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 indefinitemeaning, that make an impression upon the mind so faint as to bescarcely resolvable into shape or character. Being associated, however, with the feeling of beauty or enjoyment, they are ever on ourlips, and pass current in conversation at a conventional value. Ofthese phrases is the 'poetry of life'--words that never fail to excitean agreeable though dreamy emotion, which it is impossible to refer toany positive ideas. They are generally used, however, to indicatesomething gone by. The poetry of life, we say, with sentimentalregret, has passed away with the old forms of society; the world isdisenchanted of its talismans; we have awakened from the dreams thatonce lent a charm to existence, and we now see nothing around us butthe 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 ourconstitutions. But we err both in our mode of accounting for the fact, and in believing the loss we deplore to be irretrievable. The faultcommitted by reasoners on this subject is, to confound one thing withanother--to account for the age being unpoetical--as it unquestionablyis--by a supposed decay in the materials of poetry. We may as well betold that the phenomena of the rising and setting sun--of clouds andmoonlight--of storm and calm--of the changing seasons--of theinfinitely varying face of nature, are now trite and worn-out. Theyare as fresh and new as ever, and will be so at the last day of theworld, presenting, at every recurring view, something to surprise aswell as delight. To each successive generation of men, the phenomenaboth of the outer and inner world are absolutely new; and the child ofthe present day is as much a stranger upon the earth as the first-bornof Eve. But the impression received by each individual from the thingsthat surround him is widely different--as different as the faces in acrowd, which all present the common type of humanity without a singlefeature being alike. This fact we unconsciously assert in our everydaycriticism; for when any similarity is detected in a description, whether of things internal or external, we at once stigmatise thelater version as a plagiarism, and as such set it down as a confessionof weakness. 

But although the manifestations of nature, being infinite, cannot beworn out, the capacity to enjoy them, being human, may decay. It may, in fact, in some natures, be entirely wanting, and in some generationsat least partially so. Seamen, for instance, who live, move, and havetheir being in a world of poetry and romance, are the least poeticalof men; even in their songs they affect the prosaic and matter offact, and discard everything appertaining to the fanciful. [1] Here isa direct instance of the materials of poetry being present, and itsspirit wanting. So common, however, is it to confound the poeticalwith the faculty of enjoying it, that we find a hygienic powerascribed as an absolute property to the beauty of that very element, from which they who view it, both in its sweetest and grandestaspects, derive no elevation of feeling whatever. Hufeland, whoreckons among the great panaceas of life the joy arising from thecontemplation of the beauties of nature, in estimating the advantageof sea-bathing as the chief natural tonic, attributes it in great partto the action of the prospect of the sea upon the nervous system. 'Iam fully convinced, ' says he, 'that the physical effects ofsea-bathing must be greatly increased by the impression on the mind, and that a hypochondriac or nervous person may be half-cured byresiding on the sea-coast, and enjoying a view of the grand scenes ofnature which will there present themselves--such as, the rising andsetting of the sun over the blue expanse of the waters, and the awfulmajesty of the waves during a storm. ' Now, if all patients were alikeimpressionable, this would be sound doctrine; but, as it is, few seethe sun rise at all, many retire before the dews of evening begin tocondense, and almost all shut themselves carefully up during a storm. 

The poetry of life, we need hardly say, is not associated exclusivelywith 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 asoul. For poetry does not create, but modify. It is neither passionnor power; neither beauty nor love; but to one of these it givesexaltation, to another majesty; to one enchantment, to anotherdivinity. It is not the light of 'the sun when it shines, nor of themoon walking in brightness, ' but the glory of the one, and the graceand loveliness of the other. It is not instruction, but that whichlends to instruction a loftier character, ascending from the finite tothe infinite. It is not morality, but that which deepens the moralimpression, and sends the thrill of spiritual beauty throughout thewhole being. But its appeals, says an eloquent writer, are mainly 'tothose affections that are apt to become indolent and dormant amidstthe commerce of the world;' and it aims at the 'revival of those purerand more enthusiastic feelings which are associated with the earlierand 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 fortunefor existence; seeing selfishness reflected all around us from thehard and glittering surface of society as from a cold and polishedmirror; it would go hard with man in adversity, perhaps still more inprosperity, if some resource were not provided for him, which, underthe form of an amusement and recreation, administered a secret butpowerful balsam in the one case, and an antidote in the other. ' Poetryelevates some of our emotions, disinters others from the rubbish ofthe 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 oftears, and softens, warms, and stimulates, without the reaction ofmaterial cordials. 'It gives him wings, ' says another writer, 'andlifts him out of the dirt; and leads him into green valleys; andcarries him up to high places, and shews him at his feet the earth andall its glories. '

The poetry of life, therefore, although one of those expressions thatbaffle definition, points to something of vast importance to thehappiness of men and the progress of the race. It is no idle dream, nomere amusement of the fancy. Whenever we feel a generous thrill onhearing of a great action--that is poetry. Whenever we are consciousof a larger and loftier sympathy than is implied in the exercise ofsome common duty of humanity--that is poetry. Whenever we look uponthe hard realities of life through a medium that softens and relievesthem--that medium is poetry. Without poetry, there is no loftiness infriendship, no devotedness in love. The feelings even of the youngmother watching her sleeping child till her eyes are dim withhappiness, are one half poetry. Hark! there is music on the eveningair, always a delightful incident in the most delightful scene; andhere there are ruins, and woods, and waters, all the adjuncts of apicture. This is beauty; but if we breathe over that beauty the spiritof poetry, see what a new creation it becomes, and what a permanentemotion 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 toelevate and intoxicate. But the picture it presents does not pass awayin the reaction of the morning. It haunts us in all after-life, risingup before us in the pauses of the world, to heal and refresh ourwearied spirits. 

As in this poem the pleasure is caused by its appeals to theimagination heightening the feeling the scene naturally excites; bythe spiritual and material world being linked together as regards themusic; and by the connection established between the echoes and thesky, field, hill, and river, where they die--just so it is with thepoetry of moral feeling. The spectacle we have instanced of the youngmother watching her sleeping infant, is in itself beautiful; but itbecomes poetical when we imagine the feeling of beauty united in hermind with the instinct of love, and detect in her glance, moist withemotion, the blending of hopes, memories, pride, and tearful joy. Poetry, therefore, is not moral feeling, but something that heightensand adorns it. It is not even a direct moral agent, for it deepens thelesson only through the medium of the feelings and imagination. Thusmoral poetry, when reduced to writing, is merely morality conveyed inthe form of poetry; and in like manner, religious poetry, is religionso conveyed. The thing conveyed, however, must harmonise with themedium, for poetry will not consent to give an enduring form to whatis false or pernicious. It has often been remarked, with a kind ofsuperstitious wonder, that poems of an immoral character never livelong; but the reason is, that it is the characteristic of immoralityto tie down man in the chains of the senses, and this shews that ithas nothing in common with the spiritual nature of poetry. For thesame reason, a poem based upon atheism, although it might attractattention for a time, would meet with no permanent response in thehuman breast; religion being Truth, and poetry her peculiarministrant. 

Although written poetry, however, does not necessarily come into thissubject, it may be observed, that the comparative incapacity of thepresent generation to enjoy the poetical is clearly exhibited in itsliterature. Never was there so much verse, and so little poetry. Neverwas the faculty of rhyming so impartially spread over the whole massof society. The difficulty used to be, to find one possessed of thegift: 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 towrite them--and one of some consequence. But with all this multitudeof poets, there is not one who can take his place with thecomparatively great names of the past, or vanishing generation. Nowand then we have a brilliant thought--even a certain number of versesdeserving the name of a poem; but there is no sustained poeticalpower, nothing to mark an epoch, or glorify a name. When we commend, it is some passage distinct from the poem, something small, andfinished, and complete in itself. The taste of the day runs more uponconceits and extravagances, such as Cowley would have admired, andwhich he might have envied. The suddenness of the impression, so tospeak, made by great poets, their direct communication with the heart, belongs to another time. It is our ambition to come to the same end byfeats of ingenuity; and instead of touching the feelings, and settingthe imagination of the reader instantaneously aglow, to exercise hisskill in unravelling and interpretation. We expect the pleasure ofsuccess to reward him for the fatigue. 

The same feeling is at work, as we have already pointed out, indecorative art; in which 'a redundancy of useless or ridiculousornament is called richness, and the inability to appreciate simpleand beautiful, or grand and noble forms, receives the name of genius. 'The connection is curious, likewise, between this ingenuity of poetryand that of the machinery which gives a distinguishing character toour epoch. It looks as if the complication of images, working towardsa certain end, were only another development of the genius thatinvents those wonderful instruments which the eye cannot follow tillthey are familiarly entertained--and sometimes not even then. If thisidea were kept in view, there would be at least some wit, although notruth, in the common theory which attempts to account for the declineof poetry. Neither advancement in science, however, nor ingenuity inmechanics, is in itself, as the theory alleges, hostile to thepoetical; on the contrary, the materials of poetry multiply with theprogress of both. The prosaic character of the age does not flow fromthese circumstances, but exists in spite of them. It has been said, indeed, that the light of knowledge is unfavourable to poetry, bymaking the hues and lineaments of the phantoms it calls up growfainter and fainter, till they are wholly dispelled. But this appliesonly to one class of images. The ghost of Banquo, for instance, maypale away and vanish utterly before the light of knowledge; but theair-drawn dagger of Macbeth is immortal like the mind itself. Knowledge cannot throw its illumination upon eternity, or dissipatethe influences by which men feel they are surrounded. A candle broughtinto a darkened room discloses the material forms of the things in themidst of which we are standing, and which may have been involved, toour imagination, in a poetical mystery. But the light itself, as anunexplained wonder--its analogies with the flame of life--themodifications it receives from the faint gleam of the sky through theshadowed window--all are poetical materials, and of a highercharacter. Where one series of materials ends, another begins; and soon in infinite progression, till poetry seems to spurn the earth frombeneath 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 todiscovery, from invention to invention, with an insatiate but prosaicspirit, which turns everything to a profitable and practicalaccount--imprisoning the very lightning, that it may carry ourmessages 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, andsnatch a spiritual enjoyment from imagination. All with us ismaterial; and all would be even mean, but for the essential grandeurof the things themselves. And here comes the question: Is thismaterial progress incompatible with spiritual progress? Is the poetryof life less abundant because the conveniences of life are morecomplete and admirable? Is man less a spirit of the universe becausehe is a god over the elements? We answer, No: the scientific and theprosaic spirit are both independent elements in the genius of the age;or, if there is a necessary connection, it is the converse of what issupposed--the restless mind in which the fervour of poetry has died, plunging into science for the occupation that is necessary to itshappiness. Thus one age is merely poetical, another merely scientific;although here, of course, we use, for the sake of distinctness, thebroadest terms, unmindful of the modifications ranging between theseextreme points. The age, however, that has least poetry has mostscience, and _vice versâ_. 

But man, unlike the other denizens of the earth, has power over hisown destiny. He is able to cultivate the poetical as if it were aplant; and if once convinced of its important bearing upon hisenjoyment of the world, he will do so. The imagination may be educatedas well as the moral sense, and the result of the advancement of theone as well as the other is an expansion of the mind, and anenlargement of the capacity for happiness. The grand obstacle isprecisely what we have now endeavoured to aid in removing--the commonmistake as to the nature of the poetical, which it is customary toconsider as something remote from, or antagonistic to, the business oflife. So far from this, it is essentially connected with the moralfeelings. It neutralises the conventionalisms of society, and makesthe whole world kin. It enlarges the circle of our sympathies, tillthey comprehend, not only our own kind, but every living thing, andnot 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 threeyoung men, apparently merchants or commercial travellers, were thecompanions of my journey. They came from Paris, and were enthusiasticabout the events which had lately happened there, and in which theyboasted of having taken part. I was, for my part, quiet and reserved;for I thought it much better, at a time of such political excitementin the south of France, where party passions always rise so high, to do nothing that would attract attention; and my threefellow-travellers no doubt looked on me as a plain, common-placeseaman, who had been to the luxurious metropolis for his pleasure oron business. My presence, it seemed, did not incommode them, for theytalked on as if I had not been there. Two of them were gay, merry, butrather coarse boon-companions; the third, an elegant youth, bloomingand tall, with luxuriant black curling hair, and dark soft eyes. Inthe 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 apacket of delicately perfumed letters, and a superb lock of beautifulfair 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 hedied, some mischance might prevent Clotilde from weeping over hisgrave. 'But now all is well, ' he continued. 'I am going to fetch anice little sum from my uncle at Marseilles, who is just at thismoment in good-humour, on account of the discomfiture of the Jesuitsand the Bourbons. In my character of one of the heroes of July, hewill forgive me all my present and past follies: I shall pass anexamination at Paris, and then settle down in quiet, and live happilywith my Clotilde. ' Thus they talked together; and by and by we partedin the court-yard of the coach-office. 

Close by was a brilliantly illumined coffee-house. I entered, andseated myself at a little table, in a distant corner of the room. Twopersons only were still in the saloon, in an opposite corner, andbefore them stood two glasses of brandy. One was an elderly, stately, and portly gentleman, with dark-red face, and dressed in a quietcoloured suit; it was easy to perceive that he was a clergyman. Butthe appearance of the other was very striking. He could not be farfrom sixty years of age, was tall and thin, and his gray, indeedalmost white hair, which, however, rose from his head in luxuriousfulness, gave to his pale countenance a peculiar expression that madeone 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. Athick stick leant in one corner, and his broad-brimmed hat hungagainst the wall. There was a certain convulsive twitching of the thinlips of this person, which was very remarkable; and there seemed, whenhe looked fixedly, to be a smouldering fire in his large, glassy, grayish-blue eyes. He was, it was evident, a seaman like myself--astrong oak that fate had shaped into a mast, over which many a stormhad blustered, but which had been too tough to be shivered, and stilldefied the tempest and the lightning. There lay a gloomy resignationas well as a wild fanaticism in those features. The large bony hand, with its immense fingers, was spread out or clenched, according to theturn which the conversation with the clergyman took. Suddenly hestepped up to me. I was reading a royalist newspaper. He lighted hiscigar. 

'You are right, sir; you are quite right not to read those infamousJacobin journals. ' I looked up, and gave no answer. He continued: 'Asailor?'

'Yes, sir. '

'And have seen service?'

'Yes. '

'You are still in active service?'

'No. ' And then, to my great satisfaction, for my patience waswell-nigh exhausted, the examination was brought to a conclusion. 

Just then, an evil destiny led my three young fellow-travellers intothe room. They soon seated themselves at a table, and drank someglasses of champagne to Clotilde's health. All went on well; but whenthey began to sing the _Marseillaise_ and the _Parisienne_, the faceof the gray man began to twitch, and it was evident a storm wasbrewing. Calling to the waiter, he said with a loud voice: 'Tell thoseblackguards yonder not to annoy me with their low songs!'

The young men sprang up in a fury, and asked if it was to them healluded. 

'Whom else should I mean?' said the gray man with a contemptuoussneer. 

'But we may drink and sing if we like, and to whom we like, ' said theyoung 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 thedark-haired youth, was the immediate rejoinder. Slowly wiping hisforehead, which bled and dripped with the spilled wine, the old mansaid quite quietly: 'To-morrow, at the Cap Verd!' and seated himselfagain with the most perfect composure. 

The young man expressed his determination to take the matter onhimself; that he alone would settle the quarrel, and promised toappear on the morrow at the appointed time. They then all departednoisily. The old man rose quietly, and turning to me, said: 'Sir, youhave 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 onelost soul the more. Good-night!' and taking his hat and stick, hedeparted. His companion the abbé followed soon after. 

I now learned the history of this singular man. He was descended froma good family of Marseilles. Destined for the navy while still young, he was sent on board ship before the Revolution, and while yet oftender years. Later, he was taken prisoner; and after many strangeadventures, returned in 1793 to France: was about to marry, but havingbeen mixed up with the disturbances of Toulon, managed to escape by amiracle to England; and learned before long that his father, mother, one brother, a sister of sixteen years of age, and his betrothed, hadall been led to the guillotine to the tune of the _Marseillaise_. Thirst for revenge, revenge on the detested Jacobins, was now his soleaim. For a long time he roved about in the Indian seas, sometimes as aprivateer, at others as a slave-dealer; and was said to have causedthe tricoloured flag much damage, while he acquired a considerablefortune for himself. With the return of the Bourbons, he came back toFrance, and settled at Marseilles. He lived, however, very retired, and employed his large fortune solely for the poor, for distressedseamen, and for the clergy. Alms and masses were his only objects ofexpense. It may easily be believed, that he acquired no small degreeof popularity among the lower classes and the clergy. But, strangelyenough, when not at church, he spent his time with the most celebratedfencing-masters, and had acquired in the use of the pistol and thesword a dexterity that was hardly to be paralleled. In the year 1815, when the royalist reaction broke out in La Vendée, he roved about fora long time at the head of a band of followers. When at last thisopportunity of cooling his rage was taken from him by the return oforder, he looked out for some victim who was known to him by hisrevolutionary principles, and sought to provoke him to combat. Theyounger, the richer, the happier the chosen victim was, the moredesirable did he seem. The landlord told me he himself knew of sevenyoung persons who had fallen before his redoubted sword. 

The next morning at five o'clock, I was at the house of this singularcharacter. He lived on the ground-floor, in a small simple room, where, excepting a large crucifix, and a picture covered with blackcrape, with the date, 1794, under it, the only ornaments were somenautical instruments, a trombone, and a human skull. The picture wasthe portrait of his guillotined bride; it remained always veiled, excepting only when he had slaked his revenge with blood; then heuncovered it for eight days, and indulged himself in the sight. Theskull was that of his mother. His bed consisted of the usual hammockslung from the ceiling. When I entered, he was at his devotions, and alittle negro brought me meanwhile a cup of chocolate and a cigar. Whenhe had risen from his knees, he saluted me in a friendly manner, as ifwe were merely going for a morning walk together; afterwards he openeda closet, took out of it a case with a pair of English pistols, and acouple of excellent swords, which I put under my arm; and thusprovided, we proceeded along the quay towards the port. The boatmenseemed all to know him. 'Peter, your boat!' He seated himself in thestern. 

'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 wasfavourable, we hoisted a sail, and soon reached Cap Verd. We couldremark from afar our three young men, who were sitting at breakfast ina garden not far from the shore. This was the garden of a_restaurateur_, and was the favourite resort of the inhabitants ofMarseilles. Here you find excellent fish; and also, in highperfection, the famous _bollenbresse_, a national dish in Provence, ascelebrated as the _olla podrida_ of Spain. How many a love-meeting hasoccurred in this place! But this time it was not Love that brought theparties together, but Hate, his stepbrother; and in Provence the oneis as ardent, quick, and impatient as the other. 

My business was soon accomplished. It consisted in asking the youngmen what weapons they chose, and with which of them the duel was to befought. The dark-haired youth--his name was M---- L---- insisted thathe alone should settle the business, and his friends were obliged togive their word not to interfere. 

'You are too stout, ' he said to the one, pointing to his portlyfigure; 'and you'--to the other--'are going to be married; besides, Iam a first-rate hand with the sword. However, I will not takeadvantage of my youth and strength, but will choose the pistol, unlessthe gentleman yonder prefers the sword. '

A movement of convulsive joy animated the face of my old captain: 'Thesword is the weapon of the French gentleman, ' he said; 'I shall behappy 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 ofgrace and suppleness; and opposite him that long figure, halfnaked--for his blue shirt was furled up from his sinewy arm, and hisbroad, scarred breast was entirely bare. In the old man, every sinewwas like iron wire: his whole weight resting on his left hip, the longarm--on which, in sailor fashion, a red cross, three lilies, and othermarks, were tattooed--held out before him, and the cunning, murderousgaze rivetted on his adversary. 

''Twill be but a mere scratch, ' said one of the three friends to me. Imade no reply, but was convinced beforehand that my captain, who wasan old practitioner, would treat the matter more seriously. YoungL----, whose perfumed coat was lying near, appeared to me to bealready given over to corruption. He began the attack, advancingquickly. This confirmed me in my opinion; for although he might be apractised fencer in the schools, this was proof that he could notfrequently have been engaged in serious combat, or he would not haverushed forwards so incautiously against an adversary whom he did notas yet know. His opponent profited by his ardour, and retired step bystep, and at first only with an occasional ward and half thrust. YoungL----, getting hotter and hotter, grew flurried; while every ward ofhis adversary proclaimed, by its force and exactness, the master ofthe art of fence. At length the young man made a lunge; the captainparried it with a powerful movement, and, before L---- could recoverhis position, made a thrust in return, his whole body falling forwardas he did so, exactly like a picture at the Académie des Armes--'thehand elevated, the leg stretched out'--and his sword went through hisantagonist, for nearly half its length, just under the shoulder. Thecaptain made an almost imperceptible turn with his hand, and in aninstant was again _en garde_. L---- felt himself wounded; he let hissword fall, while with his other hand he pressed his side; his eyesgrew dim, and he sank into the arms of his friends. The captain wipedhis sword carefully, gave it to me, and dressed himself with the mostperfect composure. 'I have the honour to wish you good-morning, gentlemen: had you not sung yesterday, you would not have had to weepto-day;' and thus saying, he went towards his boat. ''Tis theseventeenth!' he murmured; 'but this was easy work--a mere greenhornfrom the fencing-schools of Paris. 'Twas a very different thing when Ihad to do with the old Bonapartist officers, those brigands of theLoire. ' But it is quite impossible to translate into another languagethe fierce energy of this speech. Arrived at the port, he threw theboatman a few pieces of silver, saying: 'Here, Peter; here's somethingfor you. '

'Another requiem and a mass for a departed soul, at the church of StGéneviève--is it not so, captain? But that is a matter of course. ' Andsoon 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 thecaptain gaily. 'How strangely things fall out!' he continued in aserious tone. 'I have long wished to draw the crape veil from beforethat picture, for you must know I only deem myself worthy to do sowhen I have sent some Jacobin or Bonapartist into the other world, tocrave pardon from that murdered angel; and so I went yesterday to thecoffee-house with my old friend the abbé, whom I knew ever since hewas field-preacher to the Chouans, in the hope of finding a victim forthe sacrifice among the readers of the liberal journals. Theconfounded waiters, however, betray my intention; and when I am there, nobody will ask for a radical paper. When you appeared, my worthyfriend, I at first thought I had found the right man, and I wasimpatient--for I had been waiting for more than three hours for areader of the _National_ or of _Figaro_. How glad I am that I at oncediscovered you to be no friend of such infamous papers! How grievedshould I be, if I had had to do with you instead of with that youngfellow!' For my part, I was in no mood even for self-felicitations. Atthat time, I was a reckless young fellow, going through theconventionalisms of society without a thought; but the event of themorning 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--ofcourse for Jacobins and Bonapartists only--when I thrust _en quarte_, to draw out the sword by an imperceptible movement of the hand, _entierce_, or _vice versâ_, according to circumstances; and thus theblade 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 thephysician, who had just visited him. He gave up all hope. The captainspoke truly, for the slight movement of the hand and the turn of theblade had accomplished their aim, and the lung was injured beyond thepower of cure. The next morning early L---- died. I went to thecaptain, who was returning home with the abbé. 'The abbé has just beento read a mass for him, ' he said; 'it is a benefit which, on suchoccasions, I am willing he should enjoy--more, however, fromfriendship for him, than out of pity for the accursed soul of aJacobin, which in my eyes is worth less than a dog's! But walk in, sir. '

The picture, a wonderfully lovely maidenly face, with rich curlsfalling around it, and in the costume of the last ten years of thepreceding century, was now unveiled. A good breakfast, like that ofyesterday, stood on the table. With a moistened eye, and turning tothe portrait, he said: 'Thérèse, to thy memory!' and emptied his glassat a draught. Surprised and moved, I quitted the strange man. On thestairs of the hotel I met the coffin, which was just being carried upfor L----; and I thought to myself: 'Poor Clotilde! you will not beable 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 ordiplomatic European--to say nothing of Madagascar, the steppes ofCentral Asia, and some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago--howgreat an amount of marvel and mystery must have enveloped thecountries of the East during the period that we now term the middleages! By a long and toilsome overland journey, the rich gold andsparkling gems, the fine muslins and rustling silks, the pungentspices and healing drugs of the Morning Land, found their way to themerchant princes of the Mediterranean. These were not all. Theenterprising traversers of the Desert brought with them, also, thosetales of extravagant fiction which seem to have ever had theirbirthplace in the prolific East. Long after the time that doubt--innot a few instances the parent of knowledge--had, by throwing coldwater on it, extinguished the last funeral pyre of the ultimatePhoenix, and laughed to scorn the gigantic, gold-grubbing pismires ofPliny; the Roc, the Valley of Diamonds, the mountain island ofLoadstone, the potentiality of the Talisman, the miraculous virtues ofcertain drugs, and countless other fables, were accepted and believedby all the nations of the West. One of those drugs, seldom brought toEurope on account of its great demand among the rulers of the East, and its extreme rarity, was a nut of alleged extraordinary curativeproperties--of such great value, that the Hindoo traders named it_Trevanchere_, or the Treasure--of such potent virtue, that Christiansunited with Mussulmen in terming it the Nut of Solomon. Considered acertain remedy for all kinds of poison, it was eagerly purchased bythose of high station at a period when that treacherous destroyer sofrequently mocked the steel-clad guards of royalty itself--whenpoisoning was the crime of the great, before it had descended from thecorrupt and crafty court to the less ceremonious cottage. Nor was itonly as an antidote that its virtues were famed. A small portion ofits hard and corneous kernel, triturated with water in a vessel ofporphyry, and mixed, according to the nature of the disease and skillof the physician, with the powder of red or white coral, ebony, orstag's horns, was supposed to be able to put to flight all themaladies that are the common lot of suffering humanity. Even thesimple act of drinking pure water out of a part of its polished shellwas esteemed a salutary remedial process, and was paid for at acorrespondently extravagant price. Doubtless, in many instances it dideffect cures; not, however, by any peculiar inherent sanativeproperty, but merely through the unbounded confidence of the patient:similar cases are well known to medical science; and at the presentday, when the manufacture and sale of an alleged universal heal-all issaid to be one of the shortest and surest paths that lead tofortune--when in our own country 'the powers that be' encourage ratherthan check such wholesale empiricism--we cannot consistently condemnthe more ancient quack, who having, in all faith, given an immense sumfor a piece of nut-shell, remunerated himself by selling draughts ofwater out of it to his believing dupes. The extraordinary history ofthe nut, as it was then told, assisted to keep up the delusion. TheIndian merchants said, that there was only one tree in the world thatproduced it; that the roots of that tree were fixed, 'where neverfathom-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 itsbranches, rising high above the waters, flourished in the brightsunshine and free air. On the topmost bough dwelt a griffin, thatsallied forth every evening to the adjacent islands, to procure anelephant or rhinoceros for its nightly repast; but when a ship chancedto pass that way, his griffinship had no occasion to fly so far for asupper. Attracted by the tree, the doomed vessel remained motionlesson the waters, until the wretched sailors were, one by one, devouredby the monster. When the nuts ripened, they dropped off into thewater, and, carried by winds and currents to less dangerouslocalities, were picked up by mariners, or cast on some lucky shore. What is this but an Eastern version--who dare say it is not theoriginal?--of the more classical fable of the dragon and the goldenfruit of the Hesperides?

Time went on. Vasco de Gama sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, and anew route was opened to Eastern commerce. The Portuguese, whoencountered the terrors of the Cape of Storms, were not likely to bedaunted by a griffin; yet, with all their endeavours, they neversucceeded in discovering the precious tree. By their exertions, however, rather more of the drug was brought to Europe than hadpreviously been; still there was no reduction in its estimated value. In the East, an Indian potentate demanded a ship and her cargo as theprice of a perfect nut, and it was actually purchased on the terms; inthe West, the Emperor Rodolph offered 4000 florins for one, and hisoffer was contemptuously refused; while invalids from all parts ofEurope performed painful pilgrimages to Venice, Lisbon, or Antwerp, toenjoy the inestimable benefit of drinking water out of pieces ofnut-shell! Who may say what adulterations and tricks were practised bydishonest dealers, to maintain a supply of this costly medicine? but, as similar impositions are not unknown at the present day, we may aswell 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 theenergy supplied by a burning thirst for gain, their efforts were asfruitless 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 ofthose marvellous trees, growing fathoms down beneath the surface ofthe placid sea. Out of a mass of equally ridiculous reports, the onlyfacts then attainable were at length sifted: these were, that the treehad not been discovered growing in any locality whatever; that the nutwas sometimes found floating on the Indian Ocean, or thrown on thecoast of Malabar, but more frequently picked up on the shores of agroup of islands known as the Maldives; from the latter circumstance, the naturalists of the day termed it _Cocus Maldivicus_--the Maldiviancocoa-nut. Garcius, surnamed Ab Horto (of the garden), on account ofhis botanical knowledge, a celebrated authority on drugs and spices, who wrote in 1563, very sensibly concluded that the tree grew on someundiscovered land, from whence the nuts were carried by the waves tothe places where they were found; other writers considered it to be agenuine marine production; while a few shrewdly suspected that itreally grew on the Maldives. Unfortunately for the Maldivians, thislast opinion prevailed in India. In 1607, the king of Bengal, with apowerful fleet and army, invaded the Maldives, conquered and killedtheir king, ransacked and plundered the islands, and, having crammedhis ships with an immense booty, sailed back to Bengal--without, however, discovering the Tree of Solomon, the grand object of theexpedition. Curiously enough, we are indebted to this horribleinvasion for an interesting book of early Eastern travel--theBengalese king having released from captivity one Pyrard de Laval, aFrench adventurer, who, six years previously, had suffered shipwreckon those inhospitable islands. Laval's work dispelled the idea thatthe nut grew upon the Maldives. He tells us, that it was foundfloating in the surf, or thrown up on the sea-shore only; that it wasroyal property; and whenever discovered, carried with great ceremonyto the king, a dreadful death being the penalty of any subjectpossessing the smallest portion of it. 

The leading naturalists of the seventeenth century having the Maldivesthus, in a manner, taken away from beneath their feet, took greatpains to invent a local habitation for this wonderful tree; and atlast they, pretty generally, came to the conclusion, that the vastpeninsula of Southern Hindostan had at one time extended as far as theMaldives, but by some great convulsion of nature, the intermediatepart between those islands and Cape Comorin had sunk beneath thewaters of the ocean; that the tree or trees had grown thereon, andstill continued to grow on the submerged soil; and the nuts when ripe, being lighter than water, rose to the surface, instead--as is thehabit of supermarine arboreal produce--of falling to the ground. Scarcely could a more splendid illustration of the fallacies ofhypothetical reasoning be found, than the pages that contain thisspecious and far-fetched argument. Even the celebrated Rumphius, whowrote so late as the eighteenth century, assures his readers that 'the_Calappa laut_, ' the Malay term for the nut, 'is not a terrestrialproduction, which may have fallen by accident into the sea, and therebecome hardened, as Garcias ab Horto relates, but a fruit, growingitself in the sea, whose tree has hitherto been concealed from the eyeof man. ' He also denominates it 'the wonderful miracle of nature, theprince of all the many rare things that are found in the sea. '

In the fulness of time, knowledge is obtained and mysteries arerevealed. Chemistry and medicine, released from the tedious but notuseless apprenticeship they had served to alchemy and empiricism, setup on their own account, and as a consequence, the 'nut of the sea'soon lost its European reputation as a curative, though it was stillconsidered a very great curiosity, and the unsettled problem of itsorigin formed a famous stock of building materials for the erecters oftheoretical edifices. In India and China, it retained its medicinalfame, and commanded a high price. Like everything else that is broughtto market, the nuts varied in value. A small one would not realisemore than L. 50, while a large one would be worth L. 120; those, however, that measured as much in breadth as in length were mostesteemed, and one measuring a foot in diameter was worth L. 150sterling money. Such continued to be the prices of these nuts for twocenturies after the ships of Europe had first found their way to theseas and lands of Asia. But a change was at hand. In the year 1770, aFrench merchant-ship entered the port of Calcutta. The motleyassemblage of native merchants and tradesmen, Baboos and Banians, Dobashes, Dobies, and Dingy-wallahs, that crowd a European vessel'sdeck on her first arrival in an Eastern port, were astounded when, totheir eager inquiries, the captain replied that his cargo consisted of_cocos de mer_. [3] Scarcely could the incredulous and astonishednatives believe the evidence of their own eyesight, when, on thehatches being opened, they saw that the ship was actually filled withthis rare and precious commodity. Rare and precious, to be so nolonger. Its price instantaneously fell; persons who had been thefortunate possessors of a nut or two, were ruined; and so little didthe French captain gain by his cargo, that he disclosed the secret ofits origin to an English mercantile house, which completed the utterdownfall of the nut of Solomon, by landing another cargo of it atBombay 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 makeproper use of the organs which God has bestowed upon them for theacquisition of useful knowledge. Mahé de la Bourdonnais, one of thebest and wisest of French colonial governors, whose name, almostunknown to history, is embalmed for ever in St Pierre's beautifulromance of _Paul and Virginia_, sent from the Isle of France, in 1743, a naval officer named Picault, to explore the cluster of islands nowknown as the Seychelles. Picault made a pretty correct survey, and inthe course of it discovered some islands previously unknown; one ofthese he named Palmiers, on account of the abundance and beauty of thepalm-trees that grew upon it; that was all he knew about them. In1768, a subsequent governor of the Isle of France sent out anotherexpedition, under Captain Duchemin, for a similar purpose. Barré, thehydrographer of this last expedition, landing on Palmiers, at oncediscovered that the palms, from which the island had, a quarter of acentury previously, received its name, produced the famous andlong-sought-for _cocos de mer_. Barré informed Duchemin, and the twainkept the secret to themselves. Immediately after their return to theIsle of France, they fitted out a vessel, sailed to Palmiers, andhaving loaded with nuts, proceeded to Calcutta. How their speculationturned out, we have already related. We should add that Duchemin, inhis vain expectation of making an immense fortune by the discovery, considering that the name of the island might afford futureadventurers a clue to his secret, artfully changed it to Praslin, thename of the then intendant of marine, which it still retains. 

We shall speak no more of the Tree of Solomon; it is the _LodoiceaSeychellarum_--the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles--as modernbotanists 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, whichhave been so aptly styled by Linnæus the princes of the vegetablekingdom. Its straight and rather slender-looking stem, not more than afoot in diameter, rises, without a leaf, to the height of from 90 to100 feet, and at the summit is superbly crowned with a drooping plume, consisting of about a score of magnificent leaves, of a broadly-ovalform. These leaves, the larger of which are twenty feet in length andten in width, are beautifully marked with regular folds, divergingfrom a central supporting chine; their margins are more or less deeplyserrated towards the extremities; and they are supported by footstalksnearly as long as themselves. Every year there forms, in the centraltop of the tree, a new leaf, which, closed like a fan, and defended bya downy, fawn-coloured covering, shoots up vertically to a height often feet, before it, expanding, droops gracefully, and assumes itsplace among its elder brethren; and as the imperative rule pervadesall nature, that, in course of time, the eldest must give place untotheir juniors, the senior lowest leaf annually falls withered to theground, yet leaving a memento of its existence in a distinct ring orscar upon the parent trunk. It is clear, then, that by the number ofthese rings the age of the tree can be accurately determined; someveterans shew as many as 400, without any visible signs of decay; andit seems that about the age of 130 years, the tree attains its fulldevelopment. 

As in several other members of the palm family, the male and femaleflowers are found on different individuals. The female tree, afterattaining the age of about thirty years, annually produces a largedrupe or fruit-bunch, consisting of five or six nuts, each envelopedin an external husk, not dissimilar in form and colour to the coat ofthe common walnut, but of course much larger, and proportionablythicker. The nut itself is about a foot in length; of an ellipticform; at one end obtuse, at the other and narrower end, cleft into twoor three, sometimes even four lobes, of a rounded form on theiroutsides, but flattened on the inner. It is exceedingly difficult togive a popular description when encumbered by the technicalities ofscience; we must try another method. Let the reader imagine two prettythick vegetable marrows, each a foot long, joined together, side byside, and partly flattened by a vertical compression, he will thenhave an idea of the curious form of the double cocoa-nut. Sometimes, as we have mentioned, a nut exhibits three lobes; let the readerimagine the end of one of the marrows cleft in two, and he will havean idea of the three-lobed nut; and if he imagines two more marrowsplaced side by side, and compressed with and on the top of the formertwo, he will then have an idea of the four-lobed nut. In fact, almostinvariably, the four-lobed nut parts in the middle, forming two of themore common two-lobed nuts, only distinguishable by the flatness oftheir inner sides from those that grew separately. When green, theycontain 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, hangthree or four years on the tree before they are sufficiently ripenedto fall down; thus, though only one drupe is put forth each season, yet the produce of three or four years, the aggregate weight of whichmust be considerable, burdens the stem at one time. This great weight, suspended at the top of the lofty and almost disproportionatelyslender stem, causes the tree to rock gracefully with the slightestbreeze; the agitated leaves creating a pleasing noise, somewhatsimilar to that of a distant waterfall. Some French writers haveenthusiastically alluded to this rustling sound as a delightfuladjunct of the interesting scene; nor have our English travellersspoken in less glowing language. 'Growing in thousands, ' says MrHarrison, 'close to each other, the sexes intermingled, a numerousoffspring starting up on all sides, sheltered by the parent plants, the old ones fallen into the sear and yellow leaf, and going fast todecay to make room for the young trees, presents to the eye a pictureso mild and pleasing, that it is difficult not to look upon them asanimated objects, capable of enjoyment, and sensible of theircondition. '

Though no longer producing a drug of great value for the exclusive useof the wealthy, the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles affords manyhumbler benefits to the inhabitants of those islands. The trunk, whensplit and cleared of its soft, fibrous interior, serves to makewater-troughs and palisades. The immense leaves are used, in that fineclimate, as materials for building: not only do they make an excellentthatch, but they are also employed for walls. With one hundred leaves, a commodious dwelling, including doors, windows, and partitions, maybe constructed. Baskets and brooms are made from the ribs of theleaves and the fibres of their footstalks. The young leaf, previous toits expanding, is soft, and of a pale-yellow colour; in this state itis cut into longitudinal stripes, and plaited into hats; while thedowny substance by which it is covered, is found valuable for stuffingbeds and pillows. Vessels, of various forms and uses, are made out ofthe light, strong, and durable nut-shells. When preserved whole, withmerely a perforation at the top, they are used to carry water, someholding nearly three gallons. When divided, the parts serve, accordingto their size and shape, for platters, dishes, or drinking-cups. Beingjet-black, and susceptible of a high polish, they are often curiouslycarved, and mounted with the precious metals, to form sugar-basins, toilet-dishes, and other useful and ornamental articles for thedwellings of the tasteful and refined. 

The group of islands termed the Seychelles lie to the northward andeastward of Madagascar, in the latitude of 6 degrees south of theequinoctial. The tree, in its natural state, is found on three small, rocky, and mountainous islands only--Praslin, containing about 8000acres; Curieuse, containing but 1000; and Round Island, smaller still;all three lying within a few hundred yards of each other. Theseislands are about 900 miles distant from the Maldives; and as Garciasab Horto, in the sixteenth century, supposed, the nuts, many of whichgrow on rocky precipices overhanging the sea, drop into the waves, andare transported by the prevailing currents to other shores. It is aremarkable fact, that the trees will not flourish on any other of theadjacent islands of the Seychelles group. Many have been planted, butthey merely vegetate, and are wretchedly inferior to the splendidnatural trees of Praslin and Curieuse. From the time that the nutfalls from the tree, a year elapses before it germinates; it onlyrequires to lie on the ground without being covered, for the germshoots downwards, forming a root, from which ascends the plumule ofthe future plant. 

Several attempts have been made to grow this tree in some of thelarger horticultural establishments in Great Britain, but hithertowithout success. Hopes, however, are now entertained; for theinteresting spectacle of a double cocoa-nut in the act of germinationmay 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 ofexperience often are--to the effect that in commerce 'the buyer's eyeis his merchant. ' It has found its way into our legal text-books, toexpress a principle which modern law has had much in view--that peopleshould look to their own skill and knowledge in making theirpurchases, and should not trust to the legislature to protect them, byinterference and penalties, from purchasing unworthy commodities. Undoubtedly, fraud, when it occurs, must be punished. If a merchantsell by sample, and intentionally give a different article--if adog-dealer clothe a cur in the skin of a departed lap-dog, and sellhim warranted an undoubted Blenheim spaniel--there should be somepunishment for the fraud. It will not be found expedient, however, togo far, even in such clear cases. In too entirely superseding thebuyer's eye, and substituting the judge's, we remove a very vigilantcheck on fraud. If people never bought Blenheim spaniels without anample knowledge of the animal's character and appearance, followed byminute observation, it would do more to prevent fraud in this smallby-article of commerce than a host of penal statutes. 

And when we come to less palpable imperfections in goods, it will beseen that legislation is quite incapable of coping with them. If everythrifty housewife, whose last bought bushel of potatoes is more waxythan they ought to be--if every shabby dandy, who has bought a glossysatin hat, 'warranted superfine, price only 5s. , ' and who finds itwashed into a kind of dingy serge by the next shower--had his actionfor the infliction of penalties, it would be a more litigious worldeven than it is. With thimble-riggers, chain-droppers, fortune-tellinggipsies, and the like, the law wages a most unproductive war. Penalstatutes and the police do little to put them down, while there arefools whose silly selfishness or vanity makes them ready dupes: ifthese fools would become wise and prudent, all the penalties might beat once dispensed with. But only imagine the state of litigationalconfusion in which this country would be plunged, if every tradesmanwho sold 'an inferior article, ' which had a fair and attractiveappearance, could be subject to penal proceedings!

Yet our ancestors made this attempt; and under the early monarchs ofEngland there were passed a number of statutes, which vainlyendeavoured to compel every manufacturer and dealer to be honest. Thewool-trade was an especial favourite of this kind of legislation. Indeed, if any one be in search of violent legislative attempts toforce trade into artificial channels, he will be very sure to findthem if he turn up the acts on the wool and woollen trade. They wouldfill some volumes by themselves. One great object of the government, was to prohibit the exportation of wool, to export it only in themanufactured article, and to sell that only for gold. A tissue oflegislation of the most complicated kind was passed to establish theseobjects. Costly arrangements were made, by which not only in thiscountry, but also in others, the sale of the woollens was conductedonly by Englishmen. This, however, is not our immediate subject--itrelates rather to the curious efforts to make the manufacturersproduce a sound article. 

An act of the 13th of Richard II. (1389), gives this melancholyaccount of the dishonesty of certain cloth-makers, and provides apenal remedy: 'Forasmuch as divers plain clothes, that be wrought inthe counties of Somerset, Dorset, Bristol, and Gloucester, be tackedand folded together, and set to sale, of the which clothes a greatpart be broken, brused, and not agreeing in the colour, neither beaccording to breadth, nor in no manner to the part of the same clothesshowed outwards, but be falsely wrought with divers wools, to thegreat deceit, loss, and damage, of the people, in so much, that themerchants who buy the same clothes, and carry them out of the realm tosell to strangers, be many times in danger to be slain, and sometimesimprisoned, and put to fine and ransom by the same strangers, andtheir said clothes burnt or forfeit, because of the great deceit andfalsehood that is found in the said clothes when they be untacked andopened, to the great slander of the realm of England. It is ordainedand assented, that no plain cloth, tacked nor folded, shall be set tosale within the said counties; but that they be opened, upon pain toforfeit them, so that the buyers may see them and know them, as it isused in the county of Essex. ' One would think, that if the buyersfound themselves habitually cheated by made-up goods, they would findthe remedy themselves, by insisting on seeing them, and declining, according to a Scottish saying, to buy 'a pig in a poke. ' Anotherclause of the same act seems equally gratuitous: 'Provided always, that after the merchants have bought the same clothes to carry, and docarry them out of the realm, they may tack them and fold them at theirpleasure, for the more easy carriage of them. ' What a veryaccommodating statute!

And it really is reasonable, in comparison with other enactments onthe same subject. In the ninth year of Henry VIII. , for instance, anact was passed for 'avoiding deceits in making of woollen clothes, 'containing a whole series of troublesome regulations, such as thefollowing: 'That the wool which shall be delivered for or by theclothier to any person or persons, for breaking, combing, carding, orspinning of the same, the delivery therefore shall be by even justpoise and weight of averdupois, sealed by authority, not exceeding inweight after the rate of xii pound seemed wool, above one quarter of apound for the waste of the same wool, and in none other manner; andthat the breaker or comber do deliver again to the same clothier thesame wool so broken and combed, and the carder and spinner to deliveragain to the said clothier yarn of the same wool, by the same evenjust and true poise and weight (the waste thereof excepted), withoutany part thereof concealing, or any more oil-water, or other thing putthereunto deceivable. 

'Item, that the weaver which shall have the weaving of any woollenyarn 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 theclothier, or any person for him, shall deliver to the same weaver, with his used mark put to the same, without changing, or any parcelthereof leaving out of the said web; or that he restore to the sameclothier the surplus of the same yarn, if any shall be left not put inthe same web, and without any more oil brine, moisture, dust, sand, orother thing deceivably putting or casting to the same web, upon painto forfeit for every default three shillings and four pence. 

'Item, that no manner of person buy any coloured wool, or colouredwoollen yarn, of any carder, spinner, or weaver, but only in openmarket, upon pain of forfeiture of such wool and yarn so bought. ' Andso on: these, in fact, are but the beginning of a series ofregulations, which it would tire the reader to peruse throughout. 

One would think, that shoes and other leather manufactures are amongthe last things that require to be made sufficient by legislation. Theill-made shoes wear out, and the purchaser, if he be wise, will not goagain to the same shop. Parliament, however, did not leave him in thematter to the resources of his own wisdom. By a statute of the 13th ofRichard II. , it is provided: 'Forasmuch as divers shoemakers andcordwainers use to tan their leather, and sell the same falselytanned--also make shoes and boots of such leather not well tanned, andsell them as dear as they will, to the great deceipt of the poorcommons--it is accorded and assented, that no shoemaker nor cordwainershall use the craft of tanning, nor tanner the craft of shoemaking;and he that doth contrary to this act, shall forfeit to the king allhis leather so tanned, and all his boots and shoes. '

Fifty-two years later--in the year 1485, it was found that the peoplewere still cheated with bad boots and shoes--especially, we doubt not, when they bought them cheap--and the legislature, pondering on apossible remedy, thought they might find it in further subdivision, and prohibiting tanners from currying their leather; and so it isenacted, 'that where tanners in divers parts of this realm usen withinthemselves the mystery of currying and blacking of leatherinsufficiently, and also leather insufficiently tanned, and the sameleather so insufficiently wrought, as well in tanning as in curryingand blacking, they put to sale in divers fairs and markets, and otherplaces, to the great deceipt and hurt of liege people'--so no tanneris to 'use the mystery of a currier, nor black no leather to be put tosale, under the forfeiture of every hyde, ' &c. 

Let us now introduce our readers to a legislative protection againstfrauds of a more dire and mysterious character, in the shape of an actpassed in the sixth year of Edward VI. , 'for stuffing of feather-beds, bolsters, mattresses, and cushions. ' Our readers, we hope, will notsuppose--as the words might lead them to infer--that these articlesare to be stuffed with the act; on the contrary, it would be highlypenal so to do. The chief provisions are: 'For the avoiding of thegreat 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 tosell, or offer to be sold) any feather-bed, bolster, or pillow, exceptthe 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 painof forfeiture, ' &c. One would like to know what 'unlawful or corruptstuff' 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 'shallmake (to the intent to sell, or offer, or put to sale) any quilt, mattress, or cushions, which shall be stuffed with any other stuffthan feathers, wool, or flocks alone, ' on pain of forfeiture. 

But the most stringent enactments for the protection of the publicagainst such wholesale deceptions appear to have been in the articleof fustian; and perhaps the hidden adulterations that suggested theenactments, may be the reason why unsound reasonings and hollowspeeches are called fustian. There is something mysteriously awful inthe act of the eleventh year of Henry VII. , called 'A remedy to avoiddeceitful slights used upon fustians. ' It begins thus:

'That whereas fustians brought from the parts beyond the sea unshorninto this realm, have been and should be the most profitable cloth fordoublets and other wearing clothes greatly used among the commonpeople of this realm, and longest have endured of anything that havecome into the same realm from the said parts to that intent--for thatthe cause hath been that such fustians afore this time hath been trulywrought and shorn with the broad sheare, and with no other instrumentsor deceitful mean used upon the same. Now so it is, that diverspersons, by subtlety and undue slights and means, have deceivablyimagined and contrived instruments of iron, with which irons, in themost highest and secret places of their houses, they strike and drawthe said irons on the said fustians unshorn--by means whereof theypluck off both the nap and cotton of the said fustians, and breakcommonly both the ground and threads in sunder; and after, by craftysleeking, they make the same fustians to appear to the common peoplefine, whole, and sound; and also they raise up the cotton of suchfustians, and then take a light candle, and set it on the fustianburning, which singeth and burneth away the cotton of the same fustianfrom the one end to the other down to the hard threads, instead ofshearing; and after that put them in colour, and so subtlely dressthem, that their false work cannot be espied, without it be workmenshearers of such fustian, or the wearers of the same. '

Many penalties and forfeitures are laid on the persons who sotreacherously corrupt honest fustian. But one is apt to fear, that theaccurate account given of the process may have induced some people tofollow it, who would not have thought of doing so but for theinstruction contained in the act for abolishing it. 

Our manufacturing operatives have been justly censured for theiroccasional--and, to do them justice, it is but occasional--enmity tomachinery. Sometimes it may be palliated, though not justified, by thehardship which is often, without doubt, suffered by those who have toseek a new occupation. We suspect, however, that the legislature isnot entirely free from this kind of barbarous enmity. We are led tothis 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 andlately devised, erected, builded, and used, certain mills calledgig-mills, for the perching and burling of cloth, by reason whereofthe true drapery of this realm is wonderfully impaired, and the cloththereof deceitfully made by reason of the using of the saidgig-mills'--and so provisions follow for their suppression. It is ageneral effect of machinery to fabricate goods less lasting than thosewhich are handwrought, but with an accompanying reduction of price, which makes the machine produce by far the cheaper. We fear thelegislature saw only the deterioration, and was not alive to the morethan compensating facility of production. 

VISIT TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA. 

It is by the territorial division of labour that a country arrivesmost successfully at wealth and civilisation. Our hops are grown inKent and Essex; Glasgow annually sends forth the engines of our steamfleets; Sunderland is the focus of our shipbuilding; Edinburgh, withher legion of professors, and her busy presses, is one vast academy. In short, each district does something peculiar to itself, while allavoid sending coal to Newcastle. 

A large number of manufactures, particularly those of luxury, arepeculiar to the metropolis, and one of the most prominent of thisclass is public amusement. Every season has its novelty, whether theopera of a great foreign composer, or the lectures of a literary lion;besides endless panoramas, dioramas, cosmoramas, and cycloramas, whichbring home to John Bull the wonders of the habitable globe, andannihilate time and space for his delectation. We see the Paris of theHuguenots to the sound of Meyerbeer's blood-stirring trumpets; or gaincompanionship with Hogarth, Fielding, or Smollett as we listen toThackeray; or, after paying our shilling in the Chinese Junk, are, toall intents and purposes, afloat in the Hoang Ho. 

London is the place at which these amusements are manufactured andfirst presented, and at which the stamp is sought which enables aportion of them to pass current in the provinces, and make largereturns to the more fortunate speculators. In the metropolis, the vastcapital afloat in such schemes is first cast on the waters, and alarge amount annually sunk and engulfed for ever in the great vortex. The continued series of splendid fortunes which have been sacrificedin such schemes, would excite our astonishment that the fate ofprevious adventurers had not acted as a warning, if the moral of thegambling-table and the Stock Exchange were not always ready, bycollateral illustration, to explain a riddle which would otherwise beinsoluble. 

Indisputably foremost of all the establishments which offer amusementto the London public, is the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden; andwe say this without attempting to enter into the question of whetherit has rightly or wrongly achieved a preponderance of vocal talentover the rival theatre. While noting, however, the combination oftalent it presents, and the continued flow of capital it sends forthin the production of the highest class of works, we must at the sametime express our admiration of the spirited efforts of Mr Lumley tosustain himself against such odds; and our hope that nothing willinduce this gentleman to give up a rivalry which has been a stimulusto the exertions of the other house, and which has rendered London themusical capital of the world. Thus much premised, we sit down to givean account of a day spent at Covent Garden, devoted to a thoroughexamination of this vast establishment, from its extensive catacombsto the leads which overlook the panorama of London; persuaded as weare that the public has but an obscure idea of the capital, labour, and ingenuity expended in the production of what is visible to the eyeof the audience. Access to the stage during rehearsal is strictlyconfined to the performers, although that is the least part of theexhibition; but by special favour, we were taken in charge by thechief mechanist, an individual provided with the necessary technicalknowledge, as well as with a material bunch of keys to unlock all themysteries of the place. 

Our _début_ was made upon the stage, which we examined in its variousparts and appendages while the ballet practice was proceeding. Thecurtain was up: the audience part of the house, from the pit to theceiling, was covered with linen, in order to preserve the satindraperies from dust. Comparative darkness pervaded the vast space; butthe front of the stage was illumined by a pipe of gas, pierced forjets, running over the orchestra from wing to wing; while a beam ofsunlight, penetrating through the cords and pulleys of the upperregions, cast a strange lustre on the boards, as if it had comethrough green glass. Half a dozen chairs were placed in front of thestage, on one of which sat the ballet-master--a stout, bald-headedman, who beat time with his stick. A violinist played at his elbow theskeleton airs of the ballet music, while the male and female dancersexecuted their assigned parts; the stout bald-headed gentlemanoccasionally interrupting the rehearsal to suggest improvements, or toissue a peremptory reprimand to one of those pale, pretty things whowere bounding across the stage in short muslin petticoats and fadedwhite satin rehearsal chaussure. 'Elle est folle!' 'Allez aux petitesmaisons!' sounded rather ungallant, if we did not know that aneffective drill for so refractory a corps is not to be got through bythe aid of the academy of compliments. The master himself, suiting theaction to the word, occasionally started up, and making some _pas_, asan illustrative example, with his heels flying in the air, wascertainly in a state of signal incongruity with his aspect, which, when seated, was that of a steady-looking banker's clerk from LombardStreet. 

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 80feet. But on extraordinary occasions, it is possible to obtain even alonger vista; for the wall opposite the centre of the stage ispierced by a large archway, behind which, to the outer wall, is aspace 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, leavingstill a clear space of 16 feet behind the furthest scene, round theback of which processions can double. It would otherwise be difficultto comprehend how it is possible, as in the opera of _La Juive_, tomanoeuvre here a procession of 394 persons, including a car drawn byeight horses. 

The stage itself is covered all over with trap-doors and slidingpanels, although it feels sufficiently firm to the tread; the depthfrom 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--beingalso furnished with abundant hatchways down to the hold. On the leftof the stage, facing the audience, is a room of good size, close tothe flies; this is the property-room of the night, in which areaccumulated, previous to the performance, all the articles requiredfor that night, whether it be the toilette-table of a princess, or thepallet and water-jug of a dungeon prisoner. This apartment, the readermay easily understand, is quite distinct from the property store-room, which contains everything required for every opera, from the crown ofthe _Prophet of Munster_ to the magpie's cage in _La Gazza Ladra_. There is one property, however, which is of too great dimensions to betransportable. 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, beingunable to see the baton of Mr Costa, takes the time from a lime-treebaton fixed to the organ, which is made to vibrate by machinery underthe control of Mr Costa, from his place in the orchestra. It wouldtake up too much space to enter more at large into the machinery usedin theatrical entertainments; and at anyrate, the parallel slides, thepierced cylinder--by which a ripple is produced on water--and manyother devices, however curious and interesting, could not be madeintelligible without woodcuts. 

Our conductor now provided himself with a lantern, in order to lead usto the regions under the stage; for, in consequence of the mass ofinflammable material connected with a theatre, there are as strictregulations against going about with open lights as in a coal-pitaddicted to carbonic acid gas. Descending a trap, we reached theso-called mazarine-floor, a corruption of the Italian _mezzanine_, from which the musicians have access to the orchestra. It is not muchhigher than the human stature; and hither descends that _AteistaFulminato_, Don Juan, or any other wight unlucky enough to beconsigned to the infernal regions until the curtain drops. In thisfloor is a large apartment for the orchestra, in which are depositedthe musical instruments in their cases; and beside it is the so-calledpass-room, in which note is taken of the punctual arrival ofperformers. 

Below this is the ground-floor, and below that, again, a vast extentof catacombs. One of these is the rubbish-vault, and this is ofconsiderable size; for although dresses and properties are often madeof the coarsest materials, and will not stand a close inspection--theproblem to be solved being the combination of stage effect witheconomy--yet, on the other hand, their want of durability, and theconstant production of new pieces, necessarily creates a large amountof waste; and for this accommodation must of course be provided. 

Leaving the rubbish-vault, we examined the gasometer, and the remainsof gas-works; for Covent Garden made its own gas, until an explosiontook place, which suffocated several men. My conductor pointed out tome the spot where they attempted to escape, having gone through a longcorridor until they were stopped by a dead wall, now pierced by adoor. Near the gasometer is the hydraulic machine for supplying withwater the tank on the top of the house; all the other services on thisline of pipe are screwed off, and thus the water is forced to the topof the building. In the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket, a supply for thetank on the roof is obtained from a well which was sunk by Mr Lumleyunder the building, in consequence of the river company having raisedhis water-rate from L. 60 to L. 90. From the well, the water is forcedup by a machine. 

We next ascended a stair, flight after flight; then wound our waythrough a region of flies and pulleys; and then scrambled up laddersuntil we arrived at the tank itself, which is large enough to holdsufficient water to supply six engines for half an hour. It has longhose attached to it, ready, at the shortest notice, to have the waterdirected either over the scenery or the audience part. We nowproceeded over the roof of the audience part, to what appeared to be alarge well, fenced by a parapet; and looking down ten or twelve feet, saw below us the centre chandelier, the aperture, which wouldotherwise be unsightly, being closed by an open framework inArabesque. Through this the chandelier is lighted by a long rod, having at the end a wire, to which is attached a piece of ignitedsponge soaked in spirits of wine: the chandelier is raised and loweredat pleasure by a three-ton windlass. 

Not less than eighty-five apartments, great and small, surround thestage or adjoin it, and are used as dressing-rooms, workshops, store-rooms, and offices. We first visited the dressing-room of MadameGrisi, nearest the stage, and it had the air of an elegant boudoir, hung and furnished in green and crimson; while another close besideit, fitted up in precisely the same style, was somewhat prematurelycalled the dressing-room of Mademoiselle Wagner. The dresses of thevarious performers, we may mention, are supplied by the management;but some of them, with large salaries, and priding themselves onappearing 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, andhere we found a forewoman with eighteen assistants at work. Books ofcostumes are always at hand, so that a degree of historical accuracyis now attained in Opera costume, which materially assists theillusion; and no such anachronism is visible in Covent Garden as in acertain theatre across the Thames, where, instead of the Saracenicminarets of Cairo, this gorgeous Arab city is represented by pyramids, obelisks, and sphynxes. The painting-room of Covent Garden is a lightand lofty apartment at the top of the house, and the name of Mr Grieveis a sufficient guarantee both for historical accuracy and artisticcharacter. Scene-painting, as practised at Covent Garden, is a mostsystematic process: a coloured miniature of each scene is made onBristol-board, and consigned to an album; then a larger miniature ismade, and placed in a model of the Opera stage, on a large table, andfrom this the scenes themselves are executed. Near the painting-roomis the working property-room, filled with carpenters, mechanists, smiths, painters, and other artificers--everything either before orbehind the curtain being kept up, repaired, and altered by the peopleof the establishment. 

We now proceeded to hear the rehearsal of the opera of _Lucia diLammermoor_, and entering the stalls, found the orchestra full andnearly ready to commence, Mr Costa discussing a glass of port-wine anda sandwich, while the stage-manager was marshalling the people for thefirst tableau, the principal singers being seated on chairs at theside. What would most have struck those accustomed only to Englishtheatricals, was the respectable appearance of the chorus, sodifferent from the ragamuffin troop that fill up the back-ground of anEnglish scene. The Covent Garden chorus includes, at rehearsal, aconsiderable number of well-dressed men in shining hats and newpaletots, many of whom are good music-teachers, not the less qualifiedfor that business by the opportunities they have in this establishmentof becoming familiar with the way in which the best works of the bestmasters are executed by the best artists. 

The rehearsal over, we turned our attention to the audience part ofthe house, more particularly the Queen's box, of the privacy andsplendour of which even old _habitués_ have no idea. In the firstplace, Her Majesty has a separate court-yard for entrance, in whichshe may alight, which is a check not only upon obtrusive curiosity onthe part of the public, but upon the evil disposed; for although onemight naturally suppose, that if there is any individual who ought toenjoy immunity from danger or disrespect, it would be a lady who isexemplary in her public duties as a constitutional sovereign, as wellas in those of a consort and mother--experience has shewn thefallaciousness 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 thecentre of which is one of those tables that formed an ornament of theExhibition last year. The drapery is of yellow satin damask. Theprincipal feature of this drawing-room is the conservatory, which isseparated from it by one vast sheet of plate-glass, the gas-lightbeing contrived in such a way as to be unseen by those in the room, although bringing out the colours of the flowers with the greatestbrilliancy. 

Adjoining the drawing-room is the Queen's dressing-room; and betweenthe grand drawing-room and the royal box is the little drawing-room, the walls of which are hung with blue satin damask, relieved by richgilt ornaments, mouldings, and bronzes, in the style of Louis Quinze. The royal box itself is fitted up with crimson satin damask, a largearm-chair at the extreme right of the front of the box being the oneHer Majesty usually occupies; but when she visits the theatre instate, fourteen boxes in the centre of the house, overlooking the backof the pit, are opened into one, involving a large amount of expenseand trouble, which, however, is no doubt amply compensated by theextraordinary receipts of the night. 

A private and separate entrance is not the exclusive privilege ofroyalty. The Duke of Bedford, as ground-landlord, and Miss BurdettCoutts, who has likewise a box in perpetual freehold, have separateentrances, just under that of the Queen's box, with drawing-roomsattached, which are small and low-roofed, but sumptuously fitted up. Such were the principal objects appertaining to the audience part ofthe house. 

Returning behind the scenes, the two principal public rooms are themanager's room and green-room, which both suggested recollections ofold Covent Garden in its British drama-days. Unlike the audience partof the theatre, which has been entirely reconstructed, the stage parthas only been refurnished--and yet not entirely refurnished--for inthis very manager's room, where John Kemble used to play the potentateoff the stage with as much dignity as on it, stands a clock with thefollowing inscription: 'After the dreadful fire of Covent GardenTheatre, on the morning of September the 21st 1808, this clock was dugout of the ruins by John Saul, master-carpenter of the theatre, andrepaired and set to work. ' When we reached the green-room itself, whatrecollections crowded on me of the stars that glittered around theKemble dynasty! In Costa, seated at the pianoforte, I saw the face ofan honest man, who unites dogged British perseverance and energy withthe Italian sense of the beautiful in art. A feeling of regret, however, came over me, to think that our British school of dramaticrepresentation and dramatic literature, which dawned brightly underElizabeth, and in the eighteenth century was associated witheverything distinguished in polite letters and polite society, shouldhave become all but extinct. But this feeling was momentary, when Ireflected that our sense of the beautiful, including the good and thetrue, had not diminished, but had merely gone into new channels; and, more especially, that Meyerbeer and Rossini, in order to hear theirown incomparable works executed in perfection, must come to the citywhich the Exhibition of last year has indelibly stamped as the capitalof the civilised world. 

NUMBER TWELVE. 

When I was a young man, working at my trade as a mason, I met with asevere injury by falling from a scaffolding placed at a height offorty feet from the ground. There I remained, stunned and bleeding, onthe rubbish, until my companions, by attempting to remove me, restoredme to consciousness. I felt as if the ground on which I was lyingformed a part of myself; that I could not be lifted from it withoutbeing torn asunder; and with the most piercing cries, I entreated mywell-meaning assistants to leave me alone to die. They desisted forthe moment, one running for the doctor, another for a litter, otherssurrounding me with pitying gaze; but amidst my increasing sense ofsuffering, the conviction began to dawn on my mind, that the injurieswere not mortal; and so, by the time the doctor and the litterarrived, I resigned myself to their aid, and allowed myself, withoutfurther objection, to be carried to the hospital. 

There I remained for more than three months, gradually recovering frommy bodily injuries, but devoured with an impatience at my condition, and the slowness of my cure, which effectually retarded it. I felt allthe restlessness and anxiety of a labourer suddenly thrown out of anemployment difficult enough to procure, knowing there were scores ofothers ready to step into my place; that the job was going on; andthat, ten chances to one, I should never set foot on that scaffoldingagain. The visiting surgeon vainly warned me against the indulgence ofsuch passionate regrets--vainly inculcated the opposite feeling ofgratitude demanded by my escape: all in vain. I tossed on my feveredbed, murmured at the slowness of his remedies, and might have thusrendered them altogether ineffectual, had not a sudden change beeneffected in my disposition by another, at first unwelcome, addition toour patients. He was placed in the same ward with me, and insensibly Ifound my impatience rebuked, my repinings hushed for very shame, inthe presence of his meek resignation to far greater privations andsufferings. Fresh courage sprang from his example, and soon--thanks tomy involuntary physician--I was in the fair road to recovery. 

And he who had worked the charm, what was he? A poor, helpless oldman, utterly deformed by suffering--his very name unnoticed, or atleast never spoken in the place where he now was; he went only by theappellation of No. 12--the number of his bed, which was next to myown. This bed had already been his refuge during three long and tryingillnesses, and had at last become a sort of property for the poorfellow in the eyes of doctors, students, nurse-tenders, in fact, thewhole hospital staff. Never did a gentler creature walk on God'searth: walk--alas! for him the word was but an old memory. Many yearsbefore, he had totally lost the use of his legs; but, to use his ownexpression, 'this misfortune did not upset him:' he still retained thepower of earning his livelihood, which he derived from copying deedsfor a lawyer at so much per sheet; and if the legs were no longer asupport, the hands worked at the stamped parchments as diligently asever. But some months passed by, and then the paralysis attacked hisright arm: still undaunted, he taught himself to write with the left;but hardly had the brave heart and hand conquered the difficulty, whenthe enemy crept on, and disabling this second ally, no more remainedfor him than to be conveyed once more, though this time as a lastresource, to the hospital. There he had the gratification to find hisformer quarters vacant, and he took possession of his old familiar bedwith a satisfaction that seemed to obliterate all regret at beingobliged to occupy it again. His first grateful accents smote almostreproachfully on my ear: 'Misfortune must have its turn, but _everyday has a to-morrow_. '

It was indeed a lesson to witness the gratitude of this excellentcreature. The hospital, so dreary a sojourn to most of its inmates, was a scene of enjoyment to him: everything pleased him; and the poorfellow's admiration of even the most trifling conveniences, proved howsevere must have been his privations. He never wearied of praising theneatness of the linen, the whiteness of the bread, the quality of thefood; and my surprise gave place to the truest pity, when I learnedthat, for the last twenty years, this respectable old man could onlyafford himself, out of the profits of his persevering industry, thecoarsest bread, diversified with white cheese or vegetable porridge;and yet, instead of reverting to his privations in the language ofcomplaint, he converted them into a fund of gratitude, and made thegenerosity of the nation, which had provided such a retreat for thesuffering poor, his continual theme. Nor did his thankful spiritconfine itself to this. To listen to him, you would have believed himan especial object of divine as well as human benevolence--all thingsworking for his good. The doctor used to say, that No. 12 had 'a maniafor happiness;' but it was a mania that in creating esteem for itsvictim, 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 littleblack silk cap, his spectacles, and the well-worn volume, which henever ceased perusing. Every morning, the first rays of the sun restedon his bed, always to him a fresh subject of rejoicing andthankfulness to God. To witness his gratitude, one might have supposedthat the sun was rising for him alone. 

I need hardly say, that he soon interested himself in my cure, andregularly made inquiry respecting its progress. He always foundsomething cheering to say--something to inspire patience and hope, himself a living commentary on his words. When I looked at this poormotionless figure, those distorted limbs, and, crowning all, thatsmiling countenance, I had not courage to be angry, or even tocomplain. At each painful crisis, he would exclaim: 'One minute, andit will be over--relief will soon follow. _Every day has itsto-morrow. _'

I had one good and true friend--a fellow-workman, who used sometimesto spare an hour to visit me, and he took great delight in cultivatingan acquaintance with No. 12. As if attracted by a kindred spirit, henever passed his bed without pausing to offer his cordial salutation;and then he would whisper to me: 'He is a saint on earth; and notcontent with gaining Paradise himself, must win it for others also. Such people should have monuments erected to them, known and read ofall men. In observing such a character, we feel ashamed of our ownhappiness--we feel how comparatively little we deserve it. Is thereanything I can do to prove my regard for this good, poor No. 12?'

'Just try among the bookstalls, ' I replied, 'and find the secondvolume of that book you see him reading. It is now more than six yearssince he lost it, and ever since, he has been obliged to contenthimself with the first. '

Now, I must premise that my worthy friend had a perfect horror ofliterature, even in its simplest stages. He regarded the art ofprinting as a Satanic invention, filling men's brains with idlenessand conceit; and as to writing--in his opinion, a man was neverthoroughly committed, until he had recorded his sentiments in blackand white for the inspection of his neighbours. His own success inlife, which had been tolerable--thanks to his industry andintegrity--he attributed altogether to his ignorance of thosedangerous arts; and now a cloud swept across his lately beaming faceas he exclaimed: 'What! the good creature is a lover of books? Well, we must admit that even the best have their failings. No matter. Writedown the name of this odd volume on a slip of paper; and it shall gohard 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 somewhatsurprised as he opened it; but our friend proceeding to explain thatit 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 hisback, I asked to see the book. My old neighbour reddened, stammered, and tried to change the conversation; but, forced behind his lastintrenchments, he handed me the little volume. It was an old RoyalAlmanac. The bookseller, taking advantage of his customer's ignorance, had substituted it for the book he had demanded. I burst into animmoderate fit of laughter; but No. 12 checked me with the onlyimpatient word I ever heard from his lips: 'Do you wish our friend tohear 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 ofit? Yesterday, I did not care a straw for an almanac; but in a littletime it is perhaps the very book I should have desired. _Every day hasits to-morrow. _ Besides, I assure you it is a very improving study:even already I perceive the names of a crowd of princes nevermentioned in history, and of whom up to this moment I have never heardany one speak. '

And so the old almanac was carefully preserved beside the volume ofpoetry it had been intended to match; and the old invalid never failedto be seen turning over the leaves whenever our friend happened toenter the room. As to him, he was quite proud of its success, andwould say to me each time: 'It appears I have made him a famouspresent. ' And thus the two guileless natures were content. 

Towards the close of my sojourn in the hospital, the strength of poorNo. 12 diminished rapidly. At first, he lost the slight powers ofmotion he had retained; then his speech became inarticulate; at last, no part obeyed his will except the eyes, which continued to smile onus still. But one morning, at last, it seemed to me as if his veryglance had become dim. I arose hastily, and approaching his bed, inquired if he wished for a drink; he made a slight movement of hiseyelids, as if to thank me, and at that instant the first ray of therising sun shone in on his bed. Then the eyes lighted up, like a taperthat flashes into brightness before it is extinguished--he looked asif saluting this last gift of his Creator; and even as I watched himfor a moment, his head fell gently on the side, his kindly heartceased to beat. He had thrown off the burden of To-day; he had enteredon his eternal To-morrow. 

THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON. 

 _June 1852. _

As usual, everything shews in this month that our season will soon bepast its perihelion: soirées, whether scientific, exquisite, orpolitical, take place almost too frequently for the comfort andwellbeing of the invited; and loungers and legislators are alikebeginning to dream of leafy woods and babbling brooks. Our learnedsocieties have brought their sessions to a close, with more or less ofsatisfaction to all concerned, the Royal having elected their annualinstalment of new Fellows, and the Antiquaries having decided toreduce their yearly subscription from four guineas to two, with a viewto an increase and multiplication of the number of their members, sothat the study of antiquity may be promoted, and latent ability orenthusiasm called into play. The British Association are makingpreparations for their meeting at Belfast, and if report speak truth, the result of the gathering will be an advancement of science in morethan one department. Concerts, musical gatherings, spectacles, are infull activity, the _entrepreneurs_ seizing the moments, and coins too, as they fly. In short, midsummer has come, and fashion is about tosubstitute languor for excitement. Meantime, our excursion trains havecommenced their trips to every point of the compass; and during thenext few months, thousands will have the opportunity of exploring thefinest scenery of our merry island at the smallest possible cost; andfor one centre of attraction, as London was last year, there will nowbe a hundred. 

The award of Lord Campbell on the bookselling question has given agreat 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 theycan no longer stand under a protective principle, feel certaindifficulties as to their future career, for unquestionably there issomething peculiar in their business, in as far as a nominal price fortheir wares is scarcely avoidable. If so, the question is, How is itto be adjusted? at a lower allowance for the retailer? In that case, some would still undersell others; and the old troubles would still beexperienced. Ought there, then, to be no fixed retailing price at all, but simply one for the publisher to exact from the retailer, leavinghim to sell at what profit he pleases or can get? In that case, thepublisher's advertisement, holding forth no price to the public, wouldlose half its utility. Shall we, then, leave the retailer toadvertise? All of these questions must occupy the attention ofbooksellers for some time to come, and their settlement cannotspeedily be hoped for. The general belief, however, is, that the costfor the distribution of books from the shops of the publishers must beconsiderably reduced, the prices of books of course lowered, and theirdiffusion proportionately extended. It will perhaps be found that someof the greatest obstructions that operate in the case are not yet somuch as touched upon. 

The French have resumed their explorations and excavations atKhorsabad, and will doubtless bring to light many more remains of thearts of Nineveh; and Colonel Rawlinson has found the burial-place ofthe kings and queens of Assyria, where the bodies are placed insarcophagi, in the very habiliments and ornaments in which they werethree thousand years ago! What an important relic it will be for ourrejuvenated Society of Antiquaries to exercise their faculty ofinvestigation upon! If discoveries go on at this rate, we shall soonwant to enlarge our British Museum. 

The Registrar-General tells us, in his first Report for the presentyear, that 90, 936 persons were married in the last quarter of 1851--agreater number than in any quarter since 1842, except two, when it wasslightly exceeded. It is altogether beyond the average, and confirmswhat has been before observed, that marriages are most numerous inEngland in the months of September, October, and November, after theharvest. To every 117 of the whole population there was one marriage. On the other hand, births are found to be most abundant in the firstquarters of the year; the number for the first three months of thepresent year was 161, 776. 'So many births, ' says the Registrar, 'werenever 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 threemonths were 106, 682, leaving an increase in the population of 55, 094, which, however, disappears in the fact, that 57, 874 emigrants left theUnited Kingdom in the course of the quarter. The mortality, on thewhole, was less than in the ten previous winters, owing, perhaps, tothe temperature having been 3° above the average; but the differencewas more marked in rural districts than in the large towns. Accordingto the meteorological table attached to the Report, it appears thatthe mean temperature for the three months ending in February was41°. 1, being 4°. 2 above the average of eighty years. On the 10th ofFebruary, the north-east wind set in, and on seventy nights during thequarter the temperature went below freezing. The movement of the airthrough January and February was 160 miles per day--in March, 100miles. Up to February 9, the wind was generally south-west, and rainfell on twenty-three days, and on six days only after that date. Theseperiodical reports, and those of our Meteorological andEpidemiological Societies will doubtless, before long, furnish us withsufficient data for a true theory of cause and effect as regardsdisease, and for preventive measures. 

Gold is, and will be for some time to come, a subject much talkedabout. Some of our financiers are beginning to be of opinion, that theperiod is not distant when a great change must be made in the value ofour currency--the sovereign, for instance, to be reduced from 20s. To10s. If so, there would be a good deal of loss and inconvenienceduring the transition; but, once made, the difficulty would cease. Others, however, consider that the demand for gold for manufacturingpurposes and new appliances in the arts, will be so great, that notfor many years to come will its increase have any effect on the valueof the circulating medium. It will be curious if the result, as notunfrequently happens, should be such as to falsify both conclusions. Connected with this topic is the important one of emigration; and soimportant is it, that either by public or private enterprise, measureswill be taken to insure a supply of labourers to the Australiancolonies to replace, if possible, those who have betaken themselves tothe diggings. Convicts will not be received; and as something must bedone with them, Sir James Matheson has offered to give North Rona, oneof the Orkney Islands, to the government for a penal settlement. Ithas been surveyed, and found to contain 270 acres, sufficient tosupport a population of 1000. Should the proposal be adopted, it willafford an opportunity for trying an entirely new system of disciplinewith 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. Thelegislature of Ohio has just passed a 'ten hour law, ' to apply to 'allmanufactories, workshops, and other places used for mechanical ormanufacturing purposes' throughout the state; the penalty to be a fineof from one guinea to ten. Something has already been said aboutextending its provisions to agricultural labourers and domesticservants--not so easy a task as the other; but when one remembers howdesperately hard people are made to work in the United States, it isgratifying to observe ever so small a beginning towards more temperateand life-preserving regulations. In New York, great efforts are madetowards establishing female schools of design and female medicalcolleges, with a view to open to women a wider sphere of employmentthan that to which they are now restricted. Notwithstanding theobjections expressed in many quarters against female physicians, it iscertain that they would find favour among a large class of invalids. Another Women's Rights Convention has been held, and an IndustrialCongress. One of the questions discussed at the latter was: Why in theUnited States some have all the work and no property, and others allthe property and no work? Harriet Martineau's stories of PoliticalEconomy would have helped the debaters to a satisfactory solution. 

Our sanitary reformers, also, are felicitating themselves on thespread of their principles to the West, seeing that the first Bathsfor the People were opened in New York a few weeks since. It appearsfrom accounts which have been sent over, that the edifice cost 30, 000dollars, and is provided with every convenience to insure the end inview--the promotion of cleanliness. The charge for plunge-baths is twocents; for warm-baths, five cents; and first-class baths, ten cents. For washing, a range of stalls extends through the building, in thebottom of which is a contrivance for admitting hot or cold water, asmay be desired. The drying machinery is 'arranged after the plan of awindow-sash, with weights and pulleys, so as to rise and fall atpleasure. This sliding apparatus, when elevated, is brought intocontact with confined heated air for a few minutes, followed by arapid draught of dry air, which dries the clothes with great rapidity. The same heat is made use of for heating the flat-irons, which arebrought from the furnace to the hands of the laundresses on aminiature railway. ' With such an establishment as this in full play, the 71, 000 emigrants who landed in New York during the first fourmonths of the present year, would have little difficulty in purifyingthemselves 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 29thof April last. Our geologists are expecting to derive from it somefurther illustration of the dynamics of earthquakes, as theSmithsonian Institution has addressed a circular to its numerous staffof meteorological observers, calling for information as to the numberof shocks, their direction, duration, intensity, effects on the soiland on buildings, &c. There have been frequent earthquakes of late indifferent parts of the world, and inquiry may probably trace out theconnection between them. The centre of intensest action appears tohave been at Hawaii, where Mauna Loa broke out with a tremendouseruption, throwing up a column of lava 500 feet high, which in itsfall formed a molten river, in some places more than a mile wide. Itburst forth at a point 10, 000 feet above the base of the mountain. 

Dr Gibbons has published a few noteworthy facts with respect to theclimate of California, which shew that San Francisco 'possesses somepeculiar features, differing from every other place on the coast. ' Theaverage yearly temperature is 54°; at Philadelphia it is 51°. 50; andthe temperature is found to be remarkably uniform, presenting few ofthose extremes common to the Atlantic states. On the 28th of Aprillast year, it was 84°; on October 19th, 83°; August 18th, 82°--theonly 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 Philadelphiait 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 theyear, but at San Francisco on twenty-five mornings only. The coldestmonth is January; the hottest, October. 'In the summer months, thereis scarcely any change of temperature in the night. The early morningis sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy, and always calm. A few hoursafter sunrise, the clouds break away, and the sun shines forthcheerfully and delightfully. Towards noon, or most frequently aboutone o'clock, the sea-breeze sets in, and the weather is completelychanged. From 60° or 65°, the mercury drops forthwith to near 50° longbefore sunset, and remains almost motionless till next morning. ' Thesummer, 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 flannelsand overcoats. ' In November and December, or about midwinter, theearly rains fall, and the soil becomes covered with herbage andflowers. These are facts which emigrants bound for California will dowell to bear in mind. 

To come back to Europe. M. Fourcault has addressed a communication tothe Académie on 'Remedies against the Physical and Moral Degenerationof the Human Species, ' intended more especially for theworking-classes. He would have schools of gymnastics and swimmingestablished along the great rivers, and on the sea-shore; gymnasticdispensaries, and clinical gymnastic in towns; and agricultural andother hospitals, combining simple and economical means of water-cure. His clinical gymnastic comprehends three divisions: hygienic ormuscular exercise, not violent or long-continued, or productive ofperspiration; medical, in which the exercise is to be kept up untilperspiration is induced; and orthopedic, which, by means of ropes, bands, and loops attached to a bed, enable the patient to take suchstraining and stretching exercise as may be likely to rectify anydeformity of limb. Whichever method be adopted, it must be carried outconscientiously, because 'feeble muscular contractions, without energyor sustained effort, produce no hygienic, medical, or orthopediceffect. ' M. Fourcault may perhaps find some of his objectsaccomplished in another way, for the Prince President has, by adecree, appropriated 10, 000, 000 francs to the improvement of dwellingsfor the working-classes--3, 000, 000 of the sum being set apart forParis--and has offered 5000 francs for the best design. If such worksas these continue, we shall soon cease to hear that enough is not donefor the working-classes; and they will have, in turn, to shew how muchthey can do for themselves. 

A portable electric telegraph has lately been introduced on some ofthe French railways, by which, in case of accident, the conductors maycommunicate with the nearest stations. It is all contained in a singlebox, the lower portion of which contains the battery, the upper, themanipulator and signal apparatus. When required to be used, one of thewires is hooked on to the wires of the telegraph, and the otherattached to an iron wedge thrust into the earth. It answers so well, that the directors of the Orleans line have provided thirty of theirtrains with the portable instruments. In connection with this, I maytell you that Lamont of Munich, after patient inquiry, has come to theconclusion, that there is a decennial period in the variations of themagnetic declination; it increases regularly for five years, anddecreases as regularly through another five. If it can be discoveredthat the horizontal intensity is similarly affected in a similarperiod, another of the laws of terrestrial magnetism will be added tothe sum of our knowledge. 

NATIVITY AND PARENTAGE OF MARSHAL MACDONALD, DUKE OF TARENTUM. 

M. De Lamartine having made a mistake in his _History of theRestoration_, in describing Marshal Macdonald as of Irish extraction, it may be worth while to state what really was the parentage of thathighly respectable man. 

When Prince Charles Stuart had to voyage in an open boat from the isleof South Uist in the Hebrides to Skye, he was guided and protected, asis well known, by Miss Flora Macdonald. On that occasion, Flora hadfor her attendant a man called Neil Macdonald, but more familiarlyNeil Macechan, who is described in the _History of the Rebellion_ as a'sort of preceptor in the Clanranald family. ' This was the father ofMarshal Macdonald. He remained more or less attached to the fugitiveprince during the remainder of his wanderings in the Highlands, andafterwards joined him in France, under the influence of anunconquerable affection for his person. It was thus that his son cameto be born abroad. 

Neil Macdonald, though a man of humble rank, had received theeducation proper for a priest at the Scots College in Paris. Hisacquaintance with the French language had enabled him to be ofconsiderable service to Prince Charles, when he wished to converseabout matters of importance without taking the other people about himinto his confidence. There is some reason to believe, that he wrote, or at least gave the information required for, a small noveldescriptive of the poor Chevalier's wanderings, entitled _Ascanius, orthe Young Adventurer_. (Cooper, London, 1746. )

When Marshal Macdonald visited Scotland in 1825, he made his way tothe farm of Howbeg, in South Uist, where his father had been born, andwhere his ancestors had lived for many generations. He found here anold lady and her brother, his cousins at one remove, to whom he shewedgreat kindness, settling a pension at the same time upon a moredistant relation whom he found in poverty. When about to leave thespot, he took up some of the soil, and also a few pebbles, which hegot packed up in separate parcels, and carried back with him toFrance. 

The facts respecting Marshal Macdonald's parentage were latelycommunicated to M. De Lamartine, who promptly sent the followinganswer: 'J'ai reçu, avec reconnaissance, monsieur, vos intéressantescommunications 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 tribeof wild bees, is given in the notes to _The Tay_, a descriptive poemof considerable merit by David Millar. (Perth, Richardson, 1830. )'When the boy, whose hobby leads him in that direction, has found outa "byke, " he marks the spot well, and returns in the evening, when allits inmates are housed for the night. Pushing a twig into the hole asfar as it will go, in case he should lose it by the falling in of therubbish, he commences digging freely till the hum of the hive isdistinctly heard, when he proceeds more cautiously to work. By thistime, the more adventurous of the bees come out to ascertain what isgoing on, and are caught as they make their appearance, and put into abottle. When the nest is fully exposed, it is lifted carefully up, andplaced, as it stood, in a box prepared for it, along with the capturedbees. The lid being now closed, the whole is carried home, and placedin the spot assigned for it in the garden. Next morning, a hole in theside of the box is quietly opened, when one or two of the strangerssoon make their appearance, wondering, evidently, where they are, butapparently resolved to make the most of their new circumstances. Atlast, they rise slowly on the wing, and buzz round and round their newhabitation for some time, taking, no doubt, special note of its everypeculiarity. The circle of observation is then gradually enlarged, till it is thirty or forty yards in circumference, when the earnestreconnoitrer disappears, to return again in a short time withsomething for the general good. The curious in those matters, byplacing the grubs of all the different kinds in one box beside a hivein 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 ofinventing a process by which copper-plate engravings may betransferred to stone, and the copies from a single print thusmultiplied indefinitely. A correspondent, however, makes us fear thatLieutenant Hunt may have been unacquainted with what others had donebefore him. The process, it is stated, is not at all new; although, sofar as we have heard, it has never been applied to the transfer ofcomplicated 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. 

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_Just Published, Price 6d. Paper Cover_, CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a LITERARY COMPANION for theRAILWAY, the FIRESIDE, or the BUSH. 

VOLUME VII. 

To be continued in Monthly Volumes. 

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The present number of the Journal completes the Seventeenth Volume(new series), for which a title-page and index have been prepared, andmay be had of the publishers and their agents. 

END OF SEVENTEENTH VOLUME. 

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Printed and Published by W. And R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh. 

Sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London.