Various . Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 
 
 
 THE MUSICAL SEASON. 
 'The English are not a musical people.' The dictum long stood 
 unquestioned, and, in general estimation, unquestionable. All the 
 world had agreed upon it. There could be no two opinions: we had no 
 national airs; no national taste; no national appreciation of sweet 
 sounds; musically, we were blocks! At length, however, the creed began 
 to be called in question--were we so very insensible? If so, 
 considering the amount of music actually listened to every year in 
 London and the provinces, we were strangely given to an amusement 
 which yielded us no pleasure; we were continually imposing on 
 ourselves the direst and dreariest of tasks; we were tormenting 
 ourselves with symphonies, and lacerating our patience with sonatas 
 and rondos. What was the motive? Hypocrisy was very generally 
 assigned. We only affected to love music. It was intellectual, 
 spiritual, in all respects creditable to our moral nature, to be able 
 to appreciate Mozart and Beethoven, and so we set up for connoisseurs, 
 and martyrised ourselves that Europe might think us musical. Is there 
 more truth in this theory than the other? Hypocrisy is not generally 
 so lasting as the musical fervour has proved itself to be. A fashion 
 is the affair of a season; a mania goes as it came; but regularly and 
 steadily, for many years back, has musical appreciation been 
 progressing, and as regularly have the opportunities for hearing good 
 music of all kinds been extending. 
   
 Take up a daily newspaper, published any time between April and 
 August, and range your eye down the third or fourth column of the 
 first page--what an endless array of announcements of music, vocal and 
 instrumental! Music for the classicists; music for the crowd; 
 symphonies and sonatas; ballads and polkas; harmonic societies; choral 
 societies; melodists' clubs; glee clubs; madrigal clubs. Here you have 
 the quiet announcement of a quartett-party; next to it, the 
 advertisement of one of the Philharmonic Societies--the giants of the 
 musical world; pianoforte teachers announce one of their series of 
 classic performances; great instrumental soloists have each a concert 
 for the special behoof and glorification of the _bénéficiaire_. Mr 
 So-and-so's grand annual concert jostles Miss So-and-so's annual 
 benefit concert. There are Monday concerts, and Wednesday concerts, 
 and Saturday concerts; there are weekly concerts, fortnightly 
 concerts, and monthly concerts; there are concerts for charities, and 
 concerts for benefits; there are grand morning concerts, and grand 
 evening concerts; there are _matinées musicales_, and _soirées 
 musicales_; there are meetings, and unions, and circles, and 
 associations--all of them for the performance of some sort of music. 
 There are musical entertainments by the score: in the City; in the 
 suburbs; at every institute and hall of science, from one end of 
 London to the other. One professor has a ballad entertainment; a 
 second announces a lecture, with musical illustrations; a third 
 applies himself to national melodies. All London seems vocal and 
 instrumental. Every dead wall is covered with naming _affiches_, 
 announcing in long array the vast army of vocal and instrumental 
 talent which is to assist at such and such a morning performance; and 
 the eyes of the owner of a vast musical stomach are dazzled and 
 delighted by programmes which will at least demand five hours in the 
 performance. 
   
 So is London, in the course of the season, the congress of nearly all 
 the performing musical notabilities of Europe. Time has been when they 
 came to London for cash, not renown: now they come for both. A London 
 reputation is beginning to rival a Parisian vogue, besides being ten 
 times more profitable; and, accordingly, from every musical corner in 
 Christendom, phenomena of art pour in, heralded by the utmost possible 
 amount of puffing, and equally anxious to secure English gold and a 
 London reputation. It is strange to observe how universally the 
 musical tribute is paid. A tenor turns up from some Russian provincial 
 town; a basso works himself to London from a theatre in 
 Constantinople; rumours arrive of a peerless prima donna, with a voice 
 which is to outstrip everything ever heard of, who has been dug out, 
 by some travelling amateur, from her native obscurity in a Spanish or 
 Norwegian village; an extraordinary soprano has been discovered in 
 Alexandria; a wondrous contralto has been fished up from Riga. The 
 instrumental phenomena are not one whit scarcer. Classical pianists 
 pour in from Germany principally; popular pianists, who delight in 
 fantasias rather than concertos, and who play such tricks with the 
 keyboards, that the performances have much more of the character of 
 legerdemain than of art, arrive by scores; violinists, violoncellists, 
 professors of the trombone, of the ophicleide, of the bassoon, of 
 every unwieldy and unmanageable instrument in fact, are particularly 
 abundant; and perhaps the most popular of all are the particularly 
 clever gentlemen who, by dint of a dozen years' or so unremitting 
 practice, have succeeded in making one instrument sound like another. 
 Quackery as this is, it is enormously run after by no small proportion 
 of the public. Not that they do not appreciate the art of the device 
 at its proper level, but that the trick is curious and novel; and most 
 people, even the dignified classicists, have a gentle toleration for a 
 little--just a little--_outré_ amusement of the kind in question. 
 Paganini was the founder of this school. He might have played on four 
 strings till he was tired, without causing any particular sensation; 
 but the single string made his fortune. Sivori is one of the cleverest 
 artists of the present day, who resorts to tricks with his violin, and 
 wonderfully does he perform them. At a concert last season, he 
 imitated the singing of a bird with the strangest and happiest skill. 
 The 'severe' shook their heads, but smiled as they did so, and owned 
 that the trick was clever enough, and withal agreeable to hear. But it 
 is gentlemen who make one instrument produce the sounds of another, 
 or, at all events, who extract from it some previously unknown effect, 
 who carry all before them. The present phenomenon in this way is 
 Bottesini, who, grasping a huge double-bass, the most unwieldy of 
 instruments, tortures out of it the notes of a violin, of an oboe, and 
 of a flute. A season or two ago, M. Vivier took all London by storm, 
 by producing a chord upon the French horn, a feat previously 
 considered impossible, and probably only the fruit of the most 
 determined and energetic practice, extending over many years. At all 
 the popular concerts, this trick-music is in immense request. 
 Bottesini was the lion of Jullien's last series; but in his place in 
 the orchestra of the Philharmonic, he plays his part and holds his 
 instrument like any ordinary performer. Bagpipe music is not much 
 appreciated on the banks of the Thames; but I can assure any 
 enterprising Scotsman, that if he can only succeed in producing the 
 notes of the bagpipe out of the trombone, he will make a fortune in 
 five seasons or less. 
   
 Such is musical London, then--rushing from concert to concert, and 
 opera to opera--from severe classicism to the most miscellaneous 
 _omnium gatherum_--from solemn ecclesiastical harmonic assemblages to 
 the chanting of merry glees, and the warbling of sentimental ballads. 
 Let us, then, contemplate a little closer the different kinds of 
 concerts--their features and their character--their performers and 
 their auditories. Our sketch must be very hurried and very vague, but 
 it will give an idea of some of the principal characteristics of the 
 London musical season. 
   
 First, then, among the performances of mingled vocal and instrumental 
 music, stand the two Sacred Harmonic Societies, which execute 
 oratorios and similar works in Exeter Hall. The original Sacred 
 Harmonic Society has within the last couple of years split into two 
 bodies. It had long contained within itself the elements of division. 
 There were the Go-ahead party and the Conservative party--the first, 
 eager to try new ground, and aim at new effects; the second, lovers of 
 the beaten way. At length, the split took place. The progressistas 
 flung themselves into the arms of M. Costa, the famous conductor of 
 the Royal Italian Opera orchestra, and the highest and most Napoleonic 
 of musical commanders. The Tories of the society went peaceably on in 
 the jog-trot ways of Mr Sarman, the original conductor. Each society 
 can now bring into the field about 800 vocal performers, the immense 
 majority of them amateurs, and their concerts take place 
 alternately--Exeter Hall being invariably crammed upon either 
 occasion. The Costaites, no doubt, have the _pas_. The discipline of 
 their chief is perfect, and as rigid as it is excellent. The power 
 which this gentleman possesses over his musical troops is very 
 curious. The whole mass of performers seem to wait upon his will as 
 the spirits did on Prospero. At the spreading of his arms, the music 
 dies away to the most faintly-whispered murmurs. A crescendo or 
 musical climax works gradually up step by step, and bar by bar, until 
 it explodes in a perfect crash of vocal and instrumental tempest. The 
 extraordinary choral effects produced in the performance of the 
 _Huguenots_ almost bewildered the hearers; and the wondrous lights and 
 shades of sound given in many of the oratorios, are little behind the 
 dramatic achievement. The aspect of Exeter Hall on an oratorio night 
 is one of the grandest things in London. The vastness of the 
 assemblage, the great mountain of performers, crested by the organ, 
 and rising almost to the ceiling, are thoroughly impressive, while the 
 first burst of the opening chorus is grand in the extreme. The 
 oratorio is, in fact, the Opera of the 'serious' world. It is at once 
 a place in which to listen to music and a point of social reunion. 
 There are oratorio _habitués_ as well as Opera _habitués_; and between 
 the parts of the performance, the same buzzing hum of converse rises 
 from the assemblage which you hear in the Opera corridors and lobbies. 
 A glance at the audience will enlighten you as to their character. 
 They represent the staid respectability of the middle class. The 
 dresses of the ladies are often rich, seldom brilliant, and there is 
 little sparkle of jewellery. You very frequently perceive family 
 parties, under the care of a grave _pater familias_ and his 
 staid and stately partner. Quakers abound; and the number of 
 ecclesiastically-cut coats shews how many clergymen of the church are 
 present. The audience are in the highest degree attentive. The rules 
 forbid applause, but a gentle murmur of admiration rises at the close 
 of almost every _morceau_. Here and there, you have a practical 
 amateur, or a group of such with the open score of the oratorio before 
 them, eagerly following the music. Often these last gentlemen are 
 members of the rival Society, and, as might be expected, pick plenty 
 of holes in the execution of their opponents, for which charitable 
 purpose only they have probably attended. But in M. Costa's Society, 
 at all events, the task is difficult; the orchestra 'goes,' as the 
 phrase is, like one instrument, and the singers are beautifully under 
 the control of the master-spirit who directs them. 
   
 Let us pass from Exeter Hall to Hanover Square. Here, in the Queen's 
 Concert Room--a _salle_ which once was smart, and the decorations of 
 which were fashionable seventy years ago--we have unnumbered concerts, 
 and chief among them the twelve annual performances of the 
 Philharmonic Society. The 'Philharmonic,' as it is conversationally 
 called, holds almost the rank of a national institution. The sovereign 
 patronises it in an especial manner. It is connected with the Royal 
 Academy of Music, and Her Majesty's private band is recruited from the 
 ranks of its orchestra. The Philharmonic band may be indeed taken as 
 the representative of the nation's musical executive powers; and, as 
 such, comparisons are often instituted between it and the French, 
 Austrian, and Prussian Philharmonics. The foreigners who hold places 
 in the orchestra are resident, and in some sort naturalised, but the 
 bulk of the executants are English. To be a member of the Philharmonic 
 orchestra is, indeed, to take a sort of degree in executive music, and 
 at once stamps the individual as a performer of distinguished merit. 
 The music performed is entirely classic, and principally instrumental. 
 New compositions are seldom given; and, in fact, it was the practice 
 of adhering so exclusively to the standard works of great composers 
 which started the new Philharmonic Society, which has just come into 
 existence. The elder body stick stanchly to the safe courses of Bach, 
 Gluck, Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. The newly-created 
 association proclaim that their mission is to look after aspirants, as 
 well as to honour the veterans of the art; and accordingly they bring 
 forward many compositions experimentally--a meritorious policy, but 
 one not without its dangers. Few unprofessional people are aware of 
 the cost of producing elaborate compositions. When _William Tell_ was 
 played some years ago at Drury Lane--to mention one single item--the 
 price of copying the parts from the full score, at 3d. a page, came to 
 L.350. All the old music is of course to be had printed; and to these 
 standard scores the steady-going Philharmonic principally devotes 
 itself. Each performance consists in general of two symphonies, or a 
 symphony and an elaborate concerto, each occupying at least 
 three-quarters of an hour, with two overtures, and solos, vocal and 
 instrumental--the former generally sung by performers from either 
 Opera, but usually from Covent Garden. M. Costa wields the baton at 
 Hanover Square as at Exeter Hall; and under his management, the band 
 have attained a magnificent precision and _ensemble_ of effect. Its 
 musical peculiarity over ordinary orchestras is the vast strength of 
 stringed instruments, which gives a peculiar _verve_ and light vigour 
 to the performances. The rush of the violins in a rapid passage is 
 overwhelming in its impetuosity and vigour, and is said, of late years 
 especially, to beat the 'attack,' as it is technically called, of any 
 of the continental Philharmonic Societies. The Philharmonic concerts 
 are very fashionable. It is good taste, socially and artistically, to 
 be present; and, consequently, the room is always crowded by an 
 assemblage who display most of the characteristics of an Opera 
 audience. The musical notabilities of town always muster in full force 
 at the Philharmonic. Composers, executants, critics, amateurs, and 
 connoisseurs, are all there, watching with the greatest care the 
 execution of those famous works, the great effect of which can only be 
 produced by the most wary and appreciative tenderness of rendering. In 
 the interval between the first and second parts, the very general hum 
 of conversation announces how great the degree of familiarity 
 subsisting among the _habitués_. There is none of the common stiffness 
 of waiting one sees at ordinary entertainments. Everybody seems to 
 know everybody else, and one general atmosphere of genial intercourse 
 prevails throughout the room. 
   
 Let us change the scene to a classic concert of quite another kind. In 
 a quiet West-end street, we are in a room of singular construction. It 
 is in the form of a right-angled triangle; and at the right angle, 
 upon a small dais, is placed the pianoforte and the desks, and so 
 forth, for the performers. The latter are thus visible from all 
 points; but about one-half the audience in each angle of the room is 
 quite hidden from the other. Everybody is in evening dress; the ladies 
 very gay, and the party very quiet--a still, drawing-room sort of air 
 presides over the whole. Many of the ladies are young--quite girls; 
 and a good many of the gentlemen are solemn old foggies, who appear 
 strongly inclined to go to sleep, and, in fact, sometimes do. 
 Meantime, the music goes on. A long, long sonata or concerto--piano 
 and violin, or piano, violin, and violoncello--is listened to in 
 profound silence, with a low murmur of applause at the end of each 
 movement. Then perhaps comes a little vocalism--sternly classic 
 though--an aria from Gluck, or a solemn and pathetic song from 
 Mendelssohn: the performer being either a well-known concert-singer, 
 or a young lady--very nervous and a little uncertain--who, it is 
 whispered, is 'an Academy girl;' a pupil, that is, of the institution 
 in question. Sometimes, but not often--for it is _de rigueur_ that 
 entertainments of this species shall be severely classic--we have a 
 phenomenon of execution upon some out-of-the-way instrument, who 
 performs certain miracles with springs or tubes, and in some degree 
 wakens up the company, who, however, not unfrequently relapse into all 
 their solemn primness, under a concerto manuscript, or a trio 
 manuscript, the composition of the _bénéficiaire_. Between the parts, 
 people go quietly into a room beneath, where there are generally some 
 mild prints to be turned over, some mild coffee to drink, some mild 
 conversation about mild things in general; and then the party remount 
 the stairs, and mildly listen to more mild music. This is the common 
 routine of a classical pianoforte soirée. The _bénéficiaire_ is a 
 fashionable teacher, and, in a small way, a composer. He gives, every 
 season, a series, perhaps two or three series, of classic evenings. 
 The pupils and their families form the majority of the audience, 
 interspersed with a few pianoforte amateurs, and those _fanatici per 
 la musica_ who are to be found wherever a violin is tuned, or a piano 
 is opened. 
   
 Another species of classic concert is to be found in the 
 quartett-meetings. These take place in some small concert-room, such 
 as that I have described, or at the houses of the executants; and the 
 audience comprehends a far larger proportion of gentlemen than the 
 last-mentioned entertainments. The performers are four--pretty sure to 
 be gentlemen of the highest professional abilities. The instruments 
 are first and second violin, viola, and violoncello; and three or four 
 quartetts by the great masters, or, very probably, as many 
 compositions, marking the different stages of Beethoven's imagination, 
 are played with the most consummate skill and the tenderest regard for 
 light and shade. People not deep in the sympathies and tastes of the 
 musical world, have no idea how these compositions are loved and 
 studied by the real disciples of Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn; how 
 particular passages are watched for; and how old gentlemen nod their 
 heads, or shake them at each other, according as they agree or 
 disagree in the manner of the interpretation. Half the audience 
 probably know every bar of the music by heart, and no inconsiderable 
 number could perhaps perform it very decently themselves. It is indeed 
 at these quartett and quintett meetings, that you see genuine 
 specimens of musical knowledge and musical enthusiasm. They take place 
 by half-dozens during the season; and you always find the same class 
 of audience, often the same individuals, regularly ranged before the 
 executants. 
   
 But place now for the real grand, miscellaneous, popular, and populous 
 morning concert! Now for elephantine dimensions and leviathan bills of 
 fare. It is nominally, perhaps, or really, perhaps, the annual benefit 
 concert of some well-known performer, or it is the speculation of a 
 great musical publishing house, in the name of one of their composing 
 or performing _protégés_. The latter is, indeed, a very common 
 practice. But whether the music-publishing and opera-box-letting firm 
 be the real concert-giver, or merely the agent, to it is left the 
 whole of the nice operation of 'getting up' the entertainment. It has 
 then exhausted all the dodges of puffery in pumping up an unusual 
 degree of excitement. The affair is to be a 'festival' or a 'jubilee;' 
 'all the musical talent' of London is to be concentrated; the 
 continent has been dragged for extra-ordinary executive attractions; 
 every musical hit of the season is to be repeated; every effect is to 
 be got up with new _éclat_: never was there to be such a _super extra, 
 ne plus ultra_ musical triumph. The day approaches. Rainbow-hued 
 _affiches_ have done their best; placard-bearers, by scores, have 
 paraded, and are parading, the streets; advertisements have blazoned 
 the scheme day after day, and week after week; the gratis-tickets have 
 been duly 'planted;' puffs, oblique and implied, have hinted at the 
 coming attraction in every Sunday paper; and programmes are fluttering 
 in every get-at-able shop-front. The day comes. A long line of 
 fashionable carriages, strangely intermingled with shabby cabs, file 
 up to the doors, and the gay morning dresses, flaunting with colours, 
 disappear between the two colossal placards which grace the entrance. 
 The room is filled. _Habitués_, and knowing musical men on town, 
 recognise each other, and congregate in groups, laughingly comparing 
 notes upon the probabilities of what artists announced will make an 
 appearance, and upon what apologies will be offered in lieu of those 
 who don't. A couple of these last are probably already in circulation. 
 Madame Sopranini is confined to bed with an inflammatory attack; and 
 Signor Bassinini has got bronchitis. Nevertheless, the concert begins; 
 and oh! the length thereof. The principal vocalists seem to have 
 mostly mistaken the time at which they would be wanted; and the 
 chopping and changing of the programme are bewildering. Bravuras take 
 the place of concertos; a duet being missing, an aria closes the 
 ranks; a solo on the trombone not being forthcoming, a vocal trio 
 (unaccompanied) is hurriedly substituted. Still, there is plenty of 
 the originally announced music; all the favourite airs, duets, and 
 trios from the fashionable operas; all the ballads in vogue--the music 
 published by the house which has set the whole thing on foot, of 
 course; all the phenomena of executive brilliance are there, or are 
 momentarily expected to appear. We begin after an overture with, say, 
 an air from the _Puritani_, by a lovely tenor; another, from the 
 _Somnambula_, by a charming soprano; a fantasia by a legerdemain 
 pianist, with long hair, and who comes down on the key-board as though 
 it was his enemy; the famous song from _Figaro_--encored; the 
 madrigal, 'Down in a Flowery Vale'--the latter always a sure card; a 
 duet from _Semiramide_, by two young ladies--rather shaky; solo on the 
 clarionet, by a gentleman who makes the instrument sound like a 
 fiddle--great applause; 'In manly Worth,' by an oratorio tenor; the 
 overture to _Masaniello_, by the band; concerto (posthumous, 
 Beethoven), by a stern classical man--audience yawn; pot pourri, by a 
 romantic practitioner--audience waken up; ballad, 'When Hearts are 
 torn by manly Vows,' by an English tenor--great delight, and 
 encouragement of native talent; glee, 'Glorious Apollo,' or, 'The 
 Red-cross Knight'--very well received; recitative and aria, from 
 _Lucia di Lammermoor_--very lachrymose; violin solo, by Signor 
 Rosinini, who throws the audience into a paroxysm of delight by 
 imitating a saw and a grindstone; 'The Bay of Biscay,' by the 
 'veteran' Braham, being positively his last appearance (the 'veteran' 
 is announced for four concerts in the ensuing week!); ballad, again, 
 by the native tenor, 'When Vows are torn by slumbering Hearts'--more 
 great applause; the page's song from the _Huguenots_, for the 
 contralto; 'When the Heart of a Man,' _Beggars' Opera_; quartett for 
 four pianofortes, great bustle arranging them, and then only three 
 performers forthcoming--an apology--attack of bronchitis--but Mr 
 Braham will kindly (thunders of applause) sing 'The Death of Nelson;' 
 quartett for double-bass, trombone, drum, and triangles--curious 
 effect; the audience hardly know whether they like it or not; the 
 bravura song of the 'Queen of Night,' from _Zauberflöte_; overture to 
 _William Tell_; ballad, 'When Slumber's Heart is torn by Vows;' duet, 
 'I know a Bank,' by the Semiramide young ladies; fantasia pianoforte, 
 from the _Fille du Régiment_; 'Rode's air, with variations,' from the 
 text; and the storm movement of the _Sinfonia Pastorale_, by 
 Beethoven! 
   
 Such may be taken as a fair specimen-slice of a _Concert Monstre_; and 
 in listening to this wild agglomeration of chaotic music, the day 
 passes, very likely from two o'clock until six. In a future paper, I 
 may touch upon the peculiarities of the artists performing. 
   
 B. R. 
 
 
 
 
 THE TALLOW-TREE OF CHINA. 
   
 It is one happy recommendation of the Natural system of botany, that 
 many of its orders form groups of plants distinguished not only by the 
 characteristics of general physiognomy, and the more accurate 
 differences of structure, but in an especial manner by the medicinal 
 and economical properties which they possess, and which are indeed 
 frequently peculiar to the order. Such is the case with the natural 
 order _Euphorbiaceæ_, or spurge family, to which the tallow-tree of 
 China belongs. The order includes 2500 species, all of which are more 
 or less acrid and poisonous, these properties being especially 
 developed in the milky juices which abound in the plants, and which 
 are contained, not in its ordinary tissues, but in certain special 
 vessels. Many important substances are derived from this order, 
 notwithstanding its acrid and poisonous character. Castor-oil is 
 obtained from the seeds of _Ricinus communis_; croton-oil, and several 
 other oleaginous products of importance in medicine and the arts, are 
 obtained from plants belonging to the order. The root of _Janipha 
 Manihot_, or Manioc-plant, contains a poisonous substance, supposed to 
 be hydrocyanic acid, along with which there is a considerable 
 proportion of starch. The poisonous matter is removed by roasting and 
 washing, and the starch thus obtained is formed into the cassava-bread 
 of tropical countries, and is also occasionally imported into Europe 
 as Brazilian arrow-root. 
   
 Many of the important economical productions of China are little known 
 in this country; we are, however, daily gaining additions to our 
 knowledge of them; and within the last few years, much valuable 
 information has been obtained respecting the productive resources of 
 the Eastern Empire. The grass-cloth of China only became known in 
 Europe a few years ago, but it now ranks as one of the important 
 fabrics of British manufacture. Daily discoveries seem to shew that 
 there are Chinese products of equal importance, as yet unknown to us. 
 On the present occasion, we call the attention of our readers to a 
 substance which has been long known, as well as the plant which 
 produces it, but neither of which has hitherto been prominently 
 brought into general notice in Britain. For our information respecting 
 the uses of the tallow-tree, we express our chief obligations to a 
 paper by Dr D. J. Macgowan, published in the Journal of the 
 Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India.[1] 
   
 The tallow-tree of China is the _Stillingia sebifera_ of botanists; a 
 plant originally indigenous to China, where it occurs in wet 
 situations, but which is now somewhat common in various parts of India 
 and America, chiefly as an ornamental tree. In Roxburgh's time, it was 
 very common about Calcutta, where, in the course of a few years, it 
 became one of the most common trees; and it has become almost 
 naturalised in the maritime parts of South Carolina. In China alone, 
 however, is it as yet appreciated as an economical plant, and there 
 alone are its products properly elaborated. It is chiefly prized for 
 the fatty matter which it yields, and from which it derives its 
 appropriate name; but it affords other products of value: 'its leaves 
 are employed as a black dye; its wood being hard and durable, may be 
 easily used for printing-blocks and various other articles; and, 
 finally, the refuse of the nut is employed as fuel and manure.... It 
 grows alike on low alluvial plains and on granite hills, on the rich 
 mould at the margin of canals, and on the sandy sea-beach. The sandy 
 estuary of Hangchan yields little else; some of the trees at this 
 place are known to be several hundred years old, and though 
 prostrated, still send forth branches and bear fruit.... They are 
 seldom planted where anything else can be conveniently cultivated--but 
 in detached places, in corners about houses, roads, canals, and 
 fields.' 
   
 The sebaceous matter, or vegetable tallow, is contained in the 
 seed-vessels of the _Stillingia_. The processes adopted for 
 abstracting it are of importance, and meet with due consideration in 
 Dr Macgowan's valuable paper. The following clear account is given of 
 the whole process, as practised in China:--'In midwinter, when the 
 nuts are ripe, they are cut off with their twigs by a sharp 
 crescentric knife, attached to the extremity of a long pole, which is 
 held in the hand, and pushed upwards against the twigs, removing at 
 the same time such as are fruitless. The capsules are gently pounded 
 in a mortar, to loosen the seeds from their shells, from which they 
 are separated by sifting. To facilitate the separation of the white 
 sebaceous matter enveloping the seeds, they are steamed in tubs, 
 having convex open wicker bottoms, placed over caldrons of boiling 
 water. When thoroughly heated, they are reduced to a mash in the 
 mortar, and thence transferred to bamboo sieves, kept at a uniform 
 temperature over hot ashes. A single operation does not suffice to 
 deprive them of all their tallow; the steaming and sifting are 
 therefore repeated. The article thus procured becomes a solid mass on 
 falling through the sieve; and to purify it, it is melted and formed 
 into cakes for the press. These receive their form from bamboo hoops, 
 a foot in diameter, and three inches deep, which are laid on the 
 ground over a little straw. On being filled with the hot liquid, the 
 ends of the straw beneath are drawn up and spread over the top; and 
 when of sufficient consistence, are placed with their rings in the 
 press. This apparatus, which is of the rudest description, is 
 constructed of two large beams, placed horizontally so as to form a 
 trough capable of containing about fifty of the rings with their 
 sebaceous cakes; at one end it is closed, and at the other adapted for 
 receiving wedges, which are successively driven into it by ponderous 
 sledge-hammers, wielded by athletic men. The tallow oozes in a melted 
 state into a receptacle below, where it cools. It is again melted, and 
 poured into tubs, smeared with mud, to prevent its adhering. It is now 
 marketable, in masses of about eighty pounds each--hard, brittle, 
 white, opaque, tasteless, and without the odour of animal tallow; 
 under high pressure, it scarcely stains bibulous paper, and it melts 
 at 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It may be regarded as nearly pure 
 stearine.... The seeds yield about 8 per cent. of tallow, which sells 
 for about five cents per pound.' 
   
 There is a separate process for pressing the oil, which is carried on 
 at the same time. The kernels yield about 30 per cent. of oil, which 
 answers well for lamps. It is also employed for various purposes in 
 the arts, and has a place in the Chinese pharmacopoeia, because of its 
 quality of changing gray hair to black, and other imaginary virtues. 
   
 The husks are used to feed the furnaces; the residuary tallow-cakes 
 are also employed for fuel--a small quantity remaining ignited a whole 
 day. The oil-cake forms a valuable manure, and is of course carefully 
 used for this purpose in China, where so very great regard is paid to 
 the collecting of manures. This kind is particularly used for 
 enriching tobacco-fields, its powerful qualities recommending it for 
 such a scourging crop. 
   
 With regard to the uses of the vegetable tallow, Dr Macgowan observes: 
 'Artificial illumination in China is generally procured by vegetable 
 oils, but candles are also employed.... In religious ceremonies, no 
 other material is used. As no one ventures out after dark without a 
 lantern, and as the gods cannot be acceptably worshipped without 
 candles, the quantity consumed is very great. With an unimportant 
 exception, the candles are always made of what I beg to designate as 
 vegetable stearine. When the candles, which are made by dipping, are 
 of the required diameter, they receive a final dip into a mixture of 
 the same material and insect-wax, by which their consistency is 
 preserved in the hottest weather. They are generally coloured red, 
 which is done by throwing a minute quantity of alkanet-root (_Anchusa 
 tinctoria_), brought from Shan-tung, into the mixture. Verdigris is 
 sometimes employed to dye them green.' We are not aware that the 
 vegetable tallow has as yet been imported into Britain to any extent. 
   
 FOOTNOTES: 
   
 [1] 'Uses of the _Stillingia Sebifera_, or Tallow-Tree, &c., by D. J. 
 Macgowan, M. D., &c.' The substance of the same communication was laid 
 before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 12th February, 1852, having 
 been communicated by Dr Coldstream. 
   
 
 
 
 THE TOLLMAN'S STORY. 
   
 Some local travellers of about twenty-five years' practice, may still 
 remember the keeper of a toll-bar on one of the western approaches to 
 Glasgow, known in his neighbourhood as English John. The prefix was 
 given, I believe, in honour of his dialect, which was remarkably pure 
 and polished for one of his station in those days; and the solution of 
 that problem was, that he had been from childhood, till the gray was 
 thickening on his hair, in the service of an English family, who had 
 come into possession, and constantly resided on, a handsome estate in 
 his native parish in Dumbartonshire. 
   
 Through their interest, he had been appointed to the office of power 
 and trust in which I made his acquaintance. John was one of my 
 earliest friends, though the remnant of his name was never heard nor 
 inquired after by me. The great town has now grown much nearer his 
 toll-house, which then stood alone on the country road, with no 
 building in sight but the school, at which I, and some two score of 
 the surrounding juveniles, were supposed to be trained in wisdom's 
 ways, by the elder brother of our parish minister. A painstaking, 
 kindly teacher he was; but the toll-house was a haunt more pleasant to 
 our young fancies than his seminary. John was the general friend and 
 confidant of all the boys; he settled our disputes, made the best tops 
 and balls for us, taught us a variety of new tricks in play, and 
 sometimes bestowed upon us good advices, which were much sooner 
 forgotten. John never married. He had a conviction, which was 
 occasionally avowed, that all women were troublesome; and whether this 
 evidence be considered _pro_ or _con_, he was a man of rough sense and 
 rustic piety, of a most fearless, and, what the Germans call, a 
 self-standing nature--for solitude or society came all alike to John. 
 You would as soon expect a pine-tree to be out of sorts, as his hard, 
 honest face, and muscular frame. John was never sick, or disturbed in 
 any way; he performed his own domestic duties with a neatness and 
 regularity known to few housekeepers, and was a faithful and most 
 uncompromising guardian of the toll-bar. I well remember how our young 
 imaginations were impressed with the fact, that no man could pass, 
 without, as it were, paying tribute to him; and George IV., though he 
 appeared on the coppers with which we bought apples, cast by no means 
 so mighty a shadow on our minds as English John. Before this glory 
 waned, I was removed from his neighbourhood, being sent to cheer the 
 heart and secure the legacy of a certain uncle who was a writer to the 
 Signet in Edinburgh, and believed to be in profitable practice and 
 confirmed bachelorhood. The worthy man has long ago married his 
 landlady's daughter, and been blessed with a family sufficient to fill 
 a church-pew. My own adventures--how I grew from garment to garment, 
 how I became a law-student, and at length a writer myself--have little 
 to do with the present narrative, and are therefore spared the reader 
 in detail; but the first startling intelligence I received from home 
 was, that English John had resigned his important office at the 
 toll-house, and gone, nobody knew whither! 
   
 Years had passed; my professional studies were finished, and I had 
 occasion to visit a Fife laird near the East Neuk. The gentleman was 
 notable for his taste in kitchen-gardening; and having a particularly 
 fine bed of Jerusalem artichokes which I must see, he conducted me to 
 the scene of his triumphs, when, hard at work with the rake and hoe, 
 whom should I find as the much esteemed gardener, but my old friend 
 English John! His hair had grown quite gray, and his look strangely 
 grave, since last I saw him: time had altered me still more; 
 nevertheless, John knew me at once--he had always a keen eye--but I 
 perceived it was his wish not to be recognised at all in presence of 
 the laird. That worthy was one of those active spirits who extend 
 their superintendence to every department. He commanded in the pantry 
 as well as on the farm; and while expatiating over the artichokes, a 
 private message from his lady summoned him back to the house, as I 
 sincerely believe, on some matter connected with the dinner; and he 
 left me, with an understood permission to admire the artichokes, and 
 the garden in general, as long as I pleased. Scarcely was he fairly 
 out of sight, till I was at the gardener's side. 'John, my old 
 fellow,' cried I, grasping his hand, 'I'm glad to see you once again. 
 How has the world behaved to you these many years?' 
   
 'Pretty well, Master Willie,' said John, heartily returning my shake; 
 'and I'm glad to see you too; but your memory must be uncommon good, 
 for many a one of the boys has passed me by on street and highway. How 
 have they all turned out?' And he commenced a series of inquiries 
 after schoolmates and old neighbours, to which my answers were as 
 usual in such cases--some were dead, some were married, and some gone 
 far away. 
   
 'But, John,' said I at last, determined to make out the mystery which 
 had so long puzzled me and the entire parish--'in exchange for all my 
 news, tell me why you left the toll-house? It was surely a better 
 place than this?' 
   
 'You know what the old proverb says, Master Willie: "Change is 
 lightsome,"' said John, beginning to dig, as if he would fain stave 
 off the explanation. 
   
 'Ha, John, that wont do!' said I; 'your mind was never so unsteady. 
 Tell me the truth, for old times' sake; and if there is anything in 
 the story that should not be made public, you know I was always a 
 capital secret-keeper. Maybe it was a love-matter, John: are you 
 married yet?' 
   
 'No, Master Willie,' cried my old friend, with a look of the most 
 sincere self-gratulation I ever saw. 'But it's a queer story, and one 
 I shouldn't care for telling; only, you were always a discreet boy, 
 and it rather presses on my mind at times. The master won't be back 
 for awhile; he'll have the roast to try, and the pudding to taste--not 
 to talk of seeing the table laid out, for there are to be some 
 half-dozen besides yourself to-day at dinner. That's his way, you see. 
 And I'll tell you what took me from the toll-house--but mind, never 
 mention it, as you would keep peace in the west country.' 
   
 This is John's story, as nearly in his own words as I can call them to 
 mind:-- 
   
        *       *       *       *       * 
   
 The family in whose service I was brought up lived on their estate in 
 Dumbartonshire, which came through the mistress of the mansion, who 
 had been heiress of entail, and a lady in her own right; we called her 
 Lady Catherine, and a prouder woman never owned either estate or 
 title. Her father had been a branch of the Highland family to whom the 
 property originally belonged. Her mother was sprung from the old 
 French nobility, an emigrant of the first Revolution, and she had been 
 brought up in England, and married in due time to an Honourable Mr 
 ---- there. When she first came to the estate, her husband had been 
 some years dead, and Lady Catherine brought with her a son, who was to 
 be heir--at that time a boy like myself--and two handsome grown-up 
 daughters. The castle was a great fabric, partly old and partly new. 
 It stood in the midst of a noble park, with tall trees and red deer in 
 Its last possessor had been a stingy old bachelor; but after Lady 
 
 Catherine's coming, the housekeeping was put on a grand scale. There 
 was a retinue of English servants, and continual company. I remember 
 it well, for just then my poor mother died. She had been a widow, 
 living in a low cottage hard by the park-wall, with me and a gray cat 
 for company, and her spinning-wheel for our support. I was but a child 
 when she died; and having neither uncle nor aunt in the parish, they 
 took me, I think, by her ladyship's order, into the castle, to run 
 small errands, and help in the garden; from which post, in process of 
 time, I rose to that of footman. Lady Catherine was in great odour 
 with the country gentry for her high-breeding, her fashionable 
 connections, and her almost boundless hospitality. She was popular 
 with the tenantry too, for there was not a better managed estate in 
 the west, and the factor had general orders against distress and 
 ejectment. 
   
 They said her ladyship had been reckoned a beauty in London 
 drawing-rooms, and our parish thought her wonderfully grand for the 
 gay dresses and rich jewellery she wore. Doubtless, these were but the 
 cast-offs of the season, for regularly every spring she and the family 
 went up to London, where they kept a fine house, and what is called 
 the best society. How much the gay dresses had to do with the beauty 
 is not for me to say, but Lady Catherine was a large, stately woman, 
 with a dark complexion, and very brilliant red, which the servants 
 whispered was laid on in old court fashion. Her manner to her equals 
 was graceful, and to her inferiors, gracious; but there was a look of 
 pride in her dark gray eyes, and a stern resolution about the 
 compressed lips, which struck my childish mind with strange fear, and 
 kept older hearts in awe. Her daughters, Florence and Agnes, were 
 pictures of their mother--proud, gay ladies, but thought the flower of 
 the county. Their portions were good, and they would have been 
 co-heiresses but for their brother Arthur. He was the youngest, but so 
 different from his mother and sisters, that you wouldn't have thought 
 him of the same family. His fair face and clear blue eyes, his curly 
 brown hair and merry look, had no likeness to them, though he was not 
 a whit behind them in air or stature. At eighteen, there was not a 
 finer lad in the shire; and he had a frank, kindly nature, which made 
 the tenantry rejoice in the prospect of his being their future 
 landlord. 
   
 Near the castle there stood a farmhouse, occupied by an old man whose 
 great-grandfather had cultivated the same fields. He was not rich, but 
 much respected by his neighbours for an honest, upright life. His wife 
 was as old as himself. They had been always easy-living people, and 
 had no child but one only daughter. Menie was a delicately pretty 
 girl, a little spoiled, perhaps, in her station, for both father and 
 mother made a queen of her at home. She was never allowed to do any 
 rough work, was always dressed, and her neighbours said, kept in the 
 parlour. Menie had a great many admirers, but her parents thought her 
 too good for everybody, and had a wonderful belief of their own, that 
 she was somehow to get a great match, and be made a lady. There was a 
 strange truth in that notion, as things turned out, for we servants at 
 the castle began to remark how often the young master was seen going 
 and coming about the farmhouse. Maybe the old farmer and his wife 
 encouraged him, for they had a story concerning their own descent from 
 some great chief of the western Highlands, and a family of wild proud 
 cousins, who lived up among the hills; but of this I know nothing 
 more, only that the farmer's daughter was the prettiest girl in the 
 parish. Master Arthur was beginning his nineteenth year, and there was 
 a storm up stairs, such as had never been heard before in the castle, 
 when Lady Catherine found out what was going on, as I think through 
 our minister, who considered it his duty to let her know what every 
 one talked of, but nobody else would dare to mention in her presence. 
 Whether the tempest was more than Master Arthur could stand, or 
 whether Lady Catherine, in her fury--for she had no joke of a tongue 
 and temper--said something of Menie which drove the boy to finish the 
 business in his own way, was long a disputed point in the servants' 
 hall; but next morning he was missed in the castle, and in the course 
 of my duties the same forenoon, I brought a letter from the village 
 post-office, the reading of which sent the young ladies off in 
 hysterics, and made Lady Catherine retire to her room--for it 
 announced that her heir of entail and the farmer's daughter were gone 
 to get married in Glasgow. 
   
 The young ladies recovered in about two hours, and her ladyship came 
 out, but only to prepare for a journey to Paris; and quick work she 
 made of it. Within twenty-four hours from the receipt of that letter, 
 she and her daughters were off in the family carriage; the best part 
 of the servants despatched to live at their town-house on board-wages; 
 all the good rooms locked up, and nobody but the gardener, a 
 kitchen-girl, and myself left with the old housekeeper at the castle. 
 The next news we heard was, that the old farmer and his wife had set 
 out to bring home their daughter and son-in-law, saying--poor people, 
 in their pride or folly--that Menie and her husband could live with 
 them till Providence cleared their way to the estate, which nobody 
 could keep from them. I believe it was that speech, coming to her ears 
 by some busy tongue or other, that made Lady Catherine so bitter 
 afterwards; but Master Arthur and his bride came home to the 
 farmhouse, where the parlour and the best bedroom were set apart for 
 their use; and the poor old father and mother were proud to serve and 
 entertain them. They were a young pair; for, as I have said, he was in 
 his nineteenth, and she in her seventeenth year--a handsome pair, too, 
 and more alike than one would have supposed from the difference of 
 their birth. Menie had a genteel, quiet carriage, and really looked 
 like a lady in the church-pew beside our young master, whom we seldom 
 saw but at a distance--for his spirit was too high to come near the 
 castle--and though it wasn't just told us, we all knew that going to 
 the farmhouse would be reckoned the full value of our places. 
   
 It was the fall of the year when Lady Catherine left us--all that 
 winter she spent in Paris; and when the spring again came round, we 
 heard of her opening house with even more than usual gaiety in London. 
 That was a great season with her ladyship. In its course, she got her 
 daughters both married to her mind. The one wedded a baronet, and the 
 other a right honourable; but scarcely had the newspapers fully 
 announced his sisters' wedding-breakfasts, and how the happy pairs set 
 out, when Master Arthur was seized with sudden sickness. He had been 
 fishing in a mountain-lake, and got drenched to the skin by the rain 
 of a thunder-storm, overexerted himself in walking home, and caught a 
 pleurisy. The whole parish felt for the poor young man, who had been 
 so hardly used by his mother, and many were the inquiries made for him 
 at the farmhouse. There was wild wo there, for every day he got worse; 
 and within the week, Menie was left a widow. Lady Catherine had gone 
 back to Paris at the close of the season; one of her married daughters 
 was in Italy, and the other in Switzerland; but two cousins of their 
 father were to be found in England; and Master Arthur was laid in the 
 family vault, under our old parish church, before the intelligence 
 reached them. Lady Catherine came back in deep mourning, and alone, 
 but not a whit subdued in spirit: she had been heard to say, that her 
 son was better dead than disgraced; and her estate was at least safe 
 from being shared by peasants. Of her daughter-in-law, she never took 
 the slightest notice. People said, the poor young widow's heart was 
 broken, for she had thought more of Arthur than of his rank and 
 property, and kept well out of the proud, hard woman's way. Her 
 ladyship did not seem to like living at the castle; she stayed only to 
 regulate matters with the factor at Martinmas, and went back again to 
 London. Before she went, a report began to rise, that poor Menie had 
 drooped and pined into a real sickness. They said it was a rapid 
 decline, and a dog would have pitied the father and mother's grief. 
 How strangely they strove to keep that only child, asking the prayers 
 of the congregation, and sending for the best doctors; but all was in 
 vain, for Menie died some days before Christmas. The girl had a simple 
 wish to rest beside Arthur. It was the last words she spoke; and her 
 relations believed that, being his wife, she had a right to a place in 
 the vault without asking anybody's leave. So they laid her quietly 
 beside her husband, no one about the castle caring to interfere, 
 except the factor, who thought it incumbent on him to let her ladyship 
 know. 
   
 By way of answer to his letter, down came Lady Catherine herself, one 
 dark, wintry morning; and, without so much as changing her travelling 
 dress, she sent for four labourers, took them with her to the church, 
 and saying her family burying-place was never intended for a peasant's 
 daughter, made them take out Menie's coffin, and leave it at her 
 parents' door. They said that the old pair never got over that sight; 
 and the mother, in her bitterness of heart, declared that Providence 
 had many a way to punish pride, and the woman who had disturbed her 
 dead child, would never be suffered to keep her own grave in peace. 
   
 The story made a marvellous stir in our parish, and grand as Lady 
 Catherine was, she did not escape blame from all quarters. There was a 
 great gathering of Highland relatives and Lowland friends to a second 
 funeral, when they laid poor Menie among her humble kindred in the 
 church-yard. It was but a little way from the park gate, and I stood 
 there to see the crowd scatter off in that frosty forenoon. Many a sad 
 and angry look was cast in the direction of the castle; but my 
 attention was particularly drawn to an old man and two boys, who stood 
 gazing on the place. He was close on the threescore-and-ten--they were 
 little more than children; but all three had the same gaunt, yet 
 powerful frames; dark-red hair, which in the old man was but slightly 
 sprinkled with gray; almost swarthy complexions; and a fierce, hard 
 look in the deep-set eyes. By after inquiries, I learned that these 
 were the father of the Highland cousin family, and his two youngest 
 sons. There were three elder brothers, but they were married, and 
 settled on rough sheep-farms; and the old man intended to maintain the 
 ancient honours of his house, by putting his younger boys into some of 
 the learned professions. 
   
 The married sisters, now heiresses of entail, never visited the castle 
 again in my time. Lady Catherine came regularly at the terms from 
 London, where she lived constantly; but her stay was no longer than 
 the rent-roll required, and her maid said she rested but badly at 
 night. So years passed on, and I rose in the service. On one of her 
 visits, Lady Catherine thought I would do for a footman, which she 
 happened to want, and sent me to be trained at the house in London. 
 What great and gay doings I saw there needn't be told just now. Lady 
 Catherine kept the best and most fashionable company, and she was 
 never at home an evening that the house was not full. There was money 
 to be made, and plenty of all things; but I did not like it; and 
 having saved a trifle, one of her ladyship's sons-in-law--he was the 
 best of the two--got me the place at the toll-bar. 
   
 You remember me there, Master Willie, and what great times we had on 
 Saturday afternoons. You may recollect, too, how many foot-passengers 
 used to come and go. It was my amusement to watch them when I had 
 nothing better to do; but of all who passed my window, there were none 
 took my attention so completely as two young men, who always walked 
 arm-in-arm, and seemed to be brothers. I thought I had seen their 
 strongly-marked Highland faces before, and by degrees learned that 
 they were none other than the old man's two sons, who had been at poor 
 Menie's last funeral, but were now grown up, and studying for the 
 medical profession at the college in Glasgow. Their father evidently 
 kept them on short allowance, judging from their coarse tartan 
 clothes, and continual munching of oaten cakes: but I was told they 
 were hard students, and particularly clever in the anatomy class. One 
 dark, dreary morning, about the Christmas-time, I noted that Lady 
 Catherine and her family had been in my dreams all night--their grand 
 house, and gay goings-on in London, mingling strangely with the old 
 story of Master Arthur and the farmer's daughter. When the newspaper, 
 which I shared with the schoolmaster, came, judge of my astonishment 
 to read that her ladyship had died suddenly in a fit of apoplexy, 
 which came upon her at the whist-table, and her remains had been 
 conveyed to the family vault in Dumbartonshire. There was a lesson on 
 the uncertainty of life! and it is my trust that I found in it a use 
 of warning; but the continual news and strangers at the toll-bar, the 
 exact gathering in of the dues, which was not always an easy task, and 
 your own merry schoolmates, Master Willie, had in a manner shuffled it 
 out of my mind before the second evening. 
   
 It had been a dark, foggy day, and I went early to sleep, there being 
 few travellers; but in the dead of night, between twelve and one, I 
 was roused by a thundering summons at the toll-bar. The night was calm 
 and starless, a mass of heavy clouds covered the sky, broken at times 
 by gusts of moaning wind from the west, and broad bursts of moonlight. 
 I threw on my coat, lit my lantern, and hurried out. There stood a 
 large gig with three persons. They must have been tightly packed in 
 it, and I never saw a more impatient horse. There was some delay in 
 getting out the silver, and I had time to see that the two men who 
 sat, one on each side, were the Highland brothers. There was a woman 
 between them, in a dingy cloak and bonnet, with a thick black veil. 
 She neither moved nor spoke, though the toll somehow puzzled the 
 students. I was determined to have it any way, and one of them saying 
 something to his companion in Gaelic, reached a half-crown to me. I 
 knew I had no change, and told him so. 'I'll call in the morning,' 
 said he; but the horse gave a bound, and the silver flew out of his 
 fingers. Both the brothers looked down after it. I had a strange 
 curiosity about their companion, and that instant a gust of wind blew 
 back the veil, and the moonlight shone clear and full upon the face: 
 it was the dead visage of Lady Catherine! I saw but one glance of it; 
 the next moment the heavy veil had fallen. 'Get the silver yourself, 
 and keep it all,' cried the two men, as I opened for them without a 
 word: and from that day to this, no one has ever heard the story from 
 I put the half-crown in the poor's-box next Sabbath. But, Master 
 
 Willie, after that night I never cared for keeping the toll-bar. The 
 sound of wheels coming after dark had always a strange effect on me, 
 and I could never see a gig pass without shivering. So I gave up my 
 situation, and took to the old trade of gardening again. The pleasant 
 plants and flowers bring no dark stories to one's mind. But yonder's 
 the laird: dinner will be ready by this time. 
   
        *       *       *       *       * 
   
 And John was right; for it was ready, with a jovial party to despatch 
 But I never saw my old friend after. He emigrated to Canada with 
 
 his managing master in the following spring; and, having at least kept 
 the real names with enjoined secrecy, it seems at this distance of 
 time no breach of trust to repeat the toll-keeper's story. 
   
 
 
 
 CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI. 
 Among the lions of Rome during the last twenty years, not the least 
 attractive, especially for literary visitors, was the celebrated 
 Cardinal Mezzofanti. Easy of access to foreigners of every condition, 
 simple, unpretending, cheerful, courteous even to familiarity, he 
 never failed to make a most favourable impression upon his visitors; 
 and marvellous as were the tales in circulation concerning him, the 
 opportunity of witnessing more closely the exercise of his almost 
 preternatural powers of language, served but to deepen the wonder with 
 which he was regarded. The extent, the variety, and the solidity of 
 his attainments, and, still more, his complete and ready command, for 
 the purposes of conversation, of all the motley stores which he had 
 laid up, were so far beyond all example, whether in ancient or modern 
 times, as not only to place him in the very first rank of the 
 celebrities of our generation, but to mark him out as one of the most 
 extraordinary personages recorded in history. 
   
 Giuseppe (Joseph) Mezzofanti was born at Bologna in 1774, of an 
 extremely humble family. His father was a poor carpenter; and the 
 eminence to which, by his own unassisted exertions, Mezzofanti, 
 without once leaving his native city, attained in the exercise of the 
 faculty of language--which is ordinarily cultivated only by the 
 arduous and expensive process of visiting and travelling in the 
 different countries in which each separate language is spoken--is not 
 the least remarkable of the many examples of successful 'pursuit of 
 knowledge under difficulties,' which literary history supplies. He was 
 educated in one of the poor schools of his native city, which was 
 under the care of the fathers of the celebrated Congregation of the 
 Oratory; and the evidence of more than ordinary talent which he 
 exhibited, early attracted the notice of one of the members of the 
 order, to whose kind instruction and patronage Mezzofanti was indebted 
 for almost all the advantages which he afterwards enjoyed. This good 
 man--whose name was Respighi, and to whose judicious patronage of 
 struggling genius science is also indebted for the eminent success of 
 the distinguished naturalist Ranzani, the son of a Bolognese barber, 
 and a fellow-pupil of Mezzofanti--procured for his young protégé the 
 instruction of the best masters he could discover among his friends. 
 He himself, it is believed, taught him Latin; Greek fell to the share 
 of Father Emmanuel da Ponte, a Spanish ex-Jesuit--the order had at 
 this time been suppressed; and the boy received his first initiation 
 into the great Eastern family of languages from an old Dominican, 
 Father Ceruti, who, at the instance of his friend Respighi, undertook 
 to teach him Hebrew. Beyond this point, Mezzofanti's knowledge of 
 languages was almost exclusively the result of his own unassisted 
 study. 
   
 From a very early age, he was destined for the church, and he received 
 holy orders about the year 1797. During the period of his probationary 
 studies, however, he obtained, through the kindness of his friend F. 
 Respighi, the place of tutor in the family of the Marescalchi, one of 
 the most distinguished among the nobility of Bologna; and the 
 opportunities for his peculiar studies afforded by the curious and 
 valuable library to which he thus enjoyed free access, may probably 
 have exercised a decisive influence upon his whole career. 
   
 His attainments gradually attracted the notice of his fellow-citizens. 
 In the year 1797, he was appointed professor of Arabic in the 
 university; a few years later, he was named assistant-librarian of the 
 city library; and in 1803, he succeeded to the important chair of 
 Oriental Languages. This post, which was most congenial to his tastes, 
 he held, with one interruption, for a long series of years. In 1812, 
 he was advanced to a higher place in the staff of the library; and in 
 1815, on the death of the chief librarian, Pozetti, he was appointed 
 to fill his place. When it is considered how peculiarly engrossing the 
 study of languages is known to be, and especially how attractive for 
 an enthusiastic scholar like Mezzofanti, it might be supposed that for 
 him the office of librarian could have been little more than a nominal 
 one. But the library of Bologna to the present day bears abundant 
 evidence that it was far otherwise. The admirable order in which the 
 Greek and Oriental manuscripts are arranged, the excellent _catalogue 
 raisonné_ of these manuscripts, and the valuable additions to the 
 notices of them by Assemani and Talmar which it contains, are all the 
 fruit of Mezzofanti's labour as librarian. 
   
 During his occupancy of this office, too, he continued to hold his 
 professorship of Oriental languages, and, for a considerable part of 
 the time, that of Greek literature in addition. Nor was he exempt from 
 those domestic cares and anxieties which are often the most painful 
 drawback upon literary activity. The death of a brother, which threw 
 upon him the care of an unprovided family of eleven children, was the 
 severest trial sustained in Mezzofanti's otherwise comparatively quiet 
 career; and by driving him to the ordinary expedient of distressed 
 scholars--that of giving private lectures--it tended more than all his 
 public occupations to trench upon his time, and to abridge his 
 opportunities of application to his favourite study. 
   
 Perhaps, indeed, of all who have ever attained to the same eminence in 
 any department which Mezzofanti reached in that of languages, there 
 hardly ever was one who had so little of the mere student in his 
 character. In the midst of these varied and distracting occupations, 
 he was at all times most assiduous in his attendance upon the sick in 
 the public hospitals, of which he acted as the chaplain. There was 
 another also of his priestly duties, for the zealous discharge of 
 which he was scarcely less distinguished, and which became subsidiary, 
 in a very remarkable way, to his progress in the knowledge of 
 languages. In the absence, up to the present time, of any regular 
 memoir of him, it is impossible to fix with precision the history of 
 his progress in the acquisition of the several languages. But it is 
 well known, that at a very early period he was master of all the 
 leading European languages, and of those Oriental tongues which are 
 comprised in the Semitic family. Very early, therefore, in 
 Mezzofanti's career, he was marked out among the entire body of the 
 Bolognese clergy as in an especial manner the 'foreigners' confessor' 
 (_confessario dei forestieri_). In him, visitors from every quarter of 
 the globe had a sure and ready resource; and in several cases, it was 
 to the very necessity thus created he was indebted for the 
 acquisition, or at least the rudimentary knowledge, of a new language. 
 More than once, it occurred that a foreigner, introduced to the 
 _confessario dei forestieri_, for the purpose of being confessed, 
 found it necessary to go through the preliminary process of 
 _instructing his intended confessor_. For Mezzofanti's marvellous and 
 almost instinctive power of grasping and systematising the leading 
 characteristics even of the most original language, the names of a few 
 prominent ideas in the new idiom sufficed to open a first means of 
 communication. His prodigious memory retained with iron tenacity every 
 word or phrase once acquired; his power of methodising, by the very 
 exercise, became more ready and more perfect with each new advance in 
 the study; and, above all, a faculty which seemed peculiar to himself, 
 and which can hardly be described as other than instinctive, of 
 seizing and comprehending by a single effort the general outlines of 
 the grammatical structure of a language from a few faint 
 indications--as a comparative anatomist will build up an entire 
 skeleton from a single bone--enabled him to overleap all the 
 difficulties which beset the path of ordinary linguists, and to 
 attain, almost by intuition, at least so much of the required language 
 as enabled him to interchange thought with sufficient freedom and 
 distinctness for the purposes of this religious observance, which is 
 so important in the eyes of Catholics. And he used to tell, that it 
 was in this way he acquired more than one of his varied store of 
 languages. For it will hardly be believed, that this prodigy of the 
 gift of tongues had never, till his forty-eighth year, travelled 
 beyond the precincts of his native province; and that, up to the 
 period of his death, his most distant excursion from Rome, in which 
 city he had fixed his residence in 1832, did not exceed a hundred 
 miles--namely, to Naples, for the purpose of visiting the Chinese 
 College which is there established. 
   
 It is true that at the period of which we speak, Bologna lay upon the 
 high-road to Rome, and that travellers more frequently rested for a 
 space upon their journey, than in these days of steam-boat and railway 
 communication. But, even then, the opportunities of intercourse with 
 foreign-speaking visitors in Bologna were few and inconsiderable 
 compared with the prodigious advances which, under all his 
 disadvantages, Mezzofanti contrived to make. The ordinary European 
 languages presented but little difficulty; the frequent passings and 
 repassings of the allied forces during the later years of the war, 
 afforded him a full opportunity of acquiring Russian; and the 
 occasional establishment of Austrian troops in Bologna, brought him 
 into contact with the motley tongues of that vast empire--the Magyar, 
 the Czechish, the Servian, the Walachian, and the Romani; but beyond 
 this, even his spirit of enterprise had no vent in his native city; 
 and all his further conquests were exclusively the result due to his 
 own private and unassisted study. 
   
 His fame, nevertheless, began to extend to foreign countries. Among 
 many distinguished foreigners to whose acquaintance his extraordinary 
 faculties as a linguist became a passport, was the celebrated Russian 
 general, Suwarrow; and with him Mezzofanti long maintained the most 
 friendly relations. From the Grand-Duke of Tuscany he received a 
 pressing invitation to fix himself at Florence; and Napoleon himself, 
 with that engrossing spirit which desired to make Paris the centre of 
 all that is great in science, in art, and in literature, offered him a 
 most honourable and lucrative appointment, on condition of his 
 removing to the French capital. But Mezzofanti declined both the 
 invitations, and continued to reside in his native city, till the year 
 At the close of those political disturbances, of which Bologna 
 
 was the centre, in the early part of the pontificate of Gregory XVI., 
 it was resolved to send a deputation to Rome on the part of the 
 citizens. Of this deputation, Mezzofanti, as the chief celebrity of 
 the city, was naturally a leader; and the pope, who had long known 
 him, and who, before his elevation to the pontificate, had frequently 
 corresponded with him on philological subjects, urged him so earnestly 
 to remain at Rome, that with all his love of Bologna he was induced to 
 consent. He was immediately appointed, in 1832, a canon of St Peter's; 
 and on the translation of the celebrated Angelo (now Cardinal) Mai to 
 the office of secretary of the Propaganda, he was named to succeed 
 him in the honourable post of librarian of the Vatican. 
   
 In this office Mezzofanti continued till the year 1840, when, in 
 conjunction with the distinguished scholar just named, he was raised 
 to the cardinalate. During the interval since his fixing his residence 
 at Rome, he had enjoyed the confidence and friendship of Gregory XVI.; 
 and although his narrow resources were utterly unequal to the very 
 considerable expense which the state of a cardinal entails, Gregory, 
 in acknowledgment of his distinguished merit, himself settled the 
 necessary income upon the humble Bolognese; and even, with 
 characteristic delicacy, supplied from his own means the equipage and 
 other appurtenances which a new cardinal is obliged to provide on 
 entering upon his office. 
   
 From this period, Mezzofanti continued to reside at Rome. Far, 
 however, from relaxing in the pursuit of his favourite study after his 
 elevation, he only used the opportunities thus afforded for the 
 purpose of cultivating it with more effect. When the writer of these 
 pages first had the honour of being presented to him, he was in the 
 full flush of the excitement of a new study--that of the language of 
 the California Indians, two of whom had recently come as pupils to the 
 College of the Propaganda; and up to his very last year, the same zeal 
 continued unabated. His death occurred March 16, 1849, in the 
 seventy-fifth year of his age, and was most probably hastened by the 
 excitement and distress caused by the political troubles of the 
 period. 
   
 Such is a brief outline of the quiet and uneventful career of this 
 extraordinary man. It remains that we give a short account of the 
 nature and extent of his prodigious attainments as a linguist. It is 
 observed by the author of an interesting paper read a few weeks since 
 at a meeting of the Philological Society, that, taking the account of 
 the linguistic accomplishments of King Mithridates even in the most 
 exaggerated form in which it is given by the ancients, who represent 
 him as speaking the languages of twenty-two nations, it fades into 
 insignificance in contrast with the known and ascertained attainments 
 of Mezzofanti. A Russian traveller, who published in 1846 a collection 
 of _Letters from Rome_, writes of Mezzofanti:--'Twice I have visited 
 this remarkable man, a phenomenon as yet unparalleled in the learned 
 world. He spoke eight languages fluently in my presence. He expressed 
 himself in Russian very purely and correctly. Even now, in advanced 
 life, he continues to study fresh dialects. He learned Chinese not 
 long ago. I asked him to give me a list of all the languages and 
 dialects in which he was able to express himself, and he sent me the 
 name of GOD written with his own hand in _fifty-six_ languages, of 
 which thirty were European, not including their dialects; seventeen 
 Asiatic, also without counting their dialects; five African, and four 
 American!' We should add, however, from the cardinal's own avowal to 
 ourselves, that of the fifty-six languages here alluded to, there were 
 some which he did not profess to speak, and with which his 
 acquaintance was more limited than with the rest; an avowal the 
 honesty of which will be best appreciated when it is considered, on 
 the one hand, how difficult it would have been to test his knowledge 
 of the vast majority among these languages; and, on the other, how 
 marvellously perfect was his admitted familiarity with those which he 
 did profess really to know. 
   
 The author of the memoir submitted to the Philological Society, has 
 collected a number of notices of Mezzofanti by travellers in Italy, 
 who had seen him at different periods of his career. Mr Stewart Rose, 
 in 1817, tells of him that a Smyrniote servant, who was with him, 
 declared that he might pass for a Greek or a Turk throughout the 
 dominions of the Grand Seignior. A few years later, while he was still 
 residing at Bologna, he was visited by the celebrated Hungarian 
 astronomer, Baron Zach, editor of the well-known _Correspondences 
 Astronomiques_, on occasion of the annular eclipse which was then 
 visible in Italy. 'This extraordinary man,' writes the baron, February 
 1820, 'speaks thirty-two languages, living and dead--in the manner I 
 am going to describe. He accosted me in Hungarian, with a compliment 
 so well-turned, and in such excellent Magyar, that I was quite taken 
 by surprise. He afterwards spoke to me in German, at first in good 
 Saxon, and then in the Austrian and Swabian dialects, with a 
 correctness of accent that amazed me to the last degree, and made me 
 burst into a fit of laughter at the thought of the contrast between 
 the language and the appearance of this astonishing professor. He 
 spoke English to Captain Smyth, Russian and Polish to Prince 
 Volkonski, with the same volubility as if he had been speaking his 
 native tongue.' As a last trial, the baron suddenly accosted him in 
 _Walachian_, when, 'without hesitation, and without appearing to 
 remark what an out-of-the-way dialect had been taken, away went the 
 polyglot with equal volubility;' and Zach adds, that he even knew the 
 Zingller or gipsy language, which had long proved a puzzle to himself. 
 Molbech, a Danish traveller, who had an interview with him in 1820, 
 adds to his account of this miraculous polyglotist, that 'he is not 
 merely a linguist, but is well acquainted with literary history and 
 bibliography, and also with the library under his charge. He is a man 
 of the finest and most polished manners, and at the same time, of the 
 most engaging good-nature and politeness.' 
   
 It would be easy to multiply anecdotes, shewing the enthusiasm with 
 which Mezzofanti entered on the study of language after language. He 
 sought out new tongues with an insatiable passion, and may be said to 
 have never been happy but when engaged in the mastering of words and 
 grammars. No degree of bad health interrupted his pursuit. Till the 
 day of his death, he was engaged in his darling task: life closed on 
 him while so occupied. He died just as he had acquired a thorough 
 proficiency in Californian--a singular instance of the power of mind 
 exercised on a favourite subject, and shewing what may be accomplished 
 when men set their heart on it. The career of this remarkable 
 linguist, however, cannot be considered exemplary. We would recommend 
 no person to plunge headlong into an absorbing passion for any 
 accomplishment. Mezzofanti was a curiosity--a marvel--the wonder of 
 the world of letters; and it is chiefly as such that a notice of him 
 here will be considered interesting. 
   
 
 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF POSTHUMOUS CHARITY. 
 The curious observer, in his rambles about town, is occasionally 
 struck with some singular demonstrations for which he is at a loss to 
 account. Sometimes they assume a benevolent form, and sometimes they 
 have a holiday-making aspect, yet with a touch of the lugubrious. In 
 London, or in some one of the thriving towns lying within a score of 
 miles of it, he strolls into a church, where he sees a number of 
 loaves of bread piled up at the back of the communion-table, or 
 ranged, as they are in a baker's shop, upon shelves against the wall. 
 It is a pleasant sight, but apt to be somewhat puzzling. Perhaps he 
 saunters into a country church-yard, and there finds amongst the rank 
 grass and moss-grown and neglected memorials of the silent multitude, 
 one trim and well-tended monument, uninvaded by cryptogamia, free from 
 all stain of the weather, and the surrounding grassy sward neatly mown 
 and fenced in, it may be, with budding willow branches or a circle of 
 clipped box. Or he finds his way through a suburban village, blocked 
 up some fine morning by a crowd of poor women and girls, clustered 
 round the door of a retired tradesman or the curate of the place, from 
 which three or four at a time emerge with gratified looks, and go 
 about their business, while others enter in their turn. Such 
 demonstrations as these, and we might mention many others, have their 
 origin in certain charitable dispositions and bequests, many of which 
 are of considerable antiquity. There is one in operation to this day, 
 near Winchester, which dates from the time of William of Wykeham; by 
 virtue of which every traveller passing that way, if he choose to make 
 the demand, is regaled with a pint of beer and a meal of bread and 
 cheese. There is another similar antique charity in operation in 
 Wiltshire, near Devizes, where, on one occasion, the dispenser of the 
 benevolence, in the exercise of his privilege to feed the hungry, 
 threw a loaf of bread into the carriage of George III. as the royal 
 _cortège_ passed the spot. The name of these post-mortem charities is 
 legion. They abound in every city, burgh, town, and hamlet in England, 
 to an extent absolutely startling to a person who looks into the 
 subject for the first time. The number of them belonging to the city 
 of London alone--that is, originating among her citizens, and mostly 
 dispensed under the direction of the several worshipful companies--can 
 hardly be fewer than 1500, if so few. The parochial charities only of 
 London city yield an income of nearly L.40,000 a year. The history of 
 all these charities would fill many bulky volumes. We propose merely 
 to take a passing glance at a few, which are interesting from their 
 singularity, or from the light which they reflect upon the benevolent 
 aspect of a certain section of society in times long past; and which, 
 perhaps, may be found in some degree instructive and suggestive, as 
 illustrating the operation of post-mortem benevolence. 
   
 At St ---- Church, not a hundred miles from St Martin's Le Grand, 
 there prevails an amusing instance of the perversion of the funds of a 
 charity to purposes which could not possibly have been intended by the 
 founder. Many centuries ago, a Roman Catholic gentleman, dying, 
 bequeathed to that church a small estate, the proceeds of which he 
 directed should be devoted to the purpose of supplying the officiating 
 priests with refreshment on the Sabbath-day. The Roman Catholic 
 service has long since given place to a Protestant one, and the band 
 of officiating priests has dwindled down to one clergyman--while the 
 value of the estate has increased perhaps fiftyfold. At the present 
 moment, the sum which the estate originally produced is paid over to 
 the church-wardens, who are at times a little puzzled as to what to do 
 with it. They get rid of a good portion in this way: at every service 
 which is held in the church, they place a bottle of the best sherry 
 which can be procured for money upon the vestry-table; from this the 
 'officiating priest' strengthens his inner man with a glass or two 
 before commencing his ministrations, and then the church-wardens sit 
 down and finish the remainder comfortably by themselves, while the 
 reverend gentleman is in the reading-desk or the pulpit. The cost of 
 the wine, however, does not amount to half the sum in their hands, and 
 the remainder goes to form a fund from which the church is painted, 
 repaired, decorated, and kept in apple-pie order--the whole fabric 
 undergoing a thorough revision and polish both outside and in as often 
 as a pretext can be found. What becomes of the bulk of the 
 property--the large surplus arising from the increased value of the 
 devised estate--this deponent sayeth not: the reader may be in a 
 condition to guess by the time he has read to the end of this paper. 
   
 In the year 1565, a Mr Edward Taylor willed to the Leathersellers' 
 Company a messuage, tenement, and melting-house, in the parish of St 
 Olave, and other messuages in the same parish, upon condition that 
 they should, quarterly and for ever, distribute among the poorest and 
 neediest people in the Poultry Compter one kilderkin of beer and 
 twelve pennyworths of bread, and the same to the poor of Wood Street 
 Compter, Newgate, and the Fleet, the King's Bench, and the Marshalsea 
 prisons. Under this bequest, the Company are at present in possession 
 of considerable property, vastly increased in value since the date of 
 the will; in respect of which property, 1s. worth of penny-loaves, and 
 2s. in money, in lieu of beer, are sent by them every quarter to the 
 poor prisoners in each of the prisons mentioned in the original 
 testament! 
   
 Robert Rogers devised in 1601 the sum of L.400 to the Leathersellers' 
 Company, 'to be employed in lands, the best pennyworth they could 
 get;' and that the house should have 40s. of it a year for ever. The 
 remainder was to be bestowed upon poor scholars, students of 
 divinity--two of Oxford, and two of Cambridge, for four years; and 
 after them to two others of each university; and after them, to 
 others; and so on for ever. He also, by the same will, devised L.200 
 to be lent to four young men, merchant adventurers, at L.6, 13s. 4d., 
 for the L.200, interest. The whole of the interest was to be spent in 
 bread--to be distributed among poor prisoners--and coal for poor 
 persons, with the exception of some small fees and gratuities to the 
 parish clerk and beadle, for their trouble in carrying out his 
 intentions. 
   
 Lewisham, once a town in Kent, but now nothing more than a suburb of 
 London, enjoys the benefactions of the Rev. Abraham Colfe, who, in 
 1656, bequeathed property for the maintenance of numerous charities. 
 Some of them are singularly characteristic. Having provided for the 
 erection of three strong alms-houses, he directed that certain 
 alms-bodies should be periodically chosen, who were to be 'godly poor 
 inhabitants of Lewisham, and being single persons, and threescore 
 years old, past their hard bodily labour, and able to say the Lord's 
 Prayer, the Belief, and the Ten Commandments,' &c. &c. All these 
 alms-bodies were to have '3d. each allowed them every day for their 
 comfortable sustenance--that is, 21d. a week--to be paid them every 
 month during their _single_ life, and as long as they should behave 
 themselves honestly and godly, and duly frequent the parish church.' 
 They were to be summarily removed if guilty of profane or wicked 
 conduct. The alms-bodies were not to exceed five in number at any one 
 time. He directed a buttery to be built for their convenience, and 
 also a little brick room, with a window in it, for the five 
 alms-bodies to assemble in daily for prayer, and that the schoolmaster 
 of the reading-school should pray with them there. He further directed 
 the enclosure of gardens, of sixteen feet broad at the least, for 
 their recreation. Mr Colfe also left money for lectures at Lewisham 
 Church, as well as a sum for the purchase of Bibles, until they should 
 amount to the number of thirty or forty, which were to be chained to 
 the pews, or otherwise preserved; and he left 12d. a quarter to the 
 clerk for writing down the names of those that should use them; also 
 2s. 8d. to him for taking care of the clock and dial; also, 10s. for a 
 sermon on the 5th of November, and 12d. in bread for the poor who 
 should come and hear it, and 6d. to the parish clerk; also 20s., to be 
 distributed a penny at a time, to the children and servants who could 
 best say their catechism, and 6d. to the minister for catechising 
 them; also, a yearly sum of money for distributing on every 
 Lord's-day after the morning service, seven penny wheaten loaves, to 
 seven of the most honest, peaceable, and godly poor householders of 
 Lewisham, who could say the Lord's Prayer, the Belief, and the Ten 
 Commandments; also, 5s. a year to poor maid-servants, who at the time 
 of their marriage had continued seven years with their master or 
 mistress in Lewisham; with numerous other bequests. He further left 
 moneys for the preservation of his father's, grandfather's, his 
 wife's, and his own monument--his own being an oaken plank oiled, and 
 a stone 'a foot square every way, and three feet long.' The stone and 
 plank were removed many years ago, and an inscribed tablet has been 
 set into the outer wall of the church. 
   
 The practice of leaving money for the sustentation of tomb-stones and 
 monuments, appears to have prevailed for many generations; and may be 
 very naturally accounted for, by the repugnance which most men would 
 feel, to the idea of having their bones knocked about by the sexton's 
 spade, and then wheeled off to the bone-house, if there happens to be 
 a bone-house, or shot into the neighbouring river, or on a farmer's 
 dung-heap, if there is no such convenience as a bone-house at hand. It 
 was this feeling that induced the celebrated sculptor, Chantrey, to 
 make sure of a quiet resting-place for his remains.[2] In so doing, he 
 was, though perhaps unconsciously, but following the example of many 
 who have gone before him. We have more than once encountered a sober 
 party upon their annual visit to some country church-yard tomb, of 
 which, by virtue of some bequest--which provides them with a good 
 dinner upon the occasion--they are the appointed guardians. The 
 worshipful members of the London companies sometimes choose to rest 
 from their labours in a rural grave; and when they do, survivors are 
 always to be found not unwilling to enjoy once a year a pensive 
 holiday, coupled with the creature comforts, which the quiet comrade 
 whose behest they execute has taken care to provide for them. It would 
 be perhaps difficult to find a single church in all the little towns 
 and hamlets within a dozen miles of London, which does not contain one 
 tenant at least who has thus secured permanent possession of his last 
 resting-place. So strong is this feeling in some individuals, that 
 they shrink from confiding even in the stone-vaults in the interior of 
 a city church. Thus, Sir William Rawlins, not so very long ago, 
 bequeathed a certain sum of money for the preservation of his tomb and 
 monument in Bishopsgate Church. The bequest provides for the 
 remuneration of the visitors, who are specified parish functionaries, 
 and entertains them with a good dinner on the day of the annual 
 visitation, which they are bound to make--to inspect the monument and 
 tomb, and to guarantee their good condition. In many instances, the 
 sum originally devised for the sustentation of a grave or monument is 
 not sufficient, in the present day, to remunerate residents in London 
 for looking after it, and the money has been transferred to the parish 
 in which the testator lies, and has become the perquisite of the 
 sexton. 
   
 In the year 1635, one John Fletcher bequeathed to the Fishmongers' 
 Company the sum of L.120, to supply 10s. every month to the poor of St 
 Peter's Hospital, to provide them with a dinner on Sunday. 
   
 In the year 1653, Mr James Glassbrook bequeathed, after his wife's 
 death, the sum of L.500 in the following words: 'and L.500 more to 
 such uses as follow--to the poor of the parish of St Bololph Without, 
 in which I dwell, L.5 in bread yearly; L.5 to the poor of St Giles's 
 yearly in bread; to the poor of St Sepulchre's yearly in bread, L.5, 
 to be given every Sabbath-day in the churches.' The amount of bread at 
 the present time given away in London under this disposition, 
 supplemented by some smaller bequests, is sixty-eight half-quartern 
 loaves a week. The same poor persons, when they once get on the list, 
 continue to receive the bread during their whole lives, unless they 
 cease to reside in the parish, or are struck off the list of 
 pensioners for misconduct. 
   
 One Daniel Midwinter, in 1750, left L.1000 to the Stationers' Company, 
 to pay L.14 a year to the parish of St Faith's; and a like sum to 
 Hornsey parish, to be applied in apprenticing two boys or girls of the 
 several parishes, and to fit them out in clothes. At the present time, 
 the money is paid over to the parties receiving the apprentices, with 
 a recommendation to lay it out in clothes for the children. 
   
 By the will of John Stock, the parish of Christchurch received, among 
 other legacies, the sum of L.100, the interest of which was directed 
 to be applied in the following manner: one guinea to be paid to the 
 vicar for a sermon to be preached by him on Good-Friday; 10s. to the 
 curate for reading the prayers on that day; _and the remainder to be 
 equally distributed among such poor women as chose to remain and 
 receive the sacrament after the service!_ 
   
 A Mr James Wood, amongst other curious provisions, devised to the 
 church-wardens of the parish of St Nicholas Cole Abbey, the sum of 
 15s. annually, to be given away in twopences to such poor people as 
 they should meet in the streets when going and returning from church 
 on a specified day. 
   
 The inhabitants of Watling Street, and other districts in the vicinity 
 of St Antholin's Church, are familiar with the sound of what is known 
 in the neighbourhood as the 'Fish-bell.' This is a bell which rings 
 out every Friday night from St Antholin's tower, to summon the 
 inhabitants to evening prayers: very few people attend to the summons, 
 which comes at an inconvenient time for that busy locality. There 
 stands almost against the walls of the church a pump, which is always 
 in good repair, and yields an excellent supply of water, greatly to 
 the convenience of the neighbourhood. Both the pump and the prayers 
 are the legacy of an old fish-woman of the last century. It is said, 
 that for forty years of her life she was in the habit of purchasing 
 fish in the small hours of the morning at Billingsgate Market; these 
 she washed and prepared for her customers at a small spring near St 
 Antholin's Church, and afterwards cried them about the town upon her 
 head. Having prospered in her calling, she bequeathed a sufficient sum 
 to perpetuate a weekly service in the church, and a good and efficient 
 pump erected over the spring of which she had herself enjoyed a 
 life-long privilege. 
   
 In St George's in the East, there is a charity, well-known as Raine's 
 Charity, which was founded by Henry Raine, Esq., in the earlier part 
 of the last century. The charity consists of two endowed schools, 
 sufficiently well provided for the maintenance and instruction of 
 fifty boys and as many girls, and the payment and support of a master 
 and mistress. It is one part of the system of management, that six 
 pupils of either sex leave the schools every year, to make room for as 
 many new ones. By a somewhat whimsical provision in the will of the 
 founder, a species of annual lottery comes off at the discharge of the 
 six girls. If they have behaved well, have been attentive and 
 obedient, and punctual and exact in the observance of their religious 
 duties, they are entitled to draw lots for the sum of L.100, 
 which will be paid to the fortunate holder of the prize as a 
 marriage-portion upon her wedding-day. It is further provided, that 
 the wedding is to take place on the 1st day of May; and that, in 
 addition to the portion, L.5 is to be expended upon a marriage-dinner 
 and a merry-making. 
   
 Bequests for the portioning of poor girls and virtuous servant-maids 
 are, indeed, not at all uncommon. In the village of Bawburgh, in 
 Norfolk, there is one founded in the last century by a Quaker 
 gentleman, who left a sum of money, the interest of which is shared 
 among the servant-girls in the place who get married. The amount is 
 not payable until twelve months after the wedding. The village being 
 small, it will sometimes happen that a good sum accumulates before an 
 applicant comes forward who can substantiate a claim upon it. The 
 object of such bequests as these is sufficiently plain: the donors had 
 evidently in view the counteracting of the wretched tendency of the 
 old poor-law, which, by giving the mother of an illegitimate child a 
 claim upon the parish funds, actually placed a premium upon female 
 frailty. 
   
 In London, there are charitable dispositions and bequests for the 
 nursery of every virtue that could be named, but more especially of 
 industry, providence, and thrift. A man may be brought into the world 
 by voluntary contributions; he may be maintained and educated at a 
 foundling asylum, if his parents, as thousands do, choose to throw him 
 upon the public compassion; he may ride into a good business upon the 
 back of a borrowed capital, for which he pays but a nominal interest; 
 and if he fail to realise a competence by his own endeavours, he may 
 perchance revel in some corporation sinecure, or, at the worst, 
 luxuriate in an alms-house, and be finally deposited in the 
 church-yard--and all at other people's expense. On the other hand, if 
 he be made of the right metal, he may carve his way to fortune and to 
 civic fame, and may die full of years and honours--in which case, he 
 is pretty sure to add one more to the list of charitable donors whose 
 legacies go to swell the expectancies of the city poor. It would be 
 difficult for any eccentric testator in the present day to hit upon a 
 new method of disposing of the wealth which he can no longer keep. 
 Every device for the exercise of posthumous generosity seems to have 
 been exhausted long ago. 
   
 The trust-estates, the source of so many of the city of London 
 charities, are mostly, if not all, under the control of the corporate 
 companies. How they are managed, is a secret altogether unknown to the 
 public, and of which, indeed, the livery and freemen of some of the 
 companies have but a very limited knowledge. The revenue derived from 
 the trust-estates, according to their own shewing, is not much less 
 than L.90,000 a year; but they have large revenues, of which they do 
 not choose to shew any account at all. These are supposed to arise 
 mainly from the increase in value of property originally devised to 
 charitable uses--which increase it is their custom to appropriate as 
 they please. 'Thus, for example,' says a writer on this subject, 'if a 
 testator left to any one of these companies a piece of land then worth 
 L.10 per annum, directing that L.10 should be annually appropriated to 
 the support of a school, and the land subsequently increases in value 
 to L.500, then the master and wardens of the company claim the right 
 of appropriating to their own uses the surplus of L.490. In no 
 equitable view of the case can this be deemed to be private property.' 
 It seems probable that these things will be looked into before long. 
 From a motion lately made in the House of Commons, we learn that a 
 thorough investigation is contemplated into the management and 
 application of all charities throughout the kingdom, the inquiry to be 
 conducted at the cost of the several charities, the largest of which 
 are not to pay more than L.50, and the smaller ones twopence in the 
 pound, upon the amount of their capital. Perhaps this inquiry may lead 
 to the recovery of some of the charities which are stated to be lost, 
 and of which nothing but the titles, under the denomination of 
 So-and-so's gift, remain upon the corporation records. 
   
 The secret management of the trust-estates contrasts curiously with 
 the pompous exhibition which some of the worshipful companies make of 
 their deeds of benevolence. Some of the smaller and older churches of 
 London are stuck over in the interior with enormous black boards, as 
 big as the church door almost, upon which are emblazoned, in gilt 
 letters, the donations to the poor, to the school, to the repair of 
 the fabric, &c. from the worshipful company of This and That, from the 
 days of King James--the inscriptions of whose time are illegible 
 through the smoke and damp of centuries--down to the days of Queen 
 Victoria, and the donations of last Christmas, fresh and glittering 
 from the hands of the gilder. Thus, the interesting old church of St 
 Bartholomew the Great is lined with the eleemosynary exploits of the 
 worshipful Ironmongers' Company, whose multitudinous banners of black 
 and gold are in abominable discordance with the severe and simple 
 architecture of the ancient edifice. 'Let not thy left hand know what 
 thy right hand doeth,' is a monition apparently not much in repute 
 among the corporate companies. 
   
 The reader may gather from the perusal of the above desultory 
 examples, selected from a mass of similar ones, some idea of the 
 enormous amount of the funds, intended for benevolent purposes, which 
 Christian men have bequeathed to the world; and they may perhaps serve 
 to enlighten the curious observer on the subject of some of the 
 unobtrusive phenomena which occasionally excite his admiration and 
 arouse his conjecture. They are the silent charities of men in the 
 silent land. How much good they do, and how much harm, and on which 
 side the balance is likely to lie--these are questions which for the 
 present we have neither time nor space to discuss. 
   
 FOOTNOTES: 
   
 [2] See _Chambers's Pocket Miscellany_, vol. iv. 
 
 
 
 LABOUR STANDS ON GOLDEN FEET. 
   
 The condition of the working-classes in this country is a subject of 
 intense interest to all thinking men; but it is profitable as well as 
 amusing to transfer our attention sometimes to the same portions of 
 society in other countries. In Germany, for instance, the people are 
 as busy as we are with their 'hand-workers,' and the questions of 
 freedom of industry and general instruction are as warmly discussed as 
 at home. We have now before us a little volume by the philosopher and 
 historian, Zschokke, which, in the form of a fictitious narrative, 
 treats very fully of the status of the mechanic in Fatherland; and we 
 are tempted to cull a few extracts which may afford the reader 
 materials for perhaps an interesting comparison.[3] 
   
 The real hero of the story is Hand-labour, and his progress is 
 described throughout three generations of men. He is the Thought of 
 the book, illustrated by adventure and vicissitude; living when the 
 human agents die in succession; and leaving a distinct and continuous 
 track in the reader's mind, when the names and persons fade or 
 conglomerate in his memory. And yet some of these names and persons 
 are not feebly individualised. The father, the son, and the grandson 
 stand well out upon the canvas; and while the family likeness is 
 strictly preserved from generation to generation, the men are seen 
 independent and alone, each in his own special development. The 
 patriarch was a travelling tinker, who wheeled his wares about the 
 country in a barrow; and then, rising in the world, attained the 
 dignity of a hawker, with a cart of goods, drawn by a little gray ass. 
 His son Jonas trotted on foot beside him in all his journeys, dining 
 like his father on bread and water, and sleeping in barns or stables. 
 But when the boy was old enough, he was turned off to pick up his own 
 subsistence like the redbreasts, the sparrows, and the woodpeckers. 
 'Listen, my lad,' quoth Daddy Thaddaeus; 'this is the spring. Look for 
 sloes and elderberries, rose-leaves and others for ointment; marjoram, 
 spurge, and thyme, wherever thou mayst and canst. These we will sell 
 to the apothecaries. In summer, gather basketfuls of strawberries, 
 bilberries, and raspberries; carry them to the houses: they will yield 
 money. In winter, let us gather and dry locks of wool, for the 
 saddlers and tapestry-makers, and withes for the basket and mat 
 manufacturers. From the table of the bountiful God, a thousand crumbs 
 are falling for us: these we will pick up. They will give thee cheese 
 to thy bread, and a piece of meat to thy potatoes. Only get to work! I 
 will give thee a little barrow, and a belt for thy shoulders.' 
   
 This was his first essay in business on his own account, and he worked 
 hard and throve well. His separation from his father taught him how to 
 stand on his own legs--an important piece of knowledge in a world that 
 is as full of leave-takings as of meetings; and when they did come 
 together, and the boy counted out his kreutzers, and the father patted 
 him approvingly on the cheek, that boy would have changed places with 
 no prince that ever sat on a throne. Jonas was at length apprenticed 
 to a girdler, or worker in metals; and the old tinker in due time 
 died, leaving his son the parting advice, to 'work, save, and pray,' 
 and a box containing a thousand guilders. 
   
 Jonas's apprenticeship passed on pretty much according to universal 
 rule; that is, he did the drudgery of the house as well as learned the 
 trade, and received kicks and cuffs from the journeymen. But in five 
 years his servitude was out, and he was a journeyman himself. He was 
 now, by the rules of his guild, obliged to travel for improvement; he 
 spent five or six years in going to and fro upon the earth, and then 
 came back to Altenheim an accomplished girdler. To become a master, it 
 was necessary to prepare his 'master-piece,' as a specimen of what he 
 could do; and the task allotted to him was to engrave on copper, 
 without rule or compass, the prince's family-crest, and then to gild 
 the work richly. This accomplished, he was received into the guild of 
 masters with much pomp, strange ceremonies, and old-fashioned 
 feasting--all at the charge of the poor beginner. 'Without reckoning 
 the heavy expenses of his mastership, or of clothing, linen, and 
 furniture, in the hired lodgings and workshops, no small sum was 
 requisite for the purchase of different kinds of tools--a lathe, an 
 anvil, crucibles, dies, graving-implements, steel pins, hammers, 
 chisels, tongs, scissors, &c.; and also for the purchase of brass and 
 pinchbeck ware, copper, silver, lead, quicksilver, varnish, brimstone, 
 borax, and other things indispensable for labour. He had also taken, 
 without premium, an apprentice, the child of very poor people, to help 
 him. He would have been very glad to put the rest of his money out to 
 interest again; but he had to provide the means of subsistence for at 
 least one year in advance, for he had to begin with neither wares nor 
 customers.' 
   
 Jonas now appears in the character of a lover, and his wooing is one 
 of the most beautiful pictures in the book. His choice has fallen upon 
 a servant-girl, whom he had known in boyhood. 
   
 'One morning, Master Jordan sent his apprentice with a message: "Miss 
 Fenchel was to come to him directly: he had found a good place for 
 her." Martha hastened thither gladly. 
   
 '"Hast thou found a place for me, dear Jonas?" asked she, giving him 
 her hand gracefully. "Thank God! I began to fear becoming troublesome 
 to our kind friends. Come, tell me where?" 
   
 'He looked anxiously into her joyous blue eyes; then, in confusion, 
 down to the ground; then again upwards to the roof of the room, and 
 round the four sides, as though he were seeking something lost. 
   
 '"Come, tell me, then?" repeated she. "Why art thou silent?" 
   
 'He collected himself, and began, hesitating: "It is--but Martha--thou 
 must not be angry with me." 
   
 'In surprise, she smiled. "Angry with thee, Jonas! If I would be, and 
 should be, could I be?" 
   
 '"Listen, Martha; I will shew thee--I must tell thee--I know a man 
 anxious to have thy heart and hand--who--even who"---- 
   
 '"O Jonas, reproach me rather, but do not make mockery of me, a poor 
 maiden!" exclaimed she, shocked or hurt, while her face lost all its 
 colour, and she turned from him. 
   
 '"Martha, look at me. He is assuredly no bad man. I will bring him to 
 thee; I will give him to thee myself." 
   
 '"No, Jonas! no! From thee, least of all, can I receive a lover." 
   
 '"From me, least of all!" asked he with visible emotion. "From me, 
 least of all! And if--I don't know--if I would give thee myself--Look 
 at me, Martha! Tell me." 
   
 'Here silence ensued. She stood before him with downcast eyes and 
 glowing cheeks, and played with her apron-string. Then, as if still 
 doubting, she looked up again, her eyes swimming with tears, and said, 
 with trembling lips: "What must I say, then?" 
   
 'Jonas took courage, and whispered, half aloud: "Dost thou love me 
 with all thy heart?" 
   
 'Half aloud, Martha whispered back: "Thy heart knows it." 
   
 '"Canst thou be satisfied with dry bread and salt?" 
   
 '"Rather salt from thee than tears from me!" 
   
 '"Martha, I will work for thee; wilt thou save for me?" 
   
 '"I will be sparing in everything, except my own pains!" 
   
 '"Well then, darling, here is my hand! Take it. Wilt thou be mine?" 
   
 '"Was I not thine eight years ago and more? Even as a child? Yet no! 
 It ought not to be, Jonas." 
   
 'Alarmed, he looked in her face, and asked: "Not be? and why?" 
   
 '"Think well over it, Jonas! Do thyself no injustice. I am a poor 
 creature, without portion or property. Any other burgher's daughter in 
 the town would be glad to give thee her hand and heart, and a good 
 dowry beside. Thou mightst live much better." 
   
 '"Say nothing about that," cried Jonas, stretching out both his hands 
 imploringly. "Be still: I shall feel that I am but beginning to live, 
 if thou wilt promise to live with me." 
   
 '"Live, then!" said she, in blushing embarrassment, and gave him her 
 hand. 
   
 'He took her hand, and at the same time clasped his bride to his 
 bosom, that heaved with unwonted emotion. She wept on his breast in 
 silent joy.' 
   
 We would fain, if we had room, add to this the marriage sermon, 
 preached by the bridegroom, and well preached too; for Jonas had 
 knowledge, although, as he said himself, he never found half so much 
 in books as is lying everywhere about the road. 
   
 Martha was just the wife for the honest, sensible hand-worker; and as 
 it frequently happens with such characters, his affairs prospered 
 from the date of his marriage. He took a larger house in a 
 better situation for trade; and having presented the useless 
 'master-piece'--which nobody would buy--to the prince, he was rewarded 
 by the dignity of 'Master-girdler to the Court.' But still 'uprightly 
 and hardily the court-girdler lived with his wife, just as before; 
 active in the workshop and warehouse, at markets and at fairs. Year 
 after year fled, though, before the last guilder could be paid off, of 
 the debt on the house. Days of joy and of sorrow succeeded each other 
 in turn. They were all received with gratitude to God--these as well 
 as those.' 
   
 We now come hastily to the third generation; for Jonas had a son 
 called Veit, who was first apprenticed to his father, and then sent to 
 travel as a journeyman. The patriarch had had no education at all; 
 Jonas had snatched at his just as opportunities permitted; but Veit 
 went regularly through the brief and practical curriculum fitted for a 
 tradesman's son. He was, consequently, better informed and more 
 refined than either his father or grandfather; and spent so much time 
 in gaining a thorough insight into the branches connected with his own 
 business, that honest Jonas was quite puzzled. 'Where did the boy get 
 all these notions?' said he. 'He did not get them from me, I'm sure.' 
 Veit had a bad opinion of the travelling custom, and for these 
 reasons: 'How should these men, most of them badly brought up, attain 
 to any greater perfection in their business, if they have left home 
 and school without any preparation for it? No one can understand, if 
 his understanding has not been developed. From one publican they go to 
 another, and from one workshop to another; everywhere they find the 
 old common track--the mechanical, mindless life of labour, just as in 
 the very first place to which they were sent to learn their trade. At 
 most, they acquire dexterity by practice. Now and then they learn a 
 trick from a master, or get a receipt, which had been cautiously kept 
 secret; when possessed of this, they think something of themselves. 
 Even the character of these ramblers is not seldom destroyed by 
 intercourse with their fellows. They learn drinking and rioting, 
 gambling and licentiousness, caballing and debating. Many are ruined 
 before they return to their native place. Believe me, dearest father, 
 the time of travel is to very few a true school for life; one in 
 which, through frequent change of good and evil days, the head 
 acquires experience, the thoughts strength and clearness, the heart 
 courage, and reliance on God. Very few, even of those who bring a 
 scientific education with them, can gain much of value for their 
 calling in life; extend their views, transfer and apply to their own 
 line of business the inventions and discoveries that have been made in 
 other departments of art and industry.' 
   
 Jonas understood little of the refinements of his son, but he opened 
 his eyes when Veit obtained a lucrative appointment in a large 
 metallic manufactory, first in London and then in Paris. In a letter 
 informing his parents of this good-fortune, were enclosed the whole of 
 the savings from his salary. 'Master Jordan shook his head at this 
 passage, and cried out, deeply moved, yet as though vexed, while a 
 tear of motherly tenderness stole down Martha's cheek: "No! no! by no 
 means! What is the fool thinking of? He'll want the money himself--a 
 simpleton. Let him wait till he comes to the master-piece. What 
 pleases me most in the story, is his contentment and his humility. He 
 is not ashamed of his old silver watch yet. It is not everybody that 
 could act so. There must be strong legs to support such extraordinary 
 good-luck. These the bursch has!"' 
   
 After years of absence, the young man at last walks suddenly into the 
 paternal home, on his father's birthday, and makes them all scream and 
 weep with joy. '"Hark ye, bursch!" exclaimed Jonas, who regarded him 
 with fatherly delight, "thou seem'st to me almost too learned, too 
 refined, and too elegant for Veit Jordan. What turner has cut so neat 
 a piece of furniture out of so coarse a piece of timber?"' His stay, 
 however, was short. M. and Mme Bellarme (his employer at Paris) 'had 
 been loth, almost afraid, to let him go. The feeble state of health of 
 the former began to be so serious, that he durst not engage in the 
 bulk of his affairs. In the space of a year, both felt so complete 
 confidence in Veit's knowledge of business, and in his honour, that 
 they had taken him as a partner in trade, and in the foundry. 
 Henceforth, M. Bellarme contributed his capital only; Veit his 
 knowledge, care, and industry.' 
   
 The reform of the guilds, and the establishment of a technological 
 school for the young hand-workers--both through the instrumentality of 
 Jonas--we have no room to touch; for we must say a parting word on the 
 reunion of the family by Veit's return permanently from abroad. 
 Notwithstanding the prosperity of the now old couple, 'everything, ay, 
 everything, was as he had left it years ago--as he had known it from 
 childhood--only Christiane not. There stood yet the two well-scoured 
 old deal-tables, wrinkled, though, from the protruding fibres of the 
 wood; there were the straw-bottomed stools still; and at the window, 
 Mother Martha's arm-chair, before which, as a child, he had repeated 
 his lessons; there still hung the same little glass between the 
 windows; and the wall-clock above the stove sent forth its tic-tac as 
 fastly as ever. Father Jonas, in his enlarged workshop, with more 
 journeymen and apprentices, smelted and hammered, filed and formed 
 still, from morning to night, as before. The noble housewife flew 
 about yet busy as a bee: she had managed the housekeeping without a 
 servant since Christiane had been grown up. And Veit came back with 
 the same cheerful disposition that he had ever shewn. In the 
 simply-furnished rooms which Martha had fitted up for him, in the 
 upper storey of the house, he forgot the splendid halls, the boudoirs, 
 and antechambers of London, Paris, and the Bellarme estate; the 
 Gobelin tapestry, the gold-framed pictures; the convenience of elegant 
 furniture, and the artificial delicacies of the table on 
 silver-plate.' Assisted by the patronage of the prince, he established 
 a great foundry in his native town, of ball and cannon, bronze and 
 brass; and on his marriage with the aforesaid Christiane, the 
 sovereign made him a handsome present, in a handsome manner, 'as a 
 small token of his gratitude to a family that had been so useful to 
 the country.' 
   
 In addition to the hand-workers' school, there now arose, under the 
 auspices of this family, a training-school for teachers, a 
 labour-school for females, and other establishments. The town was 
 embellished; the land in the neighbourhood rose in value; 
 uncleanliness and barbarism in food, clothing and houses, disappeared. 
 'Only old men and women, grown rusty in the habits and the ignorance 
 of many years, complain that the times are worse; at the sight of a 
 higher civilisation, they complain of "the luxury and the pride of the 
 world now-a-days;" as superstition dies out, they complain of "human 
 incredulity, and the downfall of religion." "The day of judgment," say 
 they, "is at hand." 
   
 'But Master Jonas, when seventy years had silvered his hair, stood 
 almost equal to a strong man of thirty, happy, indeed, by the side of 
 the pious Martha, in a circle of his children and children's children, 
 honoured by his fellow-citizens, and honoured by his prince. He often 
 told the story of his boyhood, how he used to go about hawking with 
 Father Thaddaeus the tinker; and his face glowed with inward 
 satisfaction, when he compared the former period with present changes, 
 in the production of which he could never have imagined he was to have 
 so considerable a share. Then he used to exclaim: "Have I not always 
 said it? Clear understanding only in the head, love to one's 
 neighbour in the heart, frugality in the stomach, and industry in the 
 fingers--then: HAND-WORK STANDS ON GOLDEN FEET."' 
   
 FOOTNOTES: 
   
 [3] _Labour Stands on Golden Feet; or, the Life of a Foreign Workman_, 
 &c. By Heinrich Zschokke. London: Groombridge. 
 
 
 
 LORD ROSSE'S DISCOVERIES. 
   
 As Professor Nichol very truly remarks, 'investigation regarding such 
 aggregations is virtually a branch of atomic and molecular inquiry,' 
 with stars in place of atoms, mighty spheres in place of 'dust,' 'the 
 firmament above' instead of 'the firmament beneath.' In fact, the 
 astronomer, in sweeping with his telescopic eye the 'blue depths of 
 ether,' is, as it were, some Lilliputian inhabitant of an atom prying 
 into the autumnal structure of some Brobdignagian world of saw-dust; 
 organised into spiral and other elementary forms, of life, it may be, 
 something like our own. The infinite height appears, in short, like 
 the infinite depth, and we knowing not precisely where we stand 
 between the two immensities of depth and height! The shapes evolved by 
 the wonderful telescope of Lord Rosse are, many of them, absolutely 
 fantastical; wonder and awe are mingled with almost ridiculous 
 feelings in contemplating the strange apparitions--strange 
 monstrosities we had almost called them--that are pictured on the 
 background of the illustrations. One aggregation looms forth out of 
 the darkness like the skeleton face of some tremendous mammoth, or 
 other monstrous denizen of ancient times, with two small fiery eyes, 
 however, gazing out of its great hollow orbits; another consists of a 
 central nucleus, with arms of stars radiating forth in all directions, 
 like a star-fish, or like the scattering fire-sparks of some 
 pyrotechnic wheel revolving; a third resembles a great wisp of straw, 
 or twist or coil of ropes; a fourth, a cork-screw, or other spiral, 
 seen on end; a fifth, a crab; a sixth, a dumb-bell--many of them 
 scroll or scrolls of some thin texture seen edgewise; and so on. It is 
 even a suggestion of the author's, that some of the spiral and armed 
 wheels may be revolving yet in the vast ocean of space in which they 
 are engulfed. Thus has the telescope traced the 'binding' influences 
 of the Pleiades, loosened the bands of 'Orion'--erst the chief 
 _nebulous_ hazy wonders, once and for all revealing its separate 
 stars: and thus, in brief, has this wondrous instrument 'unrolled the 
 heavens as a scroll.' Yet even these astonishing results are as 
 nothing to the fact, that those fantastic shapes which it has revealed 
 in the depths of this _lambo_ of creation, are not shapes merely of 
 the present time--that thousands of years have passed since the light 
 that shewed them left the starry firmaments only now revealed--that 
 the telescope, in short, in reflecting these astonishing shapes, 
 deliver to the eye of mind turned inward on the long-stored records of 
 a universal and eternal memory of the past, than to a mere eye of 
 sense looking outward on the things of passing time!--_The Builder_. 
   
   
 
 
 
 SOUTH-AFRICAN REPTILES. 
   
 I was going quietly to bed one evening, wearied by a long day's 
 hunting, when, close to my feet, and by my bedside, some glittering 
 substance caught my eye. I stooped to pick it up; but, ere my hand had 
 quite reached it, the truth flashed across me--it was a snake! Had I 
 followed my first natural impulse, I should have sprung away, but not 
 being able clearly to see in what position the reptile was lying, or 
 which way his head was pointed, I controlled myself, and remained 
 rooted breathless to the spot. Straining my eyes, but moving not an 
 inch, I at length clearly distinguished a huge puff-adder, the most 
 deadly snake in the colony, whose bite would have sent me to the other 
 world in an hour or two. I watched him in silent horror: his head was 
 from me--so much the worse; for this snake, unlike any other, always 
 rises and strikes back. He did not move; he was asleep. Not daring to 
 shuffle my feet, lest he should awake and spring at me, I took a jump 
 backwards, that would have done honour to a gymnastic master, and thus 
 darted outside the door of the room. With a thick stick, I then 
 returned and settled his worship. Some parts of South Africa swarm 
 with snakes; none are free from them. I have known three men killed by 
 them in one harvest on a farm in Oliphant's Hoek. There is an immense 
 variety of them, the deadliest being the puff-adder, a thick and 
 comparatively short snake. Its bite will kill occasionally within an 
 hour. One of my friends lost a favourite and valuable horse by its 
 bite, in less than two hours after the attack. It is a sluggish 
 reptile, and therefore more dangerous; for, instead of rushing away, 
 like its fellows, at the sound of approaching footsteps, it half 
 raises its head and hisses. Often have I come to a sudden pull-up on 
 foot and on horseback, on hearing their dreaded warning! There is also 
 the cobra-capello, nearly as dangerous, several black snakes, and the 
 boem-slang, or tree-snake, less deadly, one of which I once shot seven 
 feet long. The Cape is also infested by scorpions, whose sting is 
 little less virulent than a snake-bite; and by the spider called the 
 tarantula, which is extremely dreaded.--_The Cape, by A. W. Cole_. 
   
 
 
 
 LINES. 
   
 Ask me not with simple grace, 
    Pearls of thought to string for thee; 
 For upon thy smiling face, 
    Perfect gems I see-- 
 In thine eyes of beauty trace 
    Lights that fadeless be. 
   
 Bid me not from Memory's land, 
    Cull fair flowers of rich perfume; 
 Love will shew with trembling hand, 
    Where far fairer bloom-- 
 Clustering on thy cheek they stand, 
    Blushing deep--for whom? 
   
 Bid me not with Fancy's gale 
    Wake the music of a sigh; 
 From thy breath a sweeter tale, 
    Silver-winged, floats by; 
 Melodies that never fail, 
    Heard when thou art nigh! 
   
 Ask me not--yet, oh! for thee 
    Dearer thoughts my bosom fill, 
 Dimmed with tears I cannot see 
    To do thy gracious will: 
 Take, then, my prayer--In heaven may we 
    Behold thee lovelier still! 
   
                                      PERCIE. 
   
 
 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF EXTREME MINUTENESS. 
 Dr Wollaston obtained platinum-wire so fine, that 30,000 pieces, 
 placed side by side in contact, would not cover more than an inch. It 
 would take 150 pieces of this wire bound together to form a thread as 
 thick as a filament of raw silk. Although platinum is the heaviest of 
 the known bodies, a mile of this wire would not weigh more than a 
 grain. Seven ounces of this wire would extend from London to New York. 
 Fine as is the filament produced by the silkworm, that produced by the 
 spider is still more attenuated. A thread of a spider's web, measuring 
 four miles, will weigh very little more than a single grain. Every one 
 is familiar with the fact, that the spider spins a thread, or cord, by 
 which his own weight hangs suspended. It has been ascertained that 
 this thread is composed of about 6000 filaments.--_Lardner's 
 Handbook_. 
   
        *       *       *       *       * 
   
 Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. 
 Also sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D. N. CHAMBERS, 55 West 
 Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street, 
 Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to 
 MAXWELL & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all 
 applications respecting their insertion must be made. 
   
   
   
 
 
 Publication Date: April 15th 2015 https://www.bookrix.com/-il08c3101e47c45