a
+reader of the _National_ or of _Figaro_. How glad I am that I at once
+discovered you to be no friend of such infamous papers! How grieved
+should I be, if I had had to do with you instead of with that young
+fellow!' For my part, I was in no mood even for self-felicitations. At
+that time, I was a reckless young fellow, going through the
+conventionalisms of society without a thought; but the event of the
+morning had made even me reflect.
+
+'Do you think he will die, captain?' I asked: 'is the wound mortal?'
+
+'For certain!' he replied with a slight smile. 'I have a knack--of
+course for Jacobins and Bonapartists only--when I thrust _en quarte_,
+to draw out the sword by an imperceptible movement of the hand, _en
+tierce_, or _vice versâ_, according to circumstances; and thus the
+blade turns in the wound--_and that kills_; for the lung is injured,
+and mortification is sure to follow.'
+
+On returning to my hotel, where L---- also was staying, I met the
+physician, who had just visited him. He gave up all hope. The captain
+spoke truly, for the slight movement of the hand and the turn of the
+blade had accomplished their aim, and the lung was injured beyond the
+power of cure. The next morning early L---- died. I went to the
+captain, who was returning home with the abbé. 'The abbé has just been
+to read a mass for him,' he said; 'it is a benefit which, on such
+occasions, I am willing he should enjoy--more, however, from
+friendship for him, than out of pity for the accursed soul of a
+Jacobin, which in my eyes is worth less than a dog's! But walk in,
+sir.'
+
+The picture, a wonderfully lovely maidenly face, with rich curls
+falling around it, and in the costume of the last ten years of the
+preceding century, was now unveiled. A good breakfast, like that of
+yesterday, stood on the table. With a moistened eye, and turning to
+the portrait, he said: 'Thérèse, to thy memory!' and emptied his glass
+at a draught. Surprised and moved, I quitted the strange man. On the
+stairs of the hotel I met the coffin, which was just being carried up
+for L----; and I thought to myself: 'Poor Clotilde! you will not be
+able to weep over his grave.'
+
+
+
+
+THE TREE OF SOLOMON.
+
+
+    Wide forests, deep beneath Maldivia's tide,
+    From withering air the wondrous fruitage hide;
+    There green-haired nereids tend the bowery dells,
+    Whose healing produce poison's rage expels.
+
+    _The Lusiad._
+
+If Japan be still a sealed book, the interior of China almost unknown,
+the palatial temple of the Grand Lama unvisited by scientific or
+diplomatic European--to say nothing of Madagascar, the steppes of
+Central Asia, and some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago--how
+great an amount of marvel and mystery must have enveloped the
+countries of the East during the period that we now term the middle
+ages! By a long and toilsome overland journey, the rich gold and
+sparkling gems, the fine muslins and rustling silks, the pungent
+spices and healing drugs of the Morning Land, found their way to the
+merchant princes of the Mediterranean. These were not all. The
+enterprising traversers of the Desert brought with them, also, those
+tales of extravagant fiction which seem to have ever had their
+birthplace in the prolific East. Long after the time that doubt--in
+not a few instances the parent of knowledge--had, by throwing cold
+water on it, extinguished the last funeral pyre of the ultimate
+Phoenix, and laughed to scorn the gigantic, gold-grubbing pismires of
+Pliny; the Roc, the Valley of Diamonds, the mountain island of
+Loadstone, the potentiality of the Talisman, the miraculous virtues of
+certain drugs, and countless other fables, were accepted and believed
+by all the nations of the West. One of those drugs, seldom brought to
+Europe on account of its great demand among the rulers of the East,
+and its extreme rarity, was a nut of alleged extraordinary curative
+properties--of such great value, that the Hindoo traders named it
+_Trevanchere_, or the Treasure--of such potent virtue, that Christians
+united with Mussulmen in terming it the Nut of Solomon. Considered a
+certain remedy for all kinds of poison, it was eagerly purchased by
+those of high station at a period when that treacherous destroyer so
+frequently mocked the steel-clad guards of royalty itself--when
+poisoning was the crime of the great, before it had descended from the
+corrupt and crafty court to the less ceremonious cottage. Nor was it
+only as an antidote that its virtues were famed. A small portion of
+its hard and corneous kernel, triturated with water in a vessel of
+porphyry, and mixed, according to the nature of the disease and skill
+of the physician, with the powder of red or white coral, ebony, or
+stag's horns, was supposed to be able to put to flight all the
+maladies that are the common lot of suffering humanity. Even the
+simple act of drinking pure water out of a part of its polished shell
+was esteemed a salutary remedial process, and was paid for at a
+correspondently extravagant price. Doubtless, in many instances it did
+effect cures; not, however, by any peculiar inherent sanative
+property, but merely through the unbounded confidence of the patient:
+similar cases are well known to medical science; and at the present
+day, when the manufacture and sale of an alleged universal heal-all is
+said to be one of the shortest and surest paths that lead to
+fortune--when in our own country 'the powers that be' encourage rather
+than check such wholesale empiricism--we cannot consistently condemn
+the more ancient quack, who having, in all faith, given an immense sum
+for a piece of nut-shell, remunerated himself by selling draughts of
+water out of it to his believing dupes. The extraordinary history of
+the nut, as it was then told, assisted to keep up the delusion. The
+Indian merchants said, that there was only one tree in the world that
+produced it; that the roots of that tree were fixed, 'where never
+fathom-line did touch the ground,' in the bed of the Indian Ocean,
+near to Java, among the Ten Thousand Islands of the far East; but its
+branches, rising high above the waters, flourished in the bright
+sunshine and free air. On the topmost bough dwelt a griffin, that
+sallied forth every evening to the adjacent islands, to procure an
+elephant or rhinoceros for its nightly repast; but when a ship chanced
+to pass that way, his griffinship had no occasion to fly so far for a
+supper. Attracted by the tree, the doomed vessel remained motionless
+on the waters, until the wretched sailors were, one by one, devoured
+by the monster. When the nuts ripened, they dropped off into the
+water, and, carried by winds and currents to less dangerous
+localities, were picked up by mariners, or cast on some lucky shore.
+What is this but an Eastern version--who dare say it is not the
+original?--of the more classical fable of the dragon and the golden
+fruit of the Hesperides?
+
+Time went on. Vasco de Gama sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, and a
+new route was opened to Eastern commerce. The Portuguese, who
+encountered the terrors of the Cape of Storms, were not likely to be
+daunted by a griffin; yet, with all their endeavours, they never
+succeeded in discovering the precious tree. By their exertions,
+however, rather more of the drug was brought to Europe than had
+previously been; still there was no reduction in its estimated value.
+In the East, an Indian potentate demanded a ship and her cargo as the
+price of a perfect nut, and it was actually purchased on the terms; in
+the West, the Emperor Rodolph offered 4000 florins for one, and his
+offer was contemptuously refused; while invalids from all parts of
+Europe performed painful pilgrimages to Venice, Lisbon, or Antwerp, to
+enjoy the inestimable benefit of drinking water out of pieces of
+nut-shell! Who may say what adulterations and tricks were practised by
+dishonest dealers, to maintain a supply of this costly medicine? but,
+as similar impositions are not unknown at the present day, we may as
+well pass lightly over that part of our subject.
+
+The English and Dutch next made their way to the Indian Ocean; yet,
+though they sought for the invaluable Tree of Solomon, with all the
+energy supplied by a burning thirst for gain, their efforts were as
+fruitless and unsuccessful as those of the Portuguese. Strange tales,
+too, some of these ancient mariners related on their return to Europe:
+how, in the clear waters of deep bays, they had observed groves of
+those marvellous trees, growing fathoms down beneath the surface of
+the placid sea. Out of a mass of equally ridiculous reports, the only
+facts then attainable were at length sifted: these were, that the tree
+had not been discovered growing in any locality whatever; that the nut
+was sometimes found floating on the Indian Ocean, or thrown on the
+coast of Malabar, but more frequently picked up on the shores of a
+group of islands known as the Maldives; from the latter circumstance,
+the naturalists of the day termed it _Cocus Maldivicus_--the Maldivian
+cocoa-nut. Garcius, surnamed Ab Horto (of the garden), on account of
+his botanical knowledge, a celebrated authority on drugs and spices,
+who wrote in 1563, very sensibly concluded that the tree grew on some
+undiscovered land, from whence the nuts were carried by the waves to
+the places where they were found; other writers considered it to be a
+genuine marine production; while a few shrewdly suspected that it
+really grew on the Maldives. Unfortunately for the Maldivians, this
+last opinion prevailed in India. In 1607, the king of Bengal, with a
+powerful fleet and army, invaded the Maldives, conquered and killed
+their king, ransacked and plundered the islands, and, having crammed
+his ships with an immense booty, sailed back to Bengal--without,
+however, discovering the Tree of Solomon, the grand object of the
+expedition. Curiously enough, we are indebted to this horrible
+invasion for an interesting book of early Eastern travel--the
+Bengalese king having released from captivity one Pyrard de Laval, a
+French adventurer, who, six years previously, had suffered shipwreck
+on those inhospitable islands. Laval's work dispelled the idea that
+the nut grew upon the Maldives. He tells us, that it was found
+floating in the surf, or thrown up on the sea-shore only; that it was
+royal property; and whenever discovered, carried with great ceremony
+to the king, a dreadful death being the penalty of any subject
+possessing the smallest portion of it.
+
+The leading naturalists of the seventeenth century having the Maldives
+thus, in a manner, taken away from beneath their feet, took great
+pains to invent a local habitation for this wonderful tree; and at
+last they, pretty generally, came to the conclusion, that the vast
+peninsula of Southern Hindostan had at one time extended as far as the
+Maldives, but by some great convulsion of nature, the intermediate
+part between those islands and Cape Comorin had sunk beneath the
+waters of the ocean; that the tree or trees had grown thereon, and
+still continued to grow on the submerged soil; and the nuts when ripe,
+being lighter than water, rose to the surface, instead--as is the
+habit of supermarine arboreal produce--of falling to the ground.
+Scarcely could a more splendid illustration of the fallacies of
+hypothetical reasoning be found, than the pages that contain this
+specious and far-fetched argument. Even the celebrated Rumphius, who
+wrote so late as the eighteenth century, assures his readers that 'the
+_Calappa laut_,' the Malay term for the nut, 'is not a terrestrial
+production, which may have fallen by accident into the sea, and there
+become hardened, as Garcias ab Horto relates, but a fruit, growing
+itself in the sea, whose tree has hitherto been concealed from the eye
+of man.' He also denominates it 'the wonderful miracle of nature, the
+prince of all the many rare things that are found in the sea.'
+
+In the fulness of time, knowledge is obtained and mysteries are
+revealed. Chemistry and medicine, released from the tedious but not
+useless apprenticeship they had served to alchemy and empiricism, set
+up on their own account, and as a consequence, the 'nut of the sea'
+soon lost its European reputation as a curative, though it was still
+considered a very great curiosity, and the unsettled problem of its
+origin formed a famous stock of building materials for the erecters of
+theoretical edifices. In India and China, it retained its medicinal
+fame, and commanded a high price. Like everything else that is brought
+to market, the nuts varied in value. A small one would not realise
+more than L.50, while a large one would be worth L.120; those,
+however, that measured as much in breadth as in length were most
+esteemed, and one measuring a foot in diameter was worth L.150
+sterling money. Such continued to be the prices of these nuts for two
+centuries after the ships of Europe had first found their way to the
+seas and lands of Asia. But a change was at hand. In the year 1770, a
+French merchant-ship entered the port of Calcutta. The motley
+assemblage of native merchants and tradesmen, Baboos and Banians,
+Dobashes, Dobies, and Dingy-wallahs, that crowd a European vessel's
+deck on her first arrival in an Eastern port, were astounded when, to
+their eager inquiries, the captain replied that his cargo consisted of
+_cocos de mer_.[3] Scarcely could the incredulous and astonished
+natives believe the evidence of their own eyesight, when, on the
+hatches being opened, they saw that the ship was actually filled with
+this rare and precious commodity. Rare and precious, to be so no
+longer. Its price instantaneously fell; persons who had been the
+fortunate possessors of a nut or two, were ruined; and so little did
+the French captain gain by his cargo, that he disclosed the secret of
+its origin to an English mercantile house, which completed the utter
+downfall of the nut of Solomon, by landing another cargo of it at
+Bombay during the same year.
+
+A singular circumstance in connection with the discovery of the tree,
+a complete exemplification of the good old tale, _Eyes and no Eyes_,
+is worthy of record, as a lesson to all, that they should ever make
+proper use of the organs which God has bestowed upon them for the
+acquisition of useful knowledge. Mahé de la Bourdonnais, one of the
+best and wisest of French colonial governors, whose name, almost
+unknown to history, is embalmed for ever in St Pierre's beautiful
+romance of _Paul and Virginia_, sent from the Isle of France, in 1743,
+a naval officer named Picault, to explore the cluster of islands now
+known as the Seychelles. Picault made a pretty correct survey, and in
+the course of it discovered some islands previously unknown; one of
+these he named Palmiers, on account of the abundance and beauty of the
+palm-trees that grew upon it; that was all he knew about them. In
+1768, a subsequent governor of the Isle of France sent out another
+expedition, under Captain Duchemin, for a similar purpose. Barré, the
+hydrographer of this last expedition, landing on Palmiers, at once
+discovered that the palms, from which the island had, a quarter of a
+century previously, received its name, produced the famous and
+long-sought-for _cocos de mer_. Barré informed Duchemin, and the twain
+kept the secret to themselves. Immediately after their return to the
+Isle of France, they fitted out a vessel, sailed to Palmiers, and
+having loaded with nuts, proceeded to Calcutta. How their speculation
+turned out, we have already related. We should add that Duchemin, in
+his vain expectation of making an immense fortune by the discovery,
+considering that the name of the island might afford future
+adventurers a clue to his secret, artfully changed it to Praslin, the
+name of the then intendant of marine, which it still retains.
+
+We shall speak no more of the Tree of Solomon; it is the _Lodoicea
+Seychellarum_--the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles--as modern
+botanists term it, that we have now to deal with. As its name implies,
+it is a palm, and one of the most nobly-graceful of that family, which
+have been so aptly styled by Linnæus the princes of the vegetable
+kingdom. Its straight and rather slender-looking stem, not more than a
+foot in diameter, rises, without a leaf, to the height of from 90 to
+100 feet, and at the summit is superbly crowned with a drooping plume,
+consisting of about a score of magnificent leaves, of a broadly-oval
+form. These leaves, the larger of which are twenty feet in length and
+ten in width, are beautifully marked with regular folds, diverging
+from a central supporting chine; their margins are more or less deeply
+serrated towards the extremities; and they are supported by footstalks
+nearly as long as themselves. Every year there forms, in the central
+top of the tree, a new leaf, which, closed like a fan, and defended by
+a downy, fawn-coloured covering, shoots up vertically to a height of
+ten feet, before it, expanding, droops gracefully, and assumes its
+place among its elder brethren; and as the imperative rule pervades
+all nature, that, in course of time, the eldest must give place unto
+their juniors, the senior lowest leaf annually falls withered to the
+ground, yet leaving a memento of its existence in a distinct ring or
+scar upon the parent trunk. It is clear, then, that by the number of
+these rings the age of the tree can be accurately determined; some
+veterans shew as many as 400, without any visible signs of decay; and
+it seems that about the age of 130 years, the tree attains its full
+development.
+
+As in several other members of the palm family, the male and female
+flowers are found on different individuals. The female tree, after
+attaining the age of about thirty years, annually produces a large
+drupe or fruit-bunch, consisting of five or six nuts, each enveloped
+in an external husk, not dissimilar in form and colour to the coat of
+the common walnut, but of course much larger, and proportionably
+thicker. The nut itself is about a foot in length; of an elliptic
+form; at one end obtuse, at the other and narrower end, cleft into two
+or three, sometimes even four lobes, of a rounded form on their
+outsides, but flattened on the inner. It is exceedingly difficult to
+give a popular description when encumbered by the technicalities of
+science; we must try another method. Let the reader imagine two pretty
+thick vegetable marrows, each a foot long, joined together, side by
+side, and partly flattened by a vertical compression, he will then
+have an idea of the curious form of the double cocoa-nut. Sometimes,
+as we have mentioned, a nut exhibits three lobes; let the reader
+imagine the end of one of the marrows cleft in two, and he will have
+an idea of the three-lobed nut; and if he imagines two more marrows
+placed side by side, and compressed with and on the top of the former
+two, he will then have an idea of the four-lobed nut. In fact, almost
+invariably, the four-lobed nut parts in the middle, forming two of the
+more common two-lobed nuts, only distinguishable by the flatness of
+their inner sides from those that grew separately. When green, they
+contain a refreshing, sweetish, jelly-like substance, but when old,
+the kernel is so hard that it cannot be cut with a knife.
+
+The enormous fruit-bunches, weighing upwards of fifty pounds, hang
+three or four years on the tree before they are sufficiently ripened
+to fall down; thus, though only one drupe is put forth each season,
+yet the produce of three or four years, the aggregate weight of which
+must be considerable, burdens the stem at one time. This great weight,
+suspended at the top of the lofty and almost disproportionately
+slender stem, causes the tree to rock gracefully with the slightest
+breeze; the agitated leaves creating a pleasing noise, somewhat
+similar to that of a distant waterfall. Some French writers have
+enthusiastically alluded to this rustling sound as a delightful
+adjunct of the interesting scene; nor have our English travellers
+spoken in less glowing language. 'Growing in thousands,' says Mr
+Harrison, 'close to each other, the sexes intermingled, a numerous
+offspring starting up on all sides, sheltered by the parent plants,
+the old ones fallen into the sear and yellow leaf, and going fast to
+decay to make room for the young trees, presents to the eye a picture
+so mild and pleasing, that it is difficult not to look upon them as
+animated objects, capable of enjoyment, and sensible of their
+condition.'
+
+Though no longer producing a drug of great value for the exclusive use
+of the wealthy, the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles affords many
+humbler benefits to the inhabitants of those islands. The trunk, when
+split and cleared of its soft, fibrous interior, serves to make
+water-troughs and palisades. The immense leaves are used, in that fine
+climate, as materials for building: not only do they make an excellent
+thatch, but they are also employed for walls. With one hundred leaves,
+a commodious dwelling, including doors, windows, and partitions, may
+be constructed. Baskets and brooms are made from the ribs of the
+leaves and the fibres of their footstalks. The young leaf, previous to
+its expanding, is soft, and of a pale-yellow colour; in this state it
+is cut into longitudinal stripes, and plaited into hats; while the
+downy substance by which it is covered, is found valuable for stuffing
+beds and pillows. Vessels, of various forms and uses, are made out of
+the light, strong, and durable nut-shells. When preserved whole, with
+merely a perforation at the top, they are used to carry water, some
+holding nearly three gallons. When divided, the parts serve, according
+to their size and shape, for platters, dishes, or drinking-cups. Being
+jet-black, and susceptible of a high polish, they are often curiously
+carved, and mounted with the precious metals, to form sugar-basins,
+toilet-dishes, and other useful and ornamental articles for the
+dwellings of the tasteful and refined.
+
+The group of islands termed the Seychelles lie to the northward and
+eastward of Madagascar, in the latitude of 6 degrees south of the
+equinoctial. The tree, in its natural state, is found on three small,
+rocky, and mountainous islands only--Praslin, containing about 8000
+acres; Curieuse, containing but 1000; and Round Island, smaller still;
+all three lying within a few hundred yards of each other. These
+islands are about 900 miles distant from the Maldives; and as Garcias
+ab Horto, in the sixteenth century, supposed, the nuts, many of which
+grow on rocky precipices overhanging the sea, drop into the waves, and
+are transported by the prevailing currents to other shores. It is a
+remarkable fact, that the trees will not flourish on any other of the
+adjacent islands of the Seychelles group. Many have been planted, but
+they merely vegetate, and are wretchedly inferior to the splendid
+natural trees of Praslin and Curieuse. From the time that the nut
+falls from the tree, a year elapses before it germinates; it only
+requires to lie on the ground without being covered, for the germ
+shoots downwards, forming a root, from which ascends the plumule of
+the future plant.
+
+Several attempts have been made to grow this tree in some of the
+larger horticultural establishments in Great Britain, but hitherto
+without success. Hopes, however, are now entertained; for the
+interesting spectacle of a double cocoa-nut in the act of germination
+may be witnessed at this moment in the national gardens at Kew.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Cocoa-nuts of the sea--the French appellation of the nut.
+
+
+
+
+FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY.
+
+LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION AGAINST FRAUDS.
+
+
+There is a proverb full of wisdom--as these brief embodiments of
+experience often are--to the effect that in commerce 'the buyer's eye
+is his merchant.' It has found its way into our legal text-books, to
+express a principle which modern law has had much in view--that people
+should look to their own skill and knowledge in making their
+purchases, and should not trust to the legislature to protect them, by
+interference and penalties, from purchasing unworthy commodities.
+Undoubtedly, fraud, when it occurs, must be punished. If a merchant
+sell by sample, and intentionally give a different article--if a
+dog-dealer clothe a cur in the skin of a departed lap-dog, and sell
+him warranted an undoubted Blenheim spaniel--there should be some
+punishment for the fraud. It will not be found expedient, however, to
+go far, even in such clear cases. In too entirely superseding the
+buyer's eye, and substituting the judge's, we remove a very vigilant
+check on fraud. If people never bought Blenheim spaniels without an
+ample knowledge of the animal's character and appearance, followed by
+minute observation, it would do more to prevent fraud in this small
+by-article of commerce than a host of penal statutes.
+
+And when we come to less palpable imperfections in goods, it will be
+seen that legislation is quite incapable of coping with them. If every
+thrifty housewife, whose last bought bushel of potatoes is more waxy
+than they ought to be--if every shabby dandy, who has bought a glossy
+satin hat, 'warranted superfine, price only 5s.,' and who finds it
+washed into a kind of dingy serge by the next shower--had his action
+for the infliction of penalties, it would be a more litigious world
+even than it is. With thimble-riggers, chain-droppers, fortune-telling
+gipsies, and the like, the law wages a most unproductive war. Penal
+statutes and the police do little to put them down, while there are
+fools whose silly selfishness or vanity makes them ready dupes: if
+these fools would become wise and prudent, all the penalties might be
+at once dispensed with. But only imagine the state of litigational
+confusion in which this country would be plunged, if every tradesman
+who sold 'an inferior article,' which had a fair and attractive
+appearance, could be subject to penal proceedings!
+
+Yet our ancestors made this attempt; and under the early monarchs of
+England there were passed a number of statutes, which vainly
+endeavoured to compel every manufacturer and dealer to be honest. The
+wool-trade was an especial favourite of this kind of legislation.
+Indeed, if any one be in search of violent legislative attempts to
+force trade into artificial channels, he will be very sure to find
+them if he turn up the acts on the wool and woollen trade. They would
+fill some volumes by themselves. One great object of the government,
+was to prohibit the exportation of wool, to export it only in the
+manufactured article, and to sell that only for gold. A tissue of
+legislation of the most complicated kind was passed to establish these
+objects. Costly arrangements were made, by which not only in this
+country, but also in others, the sale of the woollens was conducted
+only by Englishmen. This, however, is not our immediate subject--it
+relates rather to the curious efforts to make the manufacturers
+produce a sound article.
+
+An act of the 13th of Richard II. (1389), gives this melancholy
+account of the dishonesty of certain cloth-makers, and provides a
+penal remedy: 'Forasmuch as divers plain clothes, that be wrought in
+the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Bristol, and Gloucester, be tacked
+and folded together, and set to sale, of the which clothes a great
+part be broken, brused, and not agreeing in the colour, neither be
+according to breadth, nor in no manner to the part of the same clothes
+showed outwards, but be falsely wrought with divers wools, to the
+great deceit, loss, and damage, of the people, in so much, that the
+merchants who buy the same clothes, and carry them out of the realm to
+sell to strangers, be many times in danger to be slain, and sometimes
+imprisoned, and put to fine and ransom by the same strangers, and
+their said clothes burnt or forfeit, because of the great deceit and
+falsehood that is found in the said clothes when they be untacked and
+opened, to the great slander of the realm of England. It is ordained
+and assented, that no plain cloth, tacked nor folded, shall be set to
+sale within the said counties; but that they be opened, upon pain to
+forfeit them, so that the buyers may see them and know them, as it is
+used in the county of Essex.' One would think, that if the buyers
+found themselves habitually cheated by made-up goods, they would find
+the remedy themselves, by insisting on seeing them, and declining,
+according to a Scottish saying, to buy 'a pig in a poke.' Another
+clause of the same act seems equally gratuitous: 'Provided always,
+that after the merchants have bought the same clothes to carry, and do
+carry them out of the realm, they may tack them and fold them at their
+pleasure, for the more easy carriage of them.' What a very
+accommodating statute!
+
+And it really is reasonable, in comparison with other enactments on
+the same subject. In the ninth year of Henry VIII., for instance, an
+act was passed for 'avoiding deceits in making of woollen clothes,'
+containing a whole series of troublesome regulations, such as the
+following: 'That the wool which shall be delivered for or by the
+clothier to any person or persons, for breaking, combing, carding, or
+spinning of the same, the delivery therefore shall be by even just
+poise and weight of averdupois, sealed by authority, not exceeding in
+weight after the rate of xii pound seemed wool, above one quarter of a
+pound for the waste of the same wool, and in none other manner; and
+that the breaker or comber do deliver again to the same clothier the
+same wool so broken and combed, and the carder and spinner to deliver
+again to the said clothier yarn of the same wool, by the same even
+just and true poise and weight (the waste thereof excepted), without
+any part thereof concealing, or any more oil-water, or other thing put
+thereunto deceivable.
+
+'Item, that the weaver which shall have the weaving of any woollen
+yarn to be webbed into cloth, shall weave, work, and put into the web,
+for cloth to be made thereof, as much and all the same yarn as the
+clothier, or any person for him, shall deliver to the same weaver,
+with his used mark put to the same, without changing, or any parcel
+thereof leaving out of the said web; or that he restore to the same
+clothier the surplus of the same yarn, if any shall be left not put in
+the same web, and without any more oil brine, moisture, dust, sand, or
+other thing deceivably putting or casting to the same web, upon pain
+to forfeit for every default three shillings and four pence.
+
+'Item, that no manner of person buy any coloured wool, or coloured
+woollen yarn, of any carder, spinner, or weaver, but only in open
+market, upon pain of forfeiture of such wool and yarn so bought.' And
+so on: these, in fact, are but the beginning of a series of
+regulations, which it would tire the reader to peruse throughout.
+
+One would think, that shoes and other leather manufactures are among
+the last things that require to be made sufficient by legislation. The
+ill-made shoes wear out, and the purchaser, if he be wise, will not go
+again to the same shop. Parliament, however, did not leave him in the
+matter to the resources of his own wisdom. By a statute of the 13th of
+Richard II., it is provided: 'Forasmuch as divers shoemakers and
+cordwainers use to tan their leather, and sell the same falsely
+tanned--also make shoes and boots of such leather not well tanned, and
+sell them as dear as they will, to the great deceipt of the poor
+commons--it is accorded and assented, that no shoemaker nor cordwainer
+shall use the craft of tanning, nor tanner the craft of shoemaking;
+and he that doth contrary to this act, shall forfeit to the king all
+his leather so tanned, and all his boots and shoes.'
+
+Fifty-two years later--in the year 1485, it was found that the people
+were still cheated with bad boots and shoes--especially, we doubt not,
+when they bought them cheap--and the legislature, pondering on a
+possible remedy, thought they might find it in further subdivision,
+and prohibiting tanners from currying their leather; and so it is
+enacted, 'that where tanners in divers parts of this realm usen within
+themselves the mystery of currying and blacking of leather
+insufficiently, and also leather insufficiently tanned, and the same
+leather so insufficiently wrought, as well in tanning as in currying
+and blacking, they put to sale in divers fairs and markets, and other
+places, to the great deceipt and hurt of liege people'--so no tanner
+is to 'use the mystery of a currier, nor black no leather to be put to
+sale, under the forfeiture of every hyde,' &c.
+
+Let us now introduce our readers to a legislative protection against
+frauds of a more dire and mysterious character, in the shape of an act
+passed in the sixth year of Edward VI., 'for stuffing of feather-beds,
+bolsters, mattresses, and cushions.' Our readers, we hope, will not
+suppose--as the words might lead them to infer--that these articles
+are to be stuffed with the act; on the contrary, it would be highly
+penal so to do. The chief provisions are: 'For the avoiding of the
+great deceipt used and practised in stuffing of feather-beds,
+bolsters, pillows, mattresses, cushions, and quilts--be it enacted,
+that no person or persons whatsoever shall make (to the intent to
+sell, or offer to be sold) any feather-bed, bolster, or pillow, except
+the same be stuffed with dry-pulled feathers, or clean down only,
+without mixing of scalded feathers, fen-down, thistle-down; sand,
+lime, gravel, unlawful or corrupt stuff, hair, or any other, upon pain
+of forfeiture,' &c. One would like to know what 'unlawful or corrupt
+stuff' is, and whether the corruptness be physical through putridity,
+or merely metaphysical and created, like the unlawfulness by statute.
+The act provides further, that after a certain day no person 'shall
+make (to the intent to sell, or offer, or put to sale) any quilt,
+mattress, or cushions, which shall be stuffed with any other stuff
+than feathers, wool, or flocks alone,' on pain of forfeiture.
+
+But the most stringent enactments for the protection of the public
+against such wholesale deceptions appear to have been in the article
+of fustian; and perhaps the hidden adulterations that suggested the
+enactments, may be the reason why unsound reasonings and hollow
+speeches are called fustian. There is something mysteriously awful in
+the act of the eleventh year of Henry VII., called 'A remedy to avoid
+deceitful slights used upon fustians.' It begins thus:
+
+'That whereas fustians brought from the parts beyond the sea unshorn
+into this realm, have been and should be the most profitable cloth for
+doublets and other wearing clothes greatly used among the common
+people of this realm, and longest have endured of anything that have
+come into the same realm from the said parts to that intent--for that
+the cause hath been that such fustians afore this time hath been truly
+wrought and shorn with the broad sheare, and with no other instruments
+or deceitful mean used upon the same. Now so it is, that divers
+persons, by subtlety and undue slights and means, have deceivably
+imagined and contrived instruments of iron, with which irons, in the
+most highest and secret places of their houses, they strike and draw
+the said irons on the said fustians unshorn--by means whereof they
+pluck off both the nap and cotton of the said fustians, and break
+commonly both the ground and threads in sunder; and after, by crafty
+sleeking, they make the same fustians to appear to the common people
+fine, whole, and sound; and also they raise up the cotton of such
+fustians, and then take a light candle, and set it on the fustian
+burning, which singeth and burneth away the cotton of the same fustian
+from the one end to the other down to the hard threads, instead of
+shearing; and after that put them in colour, and so subtlely dress
+them, that their false work cannot be espied, without it be workmen
+shearers of such fustian, or the wearers of the same.'
+
+Many penalties and forfeitures are laid on the persons who so
+treacherously corrupt honest fustian. But one is apt to fear, that the
+accurate account given of the process may have induced some people to
+follow it, who would not have thought of doing so but for the
+instruction contained in the act for abolishing it.
+
+Our manufacturing operatives have been justly censured for their
+occasional--and, to do them justice, it is but occasional--enmity to
+machinery. Sometimes it may be palliated, though not justified, by the
+hardship which is often, without doubt, suffered by those who have to
+seek a new occupation. We suspect, however, that the legislature is
+not entirely free from this kind of barbarous enmity. We are led to
+this supposition by finding, in the sixth year of Edward VI., an act
+'for the putting down of gig-mills.' It sets out with the principle,
+that everything that deteriorates manufactured articles does evil,
+continuing: 'And forasmuch as in many parts of this realm is newly and
+lately devised, erected, builded, and used, certain mills called
+gig-mills, for the perching and burling of cloth, by reason whereof
+the true drapery of this realm is wonderfully impaired, and the cloth
+thereof deceitfully made by reason of the using of the said
+gig-mills'--and so provisions follow for their suppression. It is a
+general effect of machinery to fabricate goods less lasting than those
+which are handwrought, but with an accompanying reduction of price,
+which makes the machine produce by far the cheaper. We fear the
+legislature saw only the deterioration, and was not alive to the more
+than compensating facility of production.
+
+
+
+
+VISIT TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.
+
+
+It is by the territorial division of labour that a country arrives
+most successfully at wealth and civilisation. Our hops are grown in
+Kent and Essex; Glasgow annually sends forth the engines of our steam
+fleets; Sunderland is the focus of our shipbuilding; Edinburgh, with
+her legion of professors, and her busy presses, is one vast academy.
+In short, each district does something peculiar to itself, while all
+avoid sending coal to Newcastle.
+
+A large number of manufactures, particularly those of luxury, are
+peculiar to the metropolis, and one of the most prominent of this
+class is public amusement. Every season has its novelty, whether the
+opera of a great foreign composer, or the lectures of a literary lion;
+besides endless panoramas, dioramas, cosmoramas, and cycloramas, which
+bring home to John Bull the wonders of the habitable globe, and
+annihilate time and space for his delectation. We see the Paris of the
+Huguenots to the sound of Meyerbeer's blood-stirring trumpets; or gain
+companionship with Hogarth, Fielding, or Smollett as we listen to
+Thackeray; or, after paying our shilling in the Chinese Junk, are, to
+all intents and purposes, afloat in the Hoang Ho.
+
+London is the place at which these amusements are manufactured and
+first presented, and at which the stamp is sought which enables a
+portion of them to pass current in the provinces, and make large
+returns to the more fortunate speculators. In the metropolis, the vast
+capital afloat in such schemes is first cast on the waters, and a
+large amount annually sunk and engulfed for ever in the great vortex.
+The continued series of splendid fortunes which have been sacrificed
+in such schemes, would excite our astonishment that the fate of
+previous adventurers had not acted as a warning, if the moral of the
+gambling-table and the Stock Exchange were not always ready, by
+collateral illustration, to explain a riddle which would otherwise be
+insoluble.
+
+Indisputably foremost of all the establishments which offer amusement
+to the London public, is the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden; and
+we say this without attempting to enter into the question of whether
+it has rightly or wrongly achieved a preponderance of vocal talent
+over the rival theatre. While noting, however, the combination of
+talent it presents, and the continued flow of capital it sends forth
+in the production of the highest class of works, we must at the same
+time express our admiration of the spirited efforts of Mr Lumley to
+sustain himself against such odds; and our hope that nothing will
+induce this gentleman to give up a rivalry which has been a stimulus
+to the exertions of the other house, and which has rendered London the
+musical capital of the world. Thus much premised, we sit down to give
+an account of a day spent at Covent Garden, devoted to a thorough
+examination of this vast establishment, from its extensive catacombs
+to the leads which overlook the panorama of London; persuaded as we
+are that the public has but an obscure idea of the capital, labour,
+and ingenuity expended in the production of what is visible to the eye
+of the audience. Access to the stage during rehearsal is strictly
+confined to the performers, although that is the least part of the
+exhibition; but by special favour, we were taken in charge by the
+chief mechanist, an individual provided with the necessary technical
+knowledge, as well as with a material bunch of keys to unlock all the
+mysteries of the place.
+
+Our _début_ was made upon the stage, which we examined in its various
+parts and appendages while the ballet practice was proceeding. The
+curtain was up: the audience part of the house, from the pit to the
+ceiling, was covered with linen, in order to preserve the satin
+draperies from dust. Comparative darkness pervaded the vast space; but
+the front of the stage was illumined by a pipe of gas, pierced for
+jets, running over the orchestra from wing to wing; while a beam of
+sunlight, penetrating through the cords and pulleys of the upper
+regions, cast a strange lustre on the boards, as if it had come
+through green glass. Half a dozen chairs were placed in front of the
+stage, on one of which sat the ballet-master--a stout, bald-headed
+man, who beat time with his stick. A violinist played at his elbow the
+skeleton airs of the ballet music, while the male and female dancers
+executed their assigned parts; the stout bald-headed gentleman
+occasionally interrupting the rehearsal to suggest improvements, or to
+issue a peremptory reprimand to one of those pale, pretty things who
+were bounding across the stage in short muslin petticoats and faded
+white satin rehearsal chaussure. 'Elle est folle!' 'Allez aux petites
+maisons!' sounded rather ungallant, if we did not know that an
+effective drill for so refractory a corps is not to be got through by
+the aid of the academy of compliments. The master himself, suiting the
+action to the word, occasionally started up, and making some _pas_, as
+an illustrative example, with his heels flying in the air, was
+certainly in a state of signal incongruity with his aspect, which,
+when seated, was that of a steady-looking banker's clerk from Lombard
+Street.
+
+The width of the stage between the so-called fly-rails is 50 feet;
+while the depth from the footlights to the wall at the back, is 80
+feet. But on extraordinary occasions, it is possible to obtain even a
+longer vista; for the wall opposite the centre of the stage is
+pierced by a large archway, behind which, to the outer wall, is a
+space of 36 feet; so that by introducing a scene of a triumphal arch,
+or some other device, a depth of 100 feet can be obtained, leaving
+still a clear space of 16 feet behind the furthest scene, round the
+back of which processions can double. It would otherwise be difficult
+to comprehend how it is possible, as in the opera of _La Juive_, to
+manoeuvre here a procession of 394 persons, including a car drawn by
+eight horses.
+
+The stage itself is covered all over with trap-doors and sliding
+panels, although it feels sufficiently firm to the tread; the depth
+from the boards to the ground below the stage is twenty-two feet,
+divided into two floors, the lower deck--if I may so call it--being
+also furnished with abundant hatchways down to the hold. On the left
+of the stage, facing the audience, is a room of good size, close to
+the flies; this is the property-room of the night, in which are
+accumulated, previous to the performance, all the articles required
+for that night, whether it be the toilette-table of a princess, or the
+pallet and water-jug of a dungeon prisoner. This apartment, the reader
+may easily understand, is quite distinct from the property store-room,
+which contains everything required for every opera, from the crown of
+the _Prophet of Munster_ to the magpie's cage in _La Gazza Ladra_.
+There is one property, however, which is of too great dimensions to be
+transportable. The large and fine-toned organ, used in the _Prophète_,
+_Huguenots_, and _Robert le Diable_, is to the right of the stage,
+opposite the property-room; and the organist, from his position, being
+unable to see the baton of Mr Costa, takes the time from a lime-tree
+baton fixed to the organ, which is made to vibrate by machinery under
+the control of Mr Costa, from his place in the orchestra. It would
+take up too much space to enter more at large into the machinery used
+in theatrical entertainments; and at anyrate, the parallel slides, the
+pierced cylinder--by which a ripple is produced on water--and many
+other devices, however curious and interesting, could not be made
+intelligible without woodcuts.
+
+Our conductor now provided himself with a lantern, in order to lead us
+to the regions under the stage; for, in consequence of the mass of
+inflammable material connected with a theatre, there are as strict
+regulations against going about with open lights as in a coal-pit
+addicted to carbonic acid gas. Descending a trap, we reached the
+so-called mazarine-floor, a corruption of the Italian _mezzanine_,
+from which the musicians have access to the orchestra. It is not much
+higher than the human stature; and hither descends that _Ateista
+Fulminato_, Don Juan, or any other wight unlucky enough to be
+consigned to the infernal regions until the curtain drops. In this
+floor is a large apartment for the orchestra, in which are deposited
+the musical instruments in their cases; and beside it is the so-called
+pass-room, in which note is taken of the punctual arrival of
+performers.
+
+Below this is the ground-floor, and below that, again, a vast extent
+of catacombs. One of these is the rubbish-vault, and this is of
+considerable size; for although dresses and properties are often made
+of the coarsest materials, and will not stand a close inspection--the
+problem to be solved being the combination of stage effect with
+economy--yet, on the other hand, their want of durability, and the
+constant production of new pieces, necessarily creates a large amount
+of waste; and for this accommodation must of course be provided.
+
+Leaving the rubbish-vault, we examined the gasometer, and the remains
+of gas-works; for Covent Garden made its own gas, until an explosion
+took place, which suffocated several men. My conductor pointed out to
+me the spot where they attempted to escape, having gone through a long
+corridor until they were stopped by a dead wall, now pierced by a
+door. Near the gasometer is the hydraulic machine for supplying with
+water the tank on the top of the house; all the other services on this
+line of pipe are screwed off, and thus the water is forced to the top
+of the building. In the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket, a supply for the
+tank on the roof is obtained from a well which was sunk by Mr Lumley
+under the building, in consequence of the river company having raised
+his water-rate from L.60 to L.90. From the well, the water is forced
+up by a machine.
+
+We next ascended a stair, flight after flight; then wound our way
+through a region of flies and pulleys; and then scrambled up ladders
+until we arrived at the tank itself, which is large enough to hold
+sufficient water to supply six engines for half an hour. It has long
+hose attached to it, ready, at the shortest notice, to have the water
+directed either over the scenery or the audience part. We now
+proceeded over the roof of the audience part, to what appeared to be a
+large well, fenced by a parapet; and looking down ten or twelve feet,
+saw below us the centre chandelier, the aperture, which would
+otherwise be unsightly, being closed by an open framework in
+Arabesque. Through this the chandelier is lighted by a long rod,
+having at the end a wire, to which is attached a piece of ignited
+sponge soaked in spirits of wine: the chandelier is raised and lowered
+at pleasure by a three-ton windlass.
+
+Not less than eighty-five apartments, great and small, surround the
+stage or adjoin it, and are used as dressing-rooms, workshops,
+store-rooms, and offices. We first visited the dressing-room of Madame
+Grisi, nearest the stage, and it had the air of an elegant boudoir,
+hung and furnished in green and crimson; while another close beside
+it, fitted up in precisely the same style, was somewhat prematurely
+called the dressing-room of Mademoiselle Wagner. The dresses of the
+various performers, we may mention, are supplied by the management;
+but some of them, with large salaries, and priding themselves on
+appearing before the public in costly and well-fitting garments,
+choose to incur this expense themselves.
+
+The sempstresses-room looks exactly like a large milliner's shop, and
+here we found a forewoman with eighteen assistants at work. Books of
+costumes are always at hand, so that a degree of historical accuracy
+is now attained in Opera costume, which materially assists the
+illusion; and no such anachronism is visible in Covent Garden as in a
+certain theatre across the Thames, where, instead of the Saracenic
+minarets of Cairo, this gorgeous Arab city is represented by pyramids,
+obelisks, and sphynxes. The painting-room of Covent Garden is a light
+and lofty apartment at the top of the house, and the name of Mr Grieve
+is a sufficient guarantee both for historical accuracy and artistic
+character. Scene-painting, as practised at Covent Garden, is a most
+systematic process: a coloured miniature of each scene is made on
+Bristol-board, and consigned to an album; then a larger miniature is
+made, and placed in a model of the Opera stage, on a large table, and
+from this the scenes themselves are executed. Near the painting-room
+is the working property-room, filled with carpenters, mechanists,
+smiths, painters, and other artificers--everything either before or
+behind the curtain being kept up, repaired, and altered by the people
+of the establishment.
+
+We now proceeded to hear the rehearsal of the opera of _Lucia di
+Lammermoor_, and entering the stalls, found the orchestra full and
+nearly ready to commence, Mr Costa discussing a glass of port-wine and
+a sandwich, while the stage-manager was marshalling the people for the
+first tableau, the principal singers being seated on chairs at the
+side. What would most have struck those accustomed only to English
+theatricals, was the respectable appearance of the chorus, so
+different from the ragamuffin troop that fill up the back-ground of an
+English scene. The Covent Garden chorus includes, at rehearsal, a
+considerable number of well-dressed men in shining hats and new
+paletots, many of whom are good music-teachers, not the less qualified
+for that business by the opportunities they have in this establishment
+of becoming familiar with the way in which the best works of the best
+masters are executed by the best artists.
+
+The rehearsal over, we turned our attention to the audience part of
+the house, more particularly the Queen's box, of the privacy and
+splendour of which even old _habitués_ have no idea. In the first
+place, Her Majesty has a separate court-yard for entrance, in which
+she may alight, which is a check not only upon obtrusive curiosity on
+the part of the public, but upon the evil disposed; for although one
+might naturally suppose, that if there is any individual who ought to
+enjoy immunity from danger or disrespect, it would be a lady who is
+exemplary in her public duties as a constitutional sovereign, as well
+as in those of a consort and mother--experience has shewn the
+fallaciousness of the idea.
+
+The staircase is very noble, such as few mansions in London possess.
+Passing through the vestibule, we enter the grand drawing-room, in the
+centre of which is one of those tables that formed an ornament of the
+Exhibition last year. The drapery is of yellow satin damask. The
+principal feature of this drawing-room is the conservatory, which is
+separated from it by one vast sheet of plate-glass, the gas-light
+being contrived in such a way as to be unseen by those in the room,
+although bringing out the colours of the flowers with the greatest
+brilliancy.
+
+Adjoining the drawing-room is the Queen's dressing-room; and between
+the grand drawing-room and the royal box is the little drawing-room,
+the walls of which are hung with blue satin damask, relieved by rich
+gilt ornaments, mouldings, and bronzes, in the style of Louis Quinze.
+The royal box itself is fitted up with crimson satin damask, a large
+arm-chair at the extreme right of the front of the box being the one
+Her Majesty usually occupies; but when she visits the theatre in
+state, fourteen boxes in the centre of the house, overlooking the back
+of the pit, are opened into one, involving a large amount of expense
+and trouble, which, however, is no doubt amply compensated by the
+extraordinary receipts of the night.
+
+A private and separate entrance is not the exclusive privilege of
+royalty. The Duke of Bedford, as ground-landlord, and Miss Burdett
+Coutts, who has likewise a box in perpetual freehold, have separate
+entrances, just under that of the Queen's box, with drawing-rooms
+attached, which are small and low-roofed, but sumptuously fitted up.
+Such were the principal objects appertaining to the audience part of
+the house.
+
+Returning behind the scenes, the two principal public rooms are the
+manager's room and green-room, which both suggested recollections of
+old Covent Garden in its British drama-days. Unlike the audience part
+of the theatre, which has been entirely reconstructed, the stage part
+has only been refurnished--and yet not entirely refurnished--for in
+this very manager's room, where John Kemble used to play the potentate
+off the stage with as much dignity as on it, stands a clock with the
+following inscription: 'After the dreadful fire of Covent Garden
+Theatre, on the morning of September the 21st 1808, this clock was dug
+out of the ruins by John Saul, master-carpenter of the theatre, and
+repaired and set to work.' When we reached the green-room itself, what
+recollections crowded on me of the stars that glittered around the
+Kemble dynasty! In Costa, seated at the pianoforte, I saw the face of
+an honest man, who unites dogged British perseverance and energy with
+the Italian sense of the beautiful in art. A feeling of regret,
+however, came over me, to think that our British school of dramatic
+representation and dramatic literature, which dawned brightly under
+Elizabeth, and in the eighteenth century was associated with
+everything distinguished in polite letters and polite society, should
+have become all but extinct. But this feeling was momentary, when I
+reflected that our sense of the beautiful, including the good and the
+true, had not diminished, but had merely gone into new channels; and,
+more especially, that Meyerbeer and Rossini, in order to hear their
+own incomparable works executed in perfection, must come to the city
+which the Exhibition of last year has indelibly stamped as the capital
+of the civilised world.
+
+
+
+
+NUMBER TWELVE.
+
+
+When I was a young man, working at my trade as a mason, I met with a
+severe injury by falling from a scaffolding placed at a height of
+forty feet from the ground. There I remained, stunned and bleeding, on
+the rubbish, until my companions, by attempting to remove me, restored
+me to consciousness. I felt as if the ground on which I was lying
+formed a part of myself; that I could not be lifted from it without
+being torn asunder; and with the most piercing cries, I entreated my
+well-meaning assistants to leave me alone to die. They desisted for
+the moment, one running for the doctor, another for a litter, others
+surrounding me with pitying gaze; but amidst my increasing sense of
+suffering, the conviction began to dawn on my mind, that the injuries
+were not mortal; and so, by the time the doctor and the litter
+arrived, I resigned myself to their aid, and allowed myself, without
+further objection, to be carried to the hospital.
+
+There I remained for more than three months, gradually recovering from
+my bodily injuries, but devoured with an impatience at my condition,
+and the slowness of my cure, which effectually retarded it. I felt all
+the restlessness and anxiety of a labourer suddenly thrown out of an
+employment difficult enough to procure, knowing there were scores of
+others ready to step into my place; that the job was going on; and
+that, ten chances to one, I should never set foot on that scaffolding
+again. The visiting surgeon vainly warned me against the indulgence of
+such passionate regrets--vainly inculcated the opposite feeling of
+gratitude demanded by my escape: all in vain. I tossed on my fevered
+bed, murmured at the slowness of his remedies, and might have thus
+rendered them altogether ineffectual, had not a sudden change been
+effected in my disposition by another, at first unwelcome, addition to
+our patients. He was placed in the same ward with me, and insensibly I
+found my impatience rebuked, my repinings hushed for very shame, in
+the presence of his meek resignation to far greater privations and
+sufferings. Fresh courage sprang from his example, and soon--thanks to
+my involuntary physician--I was in the fair road to recovery.
+
+And he who had worked the charm, what was he? A poor, helpless old
+man, utterly deformed by suffering--his very name unnoticed, or at
+least never spoken in the place where he now was; he went only by the
+appellation of No. 12--the number of his bed, which was next to my
+own. This bed had already been his refuge during three long and trying
+illnesses, and had at last become a sort of property for the poor
+fellow in the eyes of doctors, students, nurse-tenders, in fact, the
+whole hospital staff. Never did a gentler creature walk on God's
+earth: walk--alas! for him the word was but an old memory. Many years
+before, he had totally lost the use of his legs; but, to use his own
+expression, 'this misfortune did not upset him:' he still retained the
+power of earning his livelihood, which he derived from copying deeds
+for a lawyer at so much per sheet; and if the legs were no longer a
+support, the hands worked at the stamped parchments as diligently as
+ever. But some months passed by, and then the paralysis attacked his
+right arm: still undaunted, he taught himself to write with the left;
+but hardly had the brave heart and hand conquered the difficulty, when
+the enemy crept on, and disabling this second ally, no more remained
+for him than to be conveyed once more, though this time as a last
+resource, to the hospital. There he had the gratification to find his
+former quarters vacant, and he took possession of his old familiar bed
+with a satisfaction that seemed to obliterate all regret at being
+obliged to occupy it again. His first grateful accents smote almost
+reproachfully on my ear: 'Misfortune must have its turn, but _every
+day has a to-morrow_.'
+
+It was indeed a lesson to witness the gratitude of this excellent
+creature. The hospital, so dreary a sojourn to most of its inmates,
+was a scene of enjoyment to him: everything pleased him; and the poor
+fellow's admiration of even the most trifling conveniences, proved how
+severe must have been his privations. He never wearied of praising the
+neatness of the linen, the whiteness of the bread, the quality of the
+food; and my surprise gave place to the truest pity, when I learned
+that, for the last twenty years, this respectable old man could only
+afford himself, out of the profits of his persevering industry, the
+coarsest bread, diversified with white cheese or vegetable porridge;
+and yet, instead of reverting to his privations in the language of
+complaint, he converted them into a fund of gratitude, and made the
+generosity of the nation, which had provided such a retreat for the
+suffering poor, his continual theme. Nor did his thankful spirit
+confine itself to this. To listen to him, you would have believed him
+an especial object of divine as well as human benevolence--all things
+working for his good. The doctor used to say, that No. 12 had 'a mania
+for happiness;' but it was a mania that in creating esteem for its
+victim, infused fresh courage into all that came within its range.
+
+I think I still see him seated on the side of his bed, with his little
+black silk cap, his spectacles, and the well-worn volume, which he
+never ceased perusing. Every morning, the first rays of the sun rested
+on his bed, always to him a fresh subject of rejoicing and
+thankfulness to God. To witness his gratitude, one might have supposed
+that the sun was rising for him alone.
+
+I need hardly say, that he soon interested himself in my cure, and
+regularly made inquiry respecting its progress. He always found
+something cheering to say--something to inspire patience and hope,
+himself a living commentary on his words. When I looked at this poor
+motionless figure, those distorted limbs, and, crowning all, that
+smiling countenance, I had not courage to be angry, or even to
+complain. At each painful crisis, he would exclaim: 'One minute, and
+it will be over--relief will soon follow. _Every day has its
+to-morrow._'
+
+I had one good and true friend--a fellow-workman, who used sometimes
+to spare an hour to visit me, and he took great delight in cultivating
+an acquaintance with No. 12. As if attracted by a kindred spirit, he
+never passed his bed without pausing to offer his cordial salutation;
+and then he would whisper to me: 'He is a saint on earth; and not
+content with gaining Paradise himself, must win it for others also.
+Such people should have monuments erected to them, known and read of
+all men. In observing such a character, we feel ashamed of our own
+happiness--we feel how comparatively little we deserve it. Is there
+anything I can do to prove my regard for this good, poor No. 12?'
+
+'Just try among the bookstalls,' I replied, 'and find the second
+volume of that book you see him reading. It is now more than six years
+since he lost it, and ever since, he has been obliged to content
+himself with the first.'
+
+Now, I must premise that my worthy friend had a perfect horror of
+literature, even in its simplest stages. He regarded the art of
+printing as a Satanic invention, filling men's brains with idleness
+and conceit; and as to writing--in his opinion, a man was never
+thoroughly committed, until he had recorded his sentiments in black
+and white for the inspection of his neighbours. His own success in
+life, which had been tolerable--thanks to his industry and
+integrity--he attributed altogether to his ignorance of those
+dangerous arts; and now a cloud swept across his lately beaming face
+as he exclaimed: 'What! the good creature is a lover of books? Well,
+we must admit that even the best have their failings. No matter. Write
+down the name of this odd volume on a slip of paper; and it shall go
+hard with me, but I give him that gratification.'
+
+He did actually return the following week with a well-worn volume,
+which he presented in triumph to the old invalid. He looked somewhat
+surprised as he opened it; but our friend proceeding to explain that
+it was at my suggestion he had procured it in place of the lost one,
+the old grateful expression at once beamed up in the eyes of No. 12;
+and with a voice trembling with emotion, he thanked the hearty giver.
+
+I had my misgivings, however; and the moment our visitor turned his
+back, I asked to see the book. My old neighbour reddened, stammered,
+and tried to change the conversation; but, forced behind his last
+intrenchments, he handed me the little volume. It was an old Royal
+Almanac. The bookseller, taking advantage of his customer's ignorance,
+had substituted it for the book he had demanded. I burst into an
+immoderate fit of laughter; but No. 12 checked me with the only
+impatient word I ever heard from his lips: 'Do you wish our friend to
+hear you? I would rather never recover the power of this lost arm,
+than deprive his kind heart of the pleasure of his gift. And what of
+it? Yesterday, I did not care a straw for an almanac; but in a little
+time it is perhaps the very book I should have desired. _Every day has
+its to-morrow._ Besides, I assure you it is a very improving study:
+even already I perceive the names of a crowd of princes never
+mentioned in history, and of whom up to this moment I have never heard
+any one speak.'
+
+And so the old almanac was carefully preserved beside the volume of
+poetry it had been intended to match; and the old invalid never failed
+to be seen turning over the leaves whenever our friend happened to
+enter the room. As to him, he was quite proud of its success, and
+would say to me each time: 'It appears I have made him a famous
+present.' And thus the two guileless natures were content.
+
+Towards the close of my sojourn in the hospital, the strength of poor
+No. 12 diminished rapidly. At first, he lost the slight powers of
+motion he had retained; then his speech became inarticulate; at last,
+no part obeyed his will except the eyes, which continued to smile on
+us still. But one morning, at last, it seemed to me as if his very
+glance had become dim. I arose hastily, and approaching his bed,
+inquired if he wished for a drink; he made a slight movement of his
+eyelids, as if to thank me, and at that instant the first ray of the
+rising sun shone in on his bed. Then the eyes lighted up, like a taper
+that flashes into brightness before it is extinguished--he looked as
+if saluting this last gift of his Creator; and even as I watched him
+for a moment, his head fell gently on the side, his kindly heart
+ceased to beat. He had thrown off the burden of To-day; he had entered
+on his eternal To-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.
+
+
+                                        _June 1852._
+
+As usual, everything shews in this month that our season will soon be
+past its perihelion: soirées, whether scientific, exquisite, or
+political, take place almost too frequently for the comfort and
+wellbeing of the invited; and loungers and legislators are alike
+beginning to dream of leafy woods and babbling brooks. Our learned
+societies have brought their sessions to a close, with more or less of
+satisfaction to all concerned, the Royal having elected their annual
+instalment of new Fellows, and the Antiquaries having decided to
+reduce their yearly subscription from four guineas to two, with a view
+to an increase and multiplication of the number of their members, so
+that the study of antiquity may be promoted, and latent ability or
+enthusiasm called into play. The British Association are making
+preparations for their meeting at Belfast, and if report speak truth,
+the result of the gathering will be an advancement of science in more
+than one department. Concerts, musical gatherings, spectacles, are in
+full activity, the _entrepreneurs_ seizing the moments, and coins too,
+as they fly. In short, midsummer has come, and fashion is about to
+substitute languor for excitement. Meantime, our excursion trains have
+commenced their trips to every point of the compass; and during the
+next few months, thousands will have the opportunity of exploring the
+finest scenery of our merry island at the smallest possible cost; and
+for one centre of attraction, as London was last year, there will now
+be a hundred.
+
+The award of Lord Campbell on the bookselling question has given a
+great triumph to the innovating party, to which the authors to a man,
+and the great bulk of the public, had attached themselves. The
+_Trade_, as the booksellers call themselves, while admitting that they
+can no longer stand under a protective principle, feel certain
+difficulties as to their future career, for unquestionably there is
+something peculiar in their business, in as far as a nominal price for
+their wares is scarcely avoidable. If so, the question is, How is it
+to be adjusted? at a lower allowance for the retailer? In that case,
+some would still undersell others; and the old troubles would still be
+experienced. Ought there, then, to be no fixed retailing price at all,
+but simply one for the publisher to exact from the retailer, leaving
+him to sell at what profit he pleases or can get? In that case, the
+publisher's advertisement, holding forth no price to the public, would
+lose half its utility. Shall we, then, leave the retailer to
+advertise? All of these questions must occupy the attention of
+booksellers for some time to come, and their settlement cannot
+speedily be hoped for. The general belief, however, is, that the cost
+for the distribution of books from the shops of the publishers must be
+considerably reduced, the prices of books of course lowered, and their
+diffusion proportionately extended. It will perhaps be found that some
+of the greatest obstructions that operate in the case are not yet so
+much as touched upon.
+
+The French have resumed their explorations and excavations at
+Khorsabad, and will doubtless bring to light many more remains of the
+arts of Nineveh; and Colonel Rawlinson has found the burial-place of
+the kings and queens of Assyria, where the bodies are placed in
+sarcophagi, in the very habiliments and ornaments in which they were
+three thousand years ago! What an important relic it will be for our
+rejuvenated Society of Antiquaries to exercise their faculty of
+investigation upon! If discoveries go on at this rate, we shall soon
+want to enlarge our British Museum.
+
+The Registrar-General tells us, in his first Report for the present
+year, that 90,936 persons were married in the last quarter of 1851--a
+greater number than in any quarter since 1842, except two, when it was
+slightly exceeded. It is altogether beyond the average, and confirms
+what has been before observed, that marriages are most numerous in
+England in the months of September, October, and November, after the
+harvest. To every 117 of the whole population there was one marriage.
+On the other hand, births are found to be most abundant in the first
+quarters of the year; the number for the first three months of the
+present year was 161,776. 'So many births,' says the Registrar, 'were
+never registered before in the same time.' In the same period of 1851,
+it was 157,374; and of 1848, 139,736. The deaths during the three
+months were 106,682, leaving an increase in the population of 55,094,
+which, however, disappears in the fact, that 57,874 emigrants left the
+United Kingdom in the course of the quarter. The mortality, on the
+whole, was less than in the ten previous winters, owing, perhaps, to
+the temperature having been 3° above the average; but the difference
+was more marked in rural districts than in the large towns. According
+to the meteorological table attached to the Report, it appears that
+the mean temperature for the three months ending in February was
+41°.1, being 4°.2 above the average of eighty years. On the 10th of
+February, the north-east wind set in, and on seventy nights during the
+quarter the temperature went below freezing. The movement of the air
+through January and February was 160 miles per day--in March, 100
+miles. Up to February 9, the wind was generally south-west, and rain
+fell on twenty-three days, and on six days only after that date. These
+periodical reports, and those of our Meteorological and
+Epidemiological Societies will doubtless, before long, furnish us with
+sufficient data for a true theory of cause and effect as regards
+disease, and for preventive measures.
+
+Gold is, and will be for some time to come, a subject much talked
+about. Some of our financiers are beginning to be of opinion, that the
+period is not distant when a great change must be made in the value of
+our currency--the sovereign, for instance, to be reduced from 20s. to
+10s. If so, there would be a good deal of loss and inconvenience
+during the transition; but, once made, the difficulty would cease.
+Others, however, consider that the demand for gold for manufacturing
+purposes and new appliances in the arts, will be so great, that not
+for many years to come will its increase have any effect on the value
+of the circulating medium. It will be curious if the result, as not
+unfrequently happens, should be such as to falsify both conclusions.
+Connected with this topic is the important one of emigration; and so
+important is it, that either by public or private enterprise, measures
+will be taken to insure a supply of labourers to the Australian
+colonies to replace, if possible, those who have betaken themselves to
+the diggings. Convicts will not be received; and as something must be
+done with them, Sir James Matheson has offered to give North Rona, one
+of the Orkney Islands, to the government for a penal settlement. It
+has been surveyed, and found to contain 270 acres, sufficient to
+support a population of 1000. Should the proposal be adopted, it will
+afford an opportunity for trying an entirely new system of discipline
+with the criminal outcasts.
+
+Some attention has been drawn to the fact, that our 'Ten Hour Bill'
+has produced an effect on the other side of the Atlantic. The
+legislature of Ohio has just passed a 'ten hour law,' to apply to 'all
+manufactories, workshops, and other places used for mechanical or
+manufacturing purposes' throughout the state; the penalty to be a fine
+of from one guinea to ten. Something has already been said about
+extending its provisions to agricultural labourers and domestic
+servants--not so easy a task as the other; but when one remembers how
+desperately hard people are made to work in the United States, it is
+gratifying to observe ever so small a beginning towards more temperate
+and life-preserving regulations. In New York, great efforts are made
+towards establishing female schools of design and female medical
+colleges, with a view to open to women a wider sphere of employment
+than that to which they are now restricted. Notwithstanding the
+objections expressed in many quarters against female physicians, it is
+certain that they would find favour among a large class of invalids.
+Another Women's Rights Convention has been held, and an Industrial
+Congress. One of the questions discussed at the latter was: Why in the
+United States some have all the work and no property, and others all
+the property and no work? Harriet Martineau's stories of Political
+Economy would have helped the debaters to a satisfactory solution.
+
+Our sanitary reformers, also, are felicitating themselves on the
+spread of their principles to the West, seeing that the first Baths
+for the People were opened in New York a few weeks since. It appears
+from accounts which have been sent over, that the edifice cost 30,000
+dollars, and is provided with every convenience to insure the end in
+view--the promotion of cleanliness. The charge for plunge-baths is two
+cents; for warm-baths, five cents; and first-class baths, ten cents.
+For washing, a range of stalls extends through the building, in the
+bottom of which is a contrivance for admitting hot or cold water, as
+may be desired. The drying machinery is 'arranged after the plan of a
+window-sash, with weights and pulleys, so as to rise and fall at
+pleasure. This sliding apparatus, when elevated, is brought into
+contact with confined heated air for a few minutes, followed by a
+rapid draught of dry air, which dries the clothes with great rapidity.
+The same heat is made use of for heating the flat-irons, which are
+brought from the furnace to the hands of the laundresses on a
+miniature railway.' With such an establishment as this in full play,
+the 71,000 emigrants who landed in New York during the first four
+months of the present year, would have little difficulty in purifying
+themselves after their voyage.
+
+There is yet another topic of interest from the United States--namely,
+the earthquake that was felt over a wide extent of country on the 29th
+of April last. Our geologists are expecting to derive from it some
+further illustration of the dynamics of earthquakes, as the
+Smithsonian Institution has addressed a circular to its numerous staff
+of meteorological observers, calling for information as to the number
+of shocks, their direction, duration, intensity, effects on the soil
+and on buildings, &c. There have been frequent earthquakes of late in
+different parts of the world, and inquiry may probably trace out the
+connection between them. The centre of intensest action appears to
+have been at Hawaii, where Mauna Loa broke out with a tremendous
+eruption, throwing up a column of lava 500 feet high, which in its
+fall formed a molten river, in some places more than a mile wide. It
+burst forth at a point 10,000 feet above the base of the mountain.
+
+Dr Gibbons has published a few noteworthy facts with respect to the
+climate of California, which shew that San Francisco 'possesses some
+peculiar features, differing from every other place on the coast.' The
+average yearly temperature is 54°; at Philadelphia it is 51°.50; and
+the temperature is found to be remarkably uniform, presenting few of
+those extremes common to the Atlantic states. On the 28th of April
+last year, it was 84°; on October 19th, 83°; August 18th, 82°--the
+only day in the three summer months when it rose above 79°. It was 80°
+on nine days only, six of them being in October; while in Philadelphia
+it is 80° from sixty to eighty days in the year. In the latter city,
+the temperature falls below the freezing-point on 100 days in the
+year, but at San Francisco on twenty-five mornings only. The coldest
+month is January; the hottest, October. 'In the summer months, there
+is scarcely any change of temperature in the night. The early morning
+is sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy, and always calm. A few hours
+after sunrise, the clouds break away, and the sun shines forth
+cheerfully and delightfully. Towards noon, or most frequently about
+one o'clock, the sea-breeze sets in, and the weather is completely
+changed. From 60° or 65°, the mercury drops forthwith to near 50° long
+before sunset, and remains almost motionless till next morning.' The
+summer, far from being the beautiful season it is in other countries,
+parches up the land, and gives it the aspect of a desert, while the
+'cold sea-winds defy the almost vertical sun, and call for flannels
+and overcoats.' In November and December, or about midwinter, the
+early rains fall, and the soil becomes covered with herbage and
+flowers. These are facts which emigrants bound for California will do
+well to bear in mind.
+
+To come back to Europe. M. Fourcault has addressed a communication to
+the Académie on 'Remedies against the Physical and Moral Degeneration
+of the Human Species,' intended more especially for the
+working-classes. He would have schools of gymnastics and swimming
+established along the great rivers, and on the sea-shore; gymnastic
+dispensaries, and clinical gymnastic in towns; and agricultural and
+other hospitals, combining simple and economical means of water-cure.
+His clinical gymnastic comprehends three divisions: hygienic or
+muscular exercise, not violent or long-continued, or productive of
+perspiration; medical, in which the exercise is to be kept up until
+perspiration is induced; and orthopedic, which, by means of ropes,
+bands, and loops attached to a bed, enable the patient to take such
+straining and stretching exercise as may be likely to rectify any
+deformity of limb. Whichever method be adopted, it must be carried out
+conscientiously, because 'feeble muscular contractions, without energy
+or sustained effort, produce no hygienic, medical, or orthopedic
+effect.' M. Fourcault may perhaps find some of his objects
+accomplished in another way, for the Prince President has, by a
+decree, appropriated 10,000,000 francs to the improvement of dwellings
+for the working-classes--3,000,000 of the sum being set apart for
+Paris--and has offered 5000 francs for the best design. If such works
+as these continue, we shall soon cease to hear that enough is not done
+for the working-classes; and they will have, in turn, to shew how much
+they can do for themselves.
+
+A portable electric telegraph has lately been introduced on some of
+the French railways, by which, in case of accident, the conductors may
+communicate with the nearest stations. It is all contained in a single
+box, the lower portion of which contains the battery, the upper, the
+manipulator and signal apparatus. When required to be used, one of the
+wires is hooked on to the wires of the telegraph, and the other
+attached to an iron wedge thrust into the earth. It answers so well,
+that the directors of the Orleans line have provided thirty of their
+trains with the portable instruments. In connection with this, I may
+tell you that Lamont of Munich, after patient inquiry, has come to the
+conclusion, that there is a decennial period in the variations of the
+magnetic declination; it increases regularly for five years, and
+decreases as regularly through another five. If it can be discovered
+that the horizontal intensity is similarly affected in a similar
+period, another of the laws of terrestrial magnetism will be added to
+the sum of our knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+NATIVITY AND PARENTAGE OF MARSHAL MACDONALD, DUKE OF TARENTUM.
+
+
+M. de Lamartine having made a mistake in his _History of the
+Restoration_, in describing Marshal Macdonald as of Irish extraction,
+it may be worth while to state what really was the parentage of that
+highly respectable man.
+
+When Prince Charles Stuart had to voyage in an open boat from the isle
+of South Uist in the Hebrides to Skye, he was guided and protected, as
+is well known, by Miss Flora Macdonald. On that occasion, Flora had
+for her attendant a man called Neil Macdonald, but more familiarly
+Neil Macechan, who is described in the _History of the Rebellion_ as a
+'sort of preceptor in the Clanranald family.' This was the father of
+Marshal Macdonald. He remained more or less attached to the fugitive
+prince during the remainder of his wanderings in the Highlands, and
+afterwards joined him in France, under the influence of an
+unconquerable affection for his person. It was thus that his son came
+to be born abroad.
+
+Neil Macdonald, though a man of humble rank, had received the
+education proper for a priest at the Scots College in Paris. His
+acquaintance with the French language had enabled him to be of
+considerable service to Prince Charles, when he wished to converse
+about matters of importance without taking the other people about him
+into his confidence. There is some reason to believe, that he wrote,
+or at least gave the information required for, a small novel
+descriptive of the poor Chevalier's wanderings, entitled _Ascanius, or
+the Young Adventurer_. (Cooper, London, 1746.)
+
+When Marshal Macdonald visited Scotland in 1825, he made his way to
+the farm of Howbeg, in South Uist, where his father had been born, and
+where his ancestors had lived for many generations. He found here an
+old lady and her brother, his cousins at one remove, to whom he shewed
+great kindness, settling a pension at the same time upon a more
+distant relation whom he found in poverty. When about to leave the
+spot, he took up some of the soil, and also a few pebbles, which he
+got packed up in separate parcels, and carried back with him to
+France.
+
+The facts respecting Marshal Macdonald's parentage were lately
+communicated to M. de Lamartine, who promptly sent the following
+answer: 'J'ai reçu, avec reconnaissance, monsieur, vos intéressantes
+communications sur le Maréchal Macdonald, homme qui honore deux pays.
+J'en ferai usage l'année prochaine à l'époque des nouvelles éditions.'
+
+
+
+
+DOMESTICATION OF WILD BEES.
+
+
+The following account of the process of transplanting bodily a tribe
+of wild bees, is given in the notes to _The Tay_, a descriptive poem
+of considerable merit by David Millar. (Perth, Richardson, 1830.)
+'When the boy, whose hobby leads him in that direction, has found out
+a "byke," he marks the spot well, and returns in the evening, when all
+its inmates are housed for the night. Pushing a twig into the hole as
+far as it will go, in case he should lose it by the falling in of the
+rubbish, he commences digging freely till the hum of the hive is
+distinctly heard, when he proceeds more cautiously to work. By this
+time, the more adventurous of the bees come out to ascertain what is
+going on, and are caught as they make their appearance, and put into a
+bottle. When the nest is fully exposed, it is lifted carefully up, and
+placed, as it stood, in a box prepared for it, along with the captured
+bees. The lid being now closed, the whole is carried home, and placed
+in the spot assigned for it in the garden. Next morning, a hole in the
+side of the box is quietly opened, when one or two of the strangers
+soon make their appearance, wondering, evidently, where they are, but
+apparently resolved to make the most of their new circumstances. At
+last, they rise slowly on the wing, and buzz round and round their new
+habitation for some time, taking, no doubt, special note of its every
+peculiarity. The circle of observation is then gradually enlarged,
+till it is thirty or forty yards in circumference, when the earnest
+reconnoitrer disappears, to return again in a short time with
+something for the general good. The curious in those matters, by
+placing the grubs of all the different kinds in one box beside a hive
+in operation, will soon have a choice assortment of all descriptions,
+working as amicably together as if they were all of the same family.'
+
+
+
+
+COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVINGS COPIED ON STONE.
+
+
+In No. 439 of this Journal, Lieutenant Hunt received the credit of
+inventing a process by which copper-plate engravings may be
+transferred to stone, and the copies from a single print thus
+multiplied indefinitely. A correspondent, however, makes us fear that
+Lieutenant Hunt may have been unacquainted with what others had done
+before him. The process, it is stated, is not at all new; although, so
+far as we have heard, it has never been applied to the transfer of
+complicated pictorial engravings.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET:
+
+ON MY LITTLE BOY'S FIRST TRYING TO SAY 'PA-PA.'
+
+
+    Marked day! on which the earliest dawn of speech
+        Glimmered, in trial of thy father's name!
+        Albeit the sound imperfect, yet the aim
+    Thrilled chords within me, deeper than the reach
+        Of music! Happy hearted, I did claim
+    The title which those silver tones assigned;
+    And in me leaped my spirit, as when first
+        The father's strange and wondering feeling came!
+    While this dear thought woke up within my mind,
+    Which careful memory in her folds has nursed:
+    'If thus to earthly parent's heart so dear
+        His child's first accents, though imperfect all--
+        Dear, too, to FATHER-GOD, when faint doth fall
+    His new-born's half-formed "Abba" on his ear!'
+
+                                                  P.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Just Published, Price 6d. Paper Cover_,
+
+CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a LITERARY COMPANION for the
+RAILWAY, the FIRESIDE, or the BUSH.
+
+VOLUME VII.
+
+To be continued in Monthly Volumes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The present number of the Journal completes the Seventeenth Volume
+(new series), for which a title-page and index have been prepared, and
+may be had of the publishers and their agents.
+
+
+
+
+
+END OF SEVENTEENTH VOLUME.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh.
+
+Sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443, by Various
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443
+       Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Robert Chambers
+          William Chambers
+
+Release Date: March 10, 2007 [EBook #20793]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents">CONTENTS</a></h2>
+
+<div class="contents">
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#PROSAIC_SPIRIT_OF_THE_AGE"><b>PROSAIC SPIRIT OF THE AGE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#A_DUEL_IN_1830"><b>A DUEL IN 1830.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_TREE_OF_SOLOMON"><b>THE TREE OF SOLOMON.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#FALSE_POLITICAL_ECONOMY"><b>FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#VISIT_TO_THE_ROYAL_ITALIAN_OPERA"><b>VISIT TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#NUMBER_TWELVE"><b>NUMBER TWELVE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THINGS_TALKED_OF_IN_LONDON"><b>THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#NATIVITY_AND_PARENTAGE_OF_MARSHAL_MACDONALD_DUKE_OF_TARENTUM"><b>NATIVITY AND PARENTAGE OF MARSHAL MACDONALD, DUKE OF TARENTUM.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#DOMESTICATION_OF_WILD_BEES"><b>DOMESTICATION OF WILD BEES.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#COPPER-PLATE_ENGRAVINGS_COPIED_ON_STONE"><b>COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVINGS COPIED ON STONE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#SONNET"><b>SONNET</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[pg 401]</a></span></p>
+
+<img src="images/banner.png"
+          width="100%"
+          alt="Banner: Chambers' Edinburgh Journal" />
+
+<h4>CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
+INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &amp;c.</h4>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<table width="100%"
+        summary="Volume, Date and Price">
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><b><span class="sc">No.</span> 443.&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="sc">New Series.</span></b></td>
+<td align="left"><b>SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1852.</b></td>
+<td align="right"><b><span class="sc">Price</span> 1&frac12;<i>d</i>.</b></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h2><a name="PROSAIC_SPIRIT_OF_THE_AGE" id="PROSAIC_SPIRIT_OF_THE_AGE"></a>PROSAIC SPIRIT OF THE AGE.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> are some phrases that convey only a vague and indefinite
+meaning, that make an impression upon the mind so faint as to be
+scarcely resolvable into shape or character. Being associated,
+however, with the feeling of beauty or enjoyment, they are ever on our
+lips, and pass current in conversation at a conventional value. Of
+these phrases is the 'poetry of life'&mdash;words that never fail to excite
+an agreeable though dreamy emotion, which it is impossible to refer to
+any positive ideas. They are generally used, however, to indicate
+something gone by. The poetry of life, we say, with sentimental
+regret, has passed away with the old forms of society; the world is
+disenchanted of its talismans; we have awakened from the dreams that
+once lent a charm to existence, and we now see nothing around us but
+the cold hard crust of external nature.</p>
+
+<p>This must be true if we think it is so; for we cannot be mistaken,
+when we feel that the element of the poetical is wanting in our
+constitutions. But we err both in our mode of accounting for the fact,
+and in believing the loss we deplore to be irretrievable. The fault
+committed by reasoners on this subject is, to confound one thing with
+another&mdash;to account for the age being unpoetical&mdash;as it unquestionably
+is&mdash;by a supposed decay in the materials of poetry. We may as well be
+told that the phenomena of the rising and setting sun&mdash;of clouds and
+moonlight&mdash;of storm and calm&mdash;of the changing seasons&mdash;of the
+infinitely varying face of nature, are now trite and worn-out. They
+are as fresh and new as ever, and will be so at the last day of the
+world, presenting, at every recurring view, something to surprise as
+well as delight. To each successive generation of men, the phenomena
+both of the outer and inner world are absolutely new; and the child of
+the present day is as much a stranger upon the earth as the first-born
+of Eve. But the impression received by each individual from the things
+that surround him is widely different&mdash;as different as the faces in a
+crowd, which all present the common type of humanity without a single
+feature being alike. This fact we unconsciously assert in our everyday
+criticism; for when any similarity is detected in a description,
+whether of things internal or external, we at once stigmatise the
+later version as a plagiarism, and as such set it down as a confession
+of weakness.</p>
+
+<p>But although the manifestations of nature, being infinite, cannot be
+worn out, the capacity to enjoy them, being human, may decay. It may,
+in fact, in some natures, be entirely wanting, and in some generations
+at least partially so. Seamen, for instance, who live, move, and have
+their being in a world of poetry and romance, are the least poetical
+of men; even in their songs they affect the prosaic and matter of
+fact, and discard everything appertaining to the fanciful.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Here is
+a direct instance of the materials of poetry being present, and its
+spirit wanting. So common, however, is it to confound the poetical
+with the faculty of enjoying it, that we find a hygienic power
+ascribed as an absolute property to the beauty of that very element,
+from which they who view it, both in its sweetest and grandest
+aspects, derive no elevation of feeling whatever. Hufeland, who
+reckons among the great panaceas of life the joy arising from the
+contemplation of the beauties of nature, in estimating the advantage
+of sea-bathing as the chief natural tonic, attributes it in great part
+to the action of the prospect of the sea upon the nervous system. 'I
+am fully convinced,' says he, 'that the physical effects of
+sea-bathing must be greatly increased by the impression on the mind,
+and that a hypochondriac or nervous person may be half-cured by
+residing on the sea-coast, and enjoying a view of the grand scenes of
+nature which will there present themselves&mdash;such as, the rising and
+setting of the sun over the blue expanse of the waters, and the awful
+majesty of the waves during a storm.' Now, if all patients were alike
+impressionable, this would be sound doctrine; but, as it is, few see
+the sun rise at all, many retire before the dews of evening begin to
+condense, and almost all shut themselves carefully up during a storm.</p>
+
+<p>The poetry of life, we need hardly say, is not associated exclusively
+with the things of external nature:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All thoughts, all passions, all delights,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whatever stirs this mortal frame,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>are likewise a portion of the materials which it informs as with a
+soul. For poetry does not create, but modify. It is neither passion
+nor power; neither beauty nor love; but to one of these it gives
+exaltation, to another majesty; to one enchantment, to another
+divinity. It is not the light of 'the sun when it shines, nor of the
+moon walking in brightness,' but the glory of the one, and the grace
+and loveliness of the other. It is not instruction, but that which
+lends to instruction a loftier character, ascending from the finite to
+the infinite. It is not morality, but that which deepens the moral
+impression, and sends the thrill of spiritual beauty throughout the
+whole being. But its appeals, says an eloquent writer, are mainly 'to
+those affections that are apt to become indolent and dormant amidst
+the commerce of the world;' and it aims at the 'revival of those purer
+and more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[pg 402]</a></span> enthusiastic feelings which are associated with the earlier
+and least selfish period of our existence. Immersed in business,
+which, if it sharpen the edge of intellect, leaves the heart barren;
+toiling after material wealth or power, and struggling with fortune
+for existence; seeing selfishness reflected all around us from the
+hard and glittering surface of society as from a cold and polished
+mirror; it would go hard with man in adversity, perhaps still more in
+prosperity, if some resource were not provided for him, which, under
+the form of an amusement and recreation, administered a secret but
+powerful balsam in the one case, and an antidote in the other.' Poetry
+elevates some of our emotions, disinters others from the rubbish of
+the world, heightens what is mean, transforms what is unsightly,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Clothing the palpable and the familiar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With golden exhalations of the dawn.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is a spiritual wine which revives the weary denizen of the vale of
+tears, and softens, warms, and stimulates, without the reaction of
+material cordials. 'It gives him wings,' says another writer, 'and
+lifts him out of the dirt; and leads him into green valleys; and
+carries him up to high places, and shews him at his feet the earth and
+all its glories.'</p>
+
+<p>The poetry of life, therefore, although one of those expressions that
+baffle definition, points to something of vast importance to the
+happiness of men and the progress of the race. It is no idle dream, no
+mere amusement of the fancy. Whenever we feel a generous thrill on
+hearing of a great action&mdash;that is poetry. Whenever we are conscious
+of a larger and loftier sympathy than is implied in the exercise of
+some common duty of humanity&mdash;that is poetry. Whenever we look upon
+the hard realities of life through a medium that softens and relieves
+them&mdash;that medium is poetry. Without poetry, there is no loftiness in
+friendship, no devotedness in love. The feelings even of the young
+mother watching her sleeping child till her eyes are dim with
+happiness, are one half poetry. Hark! there is music on the evening
+air, always a delightful incident in the most delightful scene; and
+here there are ruins, and woods, and waters, all the adjuncts of a
+picture. This is beauty; but if we breathe over that beauty the spirit
+of poetry, see what a new creation it becomes, and what a permanent
+emotion it excites!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">The splendour falls on castle walls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And snowy summits, old in story;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The long light shakes across the lakes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the wild cataract leaps in glory.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow, bugle blow, set the wild echoes flying;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow bugle, answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">O hark! O hear! how thin and clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thinner, clearer, further going;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">O sweet and far, from cliff and scar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow bugle, answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">O love, they die in yon rich sky!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They faint on field, and hill, and river;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Our echoes roll from soul to soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And grow for ever and for ever.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow, bugle blow, set the wild echoes flying;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And answer, echoes answer, dying, dying, dying.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This is a sample of the spiritual wine we have talked of&mdash;something to
+elevate and intoxicate. But the picture it presents does not pass away
+in the reaction of the morning. It haunts us in all after-life, rising
+up before us in the pauses of the world, to heal and refresh our
+wearied spirits.</p>
+
+<p>As in this poem the pleasure is caused by its appeals to the
+imagination heightening the feeling the scene naturally excites; by
+the spiritual and material world being linked together as regards the
+music; and by the connection established between the echoes and the
+sky, field, hill, and river, where they die&mdash;just so it is with the
+poetry of moral feeling. The spectacle we have instanced of the young
+mother watching her sleeping infant, is in itself beautiful; but it
+becomes poetical when we imagine the feeling of beauty united in her
+mind with the instinct of love, and detect in her glance, moist with
+emotion, the blending of hopes, memories, pride, and tearful joy.
+Poetry, therefore, is not moral feeling, but something that heightens
+and adorns it. It is not even a direct moral agent, for it deepens the
+lesson only through the medium of the feelings and imagination. Thus
+moral poetry, when reduced to writing, is merely morality conveyed in
+the form of poetry; and in like manner, religious poetry, is religion
+so conveyed. The thing conveyed, however, must harmonise with the
+medium, for poetry will not consent to give an enduring form to what
+is false or pernicious. It has often been remarked, with a kind of
+superstitious wonder, that poems of an immoral character never live
+long; but the reason is, that it is the characteristic of immorality
+to tie down man in the chains of the senses, and this shews that it
+has nothing in common with the spiritual nature of poetry. For the
+same reason, a poem based upon atheism, although it might attract
+attention for a time, would meet with no permanent response in the
+human breast; religion being Truth, and poetry her peculiar
+ministrant.</p>
+
+<p>Although written poetry, however, does not necessarily come into this
+subject, it may be observed, that the comparative incapacity of the
+present generation to enjoy the poetical is clearly exhibited in its
+literature. Never was there so much verse, and so little poetry. Never
+was the faculty of rhyming so impartially spread over the whole mass
+of society. The difficulty used to be, to find one possessed of the
+gift: now it is nearly as difficult to find one who is not. Formerly,
+to write verses was a distinction: now it is a distinction not to
+write them&mdash;and one of some consequence. But with all this multitude
+of poets, there is not one who can take his place with the
+comparatively great names of the past, or vanishing generation. Now
+and then we have a brilliant thought&mdash;even a certain number of verses
+deserving the name of a poem; but there is no sustained poetical
+power, nothing to mark an epoch, or glorify a name. When we commend,
+it is some passage distinct from the poem, something small, and
+finished, and complete in itself. The taste of the day runs more upon
+conceits and extravagances, such as Cowley would have admired, and
+which he might have envied. The suddenness of the impression, so to
+speak, made by great poets, their direct communication with the heart,
+belongs to another time. It is our ambition to come to the same end by
+feats of ingenuity; and instead of touching the feelings, and setting
+the imagination of the reader instantaneously aglow, to exercise his
+skill in unravelling and interpretation. We expect the pleasure of
+success to reward him for the fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>The same feeling is at work, as we have already pointed out, in
+decorative art; in which 'a redundancy of useless or ridiculous
+ornament is called richness, and the inability to appreciate simple
+and beautiful, or grand and noble forms, receives the name of genius.'
+The connection is curious, likewise, between this ingenuity of poetry
+and that of the machinery which gives a distinguishing character to
+our epoch. It looks as if the complication of images, working towards
+a certain end, were only another development of the genius that
+invents those wonderful instruments which the eye cannot follow till
+they are familiarly entertained&mdash;and sometimes not even then. If this
+idea were kept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[pg 403]</a></span> in view, there would be at least some wit, although no
+truth, in the common theory which attempts to account for the decline
+of poetry. Neither advancement in science, however, nor ingenuity in
+mechanics, is in itself, as the theory alleges, hostile to the
+poetical; on the contrary, the materials of poetry multiply with the
+progress of both. The prosaic character of the age does not flow from
+these circumstances, but exists in spite of them. It has been said,
+indeed, that the light of knowledge is unfavourable to poetry, by
+making the hues and lineaments of the phantoms it calls up grow
+fainter and fainter, till they are wholly dispelled. But this applies
+only to one class of images. The ghost of Banquo, for instance, may
+pale away and vanish utterly before the light of knowledge; but the
+air-drawn dagger of Macbeth is immortal like the mind itself.
+Knowledge cannot throw its illumination upon eternity, or dissipate
+the influences by which men feel they are surrounded. A candle brought
+into a darkened room discloses the material forms of the things in the
+midst of which we are standing, and which may have been involved, to
+our imagination, in a poetical mystery. But the light itself, as an
+unexplained wonder&mdash;its analogies with the flame of life&mdash;the
+modifications it receives from the faint gleam of the sky through the
+shadowed window&mdash;all are poetical materials, and of a higher
+character. Where one series of materials ends, another begins; and so
+on in infinite progression, till poetry seems to spurn the earth from
+beneath her foot&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in clear dream and solemn vision<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Telling of things which no gross ear can hear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till oft converse with heavenly habitants<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Begins to cast a beam on the outer shape&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The unpolluted temple of the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And turn it by degrees to the soul's essence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till all be made immortal.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Science with us, however, is a business instead of an ambition;
+ingenuity a trade rather than a taste. We go on from discovery to
+discovery, from invention to invention, with an insatiate but prosaic
+spirit, which turns everything to a profitable and practical
+account&mdash;imprisoning the very lightning, that it may carry our
+messages over land and under sea! We do not stop to look, to listen,
+to feel, to exalt with a moral elevation the objects of our study, and
+snatch a spiritual enjoyment from imagination. All with us is
+material; and all would be even mean, but for the essential grandeur
+of the things themselves. And here comes the question: Is this
+material progress incompatible with spiritual progress? Is the poetry
+of life less abundant because the conveniences of life are more
+complete and admirable? Is man less a spirit of the universe because
+he is a god over the elements? We answer, No: the scientific and the
+prosaic spirit are both independent elements in the genius of the age;
+or, if there is a necessary connection, it is the converse of what is
+supposed&mdash;the restless mind in which the fervour of poetry has died,
+plunging into science for the occupation that is necessary to its
+happiness. Thus one age is merely poetical, another merely scientific;
+although here, of course, we use, for the sake of distinctness, the
+broadest terms, unmindful of the modifications ranging between these
+extreme points. The age, however, that has least poetry has most
+science, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But man, unlike the other denizens of the earth, has power over his
+own destiny. He is able to cultivate the poetical as if it were a
+plant; and if once convinced of its important bearing upon his
+enjoyment of the world, he will do so. The imagination may be educated
+as well as the moral sense, and the result of the advancement of the
+one as well as the other is an expansion of the mind, and an
+enlargement of the capacity for happiness. The grand obstacle is
+precisely what we have now endeavoured to aid in removing&mdash;the common
+mistake as to the nature of the poetical, which it is customary to
+consider as something remote from, or antagonistic to, the business of
+life. So far from this, it is essentially connected with the moral
+feelings. It neutralises the conventionalisms of society, and makes
+the whole world kin. It enlarges the circle of our sympathies, till
+they comprehend, not only our own kind, but every living thing, and
+not only animate beings, but all created nature.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See <i>Journal</i>, No. 425. Article, 'Dibdin's
+Sailor-Songs.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Tennyson.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="A_DUEL_IN_1830" id="A_DUEL_IN_1830"></a>A DUEL IN 1830.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I had</span> just arrived at Marseilles with the diligence, in which three
+young men, apparently merchants or commercial travellers, were the
+companions of my journey. They came from Paris, and were enthusiastic
+about the events which had lately happened there, and in which they
+boasted of having taken part. I was, for my part, quiet and reserved;
+for I thought it much better, at a time of such political excitement
+in the south of France, where party passions always rise so high,
+to do nothing that would attract attention; and my three
+fellow-travellers no doubt looked on me as a plain, common-place
+seaman, who had been to the luxurious metropolis for his pleasure or
+on business. My presence, it seemed, did not incommode them, for they
+talked on as if I had not been there. Two of them were gay, merry, but
+rather coarse boon-companions; the third, an elegant youth, blooming
+and tall, with luxuriant black curling hair, and dark soft eyes. In
+the hotel where we dined, and where I sat a little distance off,
+smoking my cigar, the conversation turned on various love-adventures,
+and the young man, whom they called Alfred, shewed his comrades a
+packet of delicately perfumed letters, and a superb lock of beautiful
+fair hair.</p>
+
+<p>He told them, that in the days of July he had been slightly wounded,
+and that his only fear, while he lay on the ground, was that if he
+died, some mischance might prevent Clotilde from weeping over his
+grave. 'But now all is well,' he continued. 'I am going to fetch a
+nice little sum from my uncle at Marseilles, who is just at this
+moment in good-humour, on account of the discomfiture of the Jesuits
+and the Bourbons. In my character of one of the heroes of July, he
+will forgive me all my present and past follies: I shall pass an
+examination at Paris, and then settle down in quiet, and live happily
+with my Clotilde.' Thus they talked together; and by and by we parted
+in the court-yard of the coach-office.</p>
+
+<p>Close by was a brilliantly illumined coffee-house. I entered, and
+seated myself at a little table, in a distant corner of the room. Two
+persons only were still in the saloon, in an opposite corner, and
+before them stood two glasses of brandy. One was an elderly, stately,
+and portly gentleman, with dark-red face, and dressed in a quiet
+coloured suit; it was easy to perceive that he was a clergyman. But
+the appearance of the other was very striking. He could not be far
+from sixty years of age, was tall and thin, and his gray, indeed
+almost white hair, which, however, rose from his head in luxurious
+fulness, gave to his pale countenance a peculiar expression that made
+one feel uncomfortable. The brawny neck was almost bare; a simple,
+carelessly-knotted black kerchief alone encircled it; thick,
+silver-gray whiskers met together at his chin; a blue frock-coat,
+pantaloons of the same colour, silk stockings, shoes with thick soles,
+and a dazzlingly-white waistcoat and linen, completed his equipment. A
+thick stick leant in one corner, and his broad-brimmed hat hung
+against the wall. There was a certain convulsive twitching of the thin
+lips of this person, which was very remarkable; and there seemed, when
+he looked fixedly, to be a smouldering fire in his large, glassy,
+grayish-blue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[pg 404]</a></span> eyes. He was, it was evident, a seaman like myself&mdash;a
+strong oak that fate had shaped into a mast, over which many a storm
+had blustered, but which had been too tough to be shivered, and still
+defied the tempest and the lightning. There lay a gloomy resignation
+as well as a wild fanaticism in those features. The large bony hand,
+with its immense fingers, was spread out or clenched, according to the
+turn which the conversation with the clergyman took. Suddenly he
+stepped up to me. I was reading a royalist newspaper. He lighted his
+cigar.</p>
+
+<p>'You are right, sir; you are quite right not to read those infamous
+Jacobin journals.' I looked up, and gave no answer. He continued: 'A
+sailor?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'And have seen service?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'You are still in active service?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.' And then, to my great satisfaction, for my patience was
+well-nigh exhausted, the examination was brought to a conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>Just then, an evil destiny led my three young fellow-travellers into
+the room. They soon seated themselves at a table, and drank some
+glasses of champagne to Clotilde's health. All went on well; but when
+they began to sing the <i>Marseillaise</i> and the <i>Parisienne</i>, the face
+of the gray man began to twitch, and it was evident a storm was
+brewing. Calling to the waiter, he said with a loud voice: 'Tell those
+blackguards yonder not to annoy me with their low songs!'</p>
+
+<p>The young men sprang up in a fury, and asked if it was to them he
+alluded.</p>
+
+<p>'Whom else should I mean?' said the gray man with a contemptuous
+sneer.</p>
+
+<p>'But we may drink and sing if we like, and to whom we like,' said the
+young man. '<i>Vive la R&eacute;publique et vive Clotilde!</i>'</p>
+
+<p>'One as blackguardly as the other!' cried the gray-beard tauntingly;
+and a wine-glass, that flew at his head from the hand of the
+dark-haired youth, was the immediate rejoinder. Slowly wiping his
+forehead, which bled and dripped with the spilled wine, the old man
+said quite quietly: 'To-morrow, at the Cap Verd!' and seated himself
+again with the most perfect composure.</p>
+
+<p>The young man expressed his determination to take the matter on
+himself; that he alone would settle the quarrel, and promised to
+appear on the morrow at the appointed time. They then all departed
+noisily. The old man rose quietly, and turning to me, said: 'Sir, you
+have been witness to the insult; be witness also to the satisfaction.
+Here is my address: I shall expect you at five o'clock. Good-night,
+Monsieur l'Abb&eacute;! To-morrow, there will be one Jacobin less, and one
+lost soul the more. Good-night!' and taking his hat and stick, he
+departed. His companion the abb&eacute; followed soon after.</p>
+
+<p>I now learned the history of this singular man. He was descended from
+a good family of Marseilles. Destined for the navy while still young,
+he was sent on board ship before the Revolution, and while yet of
+tender years. Later, he was taken prisoner; and after many strange
+adventures, returned in 1793 to France: was about to marry, but having
+been mixed up with the disturbances of Toulon, managed to escape by a
+miracle to England; and learned before long that his father, mother,
+one brother, a sister of sixteen years of age, and his betrothed, had
+all been led to the guillotine to the tune of the <i>Marseillaise</i>.
+Thirst for revenge, revenge on the detested Jacobins, was now his sole
+aim. For a long time he roved about in the Indian seas, sometimes as a
+privateer, at others as a slave-dealer; and was said to have caused
+the tricoloured flag much damage, while he acquired a considerable
+fortune for himself. With the return of the Bourbons, he came back to
+France, and settled at Marseilles. He lived, however, very retired,
+and employed his large fortune solely for the poor, for distressed
+seamen, and for the clergy. Alms and masses were his only objects of
+expense. It may easily be believed, that he acquired no small degree
+of popularity among the lower classes and the clergy. But, strangely
+enough, when not at church, he spent his time with the most celebrated
+fencing-masters, and had acquired in the use of the pistol and the
+sword a dexterity that was hardly to be paralleled. In the year 1815,
+when the royalist reaction broke out in La Vend&eacute;e, he roved about for
+a long time at the head of a band of followers. When at last this
+opportunity of cooling his rage was taken from him by the return of
+order, he looked out for some victim who was known to him by his
+revolutionary principles, and sought to provoke him to combat. The
+younger, the richer, the happier the chosen victim was, the more
+desirable did he seem. The landlord told me he himself knew of seven
+young persons who had fallen before his redoubted sword.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning at five o'clock, I was at the house of this singular
+character. He lived on the ground-floor, in a small simple room,
+where, excepting a large crucifix, and a picture covered with black
+crape, with the date, 1794, under it, the only ornaments were some
+nautical instruments, a trombone, and a human skull. The picture was
+the portrait of his guillotined bride; it remained always veiled,
+excepting only when he had slaked his revenge with blood; then he
+uncovered it for eight days, and indulged himself in the sight. The
+skull was that of his mother. His bed consisted of the usual hammock
+slung from the ceiling. When I entered, he was at his devotions, and a
+little negro brought me meanwhile a cup of chocolate and a cigar. When
+he had risen from his knees, he saluted me in a friendly manner, as if
+we were merely going for a morning walk together; afterwards he opened
+a closet, took out of it a case with a pair of English pistols, and a
+couple of excellent swords, which I put under my arm; and thus
+provided, we proceeded along the quay towards the port. The boatmen
+seemed all to know him. 'Peter, your boat!' He seated himself in the
+stern.</p>
+
+<p>'You will have the goodness to row,' he said; 'I will take the tiller,
+so that my hand may not become unsteady.'</p>
+
+<p>I took off my coat, rowed away briskly, and as the wind was
+favourable, we hoisted a sail, and soon reached Cap Verd. We could
+remark from afar our three young men, who were sitting at breakfast in
+a garden not far from the shore. This was the garden of a
+<i>restaurateur</i>, and was the favourite resort of the inhabitants of
+Marseilles. Here you find excellent fish; and also, in high
+perfection, the famous <i>bollenbresse</i>, a national dish in Provence, as
+celebrated as the <i>olla podrida</i> of Spain. How many a love-meeting has
+occurred in this place! But this time it was not Love that brought the
+parties together, but Hate, his stepbrother; and in Provence the one
+is as ardent, quick, and impatient as the other.</p>
+
+<p>My business was soon accomplished. It consisted in asking the young
+men what weapons they chose, and with which of them the duel was to be
+fought. The dark-haired youth&mdash;his name was M&mdash;&mdash; L&mdash;&mdash; insisted that
+he alone should settle the business, and his friends were obliged to
+give their word not to interfere.</p>
+
+<p>'You are too stout,' he said to the one, pointing to his portly
+figure; 'and you'&mdash;to the other&mdash;'are going to be married; besides, I
+am a first-rate hand with the sword. However, I will not take
+advantage of my youth and strength, but will choose the pistol, unless
+the gentleman yonder prefers the sword.'</p>
+
+<p>A movement of convulsive joy animated the face of my old captain: 'The
+sword is the weapon of the French gentleman,' he said; 'I shall be
+happy to die with it in my hand.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[pg 405]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Be it so. But your age?'</p>
+
+<p>'Never mind; make haste, and <i>en garde</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange sight: the handsome young man on one side,
+overbearing confidence in his look, with his youthful form, full of
+grace and suppleness; and opposite him that long figure, half
+naked&mdash;for his blue shirt was furled up from his sinewy arm, and his
+broad, scarred breast was entirely bare. In the old man, every sinew
+was like iron wire: his whole weight resting on his left hip, the long
+arm&mdash;on which, in sailor fashion, a red cross, three lilies, and other
+marks, were tattooed&mdash;held out before him, and the cunning, murderous
+gaze rivetted on his adversary.</p>
+
+<p>''Twill be but a mere scratch,' said one of the three friends to me. I
+made no reply, but was convinced beforehand that my captain, who was
+an old practitioner, would treat the matter more seriously. Young
+L&mdash;&mdash;, whose perfumed coat was lying near, appeared to me to be
+already given over to corruption. He began the attack, advancing
+quickly. This confirmed me in my opinion; for although he might be a
+practised fencer in the schools, this was proof that he could not
+frequently have been engaged in serious combat, or he would not have
+rushed forwards so incautiously against an adversary whom he did not
+as yet know. His opponent profited by his ardour, and retired step by
+step, and at first only with an occasional ward and half thrust. Young
+L&mdash;&mdash;, getting hotter and hotter, grew flurried; while every ward of
+his adversary proclaimed, by its force and exactness, the master of
+the art of fence. At length the young man made a lunge; the captain
+parried it with a powerful movement, and, before L&mdash;&mdash; could recover
+his position, made a thrust in return, his whole body falling forward
+as he did so, exactly like a picture at the Acad&eacute;mie des Armes&mdash;'the
+hand elevated, the leg stretched out'&mdash;and his sword went through his
+antagonist, for nearly half its length, just under the shoulder. The
+captain made an almost imperceptible turn with his hand, and in an
+instant was again <i>en garde</i>. L&mdash;&mdash; felt himself wounded; he let his
+sword fall, while with his other hand he pressed his side; his eyes
+grew dim, and he sank into the arms of his friends. The captain wiped
+his sword carefully, gave it to me, and dressed himself with the most
+perfect composure. 'I have the honour to wish you good-morning,
+gentlemen: had you not sung yesterday, you would not have had to weep
+to-day;' and thus saying, he went towards his boat. ''Tis the
+seventeenth!' he murmured; 'but this was easy work&mdash;a mere greenhorn
+from the fencing-schools of Paris. 'Twas a very different thing when I
+had to do with the old Bonapartist officers, those brigands of the
+Loire.' But it is quite impossible to translate into another language
+the fierce energy of this speech. Arrived at the port, he threw the
+boatman a few pieces of silver, saying: 'Here, Peter; here's something
+for you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Another requiem and a mass for a departed soul, at the church of St
+G&eacute;nevi&egrave;ve&mdash;is it not so, captain? But that is a matter of course.' And
+soon after we reached the dwelling of the captain.</p>
+
+<p>The little negro brought us a cold pasty, oysters, and two bottles of
+<i>vin d'Artois</i>. 'Such a walk betimes gives an appetite,' said the
+captain gaily. 'How strangely things fall out!' he continued in a
+serious tone. 'I have long wished to draw the crape veil from before
+that picture, for you must know I only deem myself worthy to do so
+when I have sent some Jacobin or Bonapartist into the other world, to
+crave pardon from that murdered angel; and so I went yesterday to the
+coffee-house with my old friend the abb&eacute;, whom I knew ever since he
+was field-preacher to the Chouans, in the hope of finding a victim for
+the sacrifice among the readers of the liberal journals. The
+confounded waiters, however, betray my intention; and when I am there,
+nobody will ask for a radical paper. When you appeared, my worthy
+friend, I at first thought I had found the right man, and I was
+impatient&mdash;for I had been waiting for more than three hours for a
+reader of the <i>National</i> or of <i>Figaro</i>. How glad I am that I at once
+discovered you to be no friend of such infamous papers! How grieved
+should I be, if I had had to do with you instead of with that young
+fellow!' For my part, I was in no mood even for self-felicitations. At
+that time, I was a reckless young fellow, going through the
+conventionalisms of society without a thought; but the event of the
+morning had made even me reflect.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you think he will die, captain?' I asked: 'is the wound mortal?'</p>
+
+<p>'For certain!' he replied with a slight smile. 'I have a knack&mdash;of
+course for Jacobins and Bonapartists only&mdash;when I thrust <i>en quarte</i>,
+to draw out the sword by an imperceptible movement of the hand, <i>en
+tierce</i>, or <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>, according to circumstances; and thus the
+blade turns in the wound&mdash;<i>and that kills</i>; for the lung is injured,
+and mortification is sure to follow.'</p>
+
+<p>On returning to my hotel, where L&mdash;&mdash; also was staying, I met the
+physician, who had just visited him. He gave up all hope. The captain
+spoke truly, for the slight movement of the hand and the turn of the
+blade had accomplished their aim, and the lung was injured beyond the
+power of cure. The next morning early L&mdash;&mdash; died. I went to the
+captain, who was returning home with the abb&eacute;. 'The abb&eacute; has just been
+to read a mass for him,' he said; 'it is a benefit which, on such
+occasions, I am willing he should enjoy&mdash;more, however, from
+friendship for him, than out of pity for the accursed soul of a
+Jacobin, which in my eyes is worth less than a dog's! But walk in,
+sir.'</p>
+
+<p>The picture, a wonderfully lovely maidenly face, with rich curls
+falling around it, and in the costume of the last ten years of the
+preceding century, was now unveiled. A good breakfast, like that of
+yesterday, stood on the table. With a moistened eye, and turning to
+the portrait, he said: 'Th&eacute;r&egrave;se, to thy memory!' and emptied his glass
+at a draught. Surprised and moved, I quitted the strange man. On the
+stairs of the hotel I met the coffin, which was just being carried up
+for L&mdash;&mdash;; and I thought to myself: 'Poor Clotilde! you will not be
+able to weep over his grave.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="THE_TREE_OF_SOLOMON" id="THE_TREE_OF_SOLOMON"></a>THE TREE OF SOLOMON.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wide forests, deep beneath Maldivia's tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From withering air the wondrous fruitage hide;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There green-haired nereids tend the bowery dells,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose healing produce poison's rage expels.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="right"><i>The Lusiad.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">If</span> Japan be still a sealed book, the interior of China almost unknown,
+the palatial temple of the Grand Lama unvisited by scientific or
+diplomatic European&mdash;to say nothing of Madagascar, the steppes of
+Central Asia, and some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago&mdash;how
+great an amount of marvel and mystery must have enveloped the
+countries of the East during the period that we now term the middle
+ages! By a long and toilsome overland journey, the rich gold and
+sparkling gems, the fine muslins and rustling silks, the pungent
+spices and healing drugs of the Morning Land, found their way to the
+merchant princes of the Mediterranean. These were not all. The
+enterprising traversers of the Desert brought with them, also, those
+tales of extravagant fiction which seem to have ever had their
+birthplace in the prolific East. Long after the time that doubt&mdash;in
+not a few instances the parent of knowledge&mdash;had, by throwing cold
+water on it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[pg 406]</a></span> extinguished the last funeral pyre of the ultimate
+Ph&oelig;nix, and laughed to scorn the gigantic, gold-grubbing pismires
+of Pliny; the Roc, the Valley of Diamonds, the mountain island of
+Loadstone, the potentiality of the Talisman, the miraculous virtues of
+certain drugs, and countless other fables, were accepted and believed
+by all the nations of the West. One of those drugs, seldom brought to
+Europe on account of its great demand among the rulers of the East,
+and its extreme rarity, was a nut of alleged extraordinary curative
+properties&mdash;of such great value, that the Hindoo traders named it
+<i>Trevanchere</i>, or the Treasure&mdash;of such potent virtue, that Christians
+united with Mussulmen in terming it the Nut of Solomon. Considered a
+certain remedy for all kinds of poison, it was eagerly purchased by
+those of high station at a period when that treacherous destroyer so
+frequently mocked the steel-clad guards of royalty itself&mdash;when
+poisoning was the crime of the great, before it had descended from the
+corrupt and crafty court to the less ceremonious cottage. Nor was it
+only as an antidote that its virtues were famed. A small portion of
+its hard and corneous kernel, triturated with water in a vessel of
+porphyry, and mixed, according to the nature of the disease and skill
+of the physician, with the powder of red or white coral, ebony, or
+stag's horns, was supposed to be able to put to flight all the
+maladies that are the common lot of suffering humanity. Even the
+simple act of drinking pure water out of a part of its polished shell
+was esteemed a salutary remedial process, and was paid for at a
+correspondently extravagant price. Doubtless, in many instances it did
+effect cures; not, however, by any peculiar inherent sanative
+property, but merely through the unbounded confidence of the patient:
+similar cases are well known to medical science; and at the present
+day, when the manufacture and sale of an alleged universal heal-all is
+said to be one of the shortest and surest paths that lead to
+fortune&mdash;when in our own country 'the powers that be' encourage rather
+than check such wholesale empiricism&mdash;we cannot consistently condemn
+the more ancient quack, who having, in all faith, given an immense sum
+for a piece of nut-shell, remunerated himself by selling draughts of
+water out of it to his believing dupes. The extraordinary history of
+the nut, as it was then told, assisted to keep up the delusion. The
+Indian merchants said, that there was only one tree in the world that
+produced it; that the roots of that tree were fixed, 'where never
+fathom-line did touch the ground,' in the bed of the Indian Ocean,
+near to Java, among the Ten Thousand Islands of the far East; but its
+branches, rising high above the waters, flourished in the bright
+sunshine and free air. On the topmost bough dwelt a griffin, that
+sallied forth every evening to the adjacent islands, to procure an
+elephant or rhinoceros for its nightly repast; but when a ship chanced
+to pass that way, his griffinship had no occasion to fly so far for a
+supper. Attracted by the tree, the doomed vessel remained motionless
+on the waters, until the wretched sailors were, one by one, devoured
+by the monster. When the nuts ripened, they dropped off into the
+water, and, carried by winds and currents to less dangerous
+localities, were picked up by mariners, or cast on some lucky shore.
+What is this but an Eastern version&mdash;who dare say it is not the
+original?&mdash;of the more classical fable of the dragon and the golden
+fruit of the Hesperides?</p>
+
+<p>Time went on. Vasco de Gama sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, and a
+new route was opened to Eastern commerce. The Portuguese, who
+encountered the terrors of the Cape of Storms, were not likely to be
+daunted by a griffin; yet, with all their endeavours, they never
+succeeded in discovering the precious tree. By their exertions,
+however, rather more of the drug was brought to Europe than had
+previously been; still there was no reduction in its estimated value.
+In the East, an Indian potentate demanded a ship and her cargo as the
+price of a perfect nut, and it was actually purchased on the terms; in
+the West, the Emperor Rodolph offered 4000 florins for one, and his
+offer was contemptuously refused; while invalids from all parts of
+Europe performed painful pilgrimages to Venice, Lisbon, or Antwerp, to
+enjoy the inestimable benefit of drinking water out of pieces of
+nut-shell! Who may say what adulterations and tricks were practised by
+dishonest dealers, to maintain a supply of this costly medicine? but,
+as similar impositions are not unknown at the present day, we may as
+well pass lightly over that part of our subject.</p>
+
+<p>The English and Dutch next made their way to the Indian Ocean; yet,
+though they sought for the invaluable Tree of Solomon, with all the
+energy supplied by a burning thirst for gain, their efforts were as
+fruitless and unsuccessful as those of the Portuguese. Strange tales,
+too, some of these ancient mariners related on their return to Europe:
+how, in the clear waters of deep bays, they had observed groves of
+those marvellous trees, growing fathoms down beneath the surface of
+the placid sea. Out of a mass of equally ridiculous reports, the only
+facts then attainable were at length sifted: these were, that the tree
+had not been discovered growing in any locality whatever; that the nut
+was sometimes found floating on the Indian Ocean, or thrown on the
+coast of Malabar, but more frequently picked up on the shores of a
+group of islands known as the Maldives; from the latter circumstance,
+the naturalists of the day termed it <i>Cocus Maldivicus</i>&mdash;the Maldivian
+cocoa-nut. Garcius, surnamed Ab Horto (of the garden), on account of
+his botanical knowledge, a celebrated authority on drugs and spices,
+who wrote in 1563, very sensibly concluded that the tree grew on some
+undiscovered land, from whence the nuts were carried by the waves to
+the places where they were found; other writers considered it to be a
+genuine marine production; while a few shrewdly suspected that it
+really grew on the Maldives. Unfortunately for the Maldivians, this
+last opinion prevailed in India. In 1607, the king of Bengal, with a
+powerful fleet and army, invaded the Maldives, conquered and killed
+their king, ransacked and plundered the islands, and, having crammed
+his ships with an immense booty, sailed back to Bengal&mdash;without,
+however, discovering the Tree of Solomon, the grand object of the
+expedition. Curiously enough, we are indebted to this horrible
+invasion for an interesting book of early Eastern travel&mdash;the
+Bengalese king having released from captivity one Pyrard de Laval, a
+French adventurer, who, six years previously, had suffered shipwreck
+on those inhospitable islands. Laval's work dispelled the idea that
+the nut grew upon the Maldives. He tells us, that it was found
+floating in the surf, or thrown up on the sea-shore only; that it was
+royal property; and whenever discovered, carried with great ceremony
+to the king, a dreadful death being the penalty of any subject
+possessing the smallest portion of it.</p>
+
+<p>The leading naturalists of the seventeenth century having the Maldives
+thus, in a manner, taken away from beneath their feet, took great
+pains to invent a local habitation for this wonderful tree; and at
+last they, pretty generally, came to the conclusion, that the vast
+peninsula of Southern Hindostan had at one time extended as far as the
+Maldives, but by some great convulsion of nature, the intermediate
+part between those islands and Cape Comorin had sunk beneath the
+waters of the ocean; that the tree or trees had grown thereon, and
+still continued to grow on the submerged soil; and the nuts when ripe,
+being lighter than water, rose to the surface, instead&mdash;as is the
+habit of supermarine arboreal produce&mdash;of falling to the ground.
+Scarcely could a more splendid illustration of the fallacies of
+hypothetical reasoning be found, than the pages that contain this
+specious and far-fetched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[pg 407]</a></span> argument. Even the celebrated Rumphius, who
+wrote so late as the eighteenth century, assures his readers that 'the
+<i>Calappa laut</i>,' the Malay term for the nut, 'is not a terrestrial
+production, which may have fallen by accident into the sea, and there
+become hardened, as Garcias ab Horto relates, but a fruit, growing
+itself in the sea, whose tree has hitherto been concealed from the eye
+of man.' He also denominates it 'the wonderful miracle of nature, the
+prince of all the many rare things that are found in the sea.'</p>
+
+<p>In the fulness of time, knowledge is obtained and mysteries are
+revealed. Chemistry and medicine, released from the tedious but not
+useless apprenticeship they had served to alchemy and empiricism, set
+up on their own account, and as a consequence, the 'nut of the sea'
+soon lost its European reputation as a curative, though it was still
+considered a very great curiosity, and the unsettled problem of its
+origin formed a famous stock of building materials for the erecters of
+theoretical edifices. In India and China, it retained its medicinal
+fame, and commanded a high price. Like everything else that is brought
+to market, the nuts varied in value. A small one would not realise
+more than L.50, while a large one would be worth L.120; those,
+however, that measured as much in breadth as in length were most
+esteemed, and one measuring a foot in diameter was worth L.150
+sterling money. Such continued to be the prices of these nuts for two
+centuries after the ships of Europe had first found their way to the
+seas and lands of Asia. But a change was at hand. In the year 1770, a
+French merchant-ship entered the port of Calcutta. The motley
+assemblage of native merchants and tradesmen, Baboos and Banians,
+Dobashes, Dobies, and Dingy-wallahs, that crowd a European vessel's
+deck on her first arrival in an Eastern port, were astounded when, to
+their eager inquiries, the captain replied that his cargo consisted of
+<i>cocos de mer</i>.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Scarcely could the incredulous and astonished
+natives believe the evidence of their own eyesight, when, on the
+hatches being opened, they saw that the ship was actually filled with
+this rare and precious commodity. Rare and precious, to be so no
+longer. Its price instantaneously fell; persons who had been the
+fortunate possessors of a nut or two, were ruined; and so little did
+the French captain gain by his cargo, that he disclosed the secret of
+its origin to an English mercantile house, which completed the utter
+downfall of the nut of Solomon, by landing another cargo of it at
+Bombay during the same year.</p>
+
+<p>A singular circumstance in connection with the discovery of the tree,
+a complete exemplification of the good old tale, <i>Eyes and no Eyes</i>,
+is worthy of record, as a lesson to all, that they should ever make
+proper use of the organs which God has bestowed upon them for the
+acquisition of useful knowledge. Mah&eacute; de la Bourdonnais, one of the
+best and wisest of French colonial governors, whose name, almost
+unknown to history, is embalmed for ever in St Pierre's beautiful
+romance of <i>Paul and Virginia</i>, sent from the Isle of France, in 1743,
+a naval officer named Picault, to explore the cluster of islands now
+known as the Seychelles. Picault made a pretty correct survey, and in
+the course of it discovered some islands previously unknown; one of
+these he named Palmiers, on account of the abundance and beauty of the
+palm-trees that grew upon it; that was all he knew about them. In
+1768, a subsequent governor of the Isle of France sent out another
+expedition, under Captain Duchemin, for a similar purpose. Barr&eacute;, the
+hydrographer of this last expedition, landing on Palmiers, at once
+discovered that the palms, from which the island had, a quarter of a
+century previously, received its name, produced the famous and
+long-sought-for <i>cocos de mer</i>. Barr&eacute; informed Duchemin, and the twain
+kept the secret to themselves. Immediately after their return to the
+Isle of France, they fitted out a vessel, sailed to Palmiers, and
+having loaded with nuts, proceeded to Calcutta. How their speculation
+turned out, we have already related. We should add that Duchemin, in
+his vain expectation of making an immense fortune by the discovery,
+considering that the name of the island might afford future
+adventurers a clue to his secret, artfully changed it to Praslin, the
+name of the then intendant of marine, which it still retains.</p>
+
+<p>We shall speak no more of the Tree of Solomon; it is the <i>Lodoicea
+Seychellarum</i>&mdash;the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles&mdash;as modern
+botanists term it, that we have now to deal with. As its name implies,
+it is a palm, and one of the most nobly-graceful of that family, which
+have been so aptly styled by Linn&aelig;us the princes of the vegetable
+kingdom. Its straight and rather slender-looking stem, not more than a
+foot in diameter, rises, without a leaf, to the height of from 90 to
+100 feet, and at the summit is superbly crowned with a drooping plume,
+consisting of about a score of magnificent leaves, of a broadly-oval
+form. These leaves, the larger of which are twenty feet in length and
+ten in width, are beautifully marked with regular folds, diverging
+from a central supporting chine; their margins are more or less deeply
+serrated towards the extremities; and they are supported by footstalks
+nearly as long as themselves. Every year there forms, in the central
+top of the tree, a new leaf, which, closed like a fan, and defended by
+a downy, fawn-coloured covering, shoots up vertically to a height of
+ten feet, before it, expanding, droops gracefully, and assumes its
+place among its elder brethren; and as the imperative rule pervades
+all nature, that, in course of time, the eldest must give place unto
+their juniors, the senior lowest leaf annually falls withered to the
+ground, yet leaving a memento of its existence in a distinct ring or
+scar upon the parent trunk. It is clear, then, that by the number of
+these rings the age of the tree can be accurately determined; some
+veterans shew as many as 400, without any visible signs of decay; and
+it seems that about the age of 130 years, the tree attains its full
+development.</p>
+
+<p>As in several other members of the palm family, the male and female
+flowers are found on different individuals. The female tree, after
+attaining the age of about thirty years, annually produces a large
+drupe or fruit-bunch, consisting of five or six nuts, each enveloped
+in an external husk, not dissimilar in form and colour to the coat of
+the common walnut, but of course much larger, and proportionably
+thicker. The nut itself is about a foot in length; of an elliptic
+form; at one end obtuse, at the other and narrower end, cleft into two
+or three, sometimes even four lobes, of a rounded form on their
+outsides, but flattened on the inner. It is exceedingly difficult to
+give a popular description when encumbered by the technicalities of
+science; we must try another method. Let the reader imagine two pretty
+thick vegetable marrows, each a foot long, joined together, side by
+side, and partly flattened by a vertical compression, he will then
+have an idea of the curious form of the double cocoa-nut. Sometimes,
+as we have mentioned, a nut exhibits three lobes; let the reader
+imagine the end of one of the marrows cleft in two, and he will have
+an idea of the three-lobed nut; and if he imagines two more marrows
+placed side by side, and compressed with and on the top of the former
+two, he will then have an idea of the four-lobed nut. In fact, almost
+invariably, the four-lobed nut parts in the middle, forming two of the
+more common two-lobed nuts, only distinguishable by the flatness of
+their inner sides from those that grew separately. When green, they
+contain a refreshing, sweetish, jelly-like substance, but when old,
+the kernel is so hard that it cannot be cut with a knife.</p>
+
+<p>The enormous fruit-bunches, weighing upwards of fifty pounds, hang
+three or four years on the tree<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[pg 408]</a></span> before they are sufficiently ripened
+to fall down; thus, though only one drupe is put forth each season,
+yet the produce of three or four years, the aggregate weight of which
+must be considerable, burdens the stem at one time. This great weight,
+suspended at the top of the lofty and almost disproportionately
+slender stem, causes the tree to rock gracefully with the slightest
+breeze; the agitated leaves creating a pleasing noise, somewhat
+similar to that of a distant waterfall. Some French writers have
+enthusiastically alluded to this rustling sound as a delightful
+adjunct of the interesting scene; nor have our English travellers
+spoken in less glowing language. 'Growing in thousands,' says Mr
+Harrison, 'close to each other, the sexes intermingled, a numerous
+offspring starting up on all sides, sheltered by the parent plants,
+the old ones fallen into the sear and yellow leaf, and going fast to
+decay to make room for the young trees, presents to the eye a picture
+so mild and pleasing, that it is difficult not to look upon them as
+animated objects, capable of enjoyment, and sensible of their
+condition.'</p>
+
+<p>Though no longer producing a drug of great value for the exclusive use
+of the wealthy, the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles affords many
+humbler benefits to the inhabitants of those islands. The trunk, when
+split and cleared of its soft, fibrous interior, serves to make
+water-troughs and palisades. The immense leaves are used, in that fine
+climate, as materials for building: not only do they make an excellent
+thatch, but they are also employed for walls. With one hundred leaves,
+a commodious dwelling, including doors, windows, and partitions, may
+be constructed. Baskets and brooms are made from the ribs of the
+leaves and the fibres of their footstalks. The young leaf, previous to
+its expanding, is soft, and of a pale-yellow colour; in this state it
+is cut into longitudinal stripes, and plaited into hats; while the
+downy substance by which it is covered, is found valuable for stuffing
+beds and pillows. Vessels, of various forms and uses, are made out of
+the light, strong, and durable nut-shells. When preserved whole, with
+merely a perforation at the top, they are used to carry water, some
+holding nearly three gallons. When divided, the parts serve, according
+to their size and shape, for platters, dishes, or drinking-cups. Being
+jet-black, and susceptible of a high polish, they are often curiously
+carved, and mounted with the precious metals, to form sugar-basins,
+toilet-dishes, and other useful and ornamental articles for the
+dwellings of the tasteful and refined.</p>
+
+<p>The group of islands termed the Seychelles lie to the northward and
+eastward of Madagascar, in the latitude of 6 degrees south of the
+equinoctial. The tree, in its natural state, is found on three small,
+rocky, and mountainous islands only&mdash;Praslin, containing about 8000
+acres; Curieuse, containing but 1000; and Round Island, smaller still;
+all three lying within a few hundred yards of each other. These
+islands are about 900 miles distant from the Maldives; and as Garcias
+ab Horto, in the sixteenth century, supposed, the nuts, many of which
+grow on rocky precipices overhanging the sea, drop into the waves, and
+are transported by the prevailing currents to other shores. It is a
+remarkable fact, that the trees will not flourish on any other of the
+adjacent islands of the Seychelles group. Many have been planted, but
+they merely vegetate, and are wretchedly inferior to the splendid
+natural trees of Praslin and Curieuse. From the time that the nut
+falls from the tree, a year elapses before it germinates; it only
+requires to lie on the ground without being covered, for the germ
+shoots downwards, forming a root, from which ascends the plumule of
+the future plant.</p>
+
+<p>Several attempts have been made to grow this tree in some of the
+larger horticultural establishments in Great Britain, but hitherto
+without success. Hopes, however, are now entertained; for the
+interesting spectacle of a double cocoa-nut in the act of germination
+may be witnessed at this moment in the national gardens at Kew.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Cocoa-nuts of the sea&mdash;the French appellation of the
+nut.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="FALSE_POLITICAL_ECONOMY" id="FALSE_POLITICAL_ECONOMY"></a>FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<h3>LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION AGAINST FRAUDS.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is a proverb full of wisdom&mdash;as these brief embodiments of
+experience often are&mdash;to the effect that in commerce 'the buyer's eye
+is his merchant.' It has found its way into our legal text-books, to
+express a principle which modern law has had much in view&mdash;that people
+should look to their own skill and knowledge in making their
+purchases, and should not trust to the legislature to protect them, by
+interference and penalties, from purchasing unworthy commodities.
+Undoubtedly, fraud, when it occurs, must be punished. If a merchant
+sell by sample, and intentionally give a different article&mdash;if a
+dog-dealer clothe a cur in the skin of a departed lap-dog, and sell
+him warranted an undoubted Blenheim spaniel&mdash;there should be some
+punishment for the fraud. It will not be found expedient, however, to
+go far, even in such clear cases. In too entirely superseding the
+buyer's eye, and substituting the judge's, we remove a very vigilant
+check on fraud. If people never bought Blenheim spaniels without an
+ample knowledge of the animal's character and appearance, followed by
+minute observation, it would do more to prevent fraud in this small
+by-article of commerce than a host of penal statutes.</p>
+
+<p>And when we come to less palpable imperfections in goods, it will be
+seen that legislation is quite incapable of coping with them. If every
+thrifty housewife, whose last bought bushel of potatoes is more waxy
+than they ought to be&mdash;if every shabby dandy, who has bought a glossy
+satin hat, 'warranted superfine, price only 5s.,' and who finds it
+washed into a kind of dingy serge by the next shower&mdash;had his action
+for the infliction of penalties, it would be a more litigious world
+even than it is. With thimble-riggers, chain-droppers, fortune-telling
+gipsies, and the like, the law wages a most unproductive war. Penal
+statutes and the police do little to put them down, while there are
+fools whose silly selfishness or vanity makes them ready dupes: if
+these fools would become wise and prudent, all the penalties might be
+at once dispensed with. But only imagine the state of litigational
+confusion in which this country would be plunged, if every tradesman
+who sold 'an inferior article,' which had a fair and attractive
+appearance, could be subject to penal proceedings!</p>
+
+<p>Yet our ancestors made this attempt; and under the early monarchs of
+England there were passed a number of statutes, which vainly
+endeavoured to compel every manufacturer and dealer to be honest. The
+wool-trade was an especial favourite of this kind of legislation.
+Indeed, if any one be in search of violent legislative attempts to
+force trade into artificial channels, he will be very sure to find
+them if he turn up the acts on the wool and woollen trade. They would
+fill some volumes by themselves. One great object of the government,
+was to prohibit the exportation of wool, to export it only in the
+manufactured article, and to sell that only for gold. A tissue of
+legislation of the most complicated kind was passed to establish these
+objects. Costly arrangements were made, by which not only in this
+country, but also in others, the sale of the woollens was conducted
+only by Englishmen. This, however, is not our immediate subject&mdash;it
+relates rather to the curious efforts to make the manufacturers
+produce a sound article.</p>
+
+<p>An act of the 13th of Richard II. (1389), gives this melancholy
+account of the dishonesty of certain cloth-makers, and provides a
+penal remedy: 'Forasmuch as divers plain clothes, that be wrought in
+the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Bristol, and Gloucester, be tacked
+and folded together, and set to sale, of the which clothes a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[pg 409]</a></span> great
+part be broken, brused, and not agreeing in the colour, neither be
+according to breadth, nor in no manner to the part of the same clothes
+showed outwards, but be falsely wrought with divers wools, to the
+great deceit, loss, and damage, of the people, in so much, that the
+merchants who buy the same clothes, and carry them out of the realm to
+sell to strangers, be many times in danger to be slain, and sometimes
+imprisoned, and put to fine and ransom by the same strangers, and
+their said clothes burnt or forfeit, because of the great deceit and
+falsehood that is found in the said clothes when they be untacked and
+opened, to the great slander of the realm of England. It is ordained
+and assented, that no plain cloth, tacked nor folded, shall be set to
+sale within the said counties; but that they be opened, upon pain to
+forfeit them, so that the buyers may see them and know them, as it is
+used in the county of Essex.' One would think, that if the buyers
+found themselves habitually cheated by made-up goods, they would find
+the remedy themselves, by insisting on seeing them, and declining,
+according to a Scottish saying, to buy 'a pig in a poke.' Another
+clause of the same act seems equally gratuitous: 'Provided always,
+that after the merchants have bought the same clothes to carry, and do
+carry them out of the realm, they may tack them and fold them at their
+pleasure, for the more easy carriage of them.' What a very
+accommodating statute!</p>
+
+<p>And it really is reasonable, in comparison with other enactments on
+the same subject. In the ninth year of Henry VIII., for instance, an
+act was passed for 'avoiding deceits in making of woollen clothes,'
+containing a whole series of troublesome regulations, such as the
+following: 'That the wool which shall be delivered for or by the
+clothier to any person or persons, for breaking, combing, carding, or
+spinning of the same, the delivery therefore shall be by even just
+poise and weight of averdupois, sealed by authority, not exceeding in
+weight after the rate of xii pound seemed wool, above one quarter of a
+pound for the waste of the same wool, and in none other manner; and
+that the breaker or comber do deliver again to the same clothier the
+same wool so broken and combed, and the carder and spinner to deliver
+again to the said clothier yarn of the same wool, by the same even
+just and true poise and weight (the waste thereof excepted), without
+any part thereof concealing, or any more oil-water, or other thing put
+thereunto deceivable.</p>
+
+<p>'Item, that the weaver which shall have the weaving of any woollen
+yarn to be webbed into cloth, shall weave, work, and put into the web,
+for cloth to be made thereof, as much and all the same yarn as the
+clothier, or any person for him, shall deliver to the same weaver,
+with his used mark put to the same, without changing, or any parcel
+thereof leaving out of the said web; or that he restore to the same
+clothier the surplus of the same yarn, if any shall be left not put in
+the same web, and without any more oil brine, moisture, dust, sand, or
+other thing deceivably putting or casting to the same web, upon pain
+to forfeit for every default three shillings and four pence.</p>
+
+<p>'Item, that no manner of person buy any coloured wool, or coloured
+woollen yarn, of any carder, spinner, or weaver, but only in open
+market, upon pain of forfeiture of such wool and yarn so bought.' And
+so on: these, in fact, are but the beginning of a series of
+regulations, which it would tire the reader to peruse throughout.</p>
+
+<p>One would think, that shoes and other leather manufactures are among
+the last things that require to be made sufficient by legislation. The
+ill-made shoes wear out, and the purchaser, if he be wise, will not go
+again to the same shop. Parliament, however, did not leave him in the
+matter to the resources of his own wisdom. By a statute of the 13th of
+Richard II., it is provided: 'Forasmuch as divers shoemakers and
+cordwainers use to tan their leather, and sell the same falsely
+tanned&mdash;also make shoes and boots of such leather not well tanned, and
+sell them as dear as they will, to the great deceipt of the poor
+commons&mdash;it is accorded and assented, that no shoemaker nor cordwainer
+shall use the craft of tanning, nor tanner the craft of shoemaking;
+and he that doth contrary to this act, shall forfeit to the king all
+his leather so tanned, and all his boots and shoes.'</p>
+
+<p>Fifty-two years later&mdash;in the year 1485, it was found that the people
+were still cheated with bad boots and shoes&mdash;especially, we doubt not,
+when they bought them cheap&mdash;and the legislature, pondering on a
+possible remedy, thought they might find it in further subdivision,
+and prohibiting tanners from currying their leather; and so it is
+enacted, 'that where tanners in divers parts of this realm usen within
+themselves the mystery of currying and blacking of leather
+insufficiently, and also leather insufficiently tanned, and the same
+leather so insufficiently wrought, as well in tanning as in currying
+and blacking, they put to sale in divers fairs and markets, and other
+places, to the great deceipt and hurt of liege people'&mdash;so no tanner
+is to 'use the mystery of a currier, nor black no leather to be put to
+sale, under the forfeiture of every hyde,' &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now introduce our readers to a legislative protection against
+frauds of a more dire and mysterious character, in the shape of an act
+passed in the sixth year of Edward VI., 'for stuffing of feather-beds,
+bolsters, mattresses, and cushions.' Our readers, we hope, will not
+suppose&mdash;as the words might lead them to infer&mdash;that these articles
+are to be stuffed with the act; on the contrary, it would be highly
+penal so to do. The chief provisions are: 'For the avoiding of the
+great deceipt used and practised in stuffing of feather-beds,
+bolsters, pillows, mattresses, cushions, and quilts&mdash;be it enacted,
+that no person or persons whatsoever shall make (to the intent to
+sell, or offer to be sold) any feather-bed, bolster, or pillow, except
+the same be stuffed with dry-pulled feathers, or clean down only,
+without mixing of scalded feathers, fen-down, thistle-down; sand,
+lime, gravel, unlawful or corrupt stuff, hair, or any other, upon pain
+of forfeiture,' &amp;c. One would like to know what 'unlawful or corrupt
+stuff' is, and whether the corruptness be physical through putridity,
+or merely metaphysical and created, like the unlawfulness by statute.
+The act provides further, that after a certain day no person 'shall
+make (to the intent to sell, or offer, or put to sale) any quilt,
+mattress, or cushions, which shall be stuffed with any other stuff
+than feathers, wool, or flocks alone,' on pain of forfeiture.</p>
+
+<p>But the most stringent enactments for the protection of the public
+against such wholesale deceptions appear to have been in the article
+of fustian; and perhaps the hidden adulterations that suggested the
+enactments, may be the reason why unsound reasonings and hollow
+speeches are called fustian. There is something mysteriously awful in
+the act of the eleventh year of Henry VII., called 'A remedy to avoid
+deceitful slights used upon fustians.' It begins thus:</p>
+
+<p>'That whereas fustians brought from the parts beyond the sea unshorn
+into this realm, have been and should be the most profitable cloth for
+doublets and other wearing clothes greatly used among the common
+people of this realm, and longest have endured of anything that have
+come into the same realm from the said parts to that intent&mdash;for that
+the cause hath been that such fustians afore this time hath been truly
+wrought and shorn with the broad sheare, and with no other instruments
+or deceitful mean used upon the same. Now so it is, that divers
+persons, by subtlety and undue slights and means, have deceivably
+imagined and contrived instruments of iron, with which irons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[pg 410]</a></span> in the
+most highest and secret places of their houses, they strike and draw
+the said irons on the said fustians unshorn&mdash;by means whereof they
+pluck off both the nap and cotton of the said fustians, and break
+commonly both the ground and threads in sunder; and after, by crafty
+sleeking, they make the same fustians to appear to the common people
+fine, whole, and sound; and also they raise up the cotton of such
+fustians, and then take a light candle, and set it on the fustian
+burning, which singeth and burneth away the cotton of the same fustian
+from the one end to the other down to the hard threads, instead of
+shearing; and after that put them in colour, and so subtlely dress
+them, that their false work cannot be espied, without it be workmen
+shearers of such fustian, or the wearers of the same.'</p>
+
+<p>Many penalties and forfeitures are laid on the persons who so
+treacherously corrupt honest fustian. But one is apt to fear, that the
+accurate account given of the process may have induced some people to
+follow it, who would not have thought of doing so but for the
+instruction contained in the act for abolishing it.</p>
+
+<p>Our manufacturing operatives have been justly censured for their
+occasional&mdash;and, to do them justice, it is but occasional&mdash;enmity to
+machinery. Sometimes it may be palliated, though not justified, by the
+hardship which is often, without doubt, suffered by those who have to
+seek a new occupation. We suspect, however, that the legislature is
+not entirely free from this kind of barbarous enmity. We are led to
+this supposition by finding, in the sixth year of Edward VI., an act
+'for the putting down of gig-mills.' It sets out with the principle,
+that everything that deteriorates manufactured articles does evil,
+continuing: 'And forasmuch as in many parts of this realm is newly and
+lately devised, erected, builded, and used, certain mills called
+gig-mills, for the perching and burling of cloth, by reason whereof
+the true drapery of this realm is wonderfully impaired, and the cloth
+thereof deceitfully made by reason of the using of the said
+gig-mills'&mdash;and so provisions follow for their suppression. It is a
+general effect of machinery to fabricate goods less lasting than those
+which are handwrought, but with an accompanying reduction of price,
+which makes the machine produce by far the cheaper. We fear the
+legislature saw only the deterioration, and was not alive to the more
+than compensating facility of production.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="VISIT_TO_THE_ROYAL_ITALIAN_OPERA" id="VISIT_TO_THE_ROYAL_ITALIAN_OPERA"></a>VISIT TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is by the territorial division of labour that a country arrives
+most successfully at wealth and civilisation. Our hops are grown in
+Kent and Essex; Glasgow annually sends forth the engines of our steam
+fleets; Sunderland is the focus of our shipbuilding; Edinburgh, with
+her legion of professors, and her busy presses, is one vast academy.
+In short, each district does something peculiar to itself, while all
+avoid sending coal to Newcastle.</p>
+
+<p>A large number of manufactures, particularly those of luxury, are
+peculiar to the metropolis, and one of the most prominent of this
+class is public amusement. Every season has its novelty, whether the
+opera of a great foreign composer, or the lectures of a literary lion;
+besides endless panoramas, dioramas, cosmoramas, and cycloramas, which
+bring home to John Bull the wonders of the habitable globe, and
+annihilate time and space for his delectation. We see the Paris of the
+Huguenots to the sound of Meyerbeer's blood-stirring trumpets; or gain
+companionship with Hogarth, Fielding, or Smollett as we listen to
+Thackeray; or, after paying our shilling in the Chinese Junk, are, to
+all intents and purposes, afloat in the Hoang Ho.</p>
+
+<p>London is the place at which these amusements are manufactured and
+first presented, and at which the stamp is sought which enables a
+portion of them to pass current in the provinces, and make large
+returns to the more fortunate speculators. In the metropolis, the vast
+capital afloat in such schemes is first cast on the waters, and a
+large amount annually sunk and engulfed for ever in the great vortex.
+The continued series of splendid fortunes which have been sacrificed
+in such schemes, would excite our astonishment that the fate of
+previous adventurers had not acted as a warning, if the moral of the
+gambling-table and the Stock Exchange were not always ready, by
+collateral illustration, to explain a riddle which would otherwise be
+insoluble.</p>
+
+<p>Indisputably foremost of all the establishments which offer amusement
+to the London public, is the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden; and
+we say this without attempting to enter into the question of whether
+it has rightly or wrongly achieved a preponderance of vocal talent
+over the rival theatre. While noting, however, the combination of
+talent it presents, and the continued flow of capital it sends forth
+in the production of the highest class of works, we must at the same
+time express our admiration of the spirited efforts of Mr Lumley to
+sustain himself against such odds; and our hope that nothing will
+induce this gentleman to give up a rivalry which has been a stimulus
+to the exertions of the other house, and which has rendered London the
+musical capital of the world. Thus much premised, we sit down to give
+an account of a day spent at Covent Garden, devoted to a thorough
+examination of this vast establishment, from its extensive catacombs
+to the leads which overlook the panorama of London; persuaded as we
+are that the public has but an obscure idea of the capital, labour,
+and ingenuity expended in the production of what is visible to the eye
+of the audience. Access to the stage during rehearsal is strictly
+confined to the performers, although that is the least part of the
+exhibition; but by special favour, we were taken in charge by the
+chief mechanist, an individual provided with the necessary technical
+knowledge, as well as with a material bunch of keys to unlock all the
+mysteries of the place.</p>
+
+<p>Our <i>d&eacute;but</i> was made upon the stage, which we examined in its various
+parts and appendages while the ballet practice was proceeding. The
+curtain was up: the audience part of the house, from the pit to the
+ceiling, was covered with linen, in order to preserve the satin
+draperies from dust. Comparative darkness pervaded the vast space; but
+the front of the stage was illumined by a pipe of gas, pierced for
+jets, running over the orchestra from wing to wing; while a beam of
+sunlight, penetrating through the cords and pulleys of the upper
+regions, cast a strange lustre on the boards, as if it had come
+through green glass. Half a dozen chairs were placed in front of the
+stage, on one of which sat the ballet-master&mdash;a stout, bald-headed
+man, who beat time with his stick. A violinist played at his elbow the
+skeleton airs of the ballet music, while the male and female dancers
+executed their assigned parts; the stout bald-headed gentleman
+occasionally interrupting the rehearsal to suggest improvements, or to
+issue a peremptory reprimand to one of those pale, pretty things who
+were bounding across the stage in short muslin petticoats and faded
+white satin rehearsal chaussure. 'Elle est folle!' 'Allez aux petites
+maisons!' sounded rather ungallant, if we did not know that an
+effective drill for so refractory a corps is not to be got through by
+the aid of the academy of compliments. The master himself, suiting the
+action to the word, occasionally started up, and making some <i>pas</i>, as
+an illustrative example, with his heels flying in the air, was
+certainly in a state of signal incongruity with his aspect, which,
+when seated, was that of a steady-looking banker's clerk from Lombard
+Street.</p>
+
+<p>The width of the stage between the so-called fly-rails is 50 feet;
+while the depth from the footlights to the wall at the back, is 80
+feet. But on extraordinary occasions, it is possible to obtain even a
+longer vista;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[pg 411]</a></span> for the wall opposite the centre of the stage is
+pierced by a large archway, behind which, to the outer wall, is a
+space of 36 feet; so that by introducing a scene of a triumphal arch,
+or some other device, a depth of 100 feet can be obtained, leaving
+still a clear space of 16 feet behind the furthest scene, round the
+back of which processions can double. It would otherwise be difficult
+to comprehend how it is possible, as in the opera of <i>La Juive</i>, to
+man&oelig;uvre here a procession of 394 persons, including a car drawn by
+eight horses.</p>
+
+<p>The stage itself is covered all over with trap-doors and sliding
+panels, although it feels sufficiently firm to the tread; the depth
+from the boards to the ground below the stage is twenty-two feet,
+divided into two floors, the lower deck&mdash;if I may so call it&mdash;being
+also furnished with abundant hatchways down to the hold. On the left
+of the stage, facing the audience, is a room of good size, close to
+the flies; this is the property-room of the night, in which are
+accumulated, previous to the performance, all the articles required
+for that night, whether it be the toilette-table of a princess, or the
+pallet and water-jug of a dungeon prisoner. This apartment, the reader
+may easily understand, is quite distinct from the property store-room,
+which contains everything required for every opera, from the crown of
+the <i>Prophet of Munster</i> to the magpie's cage in <i>La Gazza Ladra</i>.
+There is one property, however, which is of too great dimensions to be
+transportable. The large and fine-toned organ, used in the <i>Proph&egrave;te</i>,
+<i>Huguenots</i>, and <i>Robert le Diable</i>, is to the right of the stage,
+opposite the property-room; and the organist, from his position, being
+unable to see the baton of Mr Costa, takes the time from a lime-tree
+baton fixed to the organ, which is made to vibrate by machinery under
+the control of Mr Costa, from his place in the orchestra. It would
+take up too much space to enter more at large into the machinery used
+in theatrical entertainments; and at anyrate, the parallel slides, the
+pierced cylinder&mdash;by which a ripple is produced on water&mdash;and many
+other devices, however curious and interesting, could not be made
+intelligible without woodcuts.</p>
+
+<p>Our conductor now provided himself with a lantern, in order to lead us
+to the regions under the stage; for, in consequence of the mass of
+inflammable material connected with a theatre, there are as strict
+regulations against going about with open lights as in a coal-pit
+addicted to carbonic acid gas. Descending a trap, we reached the
+so-called mazarine-floor, a corruption of the Italian <i>mezzanine</i>,
+from which the musicians have access to the orchestra. It is not much
+higher than the human stature; and hither descends that <i>Ateista
+Fulminato</i>, Don Juan, or any other wight unlucky enough to be
+consigned to the infernal regions until the curtain drops. In this
+floor is a large apartment for the orchestra, in which are deposited
+the musical instruments in their cases; and beside it is the so-called
+pass-room, in which note is taken of the punctual arrival of
+performers.</p>
+
+<p>Below this is the ground-floor, and below that, again, a vast extent
+of catacombs. One of these is the rubbish-vault, and this is of
+considerable size; for although dresses and properties are often made
+of the coarsest materials, and will not stand a close inspection&mdash;the
+problem to be solved being the combination of stage effect with
+economy&mdash;yet, on the other hand, their want of durability, and the
+constant production of new pieces, necessarily creates a large amount
+of waste; and for this accommodation must of course be provided.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the rubbish-vault, we examined the gasometer, and the remains
+of gas-works; for Covent Garden made its own gas, until an explosion
+took place, which suffocated several men. My conductor pointed out to
+me the spot where they attempted to escape, having gone through a long
+corridor until they were stopped by a dead wall, now pierced by a
+door. Near the gasometer is the hydraulic machine for supplying with
+water the tank on the top of the house; all the other services on this
+line of pipe are screwed off, and thus the water is forced to the top
+of the building. In the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket, a supply for the
+tank on the roof is obtained from a well which was sunk by Mr Lumley
+under the building, in consequence of the river company having raised
+his water-rate from L.60 to L.90. From the well, the water is forced
+up by a machine.</p>
+
+<p>We next ascended a stair, flight after flight; then wound our way
+through a region of flies and pulleys; and then scrambled up ladders
+until we arrived at the tank itself, which is large enough to hold
+sufficient water to supply six engines for half an hour. It has long
+hose attached to it, ready, at the shortest notice, to have the water
+directed either over the scenery or the audience part. We now
+proceeded over the roof of the audience part, to what appeared to be a
+large well, fenced by a parapet; and looking down ten or twelve feet,
+saw below us the centre chandelier, the aperture, which would
+otherwise be unsightly, being closed by an open framework in
+Arabesque. Through this the chandelier is lighted by a long rod,
+having at the end a wire, to which is attached a piece of ignited
+sponge soaked in spirits of wine: the chandelier is raised and lowered
+at pleasure by a three-ton windlass.</p>
+
+<p>Not less than eighty-five apartments, great and small, surround the
+stage or adjoin it, and are used as dressing-rooms, workshops,
+store-rooms, and offices. We first visited the dressing-room of Madame
+Grisi, nearest the stage, and it had the air of an elegant boudoir,
+hung and furnished in green and crimson; while another close beside
+it, fitted up in precisely the same style, was somewhat prematurely
+called the dressing-room of Mademoiselle Wagner. The dresses of the
+various performers, we may mention, are supplied by the management;
+but some of them, with large salaries, and priding themselves on
+appearing before the public in costly and well-fitting garments,
+choose to incur this expense themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The sempstresses-room looks exactly like a large milliner's shop, and
+here we found a forewoman with eighteen assistants at work. Books of
+costumes are always at hand, so that a degree of historical accuracy
+is now attained in Opera costume, which materially assists the
+illusion; and no such anachronism is visible in Covent Garden as in a
+certain theatre across the Thames, where, instead of the Saracenic
+minarets of Cairo, this gorgeous Arab city is represented by pyramids,
+obelisks, and sphynxes. The painting-room of Covent Garden is a light
+and lofty apartment at the top of the house, and the name of Mr Grieve
+is a sufficient guarantee both for historical accuracy and artistic
+character. Scene-painting, as practised at Covent Garden, is a most
+systematic process: a coloured miniature of each scene is made on
+Bristol-board, and consigned to an album; then a larger miniature is
+made, and placed in a model of the Opera stage, on a large table, and
+from this the scenes themselves are executed. Near the painting-room
+is the working property-room, filled with carpenters, mechanists,
+smiths, painters, and other artificers&mdash;everything either before or
+behind the curtain being kept up, repaired, and altered by the people
+of the establishment.</p>
+
+<p>We now proceeded to hear the rehearsal of the opera of <i>Lucia di
+Lammermoor</i>, and entering the stalls, found the orchestra full and
+nearly ready to commence, Mr Costa discussing a glass of port-wine and
+a sandwich, while the stage-manager was marshalling the people for the
+first tableau, the principal singers being seated on chairs at the
+side. What would most have struck those accustomed only to English
+theatricals, was the respectable appearance of the chorus, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[pg 412]</a></span>
+different from the ragamuffin troop that fill up the back-ground of an
+English scene. The Covent Garden chorus includes, at rehearsal, a
+considerable number of well-dressed men in shining hats and new
+paletots, many of whom are good music-teachers, not the less qualified
+for that business by the opportunities they have in this establishment
+of becoming familiar with the way in which the best works of the best
+masters are executed by the best artists.</p>
+
+<p>The rehearsal over, we turned our attention to the audience part of
+the house, more particularly the Queen's box, of the privacy and
+splendour of which even old <i>habitu&eacute;s</i> have no idea. In the first
+place, Her Majesty has a separate court-yard for entrance, in which
+she may alight, which is a check not only upon obtrusive curiosity on
+the part of the public, but upon the evil disposed; for although one
+might naturally suppose, that if there is any individual who ought to
+enjoy immunity from danger or disrespect, it would be a lady who is
+exemplary in her public duties as a constitutional sovereign, as well
+as in those of a consort and mother&mdash;experience has shewn the
+fallaciousness of the idea.</p>
+
+<p>The staircase is very noble, such as few mansions in London possess.
+Passing through the vestibule, we enter the grand drawing-room, in the
+centre of which is one of those tables that formed an ornament of the
+Exhibition last year. The drapery is of yellow satin damask. The
+principal feature of this drawing-room is the conservatory, which is
+separated from it by one vast sheet of plate-glass, the gas-light
+being contrived in such a way as to be unseen by those in the room,
+although bringing out the colours of the flowers with the greatest
+brilliancy.</p>
+
+<p>Adjoining the drawing-room is the Queen's dressing-room; and between
+the grand drawing-room and the royal box is the little drawing-room,
+the walls of which are hung with blue satin damask, relieved by rich
+gilt ornaments, mouldings, and bronzes, in the style of Louis Quinze.
+The royal box itself is fitted up with crimson satin damask, a large
+arm-chair at the extreme right of the front of the box being the one
+Her Majesty usually occupies; but when she visits the theatre in
+state, fourteen boxes in the centre of the house, overlooking the back
+of the pit, are opened into one, involving a large amount of expense
+and trouble, which, however, is no doubt amply compensated by the
+extraordinary receipts of the night.</p>
+
+<p>A private and separate entrance is not the exclusive privilege of
+royalty. The Duke of Bedford, as ground-landlord, and Miss Burdett
+Coutts, who has likewise a box in perpetual freehold, have separate
+entrances, just under that of the Queen's box, with drawing-rooms
+attached, which are small and low-roofed, but sumptuously fitted up.
+Such were the principal objects appertaining to the audience part of
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>Returning behind the scenes, the two principal public rooms are the
+manager's room and green-room, which both suggested recollections of
+old Covent Garden in its British drama-days. Unlike the audience part
+of the theatre, which has been entirely reconstructed, the stage part
+has only been refurnished&mdash;and yet not entirely refurnished&mdash;for in
+this very manager's room, where John Kemble used to play the potentate
+off the stage with as much dignity as on it, stands a clock with the
+following inscription: 'After the dreadful fire of Covent Garden
+Theatre, on the morning of September the 21st 1808, this clock was dug
+out of the ruins by John Saul, master-carpenter of the theatre, and
+repaired and set to work.' When we reached the green-room itself, what
+recollections crowded on me of the stars that glittered around the
+Kemble dynasty! In Costa, seated at the pianoforte, I saw the face of
+an honest man, who unites dogged British perseverance and energy with
+the Italian sense of the beautiful in art. A feeling of regret,
+however, came over me, to think that our British school of dramatic
+representation and dramatic literature, which dawned brightly under
+Elizabeth, and in the eighteenth century was associated with
+everything distinguished in polite letters and polite society, should
+have become all but extinct. But this feeling was momentary, when I
+reflected that our sense of the beautiful, including the good and the
+true, had not diminished, but had merely gone into new channels; and,
+more especially, that Meyerbeer and Rossini, in order to hear their
+own incomparable works executed in perfection, must come to the city
+which the Exhibition of last year has indelibly stamped as the capital
+of the civilised world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="NUMBER_TWELVE" id="NUMBER_TWELVE"></a>NUMBER TWELVE.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I was a young man, working at my trade as a mason, I met with a
+severe injury by falling from a scaffolding placed at a height of
+forty feet from the ground. There I remained, stunned and bleeding, on
+the rubbish, until my companions, by attempting to remove me, restored
+me to consciousness. I felt as if the ground on which I was lying
+formed a part of myself; that I could not be lifted from it without
+being torn asunder; and with the most piercing cries, I entreated my
+well-meaning assistants to leave me alone to die. They desisted for
+the moment, one running for the doctor, another for a litter, others
+surrounding me with pitying gaze; but amidst my increasing sense of
+suffering, the conviction began to dawn on my mind, that the injuries
+were not mortal; and so, by the time the doctor and the litter
+arrived, I resigned myself to their aid, and allowed myself, without
+further objection, to be carried to the hospital.</p>
+
+<p>There I remained for more than three months, gradually recovering from
+my bodily injuries, but devoured with an impatience at my condition,
+and the slowness of my cure, which effectually retarded it. I felt all
+the restlessness and anxiety of a labourer suddenly thrown out of an
+employment difficult enough to procure, knowing there were scores of
+others ready to step into my place; that the job was going on; and
+that, ten chances to one, I should never set foot on that scaffolding
+again. The visiting surgeon vainly warned me against the indulgence of
+such passionate regrets&mdash;vainly inculcated the opposite feeling of
+gratitude demanded by my escape: all in vain. I tossed on my fevered
+bed, murmured at the slowness of his remedies, and might have thus
+rendered them altogether ineffectual, had not a sudden change been
+effected in my disposition by another, at first unwelcome, addition to
+our patients. He was placed in the same ward with me, and insensibly I
+found my impatience rebuked, my repinings hushed for very shame, in
+the presence of his meek resignation to far greater privations and
+sufferings. Fresh courage sprang from his example, and soon&mdash;thanks to
+my involuntary physician&mdash;I was in the fair road to recovery.</p>
+
+<p>And he who had worked the charm, what was he? A poor, helpless old
+man, utterly deformed by suffering&mdash;his very name unnoticed, or at
+least never spoken in the place where he now was; he went only by the
+appellation of No. 12&mdash;the number of his bed, which was next to my
+own. This bed had already been his refuge during three long and trying
+illnesses, and had at last become a sort of property for the poor
+fellow in the eyes of doctors, students, nurse-tenders, in fact, the
+whole hospital staff. Never did a gentler creature walk on God's
+earth: walk&mdash;alas! for him the word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[pg 413]</a></span> was but an old memory. Many years
+before, he had totally lost the use of his legs; but, to use his own
+expression, 'this misfortune did not upset him:' he still retained the
+power of earning his livelihood, which he derived from copying deeds
+for a lawyer at so much per sheet; and if the legs were no longer a
+support, the hands worked at the stamped parchments as diligently as
+ever. But some months passed by, and then the paralysis attacked his
+right arm: still undaunted, he taught himself to write with the left;
+but hardly had the brave heart and hand conquered the difficulty, when
+the enemy crept on, and disabling this second ally, no more remained
+for him than to be conveyed once more, though this time as a last
+resource, to the hospital. There he had the gratification to find his
+former quarters vacant, and he took possession of his old familiar bed
+with a satisfaction that seemed to obliterate all regret at being
+obliged to occupy it again. His first grateful accents smote almost
+reproachfully on my ear: 'Misfortune must have its turn, but <i>every
+day has a to-morrow</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed a lesson to witness the gratitude of this excellent
+creature. The hospital, so dreary a sojourn to most of its inmates,
+was a scene of enjoyment to him: everything pleased him; and the poor
+fellow's admiration of even the most trifling conveniences, proved how
+severe must have been his privations. He never wearied of praising the
+neatness of the linen, the whiteness of the bread, the quality of the
+food; and my surprise gave place to the truest pity, when I learned
+that, for the last twenty years, this respectable old man could only
+afford himself, out of the profits of his persevering industry, the
+coarsest bread, diversified with white cheese or vegetable porridge;
+and yet, instead of reverting to his privations in the language of
+complaint, he converted them into a fund of gratitude, and made the
+generosity of the nation, which had provided such a retreat for the
+suffering poor, his continual theme. Nor did his thankful spirit
+confine itself to this. To listen to him, you would have believed him
+an especial object of divine as well as human benevolence&mdash;all things
+working for his good. The doctor used to say, that No. 12 had 'a mania
+for happiness;' but it was a mania that in creating esteem for its
+victim, infused fresh courage into all that came within its range.</p>
+
+<p>I think I still see him seated on the side of his bed, with his little
+black silk cap, his spectacles, and the well-worn volume, which he
+never ceased perusing. Every morning, the first rays of the sun rested
+on his bed, always to him a fresh subject of rejoicing and
+thankfulness to God. To witness his gratitude, one might have supposed
+that the sun was rising for him alone.</p>
+
+<p>I need hardly say, that he soon interested himself in my cure, and
+regularly made inquiry respecting its progress. He always found
+something cheering to say&mdash;something to inspire patience and hope,
+himself a living commentary on his words. When I looked at this poor
+motionless figure, those distorted limbs, and, crowning all, that
+smiling countenance, I had not courage to be angry, or even to
+complain. At each painful crisis, he would exclaim: 'One minute, and
+it will be over&mdash;relief will soon follow. <i>Every day has its
+to-morrow.</i>'</p>
+
+<p>I had one good and true friend&mdash;a fellow-workman, who used sometimes
+to spare an hour to visit me, and he took great delight in cultivating
+an acquaintance with No. 12. As if attracted by a kindred spirit, he
+never passed his bed without pausing to offer his cordial salutation;
+and then he would whisper to me: 'He is a saint on earth; and not
+content with gaining Paradise himself, must win it for others also.
+Such people should have monuments erected to them, known and read of
+all men. In observing such a character, we feel ashamed of our own
+happiness&mdash;we feel how comparatively little we deserve it. Is there
+anything I can do to prove my regard for this good, poor No. 12?'</p>
+
+<p>'Just try among the bookstalls,' I replied, 'and find the second
+volume of that book you see him reading. It is now more than six years
+since he lost it, and ever since, he has been obliged to content
+himself with the first.'</p>
+
+<p>Now, I must premise that my worthy friend had a perfect horror of
+literature, even in its simplest stages. He regarded the art of
+printing as a Satanic invention, filling men's brains with idleness
+and conceit; and as to writing&mdash;in his opinion, a man was never
+thoroughly committed, until he had recorded his sentiments in black
+and white for the inspection of his neighbours. His own success in
+life, which had been tolerable&mdash;thanks to his industry and
+integrity&mdash;he attributed altogether to his ignorance of those
+dangerous arts; and now a cloud swept across his lately beaming face
+as he exclaimed: 'What! the good creature is a lover of books? Well,
+we must admit that even the best have their failings. No matter. Write
+down the name of this odd volume on a slip of paper; and it shall go
+hard with me, but I give him that gratification.'</p>
+
+<p>He did actually return the following week with a well-worn volume,
+which he presented in triumph to the old invalid. He looked somewhat
+surprised as he opened it; but our friend proceeding to explain that
+it was at my suggestion he had procured it in place of the lost one,
+the old grateful expression at once beamed up in the eyes of No. 12;
+and with a voice trembling with emotion, he thanked the hearty giver.</p>
+
+<p>I had my misgivings, however; and the moment our visitor turned his
+back, I asked to see the book. My old neighbour reddened, stammered,
+and tried to change the conversation; but, forced behind his last
+intrenchments, he handed me the little volume. It was an old Royal
+Almanac. The bookseller, taking advantage of his customer's ignorance,
+had substituted it for the book he had demanded. I burst into an
+immoderate fit of laughter; but No. 12 checked me with the only
+impatient word I ever heard from his lips: 'Do you wish our friend to
+hear you? I would rather never recover the power of this lost arm,
+than deprive his kind heart of the pleasure of his gift. And what of
+it? Yesterday, I did not care a straw for an almanac; but in a little
+time it is perhaps the very book I should have desired. <i>Every day has
+its to-morrow.</i> Besides, I assure you it is a very improving study:
+even already I perceive the names of a crowd of princes never
+mentioned in history, and of whom up to this moment I have never heard
+any one speak.'</p>
+
+<p>And so the old almanac was carefully preserved beside the volume of
+poetry it had been intended to match; and the old invalid never failed
+to be seen turning over the leaves whenever our friend happened to
+enter the room. As to him, he was quite proud of its success, and
+would say to me each time: 'It appears I have made him a famous
+present.' And thus the two guileless natures were content.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the close of my sojourn in the hospital, the strength of poor
+No. 12 diminished rapidly. At first, he lost the slight powers of
+motion he had retained; then his speech became inarticulate; at last,
+no part obeyed his will except the eyes, which continued to smile on
+us still. But one morning, at last, it seemed to me as if his very
+glance had become dim. I arose hastily, and approaching his bed,
+inquired if he wished for a drink; he made a slight movement of his
+eyelids, as if to thank me, and at that instant the first ray of the
+rising sun shone in on his bed. Then the eyes lighted up, like a taper
+that flashes into brightness before it is extinguished&mdash;he looked as
+if saluting this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[pg 414]</a></span> last gift of his Creator; and even as I watched him
+for a moment, his head fell gently on the side, his kindly heart
+ceased to beat. He had thrown off the burden of To-day; he had entered
+on his eternal To-morrow.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="THINGS_TALKED_OF_IN_LONDON" id="THINGS_TALKED_OF_IN_LONDON"></a>THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>June 1852.</i></p>
+
+<p>As usual, everything shews in this month that our season will soon be
+past its perihelion: soir&eacute;es, whether scientific, exquisite, or
+political, take place almost too frequently for the comfort and
+wellbeing of the invited; and loungers and legislators are alike
+beginning to dream of leafy woods and babbling brooks. Our learned
+societies have brought their sessions to a close, with more or less of
+satisfaction to all concerned, the Royal having elected their annual
+instalment of new Fellows, and the Antiquaries having decided to
+reduce their yearly subscription from four guineas to two, with a view
+to an increase and multiplication of the number of their members, so
+that the study of antiquity may be promoted, and latent ability or
+enthusiasm called into play. The British Association are making
+preparations for their meeting at Belfast, and if report speak truth,
+the result of the gathering will be an advancement of science in more
+than one department. Concerts, musical gatherings, spectacles, are in
+full activity, the <i>entrepreneurs</i> seizing the moments, and coins too,
+as they fly. In short, midsummer has come, and fashion is about to
+substitute languor for excitement. Meantime, our excursion trains have
+commenced their trips to every point of the compass; and during the
+next few months, thousands will have the opportunity of exploring the
+finest scenery of our merry island at the smallest possible cost; and
+for one centre of attraction, as London was last year, there will now
+be a hundred.</p>
+
+<p>The award of Lord Campbell on the bookselling question has given a
+great triumph to the innovating party, to which the authors to a man,
+and the great bulk of the public, had attached themselves. The
+<i>Trade</i>, as the booksellers call themselves, while admitting that they
+can no longer stand under a protective principle, feel certain
+difficulties as to their future career, for unquestionably there is
+something peculiar in their business, in as far as a nominal price for
+their wares is scarcely avoidable. If so, the question is, How is it
+to be adjusted? at a lower allowance for the retailer? In that case,
+some would still undersell others; and the old troubles would still be
+experienced. Ought there, then, to be no fixed retailing price at all,
+but simply one for the publisher to exact from the retailer, leaving
+him to sell at what profit he pleases or can get? In that case, the
+publisher's advertisement, holding forth no price to the public, would
+lose half its utility. Shall we, then, leave the retailer to
+advertise? All of these questions must occupy the attention of
+booksellers for some time to come, and their settlement cannot
+speedily be hoped for. The general belief, however, is, that the cost
+for the distribution of books from the shops of the publishers must be
+considerably reduced, the prices of books of course lowered, and their
+diffusion proportionately extended. It will perhaps be found that some
+of the greatest obstructions that operate in the case are not yet so
+much as touched upon.</p>
+
+<p>The French have resumed their explorations and excavations at
+Khorsabad, and will doubtless bring to light many more remains of the
+arts of Nineveh; and Colonel Rawlinson has found the burial-place of
+the kings and queens of Assyria, where the bodies are placed in
+sarcophagi, in the very habiliments and ornaments in which they were
+three thousand years ago! What an important relic it will be for our
+rejuvenated Society of Antiquaries to exercise their faculty of
+investigation upon! If discoveries go on at this rate, we shall soon
+want to enlarge our British Museum.</p>
+
+<p>The Registrar-General tells us, in his first Report for the present
+year, that 90,936 persons were married in the last quarter of 1851&mdash;a
+greater number than in any quarter since 1842, except two, when it was
+slightly exceeded. It is altogether beyond the average, and confirms
+what has been before observed, that marriages are most numerous in
+England in the months of September, October, and November, after the
+harvest. To every 117 of the whole population there was one marriage.
+On the other hand, births are found to be most abundant in the first
+quarters of the year; the number for the first three months of the
+present year was 161,776. 'So many births,' says the Registrar, 'were
+never registered before in the same time.' In the same period of 1851,
+it was 157,374; and of 1848, 139,736. The deaths during the three
+months were 106,682, leaving an increase in the population of 55,094,
+which, however, disappears in the fact, that 57,874 emigrants left the
+United Kingdom in the course of the quarter. The mortality, on the
+whole, was less than in the ten previous winters, owing, perhaps, to
+the temperature having been 3&deg; above the average; but the difference
+was more marked in rural districts than in the large towns. According
+to the meteorological table attached to the Report, it appears that
+the mean temperature for the three months ending in February was
+41&deg;.1, being 4&deg;.2 above the average of eighty years. On the 10th of
+February, the north-east wind set in, and on seventy nights during the
+quarter the temperature went below freezing. The movement of the air
+through January and February was 160 miles per day&mdash;in March, 100
+miles. Up to February 9, the wind was generally south-west, and rain
+fell on twenty-three days, and on six days only after that date. These
+periodical reports, and those of our Meteorological and
+Epidemiological Societies will doubtless, before long, furnish us with
+sufficient data for a true theory of cause and effect as regards
+disease, and for preventive measures.</p>
+
+<p>Gold is, and will be for some time to come, a subject much talked
+about. Some of our financiers are beginning to be of opinion, that the
+period is not distant when a great change must be made in the value of
+our currency&mdash;the sovereign, for instance, to be reduced from 20s. to
+10s. If so, there would be a good deal of loss and inconvenience
+during the transition; but, once made, the difficulty would cease.
+Others, however, consider that the demand for gold for manufacturing
+purposes and new appliances in the arts, will be so great, that not
+for many years to come will its increase have any effect on the value
+of the circulating medium. It will be curious if the result, as not
+unfrequently happens, should be such as to falsify both conclusions.
+Connected with this topic is the important one of emigration; and so
+important is it, that either by public or private enterprise, measures
+will be taken to insure a supply of labourers to the Australian
+colonies to replace, if possible, those who have betaken themselves to
+the diggings. Convicts will not be received; and as something must be
+done with them, Sir James Matheson has offered to give North Rona, one
+of the Orkney Islands, to the government for a penal settlement. It
+has been surveyed, and found to contain 270 acres, sufficient to
+support a population of 1000. Should the proposal be adopted, it will
+afford an opportunity for trying an entirely new system of discipline
+with the criminal outcasts.</p>
+
+<p>Some attention has been drawn to the fact, that our 'Ten Hour Bill'
+has produced an effect on the other side of the Atlantic. The
+legislature of Ohio has just passed a 'ten hour law,' to apply to 'all
+manufactories,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[pg 415]</a></span> workshops, and other places used for mechanical or
+manufacturing purposes' throughout the state; the penalty to be a fine
+of from one guinea to ten. Something has already been said about
+extending its provisions to agricultural labourers and domestic
+servants&mdash;not so easy a task as the other; but when one remembers how
+desperately hard people are made to work in the United States, it is
+gratifying to observe ever so small a beginning towards more temperate
+and life-preserving regulations. In New York, great efforts are made
+towards establishing female schools of design and female medical
+colleges, with a view to open to women a wider sphere of employment
+than that to which they are now restricted. Notwithstanding the
+objections expressed in many quarters against female physicians, it is
+certain that they would find favour among a large class of invalids.
+Another Women's Rights Convention has been held, and an Industrial
+Congress. One of the questions discussed at the latter was: Why in the
+United States some have all the work and no property, and others all
+the property and no work? Harriet Martineau's stories of Political
+Economy would have helped the debaters to a satisfactory solution.</p>
+
+<p>Our sanitary reformers, also, are felicitating themselves on the
+spread of their principles to the West, seeing that the first Baths
+for the People were opened in New York a few weeks since. It appears
+from accounts which have been sent over, that the edifice cost 30,000
+dollars, and is provided with every convenience to insure the end in
+view&mdash;the promotion of cleanliness. The charge for plunge-baths is two
+cents; for warm-baths, five cents; and first-class baths, ten cents.
+For washing, a range of stalls extends through the building, in the
+bottom of which is a contrivance for admitting hot or cold water, as
+may be desired. The drying machinery is 'arranged after the plan of a
+window-sash, with weights and pulleys, so as to rise and fall at
+pleasure. This sliding apparatus, when elevated, is brought into
+contact with confined heated air for a few minutes, followed by a
+rapid draught of dry air, which dries the clothes with great rapidity.
+The same heat is made use of for heating the flat-irons, which are
+brought from the furnace to the hands of the laundresses on a
+miniature railway.' With such an establishment as this in full play,
+the 71,000 emigrants who landed in New York during the first four
+months of the present year, would have little difficulty in purifying
+themselves after their voyage.</p>
+
+<p>There is yet another topic of interest from the United States&mdash;namely,
+the earthquake that was felt over a wide extent of country on the 29th
+of April last. Our geologists are expecting to derive from it some
+further illustration of the dynamics of earthquakes, as the
+Smithsonian Institution has addressed a circular to its numerous staff
+of meteorological observers, calling for information as to the number
+of shocks, their direction, duration, intensity, effects on the soil
+and on buildings, &amp;c. There have been frequent earthquakes of late in
+different parts of the world, and inquiry may probably trace out the
+connection between them. The centre of intensest action appears to
+have been at Hawaii, where Mauna Loa broke out with a tremendous
+eruption, throwing up a column of lava 500 feet high, which in its
+fall formed a molten river, in some places more than a mile wide. It
+burst forth at a point 10,000 feet above the base of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Dr Gibbons has published a few noteworthy facts with respect to the
+climate of California, which shew that San Francisco 'possesses some
+peculiar features, differing from every other place on the coast.' The
+average yearly temperature is 54&deg;; at Philadelphia it is 51&deg;.50; and
+the temperature is found to be remarkably uniform, presenting few of
+those extremes common to the Atlantic states. On the 28th of April
+last year, it was 84&deg;; on October 19th, 83&deg;; August 18th, 82&deg;&mdash;the
+only day in the three summer months when it rose above 79&deg;. It was 80&deg;
+on nine days only, six of them being in October; while in Philadelphia
+it is 80&deg; from sixty to eighty days in the year. In the latter city,
+the temperature falls below the freezing-point on 100 days in the
+year, but at San Francisco on twenty-five mornings only. The coldest
+month is January; the hottest, October. 'In the summer months, there
+is scarcely any change of temperature in the night. The early morning
+is sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy, and always calm. A few hours
+after sunrise, the clouds break away, and the sun shines forth
+cheerfully and delightfully. Towards noon, or most frequently about
+one o'clock, the sea-breeze sets in, and the weather is completely
+changed. From 60&deg; or 65&deg;, the mercury drops forthwith to near 50&deg; long
+before sunset, and remains almost motionless till next morning.' The
+summer, far from being the beautiful season it is in other countries,
+parches up the land, and gives it the aspect of a desert, while the
+'cold sea-winds defy the almost vertical sun, and call for flannels
+and overcoats.' In November and December, or about midwinter, the
+early rains fall, and the soil becomes covered with herbage and
+flowers. These are facts which emigrants bound for California will do
+well to bear in mind.</p>
+
+<p>To come back to Europe. M. Fourcault has addressed a communication to
+the Acad&eacute;mie on 'Remedies against the Physical and Moral Degeneration
+of the Human Species,' intended more especially for the
+working-classes. He would have schools of gymnastics and swimming
+established along the great rivers, and on the sea-shore; gymnastic
+dispensaries, and clinical gymnastic in towns; and agricultural and
+other hospitals, combining simple and economical means of water-cure.
+His clinical gymnastic comprehends three divisions: hygienic or
+muscular exercise, not violent or long-continued, or productive of
+perspiration; medical, in which the exercise is to be kept up until
+perspiration is induced; and orthopedic, which, by means of ropes,
+bands, and loops attached to a bed, enable the patient to take such
+straining and stretching exercise as may be likely to rectify any
+deformity of limb. Whichever method be adopted, it must be carried out
+conscientiously, because 'feeble muscular contractions, without energy
+or sustained effort, produce no hygienic, medical, or orthopedic
+effect.' M. Fourcault may perhaps find some of his objects
+accomplished in another way, for the Prince President has, by a
+decree, appropriated 10,000,000 francs to the improvement of dwellings
+for the working-classes&mdash;3,000,000 of the sum being set apart for
+Paris&mdash;and has offered 5000 francs for the best design. If such works
+as these continue, we shall soon cease to hear that enough is not done
+for the working-classes; and they will have, in turn, to shew how much
+they can do for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>A portable electric telegraph has lately been introduced on some of
+the French railways, by which, in case of accident, the conductors may
+communicate with the nearest stations. It is all contained in a single
+box, the lower portion of which contains the battery, the upper, the
+manipulator and signal apparatus. When required to be used, one of the
+wires is hooked on to the wires of the telegraph, and the other
+attached to an iron wedge thrust into the earth. It answers so well,
+that the directors of the Orleans line have provided thirty of their
+trains with the portable instruments. In connection with this, I may
+tell you that Lamont of Munich, after patient inquiry, has come to the
+conclusion, that there is a decennial period in the variations of the
+magnetic declination; it increases regularly for five years, and
+decreases as regularly through another five. If it can be discovered
+that the horizontal intensity is similarly affected in a similar
+period, another of the laws of terrestrial magnetism will be added to
+the sum of our knowledge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[pg 416]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="NATIVITY_AND_PARENTAGE_OF_MARSHAL_MACDONALD_DUKE_OF_TARENTUM" id="NATIVITY_AND_PARENTAGE_OF_MARSHAL_MACDONALD_DUKE_OF_TARENTUM"></a>NATIVITY AND PARENTAGE OF MARSHAL MACDONALD, DUKE OF TARENTUM.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p>M. de Lamartine having made a mistake in his <i>History of the
+Restoration</i>, in describing Marshal Macdonald as of Irish extraction,
+it may be worth while to state what really was the parentage of that
+highly respectable man.</p>
+
+<p>When Prince Charles Stuart had to voyage in an open boat from the isle
+of South Uist in the Hebrides to Skye, he was guided and protected, as
+is well known, by Miss Flora Macdonald. On that occasion, Flora had
+for her attendant a man called Neil Macdonald, but more familiarly
+Neil Macechan, who is described in the <i>History of the Rebellion</i> as a
+'sort of preceptor in the Clanranald family.' This was the father of
+Marshal Macdonald. He remained more or less attached to the fugitive
+prince during the remainder of his wanderings in the Highlands, and
+afterwards joined him in France, under the influence of an
+unconquerable affection for his person. It was thus that his son came
+to be born abroad.</p>
+
+<p>Neil Macdonald, though a man of humble rank, had received the
+education proper for a priest at the Scots College in Paris. His
+acquaintance with the French language had enabled him to be of
+considerable service to Prince Charles, when he wished to converse
+about matters of importance without taking the other people about him
+into his confidence. There is some reason to believe, that he wrote,
+or at least gave the information required for, a small novel
+descriptive of the poor Chevalier's wanderings, entitled <i>Ascanius, or
+the Young Adventurer</i>. (Cooper, London, 1746.)</p>
+
+<p>When Marshal Macdonald visited Scotland in 1825, he made his way to
+the farm of Howbeg, in South Uist, where his father had been born, and
+where his ancestors had lived for many generations. He found here an
+old lady and her brother, his cousins at one remove, to whom he shewed
+great kindness, settling a pension at the same time upon a more
+distant relation whom he found in poverty. When about to leave the
+spot, he took up some of the soil, and also a few pebbles, which he
+got packed up in separate parcels, and carried back with him to
+France.</p>
+
+<p>The facts respecting Marshal Macdonald's parentage were lately
+communicated to M. de Lamartine, who promptly sent the following
+answer: 'J'ai re&ccedil;u, avec reconnaissance, monsieur, vos int&eacute;ressantes
+communications sur le Mar&eacute;chal Macdonald, homme qui honore deux pays.
+J'en ferai usage l'ann&eacute;e prochaine &agrave; l'&eacute;poque des nouvelles &eacute;ditions.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="DOMESTICATION_OF_WILD_BEES" id="DOMESTICATION_OF_WILD_BEES"></a>DOMESTICATION OF WILD BEES.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p>The following account of the process of transplanting bodily a tribe
+of wild bees, is given in the notes to <i>The Tay</i>, a descriptive poem
+of considerable merit by David Millar. (Perth, Richardson, 1830.)
+'When the boy, whose hobby leads him in that direction, has found out
+a "byke," he marks the spot well, and returns in the evening, when all
+its inmates are housed for the night. Pushing a twig into the hole as
+far as it will go, in case he should lose it by the falling in of the
+rubbish, he commences digging freely till the hum of the hive is
+distinctly heard, when he proceeds more cautiously to work. By this
+time, the more adventurous of the bees come out to ascertain what is
+going on, and are caught as they make their appearance, and put into a
+bottle. When the nest is fully exposed, it is lifted carefully up, and
+placed, as it stood, in a box prepared for it, along with the captured
+bees. The lid being now closed, the whole is carried home, and placed
+in the spot assigned for it in the garden. Next morning, a hole in the
+side of the box is quietly opened, when one or two of the strangers
+soon make their appearance, wondering, evidently, where they are, but
+apparently resolved to make the most of their new circumstances. At
+last, they rise slowly on the wing, and buzz round and round their new
+habitation for some time, taking, no doubt, special note of its every
+peculiarity. The circle of observation is then gradually enlarged,
+till it is thirty or forty yards in circumference, when the earnest
+reconnoitrer disappears, to return again in a short time with
+something for the general good. The curious in those matters, by
+placing the grubs of all the different kinds in one box beside a hive
+in operation, will soon have a choice assortment of all descriptions,
+working as amicably together as if they were all of the same family.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="COPPER-PLATE_ENGRAVINGS_COPIED_ON_STONE" id="COPPER-PLATE_ENGRAVINGS_COPIED_ON_STONE"></a>COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVINGS COPIED ON STONE.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p>In No. 439 of this Journal, Lieutenant Hunt received the credit of
+inventing a process by which copper-plate engravings may be
+transferred to stone, and the copies from a single print thus
+multiplied indefinitely. A correspondent, however, makes us fear that
+Lieutenant Hunt may have been unacquainted with what others had done
+before him. The process, it is stated, is not at all new; although, so
+far as we have heard, it has never been applied to the transfer of
+complicated pictorial engravings.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="SONNET" id="SONNET"></a>SONNET:</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<h4>ON MY LITTLE BOY'S FIRST TRYING TO SAY 'PA-PA.'</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Marked</span> day! on which the earliest dawn of speech<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Glimmered, in trial of thy father's name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Albeit the sound imperfect, yet the aim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thrilled chords within me, deeper than the reach<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of music! Happy hearted, I did claim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The title which those silver tones assigned;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in me leaped my spirit, as when first<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The father's strange and wondering feeling came!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While this dear thought woke up within my mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which careful memory in her folds has nursed:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'If thus to earthly parent's heart so dear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His child's first accents, though imperfect all&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dear, too, to <span class="smcap">Father-God</span>, when faint doth fall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His new-born's half-formed "Abba" on his ear!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="right">P.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Just Published, Price 6d. Paper Cover</i>,</p>
+
+<p class="center">CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a <span class="smcap">Literary Companion</span> for the
+<span class="smcap">Railway</span>, the <span class="smcap">Fireside</span>, or the <span class="smcap">Bush</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="center">VOLUME VII.</p>
+
+<p class="center">To be continued in Monthly Volumes.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p>The present number of the Journal completes the Seventeenth Volume
+(new series), for which a title-page and index have been prepared, and
+may be had of the publishers and their agents.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<p class="center"><b>END OF SEVENTEENTH VOLUME.</b></p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">Printed and Published by W. and R. <span class="smcap">Chambers</span>, Edinburgh.<br />
+Sold by W. S. <span class="smcap">Orr</span>, Amen Corner, London.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***
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+Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443
+       Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Robert Chambers
+          William Chambers
+
+Release Date: March 10, 2007 [EBook #20793]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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+
+
+
+                     CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
+
+  CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
+  INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
+
+
+  No. 443. NEW SERIES.   SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1852.   PRICE 1-1/2_d._
+
+
+
+
+PROSAIC SPIRIT OF THE AGE.
+
+
+There are some phrases that convey only a vague and indefinite
+meaning, that make an impression upon the mind so faint as to be
+scarcely resolvable into shape or character. Being associated,
+however, with the feeling of beauty or enjoyment, they are ever on our
+lips, and pass current in conversation at a conventional value. Of
+these phrases is the 'poetry of life'--words that never fail to excite
+an agreeable though dreamy emotion, which it is impossible to refer to
+any positive ideas. They are generally used, however, to indicate
+something gone by. The poetry of life, we say, with sentimental
+regret, has passed away with the old forms of society; the world is
+disenchanted of its talismans; we have awakened from the dreams that
+once lent a charm to existence, and we now see nothing around us but
+the cold hard crust of external nature.
+
+This must be true if we think it is so; for we cannot be mistaken,
+when we feel that the element of the poetical is wanting in our
+constitutions. But we err both in our mode of accounting for the fact,
+and in believing the loss we deplore to be irretrievable. The fault
+committed by reasoners on this subject is, to confound one thing with
+another--to account for the age being unpoetical--as it unquestionably
+is--by a supposed decay in the materials of poetry. We may as well be
+told that the phenomena of the rising and setting sun--of clouds and
+moonlight--of storm and calm--of the changing seasons--of the
+infinitely varying face of nature, are now trite and worn-out. They
+are as fresh and new as ever, and will be so at the last day of the
+world, presenting, at every recurring view, something to surprise as
+well as delight. To each successive generation of men, the phenomena
+both of the outer and inner world are absolutely new; and the child of
+the present day is as much a stranger upon the earth as the first-born
+of Eve. But the impression received by each individual from the things
+that surround him is widely different--as different as the faces in a
+crowd, which all present the common type of humanity without a single
+feature being alike. This fact we unconsciously assert in our everyday
+criticism; for when any similarity is detected in a description,
+whether of things internal or external, we at once stigmatise the
+later version as a plagiarism, and as such set it down as a confession
+of weakness.
+
+But although the manifestations of nature, being infinite, cannot be
+worn out, the capacity to enjoy them, being human, may decay. It may,
+in fact, in some natures, be entirely wanting, and in some generations
+at least partially so. Seamen, for instance, who live, move, and have
+their being in a world of poetry and romance, are the least poetical
+of men; even in their songs they affect the prosaic and matter of
+fact, and discard everything appertaining to the fanciful.[1] Here is
+a direct instance of the materials of poetry being present, and its
+spirit wanting. So common, however, is it to confound the poetical
+with the faculty of enjoying it, that we find a hygienic power
+ascribed as an absolute property to the beauty of that very element,
+from which they who view it, both in its sweetest and grandest
+aspects, derive no elevation of feeling whatever. Hufeland, who
+reckons among the great panaceas of life the joy arising from the
+contemplation of the beauties of nature, in estimating the advantage
+of sea-bathing as the chief natural tonic, attributes it in great part
+to the action of the prospect of the sea upon the nervous system. 'I
+am fully convinced,' says he, 'that the physical effects of
+sea-bathing must be greatly increased by the impression on the mind,
+and that a hypochondriac or nervous person may be half-cured by
+residing on the sea-coast, and enjoying a view of the grand scenes of
+nature which will there present themselves--such as, the rising and
+setting of the sun over the blue expanse of the waters, and the awful
+majesty of the waves during a storm.' Now, if all patients were alike
+impressionable, this would be sound doctrine; but, as it is, few see
+the sun rise at all, many retire before the dews of evening begin to
+condense, and almost all shut themselves carefully up during a storm.
+
+The poetry of life, we need hardly say, is not associated exclusively
+with the things of external nature:
+
+    All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
+    Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
+
+are likewise a portion of the materials which it informs as with a
+soul. For poetry does not create, but modify. It is neither passion
+nor power; neither beauty nor love; but to one of these it gives
+exaltation, to another majesty; to one enchantment, to another
+divinity. It is not the light of 'the sun when it shines, nor of the
+moon walking in brightness,' but the glory of the one, and the grace
+and loveliness of the other. It is not instruction, but that which
+lends to instruction a loftier character, ascending from the finite to
+the infinite. It is not morality, but that which deepens the moral
+impression, and sends the thrill of spiritual beauty throughout the
+whole being. But its appeals, says an eloquent writer, are mainly 'to
+those affections that are apt to become indolent and dormant amidst
+the commerce of the world;' and it aims at the 'revival of those purer
+and more enthusiastic feelings which are associated with the earlier
+and least selfish period of our existence. Immersed in business,
+which, if it sharpen the edge of intellect, leaves the heart barren;
+toiling after material wealth or power, and struggling with fortune
+for existence; seeing selfishness reflected all around us from the
+hard and glittering surface of society as from a cold and polished
+mirror; it would go hard with man in adversity, perhaps still more in
+prosperity, if some resource were not provided for him, which, under
+the form of an amusement and recreation, administered a secret but
+powerful balsam in the one case, and an antidote in the other.' Poetry
+elevates some of our emotions, disinters others from the rubbish of
+the world, heightens what is mean, transforms what is unsightly,
+
+    Clothing the palpable and the familiar
+    With golden exhalations of the dawn.
+
+It is a spiritual wine which revives the weary denizen of the vale of
+tears, and softens, warms, and stimulates, without the reaction of
+material cordials. 'It gives him wings,' says another writer, 'and
+lifts him out of the dirt; and leads him into green valleys; and
+carries him up to high places, and shews him at his feet the earth and
+all its glories.'
+
+The poetry of life, therefore, although one of those expressions that
+baffle definition, points to something of vast importance to the
+happiness of men and the progress of the race. It is no idle dream, no
+mere amusement of the fancy. Whenever we feel a generous thrill on
+hearing of a great action--that is poetry. Whenever we are conscious
+of a larger and loftier sympathy than is implied in the exercise of
+some common duty of humanity--that is poetry. Whenever we look upon
+the hard realities of life through a medium that softens and relieves
+them--that medium is poetry. Without poetry, there is no loftiness in
+friendship, no devotedness in love. The feelings even of the young
+mother watching her sleeping child till her eyes are dim with
+happiness, are one half poetry. Hark! there is music on the evening
+air, always a delightful incident in the most delightful scene; and
+here there are ruins, and woods, and waters, all the adjuncts of a
+picture. This is beauty; but if we breathe over that beauty the spirit
+of poetry, see what a new creation it becomes, and what a permanent
+emotion it excites!
+
+      The splendour falls on castle walls,
+        And snowy summits, old in story;
+      The long light shakes across the lakes,
+        And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
+    Blow, bugle blow, set the wild echoes flying;
+    Blow bugle, answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.
+
+      O hark! O hear! how thin and clear,
+        And thinner, clearer, further going;
+      O sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
+        The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
+    Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;
+    Blow bugle, answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.
+
+      O love, they die in yon rich sky!
+        They faint on field, and hill, and river;
+      Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
+        And grow for ever and for ever.
+    Blow, bugle blow, set the wild echoes flying;
+    And answer, echoes answer, dying, dying, dying.[2]
+
+This is a sample of the spiritual wine we have talked of--something to
+elevate and intoxicate. But the picture it presents does not pass away
+in the reaction of the morning. It haunts us in all after-life, rising
+up before us in the pauses of the world, to heal and refresh our
+wearied spirits.
+
+As in this poem the pleasure is caused by its appeals to the
+imagination heightening the feeling the scene naturally excites; by
+the spiritual and material world being linked together as regards the
+music; and by the connection established between the echoes and the
+sky, field, hill, and river, where they die--just so it is with the
+poetry of moral feeling. The spectacle we have instanced of the young
+mother watching her sleeping infant, is in itself beautiful; but it
+becomes poetical when we imagine the feeling of beauty united in her
+mind with the instinct of love, and detect in her glance, moist with
+emotion, the blending of hopes, memories, pride, and tearful joy.
+Poetry, therefore, is not moral feeling, but something that heightens
+and adorns it. It is not even a direct moral agent, for it deepens the
+lesson only through the medium of the feelings and imagination. Thus
+moral poetry, when reduced to writing, is merely morality conveyed in
+the form of poetry; and in like manner, religious poetry, is religion
+so conveyed. The thing conveyed, however, must harmonise with the
+medium, for poetry will not consent to give an enduring form to what
+is false or pernicious. It has often been remarked, with a kind of
+superstitious wonder, that poems of an immoral character never live
+long; but the reason is, that it is the characteristic of immorality
+to tie down man in the chains of the senses, and this shews that it
+has nothing in common with the spiritual nature of poetry. For the
+same reason, a poem based upon atheism, although it might attract
+attention for a time, would meet with no permanent response in the
+human breast; religion being Truth, and poetry her peculiar
+ministrant.
+
+Although written poetry, however, does not necessarily come into this
+subject, it may be observed, that the comparative incapacity of the
+present generation to enjoy the poetical is clearly exhibited in its
+literature. Never was there so much verse, and so little poetry. Never
+was the faculty of rhyming so impartially spread over the whole mass
+of society. The difficulty used to be, to find one possessed of the
+gift: now it is nearly as difficult to find one who is not. Formerly,
+to write verses was a distinction: now it is a distinction not to
+write them--and one of some consequence. But with all this multitude
+of poets, there is not one who can take his place with the
+comparatively great names of the past, or vanishing generation. Now
+and then we have a brilliant thought--even a certain number of verses
+deserving the name of a poem; but there is no sustained poetical
+power, nothing to mark an epoch, or glorify a name. When we commend,
+it is some passage distinct from the poem, something small, and
+finished, and complete in itself. The taste of the day runs more upon
+conceits and extravagances, such as Cowley would have admired, and
+which he might have envied. The suddenness of the impression, so to
+speak, made by great poets, their direct communication with the heart,
+belongs to another time. It is our ambition to come to the same end by
+feats of ingenuity; and instead of touching the feelings, and setting
+the imagination of the reader instantaneously aglow, to exercise his
+skill in unravelling and interpretation. We expect the pleasure of
+success to reward him for the fatigue.
+
+The same feeling is at work, as we have already pointed out, in
+decorative art; in which 'a redundancy of useless or ridiculous
+ornament is called richness, and the inability to appreciate simple
+and beautiful, or grand and noble forms, receives the name of genius.'
+The connection is curious, likewise, between this ingenuity of poetry
+and that of the machinery which gives a distinguishing character to
+our epoch. It looks as if the complication of images, working towards
+a certain end, were only another development of the genius that
+invents those wonderful instruments which the eye cannot follow till
+they are familiarly entertained--and sometimes not even then. If this
+idea were kept in view, there would be at least some wit, although no
+truth, in the common theory which attempts to account for the decline
+of poetry. Neither advancement in science, however, nor ingenuity in
+mechanics, is in itself, as the theory alleges, hostile to the
+poetical; on the contrary, the materials of poetry multiply with the
+progress of both. The prosaic character of the age does not flow from
+these circumstances, but exists in spite of them. It has been said,
+indeed, that the light of knowledge is unfavourable to poetry, by
+making the hues and lineaments of the phantoms it calls up grow
+fainter and fainter, till they are wholly dispelled. But this applies
+only to one class of images. The ghost of Banquo, for instance, may
+pale away and vanish utterly before the light of knowledge; but the
+air-drawn dagger of Macbeth is immortal like the mind itself.
+Knowledge cannot throw its illumination upon eternity, or dissipate
+the influences by which men feel they are surrounded. A candle brought
+into a darkened room discloses the material forms of the things in the
+midst of which we are standing, and which may have been involved, to
+our imagination, in a poetical mystery. But the light itself, as an
+unexplained wonder--its analogies with the flame of life--the
+modifications it receives from the faint gleam of the sky through the
+shadowed window--all are poetical materials, and of a higher
+character. Where one series of materials ends, another begins; and so
+on in infinite progression, till poetry seems to spurn the earth from
+beneath her foot--
+
+    Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
+    And in clear dream and solemn vision
+    Telling of things which no gross ear can hear;
+    Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
+    Begins to cast a beam on the outer shape--
+    The unpolluted temple of the mind,
+    And turn it by degrees to the soul's essence,
+    Till all be made immortal.
+
+Science with us, however, is a business instead of an ambition;
+ingenuity a trade rather than a taste. We go on from discovery to
+discovery, from invention to invention, with an insatiate but prosaic
+spirit, which turns everything to a profitable and practical
+account--imprisoning the very lightning, that it may carry our
+messages over land and under sea! We do not stop to look, to listen,
+to feel, to exalt with a moral elevation the objects of our study, and
+snatch a spiritual enjoyment from imagination. All with us is
+material; and all would be even mean, but for the essential grandeur
+of the things themselves. And here comes the question: Is this
+material progress incompatible with spiritual progress? Is the poetry
+of life less abundant because the conveniences of life are more
+complete and admirable? Is man less a spirit of the universe because
+he is a god over the elements? We answer, No: the scientific and the
+prosaic spirit are both independent elements in the genius of the age;
+or, if there is a necessary connection, it is the converse of what is
+supposed--the restless mind in which the fervour of poetry has died,
+plunging into science for the occupation that is necessary to its
+happiness. Thus one age is merely poetical, another merely scientific;
+although here, of course, we use, for the sake of distinctness, the
+broadest terms, unmindful of the modifications ranging between these
+extreme points. The age, however, that has least poetry has most
+science, and _vice versa_.
+
+But man, unlike the other denizens of the earth, has power over his
+own destiny. He is able to cultivate the poetical as if it were a
+plant; and if once convinced of its important bearing upon his
+enjoyment of the world, he will do so. The imagination may be educated
+as well as the moral sense, and the result of the advancement of the
+one as well as the other is an expansion of the mind, and an
+enlargement of the capacity for happiness. The grand obstacle is
+precisely what we have now endeavoured to aid in removing--the common
+mistake as to the nature of the poetical, which it is customary to
+consider as something remote from, or antagonistic to, the business of
+life. So far from this, it is essentially connected with the moral
+feelings. It neutralises the conventionalisms of society, and makes
+the whole world kin. It enlarges the circle of our sympathies, till
+they comprehend, not only our own kind, but every living thing, and
+not only animate beings, but all created nature.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See _Journal_, No. 425. Article, 'Dibdin's Sailor-Songs.'
+
+[2] Tennyson.
+
+
+
+
+A DUEL IN 1830.
+
+
+I had just arrived at Marseilles with the diligence, in which three
+young men, apparently merchants or commercial travellers, were the
+companions of my journey. They came from Paris, and were enthusiastic
+about the events which had lately happened there, and in which they
+boasted of having taken part. I was, for my part, quiet and reserved;
+for I thought it much better, at a time of such political excitement
+in the south of France, where party passions always rise so high,
+to do nothing that would attract attention; and my three
+fellow-travellers no doubt looked on me as a plain, common-place
+seaman, who had been to the luxurious metropolis for his pleasure or
+on business. My presence, it seemed, did not incommode them, for they
+talked on as if I had not been there. Two of them were gay, merry, but
+rather coarse boon-companions; the third, an elegant youth, blooming
+and tall, with luxuriant black curling hair, and dark soft eyes. In
+the hotel where we dined, and where I sat a little distance off,
+smoking my cigar, the conversation turned on various love-adventures,
+and the young man, whom they called Alfred, shewed his comrades a
+packet of delicately perfumed letters, and a superb lock of beautiful
+fair hair.
+
+He told them, that in the days of July he had been slightly wounded,
+and that his only fear, while he lay on the ground, was that if he
+died, some mischance might prevent Clotilde from weeping over his
+grave. 'But now all is well,' he continued. 'I am going to fetch a
+nice little sum from my uncle at Marseilles, who is just at this
+moment in good-humour, on account of the discomfiture of the Jesuits
+and the Bourbons. In my character of one of the heroes of July, he
+will forgive me all my present and past follies: I shall pass an
+examination at Paris, and then settle down in quiet, and live happily
+with my Clotilde.' Thus they talked together; and by and by we parted
+in the court-yard of the coach-office.
+
+Close by was a brilliantly illumined coffee-house. I entered, and
+seated myself at a little table, in a distant corner of the room. Two
+persons only were still in the saloon, in an opposite corner, and
+before them stood two glasses of brandy. One was an elderly, stately,
+and portly gentleman, with dark-red face, and dressed in a quiet
+coloured suit; it was easy to perceive that he was a clergyman. But
+the appearance of the other was very striking. He could not be far
+from sixty years of age, was tall and thin, and his gray, indeed
+almost white hair, which, however, rose from his head in luxurious
+fulness, gave to his pale countenance a peculiar expression that made
+one feel uncomfortable. The brawny neck was almost bare; a simple,
+carelessly-knotted black kerchief alone encircled it; thick,
+silver-gray whiskers met together at his chin; a blue frock-coat,
+pantaloons of the same colour, silk stockings, shoes with thick soles,
+and a dazzlingly-white waistcoat and linen, completed his equipment. A
+thick stick leant in one corner, and his broad-brimmed hat hung
+against the wall. There was a certain convulsive twitching of the thin
+lips of this person, which was very remarkable; and there seemed, when
+he looked fixedly, to be a smouldering fire in his large, glassy,
+grayish-blue eyes. He was, it was evident, a seaman like myself--a
+strong oak that fate had shaped into a mast, over which many a storm
+had blustered, but which had been too tough to be shivered, and still
+defied the tempest and the lightning. There lay a gloomy resignation
+as well as a wild fanaticism in those features. The large bony hand,
+with its immense fingers, was spread out or clenched, according to the
+turn which the conversation with the clergyman took. Suddenly he
+stepped up to me. I was reading a royalist newspaper. He lighted his
+cigar.
+
+'You are right, sir; you are quite right not to read those infamous
+Jacobin journals.' I looked up, and gave no answer. He continued: 'A
+sailor?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'And have seen service?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'You are still in active service?'
+
+'No.' And then, to my great satisfaction, for my patience was
+well-nigh exhausted, the examination was brought to a conclusion.
+
+Just then, an evil destiny led my three young fellow-travellers into
+the room. They soon seated themselves at a table, and drank some
+glasses of champagne to Clotilde's health. All went on well; but when
+they began to sing the _Marseillaise_ and the _Parisienne_, the face
+of the gray man began to twitch, and it was evident a storm was
+brewing. Calling to the waiter, he said with a loud voice: 'Tell those
+blackguards yonder not to annoy me with their low songs!'
+
+The young men sprang up in a fury, and asked if it was to them he
+alluded.
+
+'Whom else should I mean?' said the gray man with a contemptuous
+sneer.
+
+'But we may drink and sing if we like, and to whom we like,' said the
+young man. '_Vive la Republique et vive Clotilde!_'
+
+'One as blackguardly as the other!' cried the gray-beard tauntingly;
+and a wine-glass, that flew at his head from the hand of the
+dark-haired youth, was the immediate rejoinder. Slowly wiping his
+forehead, which bled and dripped with the spilled wine, the old man
+said quite quietly: 'To-morrow, at the Cap Verd!' and seated himself
+again with the most perfect composure.
+
+The young man expressed his determination to take the matter on
+himself; that he alone would settle the quarrel, and promised to
+appear on the morrow at the appointed time. They then all departed
+noisily. The old man rose quietly, and turning to me, said: 'Sir, you
+have been witness to the insult; be witness also to the satisfaction.
+Here is my address: I shall expect you at five o'clock. Good-night,
+Monsieur l'Abbe! To-morrow, there will be one Jacobin less, and one
+lost soul the more. Good-night!' and taking his hat and stick, he
+departed. His companion the abbe followed soon after.
+
+I now learned the history of this singular man. He was descended from
+a good family of Marseilles. Destined for the navy while still young,
+he was sent on board ship before the Revolution, and while yet of
+tender years. Later, he was taken prisoner; and after many strange
+adventures, returned in 1793 to France: was about to marry, but having
+been mixed up with the disturbances of Toulon, managed to escape by a
+miracle to England; and learned before long that his father, mother,
+one brother, a sister of sixteen years of age, and his betrothed, had
+all been led to the guillotine to the tune of the _Marseillaise_.
+Thirst for revenge, revenge on the detested Jacobins, was now his sole
+aim. For a long time he roved about in the Indian seas, sometimes as a
+privateer, at others as a slave-dealer; and was said to have caused
+the tricoloured flag much damage, while he acquired a considerable
+fortune for himself. With the return of the Bourbons, he came back to
+France, and settled at Marseilles. He lived, however, very retired,
+and employed his large fortune solely for the poor, for distressed
+seamen, and for the clergy. Alms and masses were his only objects of
+expense. It may easily be believed, that he acquired no small degree
+of popularity among the lower classes and the clergy. But, strangely
+enough, when not at church, he spent his time with the most celebrated
+fencing-masters, and had acquired in the use of the pistol and the
+sword a dexterity that was hardly to be paralleled. In the year 1815,
+when the royalist reaction broke out in La Vendee, he roved about for
+a long time at the head of a band of followers. When at last this
+opportunity of cooling his rage was taken from him by the return of
+order, he looked out for some victim who was known to him by his
+revolutionary principles, and sought to provoke him to combat. The
+younger, the richer, the happier the chosen victim was, the more
+desirable did he seem. The landlord told me he himself knew of seven
+young persons who had fallen before his redoubted sword.
+
+The next morning at five o'clock, I was at the house of this singular
+character. He lived on the ground-floor, in a small simple room,
+where, excepting a large crucifix, and a picture covered with black
+crape, with the date, 1794, under it, the only ornaments were some
+nautical instruments, a trombone, and a human skull. The picture was
+the portrait of his guillotined bride; it remained always veiled,
+excepting only when he had slaked his revenge with blood; then he
+uncovered it for eight days, and indulged himself in the sight. The
+skull was that of his mother. His bed consisted of the usual hammock
+slung from the ceiling. When I entered, he was at his devotions, and a
+little negro brought me meanwhile a cup of chocolate and a cigar. When
+he had risen from his knees, he saluted me in a friendly manner, as if
+we were merely going for a morning walk together; afterwards he opened
+a closet, took out of it a case with a pair of English pistols, and a
+couple of excellent swords, which I put under my arm; and thus
+provided, we proceeded along the quay towards the port. The boatmen
+seemed all to know him. 'Peter, your boat!' He seated himself in the
+stern.
+
+'You will have the goodness to row,' he said; 'I will take the tiller,
+so that my hand may not become unsteady.'
+
+I took off my coat, rowed away briskly, and as the wind was
+favourable, we hoisted a sail, and soon reached Cap Verd. We could
+remark from afar our three young men, who were sitting at breakfast in
+a garden not far from the shore. This was the garden of a
+_restaurateur_, and was the favourite resort of the inhabitants of
+Marseilles. Here you find excellent fish; and also, in high
+perfection, the famous _bollenbresse_, a national dish in Provence, as
+celebrated as the _olla podrida_ of Spain. How many a love-meeting has
+occurred in this place! But this time it was not Love that brought the
+parties together, but Hate, his stepbrother; and in Provence the one
+is as ardent, quick, and impatient as the other.
+
+My business was soon accomplished. It consisted in asking the young
+men what weapons they chose, and with which of them the duel was to be
+fought. The dark-haired youth--his name was M---- L---- insisted that
+he alone should settle the business, and his friends were obliged to
+give their word not to interfere.
+
+'You are too stout,' he said to the one, pointing to his portly
+figure; 'and you'--to the other--'are going to be married; besides, I
+am a first-rate hand with the sword. However, I will not take
+advantage of my youth and strength, but will choose the pistol, unless
+the gentleman yonder prefers the sword.'
+
+A movement of convulsive joy animated the face of my old captain: 'The
+sword is the weapon of the French gentleman,' he said; 'I shall be
+happy to die with it in my hand.'
+
+'Be it so. But your age?'
+
+'Never mind; make haste, and _en garde_.'
+
+It was a strange sight: the handsome young man on one side,
+overbearing confidence in his look, with his youthful form, full of
+grace and suppleness; and opposite him that long figure, half
+naked--for his blue shirt was furled up from his sinewy arm, and his
+broad, scarred breast was entirely bare. In the old man, every sinew
+was like iron wire: his whole weight resting on his left hip, the long
+arm--on which, in sailor fashion, a red cross, three lilies, and other
+marks, were tattooed--held out before him, and the cunning, murderous
+gaze rivetted on his adversary.
+
+''Twill be but a mere scratch,' said one of the three friends to me. I
+made no reply, but was convinced beforehand that my captain, who was
+an old practitioner, would treat the matter more seriously. Young
+L----, whose perfumed coat was lying near, appeared to me to be
+already given over to corruption. He began the attack, advancing
+quickly. This confirmed me in my opinion; for although he might be a
+practised fencer in the schools, this was proof that he could not
+frequently have been engaged in serious combat, or he would not have
+rushed forwards so incautiously against an adversary whom he did not
+as yet know. His opponent profited by his ardour, and retired step by
+step, and at first only with an occasional ward and half thrust. Young
+L----, getting hotter and hotter, grew flurried; while every ward of
+his adversary proclaimed, by its force and exactness, the master of
+the art of fence. At length the young man made a lunge; the captain
+parried it with a powerful movement, and, before L---- could recover
+his position, made a thrust in return, his whole body falling forward
+as he did so, exactly like a picture at the Academie des Armes--'the
+hand elevated, the leg stretched out'--and his sword went through his
+antagonist, for nearly half its length, just under the shoulder. The
+captain made an almost imperceptible turn with his hand, and in an
+instant was again _en garde_. L---- felt himself wounded; he let his
+sword fall, while with his other hand he pressed his side; his eyes
+grew dim, and he sank into the arms of his friends. The captain wiped
+his sword carefully, gave it to me, and dressed himself with the most
+perfect composure. 'I have the honour to wish you good-morning,
+gentlemen: had you not sung yesterday, you would not have had to weep
+to-day;' and thus saying, he went towards his boat. ''Tis the
+seventeenth!' he murmured; 'but this was easy work--a mere greenhorn
+from the fencing-schools of Paris. 'Twas a very different thing when I
+had to do with the old Bonapartist officers, those brigands of the
+Loire.' But it is quite impossible to translate into another language
+the fierce energy of this speech. Arrived at the port, he threw the
+boatman a few pieces of silver, saying: 'Here, Peter; here's something
+for you.'
+
+'Another requiem and a mass for a departed soul, at the church of St
+Genevieve--is it not so, captain? But that is a matter of course.' And
+soon after we reached the dwelling of the captain.
+
+The little negro brought us a cold pasty, oysters, and two bottles of
+_vin d'Artois_. 'Such a walk betimes gives an appetite,' said the
+captain gaily. 'How strangely things fall out!' he continued in a
+serious tone. 'I have long wished to draw the crape veil from before
+that picture, for you must know I only deem myself worthy to do so
+when I have sent some Jacobin or Bonapartist into the other world, to
+crave pardon from that murdered angel; and so I went yesterday to the
+coffee-house with my old friend the abbe, whom I knew ever since he
+was field-preacher to the Chouans, in the hope of finding a victim for
+the sacrifice among the readers of the liberal journals. The
+confounded waiters, however, betray my intention; and when I am there,
+nobody will ask for a radical paper. When you appeared, my worthy
+friend, I at first thought I had found the right man, and I was
+impatient--for I had been waiting for more than three hours for a
+reader of the _National_ or of _Figaro_. How glad I am that I at once
+discovered you to be no friend of such infamous papers! How grieved
+should I be, if I had had to do with you instead of with that young
+fellow!' For my part, I was in no mood even for self-felicitations. At
+that time, I was a reckless young fellow, going through the
+conventionalisms of society without a thought; but the event of the
+morning had made even me reflect.
+
+'Do you think he will die, captain?' I asked: 'is the wound mortal?'
+
+'For certain!' he replied with a slight smile. 'I have a knack--of
+course for Jacobins and Bonapartists only--when I thrust _en quarte_,
+to draw out the sword by an imperceptible movement of the hand, _en
+tierce_, or _vice versa_, according to circumstances; and thus the
+blade turns in the wound--_and that kills_; for the lung is injured,
+and mortification is sure to follow.'
+
+On returning to my hotel, where L---- also was staying, I met the
+physician, who had just visited him. He gave up all hope. The captain
+spoke truly, for the slight movement of the hand and the turn of the
+blade had accomplished their aim, and the lung was injured beyond the
+power of cure. The next morning early L---- died. I went to the
+captain, who was returning home with the abbe. 'The abbe has just been
+to read a mass for him,' he said; 'it is a benefit which, on such
+occasions, I am willing he should enjoy--more, however, from
+friendship for him, than out of pity for the accursed soul of a
+Jacobin, which in my eyes is worth less than a dog's! But walk in,
+sir.'
+
+The picture, a wonderfully lovely maidenly face, with rich curls
+falling around it, and in the costume of the last ten years of the
+preceding century, was now unveiled. A good breakfast, like that of
+yesterday, stood on the table. With a moistened eye, and turning to
+the portrait, he said: 'Therese, to thy memory!' and emptied his glass
+at a draught. Surprised and moved, I quitted the strange man. On the
+stairs of the hotel I met the coffin, which was just being carried up
+for L----; and I thought to myself: 'Poor Clotilde! you will not be
+able to weep over his grave.'
+
+
+
+
+THE TREE OF SOLOMON.
+
+
+    Wide forests, deep beneath Maldivia's tide,
+    From withering air the wondrous fruitage hide;
+    There green-haired nereids tend the bowery dells,
+    Whose healing produce poison's rage expels.
+
+    _The Lusiad._
+
+If Japan be still a sealed book, the interior of China almost unknown,
+the palatial temple of the Grand Lama unvisited by scientific or
+diplomatic European--to say nothing of Madagascar, the steppes of
+Central Asia, and some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago--how
+great an amount of marvel and mystery must have enveloped the
+countries of the East during the period that we now term the middle
+ages! By a long and toilsome overland journey, the rich gold and
+sparkling gems, the fine muslins and rustling silks, the pungent
+spices and healing drugs of the Morning Land, found their way to the
+merchant princes of the Mediterranean. These were not all. The
+enterprising traversers of the Desert brought with them, also, those
+tales of extravagant fiction which seem to have ever had their
+birthplace in the prolific East. Long after the time that doubt--in
+not a few instances the parent of knowledge--had, by throwing cold
+water on it, extinguished the last funeral pyre of the ultimate
+Phoenix, and laughed to scorn the gigantic, gold-grubbing pismires of
+Pliny; the Roc, the Valley of Diamonds, the mountain island of
+Loadstone, the potentiality of the Talisman, the miraculous virtues of
+certain drugs, and countless other fables, were accepted and believed
+by all the nations of the West. One of those drugs, seldom brought to
+Europe on account of its great demand among the rulers of the East,
+and its extreme rarity, was a nut of alleged extraordinary curative
+properties--of such great value, that the Hindoo traders named it
+_Trevanchere_, or the Treasure--of such potent virtue, that Christians
+united with Mussulmen in terming it the Nut of Solomon. Considered a
+certain remedy for all kinds of poison, it was eagerly purchased by
+those of high station at a period when that treacherous destroyer so
+frequently mocked the steel-clad guards of royalty itself--when
+poisoning was the crime of the great, before it had descended from the
+corrupt and crafty court to the less ceremonious cottage. Nor was it
+only as an antidote that its virtues were famed. A small portion of
+its hard and corneous kernel, triturated with water in a vessel of
+porphyry, and mixed, according to the nature of the disease and skill
+of the physician, with the powder of red or white coral, ebony, or
+stag's horns, was supposed to be able to put to flight all the
+maladies that are the common lot of suffering humanity. Even the
+simple act of drinking pure water out of a part of its polished shell
+was esteemed a salutary remedial process, and was paid for at a
+correspondently extravagant price. Doubtless, in many instances it did
+effect cures; not, however, by any peculiar inherent sanative
+property, but merely through the unbounded confidence of the patient:
+similar cases are well known to medical science; and at the present
+day, when the manufacture and sale of an alleged universal heal-all is
+said to be one of the shortest and surest paths that lead to
+fortune--when in our own country 'the powers that be' encourage rather
+than check such wholesale empiricism--we cannot consistently condemn
+the more ancient quack, who having, in all faith, given an immense sum
+for a piece of nut-shell, remunerated himself by selling draughts of
+water out of it to his believing dupes. The extraordinary history of
+the nut, as it was then told, assisted to keep up the delusion. The
+Indian merchants said, that there was only one tree in the world that
+produced it; that the roots of that tree were fixed, 'where never
+fathom-line did touch the ground,' in the bed of the Indian Ocean,
+near to Java, among the Ten Thousand Islands of the far East; but its
+branches, rising high above the waters, flourished in the bright
+sunshine and free air. On the topmost bough dwelt a griffin, that
+sallied forth every evening to the adjacent islands, to procure an
+elephant or rhinoceros for its nightly repast; but when a ship chanced
+to pass that way, his griffinship had no occasion to fly so far for a
+supper. Attracted by the tree, the doomed vessel remained motionless
+on the waters, until the wretched sailors were, one by one, devoured
+by the monster. When the nuts ripened, they dropped off into the
+water, and, carried by winds and currents to less dangerous
+localities, were picked up by mariners, or cast on some lucky shore.
+What is this but an Eastern version--who dare say it is not the
+original?--of the more classical fable of the dragon and the golden
+fruit of the Hesperides?
+
+Time went on. Vasco de Gama sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, and a
+new route was opened to Eastern commerce. The Portuguese, who
+encountered the terrors of the Cape of Storms, were not likely to be
+daunted by a griffin; yet, with all their endeavours, they never
+succeeded in discovering the precious tree. By their exertions,
+however, rather more of the drug was brought to Europe than had
+previously been; still there was no reduction in its estimated value.
+In the East, an Indian potentate demanded a ship and her cargo as the
+price of a perfect nut, and it was actually purchased on the terms; in
+the West, the Emperor Rodolph offered 4000 florins for one, and his
+offer was contemptuously refused; while invalids from all parts of
+Europe performed painful pilgrimages to Venice, Lisbon, or Antwerp, to
+enjoy the inestimable benefit of drinking water out of pieces of
+nut-shell! Who may say what adulterations and tricks were practised by
+dishonest dealers, to maintain a supply of this costly medicine? but,
+as similar impositions are not unknown at the present day, we may as
+well pass lightly over that part of our subject.
+
+The English and Dutch next made their way to the Indian Ocean; yet,
+though they sought for the invaluable Tree of Solomon, with all the
+energy supplied by a burning thirst for gain, their efforts were as
+fruitless and unsuccessful as those of the Portuguese. Strange tales,
+too, some of these ancient mariners related on their return to Europe:
+how, in the clear waters of deep bays, they had observed groves of
+those marvellous trees, growing fathoms down beneath the surface of
+the placid sea. Out of a mass of equally ridiculous reports, the only
+facts then attainable were at length sifted: these were, that the tree
+had not been discovered growing in any locality whatever; that the nut
+was sometimes found floating on the Indian Ocean, or thrown on the
+coast of Malabar, but more frequently picked up on the shores of a
+group of islands known as the Maldives; from the latter circumstance,
+the naturalists of the day termed it _Cocus Maldivicus_--the Maldivian
+cocoa-nut. Garcius, surnamed Ab Horto (of the garden), on account of
+his botanical knowledge, a celebrated authority on drugs and spices,
+who wrote in 1563, very sensibly concluded that the tree grew on some
+undiscovered land, from whence the nuts were carried by the waves to
+the places where they were found; other writers considered it to be a
+genuine marine production; while a few shrewdly suspected that it
+really grew on the Maldives. Unfortunately for the Maldivians, this
+last opinion prevailed in India. In 1607, the king of Bengal, with a
+powerful fleet and army, invaded the Maldives, conquered and killed
+their king, ransacked and plundered the islands, and, having crammed
+his ships with an immense booty, sailed back to Bengal--without,
+however, discovering the Tree of Solomon, the grand object of the
+expedition. Curiously enough, we are indebted to this horrible
+invasion for an interesting book of early Eastern travel--the
+Bengalese king having released from captivity one Pyrard de Laval, a
+French adventurer, who, six years previously, had suffered shipwreck
+on those inhospitable islands. Laval's work dispelled the idea that
+the nut grew upon the Maldives. He tells us, that it was found
+floating in the surf, or thrown up on the sea-shore only; that it was
+royal property; and whenever discovered, carried with great ceremony
+to the king, a dreadful death being the penalty of any subject
+possessing the smallest portion of it.
+
+The leading naturalists of the seventeenth century having the Maldives
+thus, in a manner, taken away from beneath their feet, took great
+pains to invent a local habitation for this wonderful tree; and at
+last they, pretty generally, came to the conclusion, that the vast
+peninsula of Southern Hindostan had at one time extended as far as the
+Maldives, but by some great convulsion of nature, the intermediate
+part between those islands and Cape Comorin had sunk beneath the
+waters of the ocean; that the tree or trees had grown thereon, and
+still continued to grow on the submerged soil; and the nuts when ripe,
+being lighter than water, rose to the surface, instead--as is the
+habit of supermarine arboreal produce--of falling to the ground.
+Scarcely could a more splendid illustration of the fallacies of
+hypothetical reasoning be found, than the pages that contain this
+specious and far-fetched argument. Even the celebrated Rumphius, who
+wrote so late as the eighteenth century, assures his readers that 'the
+_Calappa laut_,' the Malay term for the nut, 'is not a terrestrial
+production, which may have fallen by accident into the sea, and there
+become hardened, as Garcias ab Horto relates, but a fruit, growing
+itself in the sea, whose tree has hitherto been concealed from the eye
+of man.' He also denominates it 'the wonderful miracle of nature, the
+prince of all the many rare things that are found in the sea.'
+
+In the fulness of time, knowledge is obtained and mysteries are
+revealed. Chemistry and medicine, released from the tedious but not
+useless apprenticeship they had served to alchemy and empiricism, set
+up on their own account, and as a consequence, the 'nut of the sea'
+soon lost its European reputation as a curative, though it was still
+considered a very great curiosity, and the unsettled problem of its
+origin formed a famous stock of building materials for the erecters of
+theoretical edifices. In India and China, it retained its medicinal
+fame, and commanded a high price. Like everything else that is brought
+to market, the nuts varied in value. A small one would not realise
+more than L.50, while a large one would be worth L.120; those,
+however, that measured as much in breadth as in length were most
+esteemed, and one measuring a foot in diameter was worth L.150
+sterling money. Such continued to be the prices of these nuts for two
+centuries after the ships of Europe had first found their way to the
+seas and lands of Asia. But a change was at hand. In the year 1770, a
+French merchant-ship entered the port of Calcutta. The motley
+assemblage of native merchants and tradesmen, Baboos and Banians,
+Dobashes, Dobies, and Dingy-wallahs, that crowd a European vessel's
+deck on her first arrival in an Eastern port, were astounded when, to
+their eager inquiries, the captain replied that his cargo consisted of
+_cocos de mer_.[3] Scarcely could the incredulous and astonished
+natives believe the evidence of their own eyesight, when, on the
+hatches being opened, they saw that the ship was actually filled with
+this rare and precious commodity. Rare and precious, to be so no
+longer. Its price instantaneously fell; persons who had been the
+fortunate possessors of a nut or two, were ruined; and so little did
+the French captain gain by his cargo, that he disclosed the secret of
+its origin to an English mercantile house, which completed the utter
+downfall of the nut of Solomon, by landing another cargo of it at
+Bombay during the same year.
+
+A singular circumstance in connection with the discovery of the tree,
+a complete exemplification of the good old tale, _Eyes and no Eyes_,
+is worthy of record, as a lesson to all, that they should ever make
+proper use of the organs which God has bestowed upon them for the
+acquisition of useful knowledge. Mahe de la Bourdonnais, one of the
+best and wisest of French colonial governors, whose name, almost
+unknown to history, is embalmed for ever in St Pierre's beautiful
+romance of _Paul and Virginia_, sent from the Isle of France, in 1743,
+a naval officer named Picault, to explore the cluster of islands now
+known as the Seychelles. Picault made a pretty correct survey, and in
+the course of it discovered some islands previously unknown; one of
+these he named Palmiers, on account of the abundance and beauty of the
+palm-trees that grew upon it; that was all he knew about them. In
+1768, a subsequent governor of the Isle of France sent out another
+expedition, under Captain Duchemin, for a similar purpose. Barre, the
+hydrographer of this last expedition, landing on Palmiers, at once
+discovered that the palms, from which the island had, a quarter of a
+century previously, received its name, produced the famous and
+long-sought-for _cocos de mer_. Barre informed Duchemin, and the twain
+kept the secret to themselves. Immediately after their return to the
+Isle of France, they fitted out a vessel, sailed to Palmiers, and
+having loaded with nuts, proceeded to Calcutta. How their speculation
+turned out, we have already related. We should add that Duchemin, in
+his vain expectation of making an immense fortune by the discovery,
+considering that the name of the island might afford future
+adventurers a clue to his secret, artfully changed it to Praslin, the
+name of the then intendant of marine, which it still retains.
+
+We shall speak no more of the Tree of Solomon; it is the _Lodoicea
+Seychellarum_--the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles--as modern
+botanists term it, that we have now to deal with. As its name implies,
+it is a palm, and one of the most nobly-graceful of that family, which
+have been so aptly styled by Linnaeus the princes of the vegetable
+kingdom. Its straight and rather slender-looking stem, not more than a
+foot in diameter, rises, without a leaf, to the height of from 90 to
+100 feet, and at the summit is superbly crowned with a drooping plume,
+consisting of about a score of magnificent leaves, of a broadly-oval
+form. These leaves, the larger of which are twenty feet in length and
+ten in width, are beautifully marked with regular folds, diverging
+from a central supporting chine; their margins are more or less deeply
+serrated towards the extremities; and they are supported by footstalks
+nearly as long as themselves. Every year there forms, in the central
+top of the tree, a new leaf, which, closed like a fan, and defended by
+a downy, fawn-coloured covering, shoots up vertically to a height of
+ten feet, before it, expanding, droops gracefully, and assumes its
+place among its elder brethren; and as the imperative rule pervades
+all nature, that, in course of time, the eldest must give place unto
+their juniors, the senior lowest leaf annually falls withered to the
+ground, yet leaving a memento of its existence in a distinct ring or
+scar upon the parent trunk. It is clear, then, that by the number of
+these rings the age of the tree can be accurately determined; some
+veterans shew as many as 400, without any visible signs of decay; and
+it seems that about the age of 130 years, the tree attains its full
+development.
+
+As in several other members of the palm family, the male and female
+flowers are found on different individuals. The female tree, after
+attaining the age of about thirty years, annually produces a large
+drupe or fruit-bunch, consisting of five or six nuts, each enveloped
+in an external husk, not dissimilar in form and colour to the coat of
+the common walnut, but of course much larger, and proportionably
+thicker. The nut itself is about a foot in length; of an elliptic
+form; at one end obtuse, at the other and narrower end, cleft into two
+or three, sometimes even four lobes, of a rounded form on their
+outsides, but flattened on the inner. It is exceedingly difficult to
+give a popular description when encumbered by the technicalities of
+science; we must try another method. Let the reader imagine two pretty
+thick vegetable marrows, each a foot long, joined together, side by
+side, and partly flattened by a vertical compression, he will then
+have an idea of the curious form of the double cocoa-nut. Sometimes,
+as we have mentioned, a nut exhibits three lobes; let the reader
+imagine the end of one of the marrows cleft in two, and he will have
+an idea of the three-lobed nut; and if he imagines two more marrows
+placed side by side, and compressed with and on the top of the former
+two, he will then have an idea of the four-lobed nut. In fact, almost
+invariably, the four-lobed nut parts in the middle, forming two of the
+more common two-lobed nuts, only distinguishable by the flatness of
+their inner sides from those that grew separately. When green, they
+contain a refreshing, sweetish, jelly-like substance, but when old,
+the kernel is so hard that it cannot be cut with a knife.
+
+The enormous fruit-bunches, weighing upwards of fifty pounds, hang
+three or four years on the tree before they are sufficiently ripened
+to fall down; thus, though only one drupe is put forth each season,
+yet the produce of three or four years, the aggregate weight of which
+must be considerable, burdens the stem at one time. This great weight,
+suspended at the top of the lofty and almost disproportionately
+slender stem, causes the tree to rock gracefully with the slightest
+breeze; the agitated leaves creating a pleasing noise, somewhat
+similar to that of a distant waterfall. Some French writers have
+enthusiastically alluded to this rustling sound as a delightful
+adjunct of the interesting scene; nor have our English travellers
+spoken in less glowing language. 'Growing in thousands,' says Mr
+Harrison, 'close to each other, the sexes intermingled, a numerous
+offspring starting up on all sides, sheltered by the parent plants,
+the old ones fallen into the sear and yellow leaf, and going fast to
+decay to make room for the young trees, presents to the eye a picture
+so mild and pleasing, that it is difficult not to look upon them as
+animated objects, capable of enjoyment, and sensible of their
+condition.'
+
+Though no longer producing a drug of great value for the exclusive use
+of the wealthy, the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles affords many
+humbler benefits to the inhabitants of those islands. The trunk, when
+split and cleared of its soft, fibrous interior, serves to make
+water-troughs and palisades. The immense leaves are used, in that fine
+climate, as materials for building: not only do they make an excellent
+thatch, but they are also employed for walls. With one hundred leaves,
+a commodious dwelling, including doors, windows, and partitions, may
+be constructed. Baskets and brooms are made from the ribs of the
+leaves and the fibres of their footstalks. The young leaf, previous to
+its expanding, is soft, and of a pale-yellow colour; in this state it
+is cut into longitudinal stripes, and plaited into hats; while the
+downy substance by which it is covered, is found valuable for stuffing
+beds and pillows. Vessels, of various forms and uses, are made out of
+the light, strong, and durable nut-shells. When preserved whole, with
+merely a perforation at the top, they are used to carry water, some
+holding nearly three gallons. When divided, the parts serve, according
+to their size and shape, for platters, dishes, or drinking-cups. Being
+jet-black, and susceptible of a high polish, they are often curiously
+carved, and mounted with the precious metals, to form sugar-basins,
+toilet-dishes, and other useful and ornamental articles for the
+dwellings of the tasteful and refined.
+
+The group of islands termed the Seychelles lie to the northward and
+eastward of Madagascar, in the latitude of 6 degrees south of the
+equinoctial. The tree, in its natural state, is found on three small,
+rocky, and mountainous islands only--Praslin, containing about 8000
+acres; Curieuse, containing but 1000; and Round Island, smaller still;
+all three lying within a few hundred yards of each other. These
+islands are about 900 miles distant from the Maldives; and as Garcias
+ab Horto, in the sixteenth century, supposed, the nuts, many of which
+grow on rocky precipices overhanging the sea, drop into the waves, and
+are transported by the prevailing currents to other shores. It is a
+remarkable fact, that the trees will not flourish on any other of the
+adjacent islands of the Seychelles group. Many have been planted, but
+they merely vegetate, and are wretchedly inferior to the splendid
+natural trees of Praslin and Curieuse. From the time that the nut
+falls from the tree, a year elapses before it germinates; it only
+requires to lie on the ground without being covered, for the germ
+shoots downwards, forming a root, from which ascends the plumule of
+the future plant.
+
+Several attempts have been made to grow this tree in some of the
+larger horticultural establishments in Great Britain, but hitherto
+without success. Hopes, however, are now entertained; for the
+interesting spectacle of a double cocoa-nut in the act of germination
+may be witnessed at this moment in the national gardens at Kew.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Cocoa-nuts of the sea--the French appellation of the nut.
+
+
+
+
+FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY.
+
+LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION AGAINST FRAUDS.
+
+
+There is a proverb full of wisdom--as these brief embodiments of
+experience often are--to the effect that in commerce 'the buyer's eye
+is his merchant.' It has found its way into our legal text-books, to
+express a principle which modern law has had much in view--that people
+should look to their own skill and knowledge in making their
+purchases, and should not trust to the legislature to protect them, by
+interference and penalties, from purchasing unworthy commodities.
+Undoubtedly, fraud, when it occurs, must be punished. If a merchant
+sell by sample, and intentionally give a different article--if a
+dog-dealer clothe a cur in the skin of a departed lap-dog, and sell
+him warranted an undoubted Blenheim spaniel--there should be some
+punishment for the fraud. It will not be found expedient, however, to
+go far, even in such clear cases. In too entirely superseding the
+buyer's eye, and substituting the judge's, we remove a very vigilant
+check on fraud. If people never bought Blenheim spaniels without an
+ample knowledge of the animal's character and appearance, followed by
+minute observation, it would do more to prevent fraud in this small
+by-article of commerce than a host of penal statutes.
+
+And when we come to less palpable imperfections in goods, it will be
+seen that legislation is quite incapable of coping with them. If every
+thrifty housewife, whose last bought bushel of potatoes is more waxy
+than they ought to be--if every shabby dandy, who has bought a glossy
+satin hat, 'warranted superfine, price only 5s.,' and who finds it
+washed into a kind of dingy serge by the next shower--had his action
+for the infliction of penalties, it would be a more litigious world
+even than it is. With thimble-riggers, chain-droppers, fortune-telling
+gipsies, and the like, the law wages a most unproductive war. Penal
+statutes and the police do little to put them down, while there are
+fools whose silly selfishness or vanity makes them ready dupes: if
+these fools would become wise and prudent, all the penalties might be
+at once dispensed with. But only imagine the state of litigational
+confusion in which this country would be plunged, if every tradesman
+who sold 'an inferior article,' which had a fair and attractive
+appearance, could be subject to penal proceedings!
+
+Yet our ancestors made this attempt; and under the early monarchs of
+England there were passed a number of statutes, which vainly
+endeavoured to compel every manufacturer and dealer to be honest. The
+wool-trade was an especial favourite of this kind of legislation.
+Indeed, if any one be in search of violent legislative attempts to
+force trade into artificial channels, he will be very sure to find
+them if he turn up the acts on the wool and woollen trade. They would
+fill some volumes by themselves. One great object of the government,
+was to prohibit the exportation of wool, to export it only in the
+manufactured article, and to sell that only for gold. A tissue of
+legislation of the most complicated kind was passed to establish these
+objects. Costly arrangements were made, by which not only in this
+country, but also in others, the sale of the woollens was conducted
+only by Englishmen. This, however, is not our immediate subject--it
+relates rather to the curious efforts to make the manufacturers
+produce a sound article.
+
+An act of the 13th of Richard II. (1389), gives this melancholy
+account of the dishonesty of certain cloth-makers, and provides a
+penal remedy: 'Forasmuch as divers plain clothes, that be wrought in
+the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Bristol, and Gloucester, be tacked
+and folded together, and set to sale, of the which clothes a great
+part be broken, brused, and not agreeing in the colour, neither be
+according to breadth, nor in no manner to the part of the same clothes
+showed outwards, but be falsely wrought with divers wools, to the
+great deceit, loss, and damage, of the people, in so much, that the
+merchants who buy the same clothes, and carry them out of the realm to
+sell to strangers, be many times in danger to be slain, and sometimes
+imprisoned, and put to fine and ransom by the same strangers, and
+their said clothes burnt or forfeit, because of the great deceit and
+falsehood that is found in the said clothes when they be untacked and
+opened, to the great slander of the realm of England. It is ordained
+and assented, that no plain cloth, tacked nor folded, shall be set to
+sale within the said counties; but that they be opened, upon pain to
+forfeit them, so that the buyers may see them and know them, as it is
+used in the county of Essex.' One would think, that if the buyers
+found themselves habitually cheated by made-up goods, they would find
+the remedy themselves, by insisting on seeing them, and declining,
+according to a Scottish saying, to buy 'a pig in a poke.' Another
+clause of the same act seems equally gratuitous: 'Provided always,
+that after the merchants have bought the same clothes to carry, and do
+carry them out of the realm, they may tack them and fold them at their
+pleasure, for the more easy carriage of them.' What a very
+accommodating statute!
+
+And it really is reasonable, in comparison with other enactments on
+the same subject. In the ninth year of Henry VIII., for instance, an
+act was passed for 'avoiding deceits in making of woollen clothes,'
+containing a whole series of troublesome regulations, such as the
+following: 'That the wool which shall be delivered for or by the
+clothier to any person or persons, for breaking, combing, carding, or
+spinning of the same, the delivery therefore shall be by even just
+poise and weight of averdupois, sealed by authority, not exceeding in
+weight after the rate of xii pound seemed wool, above one quarter of a
+pound for the waste of the same wool, and in none other manner; and
+that the breaker or comber do deliver again to the same clothier the
+same wool so broken and combed, and the carder and spinner to deliver
+again to the said clothier yarn of the same wool, by the same even
+just and true poise and weight (the waste thereof excepted), without
+any part thereof concealing, or any more oil-water, or other thing put
+thereunto deceivable.
+
+'Item, that the weaver which shall have the weaving of any woollen
+yarn to be webbed into cloth, shall weave, work, and put into the web,
+for cloth to be made thereof, as much and all the same yarn as the
+clothier, or any person for him, shall deliver to the same weaver,
+with his used mark put to the same, without changing, or any parcel
+thereof leaving out of the said web; or that he restore to the same
+clothier the surplus of the same yarn, if any shall be left not put in
+the same web, and without any more oil brine, moisture, dust, sand, or
+other thing deceivably putting or casting to the same web, upon pain
+to forfeit for every default three shillings and four pence.
+
+'Item, that no manner of person buy any coloured wool, or coloured
+woollen yarn, of any carder, spinner, or weaver, but only in open
+market, upon pain of forfeiture of such wool and yarn so bought.' And
+so on: these, in fact, are but the beginning of a series of
+regulations, which it would tire the reader to peruse throughout.
+
+One would think, that shoes and other leather manufactures are among
+the last things that require to be made sufficient by legislation. The
+ill-made shoes wear out, and the purchaser, if he be wise, will not go
+again to the same shop. Parliament, however, did not leave him in the
+matter to the resources of his own wisdom. By a statute of the 13th of
+Richard II., it is provided: 'Forasmuch as divers shoemakers and
+cordwainers use to tan their leather, and sell the same falsely
+tanned--also make shoes and boots of such leather not well tanned, and
+sell them as dear as they will, to the great deceipt of the poor
+commons--it is accorded and assented, that no shoemaker nor cordwainer
+shall use the craft of tanning, nor tanner the craft of shoemaking;
+and he that doth contrary to this act, shall forfeit to the king all
+his leather so tanned, and all his boots and shoes.'
+
+Fifty-two years later--in the year 1485, it was found that the people
+were still cheated with bad boots and shoes--especially, we doubt not,
+when they bought them cheap--and the legislature, pondering on a
+possible remedy, thought they might find it in further subdivision,
+and prohibiting tanners from currying their leather; and so it is
+enacted, 'that where tanners in divers parts of this realm usen within
+themselves the mystery of currying and blacking of leather
+insufficiently, and also leather insufficiently tanned, and the same
+leather so insufficiently wrought, as well in tanning as in currying
+and blacking, they put to sale in divers fairs and markets, and other
+places, to the great deceipt and hurt of liege people'--so no tanner
+is to 'use the mystery of a currier, nor black no leather to be put to
+sale, under the forfeiture of every hyde,' &c.
+
+Let us now introduce our readers to a legislative protection against
+frauds of a more dire and mysterious character, in the shape of an act
+passed in the sixth year of Edward VI., 'for stuffing of feather-beds,
+bolsters, mattresses, and cushions.' Our readers, we hope, will not
+suppose--as the words might lead them to infer--that these articles
+are to be stuffed with the act; on the contrary, it would be highly
+penal so to do. The chief provisions are: 'For the avoiding of the
+great deceipt used and practised in stuffing of feather-beds,
+bolsters, pillows, mattresses, cushions, and quilts--be it enacted,
+that no person or persons whatsoever shall make (to the intent to
+sell, or offer to be sold) any feather-bed, bolster, or pillow, except
+the same be stuffed with dry-pulled feathers, or clean down only,
+without mixing of scalded feathers, fen-down, thistle-down; sand,
+lime, gravel, unlawful or corrupt stuff, hair, or any other, upon pain
+of forfeiture,' &c. One would like to know what 'unlawful or corrupt
+stuff' is, and whether the corruptness be physical through putridity,
+or merely metaphysical and created, like the unlawfulness by statute.
+The act provides further, that after a certain day no person 'shall
+make (to the intent to sell, or offer, or put to sale) any quilt,
+mattress, or cushions, which shall be stuffed with any other stuff
+than feathers, wool, or flocks alone,' on pain of forfeiture.
+
+But the most stringent enactments for the protection of the public
+against such wholesale deceptions appear to have been in the article
+of fustian; and perhaps the hidden adulterations that suggested the
+enactments, may be the reason why unsound reasonings and hollow
+speeches are called fustian. There is something mysteriously awful in
+the act of the eleventh year of Henry VII., called 'A remedy to avoid
+deceitful slights used upon fustians.' It begins thus:
+
+'That whereas fustians brought from the parts beyond the sea unshorn
+into this realm, have been and should be the most profitable cloth for
+doublets and other wearing clothes greatly used among the common
+people of this realm, and longest have endured of anything that have
+come into the same realm from the said parts to that intent--for that
+the cause hath been that such fustians afore this time hath been truly
+wrought and shorn with the broad sheare, and with no other instruments
+or deceitful mean used upon the same. Now so it is, that divers
+persons, by subtlety and undue slights and means, have deceivably
+imagined and contrived instruments of iron, with which irons, in the
+most highest and secret places of their houses, they strike and draw
+the said irons on the said fustians unshorn--by means whereof they
+pluck off both the nap and cotton of the said fustians, and break
+commonly both the ground and threads in sunder; and after, by crafty
+sleeking, they make the same fustians to appear to the common people
+fine, whole, and sound; and also they raise up the cotton of such
+fustians, and then take a light candle, and set it on the fustian
+burning, which singeth and burneth away the cotton of the same fustian
+from the one end to the other down to the hard threads, instead of
+shearing; and after that put them in colour, and so subtlely dress
+them, that their false work cannot be espied, without it be workmen
+shearers of such fustian, or the wearers of the same.'
+
+Many penalties and forfeitures are laid on the persons who so
+treacherously corrupt honest fustian. But one is apt to fear, that the
+accurate account given of the process may have induced some people to
+follow it, who would not have thought of doing so but for the
+instruction contained in the act for abolishing it.
+
+Our manufacturing operatives have been justly censured for their
+occasional--and, to do them justice, it is but occasional--enmity to
+machinery. Sometimes it may be palliated, though not justified, by the
+hardship which is often, without doubt, suffered by those who have to
+seek a new occupation. We suspect, however, that the legislature is
+not entirely free from this kind of barbarous enmity. We are led to
+this supposition by finding, in the sixth year of Edward VI., an act
+'for the putting down of gig-mills.' It sets out with the principle,
+that everything that deteriorates manufactured articles does evil,
+continuing: 'And forasmuch as in many parts of this realm is newly and
+lately devised, erected, builded, and used, certain mills called
+gig-mills, for the perching and burling of cloth, by reason whereof
+the true drapery of this realm is wonderfully impaired, and the cloth
+thereof deceitfully made by reason of the using of the said
+gig-mills'--and so provisions follow for their suppression. It is a
+general effect of machinery to fabricate goods less lasting than those
+which are handwrought, but with an accompanying reduction of price,
+which makes the machine produce by far the cheaper. We fear the
+legislature saw only the deterioration, and was not alive to the more
+than compensating facility of production.
+
+
+
+
+VISIT TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.
+
+
+It is by the territorial division of labour that a country arrives
+most successfully at wealth and civilisation. Our hops are grown in
+Kent and Essex; Glasgow annually sends forth the engines of our steam
+fleets; Sunderland is the focus of our shipbuilding; Edinburgh, with
+her legion of professors, and her busy presses, is one vast academy.
+In short, each district does something peculiar to itself, while all
+avoid sending coal to Newcastle.
+
+A large number of manufactures, particularly those of luxury, are
+peculiar to the metropolis, and one of the most prominent of this
+class is public amusement. Every season has its novelty, whether the
+opera of a great foreign composer, or the lectures of a literary lion;
+besides endless panoramas, dioramas, cosmoramas, and cycloramas, which
+bring home to John Bull the wonders of the habitable globe, and
+annihilate time and space for his delectation. We see the Paris of the
+Huguenots to the sound of Meyerbeer's blood-stirring trumpets; or gain
+companionship with Hogarth, Fielding, or Smollett as we listen to
+Thackeray; or, after paying our shilling in the Chinese Junk, are, to
+all intents and purposes, afloat in the Hoang Ho.
+
+London is the place at which these amusements are manufactured and
+first presented, and at which the stamp is sought which enables a
+portion of them to pass current in the provinces, and make large
+returns to the more fortunate speculators. In the metropolis, the vast
+capital afloat in such schemes is first cast on the waters, and a
+large amount annually sunk and engulfed for ever in the great vortex.
+The continued series of splendid fortunes which have been sacrificed
+in such schemes, would excite our astonishment that the fate of
+previous adventurers had not acted as a warning, if the moral of the
+gambling-table and the Stock Exchange were not always ready, by
+collateral illustration, to explain a riddle which would otherwise be
+insoluble.
+
+Indisputably foremost of all the establishments which offer amusement
+to the London public, is the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden; and
+we say this without attempting to enter into the question of whether
+it has rightly or wrongly achieved a preponderance of vocal talent
+over the rival theatre. While noting, however, the combination of
+talent it presents, and the continued flow of capital it sends forth
+in the production of the highest class of works, we must at the same
+time express our admiration of the spirited efforts of Mr Lumley to
+sustain himself against such odds; and our hope that nothing will
+induce this gentleman to give up a rivalry which has been a stimulus
+to the exertions of the other house, and which has rendered London the
+musical capital of the world. Thus much premised, we sit down to give
+an account of a day spent at Covent Garden, devoted to a thorough
+examination of this vast establishment, from its extensive catacombs
+to the leads which overlook the panorama of London; persuaded as we
+are that the public has but an obscure idea of the capital, labour,
+and ingenuity expended in the production of what is visible to the eye
+of the audience. Access to the stage during rehearsal is strictly
+confined to the performers, although that is the least part of the
+exhibition; but by special favour, we were taken in charge by the
+chief mechanist, an individual provided with the necessary technical
+knowledge, as well as with a material bunch of keys to unlock all the
+mysteries of the place.
+
+Our _debut_ was made upon the stage, which we examined in its various
+parts and appendages while the ballet practice was proceeding. The
+curtain was up: the audience part of the house, from the pit to the
+ceiling, was covered with linen, in order to preserve the satin
+draperies from dust. Comparative darkness pervaded the vast space; but
+the front of the stage was illumined by a pipe of gas, pierced for
+jets, running over the orchestra from wing to wing; while a beam of
+sunlight, penetrating through the cords and pulleys of the upper
+regions, cast a strange lustre on the boards, as if it had come
+through green glass. Half a dozen chairs were placed in front of the
+stage, on one of which sat the ballet-master--a stout, bald-headed
+man, who beat time with his stick. A violinist played at his elbow the
+skeleton airs of the ballet music, while the male and female dancers
+executed their assigned parts; the stout bald-headed gentleman
+occasionally interrupting the rehearsal to suggest improvements, or to
+issue a peremptory reprimand to one of those pale, pretty things who
+were bounding across the stage in short muslin petticoats and faded
+white satin rehearsal chaussure. 'Elle est folle!' 'Allez aux petites
+maisons!' sounded rather ungallant, if we did not know that an
+effective drill for so refractory a corps is not to be got through by
+the aid of the academy of compliments. The master himself, suiting the
+action to the word, occasionally started up, and making some _pas_, as
+an illustrative example, with his heels flying in the air, was
+certainly in a state of signal incongruity with his aspect, which,
+when seated, was that of a steady-looking banker's clerk from Lombard
+Street.
+
+The width of the stage between the so-called fly-rails is 50 feet;
+while the depth from the footlights to the wall at the back, is 80
+feet. But on extraordinary occasions, it is possible to obtain even a
+longer vista; for the wall opposite the centre of the stage is
+pierced by a large archway, behind which, to the outer wall, is a
+space of 36 feet; so that by introducing a scene of a triumphal arch,
+or some other device, a depth of 100 feet can be obtained, leaving
+still a clear space of 16 feet behind the furthest scene, round the
+back of which processions can double. It would otherwise be difficult
+to comprehend how it is possible, as in the opera of _La Juive_, to
+manoeuvre here a procession of 394 persons, including a car drawn by
+eight horses.
+
+The stage itself is covered all over with trap-doors and sliding
+panels, although it feels sufficiently firm to the tread; the depth
+from the boards to the ground below the stage is twenty-two feet,
+divided into two floors, the lower deck--if I may so call it--being
+also furnished with abundant hatchways down to the hold. On the left
+of the stage, facing the audience, is a room of good size, close to
+the flies; this is the property-room of the night, in which are
+accumulated, previous to the performance, all the articles required
+for that night, whether it be the toilette-table of a princess, or the
+pallet and water-jug of a dungeon prisoner. This apartment, the reader
+may easily understand, is quite distinct from the property store-room,
+which contains everything required for every opera, from the crown of
+the _Prophet of Munster_ to the magpie's cage in _La Gazza Ladra_.
+There is one property, however, which is of too great dimensions to be
+transportable. The large and fine-toned organ, used in the _Prophete_,
+_Huguenots_, and _Robert le Diable_, is to the right of the stage,
+opposite the property-room; and the organist, from his position, being
+unable to see the baton of Mr Costa, takes the time from a lime-tree
+baton fixed to the organ, which is made to vibrate by machinery under
+the control of Mr Costa, from his place in the orchestra. It would
+take up too much space to enter more at large into the machinery used
+in theatrical entertainments; and at anyrate, the parallel slides, the
+pierced cylinder--by which a ripple is produced on water--and many
+other devices, however curious and interesting, could not be made
+intelligible without woodcuts.
+
+Our conductor now provided himself with a lantern, in order to lead us
+to the regions under the stage; for, in consequence of the mass of
+inflammable material connected with a theatre, there are as strict
+regulations against going about with open lights as in a coal-pit
+addicted to carbonic acid gas. Descending a trap, we reached the
+so-called mazarine-floor, a corruption of the Italian _mezzanine_,
+from which the musicians have access to the orchestra. It is not much
+higher than the human stature; and hither descends that _Ateista
+Fulminato_, Don Juan, or any other wight unlucky enough to be
+consigned to the infernal regions until the curtain drops. In this
+floor is a large apartment for the orchestra, in which are deposited
+the musical instruments in their cases; and beside it is the so-called
+pass-room, in which note is taken of the punctual arrival of
+performers.
+
+Below this is the ground-floor, and below that, again, a vast extent
+of catacombs. One of these is the rubbish-vault, and this is of
+considerable size; for although dresses and properties are often made
+of the coarsest materials, and will not stand a close inspection--the
+problem to be solved being the combination of stage effect with
+economy--yet, on the other hand, their want of durability, and the
+constant production of new pieces, necessarily creates a large amount
+of waste; and for this accommodation must of course be provided.
+
+Leaving the rubbish-vault, we examined the gasometer, and the remains
+of gas-works; for Covent Garden made its own gas, until an explosion
+took place, which suffocated several men. My conductor pointed out to
+me the spot where they attempted to escape, having gone through a long
+corridor until they were stopped by a dead wall, now pierced by a
+door. Near the gasometer is the hydraulic machine for supplying with
+water the tank on the top of the house; all the other services on this
+line of pipe are screwed off, and thus the water is forced to the top
+of the building. In the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket, a supply for the
+tank on the roof is obtained from a well which was sunk by Mr Lumley
+under the building, in consequence of the river company having raised
+his water-rate from L.60 to L.90. From the well, the water is forced
+up by a machine.
+
+We next ascended a stair, flight after flight; then wound our way
+through a region of flies and pulleys; and then scrambled up ladders
+until we arrived at the tank itself, which is large enough to hold
+sufficient water to supply six engines for half an hour. It has long
+hose attached to it, ready, at the shortest notice, to have the water
+directed either over the scenery or the audience part. We now
+proceeded over the roof of the audience part, to what appeared to be a
+large well, fenced by a parapet; and looking down ten or twelve feet,
+saw below us the centre chandelier, the aperture, which would
+otherwise be unsightly, being closed by an open framework in
+Arabesque. Through this the chandelier is lighted by a long rod,
+having at the end a wire, to which is attached a piece of ignited
+sponge soaked in spirits of wine: the chandelier is raised and lowered
+at pleasure by a three-ton windlass.
+
+Not less than eighty-five apartments, great and small, surround the
+stage or adjoin it, and are used as dressing-rooms, workshops,
+store-rooms, and offices. We first visited the dressing-room of Madame
+Grisi, nearest the stage, and it had the air of an elegant boudoir,
+hung and furnished in green and crimson; while another close beside
+it, fitted up in precisely the same style, was somewhat prematurely
+called the dressing-room of Mademoiselle Wagner. The dresses of the
+various performers, we may mention, are supplied by the management;
+but some of them, with large salaries, and priding themselves on
+appearing before the public in costly and well-fitting garments,
+choose to incur this expense themselves.
+
+The sempstresses-room looks exactly like a large milliner's shop, and
+here we found a forewoman with eighteen assistants at work. Books of
+costumes are always at hand, so that a degree of historical accuracy
+is now attained in Opera costume, which materially assists the
+illusion; and no such anachronism is visible in Covent Garden as in a
+certain theatre across the Thames, where, instead of the Saracenic
+minarets of Cairo, this gorgeous Arab city is represented by pyramids,
+obelisks, and sphynxes. The painting-room of Covent Garden is a light
+and lofty apartment at the top of the house, and the name of Mr Grieve
+is a sufficient guarantee both for historical accuracy and artistic
+character. Scene-painting, as practised at Covent Garden, is a most
+systematic process: a coloured miniature of each scene is made on
+Bristol-board, and consigned to an album; then a larger miniature is
+made, and placed in a model of the Opera stage, on a large table, and
+from this the scenes themselves are executed. Near the painting-room
+is the working property-room, filled with carpenters, mechanists,
+smiths, painters, and other artificers--everything either before or
+behind the curtain being kept up, repaired, and altered by the people
+of the establishment.
+
+We now proceeded to hear the rehearsal of the opera of _Lucia di
+Lammermoor_, and entering the stalls, found the orchestra full and
+nearly ready to commence, Mr Costa discussing a glass of port-wine and
+a sandwich, while the stage-manager was marshalling the people for the
+first tableau, the principal singers being seated on chairs at the
+side. What would most have struck those accustomed only to English
+theatricals, was the respectable appearance of the chorus, so
+different from the ragamuffin troop that fill up the back-ground of an
+English scene. The Covent Garden chorus includes, at rehearsal, a
+considerable number of well-dressed men in shining hats and new
+paletots, many of whom are good music-teachers, not the less qualified
+for that business by the opportunities they have in this establishment
+of becoming familiar with the way in which the best works of the best
+masters are executed by the best artists.
+
+The rehearsal over, we turned our attention to the audience part of
+the house, more particularly the Queen's box, of the privacy and
+splendour of which even old _habitues_ have no idea. In the first
+place, Her Majesty has a separate court-yard for entrance, in which
+she may alight, which is a check not only upon obtrusive curiosity on
+the part of the public, but upon the evil disposed; for although one
+might naturally suppose, that if there is any individual who ought to
+enjoy immunity from danger or disrespect, it would be a lady who is
+exemplary in her public duties as a constitutional sovereign, as well
+as in those of a consort and mother--experience has shewn the
+fallaciousness of the idea.
+
+The staircase is very noble, such as few mansions in London possess.
+Passing through the vestibule, we enter the grand drawing-room, in the
+centre of which is one of those tables that formed an ornament of the
+Exhibition last year. The drapery is of yellow satin damask. The
+principal feature of this drawing-room is the conservatory, which is
+separated from it by one vast sheet of plate-glass, the gas-light
+being contrived in such a way as to be unseen by those in the room,
+although bringing out the colours of the flowers with the greatest
+brilliancy.
+
+Adjoining the drawing-room is the Queen's dressing-room; and between
+the grand drawing-room and the royal box is the little drawing-room,
+the walls of which are hung with blue satin damask, relieved by rich
+gilt ornaments, mouldings, and bronzes, in the style of Louis Quinze.
+The royal box itself is fitted up with crimson satin damask, a large
+arm-chair at the extreme right of the front of the box being the one
+Her Majesty usually occupies; but when she visits the theatre in
+state, fourteen boxes in the centre of the house, overlooking the back
+of the pit, are opened into one, involving a large amount of expense
+and trouble, which, however, is no doubt amply compensated by the
+extraordinary receipts of the night.
+
+A private and separate entrance is not the exclusive privilege of
+royalty. The Duke of Bedford, as ground-landlord, and Miss Burdett
+Coutts, who has likewise a box in perpetual freehold, have separate
+entrances, just under that of the Queen's box, with drawing-rooms
+attached, which are small and low-roofed, but sumptuously fitted up.
+Such were the principal objects appertaining to the audience part of
+the house.
+
+Returning behind the scenes, the two principal public rooms are the
+manager's room and green-room, which both suggested recollections of
+old Covent Garden in its British drama-days. Unlike the audience part
+of the theatre, which has been entirely reconstructed, the stage part
+has only been refurnished--and yet not entirely refurnished--for in
+this very manager's room, where John Kemble used to play the potentate
+off the stage with as much dignity as on it, stands a clock with the
+following inscription: 'After the dreadful fire of Covent Garden
+Theatre, on the morning of September the 21st 1808, this clock was dug
+out of the ruins by John Saul, master-carpenter of the theatre, and
+repaired and set to work.' When we reached the green-room itself, what
+recollections crowded on me of the stars that glittered around the
+Kemble dynasty! In Costa, seated at the pianoforte, I saw the face of
+an honest man, who unites dogged British perseverance and energy with
+the Italian sense of the beautiful in art. A feeling of regret,
+however, came over me, to think that our British school of dramatic
+representation and dramatic literature, which dawned brightly under
+Elizabeth, and in the eighteenth century was associated with
+everything distinguished in polite letters and polite society, should
+have become all but extinct. But this feeling was momentary, when I
+reflected that our sense of the beautiful, including the good and the
+true, had not diminished, but had merely gone into new channels; and,
+more especially, that Meyerbeer and Rossini, in order to hear their
+own incomparable works executed in perfection, must come to the city
+which the Exhibition of last year has indelibly stamped as the capital
+of the civilised world.
+
+
+
+
+NUMBER TWELVE.
+
+
+When I was a young man, working at my trade as a mason, I met with a
+severe injury by falling from a scaffolding placed at a height of
+forty feet from the ground. There I remained, stunned and bleeding, on
+the rubbish, until my companions, by attempting to remove me, restored
+me to consciousness. I felt as if the ground on which I was lying
+formed a part of myself; that I could not be lifted from it without
+being torn asunder; and with the most piercing cries, I entreated my
+well-meaning assistants to leave me alone to die. They desisted for
+the moment, one running for the doctor, another for a litter, others
+surrounding me with pitying gaze; but amidst my increasing sense of
+suffering, the conviction began to dawn on my mind, that the injuries
+were not mortal; and so, by the time the doctor and the litter
+arrived, I resigned myself to their aid, and allowed myself, without
+further objection, to be carried to the hospital.
+
+There I remained for more than three months, gradually recovering from
+my bodily injuries, but devoured with an impatience at my condition,
+and the slowness of my cure, which effectually retarded it. I felt all
+the restlessness and anxiety of a labourer suddenly thrown out of an
+employment difficult enough to procure, knowing there were scores of
+others ready to step into my place; that the job was going on; and
+that, ten chances to one, I should never set foot on that scaffolding
+again. The visiting surgeon vainly warned me against the indulgence of
+such passionate regrets--vainly inculcated the opposite feeling of
+gratitude demanded by my escape: all in vain. I tossed on my fevered
+bed, murmured at the slowness of his remedies, and might have thus
+rendered them altogether ineffectual, had not a sudden change been
+effected in my disposition by another, at first unwelcome, addition to
+our patients. He was placed in the same ward with me, and insensibly I
+found my impatience rebuked, my repinings hushed for very shame, in
+the presence of his meek resignation to far greater privations and
+sufferings. Fresh courage sprang from his example, and soon--thanks to
+my involuntary physician--I was in the fair road to recovery.
+
+And he who had worked the charm, what was he? A poor, helpless old
+man, utterly deformed by suffering--his very name unnoticed, or at
+least never spoken in the place where he now was; he went only by the
+appellation of No. 12--the number of his bed, which was next to my
+own. This bed had already been his refuge during three long and trying
+illnesses, and had at last become a sort of property for the poor
+fellow in the eyes of doctors, students, nurse-tenders, in fact, the
+whole hospital staff. Never did a gentler creature walk on God's
+earth: walk--alas! for him the word was but an old memory. Many years
+before, he had totally lost the use of his legs; but, to use his own
+expression, 'this misfortune did not upset him:' he still retained the
+power of earning his livelihood, which he derived from copying deeds
+for a lawyer at so much per sheet; and if the legs were no longer a
+support, the hands worked at the stamped parchments as diligently as
+ever. But some months passed by, and then the paralysis attacked his
+right arm: still undaunted, he taught himself to write with the left;
+but hardly had the brave heart and hand conquered the difficulty, when
+the enemy crept on, and disabling this second ally, no more remained
+for him than to be conveyed once more, though this time as a last
+resource, to the hospital. There he had the gratification to find his
+former quarters vacant, and he took possession of his old familiar bed
+with a satisfaction that seemed to obliterate all regret at being
+obliged to occupy it again. His first grateful accents smote almost
+reproachfully on my ear: 'Misfortune must have its turn, but _every
+day has a to-morrow_.'
+
+It was indeed a lesson to witness the gratitude of this excellent
+creature. The hospital, so dreary a sojourn to most of its inmates,
+was a scene of enjoyment to him: everything pleased him; and the poor
+fellow's admiration of even the most trifling conveniences, proved how
+severe must have been his privations. He never wearied of praising the
+neatness of the linen, the whiteness of the bread, the quality of the
+food; and my surprise gave place to the truest pity, when I learned
+that, for the last twenty years, this respectable old man could only
+afford himself, out of the profits of his persevering industry, the
+coarsest bread, diversified with white cheese or vegetable porridge;
+and yet, instead of reverting to his privations in the language of
+complaint, he converted them into a fund of gratitude, and made the
+generosity of the nation, which had provided such a retreat for the
+suffering poor, his continual theme. Nor did his thankful spirit
+confine itself to this. To listen to him, you would have believed him
+an especial object of divine as well as human benevolence--all things
+working for his good. The doctor used to say, that No. 12 had 'a mania
+for happiness;' but it was a mania that in creating esteem for its
+victim, infused fresh courage into all that came within its range.
+
+I think I still see him seated on the side of his bed, with his little
+black silk cap, his spectacles, and the well-worn volume, which he
+never ceased perusing. Every morning, the first rays of the sun rested
+on his bed, always to him a fresh subject of rejoicing and
+thankfulness to God. To witness his gratitude, one might have supposed
+that the sun was rising for him alone.
+
+I need hardly say, that he soon interested himself in my cure, and
+regularly made inquiry respecting its progress. He always found
+something cheering to say--something to inspire patience and hope,
+himself a living commentary on his words. When I looked at this poor
+motionless figure, those distorted limbs, and, crowning all, that
+smiling countenance, I had not courage to be angry, or even to
+complain. At each painful crisis, he would exclaim: 'One minute, and
+it will be over--relief will soon follow. _Every day has its
+to-morrow._'
+
+I had one good and true friend--a fellow-workman, who used sometimes
+to spare an hour to visit me, and he took great delight in cultivating
+an acquaintance with No. 12. As if attracted by a kindred spirit, he
+never passed his bed without pausing to offer his cordial salutation;
+and then he would whisper to me: 'He is a saint on earth; and not
+content with gaining Paradise himself, must win it for others also.
+Such people should have monuments erected to them, known and read of
+all men. In observing such a character, we feel ashamed of our own
+happiness--we feel how comparatively little we deserve it. Is there
+anything I can do to prove my regard for this good, poor No. 12?'
+
+'Just try among the bookstalls,' I replied, 'and find the second
+volume of that book you see him reading. It is now more than six years
+since he lost it, and ever since, he has been obliged to content
+himself with the first.'
+
+Now, I must premise that my worthy friend had a perfect horror of
+literature, even in its simplest stages. He regarded the art of
+printing as a Satanic invention, filling men's brains with idleness
+and conceit; and as to writing--in his opinion, a man was never
+thoroughly committed, until he had recorded his sentiments in black
+and white for the inspection of his neighbours. His own success in
+life, which had been tolerable--thanks to his industry and
+integrity--he attributed altogether to his ignorance of those
+dangerous arts; and now a cloud swept across his lately beaming face
+as he exclaimed: 'What! the good creature is a lover of books? Well,
+we must admit that even the best have their failings. No matter. Write
+down the name of this odd volume on a slip of paper; and it shall go
+hard with me, but I give him that gratification.'
+
+He did actually return the following week with a well-worn volume,
+which he presented in triumph to the old invalid. He looked somewhat
+surprised as he opened it; but our friend proceeding to explain that
+it was at my suggestion he had procured it in place of the lost one,
+the old grateful expression at once beamed up in the eyes of No. 12;
+and with a voice trembling with emotion, he thanked the hearty giver.
+
+I had my misgivings, however; and the moment our visitor turned his
+back, I asked to see the book. My old neighbour reddened, stammered,
+and tried to change the conversation; but, forced behind his last
+intrenchments, he handed me the little volume. It was an old Royal
+Almanac. The bookseller, taking advantage of his customer's ignorance,
+had substituted it for the book he had demanded. I burst into an
+immoderate fit of laughter; but No. 12 checked me with the only
+impatient word I ever heard from his lips: 'Do you wish our friend to
+hear you? I would rather never recover the power of this lost arm,
+than deprive his kind heart of the pleasure of his gift. And what of
+it? Yesterday, I did not care a straw for an almanac; but in a little
+time it is perhaps the very book I should have desired. _Every day has
+its to-morrow._ Besides, I assure you it is a very improving study:
+even already I perceive the names of a crowd of princes never
+mentioned in history, and of whom up to this moment I have never heard
+any one speak.'
+
+And so the old almanac was carefully preserved beside the volume of
+poetry it had been intended to match; and the old invalid never failed
+to be seen turning over the leaves whenever our friend happened to
+enter the room. As to him, he was quite proud of its success, and
+would say to me each time: 'It appears I have made him a famous
+present.' And thus the two guileless natures were content.
+
+Towards the close of my sojourn in the hospital, the strength of poor
+No. 12 diminished rapidly. At first, he lost the slight powers of
+motion he had retained; then his speech became inarticulate; at last,
+no part obeyed his will except the eyes, which continued to smile on
+us still. But one morning, at last, it seemed to me as if his very
+glance had become dim. I arose hastily, and approaching his bed,
+inquired if he wished for a drink; he made a slight movement of his
+eyelids, as if to thank me, and at that instant the first ray of the
+rising sun shone in on his bed. Then the eyes lighted up, like a taper
+that flashes into brightness before it is extinguished--he looked as
+if saluting this last gift of his Creator; and even as I watched him
+for a moment, his head fell gently on the side, his kindly heart
+ceased to beat. He had thrown off the burden of To-day; he had entered
+on his eternal To-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.
+
+
+                                        _June 1852._
+
+As usual, everything shews in this month that our season will soon be
+past its perihelion: soirees, whether scientific, exquisite, or
+political, take place almost too frequently for the comfort and
+wellbeing of the invited; and loungers and legislators are alike
+beginning to dream of leafy woods and babbling brooks. Our learned
+societies have brought their sessions to a close, with more or less of
+satisfaction to all concerned, the Royal having elected their annual
+instalment of new Fellows, and the Antiquaries having decided to
+reduce their yearly subscription from four guineas to two, with a view
+to an increase and multiplication of the number of their members, so
+that the study of antiquity may be promoted, and latent ability or
+enthusiasm called into play. The British Association are making
+preparations for their meeting at Belfast, and if report speak truth,
+the result of the gathering will be an advancement of science in more
+than one department. Concerts, musical gatherings, spectacles, are in
+full activity, the _entrepreneurs_ seizing the moments, and coins too,
+as they fly. In short, midsummer has come, and fashion is about to
+substitute languor for excitement. Meantime, our excursion trains have
+commenced their trips to every point of the compass; and during the
+next few months, thousands will have the opportunity of exploring the
+finest scenery of our merry island at the smallest possible cost; and
+for one centre of attraction, as London was last year, there will now
+be a hundred.
+
+The award of Lord Campbell on the bookselling question has given a
+great triumph to the innovating party, to which the authors to a man,
+and the great bulk of the public, had attached themselves. The
+_Trade_, as the booksellers call themselves, while admitting that they
+can no longer stand under a protective principle, feel certain
+difficulties as to their future career, for unquestionably there is
+something peculiar in their business, in as far as a nominal price for
+their wares is scarcely avoidable. If so, the question is, How is it
+to be adjusted? at a lower allowance for the retailer? In that case,
+some would still undersell others; and the old troubles would still be
+experienced. Ought there, then, to be no fixed retailing price at all,
+but simply one for the publisher to exact from the retailer, leaving
+him to sell at what profit he pleases or can get? In that case, the
+publisher's advertisement, holding forth no price to the public, would
+lose half its utility. Shall we, then, leave the retailer to
+advertise? All of these questions must occupy the attention of
+booksellers for some time to come, and their settlement cannot
+speedily be hoped for. The general belief, however, is, that the cost
+for the distribution of books from the shops of the publishers must be
+considerably reduced, the prices of books of course lowered, and their
+diffusion proportionately extended. It will perhaps be found that some
+of the greatest obstructions that operate in the case are not yet so
+much as touched upon.
+
+The French have resumed their explorations and excavations at
+Khorsabad, and will doubtless bring to light many more remains of the
+arts of Nineveh; and Colonel Rawlinson has found the burial-place of
+the kings and queens of Assyria, where the bodies are placed in
+sarcophagi, in the very habiliments and ornaments in which they were
+three thousand years ago! What an important relic it will be for our
+rejuvenated Society of Antiquaries to exercise their faculty of
+investigation upon! If discoveries go on at this rate, we shall soon
+want to enlarge our British Museum.
+
+The Registrar-General tells us, in his first Report for the present
+year, that 90,936 persons were married in the last quarter of 1851--a
+greater number than in any quarter since 1842, except two, when it was
+slightly exceeded. It is altogether beyond the average, and confirms
+what has been before observed, that marriages are most numerous in
+England in the months of September, October, and November, after the
+harvest. To every 117 of the whole population there was one marriage.
+On the other hand, births are found to be most abundant in the first
+quarters of the year; the number for the first three months of the
+present year was 161,776. 'So many births,' says the Registrar, 'were
+never registered before in the same time.' In the same period of 1851,
+it was 157,374; and of 1848, 139,736. The deaths during the three
+months were 106,682, leaving an increase in the population of 55,094,
+which, however, disappears in the fact, that 57,874 emigrants left the
+United Kingdom in the course of the quarter. The mortality, on the
+whole, was less than in the ten previous winters, owing, perhaps, to
+the temperature having been 3 deg. above the average; but the difference
+was more marked in rural districts than in the large towns. According
+to the meteorological table attached to the Report, it appears that
+the mean temperature for the three months ending in February was
+41 deg..1, being 4 deg..2 above the average of eighty years. On the 10th of
+February, the north-east wind set in, and on seventy nights during the
+quarter the temperature went below freezing. The movement of the air
+through January and February was 160 miles per day--in March, 100
+miles. Up to February 9, the wind was generally south-west, and rain
+fell on twenty-three days, and on six days only after that date. These
+periodical reports, and those of our Meteorological and
+Epidemiological Societies will doubtless, before long, furnish us with
+sufficient data for a true theory of cause and effect as regards
+disease, and for preventive measures.
+
+Gold is, and will be for some time to come, a subject much talked
+about. Some of our financiers are beginning to be of opinion, that the
+period is not distant when a great change must be made in the value of
+our currency--the sovereign, for instance, to be reduced from 20s. to
+10s. If so, there would be a good deal of loss and inconvenience
+during the transition; but, once made, the difficulty would cease.
+Others, however, consider that the demand for gold for manufacturing
+purposes and new appliances in the arts, will be so great, that not
+for many years to come will its increase have any effect on the value
+of the circulating medium. It will be curious if the result, as not
+unfrequently happens, should be such as to falsify both conclusions.
+Connected with this topic is the important one of emigration; and so
+important is it, that either by public or private enterprise, measures
+will be taken to insure a supply of labourers to the Australian
+colonies to replace, if possible, those who have betaken themselves to
+the diggings. Convicts will not be received; and as something must be
+done with them, Sir James Matheson has offered to give North Rona, one
+of the Orkney Islands, to the government for a penal settlement. It
+has been surveyed, and found to contain 270 acres, sufficient to
+support a population of 1000. Should the proposal be adopted, it will
+afford an opportunity for trying an entirely new system of discipline
+with the criminal outcasts.
+
+Some attention has been drawn to the fact, that our 'Ten Hour Bill'
+has produced an effect on the other side of the Atlantic. The
+legislature of Ohio has just passed a 'ten hour law,' to apply to 'all
+manufactories, workshops, and other places used for mechanical or
+manufacturing purposes' throughout the state; the penalty to be a fine
+of from one guinea to ten. Something has already been said about
+extending its provisions to agricultural labourers and domestic
+servants--not so easy a task as the other; but when one remembers how
+desperately hard people are made to work in the United States, it is
+gratifying to observe ever so small a beginning towards more temperate
+and life-preserving regulations. In New York, great efforts are made
+towards establishing female schools of design and female medical
+colleges, with a view to open to women a wider sphere of employment
+than that to which they are now restricted. Notwithstanding the
+objections expressed in many quarters against female physicians, it is
+certain that they would find favour among a large class of invalids.
+Another Women's Rights Convention has been held, and an Industrial
+Congress. One of the questions discussed at the latter was: Why in the
+United States some have all the work and no property, and others all
+the property and no work? Harriet Martineau's stories of Political
+Economy would have helped the debaters to a satisfactory solution.
+
+Our sanitary reformers, also, are felicitating themselves on the
+spread of their principles to the West, seeing that the first Baths
+for the People were opened in New York a few weeks since. It appears
+from accounts which have been sent over, that the edifice cost 30,000
+dollars, and is provided with every convenience to insure the end in
+view--the promotion of cleanliness. The charge for plunge-baths is two
+cents; for warm-baths, five cents; and first-class baths, ten cents.
+For washing, a range of stalls extends through the building, in the
+bottom of which is a contrivance for admitting hot or cold water, as
+may be desired. The drying machinery is 'arranged after the plan of a
+window-sash, with weights and pulleys, so as to rise and fall at
+pleasure. This sliding apparatus, when elevated, is brought into
+contact with confined heated air for a few minutes, followed by a
+rapid draught of dry air, which dries the clothes with great rapidity.
+The same heat is made use of for heating the flat-irons, which are
+brought from the furnace to the hands of the laundresses on a
+miniature railway.' With such an establishment as this in full play,
+the 71,000 emigrants who landed in New York during the first four
+months of the present year, would have little difficulty in purifying
+themselves after their voyage.
+
+There is yet another topic of interest from the United States--namely,
+the earthquake that was felt over a wide extent of country on the 29th
+of April last. Our geologists are expecting to derive from it some
+further illustration of the dynamics of earthquakes, as the
+Smithsonian Institution has addressed a circular to its numerous staff
+of meteorological observers, calling for information as to the number
+of shocks, their direction, duration, intensity, effects on the soil
+and on buildings, &c. There have been frequent earthquakes of late in
+different parts of the world, and inquiry may probably trace out the
+connection between them. The centre of intensest action appears to
+have been at Hawaii, where Mauna Loa broke out with a tremendous
+eruption, throwing up a column of lava 500 feet high, which in its
+fall formed a molten river, in some places more than a mile wide. It
+burst forth at a point 10,000 feet above the base of the mountain.
+
+Dr Gibbons has published a few noteworthy facts with respect to the
+climate of California, which shew that San Francisco 'possesses some
+peculiar features, differing from every other place on the coast.' The
+average yearly temperature is 54 deg.; at Philadelphia it is 51 deg..50; and
+the temperature is found to be remarkably uniform, presenting few of
+those extremes common to the Atlantic states. On the 28th of April
+last year, it was 84 deg.; on October 19th, 83 deg.; August 18th, 82 deg.--the
+only day in the three summer months when it rose above 79 deg.. It was 80 deg.
+on nine days only, six of them being in October; while in Philadelphia
+it is 80 deg. from sixty to eighty days in the year. In the latter city,
+the temperature falls below the freezing-point on 100 days in the
+year, but at San Francisco on twenty-five mornings only. The coldest
+month is January; the hottest, October. 'In the summer months, there
+is scarcely any change of temperature in the night. The early morning
+is sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy, and always calm. A few hours
+after sunrise, the clouds break away, and the sun shines forth
+cheerfully and delightfully. Towards noon, or most frequently about
+one o'clock, the sea-breeze sets in, and the weather is completely
+changed. From 60 deg. or 65 deg., the mercury drops forthwith to near 50 deg. long
+before sunset, and remains almost motionless till next morning.' The
+summer, far from being the beautiful season it is in other countries,
+parches up the land, and gives it the aspect of a desert, while the
+'cold sea-winds defy the almost vertical sun, and call for flannels
+and overcoats.' In November and December, or about midwinter, the
+early rains fall, and the soil becomes covered with herbage and
+flowers. These are facts which emigrants bound for California will do
+well to bear in mind.
+
+To come back to Europe. M. Fourcault has addressed a communication to
+the Academie on 'Remedies against the Physical and Moral Degeneration
+of the Human Species,' intended more especially for the
+working-classes. He would have schools of gymnastics and swimming
+established along the great rivers, and on the sea-shore; gymnastic
+dispensaries, and clinical gymnastic in towns; and agricultural and
+other hospitals, combining simple and economical means of water-cure.
+His clinical gymnastic comprehends three divisions: hygienic or
+muscular exercise, not violent or long-continued, or productive of
+perspiration; medical, in which the exercise is to be kept up until
+perspiration is induced; and orthopedic, which, by means of ropes,
+bands, and loops attached to a bed, enable the patient to take such
+straining and stretching exercise as may be likely to rectify any
+deformity of limb. Whichever method be adopted, it must be carried out
+conscientiously, because 'feeble muscular contractions, without energy
+or sustained effort, produce no hygienic, medical, or orthopedic
+effect.' M. Fourcault may perhaps find some of his objects
+accomplished in another way, for the Prince President has, by a
+decree, appropriated 10,000,000 francs to the improvement of dwellings
+for the working-classes--3,000,000 of the sum being set apart for
+Paris--and has offered 5000 francs for the best design. If such works
+as these continue, we shall soon cease to hear that enough is not done
+for the working-classes; and they will have, in turn, to shew how much
+they can do for themselves.
+
+A portable electric telegraph has lately been introduced on some of
+the French railways, by which, in case of accident, the conductors may
+communicate with the nearest stations. It is all contained in a single
+box, the lower portion of which contains the battery, the upper, the
+manipulator and signal apparatus. When required to be used, one of the
+wires is hooked on to the wires of the telegraph, and the other
+attached to an iron wedge thrust into the earth. It answers so well,
+that the directors of the Orleans line have provided thirty of their
+trains with the portable instruments. In connection with this, I may
+tell you that Lamont of Munich, after patient inquiry, has come to the
+conclusion, that there is a decennial period in the variations of the
+magnetic declination; it increases regularly for five years, and
+decreases as regularly through another five. If it can be discovered
+that the horizontal intensity is similarly affected in a similar
+period, another of the laws of terrestrial magnetism will be added to
+the sum of our knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+NATIVITY AND PARENTAGE OF MARSHAL MACDONALD, DUKE OF TARENTUM.
+
+
+M. de Lamartine having made a mistake in his _History of the
+Restoration_, in describing Marshal Macdonald as of Irish extraction,
+it may be worth while to state what really was the parentage of that
+highly respectable man.
+
+When Prince Charles Stuart had to voyage in an open boat from the isle
+of South Uist in the Hebrides to Skye, he was guided and protected, as
+is well known, by Miss Flora Macdonald. On that occasion, Flora had
+for her attendant a man called Neil Macdonald, but more familiarly
+Neil Macechan, who is described in the _History of the Rebellion_ as a
+'sort of preceptor in the Clanranald family.' This was the father of
+Marshal Macdonald. He remained more or less attached to the fugitive
+prince during the remainder of his wanderings in the Highlands, and
+afterwards joined him in France, under the influence of an
+unconquerable affection for his person. It was thus that his son came
+to be born abroad.
+
+Neil Macdonald, though a man of humble rank, had received the
+education proper for a priest at the Scots College in Paris. His
+acquaintance with the French language had enabled him to be of
+considerable service to Prince Charles, when he wished to converse
+about matters of importance without taking the other people about him
+into his confidence. There is some reason to believe, that he wrote,
+or at least gave the information required for, a small novel
+descriptive of the poor Chevalier's wanderings, entitled _Ascanius, or
+the Young Adventurer_. (Cooper, London, 1746.)
+
+When Marshal Macdonald visited Scotland in 1825, he made his way to
+the farm of Howbeg, in South Uist, where his father had been born, and
+where his ancestors had lived for many generations. He found here an
+old lady and her brother, his cousins at one remove, to whom he shewed
+great kindness, settling a pension at the same time upon a more
+distant relation whom he found in poverty. When about to leave the
+spot, he took up some of the soil, and also a few pebbles, which he
+got packed up in separate parcels, and carried back with him to
+France.
+
+The facts respecting Marshal Macdonald's parentage were lately
+communicated to M. de Lamartine, who promptly sent the following
+answer: 'J'ai recu, avec reconnaissance, monsieur, vos interessantes
+communications sur le Marechal Macdonald, homme qui honore deux pays.
+J'en ferai usage l'annee prochaine a l'epoque des nouvelles editions.'
+
+
+
+
+DOMESTICATION OF WILD BEES.
+
+
+The following account of the process of transplanting bodily a tribe
+of wild bees, is given in the notes to _The Tay_, a descriptive poem
+of considerable merit by David Millar. (Perth, Richardson, 1830.)
+'When the boy, whose hobby leads him in that direction, has found out
+a "byke," he marks the spot well, and returns in the evening, when all
+its inmates are housed for the night. Pushing a twig into the hole as
+far as it will go, in case he should lose it by the falling in of the
+rubbish, he commences digging freely till the hum of the hive is
+distinctly heard, when he proceeds more cautiously to work. By this
+time, the more adventurous of the bees come out to ascertain what is
+going on, and are caught as they make their appearance, and put into a
+bottle. When the nest is fully exposed, it is lifted carefully up, and
+placed, as it stood, in a box prepared for it, along with the captured
+bees. The lid being now closed, the whole is carried home, and placed
+in the spot assigned for it in the garden. Next morning, a hole in the
+side of the box is quietly opened, when one or two of the strangers
+soon make their appearance, wondering, evidently, where they are, but
+apparently resolved to make the most of their new circumstances. At
+last, they rise slowly on the wing, and buzz round and round their new
+habitation for some time, taking, no doubt, special note of its every
+peculiarity. The circle of observation is then gradually enlarged,
+till it is thirty or forty yards in circumference, when the earnest
+reconnoitrer disappears, to return again in a short time with
+something for the general good. The curious in those matters, by
+placing the grubs of all the different kinds in one box beside a hive
+in operation, will soon have a choice assortment of all descriptions,
+working as amicably together as if they were all of the same family.'
+
+
+
+
+COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVINGS COPIED ON STONE.
+
+
+In No. 439 of this Journal, Lieutenant Hunt received the credit of
+inventing a process by which copper-plate engravings may be
+transferred to stone, and the copies from a single print thus
+multiplied indefinitely. A correspondent, however, makes us fear that
+Lieutenant Hunt may have been unacquainted with what others had done
+before him. The process, it is stated, is not at all new; although, so
+far as we have heard, it has never been applied to the transfer of
+complicated pictorial engravings.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET:
+
+ON MY LITTLE BOY'S FIRST TRYING TO SAY 'PA-PA.'
+
+
+    Marked day! on which the earliest dawn of speech
+        Glimmered, in trial of thy father's name!
+        Albeit the sound imperfect, yet the aim
+    Thrilled chords within me, deeper than the reach
+        Of music! Happy hearted, I did claim
+    The title which those silver tones assigned;
+    And in me leaped my spirit, as when first
+        The father's strange and wondering feeling came!
+    While this dear thought woke up within my mind,
+    Which careful memory in her folds has nursed:
+    'If thus to earthly parent's heart so dear
+        His child's first accents, though imperfect all--
+        Dear, too, to FATHER-GOD, when faint doth fall
+    His new-born's half-formed "Abba" on his ear!'
+
+                                                  P.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Just Published, Price 6d. Paper Cover_,
+
+CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a LITERARY COMPANION for the
+RAILWAY, the FIRESIDE, or the BUSH.
+
+VOLUME VII.
+
+To be continued in Monthly Volumes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The present number of the Journal completes the Seventeenth Volume
+(new series), for which a title-page and index have been prepared, and
+may be had of the publishers and their agents.
+
+
+
+
+
+END OF SEVENTEENTH VOLUME.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh.
+
+Sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***
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