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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. 20, NO. 566.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1832. [PRICE 2d.




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[Illustration: BOLSOVER CASTLE.]


BOLSOVER CASTLE


Bolsover is a populous village on the eastern verge of Derbyshire upon
the adjacent county of Nottingham; and but a short distance from the
town of Chesterfield. The Castle occupies the plain of a rocky hill that
rises abruptly from the meadows. The building is of great extent, and,
from its elevated situation, it is a landmark for the surrounding
country.

Bolsover has been the site of a castle from the Norman Conquest to the
present time; but, of the first fabric of this description not a single
vestige now remains. At the Domesday survey it belonged to William
Peveril, lord of Derbyshire, in whose family it remained for three
generations. King John, when Earl of Moreton, became the possessor of
Bolsover; but, during his continuation with Longchamp, bishop of Ely, it
became the property of that prelate. Subsequently it again reverted to
John, who, in the eighteenth year of his reign, issued a mandate to
Bryan de L'Isle, the then governor of Bolsover, to fortify the castle
and hold it against the rebellious barons; or, if he could not make it
tenable, to demolish it. This no doubt was the period when the
fortifications, which are yet visible about Bolsover, were established.

In the long and tumultuous reign of Henry III., this castle still
retained its consequence. William, Earl Ferrars, had the government of
it for six years: afterwards it had eleven different governors in twice
that term. It is not necessary to trace the place through all its
possessors. In the reign of Henry VIII. it was the property of Thomas
Howard, the first Duke of Norfolk. On the attainder of his son, the
castle escheated to the crown. Shortly afterwards it was granted to Sir
John Byron for fifty years. In the reign of James I., Gilbert Talbot,
Earl of Shrewsbury, was the owner of Bolsover. In the year 1613, he sold
it to Sir Charles Cavendish, whose eldest son William, was the first
Duke of Newcastle, a personage of great eminence among the nobility of
his time, and in high favour at court.[1] He was sincerely attached to
his royal master, Charles I., whom he entertained at Bolsover Castle,
on three different occasions, in a style of princely magnificence.
On the king's second visit here, where he was accompanied by his queen,
upwards of 15,000_l_. were expended. The Duchess of Newcastle, in her
Life of the Duke, her husband, says, "The Earl employed Ben Jonson in
fitting up such scenes and speeches as he could devise; and sent for all
the country to come and wait on their Majesties; and, in short, did all
that even he could imagine to render it great and worthy of their royal
acceptance." It was this nobleman who erected the edifice which is now
in ruins. Mr. Bray, in his _Tour in Derbyshire_, observes: "This
place was seized by the Parliament after the Duke went abroad, and was
sold and begun to be pulled down, but was then bought by Sir Charles,
the Duke's youngest brother, and so restored to the family."[2]

The present castle was built at different periods. The north-east end,
which was erected by Sir Charles Cavendish, about the year 1613, is the
oldest. The interior of this portion is uncomfortably arranged. The
rooms are small, and the walls are wainscoted, and fancifully inlaid and
painted. The ceilings of the best apartments are carved and gilt, and
nearly the whole of the floors are coated with plaster. There is a small
hall, the roof of which is supported by pillars; and a star-chamber,
richly carved and gilt. The only comfortable apartment, according
to Mr. Rhodes, is now called the drawing room, but was formerly the
_pillar-parlour_, from its having in the centre a stone column, from
which springs an arched ceiling, while round the lower part of the shaft
is a plain dinner-table, in the right chivalric fashion. From the roof
of this building, to which the ascent is by winding stairs, the view
extends "till all the stretching landscape into mist decays." The garden
beneath is surrounded with a wall about three yards thick, and contains
an old fountain of curious and expensive workmanship, which Dr. Pegge,
(who was a native of Chesterfield, and wrote a history of Beauchief
Abbey,) has laboured to prove very beautiful.

Hitherto we have spoken but of that part of Bolsover Castle which was
formerly denominated the Little House, to distinguish it from the more
magnificent structure adjoining. This immense fabric, whose walls are
now roofless and rent into fissures, was built by William, the first
Duke of Newcastle, in the course of the reign of Charles II., but is
said never to have been entirely finished. The interior walls are but
bare stones; the door and window cases, and the different apartments,
are of unusually large dimensions, the principal remaining apartment
being 220ft. by 28: the entire western part, including the _Little
House_ at the northern extremity, extends about 150 yards. The
designs for the whole castle are said to have been furnished by
Huntingdon Smithson, (an architect noticed by Walpole,) but he did not
live to witness its erection. He collected his materials from Italy,
where he was sent by the Duke of Newcastle for the purpose. Smithson
died at Bolsover, in 1648, and was buried in the chancel of the church,
where there is a poetical inscription to his memory, in which his skill
in architecture is commemorated.

The whole pile is now wearing away. Trees grow in some of the deserted
apartments, and ivy creeps along the walls; though the ruins have little
of the picturesqueness of decay. The best point of view, or north-west,
is represented in the Engraving; a short distance hence lies the village
of Bolsover.

    [1] The duke was an important personage in the hostilities between
        his soverign and the parliament. In 1642, he was appointed
        general of all his majesty's forces, raised north of Trent,
        with very full powers. He levied a considerable army at his own
        expense, with which he for some time maintained the king's cause
        in the north. He, however, possessed little of the skill of a
        general, though he was a splendid soldier of fortune. He gained
        a signal victory over Lord Fairfax, near Bradford, and some
        others of less importance; but he was utterly defeated at
        Marston Moor, after which he left the country in despair of the
        royal cause. He resided for some time at Antwerp with his lady,
        where they were frequently in much distress. On his return to
        England, at the Restoration, he was received with the respect
        due to his unshaken fidelity, and in 1664, was created Earl of
        Ogle and Duke of Newcastle. He passed the remainder of his life
        in retirement, devoting himself to literature, to which he was
        much attached, and attending to the repair of his fortune.
        He died in 1676, aged 84, and was buried with his duchess in
        Westminster Abbey. His literary labours are now almost forgotten,
        if we except his principal production, "A new method and
        extraordinary invention to dress Horses," &c., which has obtained
        much praise from judges in the art. Grainger quaintly remarks,
        that "the Duke of Newcastle was so attached to the Muses, that
        he could not leave them behind him, but carried them to the camp,
        and made Davenant the poet-laureate, his lieutenant-general of
        the ordnance." His second wife was Margaret, the imaginative
        Duchess of Newcastle, who never revised what she had written,
        lest it "should disturb her following conceptions," by which
        means she composed plays, poems, letters, philosophical
        discourses, orations, &c.; of these she left enough to fill
        thirteen folio volumes, ten of which have actually been printed.
        Lord Orford has drawn a curious picture of the literary
        characters both of this lady and her husband. They were
        panegyrised and flattered by learned contemporaries; for, in
        those days flattery was well paid. It is, however, gratifying
        to learn that the duchess derives infinitely more honour from
        her fine character as a wife and mistress of a family, than
        from either her literary productions or these panegyrics.

    [2] Rhode's Excursions, Part iv.

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WITCHCRAFT AND SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.

(To the Editor.)


As your journal is open to the elucidation of any facts or traditions
connected with history, perhaps you will not consider the following
attempt at the elucidation of a singular subject, unworthy of your
pages. There is something pleasing in every successful attempt at
tracing tradition to a rational and philosophical cause, an origin to
which many of the most absurd and incredible may be referred.

It was well known that to witchcraft was ascribed only the power of
effecting the destruction of certain parts of the human body, and
that some of the members could be protected against the effects of
incantation. The spells of contra-incantation were often successfully
exerted in the destruction of the human body, except in those parts
previously rendered invulnerable. Jezebel was destroyed except her hands
and feet, and the same fate is recorded of many other witches, or of
those who suffered under the influence of malevolent spells.

Might not the vulgar, in search of a cause for so singular a phenomenon,
which has often occurred, as spontaneous combustion of the human body,
find in the powers of witchcraft an easy solution? Grace Pitt who
was burnt in this manner in Suffolk (recorded in the _Philosophical
Transactions,_) was a reputed witch, and her death was assigned by the
country people to the effects of contra-incantation; that her hands and
feet (generally left untouched by this phenomenon) were not consumed,
was attributed to the influence of her spell. Indeed, we may suppose
that these _old ladies,_ who were distinguished by the respectable
appellation of witches, gained that title by their excessive devotion to
spirituous liquors, which, in every case that has occurred, have been
found to predispose to spontaneous combustion, of the human body.

Colchester.

A. BOOTH.

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THE COSMOPOLITE.

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ANCIENTS AND MODERNS, OR THE TOILETTE OF MADAME DE POMPADOUR.

(From the French of Voltaire.)


_Mad. de Pomp._--Who may this lady be with acquiline nose and large
black eyes; with such height and noble bearing; with mien so proud, yet
so coquettish, who enters my chamber without being announced, and makes
her obeisance in a religious fashion?

_Tullia._--I am Tullia, born at Rome, about eighteen hundred years
ago; I make the Roman obeisance, not the French, and have come, I scarce
know from whence, to see your country, yourself, and your toilette.

_Mad. de. P._--Ah, madam, do me the honour of seating yourself. An
arm-chair for the Lady Tullia.

_Tullia._--For whom? me, madam? and am I to sit on that little
incommodious sort of throne, so that my legs must hang down and become
quite red?

_Mad. de P._--Upon what then would you sit?

_Tullia._--Madam, upon a couch.

_Mad. de P._--Ay, I understand--you would say upon a sofa; there
stands one, upon which you may recline at your ease.

_Tullia._--I am charmed to see that the French have furniture as
convenient as ours.

_Mad. de P._--Hah, hah, madam, you've no stockings! your legs are
naked, but ornamented, however, with a very pretty ribbon, after the
fashion of a sandal.

_Tullia._--We knew nothing about stockings, which, as a useful and
agreeable invention, I certainly prefer to our sandals.

_Mad. da P._--Good heavens, madam, I believe you've no _chemise!_

_Tullia._--No, madam, in my time nobody wore one.

_Mad. de P._--And in what time did you live?

_Tullia._--In the time of Sylla, Pompey, Caesar, Cato, Cataline; and
Cicero, to whom I have the honour of being daughter: of that Cicero, of
whom one of your _protegés_ has made mention in barbarous verse.[3] I
went yesterday to the theatre, where Cataline was represented with all
the celebrated people of my time, but I did not recognise one of them;
and when my father exhorted me to make advances to Cataline, I was
astonished! But, madam, you seem to have some beautiful mirrors; your
chamber is full of them; our mirrors were not a sixteenth part so large
as yours; are they of steel?

_Mad. de P._--No, madam, they are made with sand, and nothing is more
common amongst us.

_Tullia._--What an admirable art! I confess we had none such! And oh!
what a beautiful painting too you have there!

_Mad. de P._--It is not a painting, but a print, done merely with
lamp-black; a hundred copies of the same design may be struck off in a
day, and this secret immortalizes pictures, which time would otherwise
destroy.

_Tullia._--It is indeed an astonishing secret! we Romans had nothing
like it!

_Un Savant._--(A literary man there present, taking up the discourse,
and producing a book from his pocket, says to Tullia:) You will be
astonished, madam, to learn, that this book is not written by hand, but
that it is printed almost in a manner similar to engravings; and that
this invention also immortalizes works of the mind.

(The _Savant_ presents his book, a collection of verses dedicated to the
Marchioness, to Tullia, who reads a page, admires the type, and says to
the author:)

_Tullia._--Truly, sir, printing is a fine thing; and if it can
immortalize such verses as these, it appears to me to be the noblest
effort of art. But do you not at least employ this invention in printing
the works of my father?

The _Savant._--Yes, madam, but nobody reads them; I am truly concerned
for your father, but in these days, little is known of him save his
name.

(Here are brought in chocolate, tea, coffee, and ices. Tullia is
astonished to see, in summer, cream and strawberries[4] iced. She is
informed that such congealed beverages are obtained in five minutes,
by means of the salt-petre with which they are surrounded, and that by
continual motion, is produced their firmness and icy coldness. She is
speechless with astonishment. The dark colour of the chocolate and
coffee, somewhat disgust her, and she asks whether these liquids are
extracted from the plants of the country?--A duke who is present,
replies:)

_Duke._--The fruits of which these beverages are composed, come from
another world, and from the Gulf of Arabia.

_Tullia._--Arabia I remember; but never heard mention made of what you
call coffee; and as for another world, I know only of that from whence
I came, and do assure you, we have no chocolate there.

_Duke._--The world of which we tell you, madam, is a continent, called
America, almost as large as Europe, Asia, and Africa, put together; and
of which we have a knowledge less vague, than of the world from whence
you came.

_Tullia._--What! Did we then, who styled ourselves masters of the world,
possess only half of it? The reflection is truly humiliating!

The _Savant._--(piqued that Tullia had pronounced his verses bad,
replies dryly:) Yes, your countrymen who boasted of having made
themselves masters of the world, had scarce conquered the twentieth part
of it. We have at this moment, at the further end of Europe, an empire
larger in itself than the Roman:[5] it is governed, too, by a woman, who
excels you in intellect and beauty, and who wears _chemises;_ had she
read my verses, I am certain she would have thought them good.

(The Marchioness commands silence on the part of the author, who has
treated a Roman lady, the daughter of Cicero, with disrespect. The duke
explains the discovery of America, and taking out his watch, to which is
appended, by way of trinket, a small mariner's compass, shows her how,
by means of a needle, another hemisphere is reached. The amazement of
the fair Roman redoubles at every word which she hears, and every thing
she beholds; and she at length exclaims:)

_Tullia._--I begin to fear that the moderns really do surpass the
ancients; on this point I came to satisfy myself, and doubt not I shall
have to carry back a melancholy report to my father.

_Duke._--Console yourself, madam, no man amongst us equals your
illustrious sire; neither does any come near Caesar, with whom you were
contemporary, nor the Scipios who preceded him. Nature, it is true
creates, even at this day, powerful intellects, but they resemble rare
seeds, which cannot arrive at maturity in an uncongenial soil. The
simile does not hold good respecting arts and sciences; time, and
fortunate chances, have perfected them. It would, for example, be easier
for us to produce a Sophocles, or an Euripides, than such individuals as
your father, because, theatres we have, but no tribunals for public
harangues.[6] You have hissed the tragedy of Cataline; when you shall
see Phaedrus played, you will probably agree that the part of Phaedrus,
in Racine, is infinitely superior to the model you have known in
Euripides. I hope, also, that you will agree our Molière surpasses your
Terence. By your permission, I shall have the honour of escorting you to
the opera, where you will be astonished to hear song in parts; that
again is an art unknown to you.[7] Here, madam, is a small telescope,
have the goodness to apply your eye to this glass, and look at that
house which is a league off.

_Tullia._--Immortal gods! the house is now at the end of the telescope,
and appears much larger than before.

_Duke._--Well, madam, it is by means of such a toy that we have
discovered new heavens, even as by means of a needle, we have become
acquainted with a new earth. Do you see this other varnished instrument,
in which is inserted a small glass tube? by this trifle, we are enabled
to discover the just proportion of the weight of the atmosphere. After
much error and uncertainty, there arose a man who discovered the first
principle of nature, the cause of weight, and who has demonstrated that
the stars weigh upon the earth, and the earth upon the stars. He has
also unthreaded the light of the sun, as ladies unthread a tissue of
gold.

_Tullia._--What, sir, is it to unthread?

_Duke._--Madam, the equivalent of this term will scarcely be found in
the orations of Cicero. It is to unweave a stuff, to draw out thread by
thread, so as to separate the gold. Thus has Newton done by the rays of
the sun, the stars also have submitted to him; and one Locke has
accomplished as much by the Human Understanding.

_Tullia._--You know a great deal for a duke and a peer of the realm; you
seem to me more learned than that literary man who wished me to think
his verses good, and you are far more polite.

_Duke._--Madam, I have been better brought up; but as to my knowledge
it is merely commonplace. Young people now, when they quit school, know
much more than all the philosophers of antiquity. It is only a pity that
we have, in Europe, substituted half-a-dozen imperfect jargons, for the
fine Latin language, of which your father made so noble a use; but with
such rude implements we have produced, even in the _belles lettres,_
some very fair works.

_Tullia._--The nations who succeeded the Romans must needs have lived
in a state of profound peace, and have enjoyed a constant succession of
great men, from my father's time until now, to have invented so many new
arts, and to have become acquainted so intimately with heaven and earth.

_Duke._--By no means, madam, we are ourselves, some of those barbarians,
who almost all came from Scythia, and destroyed your empire, and the
arts and sciences. We lived for seven or eight centuries like savages,
and to complete our barbarism, were inundated with a race of men termed
monks, who brutified, in Europe, that human species which you had
conquered and enlightened. But what will most astonish you is, that
in the latter ages of ignorance amongst these very monks, these very
enemies to civilization, nature nurtured some useful men. Some invented
the art of assisting the feeble sight of age; and others, by pounding
together nitre and charcoal, have furnished us with implements of war,
with which we might have exterminated the Scipios, Alexander, Caesar,
the Macedonian phalanxes, and all your legions; it is not that we
possess warriors more formidable than the Scipios, Alexander, and
Caesar, but that we have superior arms.[8]

_Tullia._--In you, I perceive united, the high breeding of a nobleman,
and the erudition of a man of (literary) consideration; you would have
been worthy of becoming a Roman senator.

_Duke._--Ah, madam, far more worthy are you of being at the head of our
court.

_Mad. de P._--In which case, this lady would prove a formidable rival to
me.

_Tullia._--Consult your beautiful mirrors made of sand, and you will
perceive you have nothing to fear from me. Well, sir, in the gentlest
manner in the world, you have informed me that your knowledge
(infinitely) transcends our own.

_Duke._--I said, madam, that the latter ages are better informed than
those which preceded them; at least no general revolution has utterly
destroyed all the monuments of antiquity: we have had horrible, but
temporary convulsions, and amid these storms, have been fortunate enough
to preserve the works of your father, and of some other great men: thus,
the sacred fire has never been utterly extinguished, and has in the end
produced an almost universal illumination. We despise the barbarous
scholastic systems, which have long had some influence among us, but
revere Cicero and all the ancients who have taught us to think. If we
possess other laws of physics than those of your times, we have no other
rules of eloquence, and this perhaps may settle the dispute between the
ancients and moderns.

(Every one agreed with the duke. Finally they went to the opera of
Castor and Pollux, with the words and music of which, Tullia was much
gratified, and she acknowledged such a spectacle to be extremely
superior to that of a combat of gladiators.[9])

_Great Marlow, Bucks._

M.L.B.

    [3] Crébillon, author of Catalina.

    [4] Groseilles, literally; gooseberries or currents; but we have
        taken the liberty here, and elsewhere, slightly to deviate from
        the original text, in compliment to English customs, tastes,
        idioms, &c.

    [5] Russia: whose Empress, Catherine II, is intended by the
        succeeding sentence.

    [6] The well-known poetic vanity of Voltaire must be taken into
        full account, when he thus talks of the easiness of producing
        a (modern) Sophocles, or an Euripides; perhaps he thought his
        own tragedies equal, or superior to theirs; and for what follows,
        the French national prejudice in favour of their own dramatic
        writers, and which is far more laudable than the English
        indifference to the interests of the drama, should be recollected.

    [7] To "astonished" the author might almost have added alarmed, or
        disgusted. The conversant in music, know that song in parts, i.e.
        harmonized, is peculiarly distasteful to the ear unaccustomed to
        it; song, in unison, is the natural music of savage man; harmony
        is art; to be pleased with it therefore, implies a mind and
        ear cultivated and refined. The same remark hold good with
        instrumental music.

    [8] We apologize to our zealous correspondent for omitting the
        ingenious defence of War, contained in the Note to this passage.
        Its insertion would involve ourselves in a war--we mean of
        "words, words, words." As a private opinion, we admit the
        argument of the defence; though it militates so strongly with
        passion and prejudice that its insertion would be the war-hoop
        for a whole community of peace-makers to break in upon our
        literary _otium._ We wish to be the last in the world to feed
        a popular fallacy on any subject; but in some respects the
        argument employed in the journal quoted by M.L.B. is of too
        general a description to controvert the error in the present
        case. We must be courteous--though not of the court: ours is a
        system of non-intervention in politics; ever, in matters of
        literary dispute we do little more than "bite our thumb." It is
        hoped our correspondent will rightly understand us; and so now,
        like Mr. Peake's bashful man in the farce, we offer our apology
        for having apologized. By the way, in the, newspapers is
        advertised a pamphlet, containing an apology for its
        publication.--ED, M.

    [9] It is a pity that when Voltaire wrote this clever paper, Gas and
        Steam were not in vogue to add to the "astonishments" of Tullia.
        This would also most miraculously have assisted Madame de Genlis,
        in that no less clever exposition of the wonders of nature and
        art, the story of Alphonso and Thelismon.


       *       *       *       *       *




NEW BOOKS.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE YEAR OF WATERLOO.

[In continuation of our extracts from the very amusing _Private
Correspondence of a Woman of Fashion_ are the following incidents of
this memorable era.]

Return of Napoleon.--At half-past nine o'clock the secretary
announced to us that Napoleon had entered Paris quietly, without
pageantry or mark of splendid triumph, and was seated at supper in the
vacated palace of Louis XVIII!--

  "On that same throne where Henri great and good,
  In glory sat--now sits this man of blood;
  Yet let not prejudice debase my line,
  As warrior, as statesman, let him shine,--
  Through all the world his mighty name resound,
  For arts of peace and deeds of arms renown'd:
  Mark with what steady hand he rules the State!
  Yet wants the stamp of _Virtue_ to be _Great_!"


Thus did the French people permit his return without firing a gun in
defence of truth, and of their legitimate sovereign, whom they had
recalled to the throne of his ancestors _only ten months_ before!
Our excellent friend, the minister, joined us soon after; but he was
taciturn and thoughtful, and retired early. The next morning I
determined to see Napoleon; but when our carriage arrived at the Pont
Royal, thousands were collected there. Our servant advised us to descend
and make our way on foot. The crowd civilly made way--they were waiting
to see the review. An unusual silence prevailed, interrupted only by the
cries of the children, whom the parents were thumping with energy for
crying "Vive le Roi," instead of "Vive l'Empereur!"--which, some months
before, they had been thumped for daring to vociferate! We proceeded to
the Bibliothêque Royale: its outward appearance is that of an hospital
or prison, its interior heavy and dark,--it was almost deserted.--Van
Pratt still lingered there.--A Dutchman's phlegm tempered his emotions
on the proceedings without; perhaps the repeated changes of government
during his long life had diminished his interest in them. After showing
me, with great complacency, much of the valuable possessions of this
national collection of learning, splendid missals written on vellum,
MSS. &c. &c. upon which my mind cannot now dwell, he recommended us to
proceed to the review, to see which he had the good-nature to procure
me admittance to the small apartment of a friend in the Tuileries; and
from the window I saw and heard for the first time this scourge of the
Continent,--his martial, active figure mounted on his famed white horse.
He harangued with energetic tone (and in those bombastic expressions we
have always remarked in all his manifestoes, and which are so well
adapted to the French,) the troops of the divisions of Lepol and Dufour.
There was much embracing of Les Anciens Aigles of the Old Guard--much
mention of "_great days, and souvenirs dear to his heart_," of the
"scars of his brave soldiers;" which, to serve his views, he will
re-open without remorse, like the vampire of Greece. The populace were
tranquil, as I had remarked them on the bridge. Inspirited by my still
unsatisfied curiosity, I rejoined my escort, and proceeded to the
gardens, where not more than thirty persons were collected under the
windows. There was no enthusiastic cry, at least none deemed sufficient
to induce him to show himself. In despair at not being able to
contemplate his physiognomy at greater ease, I made my cavalier request
some persons in the throng to cry "Vive l'Empereur!" Some laughed, and
replied "Attendez un peu," while others advised us to desire some of the
children to do so. A few francs thrown to the latter, soon stimulated
their little voices into cries of the _loyalty of that day_, and
Napoleon presented himself at the window; but he did not stand there
in a firm attitude--he retired often, and re-appeared, standing rather
_sideways_, as if wanting confidence in the disposition of our little
assemblage. A few persons arrived from the country, and held up
petitions, which he sent an aid-de-camp to receive. His square face
and figure struck me with involuntary emotion. I was dazzled, as if
beholding a supernatural being!--and then dismayed, as gazing upon one
mortal like myself, but possessing such powers and capabilities of
outraging humanity, and over-stepping the bounds of honour, good faith,
and freedom's laws,--the laws of God and man! There is a sternness
spread over his expansive brow, a gloom on the lids of his darkened eye,
which renders futile his attempts to smile. Something of the Satanic
sported round his mouth, indicating the ambitious spirit of the soul
within!

_The Day after the Battle of Waterloo._--June 19.

British bayonets are victorious!--Napoleon's army a wreck,
panic-stricken, flies before Wellington and Blucher! I will not forget
your anxieties even in this moment of fatigue and agitation. The
combined forces are covered with immortal fame; they have vanquished the
_élite_ of Napoleon's empire, and those veteran generals most attached
to his person and dynasty. They are in full flight, and we in glorious
pursuit!--Ere this reaches you, the Allies will probably have entered
Paris a second time within the year. We learnt that Napoleon had left
the capital of France on the 12th: on the day of the 15th the frequent
arrival of couriers excited extreme anxiety; and towards evening General
Mufflin presented himself at the Duke's with dispatches from Blucher. We
were all aware that the enemy was in movement, and the ignorant could
not resolve the enigma of the Duke going tranquilly to the ball at the
Duke of Richmond's:--his coolness was above their comprehension; had he
remained at his own hotel, a panic would have probably ensued amongst
the inhabitants, which would have embarrassed the intended movement of
our division of the army.

I returned home late, and we were still talking over our uneasiness,
when our domestic distinctly heard the trumpet's shrill appeal to battle
within the city walls, and the drum beat to arms. Ere the sun had risen
in full splendour, I distinguished martial music approaching, and I soon
beheld from my windows the 5th reserve of our army passing: the Highland
brigade, in destructive warlike bearing, were the first in advance, led
by their noble thanes, the bagpipes playing their several pibrochs; they
were succeeded by the 28th, their bugles' note falling more blithely
upon the ear. Each regiment passed in succession with its band playing,
impatient for the affray and fearless of death, meeting the peaceful
peasant's carts bringing sustenance for the living. Those of my
acquaintance looked gaily up at the window--alas! how many of them were
before sunset numbered with the dead;--Scotland's thanes, ere they had
traversed the Bois de Soignies, and the Duc de Brunswick-Oels that
evening at Quatre Bras, stimulating onward his valiant hussars, and too
carelessly exposing his person.

On the 17th the Duke of Wellington displayed his whole force to the
enemy, and seemed to defy them to the combat--but in the evening retired
upon Waterloo, and there reposed with some of his officers in the
village, which lies embosomed in the Forêt de Soignies. Picton had
fallen; each herald brought us tidings of a hero less, where all were
heroes.

That night was dreadful for the soldier and his horse. No sooner had
darkness covered the earth, than a fearful tempest arose; it was awful
for man and beast--for the houseless peasant and his children, who had
been driven from their late peaceful habitations, and stood exposed to
the pitiless storm, viewing in wild dismay their fields devastated, the
spring produce of their gardens laid low in human gore! At early dawn,
on the Sabbath,--that hallowed day, enjoined to be held sacred for the
worship of God, and for rest to toil-worn animals--the British army
beheld the _chevaleresque_ legions of the enemy, in all its superior
numbers, ranged in order of battle on the rising ground. The sun at
mid-day flashed its brilliant radiance over their military casques and
arms. The cannonade then became general; the Duke of Wellington exposed
himself like a subaltern; his personal venture in the strife excited
anxiety; it was in vain that the officers of his staff urged him to be
less conspicuous, that the fate of the battle hung upon his life: it
was evident that he had determined to conquer or die: we knew it in
Bruxelles, and we knew also that the Prince of Orange would succeed to
the command in such a dread emergency; and although we did not doubt his
Royal Highness's personal valour, we questioned much his experience in
military tactics. In the streets every one demanded, "Will Blucher be
able to advance?" and we were fully aware if that veteran General could
not effect a junction with Wellington before eight o'clock that evening,
all would be lost. At nine o'clock the two heroes mutually felicitated
each other at the small _auberge_ of Genappe. But it was not till three
o'clock in the morning that the word "Victory!" was proclaimed by an
_affiche_ on the walls to the terrified population of Bruxelles!

The Prince of Orange had been wounded early in that evening, after
having in the morning disputed every inch of ground against the superior
force of the enemy, and continued to fight like a valourous chevalier
each succeeding day for his kingdom: he has fairly won it. May his
future subjects record the fact in ineffaceable characters on their
memory! The British army had faught thirteen successive hours; they
halted, and to the fresh troops of the Prussians the task of pursuing
the fugitive enemy was assigned: they gladly forgot all fatigue, in
vengeful feeling and relentless retaliation against their former
merciless and insulting invaders. The British moved forward this day,
and will enter France to-morrow. Eight hundred lion-mettled and noble
sons of Britain have fallen by the side of _thirty thousand_ of their
own brave soldiers! It has been a dear-earned victory to England; a
dread tragedy, in the small circumference of three miles! The veterans
of the Peninsular campaign assert that those scenes of carnage were less
cruel. This city, where pleasure so lately reigned, now presents only
the images of death. _Vraiment nous respirons la mort dans les rues!_
L'Hôtel-de-Ville, the hospitals, and some of the churches, are already
occupied by the wounded; wagons full remaining in the streets, and many
sitting on _the steps of the houses_, looking round in vain for
immediate succour!

Our escape has been mavellous, for Napoleon's plan was to penetrate to
Bruxelles, and to surprise the Duke and his staff at the ball, when
surrounded by the British _belles_; for he had his spies to report even
the hour of our pastimes, and he reckoned upon a rise of the Belgians in
his favour. For three days and nights we expected the enemy to enter;
treachery reigned around us, and false reports augmented our alarms, as
we knew the terrible numbers of the French forces. It was Bulow and his
corps that protected us from that calamity. On the Saturday we took
refuge within the city, from the scenes of horror before our villa.
Baggage-wagons of the different regiments advancing--the rough chariots
of agriculture, with the dead and the dying, disputing for the
road--officers on horseback wounded! I spoke to one: 'twas Colonel
C----, of the Scotch brigade; he replied with his wonted urbanity to my
inquiries--gave me his hand--"I am shot through the body--adieu for
ever!" He left me petrified with horror, and I saw him no more! One hour
afterwards I sent to his apartment--the gallant veteran had expired as
they lifted him from his horse!

I could not abandon the Baroness and her children in such an hour; but I
must ever gratefully recollect the kind offers of asylum made to me by
my Belgian acquaintance, and for months, they said, had the battle been
lost. It is truly pitiable to see the wounded arriving on foot; a musket
reversed, or the ramrod, serving for a staff of support to the mutilated
frame, the unhappy soldier trailing along his wearied limbs, and perhaps
leading a more severely-wounded comrade, whose discoloured visages
declare their extreme suffering;--their uniforms either hanging in
shreds, or totally despoiled of them by those marauders who ravage a
field of battle in merciless avidity of plunder and murder. These brave
fellows, these steady warriors, so redoubtable a few hours since, are
now sunk into the helplessness of infancy, the feebleness of woman, over
whom man arrogates a power that may not be disputed, but whose solacing
influence in the hour of tribulation and sickness they are willing to
claim.

The Belgian females are in full activity, acting with noble benevolence.
They are running from door to door begging linen, and entreating that it
may be scraped for lint; others beg matrasses.

       *       *       *       *       *


TRIBUTES TO GENIUS.

The Cuts represent unostentatious yet affectionate tributes to three of
the most illustrious names in literature and art: DANTE, and PETRARCH,
the celebrated Italian poets; and CANOVA, whose labours have all the
freshness and finish of yesterday's chisel. Lord Byron, whose enthusiasm
breathes and lives in words that "can never die," has enshrined these
memorials in the masterpiece of his genius. Associating Dante and
Petrarch with Boccaccio, he asks:

  But where repose the all Etruscan three--
    Dante and Petrarch, and scarce less than they,
  The Bard of Prose, creative spirit! he
    Of the Hundred Tales of Love--where did they lay
  Their tones, distinguish'd from our common clay
    In death as life? Are they resolved to dust,
  And have their country's marbles naught to say?
    Could not their quarries furnish forth one bust?
  Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust?[10]


[Illustration: (Dante's Tomb.)]


Dante was born at Florence in the year 1261. He fought in two battles,
and was fourteen times ambassador, and once prior of the republic.
Through one fatal error, he fell a victim to party persecution, which
ended in irrevocable banishment. His last resting-place was Ravenna,
where the persecution of his only patron is said to have caused the
poet's death. What an affecting record of gratitude! His last days at
Ravenna are thus referred to by an accomplished tourist:[11]

"Under the kind protection of Guido Novello da Polenta, here Dante found
an asylum from the malevolence of his enemies, and here he ended a life
embittered with many sorrows, as he has pathetically told to posterity,
'after having gone about like a mendicant; wandering over almost every
part to which our language extends; showing against my will the wound
with which fortune has smitten me, and which is so often imputed to his
ill-deserving, on whom it is inflicted.' The precise time of his death
is not accurately ascertained; but, it was either in July or September
of the year 1321. His friend in adversity, Guido da Polenta, mourned his
loss, and testified his sorrow and respect by a sumptuous funeral, and,
it is said, intended to have erected a monument to his memory; but, the
following year, contending factions deprived him of the sovereignty
which he had held for more than half a century; and he, in his turn,
like the great poet whom he had protected, died in exile. I believe,
however, that the tomb, with an inscription purporting to have been
written by Dante himself, of which I have here given an outline, was
erected at the time of his decease: and, that his portrait, in
bas-relief, was afterwards added by Bernardo Bembo, in the year 1483,
who, at that time was a Senator and Podestà of the Venetian republic."

Byron truly sings:

  Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,
  Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore;
  Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,
  Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore
  Their children's children would in vain adore
  With the remorse of ages.
  There is a tomb in Arquà; rear'd in air,
    Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose
  The bones of Laura's lover.

       *       *       *       *       *

  They keep his dust in Arquà, where he died;
    The mountain-village where his latter days
  Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride--
    An honest pride--and let it be their praise,
  To offer to the passing stranger's gaze
    His mansion and his sepulchre, both plain
  And simply venerable, such as raise
    A feeling more accordant with his strain
  Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fame.[12]


[Illustration: (Petrarch's Tomb.)]

"The tomb is in the churchyard at Arquà. Petrarch is laid, for he cannot
be said to be buried, in a sarchophagus of red marble, raised on four
pilasters on an elevated base, and preserved from an association with
meaner tombs. The revolutions of centuries have spared these sequestered
valleys, and the only violence that has been offered to the ashes of
Petrarch was prompted, not by hate, but veneration. An attempt was made
to rob the sarcophagus of its treasure, and one of the arms was stolen
by a Florentine through a rent which is still visible."[13]

The third Memorial is a red porphyry Vase containing the heart of
Canova. It is placed in the great hall of the Academy of Arts at Venice,
beneath the magnificent picture of the Assumption of the Virgin, by
Titian. The vase is ornamented with ormoulu, and bears the inscription
_Cor magni Canovae_, in raised gold letters. M. Duppa describes it
as "a vase fit for a drawing-room, not grand, nor lugubrious: it is
surmounted with a capsule of a poppy, which is a great improvement on a
skull and cross bones."

Canova was not only the greatest sculptor of his own but of any age.
Byron says--

  Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day.


[Illustration: COR MAGNI CANOVAE.]


He was, in great part, self-taught. In one of his early letters, he
says, "I laboured for a mere pittance, but it was sufficient. It was
the fruit of my own resolution; and, as I then flattered myself, the
foretaste of more honourable rewards--for I never thought of wealth."
He wrought for four years in a small ground cell in a monastery. From
his great mind originated the founding of the study of art upon the
study of nature. His enthusiasm was perfectly delightful: he made it a
rule never to pass a day without making some progress, or to retire to
rest till he had produced some design. His brother sculptors, hackneyed
in the trammels of assumed principles, for a time ridiculed his works,
till, at length, in the year 1800, his merits hecame fully recognised;
from which time till his death, in 1822, he stood unrivalled amidst the
honours of an admiring world.


    [10] Childe Harold, canto 4, st. lvi.

    [11] Duppa--Observations on the Continent.

    [12] Childe Harold, canto 4, st. xxxi, xxxii.

    [13] Notes to Childe Harold, ibid.--See Engraving of Petrach's
         House at Arquà, _Mirror_, vol. xvii, p. 1.


       *       *       *       *       *




THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

       *       *       *       *       *


THE HOME OF LOVE.


  "They sin who tell us Love can die.
  With Life all other Passions fly,
  All others are but Vanity;--

       *       *       *       *       *

  "But Love is indestructible.
  Its holy flame for ever burneth,
  From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
  Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
  At times deceived, at times oppressed,
  It here is tried and purified,
  And hath in Heaven its perfect rest."--SOUTHEY.


  Thou movest in visions, Love!--Around thy way,
  E'en through this World's rough path and changeful day,
      For ever floats a gleam,
  Not from the realms of Moonlight or the Morn,
  But thine own Soul's illumined chambers born--
      The colouring of a dream!

  Love, shall I read thy dream?--Oh! is it not
  All of some sheltering, wood-embosomed spot--
      A Bower for thee and thine?
  Yes! lone and lonely is that Home; yet there
  Something of Heaven in the transparent air
      Makes every flower divine.

  Something that mellows and that glorifies
  Bends o'er it ever from the tender skies,
      As o'er some Blessed Isle;
  E'en like the soft and spiritual glow,
  Kindling rich woods, whereon th' ethereal bow
      Sleeps lovingly awhile.

  The very whispers of the Wind have there
  A flute-like harmony, that seems to bear
      Greeting from some bright shore,
  Where none have said _Farewell!_--where no decay
  Lends the faint crimson to the dying day;
      Where the Storm's might is o'er.

  And there thou dreamest of Elysian rest,
  In the deep sanctuary of one true breast
      Hidden from earthly ill:
  There wouldst thou watch the homeward step, whose sound
  Wakening all Nature to sweet echoes round,
      Thine inmost soul can thrill.

  There by the hearth should many a glorious page,
  From mind to mind th' immortal heritage,
      For thee its treasures pour;
  Or Music's voice at vesper hours be heard,
  Or dearer interchange of playful word,
      Affection's household lore.

  And the rich unison of mingled prayer,
  The melody of hearts in heavenly air,
      Thence duly should arise;
  Lifting th' eternal hope, th' adoring breath,
  Of Spirits, not to be disjoined by Death,
      Up to the starry skies.

  There, dost thou well believe, no storm should come
  To mar the stillness of that Angel-Home;--
      There should thy slumbers be
  Weighed down with honey-dew, serenely blessed,
  Like theirs who first in Eden's Grove took rest
      Under some balmy tree.

  Love, Love! thou passionate in Joy and Woe!
  And canst _thou_ hope for cloudless peace below--
          _Here_, where bright things must die?
  Oh, thou! that wildly worshipping, dost shed
  On the frail altar of a mortal head
          Gifts of infinity!

  Thou must be still a trembler, fearful Love!
  Danger seems gathering from beneath, above,
          Still round thy precious things;--
  Thy stately Pine-tree, or thy gracious Rose,
  In their sweet shade can yield thee no repose,
          Here, where the blight hath wings.

  And, as a flower with some fine sense imbued
  To shrink before the wind's vicissitude,
          So in thy prescient breast
  Are lyre-strings quivering with prophetic thrill
  To the low footstep of each coming ill;--
          Oh! canst _Thou_ dream of rest?

  Bear up thy dream! thou Mighty and thou Weak
  Heart, strong as Death, yet as a reed to break,
          As a flame, tempest swayed!
  He that sits calm on High is yet the source
  Whence thy Soul's current hath its troubled course,
          He that great Deep hath made!

  Will He not pity?--He, whose searching eye
  Reads all the secrets of thine agony?--
          Oh! pray to be forgiven
  Thy fond idolatry, thy blind excess,
  And seek with _Him_ that Bower of Blessedness--
          Love! _thy_ sole Home is Heaven!


_New Monthly Magazine_.

       *       *       *       *       *


ORIENTAL SMOKING.


In India a hookah, in Persia a nargilly, in Egypt a sheesha, in Turkey
a chibouque, in Germany a meerschaum, in Holland a pipe, in Spain a
cigar--I have tried them all. The art of smoking is carried by the
Orientals to perfection. Considering the contemptuous suspicion with
which the Ottomans ever regard novelty, I have sometimes been tempted to
believe that the eastern nations must have been acquainted with tobacco
before the discovery of Raleigh introduced it to the occident; but a
passage I fell upon in old Sandys intimates the reverse. That famous
traveller complains of the badness of the tobacco in the Levant, which,
he says, is occasioned by Turkey being supplied only with the dregs of
the European markets. Yet the choicest tobacco in the world now grows
upon the coasts of Syria.

What did they do in the East before they smoked? From the many-robed
Pacha, with his amber-mouthed and jewelled chibouque, longer than a
lancer's spear, to the Arab clothed only in a blue rag, and puffing
through a short piece of hollowed date-wood, there is, from Stamboul
to Grand Cairo, only one source of physical solace. If you pay a visit
in the East, a pipe is brought to you with the same regularity that a
servant in England places you a seat. The procession of the pipe, in
great houses, is striking: slaves in showy dresses advancing in order,
with the lighted chibouques to their mouths waving them to and fro;
others bearing vases of many-coloured sherbets, and surrounding a
superior domestic, who carries the strong and burning coffee in small
cups of porcelain supported in frames of silver fillagree, all placed
upon a gorgeous waiter covered with a mantle of white satin, stiff and
shining with golden embroidery.

In public audiences all this is an affair of form. "The honour of the
pipe" proves the consideration awarded to you. You touch it with your
lips, return it, sip a half-filled cup of coffee, rise, and retire. The
next day a swarm of household functionaries call upon you for their
fees. But in private visits, the luxury of the pipe is more appreciated.
A host prides himself upon the number and beauty of his chibouques, the
size and clearness of the amber mouth-piece, rich and spotless as a ripe
Syrian lemon, the rare flavour of his tobaccos, the frequency of his
coffee offerings, and the delicate dexterity with which the rose water
is blended with the fruity sherbets. In summer, too, the chibouque of
cherry-wood, brought from the Balkan, is exchanged for the lighter
jessamine tube of Damascus or Aleppo, covered with fawn-coloured silk
and fringed with silver.

The hills of Laodicea celebrated by Strabo for their wines, now
produce, under the name of Latakia, the choicest tobacco in the world.
Unfortunately this delicious product will not bear a voyage, and loses
its flavour even in the markets of Alexandria. Latakia may be compared
to Chateau Margaux; Gibel, the product of a neighbouring range of
hills, similar, although stronger in flavour, is a rich Port, and will
occasionally reach England without injury. This is the favourite tobacco
of Mehemet Ali, the Pacha of Egypt. No one understands the art of
smoking better than his Highness. His richly carved silver sheesha borne
by a glossy Nubian eunuch, in a scarlet and golden dress, was a picture
for Stephanoff. The Chibouquejee of the Viceroy never took less than
five minutes in filling the Viceregal pipe. The skilful votary is well
aware how much the pleasure of the practice depends upon the skill with
which the bowl is filled. For myself, notwithstanding the high authority
of the Pacha, I give the preference to Beirout, a tobacco from the
ancient Berytus, lower down on the coast, and which reminded me always
of Burgundy. It sparkles when it burns, emitting a bright blue flame.
All these tobaccos are of a very dark colour.

In Turkey there is one very fine tobacco, which comes from Salonichi,
in ancient Thrace. It is of a light yellow colour, and may be compared
to very good Madeira. These are the choicest tobaccos in the world.
The finest Kanaster has a poor, flat taste after them.

The sheesha nearly resembles the hookah. In both a composition is
inhaled, instead of the genuine weed. The nargilly is also used with
the serpent, but the tube is of glass. In all three, you inhale through
rose-water.

The scientific votary after due experience, will prefer the Turkish
chibouque. He should possess many, never use the same for two days
running, change his bowl with each pipe-full, and let the chibouque be
cleaned every day, and thoroughly washed with orange flower water. All
this requires great attention, and the paucity and cost of service in
Europe will ever prevent any one but a man of large fortune from smoking
in the Oriental fashion with perfect satisfaction to himself.--_New
Monthly Magazine._

       *       *       *       *       *




NOTES OF A READER.

       *       *       *       *       *


BUILDING A SCHOOL IN THE HIGH ALPS.

[We find the following "labour of love" recorded by the Rev. W.S. Gilly,
in his Life of Felix Neff, Pastor of the French Protestants in these
cheerless regions. Its philanthropy has few parallels in the proud folio
of history, and will not be lessened in comparison with any record of
human excellence within our memory.]


It was among the grandest and sternest features of mountain scenery,
that Neff not only found food for his own religious contemplations, and
felt that his whole soul was filled with the majesty of the ever present
God, but here also he discovered, that religious impressions were more
readily received and retained more deeply than elsewhere by others. In
this rugged field of rock and ice, the Alpine summit, and its glittering
pinnacles, the eternal snows and glaciers, the appalling clefts and
abysses, the mighty cataract, the rushing waters, the frequent perils
of avalanches and of tumbling rocks, the total absence of every soft
feature of nature, were always reading an impressive lesson, and
illustrating the littleness of man, and the greatness of the Almighty.

The happy result of his experiments, made the pastor feel anxious to
have a more convenient place for his scholastic exertions than a dark
and dirty stable; and here again the characteristic and never-failing
energies of his mind were fully displayed. The same hand which had
been employed in regulating the interior arrangements of a church, in
constructing aqueducts and canals of irrigation, and in the husbandman's
work of sowing and planting, was now turned to the labour of building a
school-room. He persuaded each family in Dormilleuse to furnish a man,
who should consent to work under his directions, and having first marked
out the spot with line and plummet, and levelled the ground, he marched
at the head of his company to the torrent, and selected stones fit
for the building. The pastor placed one of the heaviest upon his own
shoulders--the others did the same, and away they went with their
burthens, toiling up the steep acclivity, till they reached the site of
the proposed building. This labour was continued until the materials
were all ready at hand; the walls then began to rise, and in one week
from the first commencement, the exterior masonry work was completed,
and the roof was put upon the room. The windows, chimney, door, tables,
and seats, were not long before they also were finished. A convenient
stove added its accommodation to the apartment, and Dormeilleuse, for
the first time probably in its history, saw a public school-room
erected, and the process of instruction conducted with all possible
regularity and comfort.

I had the satisfaction of visiting and inspecting this monument of
Neff's judicious exertions for his dear Dormilleusians--but it was a
melancholy pleasure. The shape, the dimensions, the materials of the
room, the chair on which he sat, the floor which had been laid in part
by his own hands, the window-frame and desks, at which he had worked
with cheerful alacrity, were all objects of intense interest, and I
gazed on these relics of "the Apostle of the Alps," with feelings little
short of veneration. It was here that he sacrificed his life. The severe
winters of 1826-7, and the unremitted attention which he paid to his
duties, more especially to those of his school-room, were his
death-blow.

[Neff then relates some preliminary arrangements.]

Dormilleuse was the spot which I chose for my scene of action,
on account of its seclusion, and because its whole population is
Protestant, and a local habitation was already provided here for the
purpose. I reckoned at first that I should have about a dozen élèves;
but finding that they were rapidly offering themselves, and would
probably amount to double that number, at the least, I thought it right
to engage an assistant, not only that I might be at liberty to go and
look after my other churches and villages, but that I might not be
exposed to any molestation, for in France nobody can lawfully exercise
the office of a schoolmaster without a license, and this cannot be
granted either to a foreigner or a pastor. For these reasons I applied
to Ferdinand Martin, who was then pursuing his studies at Mens, to
qualify himself for the institution of M. Olivier, in Paris. It was a
great sacrifice on his part to interrupt his studies, and to lose the
opportunity of an early admission to the institution; nor was it a small
matter to ask him to come and take up his residence at the worst season
of the year, in the midst of the ice and frightful rocks of Dormilleuse.
But he was sensible of the importance of the work, and, without any
hesitation, he joined our party at the beginning of November. The short
space of time which we had before us, rendered every moment precious. We
divided the day into three parts. The first was from sunrise to eleven
o'clock, when we breakfasted. The second from noon to sunset, when we
supped. The third from supper till ten or eleven o'clock at night,
making in all fourteen or fifteen hours of study in the twenty-four.
We devoted much of this time to lessons in reading, which the wretched
manner in which they had been taught, their detestable accent, and
strange tone of voice, rendered a most necessary, but tiresome duty.
The grammar, too, of which not one of them had the least idea, occupied
much of our time. People who have been brought up in towns, can have no
conception of the difficulty which mountaineers and rustics, whose ideas
are confined to those objects only to which they have been familiarized,
find in learning this branch of science. There is scarcely any way
of conveying the meaning of it to them. All the usual terms and
definitions, and the means which are commonly employed in schools, are
utterly unintelligible here. But the curious and novel devices which
must be employed, have this advantage,--that they exercise their
understanding, and help to form their judgment. Dictation was one of
the methods to which I had recourse: without it they would have made no
progress in grammar and orthography; but they wrote so miserably and
slowly, that this consumed a great portion of valuable time. Observing
that they were ignorant of the signification of a great number of French
words, of constant use and recurrence, I made a selection from the
vocabulary, and I set them to write down in little copy-books,[14] words
which were in most frequent use; but the explanations contained in the
dictionary were not enough, and I was obliged to rack my brain for new
and brief definitions which they could understand, and to make them
transcribe these. Arithmetic was another branch of knowledge which
required many a weary hour. Geography was considered a matter of
recreation after dinner: and they pored over the maps with a feeling of
delight and amusement, which was quite new to them. I also busied myself
in giving them some notions of the sphere, and of the form and motion of
the earth; of the seasons and the climates, and of the heavenly bodies.
Every thing of this sort was as perfectly novel to them, as it would
have been to the islanders of Otaheite; and even the elementary books,
which are usually put into the hands of children, were at first as
unintelligible as the most abstruse treatises on mathematics. I was
consequently forced to use the simplest, and plainest modes of
demonstration; but these amused and instructed them at the same time.
A ball made of the box tree, with a hole through it, and moving on
an axle, and on which I had traced the principal circles; some large
potatoes hollowed out; a candle, and sometimes the skulls of my
scholars, served for the instruments, by which I illustrated the
movement of the heavenly bodies, and of the earth itself. Proceeding
from one step to another, I pointed out the situation of different
countries on the chart of the world, and in seperate maps, and took
pains to give some slight idea, as we went on, of the characteristics,
religion, customs, and history of each nation. These details fixed
topics of moment in their recollection. Up to this time I had been
astonished by the little interest they took, Christian-minded as they
were, in the subject of Christian missions, but, when they began to have
some idea of geography, I discovered, that their former ignorance of
this science, and of the very existence of many foreign nations in
distant quarters of the globe, was the cause of such indifference. But
as soon as they began to learn who the people are, who require to have
the Gospel preached to them, and in what part of the globe they dwell,
they felt the same concern for the circulation of the Gospel that other
Christians entertained. These new acquirements, in fact, enlarged their
spirit, made new creatures of them, and seemed to triple their very
existence.

In the end, I advanced so far as to give some lectures in geometry, and
this too produced a happy moral developement.

Lessons in music formed part of our evening employment, and those being,
like geography, a sort of amusement, they were regularly succeeded by
grave and edifying reading, and by such reflections as I took care to
suggest for their improvement.

Most of the young adults of the village were present at such lessons, as
were within the reach of their comprehension, and as the children had a
separate instructor, the young women and girls of Dormilleuse, who were
growing up to womanhood, were now the only persons for whom a system of
instruction was unprovided. But these stood in as great need of it as
the others, and more particularly as most of them were now manifesting
Christian dispositions. I therefore proposed that they should assemble
of an evening in the room, which the children occupied during the day,
and I engaged some of my students to give them lessons in reading and
writing. We soon had twenty young women from fifteen to twenty-five
years of age in attendance, of whom two or three only had any notion of
writing, and not half of them could read a book of any difficulty. While
Ferdinand Martin was practising the rest of my students in music, I
myself and two of the most advanced, by turns, were employed in teaching
these young women, so that the whole routine of instruction went on
regularly, and I was thus able to exercise the future schoolmasters in
their destined profession, and both to observe their method of teaching,
and to improve it. I thus superintended teachers and scholars at the
same time.

It is quite impossible for those who have not seen the country, to
appreciate the devotedness to the Christian cause, which could induce
Neff to entertain even the thought of making the dreary and savage
Dormilleuse his own head quarters from November to April, and of
persuading others to be the companions of his dismal sojournment there.
I learn from a memorandum in his Journal, that the severity of that,
winter commenced early. "We have been in snow and ice since the first of
November, on this steep and rugged spot, whose aspect is more terrible
and severe than any thing can be supposed to be in France." He himself
was the native of a delightful soil and climate, and even some of the
mountaineers, whom he drew to that stern spot, were inhabitants of a
far less repulsive district, but had yet made it their custom to seek a
milder region than their own, during the inclemency of an Alpine winter.
To secure attendance and application, when once his students were
embarked in their undertaking, he selected this rock, where neither
amusement, nor other occupations, nor the possibility of frequent egress
or regress, could tempt them to interrupt their studies:--and he had
influence enough to induce them to commit themselves to a five months'
rigid confinement within a prison-house, as it were, walled up with ice
and snow.

It was a long probation of hardship. Their fare was in strict accordance
with the rest of their situation. It consisted of a store of salted
meat, and rye bread, which had been baked in autumn, and when they came
to use it, was so hard, that it required to be chopped up with hatchets,
and to be moistened with hot water. Meal and flour will not keep in this
mountain atmosphere, but would become mouldy,--they are, therefore,
obliged to bake it soon after the corn is threshed out. Our youthful
anchorites were lodged gratuitously by the people of Dormilleuse, who
also liberally supplied them with food for fuel, scarce as it was,
but if the pastor had not laid in a stock of provisions, the scanty
resources of the village could not have met the demands of so many
mouths, in addition to its native population.

A note of the expenditure upon this occasion will excite some wonder in
the minds of many readers, who are not aware how much good may be done
at a small cost, when the stream of bounty is made to pass through
proper channels.

"Our disbursements for the adult school, including candles, ink, and
paper, the salary of an assistant master, and food for the sixteen or
seventeen students who came from a distance, did not exceed 560 francs
(about 22_l._ 10_s._) for four months. Of this sum I can replace a
little more than two-thirds, because some of the students have repaid
their share of the expense, and even the poorest furnished their quota
of bread. We did not provide commons for those who belonged to
Dormilleuse, because they boarded at home."

    [14] They have no slates in this country--nor in the valleys of
         Piemont.--Two benevolent benefactors to the Protestant cause
         in Italy, who wished to confer a benefit upon the schools of
         Piemont, have enabled me to supply the Vaudois schools with
         this useful and economical article.

       *       *       *       *       *




THE NATURALIST.

       *       *       *       *       *


NOTES

Abridged from the _Magazine of Natural History_.


[Illustration: (The Fern Owl, showing the greater length of the middle
claw, and its provision for the peculiar posture of the bird.)]


_Habits of the Fern Owl, by Rusticus_.--Beyond Godalming, on the Liphook
road, is a great tract of barren heathy land: it stretches wide in every
direction, and includes immense peat-bogs, and several large ponds. One
particular district, called the Pudmores, is the favourite resort of
the fern owl. In the daytime, while walking across the moor, you will
every now and then put up one of these singular birds; their flight is
perfectly without noise, and seldom far at a time: but of an evening it
is far different; about twenty minutes after sunset, the whole moor is
ringing with their cry, and you see them wheeling round you in all
directions. They look like spectres; and, often coming close over you,
assume an unnatural appearance of size against a clear evening sky. I
believe its very peculiar note is uttered sitting, and never on the
wing. I have seen it on a stack of turf with its throat nearly touching
the turf, and its tail elevated, and have heard it in this situation
utter its call, which resembles the birr of the mole-cricket, an insect
very abundant in this neighbourhood. I have almost been induced to think
this noise serves as a decoy to the male mole-cricket, this being
occasionally found in the craw of these birds when shot. Those who may
not be acquainted with the cry of the bird or the insect, may imagine
the noise of an auger boring oak, or any hard wood, continued, and not
broken off, as is the noise of the auger, from the constant changing of
the hands. The eggs of the fern owl have frequently been brought me by
boys: they are only two in number, greyish white, clouded and blotched
with deeper shades of the same colour; the hen lays them on the soil,
which is either peat, or a fine soft blue sand, in which she merely
makes a slight concavity, but no nest whatever. The first cry of the
fern owl is the signal for the night-flying moths to appear on the wing,
or rather the signal for the entomologist expecting them.

The migratory periods of this bird are not well ascertained; but I have
known one shot Nov. 27th, 1821, and they had arrived April 28th, 1830.
As there is scarcely a British bird of which so little is known, the
following notes may be interesting:--It has been seen perched on the
bar of a gate, not across, but according to its length, with the tail
elevated; uttering its peculiar sounds; but when perching, as it often
does, on the summit of a twig of oaken copse, it fixes upright, with
the feet grasping the twig, and not sitting; just as the swift perches
against a wall. One was killed in broad daylight, perched on the upper
side of a sloping branch of considerable size; the head was uppermost,
and it rested on the feet and tarsi, the latter being bare on the under
surface for that purpose. Its attitude in this situation much resembled
that of a woodpecker. One that was kept alive with its wing broken sat
across the finger, like another bird. When about to take flight it makes
a cracking noise, as if the wings smote together, after the manner of
a pigeon.

_Harbingers of Spring._--One of the earliest intimations of approaching
spring is the appearance of the _Phalaena primaria_, and of one or two
other moths, floating with expanded wings on the surface of ponds and
still water. A butterfly, _Caltha palustris_, is commonly drawn forth
from its winter quarters by one of the first warm and sunny days that
happen to occur in the month of March: hence it has been termed _fallax
veris indicium_, (the deceitful token of spring.) In the Isle of Wight
it has been seen on the wing the 8th of January, 1805.--_Rev. W.T.
Bree._

_Ravages of the Beetle_.--Mr. Bree describes the _Scarabaeus
horticola_ as "exceedingly destructive in gardens. Being on a visit
in Staffordshire, in the month of June, I observed whole beds of
strawberries (not hautboys) likely to prove nearly barren, though they
had flowered copiously, and the season, was favourable for a crop. I was
informed that the failure was owing to the fernshaws (the provincial
name for the beetle), which are accused of eating the anthers and
interior parts of the blossom. In the same garden my attention was also
called to the ravages committed by this depredator on the apples, by
gnawing holes in the young fruit; which consequently dies and falls of,
or at least becomes much blemished. I was assured that the fernshaws had
been detected in the fact; and I am rather disposed to think that the
charge in both instances is well founded. I had long been aware of
the insect's partiality for rosebuds and blossoms, which it greedily
devours. In the north of England, where it is much used as a killing
bait for trout, the insect is commonly known by the name of
'bracken-clock,' a name of the same import with the Staffordshire term
'fernshaw,' each signifying 'fern-beetle.'" Another correspondent
says--_Scarabaeus horticola_, called "the chovy" in Norfolk, is
there deemed very injurious to apple-trees, and other trees and plants,
as it feeds both on leaves and all the parts of the flower. Chovies were
abundant at Thetford, Norfolk, about ten years ago; but, as far as my
experience has reached, always rare about Bury St. Edmunds. On the 9th
of June, 1829, I saw one in the botanic garden of the last-named town,
flitting about a flowering bush of the Provence rose.

_Ink of the Cuttle-fish._--[By way of _addenda_ if not _corrigenda_ to
our description of the Cuttle-fish, at page 104 of the present volume,
we quote the following observations.]

"When in danger, cuttle-fish are said to eject a copious black liquor
through their funnel or excrementary canal, as a means of obscuring the
circumfluent water, and concealing themselves from all foes:--

  "Long as the craftie cuttle lieth sure
  In the blacke cloud of his thicke vomiture."[15]


This inky fluid is a very remarkable secretion, produced in a bag
that lies near the liver, and sometimes even embosomed in it, and
communicating with the funnel by means of its own excretory duct. The
interior of the bag is not a simple cavity; it is filled with a soft
cellular or spongy substance in which the ink is diffused. This has no
relation or analogy with bile, as Munro believed; but it is a peculiar
secretion, somewhat glutinous, readily miscible with water, and variable
in point of shade, according to the species of cephalopode from which it
comes; so that, as Dr. Grant remarks, a more intimate acquaintance with
this character might be useful in tracing relations among the different
species. The colour of the ink in Loligo sagittata[16] is a deep brown,
approaching to yellowish brown when much diluted, and corresponds
remarkably with the coloured spots on the skin of that species; but
in Octopus ventricosus the colour of the ink is pure black, and it is
blackish grey when diluted on paper. "The ink (_Edin. Phil. Journ._ vol.
xvi. p. 316.) brought in a solid state from China has the same pure
black colour as in the Octopus ventricosus, and differs entirely in its
shade, when diluted, from that of the Loligo sagittata, as may be seen
from specimens of these three colours on drawing paper. Swammerdam
suspected the China ink to be made from that of the Sepia; Cuvier found
it more like that of the Octopus and Loligo; but different kinds of that
substance are brought from China, probably made from different genera of
these animals, where they abound of gigantic size." At the present day,
according to Cuvier, an ink is prepared from the liquor of these animals
in Italy, which differs from the genuine China ink only in being a
little less black. (_Mem._, vol. i. p. 4.) Davy found it to be "a
carbonaceous substance mixed with gelatine;" but on a more careful
analysis, Signor Bizio procured from it a substance _sui generis_
[peculiar in kind], which he calls melania. "The melania is a tasteless,
black powder, insoluble in alcohol, ether, and water, while cold, but
soluble in hot water: the solution is black. Caustic alkalies form with
it a solution even in the cold, from which the mineral acids precipitate
it unchanged. It contains much azote: it dissolves in, and decomposes,
sulphuric acid: it easily kindles at the flame of a candle: it has been
found to succeed, as a pigment, in some respects better than China ink."
(_Edin. Phil. Journ._, vol. xiv. p. 376.)

    [15] "The ink secreted in this bag has been said to be thrown out
         to conceal the animal from its pursuers; but, in a future
         lecture, I shall endeavour to show that this secretion is to
         answer a purpose in the animal economy connected with the
         functions of the intestines." (Hume's _Comp. Anat._ vol. i.
         p. 376.) Dr. Coldstream, in a letter to the author, detailing
         the manners of Octopus ventricosus in captivity, says, "I have
         never seen the ink ejected, however much the animal may have
         been irritated." I have, however, been told by our fishermen,
         that they have seen this species eject the black liquid, with
         considerable force, on being just taken from the sea.

    [16] Sir B. Sibbald says that the Loligo, or hose-fish, besides
         its ink has another purple juice. (_Scot. Illust._ vol. ii.
         lib. 3. p. 26.) I find no mention of this in any other author.


       *       *       *       *       *


LUXURIANCE OF NATURE.

Upper Louisiana (we are told) has all the trees known in Europe, besides
others that are here unknown. The cedars are remarkably fine; the cotton
trees grow to such a size, that the Indians make canoes out of their
trunks; hemp grows naturally; tar is made from the pines on the sea
coast; and the country affords every material for ship-building. Beans
grow to a large size without culture; peach trees are heavily laden with
fruit; and the forests are full of mulberry and plum trees. Pomegranates
and chestnut trees are covered with vines, whose grapes are very large
and sweet. There are three or four crops of Indian corn in the year; as
there is no other winter besides some rains. The grass grows to a great
height, and towards the end of September is set on fire, and in eight or
ten days after, the young grass shoots up half a foot high.

P.T.W.

       *       *       *       *       *




THE GATHERER.


_Annual Cost of a Private Soldier_.--The daily pay of a foot soldier is
one shilling, with a penny for beer; the daily pay of a life-guardsman
is _1s. 11-1/2d._ and the annual cost is _74l. 4s. 11d._ per man,
besides horse and allowances, or _1l. 8s. 6d._ per week; dragoons, _56l.
11s. 5d._ per annum, or _1l. 1s. 9d._ per week; footguards _34l. 6s._ or
_13s. 2d._ per week; infantry, _31l._ per annum, or _11s. 10d._ per
week. A regiment of horse soldiers, of about 360, officers and men, cost
about _25,000l._ per annum. The wages of seamen in the Royal Navy are
_2l. 12s._ per month, or _13s._ per week; and _1l. 12s._ or _8s._ per
week more, are allowed for their provisions.--_Examiner._

The _Morning Chronicle_ report of the examination of Mr. Horsley, the
Governor of the Bank of England, has the following odd question:--"Is
there any large proportion of London noses circulated by the Branch
Banks?"--"There are none."

_Convenient Deafness._--A few days since at the Court of Assizes,
in Paris, a M. Lecluse, who was summoned on the jury, produced a
certificate that he was deaf, and consequently unable to serve. The
Advocate General was observing to the court, in no very elevated tone of
voice, that the certificate was inadmissible, since it bore date so far
back as June 24, 1813, when M. Lecluse immediately set him right by
stating that the date was July 13, instead of June 24, 1813. This at
once decided the question, as it proved the acuteness of his hearing,
and the Court ordered him to be sworn.

_Walnut Water._--Dr. Sully, of Wiveliscombe, a very eminent medical
practitioner, in a letter to the editor of the _Taunton Courier_,
has communicated the mode of preparing this article, which has been
found so effectual a remedy in subduing nausea and vomiting:--"Take a
quarter of a peck of walnuts at the time they are fit for pickling;
bruise them, and, with four ounces of fresh angelica seeds, put them
into an alembic, with a bottle of French brandy, and enough water to
prevent empyreuma, or burning; distil from this mixture a quart, which
is called walnut water, and administer a wineglass-full to the patient,
to be repeated every half-hour till the vomiting ceases." Dr. Sully says
that he communicated this recipe to Sir Astley Cooper and Mr. Abernethy,
both of whom frequently used it in their practice, and that it has been
prepared by a house in London for him for the last 40 years.--_Morning
Herald_.

_The first Review._--Reviews of books originated in the _Journal
des Scavans_, projected by Dennis de Sallo, in 1664.

_Hint to Tea Makers._--Put a small quantity of carbonate of soda
into the pot along with the tea, and this, by softening the water, will
accelerate the infusion amazingly. Should the water be hard, it will
increase the strength of your tea at least one half.--_Mechanics'
Magazine_.

It is a curious fact, that the Chinese make no use of milk, either in
its liquid state, or in the shape of curds, butter, or cheese.

_Chairing Members of Parliament._--This custom was taken from the
practice in the northern nations, of elevating the king after his
election, upon the shoulders of the senators. The Anglo-Saxons carried
their king upon a shield when crowned. The Danes set him upon a high
stone, placed in the middle of twelve smaller. Bishops were chaired upon
elections, as were abbots and others.

_Illumination_ was formerly common not only upon occasions of joy,
but even the return home of the master of the house. Some writers have
contended, but evidently by mistake, that it was only a part of
religious ceremonies. It is even mentioned in Ossian's Carthon, and
obtained in the middle ages. The classical illuminations were made not
only with lamps, but links, and wax flambeaux.

_Lord Mayor._--The first Lord Mayor who went by water to
Westminster, was John Norman, in 1453. Sir John Shaw, according to
Lambard, was the first who rode on horseback, in 1501; but Grafton says,
correctly, that they rode before. Sir Gilbert Heathcote was the last, in
Queen Anne's time. Before building the Mansion-House, the first stone of
which was laid Oct. 25, 1739, the Lord Mayor resided in the hall of some
Company, hired for the term of the mayoralty.

       *       *       *       *       *

Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset
House,) London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic;
G.G. BENNIS, 55, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris; and by all Newsmen
and Booksellers.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14024 ***