The word widowhood, from whatever angle of observation it maybe viewed, has about it a dull, bleak, uncomfortable aspect. Clouds encompass it. Wo englooms it. Loneliness isolates it from social comfort, and befogs it amidst lowering disquiet. It floats amidst tears on a dusky day, like a solitary buoy on the salt sea.

We speak of widowhood which is really such. There are philosophers, who are willing to wager that the solitary state is the most delightful of existence. To them, wedlock is a fast bind fast find condition, in which two persons are confined by a clerical jailor, who condemns them to imprisonment for life, and then throws away the key. They transform “wedlock” to “padlock;” and though there is no parautopticism about the wards and chambers of affection, they consider the matrimonial lock, one which may bid defiance to the most dexterous Hobbs. Yet we know that to every heart there is a master-key. Lucky is he who keeps it in his own possession without a necessity for its use; and happy is he who needs not the services of some legal lock-picker to release him ere the coming of the great skeleton-key carrier—Death.

But sentimental prosing is not our purpose. Widowhood has its bright side, though many look too steadily at its darkest aspect. Widows are, according to the venerable Weller, gifted with innumerable methods of circumventing unsuspicious men; and the great inquiry is—How do they manage those blandishments?

From the institution of debating societies down to the present era of Spirit Rapping and feminine right conventions, “the influence of woman,” has been a favorite topic with anniversary orators and declamatory speakers. They have spent vast stores of eloquence in showing her influence as a sister. They have proved how, in her days of pinafores, she obligingly devoured her brother’s candies, or took more than her share of his bread and butter. They have pleasantly adverted to the sisterly affection which, in more mature age, was content to accept or demand the ciceronage of brother to parties or concerts, if no other beau was available. With a very delicate touch they have skimmed over that important period when the love for the brother is all given up to the husband, and have judiciously omitted any reference to sisterhood after wifehood commenced. The influence of wives has, of course, been so thoroughly demonstrated, that all that can be said on that subject are axioms. The privileges of a matron to love her husband and adore her baby, are subjects which have been rhapsodized over in glowing poetry, and treated substantially, and with becoming dignity in unimpassioned prose. Rhymers, dreamers, and orators, have devoted words in endless profusion to the influence of woman, as sister, daughter, wife and mother; but there has never been a full crop of elogiums harvested in relation to her influence as a widow. The singular dearth of cotemporary literature upon this subject, will be acknowledged by bibliopoles. The reason is one which cannot be satisfactorily demonstrated. It may be that literary people are disposed to consider that widows are like sturgeons, who have merely leaped out of the placid current of matrimony for a moment or two, and who will, by the gravity of their wo, inevitably fall back into the connubial tide. Such a simile may do in some cases, but will scarcely hold water upon trial. It is a metaphysical sieve, and may catch many widows in its meshes, but some will inevitably pass through its interstices. Some unfortunate “relicts” are for a long time like fish out of the stream; but they have sufficient determination to keep alive, until they manage to become again immersed in matrimony. Nevertheless, the desire to return to their “destined element” does exist, in many cases, and that very desire forms the great constituent in the influence of widows.

The manner in which this authority is exercised differs according to circumstances. Some of the unfortunate fair ones who have lost their mates have attractions in the shape of weighty dower. Men of a certain age have keen noses for such charms; and when the widow suspects it, she often leads her importunate admirer by that organ, and by a dexterous management of the mystery of courtship, which is called “getting a bean on a string.” Once the gentleman is secured by that means, the widow takes into her hand the whip of management, and compels the poor beau to trot a weary round in an arena which extends its charmed circle about her.

If the French system of espionage, which is now a constituent of society in Louis Napoleon’s dominions, were in vogue here, we are sure that the index of the chief of police would bear opposite to the name of each widow the word “dangerous!” And what can be more threatening to the liberty of a too susceptible man, than a young, accomplished, and fascinating widow? What is bashful maidenhood, with its cherry lips and monosyllabic sentences, to buxom widowhood, with its matured development, sensible ideas, and frank manners? What other witcheries are there about young misses than a taste for ice creams and giddy companionship? Those fascinations fade away when the widow charms us with the certainty that she knows how to make the pot boil, and has a horror of boy beaus. Maidenhood is poetical and theoretical, widowhood is sensible and practical. The young lady, before marriage, is unsteady, indecisive, and capricious. The widow is certain, firm, and self-possessed. The girl scarcely knows her own mind, but the widow not only understands herself but all her male acquaintances. The young lady is greedy of admiration, exacting in her demands, and expects from her lover an obsequiousness of attention which cannot be too excessive. The widow knows that men may admire without adulation, and love fondly without abjectly suing for a return of affection. She knows, also, that those who daring the days of courtship are compelled to excessive complaisance, generally revenge themselves after marriage by neglect and indifference. The fact is, the widow knows something of mankind by actual experience, the maiden has little but romance to tutor her.

Philosophy like this, must have given force to the observations of the venerable parent of Weller the younger—and he was justified by personal experience, in maintaining the position that “widders,” are “werry dangerous.” The world has long since phraseologically settled it, that men “fall in love.” This presupposes that the tender passion is gotten like a broken leg, altogether by accident. The language of Cupid’s surgery is rich in terms which are descriptive of sudden casualties. We know that many a poor fellow has been “shot through the heart” by a pair of eyes, and the records of divers bachelor coroner’s juries held upon unfortunate Benedicts show that woman

May smile, and smile, and murder while they smile,

having committed upon determined celibacy a grievous homicide, or at least a manslaughter. But although love may come to some in the balls of optical revolvers; although, at times, a big whiskered fellow may be charmed out of his single life by the smile of a fair damsel—as a pretty little tomtit is overcome by the glamour of a black-snake—we must not forget, that idiomatic expression hath it, that men “fall in love.” To “fall in love!” what an unhappy catastrophe! To be walking along upon the firm ground of bachelorism, but now, and hey presto! to suddenly find one’s self “over head and ears in love,” like a fly in a cream-jug! Distressing calamity! Who may ever be able to scramble out of such delicious danger; and how many are there that once in are not able to swim a single stroke? There is also this peculiarity about an accident of the sort, that it strongly exemplifies the old adage, that “misery loves company.” The youth who, gazing fondly on Maria Jane, misses his footing, and souses at once in love, cannot help himself. If Maria Jane, pitying his condition, drops him a line, (through the post-office,) or encourages him with hopes—which are generally anchors—it will not do the least bit of good. No! she must be his life-preserver—and unless, in regarding his struggles, she gets too near the brink and herself falls in love, there will be no help for the poor bachelor. But if this casualty does happen, and both are in love, it is wonderful to see how easily they float along. Each helps the other, and in a very short space of time, they are quite comfortable. But it is not every one who “falls in love;” and herein, as we shall shortly show, lies the superiority of widows over spinsters. Some get into the trouble very slowly. At first they survey the ocean of affection with as placid an air as a cosmopolite would gaze upon a mill-pond. Neither admiration nor detestation rules their thoughts. They are altogether indifferent; and although they see many who are treading water, or floating or swimming along with the tide, they feel no anxiety to join in such aquatic feats. But at length the diversion tempts them, and they cautiously take off their shoes and stockings, and venture in a little way. The shore shelves gently, so they think—why should they not venture more? Little by little they progress, until suddenly they step from their sure footing, and are over their heads in a moment without cork or spatterdocks to rely upon. They may struggle against the strong current, but there is no assistance, and they are certain to be carried off by the strong tide.

Difficulties like these are entirely obviated by the widow. She does not suffer a man to fall in love, or to wade in, but she catches the admirer by the hand, drags him at once to deep water, and in a moment he is “out of his pains.” He is not suffered to stand shilly-shally; he is plumped at once souse into Love’s Pacific ocean, and carried along with the billows until he lands at Hymen’s Golden Gate. The maiden may doubt, consider, resolve, and hesitate, whilst the poor fellow who is in love, seeks in vain for a floating timber to support him, but the widow is generally willing to help him out of trouble by getting in it herself, and going along with him hand-in-hand.

These apophthegms may seem too general; and it may be said that there is a tendency in our observations to draw a picture of widowhood by a silhouette of a young widow who is free from incumbrances. This is partly true. There is a marked difference between the widow whose matrimonial interests ended with the grave, and she whose reminiscences of wedlock are daily revived by surviving children. The former is free from earthly ties—she is a girl again, knowing enough about matrimony to have no objection to a second experiment. The latter feels dear bonds which should attach her to her lonely state, and cause her to doubt the policy of prejudicing the interests of her children by rashly assuming new vows. If she is gained, it must be by direct courtship, whilst the young widow is always ready to meet an admirer half way.

But even young widows are of different dispositions. They are all admirers of matrimony, and candidates for second husbands, but they choose various means—according to their inclinations. They may be divided into three great classes—the gay—the sentimental—and the sad.

The gay young widow is like cream candy, a vast improvement upon the crude flour and sugar of maidenhood. The young girl is coy, even in her giddiness; she considers love as an exquisite romance—a mysterious state of happiness—which she desires, yet fears. Hence she is most cautious when she would be most earnest; and whilst she hopes to gain the heart she covets, she often perversely adopts a course which is calculated to alienate that heart forever. With the exception of trifling fops who have not attained the age of maturity—although they may vote and shave—men are earnest, straightforward, and sincere. If they seek the love of a woman, they do so openly and with manly frankness. The young girl may coquette, or flirt with the man who adores her; she may wring his heart with bitter agony; she may show her power, and he may acknowledge it, but he will lose some respect for her—though he bows to her influence. He is honest and sincere. She, perhaps, admits it, but trifles with him. How many young ladies have lost the esteem of those who would have loved and cherished them for life by mere thoughtlessness or caprice. The young widow understands men better. She is rarely a flirt. She can distinguish between the honest lover and the mere admirer. With the latter she may trifle, because she understands him. The former, if not acceptable, will not be allowed to deceive himself; and if he is liked, will be speedily drawn onward to his own happiness. The gay widow is lively, of course. She is fascinating, and she knows human nature. If she “sets her cap” at any particular gentleman, he might as well yield. He cannot hold out against the artillery of charms which are brought against him. He may surrender at discretion, and be led off, a captive, to be confined permanently in silken fetters. All the little fascinations of manner which the belle may possess, but knows not how to use, are by the widow managed with the skill of a veteran. Her eyes are by turns entreating, languishing, merry, or devilish. Her smiles are moulded to bewitch and to mystify. Her manners are easy, and pleasant, and her voice is melodious with rapture, or heart-touching with sincerity. Then, too, she is so lively and yet so sensible, that the “seven senses” of celibacy (two more than the general complement awarded to married people) are quite unable to withstand so many attractions.

The sentimental widow is quite as generous as her livelier sister. She believes in romance and gushing affection. She is lonely after her great loss, and would like another mate. After her first dear man was buried, she felt like a lobster which has parted with a claw, and she retired from gay life until nature, or good luck, should furnish her with the means of reparation. Her heart is buried with her husband, but she considers it only as a seed which in good time will spring up again and blossom. If she weeps, she does it with a gentle sorrow, like a slight sprinkle on a sunshiny day. Her sky has its clouds, but the cerulean of anticipation lies beyond, and gives a pleasant aspect to the mists of sadness. The gay widow laughs as if she had never been married; the sentimental one smiles, but evidently remembers.

The one pretends that she is gay because she is free; the other is cheerful, but hopes to become more cheerful in time. The first audaciously declares that marriage is tyranny, and hopes that no man will ever come near her! the second thinks mournfully upon the past, and wonders whether she “will ever have another Charles Augustus;” yet the sentimentalist mingles with the gay world, a sober votary of pleasure. If she dances, it is but a plain cotillion; and she is shocked when the lively Maria dashes out in a giddy polka. All such things are vanities to the sentimental widow. She thinks how happy she was with her dear departed Charles Augustus, and hopes that she will soon be as happy again.

The sad widow is, for a long time after her bereavement, a sighing pattern of inconsolable grief. The atmosphere of her home is rainy with tears, and when abroad she is cloudy. Yet as time wears on, it is evident that the forty days and forty nights of affliction’s great deluge must go by, and at length the sorrowful widow will look for the appearance of the sun of cheerfulness, and trust that with it will come a rain beau. The gradual assumption of cheerfulness begins to make itself visible in her costume. Half mourning assumes the place of sombre weeds. On her face smiles occasionally chase away the lingering vestiges of regret. The spring of calmness has come, and hyacinthine blossoms of hope struggle up from the sodden desolation of wintry bleakness. Little by little the sad widow becomes resigned to her great loss, and gradually she learns to think that it may be repaired by a new matrimonial gain. Yet she is slow in assuming the garniture of happiness. She may occasionally be coaxed out into the world, and even tempted to attend a party or ball; but she does not forget that she is a widow. She is in the world, but yet not of it. She demeans herself as becomes the lone relict of the late Mr. Sad, and does not like the gayety of Mrs. Lively or the composure of Mrs. Sentiment.

If the persevering Mr. Nosey should approach the trio of widows in the hope of obtaining a partner for the next set, Mrs. Lively may suddenly put on an affectation of grave coyness, Mrs. Sentiment may be gracefully leaning her cheek against her fan whilst thinking of her dear lamented Charles Augustus, but Mrs. Sad will show surprise that the forward Mr. Nosey should dare to presume that they would dance when there are so many “young chits” who have not partners for the dance. But Mrs. L. has no care for these things, and in a very short time she is treading a measure to lively music as if she had never known a single sorrow.

There are so many peculiarities about widowhood, that it would require volumes to treat properly upon the subject. Mathematics might be called in to cipher out the problem of the elder Weller, as to how many times more fascinating is a widow than a maiden—but figures would not satisfy us. We would be sure to continue the subject by the further query—What is a widow like? And the result of all the cogitations might be summed up into the grand deduction—that widows are like gunpowder, always sure to go off when fired by a match.

ASTRONOMY.

ERA OF NEWTON, HALLEY, AND HERSCHELL.

There is no great operation of which we are cognizant, by which Nature at a single bound perfects her marvelous productions. It is only by a combination of instruments operating generally through a series of years. The ultimate result is reached by a progressive advance, to which a number of artificers contribute. The cedar, on whose boughs the snow rests and the fowls nestle, is the work of centuries; and the soil that laps its roots, the air that stirs its branches, the light that plays upon its crest, and the rain that drops upon its foliage, minister to the final development of the original cone. In like manner the social and political changes that have improved the tone of society, elevated the condition of nations, and endowed them with an enduring liberty, have not been accomplished in the twinkling of an eye, or by individual intelligence and will. Popular history may embalm the name of some distinguished patriot or philanthropist, as having been the agent is rescuing a country from the yoke of arbitrary power, and it may record a crisis of revolution confined within the limits of a year or a day; but a comprehensive view of such occurrences will embrace a time of preparation, and crown with honor a variety of laborers, though to one may be due the glory of the sun, and to another the glory of the stars. The signature of the edict that dethroned the heathenism of the ancient civilized world occupied the imperial hand a moment’s space, but the work of apostles, martyrs, and confessors, with the toils and sufferings of ages, are prominent in the picture. So the great demonstrations and achievements of science have transpired by slow degrees, and yield a distinction to be divided among a fellowship of kindred spirits, rather than assigned exclusively to a solitary example of mental prowess. If Keppler discovered the general laws of the universe, the basis of the discovery was laid by Tycho; and the marvelous Napier contributed essentially to the issue obtained, by the invention of the logarithms, an admirable artifice, as it has been justly called, which, by reducing to a few days the labor of many months, doubles the life of the astronomer, and saves him the errors and disgust connected with long calculations. If Newton developed the cause of those laws, he started to his grand result from a point expressly prepared by Keppler, and left the solution of the problem imperfect, for Laplace to finish. It is obviously in wise accordance with the happiness of mankind, that no nation possesses a monopoly of talent and fame, that many of the most remarkable efforts of human genius owe a debt of obligation to the accomplishments of genius at another era, and in a different clime. The fact proclaims the affinity of the species, between whom the mighty deep may roll, or the mountain rampart rise. It evinces, too, their mutual dependence, and will be hailed as a motive by the considerate mind, to the maintenance of universal amity.

To Hevelius, one of the merchant princes of Dantzic, an example of the close alliance of commerce with the fine arts and science which runs through the page of history, we owe the first accurate delineation of the lunar surface, the discovery of a libration in longitude; by his observation of the comet of 1664, he further corroborated the view previously taken, that such bodies are not sublunary, and approximated to the nature of their orbits. His contemporary Huygens, after effecting various improvements in the telescope, discovered one of the satellites of Saturn, that which is now termed the fourth, and obtained an insight into the singular structure of the planet, an inexplicable appearance to all preceding observers. An anagram, in the year 1656, announced to the world the following sentence by a transposition of letters, annulo cingitur, tenui, plano, nusquam cohærenta, ad eclipticam, inclinatio—the planet is surrounded with a ring, thin, plane, nowhere adhering, and inclined to the ecliptic. He justly observes, in a letter to his brother: “If any one shall gravely tell me that I have spent my time idly in a vain and fruitless inquiry, after what I can never become sure of; the answer is, that at this rate, he would put down all natural philosophy, as far as it concerns itself in searching into the nature of things. In such noble and sublime studies as these, it is a glory to arrive at probability, and the search itself rewards the pains. But besides the nobleness and pleasure of the studies, may we not be so bold as to say, they are no small help to the advancement of wisdom and morality?” The discovery of the great nebula in Orion was accidentally made by Huygens in the year 1656. Cassini, nurtured in France, soon afterward added four more satellites to the system of Saturn, those now called the first, second, third, and fifth, and he detected the black list, or dark, elliptical line bisecting the surface of the ring, and dividing it into two. Astronomy is under immense obligations to a measure adopted by the courts of France and England at nearly the same period, for the patronage of scientific associations, and the founding of national observatories. The Royal Society of London was incorporated by charter in the year 1662, and numbered among its early members Boyle, Hooke, Wallis, Ward, Newton, and Flamstead. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, was founded in the year 1666, and enrolled among its first members Auzout, Picard, Roberval, and Richer. Upon the invitation of Louis XIV. Huygens left Holland to become a royal academician, but being a Protestant, the revocation of the edict of Nantes ultimately compelled him to return to his native soil. The edict did not affect Cassini, a Catholic foreigner similarly invited; and to him, with his son and grandson, the French academy owes much of its early distinction. Besides his before named discoveries, he determined the periods of rotation of the principal planets, and observed the elliptical form of Jupiter’s disc, owing to compression at the poles.

Roëmer, the inventor of the transit instrument with which he made observations from the window of his house, rendered no unimportant service by showing that the instruments need not be fixed on high towers: he also discovered, in the year 1675, the interesting and hitherto unsuspected fact, of the progressive transmission of light through space, and the appreciable velocity with which it travels. This was attained by a series of careful observations of the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites. It was found, by comparing the times of immersion of the satellites in the planet’s shadow and emersion from it, with the times calculated from the laws of their movements, that there was an acceleration or retardation of the phenomena by a few minutes, plainly dependent upon the variations of the earth’s distance from Jupiter; for

the retardation was observed to be the greatest when the earth was in that part of its orbit most remote from him. The diameter of the orbit of the earth being a hundred and ninety millions of miles, we are more remote from Jupiter, by the whole of that distance, at one time than at another; as, when the earth is in its orbit at a, its distance is greater from c than when at b by the interval between the two points. But notwithstanding this immense addition of space, or any conceivable increase, an eclipse would be observed to occur no later at the one than at the other, if light were propagated instantaneously. Roëmer found, however, a difference of eleven minutes to exist, which he afterward estimated at fourteen, but which the precision of modern astronomy has fixed at sixteen minutes and a quarter. This determines the progressive motion of light, and the rate of its velocity. It requires time for its transmission; and flying over the diameter of the earth’s orbit in sixteen and a quarter minutes gives it a velocity of twelve millions of miles a minute, or upward of a hundred and ninety thousand miles a second. Thus, in the eighth part of a second, it accomplishes the passage of a space equal to the equatorial circumference of our globe: yet so vast is the system to which we belong, that this swift-winged messenger, which requires no more than two hours to travel from the central sun to the farthest planet, could not dart through the intervening solitudes between us and the nearest of the stars under a period of five years. Notwithstanding the velocity of the rays of light, which travel more than fifteen hundred thousand times faster than a cannon ball, experiment has not yet been able to detect that they have any impulsive power. The surmise has, however, been thrown out—and it is not improbable—that the attrition of the solar beams with the terrestrial surface may have some connection with the phenomena of heat.

The national observatory of England—the noblest institution in the world for the extent and exactitude of its astronomical tables, and their practical value in the art of navigation—was originated by the spread of foreign commerce. The growth of colonies across the Atlantic, together with the establishment of relations with India, rendered it of the first importance to have an easy and accurate method of finding the longitude at sea. A plan was proposed, founded upon the principle now in use, of observing the lunar motions and distances during a voyage, and comparing them with a previous home calculation, thus ascertaining the difference between home time and time at sea, from whence the difference of longitude is readily deduced. A reward being sought by the proposer from the government of Charles II. it was referred to a commission to report upon the merits of the scheme. Flamstead, one of the commissioners, at once decided against its practical utility, on the ground of the inaccuracy both of the lunar tables and of the positions of the stars in existing catalogues, which only a lengthened course of observation could rectify. The king, declaring that his pilots and sailors should not want such assistance, immediately instituted the office of astronomer royal, and determined upon founding an observatory. The site—selected by Wren—was a commanding eminence in Greenwich Park, in former times the seat of Duke Humphrey’s tower, within view of all vessels passing along the Thames; a spot which Piazzi was accustomed to call the “paradise” for an observer; being free from a fluctuating atmospheric refraction which annoyed him in the climate of Sicily. The foundation-stone was laid August 10th, 1675. An original inscription, still existing, states the design of the building—the benefit of astronomy and navigation. The observatory has been successively under the superintendence of Flamstead, Halley, Bradley, Bliss, Maskelyne, Pond, and Airy, its present head, with assistants for its proper management. It is not a spot devoted to star-gazing, and the general observance of celestial phenomena, but essentially a place of business, carrying on by day and by night, when the weather permits, those observations of the sun, moon, planets, and principal stars, passing the meridian, from which the nautical almanac derives its information. This has been done with admirable regularity for a long series of years, nor has Europe any data comparable with the Greenwich tables. During the interval in which the office of astronomer royal is necessarily vacant, the business of the observatory proceeds; and that interval is now less than formerly. Thirty-three days elapsed between Bradley’s last observation and Bliss’s first; fifty-three between Bliss’s last and Maskelyne’s first; four between Maskelyne’s last and Pond’s first; and two between Pond’s last and Airy’s first. It has been asserted by Baron Zach, that, if the other observatories had never existed, our astronomical tables would be equally perfect; and Delambre, when delivering an éloge on Maskelyne before the Institute of France, remarked, that if by some grand revolution in the moral or physical world, the whole of the monuments of existing science should be swept away, leaving only the Greenwich observations and some methods of computation, it would be possible to reconstruct from these materials the entire edifice of modern astronomy.

A few years ago it was resolved by the Lords of the Admiralty, that the time should be shown at Greenwich once in every day of the year. This is done by means of a large black ball which surmounts the north-western turret of the observatory. The ball, seen in the vignette, is elevated by machinery to the index, showing the four cardinal points; and, the instant it begins to descend, marks the mean solar time to be 1 P.M. Being plainly observable from the Thames, the arrangement affords a convenient opportunity for seamen to regulate their chronometers and clocks.

Greenwich Observatory.

The fame of Flamstead, the first astronomer royal, does not rest upon any brilliant discovery, but upon an enlightened view of the importance of accurate observation, and the unwearied zeal and industry with which he pursued it. A better representation of him cannot be given than by supposing Tycho Brahe in possession of a telescope, and the adaptation of it to other instruments. Laplace calls him “one of the greatest observers that has ever appeared,” and Delambre remarks, “his name will be eternally cited like those of Hipparchus and Tycho, both of whom, as an observer, he surpassed.” Born in the neighborhood of Derby, and brought up in limited circumstances in that town, he wrought his way to a station at the head of practical astronomy, and established a continental reputation by dint of strong natural genius and unremitting application, in the face of great discouragements. Bad health was a frequent attendant upon him all his days. The patronage of the crown did not screen him from the want of adequate resources, while from several of his scientific contemporaries he encountered dishonorable treatment. The salary attached to his office, then a hundred a year, was often in arrears. Instruments were promised him by the government, but he had to find his own, commencing his duties in 1676 with an iron sextant of seven feet radius, two clocks, and a quadrant of three feet radius, with two telescopes, which he brought with him from Derby. With these instruments he could only measure the relative positions of the stars, and it was not until 1689 that he succeeded in constructing at his own expense a mural arc to determine their absolute places. From this period, through an interval of thirty years, his time was spent in valuable labors, the fruit of which appears in the formation of a catalogue of three thousand stars, and a vast collection of lunar and planetary observations, from which Newton derived material assistance in forming his lunar theory. Yet, as if some annoyance must follow him to the grave, upon his death in 1719, the government of the day attempted to claim his instruments as public property, because found in the national observatory. The name of Flamstead, lost in a great measure to public recollection, or only dimly recognized as one of those who, with “lamp at midnight hour

in some high, lonely tower,

——may oft outwatch the Bear,

With thrice great Hermes”—

was revived a few years ago, and acquired notoriety at the expense of Newton and Halley’s fame. It fell to the lot of Mr. Baily to discover a large number of his letters in private hands, with others, and a manuscript autobiography, upon the shelves of the library in the observatory; and, upon their publication in 1835, by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, some painful and unexpected disclosures were made. It may be admitted that Flamstead exaggerates his own case, that his temper was irascible, that he did not appreciate the value of Newton’s theory, and over-estimated the importance of his own labors; yet, after having allowed these elements of correction full force, the conclusion is sufficiently plain, that he was most injuriously treated, and that much of the moral distinction with which posterity has crowned the head of Newton, is altogether misplaced. His deep obligations to Flamstead’s lunar observations are acknowledged in the first edition of the Principia, but carefully suppressed in the second, apparently when vindictive feeling had begun to operate; and, in fact, nothing is more remarkable than the opinion universally entertained of the meek and placable disposition of the great philosopher, and the want of temper and honor displayed in his dealings with Flamstead. The truth appears to be, that as when we view a country beneath a brilliant sky and a balmy atmosphere, we are apt to frame our impressions of the people in harmony with the beauty of the scene; so, to the early admirers of Newton, his intellectual greatness invested with fictitious lustre his private character, and the infirmities of the man were lost sight of in the glory of the sage.

But however much we may take from the moral greatness usually attributed to Newton—and a considerable abatement is unquestionably necessary—his reputation for wonderful sagacity and grasp of mind is incapable of impeachment. The course of events has only served to render more conspicuous that sublime intelligence by which he unraveled the mechanism of the heavens, and establish more indisputably his claim to be regarded as the architect of physical astronomy. To determine the motions of the heavenly bodies was the work of Keppler: to explain and demonstrate the causes of those motions was the achievement of Newton. So far, however, from gaining universal assent when first proposed, his theory was ill understood, slightly appreciated, or altogether rejected by numbers of scientific men; and—especially on the continent—it very slowly won its way to notice and confidence. Newton survived the publication of the Principia forty years, and at the time of his death—according to Voltaire—it had not twenty readers out of the country of its production. It was not until the mutual perturbations of the planets began to occupy the attention of the continental philosophers, that his theory was fully admitted abroad, and the work in which it was developed took the rank it has since occupied, preëminent—in the words of Laplace—above all the productions of the human mind. It is a common, but vulgar error, to suppose the merit of our countryman to lie in conceiving the idea of the attraction of gravitation. That idea had been suggested to many minds long before his time, and the impression had been created that such a power in nature was the cause of the planetary motions. Thus Keppler surmised an attractive force to reside in the sun, producing these movements; and he even threw out the conjecture that this force diminishes in proportion to the square of the distance of the body on which it was exerted. Borelli and Hooke, also, distinctly developed the influence of gravity; and both referred the orbits of the planets to the doctrine of attraction combining with their own proper motions to produce curvilinear movements. What really distinguished Newton, was not the idea of gravity as the principle of attachment between the different members of the solar system, but proving it to be so. He succeeded vague surmise upon the point with mathematical demonstration: explained and applied the laws of the force—an accomplishment which crowns him with honor above all his rivals; inasmuch as he who works a mine, and distributes its wealth through society, is incomparably in advance of him who has merely apprehended its existence, but failed in gaining access to its treasures.

The manor-house of Woolsthorpe, a few miles from Grantham, seated in a little valley near the source of the Witham, was the scene of Newton’s birth. Popular tradition reports, that the fall of an apple from a tree, in the orchard belonging to this house, was the mustard-seed out of which ultimately grew the grand theory of universal gravitation, and the story is not without a leaven of truth. It is certain that, to avoid the plague which ravaged England in 1666, Newton retired from Cambridge; and, when sitting alone, in his garden at Woolsthorpe, his thoughts were directed to that remarkable power which causes all bodies to descend toward the centre of the earth. The supposition presented itself, that as this power extends to the highest altitudes of the earth’s surface, it probably extends much farther into space; so that even the moon may gravitate toward the earth, and be balanced in her orbit by the combined force of attraction and the centrifugal force implied in her motion. If this were true, the planets might be supposed to gravitate toward the sun, and to be restrained thereby from flying off under the action of the centrifugal force. Sixteen years rolled away before this beautiful hypothesis was verified, and difficulties arose in testing it, which seemed to disprove it altogether. It was necessary to calculate the force of gravity at the surface of the earth; to estimate its diminished energy at an increased distance; and, after having found the law of the diminution, to ascertain whether the phenomena of the lunar motions corresponded proportionably with those of falling bodies at the terrestrial surface. Assuming the force of gravity to vary inversely as the square of the distance, it followed that, at the distance of the moon, it would be about 3600 times less than at the surface of the earth. The problem, therefore, to be solved was, whether the versed sine of an arc described by the moon—which measures the space through which in the same time she would fall to the earth, if abandoned to the action of gravity—would be 3600 times less than the space through which in the same time a heavy body falls, at the earth’s surface,

A B being the arc of the moon’s orbit, c d the sine of the arc, and e f the versed sine. After a careful study of the lunar observations supplied by Flamstead, and a series of calculations—displaying unexampled originality and industry—Newton fully demonstrated that the versed sine of an arc described by the moon in one minute, was equal to the space traversed in descent by a heavy body at the surface of the earth in one second—the exact proportion that ought to exist, according to the modification to which the intensity of gravity is subject by variation of distance.

The first certain gleam of this grand conclusion obtained by Newton, is said so to have overpowered him, that he was obliged to suspend his calculations, and call in the aid of a friend, to finish the last few arithmetical computations. He saw the important relations of the demonstration—the planets wheeling round the sun—the satellites round the planets—the far wandering comets returning to the source of light in obedience to the law of gravitation: a result sufficient to throw the successful discoverer into nervous excitement. It is clear that, if a body be projected into space, it will proceed in the direction of the original impulse, and with a uniform velocity, forever—supposing no obstacle to impede its course. But the combination of two antagonistic forces will produce a resulting motion in a diagonal direction.

Suppose the straight lines A B, to represent the direction in which the earth would travel under the influence of the projectile force, which launched it into universal space: the straight lines A S, are those it would describe at any point of its orbit, if surrendered to the influence of the sun’s attraction. The primitive impulse is, however, checked by the solar attraction, and the latter by the former; so, that while the earth—if abandoned to either—would describe A B, or A S, the effect of their joint influence incessantly acting is to deflect it from both, and produce a curved path. The cause perpetually operating, the effect is constant—and hence the formation of the terrestrial orbit; and the cause extending to the other bodies in the system, the planetary orbs are deflected from their natural rectilinear paths, and pursue a circuit round the common centre. The force of attraction is, however, proportional to the quantity of matter, and the proximity of the attracting body. Like light, the power of gravitation is weakened by diffusion, and diminishes as the square of the distance increases. This square is the product of a number multiplied by itself. A planet, therefore, twice our distance from the sun, will gravitate four times less than we do—the product of two multiplied by itself being four. Such is the great Law of Gravity, subject to the two conditions, that its force is directly as the mass of the bodies, and inversely as the square of the distance. It extends to the confines of the system, and acts as a mighty invisible chain to keep the primary bodies in brotherly relationship to each other, and in mutual subjection to the central luminary. And who can trace its operation without recognizing a Supreme Potentate, who appointed to the sun his place, launched the planets in the depths, obedient to a law which has preserved the family compact—originally established—unbroken through the long series of ages.

It must, however, be borne in mind that the attraction between bodies is mutual, proportioned to their masses and distances. While the sun attracts the planets toward himself, they also attract the sun, though their effect is comparatively small, owing to the vastness of the solar mass. The planets likewise act upon each other; and as their relative distances are perpetually varying, certain perturbations are caused in the system, which, though minute in each particular case, become considerable by accumulation, and yet are ultimately corrected and repaired by the same cause that produces them. Newton left to posterity the task of thoroughly investigating these inequalities, of showing them to be a result of the law of gravitation, and establishing the permanence of the system, notwithstanding the accumulating influence of its internal disturbances. He himself had no gleam of the latter truth, but seems to have entertained an opinion that the irregularities occasioned by the mutual action of the planets and comets would probably go on increasing till the system either wrought out its own destruction or received reparation from the direct intervention of its Creator. But Euler, Clairaut, D’Alembert, Lagrange, and Laplace, have demonstrated the problem that the perturbations of the planets are periodic in their nature, that accurate compensation for them is laid up in store, so that the system is not arranged upon a principle of self-destruction. The elements of disorder and decay are removed from it. The very conditions of its existence guarantee its stability till the will of the great Ruler shall be expressed to the contrary. When an end shall come to its present constitution, that will not be the effect of its own faulty architecture, but of the fiat of Omnipotence.

Room in which Newton was born.

The house of Newton at Woolsthorpe, now the homestead of a farmer, has been in the ownership of persons anxious to protect it, and preserve every relic of its former occupant. Stukeley thus described it in 1727: “’Tis built of stone, as is the way of the country hereabouts, and a reasonable good one. They led me upstairs, and showed me Sir Isaac’s study, where I suppose he studied when in the country in his younger days, or perhaps when he visited his mother from the university. I observed the shelves were of his own making, being pieces of deal boxes which probably he sent his books and clothes down in on those occasions.” Two sun-dials remain which he made when a boy; but the styles of both are wanting, and one has been recently taken from the wall to be presented to the Royal Society. The room in which he was born has the following inscription upon a tablet of white marble: “Sir Isaac Newton, son of John Newton, Lord of the Manor of Woolsthorpe, was born in this room on the 25th of December, 1642.” The apple-tree, the fall of one of the apples of which, according to tradition, drew his attention to the subject of gravity, was blown down by a gale some years ago, and a chair was constructed out of its timber. The Royal Society of London possesses his telescope; the Royal Society of Edinburgh the door of his book-case; and Trinity College, Cambridge, has a lock of his silver white hair.

While the foundations of physical astronomy were laid by Newton, his confidant and friend, the brilliant and active Halley, pursued a remarkably successful career in the practical departments of the science. Born in mercantile life, yet independent of it through the wealth amassed by his father, he early embarked his means and energies in the advancement of observation. Leaving Hevelius and Flamstead to keep guard over the northern hemisphere, he sailed to St. Helena to inspect the southern; and in honor of the reigning monarch who patronized the expedition, the oak which had screened him from his pursuers after the battle of Worcester, was raised to a place in the skies, forming the constellation Robur Carolinum. The object of the voyage was to determine the absolute and relative positions of the stars invisible to the European eye; but owing to the unpropitious climate of the island, only a catalogue of 360 was made after more than a year’s residence. Upon this voyage the oscillations of the pendulum were observed to decrease in number as the instrument approached the equator; a fact noticed a few years previous by Richer, and explained by Newton to result from the greater intensity of centrifugal force there, proportionably diminishing the force of gravity. The life of Halley was remarkable for locomotion, devoted to various scientific objects. He was twice at St. Helena, twice in the Adriatic, once in the West Indies, now with Newton in his study at Cambridge, anon with Hevelius in his observatory at Dantzic, and then with Cassini watching a comet at Paris. Upon the death of Flamstead, he succeeded to the office of astronomer royal, and though then in the sixty-fourth year of his age, he commenced the observation of the moon through a complete revolution of her nodes, involving a period of nineteen years, and lived to finish it, registering upward of two thousand observed lunar places. It was while journeying in France toward the close of 1680, that he observed the great comet of that year, on its return from proximity to the sun: and being aware of the conclusion of Newton, that such bodies describe very eccentric ellipses, his active mind began to study intently their phenomena, which resulted in a prophecy that has immortalized his name. After cataloguing and comparing a considerable number of comets, that of 1682 fortunately appeared. This he was led to regard as identical with those of 1456, 1531, and 1607, between which there is nearly the same interval. Hence he anticipated its return after the lapse of a similar period. “I dare venture,” said he, “to foretell that it will return again in 1758;” and, sanguine as to the result, he called upon posterity to notice that it was an Englishman who had hazarded the statement. This was a prediction announced in 1705, the accomplishment of which ranks with the greatest achievements of modern astronomy, and will perpetuate the fame of Halley to the remotest generations. He had been gathered to his grave in Lee church-yard seventeen years, when the celestial traveler re-appeared, at the time announced, to verify his words, illustrate his sagacity, and invest him with undying honor.

Halley’s Tomb.

Bradley, the English Hipparchus, the model of observers, as he is styled by Laplace, became the third astronomer royal upon the death of Halley. He had previously effected one of his two great discoveries, the aberration of the stars, an optical illusion, arising from the combined movement of the earth in space, and the progressive transmission of light; a discovery of the highest importance, requiring the greatest precision of observation to detect. Ever since the doctrine of the earth’s translation in space had been received, astronomers had been anxious to find some parallax of the fixed stars, as a sensible confirmation of the fact. Although the whole diameter of the earth’s orbit is relatively insignificant, it is yet absolutely vast. Hence it was deemed no unreasonable expectation that some small apparent change of place in the heavens would be discerned in the case of the fixed stars, when viewed from the two extremities of the earth’s annual orbit—separated from each other by the mighty chasm of a hundred and ninety millions of miles.

Aberration, or wandering, is the name given to this phenomenon. The term is not strictly accurate, as the apparent movements thus denominated are not irregular, but uniform. To discover the physical cause became an object of intense interest to Bradley, but it long baffled his researches and reasonings, and was at length developed by an accidental circumstance. He was accompanying a pleasure-party in a sail on the river Thames. The boat in which they were was provided with a mast which had a vane on the top of it; it blew a moderate wind, and the party sailed up and down the river for a considerable time. Bradley remarked, that every time the boat put about, the vane at the top of the mast shifted a little, as if there had been a slight change in the direction of the wind. He observed this three or four times without speaking; at last he mentioned it to the sailors, and expressed his surprise that the wind should shift so regularly every time they put about. The sailors told him that the wind had not shifted, but that the apparent change was owing to the change in the direction of the boat, and assured him that the same thing invariably happened in all cases. From that moment he conjectured that all the phenomena of aberration he had observed, arose from the progressive motion of light combined with the earth’s motion in its orbit. This sagacious conjecture satisfactorily explains the apparent movement of the stars. Suppose a body to pass from A to B in the same time that a ray of light passes from C to B. Owing to the two motions, the impression of the ray of light meeting the eye of a spectator at B will be exactly similar to what it would have been if the

eye had been at rest at B, and the molecule of light had come to it in the direction D, B. The star, therefore, whose real place is at C, will appear at D to the spectator at B. This effect is precisely analogous to what takes place when a person moves or travels rapidly through a shower of rain or snow in a perfectly calm state of the atmosphere. Without locomotion the rain-drops or snow-flakes will fall upon his hat, or upon the head of the carriage that conveys him, and not beat in his face, or against the front windows of the carriage. But if he is passing along swiftly, in any direction, east, west, north or south, the rain or snow will come in contact with his face, or enter the front windows of the carriage if they are open, as though the drops or flakes fell obliquely, and not from the zenith. Now as an object appears to us in the direction in which the rays of light strike the eye, it is easy to understand that a star in the zenith will appear at a little distance from it, to a spectator carried along with the earth in its orbit. This discovery established the fame of Bradley, who was exonerated from all future payments to the Royal Society on account of it; and it is of great importance, as the only sensible evidence we have of the earth’s annual motion. Soon after his appointment to the Greenwich observatory, he effected his second great discovery, that of the nutation of the earth’s axis, a slight oscillation of the pole of the equator about its mean place, describing an ellipse in the period of eighteen years. He determined likewise its cause, which theory had previously inferred to be the action of the moon upon the equatorial regions of the earth. Some idea of his industry may be formed from the fact, that in conjunction with his nephew, he made no less than eighteen thousand observations in a single year while astronomer royal; and the number from the year 1750 to 1762 amounted to upward of sixty thousand. The death of Bradley was interpreted as a Divine judgment by the populace. He had taken an active part with the Earl of Macclesfield and others, in urging on and assimilating the British calendar to that of other nations. This rendered it necessary to throw eleven days out of the current year in the month of September 1752—a measure which the ignorance of great numbers of the people led them to regard as an impious intermeddling with the Divine prerogative. Lord Macclesfield’s eldest son, at a contested election for Oxfordshire, was greeted with the cry from the mob, “Give us back the eleven days we have been robbed of!” and Bradley’s mortal sickness, some years later, was viewed as a punitive dispensation for having participated in the sacrilegious theft.

The latter half of the eighteenth century furnishes a large catalogue of distinguished names, men of high scientific ability, and, for the most part, of the finest mathematical minds, by whose labors practical astronomy made vast advances, and the physical theory of the universe, as previously developed, was amply illustrated and confirmed. During this era lunar tables were constructed of sufficient accuracy to be employed to solve the great problem of the longitude at sea. This was the work of Mayer, for which his widow received the sum of £3000 from government; and since that period, the publication of such tables, showing the places of the sun and moon, with the distance of the later from certain fixed stars, for every three hours, three years in advance, has been a national object, contributing to the safety of navigators upon the trackless deep. The same period is also celebrated for the determination of the figure and magnitude of the earth, and for the great improvements made in instruments of observation. If the century opened with lustre derived from the physical demonstrations of Newton, it closed magnificently with the telescopic discoveries of Herschel, the wonderful resident by the stately battlements of Windsor, by whose mechanical skill and matchless industry new regions were added to our solar system, and views unfolded of the infinity of the firmament, and the character of its architecture, which eye had not seen or the mind conceived.

A work specially devoted to the life and labors of Herschel is a desideratum. It is not to the credit of the country, that the men who have headed its physical force upon the field of battle have enjoyed a larger measure of public admiration and gratitude, and found a more speedy chronicle, than those who have enlarged the field of thought, ministered to the intellectual gratification, and elevated the mental character of the community. Bradley had lain in his grave 70 years, Newton 104, and Flamstead 116, before their memory received its meed of justice from the hands of Rigaud, Brewster, and Baily; a slackness to be attributed to the want of a due national estimate of the value of science, rather than to the reluctance of those who were competent to do ample honor to their merits. Herschel still remains without a record of this kind, though the materials for it are abundant, and his claims undoubted. Born at Hanover, the son of a musician in comparatively humble life, but early a resident in England, he appeared first as a professor and teacher of music, but rapidly rose by his own unaided efforts to eminence as an optician and astronomer. Anxious to inspect for himself the sublime revelations of the heavens, but destitute of means to purchase a telescope of sufficient power for his purpose, he resolved to employ some previous knowledge of optics and mechanics in the construction of an instrument. The earliest, a five-foot reflector, was completed in 1774: but altogether he accomplished the construction of upward of five hundred specula of various sizes, selecting the best of them for his telescopes. After having established his fame by the discovery of a new planet, and fixed his residence at Slough, under the munificent patronage of George the Third, he completed the giant instrument that attracted travelers from all parts to the spot, and rendered it one of the most remarkable sites of the civilized world. The tube was forty feet long, the speculum four feet in diameter, three inches and a half thick in every part, and weighing nearly two tons. Its space-penetrating power was estimated at 192, that is, it could search into the depths of the firmament 192 times farther than the naked eye. We can form no adequate conception of this extent, but only feebly approximate to it. Sirius, a star of the first magnitude, is separated by an immeasurable distance from us. But stars of a far inferior order of magnitude are visible to the naked eye. These we may conclude to be bodies far more remote, and reasonably suppose the star which presents the faintest pencil of light to the eye to be at least twice or thrice the distance of Sirius. Yet onward, 192 times farther, the space-penetrating power of the telescope at Slough swept the heavens. It was completed in the year 1789, but the frame of the instrument becoming decayed, through exposure to the weather, it was taken down by Sir John Herschel in 1823.

It will be convenient here to notice a reflecting telescope of far greater magnitude and power, recently constructed by the Earl of Rosse, and now in use at the seat of that nobleman, Birr Castle, in Ireland. The mechanical difficulties involved in this work, the patience, perseverance, and talent required to overcome them—and the great expenditure necessarily incurred—render the successful completion of this instrument one of the most extraordinary accomplishments of modern times; and entitle its owner and projector, from first to last, to the admiration of his countrymen. When the mechanical skill and profound mathematical knowledge essential to produce such a work are duly considered, together with the years devoted to previous experimenting, and an outlay of upward of twelve thousand pounds, this telescope must be regarded as one of the most remarkable and splendid offerings ever laid upon the altar of science. The speculum has a diameter of six feet, and therefore an area of reflecting surface nearly four times greater than that of the Herschelian, and its weight approaches to four tons. The casting—a work of no ordinary interest and difficulty—took place on the 13th of April, 1842, at nine in the evening; and as the crucibles poured forth their glowing contents—a burning mass of fluid matter, hissing, heaving and pitching—for the moment almost every one was anxious and fearful of accident or failure but Lord Rosse, who was observed directing his men as collectedly as on one of the ordinary occurrences of life. The speculum has been formed into a telescope of fifty feet local length, and is established between two walls of castellated architecture, against one of which the tube bears when in the meridian. It is no slight triumph of ingenuity, that this enormous instrument may be moved about and regulated by one man’s arm with perfect ease and certainty.

To return to Herschel. No addition had been made of any new body to the universe since Cassini discovered a fifth satellite in the train of Saturn. Nearly a century had elapsed without any further progress of that kind. The solar system, including the planets, satellites, and Halley’s comet, consisted of eighteen bodies when Herschel turned his attention to astronomy; but, before his career of observation terminated, he increased the number to twenty-seven, thus making the system half as large again as he found it, as to the number of its constituents—a brilliant recompense, but not an over-payment, considering the immense expenditure of time, and toil, and care. A primary planet with six moons, and two more satellites about Saturn, composed the reward. It was on the 13th of March, 1781, that, turning a telescope of high magnifying power—though not his gigantic instrument—to the constellation Gemini, he perceived a cluster of stars at the foot of Castor, and one in particular, which sensibly increased in diameter, while the rest of the stars remained unaltered. Two nights afterward, its place was changed, which originated the idea of its being a cometary body; an opinion embraced upon the continent when attention was called to it, but soon dispelled by clear evidence of its planetary nature. The new planet was named after the reigning monarch by the discoverer, but received his own name from astronomers, which was finally exchanged for the Uranus of heathen mythology, the oldest of the gods, the fabled father of Saturn and the grandsire of Jupiter—referring to the position of the planet beyond the orbits of the bodies named after the latter. By this discovery, the extent of the system was at once doubled; for the path of the stranger lies as far beyond what had been deemed its extreme confine, as that limit is removed from the sun. The first moment of his “attack” upon Saturn, upon completing the forty-feet reflector, he saw a sixth satellite, and a seventh moon later. But Herschel realized his most surprising results, and derives his greatest glory, from the observation of the sidereal heavens. The resolution of nebulæ and the Milky Way into an infinite number of stars—the discovery of new nebulæ of various forms, from the light luminous cloud to the nebulous star—of double and multiple stars—of the smaller revolving round the greater in the binary systems: these were some of his revelations to the world, as night after night, from dewy eve till break of dawn, he gauged the firmament. Caroline Herschel was the constant partner of her brother in his laborious undertakings—submitting to the fatigues of night attendance—braving with him the inclemency of the weather—noting down his observations as they issued from his lips—and taking, as the best of all authorities reports, the rough manuscript to the cottage at the dawn of day, and producing a fair copy of the night’s work on the ensuing morning. He died in 1822; but she has survived to see the heir of his name recognized by the world as the heir also of his talents and fame. It was one of the conceptions of this remarkable man—as bold an idea as ever entered the human mind—that the whole solar system has a motion in space, and is advancing toward a point in the heavens near the star λ Herculis. The idea remains to be verified; but it is not altogether unsupported by evidence, and quite consistent with the analogies of the universe.

The nineteenth century commenced with a fresh ingathering of members into the planetary family. It had been deemed a matter of surprise that the immense interval of about 350 millions of miles between Mars and Jupiter should be void, when only spaces varying from 25 to 50 millions divide Mars, the Earth, and the inferior planets. Keppler had therefore started the conjecture that a planet would be discovered in the vast region between the two former bodies; and thus bring it into something like proportion with the spaces between the latter. This idea was confirmed by a curious relation discovered by Professor Bode, of Berlin, that the intervals between the orbits of any two planets is about twice as great as the inferior interval, and only half the superior one. Thus, the distance between Venus and the Earth is double that between Mercury and Venus, and the half of that between the Earth and Mars. Uranus had not been discovered when Bode arrived at this remarkable analogy, but the distance of that planet being found to correspond with the law, furnished a striking confirmation of its truth. The respective distances of the planets may be expressed by the following series of numbers, whose law of progression is evident.

Mercury’s distance		=	4
Venus	4 + 3·0	=	7
Earth	4 + 3·2	=	10
Mars	4 + 3·2²	=	16

Jupiter	4 + 3·2⁴	=	52
Saturn	4 + 3·2⁵	=	100
Uranus	4 + 3·2⁶	=	196

The void in the series between Mars and Jupiter, so convinced the German astronomers of the existence of a planet to occupy it—which had hitherto escaped observation—that a systematic search for the concealed body was commenced. At Lilienthal, the residence of Schroeter, an association of twenty-four observers was formed in the year 1800, for the purpose of examining all the telescopic stars of the zodiac. The opening years of the century witnessed the anticipation substantially realized by the discovery of four planets—Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, revolving round the sun, at a mean distance of one hundred millions of miles from Mars, so small as only to be telescopic objects. This discovery we owe to Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding. Some singular features—without parallel in the planetary system—such as their close contiguity, the intersection of their orbits, with their diminutive size—Vesta not being much larger than the Spanish peninsula—led to the surmise that these bodies are fragments of a planet, which once revolved in their mean path with a magnitude proportionate to that of its neighbors. The possibility of such a disruption cannot be denied—the revolution of the fragments round the sun would follow in obedience to the mechanical laws by which the system is governed: but the point is obviously one of those questions which must remain entirely hypothetical. Next to this addition to the system, the most remarkable astronomical occurrences of the present age are the November meteors, the renewed return of Halley’s comet, and the determination of the annual parallax of the star 61 Cygni by Bessel. These will come under consideration in future pages, with the important contributions made to science by the great names of the day, Sir John Herschel, Sir James South, Struve, Airy, Arago, and others.

The progress of Astronomical discovery which has now been hastily traced, reminds us of the obligations we owe to those who have gone before us. While supplied with views respecting the constitution of the solar universe—the number, forms, magnitudes, distances, and movements of its members—upon the general accuracy of which the mind may repose with full satisfaction, the mode of its formation has been grappled with, and a theory presented, derived from the study of the sidereal heavens, which—though not demonstrable—is invested with a high degree of probability. The firmament exhibits dimly luminous appearances, like patches of white cloud, displaying various forms and peculiarities of structure, which are not resolvable into closely packed clusters of stars by any telescopic power, and whose phases are at variance with the idea that they are stellar groups, indistinct and blended from their remoteness. The nebulous substance, in one of its states, is evenly diffused, resembling a sheet of fog. Under another aspect, it is seen winding, and we detect a tendency toward structure, in the material congregating in different places, as if under the influence of a law of attraction. Definite structure appears in other cases, generally the spherical form, with great condensation at the centre, like regular stars in the midst of a thick haze. The question has hence naturally arisen, and it is one of profound interest—What do such appearances indicate? What do the differences in their character portend? Are they void and unmeaning substances in a universe of organization and order; or, are they advancing by a principle of progressive formation to share themselves in that order and organization? The idea has been started that, in these phenomena, we have an exhibition of the first state of the now organized bodies of our system, and of their progress to the ultimate conditions of their being, passing from one stage of construction to another, under control of the law of gravitation. This is substantially the nebular hypothesis of Laplace and Herschel: it supposes a diffused nebulosity, rotating with the solar nucleus, and extending beyond the bounds of the farthest planet, to have gradually condensed at the surface of the nucleus, accelerating thereby the solar rotation, and increasing the centrifugal force, by the action of which successive zones were detached, assuming spheroidal masses by the mutual attraction of their particles. This theory enlists a variety of evidence in its behalf. The fact of the projectile motions of all the planets and satellites taking place from west to east, in nearly the same plane—of their axical rotation likewise being all in the same direction, and corresponding with that of the solar body—is an instance of coincidence so extraordinary as strongly to support the theory of their common origin in obedience to a common law. It is no unimportant consideration that, in the physical and mental constitution of our own nature—with reference also to the inferior animals, both the feeble and the powerful, the tractable and the untamed—in relation too to the vegetable productions of the earth, whether flourishing in green savannas, or rooted in the clefts of the rock—we have a law of gradual formation now operating, which vindicates the idea from the charge of vain conceit, that an analogical law has operated with reference to the earth itself, and the various worlds that compose our system, supported—as the hypothesis is—by such significant evidences as the nebulous appearances in the heavens.

From the view which has now been taken, it is evidently no doubtful point to us—

“Whether the sun, predominant in heaven,

Rise on the earth, or earth rise on the sun;

He from the east his flaming rond begin,

Or she from the west her silent course advance,

With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps

On her soft axle.” . . . .

How incumbent the duty upon us, then, as we have largely benefited by our predecessors, that—as faithful stewards of their gifts—we should hand them down to posterity with an increase of value! How grand, and yet how simple, those views of the universe, upon the evidence of which we are now invited to gaze! The Sun, a central orb, attended by a stately cortège of planets, forming a system under the empire of law—a system not unique, but a general type of others as countless as the members of the stellar host, whose front ranks alone come within the range of telescopic vision: systems, probably, not physically insulated, but bound together by fine relationships, the nature of which—judging from the progress of the past, it is not arrogant to presume—will yet be revealed to the understanding of man. These are not ingenious theories—splendid conjectures; but established facts, and sober anticipations based upon them. To live and learn is the high vocation of humanity; one of the appointed ends which the great Artificer of existence contemplates in its continued series: the generations that are to come improving upon the acquirements of that which now is. Nor can we fix any limit to the growth of knowledge in relation to the physical universe, clear and insurmountable in the present state as are its bounds with respect to the spiritual world. Who can descry a resting point in the wilderness of space?—discern a barrier to the range of the creation? Vast as are the regions that have been entered, there are vaster amplitudes unapproached beyond them, toward which the mind may advance in endless progression; often indeed faltering in the pilgrimage beneath the burden of those conceptions of space and magnitude which immensity suggests, but still going onward.

HYMN TO THE SUN.

FROM THE GREEK OF DIONYSIUS.

———

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, TRANSLATOR

OF THE PROMETHEUS AND AGAMEMNON

OF ÆSCHYLUS, ETC. ETC.

———

Mute be the skies and still,

Silent each haunted hill

And valley deep!

Let earth, and ocean’s breast,

And all the breezes rest—

Let every echo sleep!

Unshorn his ringlets bright,

He comes—the lord of light—

Lord of the lyre.

Morn lifts her lids of snow,

Tinged with a rosy glow,

To greet thee, glorious sire.

Climbing, with winged feet

Of fiery coursers fleet,

Heaven’s arch profound,

Far through the realms of air,

From out thy sunny hair,

Thou flingest radiance round.

Thine are the living streams

Of bright immortal beams—

The founts of day!

Before thy path careers

The chorus of the spheres

With wild rejoicing lay.

The sad and silver moon

Before thy gorgeous noon

Slow gliding by,

Joys in her placid soul

To see around her roll

Those armies of the sky.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

———

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “THE CAPTAINS OF THE OLD WORLD,” ETC.

———

Some thirty years before the Christian era, Egypt was not as now a barbarous and desert region, a strip of rudely cultivated land along the margin of the eternal Nile, and all beyond that semi-civilized district a waste of howling wilderness, shifting and fiery sands roamed by the wild hyena, or the wilder Arab, scattered here and there with those gigantic relics of a former race, which, while they recall the original magnificence of the kings, and priests yet mightier than kings, who ruled of yore with a sway revered and dreaded to the very limits of the earth in those huge halls, are now avoided, or visited in fear and trembling by the adventurous traveler, as haunts of the ferocious Bedouin. Her cities were not then the sinks of mingled filthiness and luxury; a foreign rule had not then paralyzed her commerce, desolated her fields, and brutified her men. The Moslem had not then poured upon her, the garden of the Mediterranean shore, a scourge more foul and loathsome than the most terrible of her ancient plagues.

Egypt, although even then shorn of a portion of her ancient glories, and sinking by slow steps into a Roman province, was still the garden, and the glory of the universe. It was a glorious sight to look upon those almost boundless plains, or on those wondrous valleys, bounded on either hand by mountains then clothed with artificial verdure even to their summits, in the early summer, when the tender herbage of the young grain had spread them with an interminable carpet of the brightest green, or in the genial noon of autumn, when the tall wheat and bearded barley undulated in every breeze, a sea of golden fertility.

It was a yet more wondrous sight, and savoring of enchantment, to view her thousand cities blazing with the barbaric splendors of the East—her temples far surpassing in strange, awful magnificence, in gloomy mysticism, and terrific splendor, the simpler and more classic shrines of Greece—her groves of palm, her thickets of acacia, her canals embowered with the broad leaves and lovely blossoms of the azure lotus, her coppices blushing with the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate, or rich with the bursting fig—her palaces, her libraries, her quays, trodden by the mariners of every known realm, her galleys, that had braved the tempests of the “ocean stream,” and visited, in their adventurous roamings, the dark and stormy Cassiterides, or yet more wonderful, had been favored with glimpses of those “Edens of the western wave,” those islands of the blest, in whose remote and uncertain shores the imaginative poets of the Greeks had placed the residence of the departed good.

It was about the period above mentioned, that a war-galley of that construction which had been recently adopted by the Romans, in preference to the lofty and cumbrous castles of the deep, only used for purposes of display and pleasure, was to be seen beating in for the Egyptian shore. She was a noble trireme, and it would seem that the builder had exerted his utmost skill to render her not only seaworthy, and formidable as a ship of war, but rich even to magnificence in her decorations.

Her upturned prow, with its wonted equipage of brazen beaks, to shatter the bows of an adversary, and brazen plates to protect her own, all polished till they flashed back the rays of the summer sun with almost intolerable brightness, displayed along its bulwarks exquisitely moulded railings of a richer metal; while high in front stood a statue, the presiding deity of Rome, a helmed and crested Mars, sculptured with the utmost finish of the Grecian chisel in pure gold. The shields, suspended from the channels, were charged with thunderbolts of the same precious material, upon the dark blue steel of Iberia. The oars were gilded, and from the castled stern floated beneath a golden effigy of the guardian wolf and the twin founders of the Imperial City, a broad sheet of silk, blushing with the crimson effulgence of the Tyrian dye, and, as it was tossed aloft by the light breath of the sirocco, displaying the initials at which the universe trembled—those dread initials S. P. Q. R.—the Senate and People of Rome—at whose edicts the remote Indian and nomadic Scythian shook with unwonted awe.

Gorgeous, however, as were the decorations, perfect as the entire equipment of the galley, there was something in her motions which betrayed even at a nearer inspection, it was evident that while several of her oars were entirely missing, a yet greater number were sprung, and so far weakened as to give her that slow and crippled progress through the water, which the master of the Latin Epic has so aptly compared to the painful writhings of a wounded serpent.

Her prow was in several places pierced and shattered, the sails bore evident marks of having met with rougher treatment than under so bright a sky was likely to have been inflicted by the waves. The breeze though not exactly favorable was not adverse, blowing freshly on her beam. It was such a wind as would now be hailed with delight; but, in those days of imperfect navigation, when all weather was considered foul which would not allow a vessel to run dead before it—though not actually contrary, it was looked upon with distrust at least, and deprecated as producing difficulty at the least, if not danger.

In her disabled state, therefore, this noble galley toiled long and wearily before the lofty pharos of Alexandria was seen towering, like a vast column of snow, from the bosom of the placid sea. For many an hour after this splendid landmark had been visible, did she struggle onward, ere the quays of Parian marble, the long breakwaters, and gigantic moles at its base, could be distinguished on the horizon.

Gradually the inner shores of the harbor opened, a vista of pillared porticoes, architrave and frieze, of Corinthian, Ionic, Tuscan structure, mingled with massive and fantastic forms of the earlier style of Egypt, sphynx and colossus, obelisk and pyramid, blended with the everlasting verdure of the palmy gardens that invested the glorious city with a belt of aromatic verdure.

High on her prow stood the form of a noble-looking leader, in the very prime of strength and manhood, his frame displaying all the graces of Antinous mingled with all the sinewy strength of Hercules. To the first might be referred the massive brow, the short curled, clustering locks that shaded it, and the somewhat effeminate cast of his singularly beautiful features—to the latter, the broad shoulders, the brawny neck, and the firmness of the muscular development that was displayed at every motion. His eyes were of that long-cut narrow form which has been supposed to be typical of a soft luxurious character; but in the dark orbs themselves there lurked, when they were raised, a sparkle, which might easily be kindled into lightning splendidly different from the dream-like softness of their wonted expression.

In the curve, too, of his well-defined and ruddy lips there was that firmness, that bold decision, which almost belied the dimples at their corners, and the voluptuous curve of the chin. He seemed a man who possessed the energy to battle with the universe, to win a world, and when won, the recklessness to cast it away as worthless. Nor did his countenance misrepresent the character of the Triumvir.

It was Marc Antony, the glorious winner of the Roman world, and its reckless loser. It was Marc Antony, returning in defeat—with any other it had been despair; but his was not a temper to yield even for a moment to so base a sinking of the spirit—returning with a single trireme from the half-conquered strife of Actium—hurrying away from his almost victorious fleet on the very instant of victory in a pursuit of a fair but faithless mistress; leaving his devoted followers to the mercy of a heartless conqueror, leaving a world, which another hour would have rendered irrecoverably his own, to cast its subject diadems at the feet of young Octavius.

Bravely, fiercely, had he striven, while the humor was upon him; and farthest into the yielding ranks of the enemy had his brave galley forced her way, until the fatal cry was heard, that Cleopatra, with her sixty light-armed ships, had abandoned the conflict, and was flying at the utmost speed of sail and oar, toward her native shores.

At once, and with a double exertion of valor almost supernatural, he had forced his retrograde passage through the shattered and reeling galleys of Augustus, and expending tenfold the quantity of noble blood to lose a half-won battle, which would have secured to him the empire of the universe.

Even now, although he knew that his all was set upon a single die, that he who might have been an emperor, was now a vanquished fugitive, without a home, a country, a place of refuge, there was no touch of humiliation or sadness in his mien. His eye was thoughtful, indeed, and perhaps somewhat melancholy in its expression, but at all events such was, when unexcited, its usual character.

Moreover, as he neared the quay, as he was gradually enabled to distinguish the things and persons on the quay, there was a sudden brightening of the features, an eagerness of expression, an anxious excitement almost to nervousness of manner, displaying itself clearly in the quivering of the under lip, and the unconscious play of his fingers on the sword-hilt, the dark spots of blood upon which denoted how deeply its blade must have been ensanguined.

The vessel worked up to the wharf. Strong cables were extended from her head and stern to the massive rings of brass which studded the noble piers. On the instant, a bridge was extended from the galley to the neighboring pier; but, ere the quivering planks were steadied, with an active bound the triumvir had thrown himself over the high bulwarks and stood in the centre of the eager throng that crowded round to witness the arrival of a galley from the fleet.

“Ho! by the mother of the gods!” cried an aged man, whose toga proved him a citizen of Rome, as clearly as did the scars on his bold and bronzed visage prove him a soldier, “’Tis Antony himself—victorious, too, by Jupiter! else had we not beheld him here. Shout, comrades, shout—Io triumphe! Salve Imperator!”

“Peace ho! Be silent!” shouted a stern, martial-looking figure on the prow. “Peace, brawlers! This day is to be marked as black as Acheron—victory! by Pollux, a rare victory!”

Silently, and unheeding the raised voices and loud queries of the populace, the noble Roman threaded the crowd. Strange—it was passing strange, that no word from Cleopatra—no sable-visaged messenger, no bright damsel of her court, should have met him on his return. “By the faith of Jove!” he muttered, “but that bitter knave, Horace, was not so much in the wrong either;” and he hummed in reckless gayety the well known stanza of the lyric bard—

“At vulgus infidum et meretrix retso

Perjura cedit; diffurgiunt cadis

Cum face siccatis amici

Ferre jugum pariter dolosi.”

“Fie on thee, Antony! hast thou, the veteran of a thousand fields of Mars and Venus, hast thou been cheated by the honeyed words? the last stake was a heavy one, by Hercules! That crown, for which great Julius fell, was worth a higher price than a glance of the brightest eye that ever beamed with a woman’s tenderness. Fie on’t! ’twas boy’s play—boy’s play! but to-morrow—be the gods propitious—Soh! ’tis the palace gate at last, and swart Melancthon at the portals. What ho, Melancthon! Bestir thee, varlet! Say to Cleopatra, Marcus Antonius sends her greeting; and never will he rest till he be where she tarries, be that where it may!”

“Now may the gods avert!” muttered the trembling slave.

“What mutterest thou then? Begone, and speed my bidding, else will I make thee messenger to Hades! Where is the fair Egyptian?”

“She is not, Antony,” faltered the trembling Ethiopian, avoiding with the wonted superstition of the day, the usage of words deemed ominous.

“Is not! What mean’st thou, paltering with thy double speeches?”

“Mortua est—she is dead!” he cried, mustering all his resolution, and then, as if fearing the wrath of the triumvir, fled hastily into the palace.

“Dead! Cleopatra dead!” muttered the bold Epicurean, and the whiteness of his lips told how deeply he was affected by the unexpected news. “Ho, there!” he shouted. “Bear me a flagon of Falernian hither, and the jeweled cup of Isis—the old Falernian pressed in the first of Caius Marius! ’Twill be my last on this side Acheron! A battle—an empire—and a woman! By the Thunderer! loss enough, methinks, for one day! Lost, too, forever! The first—that—that might be redeemed—ay, and the second won—but the woman! By the bright eyes of Aphrodite! he who has once loved Cleopatra, has loved all womankind! Marc Antony has done with battles. Ho! the Falernian! ’tis well—ay! pour it till it froth—hence with the water! Pure—let it be pure! for, this quaffed, I have done with wine, too. Sweet Cleopatra, this to thee, to thee, in Hades or Elysium, if the poets’ dreams be true. Now hark thee, slave, say thou to Ahenobarbus, if Antony hath forgotten how brave men conquer, he hath not forgotten”—he drained the liquor at a single draught, and hurling the chased and jeweled chalice against the marble pavement, unsheathed his sword, still crusted with the blood of Romans—“hath not forgotten how brave men—die!”

Suiting the action to the word, he buried the massive weapon in his throat, just above the collar-bone, and over the rim of his embossed and glittering corslet. The force of the blow was so great, that he was pitched headlong backward, the cone of his lofty helmet striking fire from the dinted pavement.

The blood gushed in torrents, not from the wound, for there the massive blade stood fixed hilt deep, but from ears, eyes, and mouth. After he fell, not a limb moved, not a pulse throbbed, the last breath rushed forth half choked in blood, with a fearful gurgling murmur. The broad chest slowly collapsed—the bravest of the brave had perished for a woman’s lie!

For Cleopatra was not dead—nor as yet had she even thought to die—but soon

She dared her fallen kingdom to behold

In dauntless pride of majesty serene;

She dared the coiling reptiles to unfold—

Courting their venomed kiss with dauntless mien.

Sublimely fierce—death full before her eyes—

She spurned the thought, that she could e’er be seen

Swelling the Roman’s pomp, his noblest prize!—

A proud reluctant slave, a crownless queen.

And now the coming sun shone in unclouded brilliancy over the lovely gardens, that extended for many a mile beyond the marble suburbs of the Egyptian metropolis, the mightiest work of that famed conqueror, who, building it in the very wantonness of pride, deemed it, perchance, the slightest of his wonderful achievements. The roads which issued from that great city, circulating, like arteries from the human heart, wealth and prosperity to the extremities of her dominion, wandered among brakes and thickets of the coolest verdure; nor had the almost tropic sun of those now scorched and sterile climes the power to pierce the embowering foliage, which covered those magnificent highways with a continuous vault of living freshness. The glossy leaves of the dark fig, and the broad canopy of the aspiring palms, towering a hundred feet aloft to bask in the full glare of day above his head—a pavement of the milk-white marble of Canopus, cool as the snows of Atlas beneath his feet—and the waters, drawn from the distant Nile, glancing and murmuring in their marble channels on either side the highway—the wayfarer might travel on his path, enjoying the breezy coolness of more temperate climes, although he stood beneath the intolerable brightness of an Egyptian sky.

Far in the depths of those fairy gardens, girdled, as it were, by groves of almost impenetrable richness, watered by a hundred fountains, drawn through their secret canals, from the one mighty river, which was to Egypt what the soul is to the human frame, adorned by luxury that could be made to minister happiness to the living, stood the mansion of the dead, the mausoleum of the Ptolemies, the palace-tomb of Cleopatra. Portico above portico, gallery over gallery, it towered a pile of snow-white alabaster, more ample in its vast accommodations, more splendid in its sculptures, more rich in its materials than the proudest dwelling of a line of kings. The lower stories of the building, surrounded by triple colonnades of Corinthian architecture, were constructed of gigantic blocks of stone fitted and dovetailed, as it were, into each other, with a firmness that might well endure forever.

But in these enormous walls there was no opening—door nor window, nor the smallest crevice, to admit the blessed light of day to those huge receptacles of the meanest relics of mortality.

Elsewhere, so singular a form of architecture would have been looked upon as something utterly unnatural and monstrous; but in Egypt, where every species of deception, and what we should now call stage effect, was resorted to in all buildings, and particularly in such as were intended for religious purposes, it was by no means calculated to excite astonishment. Near the summit of this strange edifice, sheltered from the glare of the declining luminary by projecting awnings of muslin, the fabric of the Egyptian loom, then known as Byssus, was a long range of windows, on which the sunbeams glittered with a brilliancy which showed that they were fitted with that most precious of ancient luxuries, transparent glass.

In a small but airy apartment of this mansion of the dead, there were now collected a small group of females, whose gorgeous draperies and jeweled ornaments, would have seemed to denote the proud beauties of some barbaric court, rather than mourners over the soulless tenement which had so recently inclosed the spirit of a man.

Situated at the very summit of the edifice, and commanding a prospect far over the wilderness of aromatic gardens that surrounded it, even to the distant city, overlooking the wide valley of the Nile, with the ocean-like channel of its giant river glancing like a stream of molten gold to the evening sun, and the vast cones of the three great pyramids distinctly drawn against the deep-blue sky, that chamber might well have vied with the most beautiful retreats of king or kaisar—nor were its internal decorations less splendid than the scenery which its windows opened to the view.

Its walls of the purest alabaster, polished till they reflected every object with the radiant exactness of metallic mirrors, its pilasters of the same rich materials, with their Corinthian capitals and bases of solid virgin gold, its tesselated pavement of a thousand dies, its couches glowing with the pictured fabrics of the Eastern loom, its curtains of gauze so delicate that they well nigh justified the hyperbole which had named them woven air, rendered it a befitting shrine for the form of beauty which seemed the presiding spirit of the place.

On one of those rich couches there lay a figure of almost superhuman majesty. The eyes were closed, and the short curls parted from the noble brow; the features were not more pallid than is often seen in life; a strangely voluptuous smile still slept upon the well-defined and as yet unaltered lip, and, but for something of rigidity and constraint in the position of the limbs, it would never have been believed that the dreams of that warrior were those which know no waking.

His helmet, embossed with golden sculptures, rested on the ground at the foot of the low bed, its lofty crest of snow-white horse-hair dancing in the light air which found its way into the chamber, and casting its wavering shadows upon the features of the dead; the elaborately ornamented corslet, which still rested on the massive chest, was stained in several places with broad plashes of gore; but if blood had stained the face or the bare neck, it had been washed off with a care which had removed every sign of violence, every symptom of death.

Perfumes had been liberally sprinkled upon the crisp, auburn locks, censers were steaming with the smoke of musk and ambergris, and garlands of the freshest flowers were cast like fragrant fetters over the cold limbs of the sleeper. But what were all these to a single tear drop from the mourner who sat beside his bed, gazing with a cold, unmeaning gaze on the features of him whom she had loved so mightily—betrayed so madly!

Her hair, the uncurled raven hair of Ethiopia, fell to her very feet in strange profusion, not in the undulating flow of ringlets free from restraint, but in straight, shadowy masses, such as we have sometimes seen, and known not whether to praise or censure, in some sacred painting of the Italian school. Her lineaments of the Coptic cast, chiseled in their flowing lines of majesty and softness, were such as men are constrained to admire despite their judgment; but her form, her limbs, her swan-like neck, her swelling bust, the rounded outlines, the wavy motion, were of a loveliness which, while they baffled every attempt at description, explained at once and justified the passionate adoration of Julius, the frantic devotion of the wild triumvir.

It was Cleopatra who sat there, mourning in desolate despair over him whom alone she had loved. Him, strange it is to say, she had loved for himself, for himself alone. No delusion of vanity, no pride of boasting a second ruler of the universe her slave, had mingled with her deep, indomitable passion.

The conqueror had been merged in the man, the man in the lover. In peace or war, in triumph or defeat, absent or at her side, in the flush of health or in the frail humility of sickness, he had been ever the chosen idol of her heart; and never perhaps had she loved him more entirely, or more fervently, than at the very moment of that desertion of his cause, in the hour of his utmost need, which had terminated in the downfall of his honor and her happiness.

Dark, indeed, and incomprehensible are the mysteries of a woman’s heart, impenetrable her motives, unfathomable the sources of her hatred or affection; often most tender in the heart when coldest in the semblance; most passionate when most unmoved, most faithful when most insincere.

It might have been from mere womanish caprice, from a desire of probing the depth of her lover’s feelings, from curiosity to learn and look upon the conduct of a baffled conqueror; or more likely yet from jealousy—jealousy that his love of honor and empire should interfere with his devotion to her beauty, that she had so fatally betrayed him.

She might have overlooked, in the moment of action, the consequences of her flight—she might have fancied the victory gained, and her desertion a matter of no moment—a desertion that would wring the heart, without affecting the cause, of him whom she adored the most, when she most trifled with his peace of mind.

She might have fancied the defeat, should defeat ensue, not irreparable—the empire lost to-day recoverable on the morrow—she might have hoped so to teach the proud triumvir by this reverse, that, when the government of the world should be conquered by their joint forces, the world were the gift of Cleopatra.

It might have been one of these motives singly; it might have been the result of all united—felt, perhaps, but not analyzed even by herself, that had spurred her on till retreat was impossible and hope desperate. Still it was love that caused her to betray him, as it was love that caused her to proclaim herself dead already, ere she had yet thought of dying, in order to mollify his indignation and awaken his sympathies; as it was love that now led her to curse the day when she was born, born to be the fate of Antony.

Her beautiful bosom was exposed to the light, which lingered in a pencil of mellowed lustre, upon its soft, yet sculptured loveliness. The delicate veil of fine muslin which should have veiled those secret beauties, had been violently rent asunder, and hung down in natural folds below her jeweled cincture. On each of her voluptuous bosoms, which hardly heaved under the influence of the chill despair which had frozen up the very sources of her grief, there was a small gout of gore, a speck such as covers the orifice of the smallest punctured wound; but beyond those tiny witnesses there was no stain upon her snow-white kerchief, no trace as of blood which had flowed freely and been wiped away.

Her hands were folded in her lap, the fingers unconsciously playing with a chain of mingled strands of golden thread and dark, auburn hair. Her face was very pale, and cold, and almost stern in its passionless rigidity—the eye was cast downward, immovably riveted on the countenance of the mighty dead; but, from the long, dark lashes there hung no tear. All was composed, silent, self-restrained grief. An occasional shudder crept, as it were, electrically through her whole frame, and now and then her lips moved, as though she were communing with some viewless form; but beyond this there was no motion or no sound.

At a distance from the miserable mistress sat a group of women, attired, as has been said, most gorgeously, but their sad and clouded aspects offered a fearful contrast to their sumptuous garments; near them, and on a table of the richest porphyry, negligently strewn with instruments of music, the Grecian lute, the wild Egyptian systrum, and the Italian pipe, with jeweled tiaras, perfumes, cosmetics, and all the luxuries of a regal toilet, pateræ of solid emerald, drinking-cups of agate, vases and flasks of crystal, there stood a plain, country-looking basket, woven of the slender reeds that grow beside the lake of Mœris, filled with the dark, glossy leaves and purple fruits of the fig-tree.

To a casual glance it might have seemed that there was nothing in the contents of the basket beyond the casual offering of some simple rustic’s gratitude to his queen; but on a nearer view, there might be seen upon the foliage long, slimy trails, twining hither and thither, as if left by the passage of some loathsome reptile. At times, too, there was a slight, rustling sound, a motion of the leaves, not waving regularly as if shaken by the breeze, but heaving up at intervals from the life-like motions of something beneath; and now a scaly back, a small, black head, with eyes glowing like sparks of fire, and an arrowy tongue quivering and darting about like a lambent flame—it was the deadly aspic of the Nile, the most fatal, the most desperately venomous of all the serpents of Africa.

Deeply, fearfully skilled, in all the dark secrets of poisoning and incantation, the wife and sister of the Ptolemies had chosen this abhorred way of avenging upon herself the wrongs of Antony; of baffling the cool malignance of the little-minded man whom Rome’s adulation had even then began to style the August; of freeing herself from the chains, not emblematic, of Roman servitude; from the humiliation of being led along in gliding fetters behind the chariot wheels of the perpetual consul; from the dungeon, the scaffold, the rod, and the axe, which closed alike the triumph of the victor and the misery of the vanquished. Already had the news been conveyed to her—the stunning news that, save in name, she was no more a queen—but the rumor had fallen on a deaf or unregarding ear.

An earthquake, it is written, shook the earth unnoticed by those who fought at Thrasymene, an empire crumbled into ruins unmarked by her who had lost, who had destroyed, an Antony. After the first burst of agony was over, when the self-immolated victim was borne to her in place of the burning, feeling, living lover, she had caused those hated reptiles to be brought to the tomb, which she had entered while yet alive, in the very recklessness of dissimulation and caprice; she had applied them to her delicate bosom, and a thrill of triumphant ecstasy had rushed through her frame as she felt the keen pang of their venomed fangs piercing her flesh, and imbuing the very sources of life with the ingredients of death.

And now she sat in patient expectation, brooding over the ruin she had wrought, calmly awaiting the agony that she well knew must convulse her limbs and distort her features from their calm serenity; while her attendant maidens, with strange and unaccountable devotion, had needlessly and almost unmeaningly followed the example of her, whom they were determined to accompany faithfully not merely to the portals of the tomb, but into the dark regions of futurity. Now, however, when the step was taken from which there is no returning, the courage, which had buoyed them up for a moment and impelled them to the fatal measure, had deserted them.

In the aspect of each, remorse, or pain, or terror was engraved in fearful variety. One gazed with straining eyes, over the glowing landscape, gloriously bathed in the radiance of that setting luminary which would arise, indeed, in renewed splendor but not for her. She saw the distant hills on which she had sported in the uncontaminated freshness of her youth, ere she had been acquainted with the sin and sorrow of courts—the nearer palaces, in whose vaulted halls she had often led the dance in happy, because thoughtless merriment—and her whole spirit was absorbed in that long, wistful view of scenes never to be viewed again.

Another stood, as motionless as the marble column against which she leaned, staring upon her beloved mistress and the lifeless body; but it was evident that the images which were painted on her eye were not reflected on her mind. At intervals a large, bright tear stole slowly down her cheeks and literally plashed on the Mosaic pavement as it fell.

A third, already sensible of the physical agonies that accompany the action of poison on the human system, rocked her body to and fro, every separate nerve writhing and quivering in the extremity of pain, yet still retained so much mastery over her tortures as to repress all outward indications of her suffering and approaching dissolution, beyond a low, choking sob, a fearful and indescribable sound, between a hiccough and a groan.

It was a scene of horribly exciting interest—a scene on which a spectator feels that it is terror to gaze; yet feels that, for his life, he cannot avert his eyes until the agony is over: a scene from which—so strangely were terror and compassion mingled and interwoven with curiosity—no human being could withdraw himself, till he had looked upon the end.

The pale, haughty features of the senseless clay which had wielded and weaponed, a few short hours ago, the energies of a gigantic soul—the deeply seated despair of the silent mourner, still full of life and sensation, but forgetful of herself in the contemplation of her lost idol, unconscious of physical pain in the abstraction of mental agony—the wretched girls repenting their rashness, yet repressing their own anguish lest they should augment hers for whom they had cast life away; and for whom—could it now have been redeemed—they would but have cast it away once again: the stillness of that gorgeous room, the hated reptiles crawling and hissing among the beautiful fruits, the sunshine without and the gloom within, all uniting to make up a picture so awful, yet so exciting, as no poet’s pen or painter’s pencil ever yet created.

It was a scene, however, rapidly drawing to its conclusion: the girl on whose system the venom of the aspic had taken the strongest effect, had already fallen upon the floor; and it seemed, by the long and gasping efforts with which she caught her breath, that her very minutes were numbered. Notwithstanding the miserable plight in which she rolled over and over in her great agony, so callous had the feelings of her companions been rendered by the immediate pressure of their own calamities, that—delicate and tender beings as they were, with hearts ever melting at the slightest indication of sorrow—each one retained her station, wholly absorbed by her own awful thoughts, and careless of all besides.

It was at this crisis, that a shrill and prolonged flourish of trumpets rose—almost painfully—upon the ear. It was a Roman trumpet. There was a pause—a brief, but awful pause; such as is often felt between the first peal of a thunder-storm and the bursting deluge of the shower. Again it rang—nearer, and nearer yet; and now, beneath the very windows of the mausoleum.

As the first note sank into silence, the queen had arisen breathlessly to her feet; and there she stood, motionless as a statue, her eyes still fixed on Antony; but her lips slightly severed, her head and her whole frame expressing the earnestness with which she listened for a repetition of the sounds; but, as the second flourish smote her ear, she threw her arm aloft in triumph, a flash of exultation kindled that glorious brow like a sunburst, and her eyes danced in their sockets with the highly-wrought ecstasy of the moment; but, while her brow and eyes were radiant with delight, the wide expansion of the nostril and the curl of the chiseled lip spoke volumes of defiance and contempt.

“It is too late,” she cried, in accents still clear and musical, though strained far above the natural pitch of her voice. “It is too late, ye Roman robbers. He whom your sacrilegious trumpets would have but now aroused to vengeance, from the lightning of whose eye ye would have fled like howling wolves before the bolt of Jove, whose voice would have stunned you like the thunders of the Omnipotent—the conqueror of the universe has fallen asleep, nor can your senseless clangors waken him to vengeance.”

Even, as she spoke, the rattle of the ladders, by which the legionaries of the victor were scaling the porticoes of that fortress tomb, the shouts of the rude veterans, and the clash of their brazen harness were distinctly audible; and, ere her words were ended, the same wild sounds were heard echoing along the vaulted passages and spacious halls of the story next beneath. Another moment, and their steps were heard mounting the long sloping passages which, in Egyptian architecture, supplied the want of stairs, affording access to the upper chambers. The door, formed like the walls of the apartment, of polished alabaster, and invisible when closed, was evidently forced; and a group of men, whose Italian complexions and features, prominent and strongly marked, denoted them to be the victors of the world, the iron men of Rome—stood on the threshold. All sheathed in complete armor: not decked, like that of the soft Orientals, with gold and precious stones, but of bronze so brightly polished that it reflected every object; perfect in the accuracy with which it was adapted to their frames, in the facility of motion it left to all their limbs, and in its exquisite finish; with crested casques and crimson tunics, it would have been impossible to conceive more martial figures.

Foremost of all, the conqueror of Actium entered the arena of his triumph; and, in truth, although he could not have sustained a moment’s comparison with his more fortunate rival, he looked—at least, if he were not—the hero. No flush of exultation tinged his complexion, no insolence of victory sparkled in his eye; but, not the less did exultation, insolence, and cruelty live within his breast, although he was sufficiently versed in dissimulation to conceal his odious character beneath a vail of stoical philosophy and magnanimous indifference.

“Hail, emperor!” cried the dying sovereign, confronting him with a demeanor a thousand times more lofty than his own. “Hail, conqueror!”—her countenance alone would have expressed the scorn she felt, had not her tones been such that the cold-blooded despot writhed beneath them.

“Comest thou hither, puissant lord, noble successor of the mighty Julius, comest thou hither to violate the ashes of the dead, or to prove thy virgin valor on a woman? Macte tuâ virtute! On, in thy valor and thy glory! Why—the dead Cæsar was to thee as Omphale to Hercules! We are no Amazon to dare thy valor, O, thou second Thesius! Out with thy broad-sword, Cæsar, the august!—and see who first will shrink from it—I, or my dead, yonder?”

“No—by the Faith of Jove!—we would have the superb Cleopatra our friend, as she was our uncle’s,” replied the arch dissembler. “Thou art still free—still Queen of Egypt!”

“By the great gods, I am!—nor is it in thy power to make me other! Free was I born and royal—free will I die and royal! Cæsar—I scorn your mercy as I defy your menace! My fathers left to me a crown: crowned will I go to my fathers! What—think you, Cleopatra will live to be a slave?—will live to be at all, at your bidding? Go—trample on the subject necks of Romans! The Egyptian spits at your clemency. Why cling you not to your vaunting motto?—It was Rome’s word of old—

Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.

And dare you think me subject, or dare you not assail my pride? I tell you, Roman, you can slay men by thousands at a word; but, for your empire, you cannot make one woman live. Away—defile not me with your hangman hands! These are my subjects,” and she pointed to the dying girls around her, “this my empire—this the sepulchre of my forefathers; who were sages, priests, and kings, when yours were robbers and banditti. And this, that but this morning was a man, and now is nothing, this is my idol and my god! Away—one death like this, is worth a thousand abject lives like thine; and one dead, a hundred live Octavii, if ever earth bore aught so base by hundreds. If I betrayed in thy prime, thou mighty one, most dearly—I, upon myself, have I avenged the treason. If I sent thee before me, behold! I follow in thy footsteps! Manes of the dead rejoice—rejoice, ye are avenged!”

Her eyes glared, awful. The death-sweat was already darkening her brow—the death-foam clammy on her white lip. She must have been devoured by the fiercest inward tortures, yet she made them subject to her will; and the veterans of a hundred battles quailed before the edge of her eloquence, more cutting than the mortal sword. She flung her arm toward the astonished tyrant in defiance, folded her garments decently about her limbs, placed the antique diadem of the Ptolmies upon her raven tresses, and, without another word, composed herself on the couch beside him toward whom she had proved her love so fearfully, and closed her eyes for the last time—for ever!

For many minutes longer, while—mute between astonishment, regret at his frustrated triumph, and admiration of her undaunted valor—the cold Cæsar watched her silent agonies, the convulsed heavings of her bosom, and her loud and painful breathings alone told that she lived.

One long and shuddering sigh—one short, sharp spasm—and the dark eyes opened, but their orbs were glazed and sightless—her jaw fell.

And Egypt never more bowed to a native sovereign.

And Rome was never more uncursed by a Cæsar.

THE TWO BIRDS.—A STREET LYRIC.

———

BY GEORGE H. BOKER.

———

Two birds hang from two facing windows;

One on a lady’s marble wall,

The other, a seamstress’ sole companion,

Rests on her lattice dark and small.

The one, embowered by rare exotics,

Swings in a curious golden cage;

The other, beside a lone geranium,

Peeps between wires of rusty age.

The one consumes a dainty seedling

That, leagues on leagues, in vessels comes;

The other pecks at the scanty leavings,

Strained from his mistress’ painful crumbs.

The lady’s bird has careful lackeys,

To leave him in the cheerful sun;

Upon her bird the seamstress glances,

Between each stitch, till work is done.

Doubtless the marble wall shines gayly,

And sometimes to the window roam

Guests in their stately silken garments;—

But yon small blind looks more like home.

Doubtless the tropic flowers are dazzling,

The golden cage is rare to see;

But sweeter smells the low geranium—

The mean cage has more liberty.

’Tis well to feed upon the fruitage,

Brought from a distant southern grove;

But better is a homely offering,

Divided by the hand of love.

The purchased service of a menial

May, to the letter, fill its part;

But there’s an overflowing kindness

Springs from the service of a heart.

Hark! yonder bird begins to warble:

Well done, my lady’s pretty pet!

Thy song is somewhat faint and straitened,

Yet sweeter tones I seldom met.

And now the seamstress’ bird—Oh, listen!

Hear with what power his daring song

Sweeps through its musical divisions,

Striking each note in rapture strong!

Hear how he trills, with what abundance

He flings his varied stores away!

Bursting through wood and woven iron

With the wild freedom of his lay!

Cease, little prisoner to the lady,

Cease, till the rising of the moon;

Thy feeble song is all unsuited

To the full mid-day glare of June.

Cease, for thy rival’s throat is throbbing

With the fierce splendor of the hour:

His is the art that grasps a passion,

To cast it back with tenfold power.

Cease, until yonder feathered poet

Through all his wondrous song has run,

And made the heart of wide creation

Leap in the glory of the sun!

MISS HARPER’S MAID.

It had been a day of boisterous excitement. The gravity of the ship had been strangely disturbed. We had “crossed the line” in the morning, and there had been the usual saturnalia on deck. Of these, as I was returning to India, after a sick furlough, I had been only a spectator; but still, when the evening came, and the fun was at an end, I felt sufficiently weary with the heat and excitement, to enjoy a quiet causerie in my own cool cabin.

My companions were a bottle of “private” claret, and the “chief officer” of the ship. Now this chief officer was an excellent fellow; I think that I never knew a better. His name was Bloxham. He was about eight-and-twenty years of age, with a round, fresh-colored, but intelligent face; bright, laughing eyes, and the whitest teeth in the world. There was in him a rare union of the best parts of the old and the new race of merchant seamen; that is, he had all the openness and frankness, the seaman-like qualities of the old men, without their coarseness and vulgarity; and he had the more refined and gentleman-like manners of the new, without their dandyism and effeminacy. He was in my eyes the very pink and perfection of a sailor.

We discussed the incidents of the day, and discoursed upon the character and objects of the Saturnalia, or rather, as we agreed, the Neptunalia, which we had been witnessing. I have no intention of describing what has been so often been described before. But there is one part of the ceremony on which I must say a few words. Before the unhappy neophyte who has to be initiated into the mysteries of the equator is finally soused in the tub of water, which by a merciful dispensation is made to follow on the begriming and befouling operation of the shaving, he is asked by the operator if he has been “Sworn at Highgate.” Now, to be sworn at Highgate, is to undertake not to do certain things, when you can do better, as “never to drink small beer when you can get strong, unless,” (there is always a saving clause,) “unless you like small beer better than strong.” I do not remember all the obligations, though they are not many, named in the recital. But one I have every reason to recollect. Bloxham, with his smiling face and joyous manner, was talking over this part of the ceremony; and when he repeated the words of the Highgate oath, “Never to kiss the maid, when you can kiss the mistress—unless, you like the maid better than the mistress,” I could see a significant twinkling in his eyes, which stimulated my curiosity. I asked him what he was thinking of, and he said that he “could believe it very possible to like the maid better than the mistress,” and I said so too. “At all events,” added Bloxham, “it often happens that the maid is the better worth kissing of the two.”

I could see plainly enough from my friend’s manner, that I had not got at the bottom of this roguish twinkling of the eye. His whole face was indeed one bright smile, and there was a world of meaning dancing beneath it. I was determined, as sportsmen say, to “unearth” it; so I said at once, that I should enjoy my claret all the more, if he would impart to it the relish of a good story. Then I took the bottle off the swinging tray, filled our glasses, and told him to “leave off making faces and begin.”

“Well,” he said, making himself comfortable in a corner of my couch, “I must acknowledge that ‘thereby hangs a tale.’ ‘Never kiss the maid when you can kiss the mistress, unless, you like the maid better than the mistress.’ At the risk of your thinking me a low fellow, I’ll give you a chapter of my own experiences, illustrative of this portion of our sailorly interpretation of being sworn at Highgate.

“After the last voyage but one, our good ship went into dock for a thorough refitting, and I had a longer spell at home than I had enjoyed for many years. I would not change this way of life for any in the world; but I was glad for once to stretch my legs fairly on dry land, and see something of green fields, brick and mortar, and my shore-going friends in the neighborhood of Canterbury.

“Among the families in which I was most intimate was that of a Mr. Harper. He had made a comfortable fortune by trade, and now was enjoying his otium cum dignitate in a good house on the outskirts of the city. An only daughter kept house for him; for he was a widower. Now Julia Harper, when I first knew her, was a fine, handsome girl of two-and-twenty; tall, well-made, but on rather a large scale, with bright, restless eyes, and a profusion of dark hair. She had a great many admirers in Canterbury, some of whom, there is every reason to suppose, admired the old gentleman’s money as much as the young lady’s eyes, but they met with no great encouragement. Miss Harper, it was whispered, had determined not to marry a Canterbury man. She wished to see more of the world. Her tastes inclined toward the army or the navy; and it was predicted that some fine day a young officer from one of the regiments in garrison, with an eye to the paternal guineas, would succeed in carrying off the prize. Everybody, however, said that she was heart-whole, when I was first introduced to her, and some of my more intimate friends jestingly said that there was a chance for me. I confess that I was a good deal struck by the girl. The artillery of her bright eyes soon began to do some execution. I liked her open, bold manner. I had very little experience of the sex, and I thought that her candor and unreserve betokened a genuineness of character, and a truthfulness of disposition, very refreshing in such an age of shams. I think I liked the old gentleman, too—I know I liked his dinners and his wines—I was certainly a favorite with Mr. Harper. Whether he ever contemplated the probability of his daughter and myself becoming attached to one another, I do not know; but if he did contemplate it, and with pleasure, it must have been pleasure of the most unselfish kind, for of all his daughter’s admirers, in point of worldly advantages, I must have been the least eligible. However, he had been heard to say, that he did not look for a rich son-in-law, as his daughter would have plenty of money of her own; so, sometimes, I thought it possible that the old gentleman would not close his paternal heart against me, if I were to offer myself as a suitor for the fair Julia’s hand, and a claimant to her heart.

“I often met with Julia at the house of mutual friends. I certainly liked the girl; and my vanity was flattered, because, with so many admirers around her, she showed me, as I thought, a decided preference. She seemed to be never tired of talking about the sea. She wearied me with questions about it; and on more than one occasion said—very unguardedly—that she thought a voyage to India would be the most delightful thing in the world. Of course, I made fitting answer, that with a congenial companion, a voyage anywhere would be delightful; and, more than once, opportunity being favorable, I was on the point of declaring myself, when an internal qualm of conscience arrested the dangerous avowal.

“Affairs were in this state, when an accident befell me which brought matters to a crisis. There was a steeple-chase one day in the neighborhood of Canterbury, which I attended on foot. During the excitement of the race, I attempted a difficult cut across the country, failed at a leap which was beyond my powers, and had the misfortune to sprain my ankle. The injury was a very severe one, and I was laid up for many weeks in my lodgings. You have often laughed at me for taking every thing so coolly. I assure you that I did not take this coolly at all. I chafed, indeed, like a lion in the toils; and was continually arresting the progress of my recovery, by putting—in spite of repeated prohibitions—the crippled member to the ground. At last, I began to learn a little philosophy, and resigned myself to the sofa with a groan.

“The loss of my liberty was bad enough; but the loss of Julia’s society was a hundred times worse. Her father came often to see me, and brought me kind messages from his daughter; but, if I had had no more substantial consolations, I believe that I should have gone mad. Julia did not actually come to see me; but she wrote me repeated notes of inquiry, and often sent me flowers, and books, and other tokens of womanly kindness. The messenger employed on these occasions was Miss Harper’s maid—”

“Ah! sworn at Highgate,” I interrupted; “we are coming to it now. Another glass of claret to improve the flavor of the story.”

He tossed off the bumper I had given him, as though he were drinking devoutly to some lady’s health, and then continued with increased animation.

“The messenger employed on these occasions was Miss Harper’s maid. She was generally enjoined to deliver the letters and parcels into my own hands, and sometimes to wait for an answer. She came, therefore, into my drawing-room, and if she had occasion to wait, I would always desire her to be seated. The girl’s name was Rachel. She might have been old, or ugly, or deformed, for any thing I cared, or, indeed, that I knew about her. I had a dim consciousness that she had a very pleasant manner of speaking; but I give you my word that, after she had been half-a-dozen times into my room, I should not have known her if I had met her in the streets: I regarded her only as an appendage to the fair Julia, whose image was ever before my eyes, shutting out all else from my view.

“This, however, did not last forever. It happened one day, that when Rachel brought me a parcel, I—in my lover-like enthusiasm—started up from the sofa, and incautiously planted my injured foot on the ground. The result was a spasm of such acute pain, that I fell back upon my couch with an involuntary cry, and a face as colorless as marble. Rachel immediately stepped forward; and, with a cordial expression of sympathy, asked if she could do any thing for me, and proceeded, with a light, gentle hand to arrange the pillows under my crippled limb. I felt very grateful for these ministrations, and as I gave utterance to my gratitude, I looked for the first time inquiringly into Rachel’s face. Though she bore a Jewish name, she did not bear by any means a Jewish cast of countenance. She had dark hair and dark eyes, it is true—but her face was round, her nose short, and if any thing, rather retroussé; and she had the sweetest little mouth in the world. I thought that, altogether, she was a very pretty girl, and moreover a very genteel one. I observed now, what I had never observed—indeed, had had no opportunity of observing—that she had a charming little figure. Her shawl had fallen off whilst she was arranging my pillows, so that I could now see her delicate waist, and the graceful outline of her lightsome form; and there was something in her movements that pleased me better than all. I was interested in her now for the first time; and was sorry when she took her departure, with the expression of a hope that I might not suffer further inconvenience.

“I hoped that she would come again on the following day, and I was not disappointed. She came with a note and a boquet from Julia; but, before delivering either, she inquired after me, with—what I thought—genuine concern. I answered kindly and gratefully; and before opening her mistress’s note, asked her several questions, and drew her into conversation. The more I saw of her the better I liked her. She was at first a little reserved—perhaps embarrassed; but, after a few more visits, this wore off, and there was a quiet self-possession about her, which pleased me mightily. I could not get rid of the impression that she was something better than her social position seemed to indicate; at all events, she was very much unlike all the waiting-maids I had ever seen. I soon began to delight in her visits. She came almost every day with some letter or message from her mistress. I looked forward to the time of her coming, and felt duller when she was gone. I thought that it would be very delightful to have such a handmaiden always about me, to smooth my pillows, and bring me my meals, and talk to me when she had nothing better to do.

“I was interested in Rachel, and enjoyed her visits; but, believing still in Julia Harper’s fidelity, I was faithful to the core myself. But circumstances soon occurred which shook my faith, and then my love began to dwindle. The first of these was a mere trifle—but it was a suggestive one. Rachel brought me, one day, a note, and a little bundle of flowers, unusually well-arranged. I read the note, and to my astonishment there was a postscript to it in these words—‘I am sorry that I cannot send you a boquet to-day; there is positively not a flower in the garden.’ I mentioned this to Rachel, and asked whence the flowers had come. She blushed, and said with some confusion of manner, that she had picked them in the garden herself.

“The next was something still more demonstrative of the fair Julia’s disregard of truth. Rachel brought me a note one day, and a parcel containing a pair of worsted-work slippers, which her mistress said she hoped I would wear for her sake until I was able to leave my room. She did not actually say, but she implied that she had worked them for me herself. When I said something to Rachel about the time and trouble Miss Harper—I never said ‘your mistress’ now—must have expended on them, I observed a very curious and significant expression on the girl’s face. I had observed it once or twice before, when I had said something indicative of my confidence in Julia’s sincerity. It was an expression partly of pity—partly of disgust; and seemed to be attended, for I could see the compressure of her little mouth, with a painful effort to repress the utterance of something that was forcing its way to her lips. I was thinking what this could mean, when a piece of folded paper fell from the parcel: I picked it up, and found it was a bill—a bill for my slippers, which Miss Harper had bought at the Berlin Repository in the High Street. I knew now the meaning of the look. Rachel saw that I had got a glimmering of the truth, and I thought that she seemed more happy.

“She had wished me ‘good morning,’ and was about to depart, but I told her that I could not suffer her to go. It was altogether a deplorable day, what we call in the log squally. There was a great deal of wind—a great deal of rain; and, just at this moment, the latter was coming down in torrents. After some persuasion, she consented to remain. Then I asked her if she would do something for me; and, with a bright smile, she answered—‘Yes.’ I had a new silk neckcloth waiting on the table to be hemmed. She took it up, and then turning to me, asked naively how she was to hem it without needle and thread. To this question—for which I was well prepared—I replied, that in the other table-drawer she would find something containing both. She searched, and found a very pretty Russian-leather case, silver-mounted, with all the appliances a seamstress could desire. Then I begged her acceptance of it—said that I had ordered it to be made on purpose for her use, and that I should be bitterly disappointed if she did not accept of it. And she did accept it with undisguised pleasure. And every pleasant thing it was to lie on the sofa, and watch her neat little white hands plying the needle in my behalf. I had been longing to see the hand without the glove, and I was abundantly satisfied when I saw it.

“She had hemmed one side of the handkerchief, and we had conversed on a great variety of topics, when the weather began to clear up, and the sun to shine in at the windows. Rachel rose at once to depart. I said that I was quite sure it must be dreadfully wet under foot, and that I was certain she was thinly shod.

“‘Not very,’ she said.

“But I insisted on satisfying myself, and would not be content until she had suffered to peep out beneath the hem of her gown one of the neatest little patent-leather slippers I had ever seen in my life. I said that they were very dainty little things, but altogether fine-weather shoes, and not meant for wet decks. But I remembered presently that I had seen in her hand, when she entered the room, a pair of India-rubber overshoes, and I reminded her of them.

“‘They are my mistress’s,’ she said: ‘I had been desired to fetch them from the shop.’

“‘Wear them,’ I said, ‘all the same—they will be none the worse, and will keep your little feet dry.’

“‘But how can I?’ she answered with a smile; ‘they will not fit me at all.’

“‘Too small?’ I said, laughing.

“‘Yes, sir,’ she said, with another smile, even more charming than the first. I told her that I should not be satisfied until I had decided that point for myself; and at last I persuaded her to try. The little rogue knew well the result. Her feet were quite lost in them.

“If I have a weakness in the world, my good fellow, it is in favor of pretty feet and ankles; so, when Rachel insisted on taking her departure, I hobbled as well as I could to the window to see her pick her way across the puddles in the Close. I satisfied myself that the girl’s ankles were as undeniable as her feet; and she was unequivocally bien chaussée. I could not help thinking of this long after she was gone. And then it occurred to me that Julia Harper was certainly on a rather large scale. She had a good figure of its kind, and she had fine eyes; but Rachel’s were quite as bright, and much softer; and as for all the essentials of a graceful and feminine figure, the mistress’s was far inferior to the maid’s. I kept thinking of this all the evening, and after I had gone to bed. And I thought, too, of the very unpleasant specimen of Julia’s insincerity which had betrayed itself in the case of the slippers. But it is astonishing how little it pained me to think that Julia might not be really attached to me, and that our almost engagement might come to naught after all.

“I am afraid that if I dreamt at all about female beauty that night, it was less in the style of the mistress than the maid. Morning came, and with it an eager hope that I should see Rachel in the course of the day; but she did not appear. I never kept such long watches in my life. I got horribly impatient. I left my couch, and seated myself at the window, with a sort of forlorn hope that I might see Rachel pass; but I saw only a distressing number of clumsy feet and thick ankles, and no one remotely resembling Miss Harper’s spicy little maid. Night closed in upon me savage as a bear. But the next day was a more auspicious one. Looking prettier than ever, Rachel came with a note from her mistress. I was in no hurry to open it, you may be sure. I asked Rachel a great number of questions, and was especially solicitous on the score of the wet feet, which I feared had been the result of her last homeward voyage from my lodgings. She had by this time habituated herself to talk to me in a much more free and unembarrassed manner than when first she came to my apartments; and the more she talked to me, the more charmed I was; for she expressed herself so well, had such a pleasant voice, and delivered such sensible opinions, that I soon began to think that the mental qualifications of the mistress (none of the highest, be it said) were by no means superior to those of the maid. Indeed, to tell you the truth, my good fellow, I was falling in love with little Rachel as fast as I possibly could.

“This day, indeed, precipitated the crisis. We had talked some time together, when Rachel reminded me (I thought that there was an expression of mock reproachfulness in the little round face) that I had not read her mistress’s letter. I opened it in a careless manner; and had no sooner read the first line, than I burst out into loud laughter. ‘Bravo! Rachel,’ I exclaimed. ‘You are a nice little messenger, indeed, to carry a young lady’s billets doux. You have given me the wrong letter.’ She took up the envelope, which had fallen to the ground, and showed me that it was directed to ‘Edward Bloxham, Esq.’ ‘All the better, Rachel,’ I said; ‘but this begins ‘I am so delighted, my dear Captain Cox—’ Hurrah, for the envelopes!’

“I looked into Rachel’s face. It was not easy to read the expression of it. First she seemed inclined to laugh—then to cry. Then she blushed up to the very roots of her hair. She was evidently in a state of incertitude and confusion—puzzled what course to pursue. I folded up the letter, placed it in another envelope—not having, of course, read another word of its contents. What was the cause of Julia’s excessive delight I am not aware up to this moment; but I could not help asking Rachel something about Captain Cox. One question led to another. Rachel hesitated at first; but at last, with faltering voice and tearful face told me the whole truth. She said that she had felt herself, for some time, in a very painful and embarrassing situation. She recognized her duty to her mistress, who had been kind and indulgent to her—but she could not help seeing that much which had been done was extremely wrong. She had all along been ashamed of the duty on which she was employed, and had more than once hinted her disapprobation; but had been only laughed at as a prude. She had often reproached herself for having been a party to the fraud which had been practiced on me. She had not at first fathomed the whole extent of it; but now she knew how bad a matter it was. The truth was, that Miss Harper had for some time been carrying on something more than a flirtation with Captain Cox. But her father disliked the man, who, though very handsome and agreeable, bore any thing but a good character—and, therefore, Julia had acted cautiously and guardedly in the matter, and had feigned an indifference which had deceived Mr. Harper.

“When I first came to anchor at Canterbury, Captain Cox was on ‘leave of Absence;’ and, as he had gone away without making a declaration, it had appeared to Julia that an overt flirtation with me in the captain’s absence—something that would certainly reach his ears—might stimulate him to greater activity, and elicit an unretractable avowal. Her flirtation with me was intended also, to impress on Mr. Harper’s mind the conviction that she was really attached to me, and he ceased, therefore, to trouble himself about Captain Cox. He liked me, and he encouraged me, on purpose that the odious captain might be thrown into the shade. Such was the state of affairs at the outset of Julia’s flirtation with me. But Rachel assured me that I really had made an impression on the young lady’s heart, though she had not by any means given up the gallant captain.

“I asked Rachel how this could be—how it was possible that any heart could bear two impressions at the same time. She said, that she supposed some impressions were not as deep and ineffaceable as others. At all events, she believed that to Miss Harper it was a matter of no very vital concernment whether she married Captain Cox or Mr. Bloxham; but that she was determined to have one or other. The fact is, the girl was playing a double game, and deceiving both of us. All this was very clear to me from Rachel’s story. But she told me it was her own belief, that Julia would determine on taking me, after all—and that for the very excellent reason that Captain Cox was engaged elsewhere. At least, that was the story in the town since his return to barracks.

“Poor Rachel shed a great many tears whilst she was telling me all this. She said that, having betrayed her mistress, she could not think of remaining with her. She was decided on this point. With warm expressions of gratitude, I took her little hand into mine, and said that I would be her friend—that she had done me an inestimable service—that I was glad to be undeceived—that the little incident of the flowers and that of the slippers, had shaken my belief in Miss Harper’s truth, that altogether my opinions had changed, and that I knew there were worthier objects of affection. Then I spoke of her own position—said that of course her determination was right—but that she would confer a very great favor on me, if she would do nothing until she saw me again. This she readily promised; and it was agreed that on the following day, which was Sunday, she should call on me during afternoon service. I pressed her hand warmly when I wished her goodbye, and with greedy eyes followed her receding figure across the Close.

“She came at the appointed hour, looking prettier and more lady-like than ever. She was extremely well-dressed. I shook hands with her and asked her to seat herself upon the couch beside me; and then asked her, laughingly, ‘What news of Captain Cox?’ She said there was not the least doubt that Captain Cox was engaged to be married to a lady in London; and that Miss Harper, on the preceding evening, not before, had been made acquainted with the fact. I then asked Rachel what the young lady had said on receiving back her letter to the captain; and learnt that she had been greatly excited by the discovery, and had been very eager to ascertain how much of the letter I had read. When Rachel told her that I had read only the words, I am so delighted, my dear Captain Cox, she somewhat recovered her spirits, but this morning she had pleaded illness as an excuse for not coming down to breakfast, and had not since left her room.

“There was at this time lying unopened on my table, a note from Miss Harper, which had been brought by her father, an hour before. I asked Rachel to give it to me, saying ‘Now let us see, Rachel, whether any new light is thrown upon the subject.’ I think her hand trembled when she gave it to me. I opened and read—

“‘My dear Mr. Bloxham,—Very many thanks to you for your promptitude in returning the note, which, stupid little bungler that I am’ (‘Not so very little, is she, Rachel?’ I paused to remark) ‘I sent you by mistake—I am very glad that I had not sent the other to Captain Cox—for, although it does not much matter if one’s letters to one’s acquaintance fall into the hands of one’s friends, it is not at all pleasant if one’s letters to one’s friends fall into the hands of one’s acquaintance. I wrote to Captain Cox only to tell him how delighted I was to hear of his engagement—for he is going to be married to a Miss Fitz-Smythe—a very lady-like girl, who was spending some time here with the Maurices; and was really quite a friend of my own.’

“I had not patience to read any more. I knew it to be all a lie. So I tossed the letter into the middle of the room, and said, ‘We have had enough of that.’ I was ineffably disgusted. One thing, however, was certain; that Julia Harper, with her £15,000, was now to be had by me for the asking. But I would not have asked, if the money had been told over twenty times.

“I had other views for my humble self. Rachel, I found on inquiry, was the daughter of a Mrs. Earnshaw, the widow of an officer in the Preventive Service. The widow’s means of subsistence were slight, and her daughter had obtained a situation as, what people called, Miss Harper’s maid.

“My good fellow, I can hardly tell you what happened after this; I have a confused recollection of having looked inquiringly into Rachel’s face, read whole chapters of love in it; then threw my arms round her waist, pressed her fondly to my bosom, and whilst I untied her bonnet strings, and removed the obtrusive covering from her head, said to her, ‘We sailors have all been sworn at Highgate—all sworn never to kiss the maid when we can kiss the mistress—unless we like the maid better than the mistress, and heaven knows how much I do!’

“After the lapse of two or three weeks, and very delightful weeks they were, too—Rachel Earnshaw became Rachel Bloxham, and I the happiest husband in the world. I have got the very best of little wives, and never, I assure you, for one moment, though we have little enough to live upon, and I cannot bear these long separations, have I deplored the loss of Miss Harper and her fifteen thousand pounds, or regretted that I availed myself of the saving clause, when I proved that I had been Sworn at Highgate.”

“WHATEVER HE DOETH SHALL PROSPER.”

———

BY MRS. MARY ARTHUR.

———

I read the records of passing life,

With a careful, earnest eye—

And smiled or wept, as my pulses leapt,

To the scenes that hurried by;

From the busy play of infancy

To the busier care of age—

And nothing so fair as an upright soul

Was traced on the glowing page.

“Whatever he doeth shall prosper well”—

“In his darkness ariseth light”—

So—softly and sweetly a whisper fell,

Like the smile of an angel bright.

Though he win not the glitter of gold or fame,

Yet his wealth shall be far above;

He shall coin it freely of precious words

From the treasure of God’s deep love.

“Whatever he doeth shall prosper well,”

Though his path may be rough awhile,

Enough for him is the lights of truth

And his Father’s ceaseless smile.

He shall grow like a tree by the river-side,

And if tempests sweep around—

Then proved and tried by their searching wrath

Shall the ripened fruit be found.

“Whatever he doth shall prosper well,”

(For he waiteth his Father’s will,)

Though it seems not so in this outer world,

In a better and brighter still.

His leaf shall not wither—it keepeth fair,

Through the cold or gusty blast;

And his fruit shall ripen to holiness

When the season comes at last.

THE USEFUL ARTS.

THEIR ORIGIN AND THEIR EARLIEST HISTORY.

———

BY CHARLES WILLIAMS.

———

The origin of the useful arts is not like a spring gushing forth from the earth, a simple and indivisible cause of diversified results; it rather resembles the noble river, whose waters arise and increase from a large confluence of streams.

I. Endowments for Labor.

How greatly, for instance, are the arts attributable to the human hand! The paw of the beaver is admirably adapted to its habits of masonry, but immensely superior is the organ of prehension with which we are gifted, which readily applies itself to, and securely grasps, bodies of every form and size, capable of being moved by the arms of man. Had the hand been undivided, it could only have held such a portion of any mass as was equal to itself; but now, by separating the fingers, it can encompass one larger than itself; and by compressing two of them together, it can safely hold a minute object. And as some bodies are too large to be held by one hand alone, we are endowed with two, inclining toward, and precisely adapted to, each other. The highest advantages of a single hand of much larger dimensions is therefore gained, without any of the discomforts that would arise from a different arrangement.

The admirable division of the hand, and the exquisite adjustment of its several parts, are consequently indispensable to its perfection. Only take from it one of them, and the efficiency of the whole is seriously impaired. The Roman soldier deprived of his thumb was regarded as unfit for service; and there have been instances in England and other countries of such self-mutilation, as an effectual security against a martial life. The thumb is, indeed, of special use. It is neither situated directly opposite to the fingers, nor in the same plane with them, but obliquely, that it may be brought at pleasure to bear on them all, or on each finger separately. How manifestly superior is it to the rudimental thumb of the ape, which is designed for no such services! In strong contrast to the hand, also, as examination will show, is the lion’s paw, which, though consisting of four fingers and a thumb, is only adapted to very different purposes. In the human feet, where extent of surface is required for support, all the toes, unlike the fingers, are arranged in the same plane.

Were the tips of the fingers of bone, instead of flesh, we could not take up such minute bodies as a millet seed, a thorn, or a hair, which we can now do so readily from their being soft and round. Less soft, or more soft, equal difficulty would arise: the fingers have precisely the degree of consistence which is adapted to their intended use. And that they may hold hard bodies, they are provided with nails, admirable indeed for structure and position: were these placed on the tips of the fingers, power would be lost; but they occupy exactly the situation, and are of just the length, which will insure their utmost efficiency. In almost every art where nicety of execution is required, the nails are continually called into action. Who can, indeed, overrate the value of the hand? Smoothness and roughness, fineness and coarseness, heat and cold, are among the many sensible qualities of matter which it enables us to recognize, from the nerves with which it is so abundantly supplied, while its uses defy enumeration. The cuticle, indeed, becomes hard, thickened, and almost horny, thus suffering a loss of sensibility from years of labor; but in this there is a wise and kind law of Providence, by which the laboring man is fitted for his daily and useful toil. Did his hands thrill with every impression, he would be constantly exposed to pain, and restrained by fear from pursuing as he does now his rugged work. But early use has inured him to labor; he therefore wields the axe, strikes in the spade, or swings over his head the huge hammer, almost unconscious of effort; or, equally unharmed, dips his vessel into the furnace of molten metal when it has attained the intensity of a dazzling and scorching whiteness.

Complicated as the mechanism of the hand appears, when the attention is restricted to its surface, it proves still more so when there is a careful examination of its internal structure; while its complexity can only be adequately regarded as other parts of the physical system are duly considered. The wrist, which forms the base of the hand, is composed of eight small bones compacted together; and having little or no motion, they constitute a solid mass. The wrist is joined to the bones of the fore-arm, the radius, and the ulna, which lie alongside each other, and touch only toward the ends. Only one of them is joined to the upper arm, at the elbow; the other only to the hand, at the wrist. The former, by means of a hinge-joint at the elbow, swings backward and forward, carrying with it the whole fore-arm. As often, too, as there is occasion to turn the palm of the hand upward, the radius rolls upon the ulna by the help of a cavity near each end of one bone, to which, in the other, there is a corresponding tubercle.

Other arrangements are equally worthy of consideration. The bones of the shoulders not only give firm attachment to the upper extremity of the frame, but supply origins to the muscles of the arm and fore-arm. The free use of the hand, and the square form of the chest, are alike greatly owing to the clavicle, or collar-bone, which runs across from the breast-bone to the top of the shoulders. The scapula, or shoulder-blade, which is flat and triangular, lies on the ribs, is cushioned with muscles, shifts and revolves in its place with every movement of the arm, and has the power of moving upward and downward, backward and forward, so that when these motions succeed rapidly, the arm is rotated. The upper arm consists of a single bone, the head of which is hemispherical; standing obliquely backward from the bone, and received into a cavity with which the scapula is provided, it forms a ball and socket-joint. In this arrangement there is a provision for the rotating of the arm-bone on the scapula: thus the guards are made in fencing, and various similar movements are performed. In others the wrist has a finer and easier rolling, but this is from the motion of the radius and the ulna. How exquisite and wondrous, then, are the complicated, yet harmonious arrangements of the organic structure, by which the endless diversity of our manipulations is so effectually and happily secured!

Nor must we pause even here; for what is it that directs the hand? It is the mind. The instruments of sense with which we are provided are employed by a being capable of volition. We thus pass from the palpable to the invisible. For that which feels and acts must be distinct from the body, unless the body itself feels and acts. But in as far as the body possesses a distinct organization of nerves for distinct purposes, as sympathy, feeling, and motion, and all the frame does not act together in feeling and volition, something besides the body must exist and operate. And it is mind which enables the man not only to contrive, but to execute. Without it, how useless; with it, when under the power of disease, how injurious, were the hand! But when mind is in healthy play, much may be effected by one hand, or even when the hands are never possessed or lost. On its due exercise the elevation of man is instrumentally and entirely dependent.

Inferior creatures are endowed with an amazing power. We stand astonished and confounded at the phenomena of instinct. But that power is at once perfected.

“The winged inhabitants of Paradise

Wove their first nests as curiously and well

As the wood-minstrels of our evil day.”

In the first exercise of instinct, the comb of the bee, the habitation of the beaver, and the web of the spider, like the nest of the bird, were not to be surpassed. The dog, or the elephant, justly renowned for sagacity, could not by any effort be taught to fabricate or use the simplest implements. But man is destined to progression. Not only may he be raised from a savage state to the elevation of civilized life, but urged forward from that position through a career of indefinite advancement. “Onwards! Onwards!” is the characteristic motto of humanity. And hence, while man has a hand to be directed by his mind, he has a mind on which circumstances operate; and of these art is the offspring. Sometimes it evinces only a slight or transient stimulus; at others, the stimulus is powerful and continuous. As invention consists in new combinations, its exercise will be inconsiderable when the mind has only few objects to combine, and proportionately great when such objects are numerous. In savage life, invention flags—its exercise is rare; but it is frequent in a highly civilized condition. The history of the arts, therefore, is that of man’s physical and intellectual progress. One art rises after another before our view, as the successive memorials of a triumphal course. Who can describe by anticipation the appropriate insignia of man’s ultimate achievements!

II. The Hunter.

In accomplishing our present purpose, we shall glance at man in exceedingly diversified circumstances. The pursuit and capture of the fowls of the air and of the beasts of the field, and the taking of fish from the waters, for example, were early means of obtaining sustenance to which the human race must have had recourse. Long before hunting became a sport, such employments were necessarily a prime business of life. Men must, therefore, have soon invented and constructed a net; the Hebrew name of which, signifying “to shut up,” suggests that it arose from the net being contrived to inclose the prey. Nets were used in taking birds in distant times, to an extent of which we can now form no adequate conception. Of clap-nets there were several kinds, but the most common consisted of two sides or frames, over which the net-work was spread. At one end was a short net, which the fowlers fastened to a bush, or a cluster of reeds, and at the other end one of considerable length, which being pulled as soon as the birds were seen feeding in the area within, the two sides instantly collapsed. According to Sir J. G. Wilkinson, the nets of the ancient Egyptians were very similar to those still used in Europe, except that they were usually of a larger size. From these, it is probable that the fishing-nets of the Hebrews did not materially differ. Indeed, the nets and the fishers of Egypt are more than once mentioned in Scripture; and we know that the common fishing-nets of this people are of a long form, with floats on the upper and weights on the lower side.

At the present day, the Arabs, knowing that the birds become fatigued and languid after having been put up two or three times, hastily run in upon them, and knock them down with their bludgeons. They also frequently use a net, placing within it a cage containing some tame birds, that by their chirping and calling they may bring down others; a mode by which numbers of these creatures are and have been destroyed. Other devices are, moreover, adopted, which may, most probably, be traced to a very remote date.

In hunting, a space of considerable size was sometimes inclosed with nets in the vicinity of the water-brooks to which animals repaired in the morning and evening. Here the hunters anxiously waited, taking precautions for observing them unseen; sometimes driving them into the nets, and at others inclosing the prey. On other occasions smaller nets, when employed in a smaller space, proved equally effective. Of Esau we read, in patriarchal times, as being engaged in the chase. Impelled by the ardor of his spirit to seek in the toils, adventures, and perils of hunting, not only his occupation but his sustenance, he appears to have gained high repute by his daring and his skill. And yet the weapons he employed were very simple; for his aged father, when he longed for venison, told Esau to take his “quiver and his bow,” that it might be obtained. To these, however, great power may be given. How much do the aborigines of the North American continent owe to these weapons!

III. Pastoral Life.

Other means of subsistence are observable in the primitive condition of man. Such are those of Pastoral Life. Abel, the second son of Adam, was “a keeper of sheep;” Jabal, a descendant of Cain, a son of Lamech and Adah, is described as “the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle;” thus intimating that he was the first who adopted that nomade life, which is still followed by numerous Arab and Tartar tribes in Asia. In primitive times, some branches of the human family tended their flocks and herds on the banks of the Euphrates and its tributary streams; while, during succeeding ages, the descendants of Abraham followed the same employment amidst the fertile pastures of Canaan.

The Oriental shepherd and his family, just as their remotest ancestors did, occasionally take up their abode in caves, with which some parts of the East abound. So capacious are some of these caverns as to admit the master and the whole of his property. In times of great peril, the inhabitants of towns and villages retire, with their wives and children, their flocks and herds, into these dark recesses; which have served as an asylum for those exposed to danger or tyranny, from time immemorial. Some of the caves of Syria are ascribed chiefly to the erosive effect of limestone rocks charged with free carbonic acid; but others are more artificial, consisting of natural fissures enlarged or modified for some particular purpose. Of this we are reminded as we read, that “because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strongholds;” and many excavations formed by human hands are described by Oriental travelers.

But there was a continual migration of ancient tribes, of which we have still mementos:

“The weary Arabs roam from plain to plain,

Guiding the languid herd in quest of food;

And shift their little home’s uncertain scene

With frequent farewell: strangers, pilgrims all,

As were their fathers.”

To this mode of existence the tent was peculiarly adapted, consisting only at first, like the common Arab dwellings of the East, of a pole or two in the middle, with a covering of skin, and afterward of hair-cloth, which, though mean and coarse, effectually repels the rain and the dew. The erection of this light and fragile habitation was only the work of a few minutes. No sooner was a suitable spot found for a halting-place, than those on whom that duty devolved hastily unpacked the covering, and addressed themselves to the setting up the pole which forms the centre of the house; another party ran to mark out the space of ground which it was to cover; while a third stood ready to spread out the canopy and tie its extremities to the wooden pins, which the hands of a fourth had just driven into the ground with a huge mallet. Tents were sometimes, as they are still, of an oblong figure, supported, according to their size, by one or more pillars, while a curtain let down occasionally from each of these divisions turned the whole into so many separate apartments.

In the coverings and curtains of the tent we have an exercise of art worthy of special notice. A mingling of hair, wool, or fur plaited together, and fastened down by some natural threads, as hairs of greater length than usual, blades of tough grass, or other vegetable fibres separated from trees and plants, was probably the first advance toward such a fabric. Or it might be after the fashion of a net, so early in use, only with meshes unusually minute. Or hairs of fur, or down, bound about the feet, to prevent inconvenience, would thus become pressed together, and might suggest a somewhat solid and yet elastic fabric. But the idea, however obtained, of a cloth-like substance produced by fibres pressed together, would doubtless lead to efforts to produce it, and here the arts of spinning and weaving take their rise; and the coverings and curtains of the tent stand in relation to the dresses of the people.

An early mode of providing them would, doubtless, be to stretch a number of long threads side by side, and then to pass another alternately above and below them, so that with them this thread might be interwoven. The attempt made on a large scale might lead to another on a smaller, and this to others still more minute. In like manner, the primary use of broad pieces might suggest the employment of narrower ones, till small fibres were used for the same purpose. A mat-mantle was usually worn by the secondary chiefs of the South Sea islands prior to the introduction of European clothing. This article was carefully prepared from the hibiscus bark; that of the young shoots being preferred, which having been slit into shreds, were woven at the top by the hand with singular neatness; and the sight of one of these mat-mantles in the British National Museum, may well suggest similar processes as passed through in times of primitive simplicity.

The Oriental shepherd is, at the present day, very simply attired, as were those of patriarchal times. He puts on his garment, consisting of a single piece, by making his left elbow fast in one of its folds, and then throwing it several times round his body. Light and easy in itself, it is also a firm and secure defense, well adapted to a wandering life; preserving the shepherd from the falling rain, the dewy grass, the coldness of the season, or the hard ground on which he finds his bed. In other instances he wears a cloak, which is altogether shapeless, resembling a square sack with an opening in front, and slit at the sides to let out the arms, and which is his sleeping-dress at night. The dress of the women was, most probably, of a lighter fabric than that of the men in primitive times; but on it much obscurity rests. All accorded, however, with extreme simplicity. Wooden bowls and dishes, sacks made of hair-cloth, and bottles formed of a goat, kid, or calf’s skin, stripped off, without an opening; the apertures made by cutting off the tail and legs being sewed up, and when filled tied about the neck, are still the principal furniture of an Eastern shepherd’s tent. A rod or staff, an ox-goad, a sling, a bow, a javelin, are, at the same time, all his implements and weapons.

To provide water for the flock is a duty of the first importance. There is an abundant supply from the living fountain and the flowing stream; but these are not always to be found. Happy is the shepherd, then, who sees in the expanse before him the clear waters of a pool or lake, at which his flocks and herds may eagerly slake their thirst. But these may fail to be enjoyed; what appeared to be water may prove to be only the mirage—emblem of forbidden pleasures, exciting hope to entail only bitter disappointment. There remains, then, but one alternative—to dig a well; a process indispensable in the earliest days of human history. The well was often covered with a great stone, which being removed, the person descended some steps to the surface of the water, and on his return poured into a trough that which he had brought up. But as this could only be applicable when the well was not deep, other contrivances still employed in the East, and some of which appear on the Egyptian monuments, must have been of high antiquity. “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep,” were words which give additional probability to this supposition. The shadoof, consisting of a tapering lever, unequally balanced upon an upright body, and from the small end of which the bucket is suspended by a rope, has long been the most simple and common of all the machines employed to raise water in the East.

In pastoral regions we have the art of music in its primitive form. To Mercury the invention of the pipe was ascribed in pagan mythology; and with this rustic instrument the shepherd often amused and solaced his leisure hours. Apollo was celebrated as the inventor of the harp; and the hand of the shepherd frequently swept its strings while he rested with his flocks at noontide, or watched and guarded them during the lonely hours of the night. For his skill on this instrument the son of Jesse was distinguished in early life among the shepherds of Palestine. In the antediluvian age, however, Jubal lived—“the father of all such as handle the harp and organ;” the one being, probably, a kind of lyre, and the other a bundle of reeds.

“Thus music’s empire in the soul began:

The first-born poet ruled the first-born man.”

IV. Agriculture.

Agriculture is an art which has ever been a source both of the necessaries and conveniences of life. Moses, following the example of the Egyptians, made it the basis of the state. Accordingly, he apportioned to every citizen a certain quantity of land, and gave him, not only the right of tilling it himself, but also of transmitting it to his heirs. The custom of marking the boundaries of lands by stones, which had prevailed in earlier times, he perpetuated by an express law; and against him who removed them without authority a curse was denounced. Joshua divided the whole country, of which he had taken possession, among the individual Hebrews, running it out with the aid of a “measuring line.”

The occupation of the husbandman was held in honor, not only for the profits it brought, but from its being supported and protected by the fundamental laws of the State; security being an indispensable element of human progress. All who were not set apart for sacred duties, as the priests and levites, were regarded by the laws, and were, in fact, agriculturalists. It is true that the rich and the noble did not place themselves on a level with their inferiors; but none were so distinguished as to disdain the culture of the soil. Elisha the son of Shaphat was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen when Elijah passed by and cast his mantle upon him. Of Uzziah, king of Judah, it was said—“He loved husbandry.” And it became natural to speak of a man, engaging in the highest and noblest service, as “putting his hand to the plough.”

This implement was at first extremely simple, the turning up of the soil being effected by means of sharp sticks. The plough, strictly so called, as observed by many recent travelers, is generally a branch, or small tree, cut below the bifurcation; the share is of wood, and the point of iron. As the husbandman guides the plough, he carries a rod, armed at the extremity with a sharp piece of iron, with which he clears away the weeds from the share of his implement, or goads his oxen. So light is the whole apparatus, that he has to press hardly on it in the upturning of the soil; and he often carries his plough home on his shoulder on returning from the fields at night. The only harrow seems to have been a thick clump of wood, borne down by a weight, or a man sitting upon it, and drawn by oxen over the ploughed field: the same which the Egyptians use at the present time. In this way the turfs were, and still are, broken in pieces, and the fields leveled.

In harvest, the Hebrews used the sickle, so that the stubble remained in the earth. The crops, when bound in bundles, were conveyed by hand, on beasts of burden, or in wagons, to the threshing-floor. This was in some elevated part of the field, and was nothing more than a circular space thirty or forty paces in diameter, where the ground had been leveled and beaten down. At first the grain was thrashed with sticks; but afterward this mode was adopted only in respect to the lesser kinds of grain, and in beating out small quantities. At a later period, it was trodden out by the hoofs of oxen, as it is in the East to this day.

These allusions to agricultural pursuits recall to the mind the words of the prophet—

“Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.

Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow? Doth he open and break the clods of his ground?

When he hath made plain the face thereof,

Doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin,

And cast in the principal wheat, and the appointed barley, and the rye, in their place?

For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.

For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument,

Neither is a cart-wheel turned about upon the cummin;

But the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.

Bread-corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it,

Nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.

This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts,

Which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”

Isaiah mentions four ways of threshing: the staff or flail, which was used for the smaller seeds; the drag, formed of strong planks, the lower part of which was made rough with stones or iron; the cart, having wheels furnished with iron edges or teeth; and the feet of oxen driven over the corn when laid on the floor. The grain was winnowed by being thrown against the wind with a shovel.

The traditions of ancient times ascribe many of its arts to the visions and instructions of superior beings. Among these stands forth with special prominence the legend of “the fire-bringing Prometheus,” as depicted by Æschylus with extraordinary power. He appears chained to the mountains of Caucasus; and why is he thus doomed to suffering? For disobedience to the power that rules the world, in bestowing fire on the human race. “Laboring for the people,” and intent on giving them “all-working fire,” it is to restrain him from “his man-loving turn of mind,” that he is cast forth from society, and that the far-distant and barren rock is his inexorable destiny.

How man received the gift of fire we have no means of knowing. It is a Moslem fable that the angel Gabriel brought it to our first parents. Poetry says that the winds blew through the grove, that two trees became ignited from continued attrition, and that Adam beholding the lighted copse fled, turned back, caught the glow of the flame, and then tried various means to obtain it. Again, it tells us that a flint-shaft, aimed at a beast, ground against a rock, and elicited sparks of fire, which led Adam to rub stones together over dry leaves, while Eve gently cherished the kindling flame. More than one ancient people ascribe it to the rubbing of two pieces of wood together, a practice still adopted among barbarous tribes. But however this might be, fire must have been possessed in earliest times for the preparation of human food, as well as for the practice of those arts which are ascribable to the fatherhood of Tubal-Cain.

The presence of the metals, and particularly iron, must have become, in various ways, too obvious to allow the art of smelting the ores to have remained long undiscovered. The detection of virgin fragments, or the accidental effect of fires on the more fusible ores, accounts at once for the strange fictions which existed among the ancients on this subject, especially that of the accidental conflagration of a forest, and the consequent fluxion of some of the metal, from ores lying exposed on, or near the surface. It is a natural conjecture, that in a little time after the deluge, and long before the earth could have been peopled by the posterity of Noah, a large part of it must have become covered with wood. Its removal from many spots would, therefore, be indispensable. Now, the most obvious method of clearing any space from wood is the setting it on fire: and as in the most mineral countries there are veins of metallic ores lying contiguous to the surface of the earth, these being fused while the woods growing over them were burning, might have suggested the first idea of the process of smelting. To adopt a poet’s notion—

“Thus powerful gold first raised its lofty head,

And brass, and silver, and ignoble lead:

When shady woods on lofty mountains grown,

Felt scorching fires, whether from thunder thrown,

Or else by men’s design the flames arose—

Whatever ’t was that gave these flames their birth,

Which burnt the towering trees and scorched the earth;

Hot streams of silver, gold, and lead, and brass,

As nature gave a hollow, proper place,

Descended down, and formed a glittering mass.”

Nor is this merely a poetic fiction: it is sustained by the testimony of many ancient historians, who speak of silver and other metals being melted out of the earth, during the burning of the woods on the lofty Alps and Pyrenees. A similar circumstance is said to have happened at Croatia, not two centuries ago. A large mass of mixed metal, composed of copper, iron, tin, and silver, was fluxed during the conflagration of a wood which was accidentally set on fire.

The structure and use of the bellows may be traced to a very remote period. Rosellini exhibits it, as it was employed in ancient Thebes. Men appear heating a vessel over a charcoal fire, to each side of which is applied a pair of bellows worked by the feet, each operator standing upon and pressing them alternately, while he pulls up the exhausted skin by a string which he holds in his hand. In one representation, the man has left the bellows, which are raised as if full of air, and imply a knowledge of the valve. The common bellows, made of two boards joined together by a piece of leather, was known very early to the Greeks. How serviceable this machine would be in the practice of the arts will be at once perceptible.

Wool, in its native whiteness, was peculiarly suited for clothing to the circumstances of the Israelites, whose economy required so many sprinklings and cleansings. This substance was used for garments, both by those of humbler and of higher grade, until accompanied or superseded by other fabrics.

Among the wild flowers of our rural districts, the eye is sometimes attracted—for example—by the blue flowers of the flax-plant. This vegetable product is so little affected by soil and climate, that one species, with all its characteristics unaltered, flourishes in the cold as well as the temperate regions of the globe. There is scarcely a plant, not even excepting the corn-plants, which can be regarded as of more service to mankind than the flax. Its free use in ancient Egypt is abundantly proved, while many representations are extant of the various processes through which it passed. One of these is found in a very ancient tomb at Beni Hassan, in Middle Egypt. On the right is seen a boiler, an irregularly-shaped vessel. The hieroglyphic inscription means, “The boiling of the knot, bundle of flax.” The three men who complete the picture are beating the flax-stalks, thus prepared, with wooden mallets, in order to deprive it of its outer skin. The hieroglyphic inscription above reads, “Pickling, or hackling the thread of the knot of flax.”

In some of the ancient statues, Minerva is represented with a distaff, to intimate that she taught our progenitors the art of spinning. The Egyptians ascribe this gift to Isis; and the Mohammedans to a son of Japhet. In all countries, from the earliest times, the distaff was accompanied by the spindle. The material employed—being duly prepared—was rolled into a ball, loose enough for the fibres to be easily drawn out by the hands of the spinner. Into the ball the upper part of the distaff was thrust, while the lower was held in the left hand under the left arm, so as to be most convenient for the process. The fibres were drawn out, and at the same time spirally twisted, chiefly by the fore-finger and thumb of the right hand, and the thread so produced was wound on the spindle. The spindle was a stick ten or twelve inches long, having at the top a slit or catch in which to fix the thread, so that the weight of the spindle might continually carry down the thread as it was formed. Its lower extremity was inserted into a small wheel of wood, stone, or metal, the use of which was to keep the spindle more steady, and to promote its rotation: for the spinner, who was commonly a female, every now and then twirled round the spindle with her right hand, so as to twist the thread still more completely; and, whenever—by its continual prolongation—it let down the spindle to the ground, she took it out of the slit, wound it upon the spindle, and having replaced the thread in the slit, drew out and twisted another length. The Arab women twirl the spindle in the same manner to this day. A still simpler process is passed through by the women of the Tartar tribes. They use a reel, which is connected with some silk, cotton, or wool, fastened at the girdle. This reel is spun round and let fall, and as it goes toward the ground it spins out the thread; when it approaches the ground it is taken up, the thread is wound around the reel, which is then set spinning again, and so on, till it has acquired as much thread as it can carry. This may seem very slow work, but habit gives a dexterity of manipulation which renders it less so than would be ordinarily supposed.

In ancient Egypt great skill must have been obtained in spinning. The threads used for nets, for instance, were remarkable for their fineness. Pliny says, so delicate were some of them that a net could pass through a ring, and a single person could carry a sufficient number of nets to surround a whole wood. He tells us that one of the governors of Egypt had some of these nets, each string of which contained 150 threads; and that the Rhodians preserved to his day, in the Temple of Minerva, the remains of a linen corslet, presented to them by Amasis, king of Egypt, the threads of which were individually composed of 365 fibres.

The tomb at Beni Hassan, already referred to, supplies a representation of ancient weaving. The warp is strained vertically on a frame, which seems to be attached by wooden tenons to the wall or roof of the dwelling. Beneath, the roller appears on which the web is wound. Two females, crouching in a posture not uncommon in the East, are at work upon it. The alternate threads of the warp are stretched apart by means of two smooth sticks, one end of which is held by each worker. The woof was then passed by the hand from one to the other. The shuttle does not appear to have been known at that time. The beam was introduced between the threads, perhaps fixed at one end by a slight metal catch; and, when thus fastened, the leverage would enable another woman to press the woof home with considerable force. The beam must have been withdrawn and re-inserted at every turn of the woof. Exceedingly clumsy as this instrument was, yet an extremely beautiful cloth was produced by it.

The Hebrew loom was most probably the counterpart of those still observed by our Eastern travelers. One of them noticed its use in Jerusalem, where the worsted was not worked in, but woven into the piece, and the pattern of the weaving changed, so that the color of the thread was completely thrown out, forming a triple fringe, through which the weft could not be seen. “In two of our specimens,” says Mr. Wilde, “we find twelve thick threads crossing the piece, and the tassels tied exactly as they are at the end of a piece of modern Irish linen. But the slipping of the weft is prevented by a curious process, performed by tying the threads of the warp together, so that each is secured to the thread at each side of it. This process forms a slight ridge at the end of the piece, and is rather ornamental. This fringe appears to be alluded to in that passage of Scripture, where the Israelites were directed to make fringes in the borders of their garments, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribbon of blue. I have seen a species of mummy-cloth in Egypt corresponding to this description precisely. Such was, probably, ‘the hem of the garment.’”[^[1]]

Many of the Egyptian stuffs presented various patterns worked in colors by the loom, independently of those produced by the dyeing or printing process, and so richly composed, that they vied with cloths embroidered by the needle. The art of embroidering was commonly practiced by that people. The Israelites, when in the wilderness, used the skill which they acquired in their captivity, for they made a rich “hanging for the door of the tent, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twisted linen wrought with needlework;” “a coat of fine linen” was embroidered for Aaron; and his girdle was “of fine-twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, of needlework.”

In connection with these manufactures of different kinds there is a process of great interest; it is that of bleaching: for cloth washed and exposed to the sun and air assume an unwonted whiteness. We are in ignorance as to the origin of this process; but, in some way or other, a certain degree of putrid fermentation was observed to carry off coloring matter from vegetable fibres. The practice must therefore have arisen of macerating cloth in water mixed with putrescent animal matter, which has continued to the present day from the earliest times. The secret was also found out by many nations of antiquity, that natron, the nitre of Scripture, combined with and carried off the coloring matter with which cloth is stained; and the substance is still used for the same purpose. According to Pliny, the ancient Gauls knew the use of a lixivium formed from the ashes of burnt vegetables as a detergent, and also how to combine it with oil so as to form a soap. In one of the tombs of Egypt we have a representation, as the hieroglyphic inscription denotes, of the washing or fulling of cloth. One man is seen rubbing the fabric in a vessel containing some liquid, and another is shaking it out, preparing it for the next process, which is often depicted—its being well wrung out, stretched lengthwise, and fully exposed to the air.

Another process of great importance is that of dyeing. It is based on the natural attractiveness of color. How often is the infant’s eye first caught by some bright hue! The blue sky and the verdant carpet of nature have a loveliness for all; while these, with the roseate tints of the morning, the golden sheen of noon, and the rich, empurpled dyes of evening, have furnished epithets freely lavished on the topics they have adorned, by the poets of every age. Even Herodotus says of a nation on the borders of the Caspian—“They have trees whose leaves possess a most singular property; they beat them to powder, and then steep them in water: this forms a dye, with which they paint on their garments figures of animals. The impression is so very strong that it cannot be washed out: it appears to be interwoven with the cloth, and wears as long as the garment.” Strabo, in his account of the Indians, mentions on the authority of Nearchus the various and beautiful dyes with which their cloths were figured. Pliny says of the Egyptians, that they began by painting on white cloth with certain drugs, which in themselves possessed no color, but had the property of attracting or absorbing coloring matters. That these cloths were afterward immersed in a heated dyeing liquor of a uniform color, and yet when removed from it soon after, they were found to be stained with indelible colors, differing from one another according to the nature of the drugs that had been applied to different parts of the stuff.

Purple is well known to have been a color of high repute. Moses, under Divine instruction, used purple stuffs for the furniture of the tabernacle and the dress of the high-priest. Purple raiment was worn by the kings of Midian; and a garment of fine linen and purple was given to a favorite by the Monarch Ahasuerus, whose palace was furnished with curtains of this color, on a pavement of red, and blue, and white marble. The Jews made a decree that Simon should wear purple and gold, in token that he was their chief magistrate; and that none of the people should wear purple or a buckle of gold, without his express permission. And Homer thus describes a king—

“In ample mode,

A robe of military purple flowed o’er all his frame.”

There is a story that the celebrated Tyrian dye was discovered by accident. A dog having broken one of the shells of the rock-whelk, stained his mouth with the color it contains, and thus led to the examination of this mollusc. It was then found that near to the head, and lying in a little furrow, is a white vein, yielding the beautiful purple tint which was long so highly esteemed.

It might be supposed that such processes as that of dyeing could only be conducted in an advanced state of society; but to this it is not exclusively confined. There is no doubt that, even during the captivity in Egypt, the Israelitish women became acquainted with them. For scarcely had they entered the wilderness than we hear that “the wise-hearted among them” did not only “spin with their hands,” but “brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet,” as well as “of fine linen.”

We even find another process analogous to dyeing, in circumstances in which we should not expect it to be discovered. In some of the islands of the South Sea elegant small ferns grow in abundance, and with these the native women impress figures, in divers colors, upon their cloth—literally, a method of printing, which is but one remove below the boasted invention of the Chinese, by means of engraven blocks, before the art was discovered in Europe. Its resemblance to calico printing is even more striking. For the old method, still continued for certain parts of the work, were by blocks of sycamore, on the surface of which the pattern was cut in relief, in the common method of wood engraving.

Vessels to hold water would be an early requirement of the human race. The shells of some vegetable productions, as those of gourds and the larger kinds of nuts, would readily occur to the mind as adapted to this purpose. The skins of animals taken in the chase would form another resource. The bowls and dishes of the common Arabs are, and have been, made of wood; but, for their production, some tools must be possessed, as well as some dexterity in their use. It is a singular practice of some tribes to cast stones made hot into the fluids contained in wooden bowls, in order to raise their temperature; but the discovery that certain substances could be made to resist the action of fire would at once cause them to have the preference. Who made the discovery—the brickmaker or the potter—we have no means of knowing.

The art of the potter was especially necessary at an early period, from the scarcity of fuel in some parts of the East. Hence we are told of people “who make in their tents a hole about a foot and a half deep, wherein they put their earthen pipkins or pots, with the meat within, closed up, so that they are in the turf above the middle. Three-fourth parts thereof they lay about with stones, and the fourth part of which is left open, through which they throw in their dried dung, which burns immediately, and gives so great a heat, that the pot groweth so hot as if it had stood in the middle of a lighted coal-heap; so that they boil their meat with a little fire, quicker than we do ours with a great one on our hearths.” As the Israelites must have had as much occasion to be sparing of their fuel as any people, and especially while journeying in the wilderness, it has been supposed that they must have had some such practice. It is certain that we read in the Levitical law of “ranges of pots,” thus showing their use at that period. It became still more familiar in after times.

“I went down,” says the Prophet Jeremiah, “to the potter’s house, and behold he wrought a work on the wheels.” The name of the inventor of this simple, yet effective machine, has been lost for ages, if indeed it was ever made known. It consists merely of two wheels or round plates placed horizontally, to which a rotary motion is given. If, then, on the upper one be heaped a mass of clay, it is evident that a tendency to a centrifugal motion will be given to it, which will greatly facilitate the action of the potter’s fingers, in forming out of the rude lump whatever vessel he pleases. With his thumbs separated from the fingers, and held on the clay as it revolves, the rapid motion will enable him readily to mould a hollow vessel.

Of earthenware, jars and drinking-vessels were chiefly made; and, it is probable, from the unvarying character of Eastern customs, that they had the same shapes as those still in use. Vessels formed of clay hardened by the sun, of a globular shape, and large at the mouth, not unlike the vitriol-bottles used in this country, but somewhat smaller, have been observed by modern travelers as borne by females going down to the well to fetch water; while their resemblance to the vessels used at the marriage of Cana in Galilee was exceedingly interesting.

In Egypt and Western Asia the inhabitants have in common use vessels of porous clay, lightly baked, and rather thin in proportion to the size of the vessels. The water they hold constantly oozes through the minute pores of the vessel, forming a thick dew or moisture on the outer surface, the rapid evaporation of which reduces the temperature of the vessel and of the water also much below that of the atmosphere, so that the inhabitants enjoy a perfectly cool and refreshing draught. The vessel forms, at the same time, a most effectual filter. The work of the potter continues to be, as it was, extensive in the East. The people are accustomed to break their earthen vessels when they become defiled, just as they were required to do under the Levitical law.

[1]	Wilde’s Travels.

V. Settlers in towns.

While, however, these various branches of art were advancing with greater or lesser speed, while the number of the people was increasing, a division of property arose, and the desire was naturally kindled in the bosom of families to dwell apart: a dissatisfaction would therefore arise with the tent, and an effort be made to collect other materials, and to construct separate and more durable dwellings. In the time of Job, and probably for ages afterward, the houses of all ranks in the land of Uz appear to have been built of mud; for of some transgressors he says—“In the dark they dig through houses which they had marked for themselves in the day-time.” We read of others who “dig through” houses “and steal;” thus suggesting to us those clay-built dwellings, which, though not substantial like edifices of later date, were still sufficiently so to require that he should dig through them who would gain a forcible entrance.

On men determining to become settlers in towns, more stable materials were rendered available. The manufacture of bricks ascends to the earliest time of historical record. The first building of which there is any mention after the deluge is the Tower of Babel. Considerable progress appears to have been made, not only in this but the city before “the confusion of tongues” took place. It is expressly stated that well-burned brick was used, instead of stone, in these structures, and that slime, which is generally understood to be bitumen, was employed instead of mortar. Other edifices were reared from bricks formed of earth, and then burned in furnaces or kilns.

The manufacture of bricks was familiar to the ancient Egyptians. In this, as is well known, the children of Israel were greatly oppressed. The circumstance of the bricks they made being mixed with chopped straw, renders it probable that they were not burned, but merely dried in the sun. Herodotus records of Asychis, one of the kings of Egypt, that he built a pyramid of bricks, made of the mud or silt dredged up from the bottom of the Nile. In one compartment of a tomb in Thebes the whole process of brick-making is portrayed. Some persons appear carrying the clay in vessels from the field, others beating it with spades, others taking the bricks out of the mould, and others bearing away the dried bricks, making a balance over their shoulders with ropes attached to a beam.

The first effort of those who would rear a town would be to mark out the extent of the ground they required, including not only a desirable space for building, but pasture-lands for flocks and herds, and also fields for the produce of grain. A wall would now be necessary at the boundary line, as a defense from the assaults of ravenous beasts, or the incursions of hostile bands. This would at first be formed of any stones that could be dug out or collected, and then heaped together; a strong and stable, but rude protection.

The earliest houses would probably be only one story in height: all of them having a similarity in general appearance. But the chief would soon require that his dwelling should accord with his personal elevation, and obedience to his mandate would result in the rudiments of a palace. The sound knowledge or the superstition of the sovereign and his people would give rise to the structure of a temple, and in the course of time to the multiplying of edifices accounted sacred. Other distinctive circumstances would inevitably arise. To walls rendered increasingly massive would be added towers, gradually acquiring a military character; and places of security to which the inhabitants might retire in seasons of peril. On an assault being made, the men who tilled the ground, and those who carried on the business of the town, would unite in its defense; but as attacks continued to be threatened, or were actually experienced, there would be the organization of a martial force, and the population be divisible into the civil and the military; the latter class being supplied with weapons and trained to the exercises of assault and defense.

The implements of the carpenter, like those of other artisans, were long both few and simple. It does not follow that the axe was first formed of iron. As a spear-head of hard wood serves the purpose of some of the South Sea Islanders, so does still an axe of green jade. If to this there was a resemblance in early times, a sharpened piece of iron with a wooden helve would naturally succeed. We know that celebrity might be acquired in its use; for “a man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees.” When Solomon was about to build the Temple, he conveyed his wish to the King of Tyre for a supply of timber, knowing as he said, “there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians.”

In early times, the trunks of trees were split with wedges into as many, and as thin pieces as possible; and if they were required to be still thinner, they were hewn on both sides to the proper size. Much advantage was therefore gained by the invention of the saw. As it could only be made of metal, this would occur at a far later period than that to which it is just to ascribe the origin of the axe. That the Egyptians possessed the saw is manifest from their sculptures. David, on the subjugation of the Ammonites, appears to have put them to labor with different implements, among which was the saw. The use of this was not confined to wood; for parts of Solomon’s palace were formed of “costly stones, according to the measure of hewn stones, sawed with a saw.”

The art of the locksmith is nowhere apparent in early times: the bolt, the lock, the key, were all of wood, as they are in the metropolis of Egypt to the present day. To produce these, therefore, the carpenter must have been employed. The Orientals looked to watchmen as their chief means of defense.

The lamp-maker must have been, however, in great request. Metals were often employed in the structure of lamps. The one commonly used in Cairo is of palm-tree wood; the glass that hangs in the middle is half-filled with water, and has oil on the top, about three fingers in depth. The wick is preserved dry at the bottom of the glass, and ascends through a pipe. Such Lamps are very convenient, from their being easily removed from place to place.

And here we are reminded of a valuable substance not yet noticed. According to Pliny, some storm-beaten mariners were boiling their food at the mouth of the river Belus—a small stream running from the foot of Mount Carmel—where the herb kali was growing abundantly, when they perceived that the sand—when incorporated with the ashes of the plant—melted, and ran into a vitreous substance. Nor is the supposition unnatural; for the sand at this place was well adapted to the manufacture of glass; and it is scarcely possible to produce a fire of sufficient heat for metallurgical operations without vitrefying part of the bricks or stones of the furnace. Strabo and Josephus alike supported the statement of Pliny, and probably from the spot referred to, the material was obtained that was used in the glass-works of Tyre and Sidon. At Beni Hassan, glass-blowers are represented at work: glazed pottery was used by the Egyptians; they also made glass bugles and beads for necklaces, and a sort of network with which they covered the wrappers of mummies, so as to form by their various hues numerous devices and figures, resembling those that are made in our bead-purses. The chief articles of that people were, however, bottles, vases, and other utensils, though they must have had great skill in the manufacture of glass, as they counterfeited amethysts, emeralds, and other precious stones, and were practiced in cutting glass and gems. A pane of glass, and numerous fragments of broken glass bottles were discovered on the excavation of the city of Pompeii. And Mr. Layard has found that the people of Nineveh had also acquired the art of making glass. Several small bottles, or vases—of elegant shape—in this material, were found at Nimroud and Kouyunjik. One bears the name of the Khorsabad king. The gems and cylinders still frequently found in ruins, prove that the Assyrians were also very skillful in engraving on stone.

Not very long after the rise of the arts we discover the practice of working in gold. The golden ear-ring presented by Abraham’s steward to Rebekah weighed half a shekel, and the two bracelets for her hands were ten shekels’ weight of gold. The ark of the covenant, though made of wood, was to be overlaid with pure gold, within and without. It was also to have a crown of gold round about, and rings of gold in the four corners. Even the staves were to be overlaid with gold. Similar directions were given as to the table of shewbread and the altar of incense. And Solomon garnished the house of the Lord with gold.

The Egyptians appear to have been familiar with the manufacture of gold. The gold-leaf still found in and about mummy-cases, some thousands of years old, proves not only that they had an abundant supply of the precious metal, but were acquainted with the art of gilding. Their making of golden ornaments and golden vases, of large size and beautiful workmanship, might be inferred from various incidental notices in ancient writers; but, it is placed beyond all doubt by the representations of Rosellini. Among these are numerous vases of a golden color, many of them showing not only manual dexterity, but also considerable taste. A picture in the tomb of Rameses IV. contains a golden vase of great beauty, supported by two Philistines.

There is no mention of silver in Scripture till the time of Abraham. It then appears in the form of money, estimated by weight: “Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.” Jeremiah paid for the field of Hanameel in the same way. The shekel and the talent indeed do not appear to have been originally fixed and stamped pieces of money, but merely weights used in traffic. So general did this become, that the Jews usually had scales attached to their girdles for weighing the gold and silver they received in payment, while the Canaanites carried them in their hands. Silver was so abundant in the days of Solomon that it was “nothing accounted of;” for “the king made silver to be as stones in Jerusalem.”

The mention of brass which occurs in ancient writers must often be understood as meaning copper, either in its pure state or alloyed with tin, rather than the metallic compound with which we are familiar. It is stated that the chief sources of the wealth of the Pharaohs were the mines of the neighboring countries of Nubia and Ethiopia, which were abundantly productive of copper.

The mirrors which were in possession of the Israelitish women when they left Egypt are said to have been of brass, for the laver and the foot of it were made of that metal. Such were all the mirrors made in ancient times. Many metallic mirrors may be observed in our collections of Egyptian antiquities. They are nearly round, but varied in form, according to the taste of the artisan, and are inserted in handles of wood, stone, or metal. Their substance is chiefly copper, but mixed with other metals, most carefully wrought and highly polished. In the Egyptian Museum at Paris, there are several mirrors of a metal which looks like brass.

David provided an immense quantity of copper for the use of the Temple. Of this substance all sorts of vessels were made for the Temple, as they had been for the Tabernacle; and to these may be added weapons, more especially helmets, armor, shields, and spears. Hiram of Tyre was celebrated as a worker in brass. The larger vessels, and the pillars for architectural ornaments, were moulded in foundries; but it appears that this art, even in the time of Solomon, was little known among the Jews, and was peculiar to foreigners, particularly the Phœnicians.

Mines of copper occur in the mountains of Kourdistan, which appear to have been worked from remote antiquity. They formed the chief source from which copper, iron, and lead were obtained by the ancient Assyrians. A disused copper-mine, nearly blocked up with earth and rubbish, and only known to a few mountaineers, was visited by Mr. Layard. He found the metal in various states. Inscriptions on copper, various utensils, and figures of lions in solid metal, have been exhumed from the ruins of Nineveh. Tools, daggers, arrow-heads and armor, were formed from the ore, as was commonly the case among Asiatic nations, while the metal in powder was used to color the bricks and ornaments in the Assyrian palaces.

The general style of building in the East, with which our modern travelers are so familiar, accords with that which is traceable to the remotest ages. Fronting the street, which is usually narrow, as providing a better defense from the sun, and sometimes with a range of shops on one or both sides, dead walls appear, here and there only broken by a window, to which a grotesque frame of lattice-work serves as a guard. The house is entered by a porch or gateway, which conducts into a quadrangular court paved with stone or marble, and is generally surrounded by a cloister; over which, when the house has a number of stories, a gallery, having a balustrade, or else a piece of carved or latticed work, is erected of the same dimensions as the cloister. The apartments are approached by doors from the quadrangular court. When houses are built close together, the staircase is placed in the porch, or at the entrance into the court, and continued through one corner of the gallery or another to the top of the house; but when the houses are not contiguous, the staircase appears to have been conducted along the outside of the building. The roof is always flat; it is often composed of branches of wood laid across rude beams, and is covered with a strong plaster of terrace, to defend it from injury in the rainy season. It is surrounded by a parapet or a wall breast high, serving as a protection to those who go on the roof for various purposes, and also as a means of separation from the adjacent houses. Such a battlement was expressly required by the law of Moses, intimating probably, that terraced houses were at that time less common in Syria than they were in Egypt.

In the survey of ancient buildings, the use of immense masses of stone cannot fail to be observed. It appears from recent discoveries that they were cut from the quarries by a number of metal wedges, placed in a line, and struck simultaneously with a wooden mallet; or that a mass was split by wedges of highly-dried wood saturated with water, and thus acquiring a great expansive force. They were sometimes hewn, either roughly or with greater care. They were raised aloft by means still employed in India, as mounds, or inclined planes, or others equally simple. In all the remains of ancient Egypt we have no trace of any machinery being employed in building; a fact not a little remarkable when we consider how vast and stupendous were many of its edifices.

In the language of the Hebrews, the name of a garden was given to every place where plants and trees were cultivated with greater care than in the open field. Such inclosures are generally defended, as they have been for ages, by loose stones, a wall, or a hedge formed of the wild pomegranate tree, or of thorns mingled with rose-bushes, adorned in their season with their lovely flowers, and giving forth their delightful fragrance. Within, however, but little design or beauty is apparent, the whole commonly presenting only a confused medley of fruit-trees, with beds of esculent plants, having even plots of wheat and barley sometimes interspersed. Solomon could say, “I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits;” but then he had not only an unusual knowledge of the vegetable tribes, but also vast resources as a sovereign. And travelers still tell us of the supposed remains of the works he constructed, when he said, “I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees.”

Particular attention appears to have been bestowed on the culture of the vine by the Israelites and other Oriental people. The site for this purpose was carefully selected in fields of a loose, crumbling soil, on a rich plain, on a sloping hill, or where the acclivity was very steep, or on terraces supported by masonry; the whole being inclosed by a wall. How luxuriant was the produce of Palestine is evident from the fact, that on the return of the spies they passed through the valley of Eshcol, where they were so much struck by the size and beauty of the vines, that they broke off a branch to take with them to the camp, and to prevent the attached and rich clusters from being bruised, bore it between two on a staff. That the vine was cultured in Egypt, and that the juice of the grape was expressed from its clusters, is apparent, not only from Scripture, but the paintings and sculptures of that country, in which are often and strikingly depicted the vineyards and vine-arbors, the gathering of the grapes, and the treading of the wine-press.

On the construction of military machines we do not enter; we dwell rather on the arts of peace. Music, to which allusion has been made, in connection with pastoral life, has, however, in all ages furnished a powerful stimulus to men when engaged either in assault or defense. The ancient inhabitants of Etruria used the trumpet for this purpose; the Arcadians, the whistle; the Sicilians, the pectida; the Cretians, the harp; the Lacedemonians, the pipe; the Thracians, the cornet; the Egyptians, the drum; and the Arabians, the cymbal.

The transmission of persons and goods on the surface of the water would appear to be desirable in a very remote age. How the idea of doing so arose we know not. It is, however, certain that man did not

“Learn of the little nautilus to sail;”

for that this mollusc has no membrane that it can elevate to catch the wind, has been satisfactorily demonstrated. It is manifest, in other ways, that very different vessels from any having sails were first used. The raft, constructed of rude timbers lashed together, would, for example, be devised at an early period. The means employed to this day on the Euphrates must also have been adopted in a very distant age. The kelck is composed of goat or sheep skins, inflated and fastened close together, on which cross-pieces of wood are placed. The skins, of which great care is taken lest they should burst from becoming dry, are examined and inflated afresh during a voyage. Floated down by the strength of the current, with the occasional use of rudely-formed oars, the materials of the raft are sold on the cargo being discharged, while the skins, exhausted of air, are carried back overland, to be used on the next voyage.

The Arabs, male and female, still cross the Euphrates, or pass upon it to a considerable distance, for agricultural and other purposes, by means of inflated skins; which were probably employed by the patriarch Jacob when he fled from Padan-aran, and “carried away all his cattle and all his goods.” In after times armies crossed rivers by inflated skins, and other contrivances. And among the sculptures of Nineveh obtained by Mr. Layard, is one representing three warriors passing a river: one struggles with the current, the others are sustained by inflated skins.

The ark of bulrushes prepared by the parents of Moses for their beloved child, presents another type of ancient modes of conveyance. Egypt is described by the prophet Isaiah as sending “ambassadors by the sea;”

“And in vessels of papyrus on the face of the waters.”

That the ancients were accustomed to make light boats or vessels of this substance is well known. Theophrastus, describing the papyrus as useful for many things, says, “for from this they make vessels,” or ships; while Pliny observes, “from the papyrus they weave vessels.” Herodotus speaks of covered coracles, or basket-boats, their ribs being formed of poplar, united and lined within with reeds, covered without with leather, and worked by two men, each having a paddle, as common in his day. Similar vessels, excepting only that a covering of bitumen is substituted for one of leather, are still to be seen floating on the bosom of the Euphrates. But to these Egyptian art was not restricted. Herodotus describes boats formed of planks laid together in the manner of bricks, and fastened by an outer layer of deals, the joinings of which were stopped up by cement.

Large vessels, capable of performing long and distant voyages, appear also to have been constructed in early times. They were impelled by oars, or by these combined with sails. Not venturing into the high seas, the mariners merely cruised along the coast, so that in stress of weather a port might easily be gained. Slow and tedious were those early voyages, as they could be directed only by an observation of the stars, which a hazy atmosphere would effectually obscure. In winter no progress could be made; the vessel was then laid up in harbor until the return of the sailing season.

VI. Inhabitants of Cities.

If, in conclusion, we turn to the contemplation of man in the city, we shall observe the arts at their greatest elevation. It is worthy of remark that the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, and also of the Nile, as well as of Syria, from the sea-coast eastward to the great desert that parts it from Mesopotamia, were occupied by highly-civilized nations, clothed in fabrics of cotton, linen, and wool; while the grassy, treeless plains, extending from the Arab sea westward, as far as the mouths of the Danube, and along the northern borders of the Caspian and Euxine seas, and the intervening chain of the Caucasus, were traversed by independent tribes, clothed in skins and furs. Commercial intercourse and visits took place, as well as hostile excursions, and thus the manufactures of Babylonia were exchanged for the native productions of the Scythian plains and of the interminable forests on their northern boundary.

The Jews seem to have been precluded by the Mosaic law from the preparation and use of fur; and the Greeks and Romans considered the skins of animals badges of rusticity and barbarism; but the finer kinds of fur were known and esteemed by the nobles of Babylon. Ælian, who wrote about the year 110, states that a certain species of mice are found in the district of Teredon, in Babylonia, the soft skins of which are taken to Persia, where they are sewn together into garments remarkable for their warmth.

Of the use of fur both among civilized and barbarous people there are many traces. Thus we have notices of the employment of the skins of sables, ermine, and squirrels, with various contrivances to produce a variegated surface. The practice is supposed to be of Oriental origin, and the tent of Sapor to supply the earliest instance of this parti-colored arrangement. Tacitus, however, describes the same fashion of variegating furs to have been in use among the German tribes at a still earlier period.

The costume of the people who live in cities attains to the highest elegance, splendor, and gorgeousness of which it is capable. Here we discover all that properly belongs to rank, with the means of appeasing an insatiable vanity. Oriental women, in every age, have been distinguished by a passion for dress, personal decoration constituting one of the chief occupations and pleasures of their life. Variety becomes, therefore, an element of delight as well as splendor. But rare and costly garments are also highly prized by the other sex, who frequently regard an immense wardrobe as indicative of rank and taste.

“Solomon made for himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, and the covering of it of purple;” and the city is traversed by the varied equipages of an opulent people, in which many of the arts are clearly discernible. War-chariots, observable among other nations, were not to be seen among the forces of the Hebrews, whose great men used them chiefly for purposes of state.

Even the tents in which the modern princes of the East often spend the season of summer are arrayed in beauty and magnificence, of which such a fabric might scarcely be deemed susceptible. One belonging to a late king of Persia is said to have cost two millions of money. It was called “the house of gold,” because it was everywhere resplendent with the precious metal. An inscription on the cornice or the antechamber described it as “the throne of the second Solomon.”

The Dewan Khass of the far-famed Shah Allun is a building situated at the upper end of a spacious square, elevated upon a terrace of marble. In former times it was adorned with excessive magnificence. It is about a hundred and fifty feet in length, and forty in breadth. The flat roof is supported by numerous columns of fine white marble, which have been richly ornamented with inlaid flowered work of different colored stones, the cornices and borders having been decorated with a frieze and sculptured work. Formerly the ceiling was encrusted, throughout its whole extent, with a rich foliage of silver. The compartments of the walls were inlaid with the greatest delicacy. Around the exterior of the cornice are the following lines, written in letters of gold, on a ground of white marble—“If there be a paradise upon earth, it is this, it is this.”

In some Oriental edifices, the lower part of the walls is adorned with rich hangings or damask, tinged with the liveliest colors, and investing the apartments “with purpureal gleams.” In the royal garden at Shushan there were “white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble.” Ingenious devices, as wreaths and festoons in stucco and fretwork, are the ornaments of the upper part of the walls. In the days of Jeremiah, we read of apartments “ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion;” and since then, costly and fragrant wood, on which exquisite decorations in colors and gold are displayed, have been frequently employed. Painted tiles or slabs of the finest marble have formed the floors, reminding us of the palace of Ahasuerus, where “the beds,” or couches “were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red and blue, and white and black marble;” and all the furniture of the house was in full accordance with the imperial state of the sovereign.

Some of the edifices of the East are thus associated in our minds with the greatest splendor and magnificence. The choicest marble, granite and porphyry form their walls, columns, and floors; silver and gold supply some of their decorations, while others are adorned with the costliest gems. The effect of light falling on such resplendent materials is indescribably dazzling and imposing. The allusions to such buildings in the prophecies of Isaiah, and the Revelation of “the beloved disciple,” will at once occur to those who are familiar with the Scriptures.

The remains of the departed greatness of Egypt, which the congeniality of its climate has contributed so remarkably to perpetuate, consist generally of places for civil assemblies and religious ceremonies. In Upper or Southern Egypt, the site of almost every memorable city is marked by the ruins of a temple, or palace-temple, which was appropriated to both these purposes. The visitor cannot fail to be struck by the vastness of the edifice, or the solemn air by which its ruins are pervaded. The walls bear upon them the records of the past. Covered with reliefs, which are generally colored, the idols appear receiving the homage of the sovereign who founded the structure, together with the battles, sieges, and other events of the wars, out of the spoils of which the majestic pile was reared. Sometimes the king is portrayed returning as a conqueror in triumph, and dragging a long series of captives of different nations to the feet of the presiding divinity. These pictures frequently cover a large extent of surface, and are crowded with figures in action, executed with great spirit and fidelity; the peculiar features and color of the different people being strictly preserved. Explanatory inscriptions in the hieroglyphics of Egypt accompany these reliefs. Some of these halls are six hundred feet both in length and breadth, and are crowded throughout their entire area with massive columns of majestic height. On first surveying the immense cavern temple at Ipsambul, in Nubia, the spectator might well imagine, from the whiteness of its walls, the sharpness of its figures, their brilliant hues, and especially from the parts where the tracings and first outlines appear, showing that this stupendous edifice was never completed, that the artists had only just left their work. But as his eye falls on the deep, black dust, covering the rocky floor on which he treads, into which have mouldered the doors, the door-posts, and all the inner fittings of the temple, he feels that ages have rolled away since the artisans were numbered among the dead.

The art of design, whether apparent in painting or sculpture, was used in Egypt, as must already have appeared, not to excite the imagination, but to inform the understanding. According to Clement of Alexandria, an Egyptian temple was “a writing,” addressing itself, like a volume, to the mind. Accordingly, their artists imitated nature only so far as to convey the intended idea clearly and precisely; generally they did not aim at beauty and grace. When, however, they wished to give a portrait of any particular individual, we find so exact a representation that the features of several of the Pharaohs may be easily recognized. But it is evident that they were ignorant of perspective, and that they did not feel the necessity of studying light and shade in the use of colors. Analogous to the practice of the Egyptians is that of the Chinese, in reference to the rooms of their dwellings, in our own day; for they are adorned with pictorial characters, conveying wise sayings and moral precepts; combining in the person of one artist the work of the scribe, the painter, and the engraver.

Recent discoveries enable us to call up before the mind Nineveh, that “exceeding great city,” where the arts of life attained their utmost elevation. Passing a ponderous and richly-sculptured gate, we see, at certain distances within the walls, other gates flanked by towers adorned by sculptures, or gigantic figures, as winged bulls or lions. Lofty pyramidal structures arise, which served as watch-towers. Tents, often visible within the walls of Oriental cities, occupy open spaces. Other spaces, without the great public edifices, are covered by private houses, standing in the midst of gardens, and built at a distance from each other, or forming streets, which inclose gardens and even arable land, and stretch out to a vast extent.

Distinguished from all other residences is a palatial edifice: its doorways are formed by gigantic winged lions or bulls, or by figures of guardian deities, and lead into apartments which again open into more distant halls. The pavement of these rooms is of sunburnt bricks, or alabaster slabs, of a color agreeable to the eye; and the ceilings are divided into square compartments, inlaid with ivory, adorned with gold, and richly painted with flowers. The tables, seats, and couches are made of metal and wood, some being inlaid with ivory; the legs of the chairs are tastefully carved, and terminate in the feet of a lion or the hoofs of a bull, made of gold, silver, or bronze.

In the walls of the chambers, as in those of the hall, are alabaster slabs, used as panels, with various scenes depicted upon them, and painted in gorgeous colors. Here appears the colossal figure of a king, in the act of adoring his chief divinity, or of receiving from his eunuch the holy cup; the robes of the sovereign and his attendants being painted with brilliant colors, and adorned with groups of animals, figures and flowers. There is a scene of a different character: the king, attended by his eunuchs and warriors, is entering into alliance with other monarchs, or receiving the homage of his captives. And beneath this range there is still a different spectacle: the siege—the battle—the triumph, are all sculptured by the artist’s hand, and decorated with rich and glowing tints, while under each picture are engraved in characters filled up with bright copper, the descriptions of the various objects that are portrayed.

But as we survey building after building, the vast city teems with life. Myriads of rational and intelligent beings occupy its habitations and crowd its streets. Here are the architects, of consummate skill and taste—the builders who can rear edifices of the loftiest proportions and of real grandeur—the sculptors, who cannot only decorate with exquisite ability, but chronicle to coming ages events of the highest interest in the annals of Assyria—and the painters, who array their productions with the liveliest and brightest hues. Here, too, are the artisans, who work with ingenuity, taste, and skill, in wood, silver, copper, gold, lead, ivory, and glass—supplying the costume of the people, the furniture of their houses, their chariots, and missiles of war, and all that is required for the comfort, indulgence, luxury, defense, and enterprise of Nineveh’s vast, energetic, and prosperous population.

But imagination only calls up the spectacle.

“Her walls are gone; her palaces are dust;

The desert is around her, and within

Like shadows have the mighty passed away!

So let the nations learn, that not in wealth,

Nor in the grosser pleasures of the sense,

Nor in the glare of conquest, nor the pomp

Of vassal kings and tributary lands,

Do happiness and lasting power abide;

That virtue unto man’s best glory is,

His strength and truest wisdom; and that guilt,

Though for a season it the heart delight,

Or to worst deeds the bad man do make strong,

Brings misery yet, and terror, and remorse;

And weakness and destruction in the end.”[^[2]]

There is yet, however, one art, to which, in conclusion, a brief reference must be made; it is that by which thought is embodied in written and “winged words.” We look with interest on the historic paintings of the Mexicans, on the hieroglyphics of Egypt, and on the cuneiform characters of Assyria and Persia; but we must not forget the fact, that the people of Israel—to whom we have frequently had occasion to refer throughout this paper—are distinguished from all other nations by the authentic history which they possess of their origin and of the most remarkable events of their subsequent progress, as well as by the predictions that regard their future lot. The most ancient books in the world were written, under Divine inspiration, by the hand of Moses; and Herodotus, “the father of history,” was a contemporary of Malachi, the last of the prophets.

In general literature Egypt attained the earliest pre-eminence. To that country many went athirst for wisdom, while none of its children sought it in other climes. At Thebes was its library of sacred books, over which was the inscription, “The Remedy for the Soul;” while the hieroglyphics above the heads of “Thoth” and “Safk,” as deciphered by Champollion, denote that the one was the “Lady of Letters,” and the other the “President of the Library.” Where, then, are we to look for the origin and early history of the arts associated with letters? Before the time of the patriarch Abraham the Egyptians were furnished with the scroll, or papyrus, and with the pen dipped in ink, with which its characters were inscribed. All the implements required for the process are exhibited in pictures of the remotest date. Even the Arabic numerals are older than any of the pyramids.

Small as is the number of our alphabetic signs, they are proved to be capable of more than six hundred thousand millions of billions of different horizontal arrangements. What a power is thus entrusted to the hand at the dictate of the mind—a power which, whether its range, its variety, or its permanence be considered, is alike unparalleled! When the costliest fabrics are moth-eaten, and the colors of the picture have fled, and the marble statue is defaced, and the proud and towering edifice is hurled into ruins, the written words may live, retaining all their power to strike on the mind, to touch the inmost chords of the soul. “Words,” it has been said, “are the only things that last for ever.” “The images of men’s wits,” says Lord Bacon, “remain unmaimed in books for ever, exempt from the injuries of time, because capable of perpetual renovation. Neither can they properly be called images, because they cast forth seeds in the minds of men, raising and producing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages; so that if the invention of a ship was thought so noble and wonderful, which transports riches and merchandise from place to place, and consociates the most distant regions in participation of their fruits and commodities—how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships passing through the vast seas of time, connect the remotest ages of wits and inventions in mutual traffic and correspondence!”

To write is therefore the noblest of the arts of life, and fearful is the responsibility of its exercise. Happy is he who constantly remembers it; and whose maturest thoughts, fixed in the palpable and deathless form of words, enlighten, elevate, and bless, even when the verdant grass is flourishing over his ashes.

[2]	Atherstone.

TO A WHIP-POOR-WILL

SINGING IN A GRAVE-YARD.

———

BY E. ANNA LEWIS.

———

Why, melancholy singer,

Dost thou hover here at eve,

Like one who loves to linger

Around the dead and grieve?

Why, in the night-time only,

Do we hear thy pensive lay?

Why art thou ever lonely—

Why shunnest the garish day?

Art thou minstrel born from Heaven,

Who comest to our earth,

At the silent hour of even,

To mock the voice of mirth;

And to soothe the sad and weary,

Who steal away to weep,

In the church-yard lone and dreary,

Or by the mountain-steep?

Art thou spirit of a maiden,

That restless roam’st the air,

With sorrow heavy laden,

And breathing thy despair?

Or one loved, but long departed,

That nightly dost draw near,

To soothe the broken-hearted,

Who are weeping, pining here?

I know not, solemn singer,

What thy deep grief may be;

Nor why thou here dost linger,

But oft thou seem’st like me—

A lonely one each morrow,

Apart from all the throng,

Whose deep and hidden sorrow

Bursts forth in plaintive song.

HESPERIUS—A VISION.

———

BY WM. ALBERT SUTLIFFE.

———

“Whither, sweet lady, whither? the night is chill;

Weary and worn, say, whither tend thy feet?”

“Stranger! I come o’er moor and steepy hill,

To hear the beat

Of ever-toiling billows—and to sail

The midnight deep with daring canvas spread;

To seek some isle where storm may not prevail—

Where tombs are never shaped for loved ones dead—

Where palmy summits lay

Their shadows in clear fountains all the day,

Where lilies lave

Their shining tresses in the resting wave;

Thither, kind stranger, through the night at rest,

I chase the stars down-sloping to the west.”

“Lady, sweet lady, let me guard thee thither!

The wave is treacherous, shivered oft by storm,

And many an ambushed wind quick-bringeth cloudy weather,

And towering thunder-mist with secret lightnings warm;

Many unseemly rocks love human prey,

And devious currents often thrust astray;

A thousand maelstroms sing harsh Runic rhyme,

And sturdy gales beleaguer any time.

Let us be twin in hope, in weal or wo,—

Sweet lady, let me go!”

She smiled a quiet smile, and “Come,” she said—

We entered in, our scanty sail we spread;

And as thin mists that creep

Out of a dingle deep,

Where zephyrs dally,

And, wind-caught, float across the dewy lawn,

When comes the dawn;

So we before the breeze, that then did rally

Its powers to bear us on;

While she, wrapt up as from the night’s cool kiss,

Lay like a chrysalis.

Westward we bore through that propitious night—

Through the slow-creeping hours the moonshine lay

Upon her alabaster breast and tresses bright,

Like furbished silver—Houri gone astray

From Mahomet’s heaven seemed she—gloriously

Shone her deep eyes, till down the silvered west

Pale Dian hid her shield in Ocean’s breast.

And now Apollo

Sprang, golden-sandaled, from his orient bed,

And quick his upward wonted path ’gan follow

While westward still we sped.

Apollo clomb

The star-deserted dome,

And, at the zenith sat, a noontide king;

There with his outspread hands,

Flaring upon the lands,

Watched our white sail in the wind shivering.

Apollo sank

Adown the west, where many a cloudy bank

Waited his coming, as the down, a king—

While careful shades ’gan clamber,

Out of the night’s dim chamber,

Night of the many eyes and dusky wing.

“Farewell, Apollo!”

The lady sang, “we follow

Thee to thy home, thy golden-curtained West;

Amid the occident seas,

Seeking Hesperides,

Floating, we chase thee o’er the rippled breast

Of Ocean in his rest.

“Come Venus from thy lair,

Up through the stirless air,

Quivering with Love’s young heat and sweet despair;

As thou wast wont to quiver

Upon my childhood’s river,

Where all the pendulous willows thrilled to bear

The breeze, as men do, care.

“Come out ye many stars!

The liberal night unbars

Your doors impalpable, that ye may see,

And gaze a twinkling fill

On human good and ill,

Till daybreak’s irksome goad compelleth ye

Behind the azure sea.

“We come, we come,

Seeking an islet home,

Whose breezes all are balm, whose seas are calm;

Where, when the eyes grow dim,

Fair myths forever swim

About the inward vision, and no harm

E’er spreads a palsying arm.

“Here would we lie

Amid this tremulous beauty till we die;

Here would descry

Through roofing orange-boughs the pleasant sky,

And silently decay in rapturous ease,

When death so please.”

She ceased; and now we slid along a sea

Of tinted wavelets, such as ne’er before

Had blest my seeing; on one side a shore

Slipt past us backward, thickly over-bowed

With flowered shrubs and trees, all such as flee

Harsh Boreal bitings where the North blows loud.

And now a quay we neared, whence led aback

Full many a leafy-hung, nymph-haunted track.

Then, slow-ascending a white marble stair,

A grove we entered in, all carpeted

With rarest moss, and every way there led

Dim paths ’mid obelisks and fountains fair,

And sculptured graces, and some streamlets fled

All day and night down to the circling sea,

Singing fore’er in music’s earnest glee.

Up ’mid the boughs the zephyrs went a-playing,

Making the stars like swinging cressets seem;

And from the east came silver arrows straying

Of Dian at her moonrise; while a stream

Of melody, the Bulbul, rose-embowered,

Incessant through the dew-tipt leaflets showered,

Sweeter than any dream.

No earthly night,

Mantled with dismal light

This paradise; but a broad lovely moon,

Made a glad twilight here,

Unsoiled by any fear,

Or harsh intruding doubt, that comes too soon,

And lays our bright-eyed hopes upon a cypress bier.

Anon, emerging from the woody maze,

There sudden sprang upon the pleased vision,

Glimpses of far Elysian,

Green meadows glowing through a golden haze,

And far-meandering walks, that rose and fell

’Twixt bedded asphodel.

And purling brooks went leaping here and there

Over the flowered slopes all in a foam,

Pealing like vesper bells that win the prayer—

Or silver voices calling loved ones home;

And many bees enringed the fragrant thyme,

And windy melodies stirred every full-leaved lime.

Here flowers grew in circles round and round,

With broad, rich petals for queen’s gathering,

There fountains sprang up with a clear, quick sound

From vases, such as Babylonian king

Ne’er saw the like of; and their spray did fling

O’er pure white statues having marble care

Over the showered pearls and moistened air.

And ever as we past there ever grew

Wondrous variety to stir the sense,

Begetting impotence

Of fond expression, but a rapture true

Claspt all the spirit in a dreamy fold

Of ecstasy and gold.

Until, through shady ranges of tall trees,

Threaded by every breeze,

And well-determined beds of every hue,

Orange, vermeil, and blue,

A central, templed hill, was near espied,

Down-slanting to the sea on every side,

With greensward terraces and blooming meet,

Sloped even to our feet.

Over the lawns were Dryads tripping far,

And Hamadryads peeping from the wood,

And now and then a Naiad, like a star;

And all were clothed in a merry mood—

For not a care there was o’er which to solely brood.

Upon the summit, soothed with lasting ease,

Sat the Hesperides

Beneath the orchard trees—

Sipping the beakered nectar seasoned well,

And temperate hydromel;

And tasting luscious fruitage, such as fell

From boughs ’neath which the scaly dragon rolled,

Lay glaring fold in fold.

“O can we herein bide!” the lady said,

“I feel my head doth swim—

My weary eyes are dim—

With too much pleasure is the sense o’erfed;

How can we herein bide,

And not some ill betide!”

Then said a voice, “Ye may not herein stay!

But immortality

May here incloséd be;

And ye are mortals—ye must hence away,

Or ere the night unwombs the clearer day.

“And ye must wait the riving of the chain

That gives surcease of pain,

And linger lone upon the evening shore

Till ye be ferried o’er.

But now the nymphs shall cease their merriment,

Ere yet your stay be spent,

And music shall be struck—shall charm and please

You to contented ease.”

Then dropt a quiet o’er the enhancéd glee,

As when a Boreal night dusks o’er a frigid sea.

Next grew a hymning sonnet, worded well,

Up ’mid the oaken boles, whose listening green

Tented the Dryad scene,

Wavering across the silence with a spell

Worthy to sink the yesty broil of waves,

And bid huge winds creep into airless graves,

In barred Æolian caves.

“We sing, we sing,

The sweet lyre fingering

On every vibrant string;

The sisters of the sea,

Whose silken dynasty

Holds us in light, and long, and glad captivity.

“We sing, we sing,

The sweet lyre fingering

With sound like Hermes’ wing—

Of nectarous draughts and deep,

Wooing the gods asleep,

What time the crystal honey-dews of heaven weep.

“We sing, we sing,

The sweet lyre fingering

Till windless woodlands ring;

How rich the lofty chime,

When gods converse in rhyme,

And far Olympian peaks reëcho all the time.

“We sing, we sing,

The sweet lyre fingering

With notes that ever cling,

The blue and airy dome

That floors the godly home

Where thunderous Jove is throned, and Here dwells at home.

“We sing, we sing,

With silver vibrating

Of every tuneful string,

The effervescing wine,

In beakers most divine,

By Hebe overbrimmed for whom the half-gods pine.

“Ah, well! ah, well!

Our island home we tell,

Where peace for aye doth dwell;

Where, from the drowsy deep,

A gilded mist doth creep

Up all the sanded shore to shrine us in our sleep.

“Away, away!

Our fingers cease to play

For alien ears our lay;

But, by the sea’s low moan,

Sportive we go alone;

Our lyre’s notes are dead—our measured hymn is done.”

Then died the hymning sonnet, worded well,

Adown the oaken boles that pillared all the dell.

* * * * *

Then all a day and night athwart the sea—

A day and night complete we backward sped—

And as the dawn grew red—

Our half-moon prow slid upward easily

Upon the margent of the ocean foam

That murmured by our home.

THE PEDANT:

OR CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE SPENT PARTLY IN CAROLINA.

———

BY HENRY HOLM, ESQ.

———

(Continued from page 24.)

CHAPTER V.

And as they oft had heard apart,

Sweet lessons of her forceful art,

Each, for Madness ruled the hour,

Would prove his own expressive power.

Collins.

The reason why I came home without completing the tour of Europe was that my worthy father died insolvent. The little severalty which I had from my grandfather Winston, was in that most unmanageable of realties, which Randolph of Roanoke used to describe as the designation of a Virginian estate—“plenty of woolly-heads, plenty of gullies, but ne’er a shilling of coin.” I managed, however, by favor of a young friend, an attaché of the Marshall and Pinckney legation at Paris, to go freely into the Low Countries, and as far up the Rhine as Heidelberg and the Schwarzenwald.

At the borders of Holland and Germany I lingered awhile, in the flat country near the Lippe, in the house of a licentiate in physic, who was about to emigrate to Philadelphia, and who was eager to learn English. In my turn I took some lessons in German. Pfeiffers was a smoker, and so was I. He was a violinist, and I played the flute. He loved to read aloud, and I loved to loll and listen, among the lindens of a low-lying but verdant village on the Rhine.

The book which engaged him just then, was a publication of Goethe’s, translated from Diderot, entitled Rameau’s Nephew. I mean Rameau the great musical composer. The original French I could never alight on; but the version was irresistibly comic, as I find on reperusal many years since. Diderot used to frequent the Café de la Régence, then as now, the resort of chess-players. There he found Légal, Philidor, and Mayot. And there he encountered the Nephew aforesaid, an odd mixture of pride and meanness, a man of drunken eloquence, venomous sarcasm, and music-mad enthusiasm.

“Dialogue.

“Ah, Monsieur Philosophe, so I meet you again! What are you after here among idlers? Do you likewise lose your time in peg-pushing? (Thus he denominated chess and draughts.)

“I.—No, but when I have nothing else to do, it is a momentary diversion to see whether they move aright.

“He.—A singular diversion, indeed. Leave out Philidor and Légal—the others know nothing.

“I.—And Monsieur de Bussi; what say you to him?

“He.—As chess-player, that he is what Mlle. Clairon is as actress; both know as much of their play as one can learn.

“I.—You are hard to please. I observe that none but preëminent men meet your approbation.

“He.—Ay, at chess and draughts, poetry, eloquence, music, and such like trumperies. Who wants mediocrity in these cases?

“I.—I almost agree with you. But many must attempt these arts in order that the man of genius may overtop them. Thenceforth he is one among many. But I have not seen you for an age. I never think of you but when I see you. Yet I am rejoiced whenever I recover you. What have you been about?

“He.—That which you and the others are about—good, bad, and naught. I have moreover, hungered and eaten if occasion served. Then I was sometimes athirst, and often drank; yes, and my beard grew and I was shaved.

“I.—There you were wrong; for the beard is all you lack in order to be a sage.

“He.—Quite so! My brow is large and wrinkled, my eye flashes, my nose is high, my cheek is broad, my eyebrows brown and heavy, the mouth well-disclosed, lips well-turned, and the face square. Take notice, this huge chin, if covered by a long beard, would look well in brass or marble.

“I.—Beside Cæsar, Marcus Aurelius, Socrates?

“He.—No! I would rather stand betwixt Diogenes and Phryne. I am as shameless as one, and would gladly visit the other.

“I.—You are always in good case?

“He.—Yes, usually; but not particularly so to-day.

“I.—What! with this rotundity of Silenus, and a countenance—

“He.—A countenance that— Do you consider that the bitter humor which shrivels up the uncle, makes the nephew fat?

“I.—Apropos! Your uncle. Do you see him often?

“He.—Yes, often passing in the street.

“I.—Does he render you no service?

“He.—If he serves any body, it is without knowing it. He is a philosophe in his way; he thinks only of himself, and the rest of the world he regards as his bellows-hand. His wife and daughter may die for all that he cares, provided the bells that toll them to their grave ring in just twelfths and seventeenths. A lucky man is he! and I know how to reckon this quality in your men of genius, that they are good at one thing, and over and above this nothing. Nothing know they of being citizens, fathers, mothers, kinsmen or friends. Inter nos, one would crave to be like them; only wishing that the growth should not become too common. We must have men—not men of genius. No, surely no! These are they who turn the world upside down, and the folly of individuals runs so high at present that one can’t repress them without manœuvre.—No! the monk’s wisdom, in Rabelais, is the true wisdom for our peace, and the peace of others. To do duty, as far as may be, to speak well of the prior, and to let the world wag as it will. And things go right well, for the mass is content with this. If I knew history, I would prove to you, that all the ills on earth come of your men of genius; but history I know none, because I know nothing. Confound me if I ever learnt any thing, and I find myself none the worse off. One day I was at the table of a royal minister, who had mind enough for a dozen. He proved, as plain as two and two make four, that nothing is more useful to nations than lies, and nothing more hurtful than truth. I can’t recall his argument, but it followed as clear as a sunbeam, that men of genius are utterly abominable, and that if a man discerns in his child a token of this perilous gift of nature, he should strangle or drown him.

“I.—And yet the people who deem thus of genius all think they possess it.”

Such is an introduction to this odd creation, on which the merry Frenchman dwells for a hundred and fifty pages. Some of the passages which my host gave with energy, between the gusts of his meerschaum, are altogether untranslatable. And yet am I tempted to essay one of the vagaries of the mad satirist.

“I.—There is some reason in all that you say. [He had been enlarging on the French music of that period.]

“He.—Reason? So much the better. That comes seasonably. Think you I am like the musician in the cul-de-sac, as my uncle showed himself? For my part, I make a hit. A collier ’prentice shall talk better of his trade, than an academy and all the Duhamels on earth.

“Here he paced up and down, murmuring airs out of the Ile des Fous, the Peintre amoureux de son modèle, the Maréchal ferrant, the Plaideuse—while ever and anon he would stretch hands and eyes and cry, ‘Is that fine? Heavens, is that fine! Can a man have two ears on his head and ask such a question?’ Upon which he would become sentimental again, sing softly, and then elevate his voice as he grew more passionate. Then came grimaces, twists of visage, and contortions of body. Said I to myself, ‘Well, he is losing his wits, and some new scene is coming.’ And in fact he burst out afresh, singing, Je suis un pauvre miserable—Aspettar e non venire, etc. etc. He collected and confounded thirty airs, Italian, French, tragic, comic, of every sort and character. Now, with a deep basso he would sink down to the shades; then, contracting his throat, he would rend the heights of air with a pipe-like note, imitating with gait, pose, and motions, different musical personages, by turns raving, melted, beseeching and derisive. Now he is a little maid, weeping, and he represents all her petty blandishments. Then he is a priest, a king, a tyrant; he threatens, prays or rages—again, he is a hearkening slave. He grows tender, he despairs, he bewails and laughs, always in tune, in time, in full sense of the words, character and action.

“All the chess-players had left their boards and gathered around him; the windows of the café were besieged outside by passers-by attracted by the noise. The laughter was a peal which threatened the roof. But he perceived nothing, but ran on, carried away by such an alienation of mind and an enthusiasm akin to mania, that it is doubtful whether he would have come to himself, or have to be thrown into a hackney coach and carried to a mad-house singing a snatch from the lamentations of Jomelli.

“Anon, with the utmost precision, truth and incredible warmth, he repeated the finest passages of that portion; the beautiful obligato recitative, where the prophet depicts the desolation of Jerusalem, till he drew a flood of tears; there was not a dry eye. There was nothing more to be desired in tenderness of singing, or force of expression and of grief. He dwelt especially on the places where the artist most evinced himself the great maestro. He abandoned the vocal part, flew to the instrument, and then returned in an instant to singing, so hurrying this transition, that the connection and unity of the whole were maintained. Was I astonished at him? Yes, I was astonished. Was I moved to sympathy? I was, indeed, so moved, but with a dash of the comic mingling with the emotion and modifying its nature.

“But you would have broken into laughter at the way in which he imitated the different instruments. With swoln, out-puffed cheeks, and a rough, obtuse tone, he represented horns and bassoons; with a crying, nasal tone the oboes; with incredible quickness he hurried his voice to mimic stringed-instruments, trying most exactly to give their respective sounds; piping for the piccolos, cooing for the flutes, screaming, chanting with the looks of a maniac, and representing solo the danseurs and danseuses, the men-singers and women-singers, a whole orchestra, a whole opera-house, splitting himself into twenty different roles, hastening, retarding, with the mien of one ’rapt, with eyes winking and mouth in a foam.

“The heat was overpowering, and the moisture, following the furrows of his brow and the length of his cheeks, mingled with his hair-powder, and drizzled the upper part of his coat in gutters. What did he not attempt? He cried, he laughed, he sighed, he gave looks of tenderness, quiet and rage. Now it was a woman, sinking in wo, a wretch yielding to despair, a lofty temple, or birds losing themselves in the silence of eve. Then it was brooks of water, gurgling in some cool and lonesome place; or a torrent dashing down from mountains; a tempest; the wailing of dying men, mingled with the whistling of the wind; the roar of thunder; then night with its darkness, stillness and shade—he even represented silence by sounds. He was entirely beside himself. Exhausted by effort, like a man awakened from sleep or a long swoon, he remained motionless, heavy and stunned. He cast glances around, like one bewildered who tries to recognize the place in which he comes to himself. Awaiting the return of his forces and his senses, he mechanically dries his face. Like one who, awaking, finds his bed surrounded by a great number of persons, in utter forgetfulness and deeply unconscious of all he has been doing, he exclaims at the first moment—‘Now, Messieurs, what is this? Why this mirth? What are you wondering at? What is the matter?’ . . . Then he adds, ‘This is what they call being a musician! But, indeed, some of Lulli’s songs are not to be despised. The scene J’attendrai l’aurore can’t be bettered, unless you alter the words. I challenge any man. No man shall condemn certain passages of Campra, his military marches, the violin-pieces of my uncle, his gavottes, his priestly and opera parts, Pâles flambeaux, Nuits plus affreuses que les ténèbres. . . . Dieu du Tartare, Dieu de l’oubli.’ . . . (Here he strengthened his voice and sustained the tone with power. Neighbors thrust their heads through the windows; we put our fingers in our ears.) ‘For this,’ said he, ‘one must have lungs, a great organ, and plenty of air. But Ascension is arrived, Lent and the Three Kings are over, and yet they do not know what to set to music, nor consequently what benefits the composer. Lyric poesy is yet unborn; but they already approach it, if they give head enough to Pergolesi, to the Saxon, the Terradeglids, Traetta and others; and if they only read Metastasio often enough, they have already attained it.’”

——

CHAPTER VI.

Ah! plus que jamais aimons-nous,

Et vivons et mourons en des lieux si doux.

Les Amants Magnifiques.

The day when one who has been a scribbler begins to resort to dictation, he loses half the pleasure of authorship. No one could desire, indeed, a lovelier amanuensis than my grand-daughter Alice, who now sets down my reminiscences, as I walk up and down the gallery of the long, overshadowed house, smoking my pipe, and uttering what I hope will be considered harmless gossip. Alice might justly blush, if I should make her pen her own praises; so, while she takes pity on my failing eyesight and my cheragra, I will respect her bashful fears.

We have had a house full of company, such as Carolina mansions glory in. Carriages, filled with happy fair ones, under conduct of gay fellows careering alongside, on young horses of great pedigree, have passed away in such number that my plain, but spacious old tumble-down house seems quite a solitude. Of white faces, there are none but Alice’s and mine; for I count not the overseer and his swarming cottage, half a mile off, just beyond the copse of chinquapins. The lawn around the dwelling was laid out as I now behold it, about the year 1750. My father, who kept a diary, has recorded the planting of those towering catalpas, which in June were covered with tropical luxuriance of blossom, and now hang heavy with the verdure of their broad, damp, succulent leaves. The oaks were left from a primitive forest. Three lofty pines mark the spot for the distant traveler. If I could but prevent unsightly gullies of reddish earth, and could coax the scanty grass to mat itself English fashion, I should envy no one his surroundings. But if we have not the smooth, close-shaven green of Christ Church Meadow or Windsor Park, we have a balmy atmosphere and a gorgeous Flora and vocal hawthorn thickets, and dewy odors, such as are unknown in colder climes. Leaving poetry out of the question, our mocking-bird (a misleading name) is not inferior to the nightingale. He is also a songster of the night, and in these regions continues his visits through a longer portion of the year than his transatlantic rival. The mighty fragrance of our magnolia, though oppressive near at hand, comes mitigated on the evening breeze from the river lowlands. Our groves are draped with a thousand fantastic hangings of vines and parasitic plants; and cool springs break forth in more than one spot on this wide, half-tilled estate, which threatens, year by year, to slip out of the family.

Ah me! When I look over my broad acres, some in rustling corn, some in bristling wheat, and some in rank tobacco, omitting tracts of old-field thickly set with volunteer pines, and prairies of stubbly broomsedge, I find every part indissolubly connected with that relation of master and servant, which is an abomination to Mr. Bull and Master Jonathan. I have read the great writers on this head, from Clarkson down. I have familiarized myself with the portrait of the slaveholder, strong in colors of crimson, and illustrated with borders of whips and manacles. But, for my life, I cannot see in yonder cheval-glass any resemblance. Alice, dear child, does not discern in my face any decided lines of truculence; and the very Africans, who have grown old beside me, manifest no dread, but rather cling to my tottering form with a loving regard that is almost filial. I turn my eyes to them, but they are not like the pictures on certain books and hand-bills. Sometimes they are hard-worked; so am I. Sometimes they have felt the burden of bad seasons; so have I. But they are not haggard, they are not melancholy, and they are not malignant. I see the smoke from their little hamlet of clustered houses (for the negro loves his fire at all seasons;) I hear the resonant laugh echoing among the rocks, and shall shortly hear the banjo and the chorus. In bed and board they are better off than the peasants I have seen in the Scotch Highlands, in Savoy, and in Normandy. Of physical suffering they have less than soldiers and sailors. In morals and religion they surpass their free brethren in Philadelphia and New York. I wish in my heart they were all free—if it would make them any happier. But I would no sooner cast them on the wide world, in their actual condition, than I would disperse a family of babes, proclaim a republic in Madagascar, or tear a tortoise from the bondage of his shell. It was not I who stole them from Africa; they were born on the same lands where we live together; and there is not a sunlight or a shade falling on my lot, which does not in due proportion cheer or sadden theirs. Let us call another case, Alice! This philanthropic mystery is too deep for my decrepit wits.

——

CHAPTER VII.

“Ilion in Tyriam transfer felicius urbem.”

Ovid—Heroides.

Philadelphia was the city to which Gottlieb Pfeiffer was bound; and after a tedious beating up stream from the Capes of Delaware, we saw its neat brick rows, its trim rectangles, and its lone steeple, in one of the last years of the last century. Pfeiffer was always talking of a certain regenerator of education whom he called Basedow—a type of Pestalozzi and Fellenberg, only with a dash of crazyhood, and a streak of jacobinism. My young German was going to a village called Germantown, I forget how many miles from the city; where his uncle was a leader among the sectaries called Mennonites, or vulgarly Menneeses. He was a very Quixote in education, and was about to rear the tender youth without bench, birch, or berating, and almost without book. He was to teach more Socratico out of doors, by sheer talk, along the romantic Wissahiccon and the slopes of Chestnut Hill. I gave him my adieux, as he sallied out on his first lesson, with a covey of younglings under his guidance. Poor fellow! he was carried off by the yellow fever.

The Philadelphia which I remember was a sweet and gentle city. Many a boy and girl was then to be met, in all the rigor of plain dress, pacing to Arch Street Meeting. Shade trees were abundant in the great streets. The Chestnut Street Theatre was still called the “New Theatre.” Morris’s famous house was still visible; you got into the country a few hundred yards westward of the old prison; the Dock draw-bridge was in its glory; and many rows of houses in Front street were chequered with glazed brick and adorned with porch-benches. There was a soothing, umbrageous quietude in those broad, well paved stretches of Third street, where tall old fashioned mansions seemed to retire a little under spreading elms, in dignified coolness. I am afraid I should not know the places again. The calm and stillness of Penn’s spirit was yet hovering over the town, with a shade and a natural grace which have long since been scared away by steam-wagons and engine-campaigns. But what was all this to a bewildered creature, who had gained glimpses of the old world before he had studied the new; who had gone over sea dreaming that he was rich, and had come back assured that he was poor; who had been ill-taught and was nevertheless to redeem his patrimony by labors beginning in a log school-house.

——

CHAPTER VIII.

“And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,

That one small head could carry all he knew;

But past is all his fame: the very spot

Where many a time he triumph’d, is forgot.”

Goldsmith.

In a country where so many hundreds of eminent men have begun public life by schoolmastering, it would be a great piece of affectation in me, if I should employ any deprecatory expressions, or apologize for any determination to repair losses by “taking a school.” The only apology which now seems necessary, is for the presumption of dreaming that by such an occupation any man could make money. In truth, I knew then as well as I know now, that school keeping was not a specific for raising the wind, but I did not know as well as I know now, that it was not in public esteem a literary profession. Though not learned I was fond of books, and took to teaching as I once fondly thought of taking to book selling, because I fancied it would bring me into connections with the wisdom of past ages.

My schoolhouse was on the edge of a pine forest, a few hundred yards from where a brawling springhead burst out of the embankment of rock, some miles from any human habitation. It was not favored with any extensive distant prospects. Could I have perched with the crows which abounded there on the top of some eminent tree, I might have seen the broad but turbid Roanoke, sweeping its heavy tide around a neighboring bluff. But we were shut in to forest scenes. No one who has lived among them can forget the moaning sound made by even a gentle wind among the great branches of the pines; or the solitude formed by their dark surrounding shroud; or the mosaic of sunlight and shade on the earth when rays break through the network of boughs. But the monotony was oppressive, and I sighed for those lighter and varied traits of nature, which belong to a less primeval state of the world. In quiet hours, the wild-turkey’s cry would be heard in the brake; the shrill red-bird, and the shy wood-lark were scarcely ever wanting; and several species of squirrel made no stranger of me, but dropped nut-shells from the hickory over the roof of my academy.

Take a view of the aforesaid seat of learning. The hour is noon. You might take this long house of logs for a châlet in the Emmenthal, if it were not for certain plain indications of another climate. There is a hum of bees through a thousand vines and dogwoods. The song of birds has lulled at this hour of heat, except perhaps the wearisome repetition of his double note by the chewink. But this intermission brings out more fully the music of the brook as it murmurs over the pebbles. The “scorpions”—start not, gentle reader at this southern name of the poor lacerta—peep round the gnarled bole of the pine, where the turpentine reflects the burning ray. Two or three switch-tailed horses are tethered in the oasis, ready to carry home double or triple loads of the young academicians. Hats, sunbonnets, and even coats, are hung upon the alder branches. Under the brow of the rock is a row of dinner baskets; and two or three jugs of milk are immersed in the darkest, coolest corner of the spring. Two fiddles and a flute are hid away among the broad leaves of a grape vine that clambers up the bank. All this will be obscure to such as have never gone to an “old-field school.” Inside, the scene is more lively but less idyllic. By counting several who never appeared, I think I made my school to number fifteen, as a maximum. Four or five short wooden forms, with some sloping boards for desks, and a straw-bottomed chair for the master, made up the compliment of furniture; for I scarcely reckon a churn-like vessel at the door, duly toted on the head of a laughing negress, every half-hour, and emptied by two or three gourds with fantastic handles.

One thing is certain—I was as autocratic as Nicholas or Crusoe. My voice was the sole code of laws and often the text-book. The system was the sic volo, sic jubeo. The hour of beginning was denoted by my clattering up the pebbly path on my black steed, Rhinoceros. This dispersed the squads around the spring, and broke up the concert under the alders. Little Nanny Lee, who was the Jenny Lind of our community, would sometimes carol away after my ferula had given its three knocks; but we soon fell into places. Ours was a loud school. There was no rubric enjoining silence. There was no reading to one’s self. Hark! the grand overture is performed by the simultaneous play of tenore and treble instruments. One piping voice is rehearsing the alphabet and another the “twenty pence is one and eight-pence;” another is reading of one who unrighteously ascended the apple tree and was experimented on by fair words, grass, and other missiles. A croak between boy and man, is galloping over the quadrupedante putrem sonitu; while Mr. Blaney (we always called him Mister,) is in a dignified soliloquy over the trigonometrical survey of a polygonal field, with half-a-score of instruments laid out before him. If my ear serves me, there is a sotto voce addition of uncommanded recitations, concerning cats-cradles, tit-tat-to, and jack-straws.

Scorn not—O ye, who court the muse in Gothic quadrangles, and alcoved libraries, where the light colors your folio through “storied window, richly dight”—scorn not, the lowly lessons of the Red Swamp School-house! Its windows were not all glazed, nor were the crannies of its logs all stopped; but the sun has seldom broken in on brighter faces than some that were radiant in that little company. Though a few were barefoot (how otherwise could they have waded for hours in the rippling stream!) a few were the children of wealth. Among them was one who has since held the ear of a senate. And among them was one—alas, that she should have had me for a master!—who made deeper wounds than she ever knew. But Judith—thou shall not have thy cruelty exposed!

——

CHAPTER IX.

“’Tis true, he has a spark just come from France,

But then, so far from beau—why, he talks sense!”

Farquhar.

Riding was an accomplishment among the Romans, as it is in England and some parts of America; but in the South it is one of the necessaries of life. The bareheaded negro child mounts all the colts in the pasture, strains his horse over boundless meads, recking little of falls upon the yielding earth, which indeed seldom occur, and clings to his seat with the tenacity of a limpet. Before he has arrived at the dignity of the hat, he has learned to swim rivers and play the feats of a Centaur. My young master is not slow to practice in the same school, so that the cavalry has had some of its most daring and elegant riders from this part of the Union. I can no longer throw my leg over a saddle; but I still recall the flush with which, accompanied by gallant comrades, I swept through forests, which to an unaccustomed eye had seemed impassable, or, stooping low, pierced the tangle of a brake, up from the basin of some low and deeply shaded stream. For years did I look to the grooming of my spirited Rhinoceros, who repaid the attention by a docility which concealed itself under a show of perverseness.

The long evenings of summer found me sallying on rapid expeditions to the estates of my father’s friends; and I passed more nights in such hospitable mansions than in my own humble lodgings. Hospitality is the law of the land. Where towns are rare and newspapers infrequent, and where even the mail in those days came only once a week, it was doing a generous favor to enter a neighbor’s doors for a long visit, the host would be out before I could dismount, and sometimes a bevy of ladies clustered at the door.

Let me tell the truth. On looking back I perceive that while a flow of unimpeded talk, often prompted by large and capricious reading, made me welcome to every circle, I was, nevertheless, by no means successful in my personal overtures to the reigning sex. It was mortifying to me to observe, that many a roystering bumpkin, full of health and ignorance, made his suit in less time and with fewer embarrassments than I. Even my voyages and travels were of little avail. Indeed, in a self-contained community, where every thing goes by clanship and family tradition, and where the sight of a foreigner is commonly the signal for a joke, there is less éclat in foreign travel, than in seaports and great cities. I was glad, therefore, to fall back on county-connection. My father had married into a distinguished family, who, though poor, could hold up their heads. One of my uncles was high sheriff, and my cousin was in Congress. Revolutionary officers were still living who were of my kin. And I enjoyed a pretty free access to what are somewhat offensively called the first families.

After all I was known to be a poor schoolmaster, and suspected—as I now think, justly, of being a pedant. It would be both sad and comical, if I were to record my experiences as a teacher; the plans I dreamed over; the schedules I copied on large paper; the attempts to make the big boys talk Latin; the experiments in physics which burst my retorts and burnt my fingers; the amazement of parents and the fun of children. I verily believe there was not a more chimerical or less useful teacher, south of Mason’s and Dixon’s line. Lessons went to leeward, while I was drifting away after a project of a new Latin Grammar. The primers were made into boats and cocked-hats, while I invented a new orthography; and my best coat was sewed over with bits of red flannel, while I draughted a lecture on Female Education. Donald Gordon courted Judith Brewster, during the very period in which I was bringing her to the point of conjugating amo, amare, amari. Early hours and hard reading, kept me still advancing in a sort of miscellaneous and preposterous condition. I began a hundred pursuits, with the furore of a crusader. I gathered flowers for an herbarium, and pasted wrong names on the species for want of a master. I made maps of the stars, and pointed them out to Judith, as we walked on the top of the house. My only Italian book was an odd volume of Dante, which broke me down after getting half way up the circling Babel of the Purgatory. My version of the Bucolics shamed me beyond expression, on comparison with Dryden.

In riding about the country, I fell in with planters and county-court lawyers, and doctors, who had little Latin and less Greek, but who nevertheless foiled me in argument. They knew how to talk of crops, of “good seasons for stripping tobacco,” of the weather being giv-y, of long and short staple in cotton, of horizontal ploughing, and of prices at Liverpool; while they could also connect with these questions the political economy of our great products, the effects of the British policy on our carrying-trade, and the theory of state-sovereignty as discussed in Congress. All these things were beyond my ken. That “reading” which “makes a full man” made me often seem a very foolish one. I made blunders in history, and was innocently unacquainted with several dates, such as George Mason’s letters and the Battle of the Cow-Pens. I could have said much about Aegos-Potamos, or the Thirty Tyrants; but my old-time studies were very rapidly turning me into a mummy.

I dictate these confessions, in perpetuam rei memoriam, to guard solitary and too-forward boys from going too freely before the gales of their literary propensities. Nevertheless, for individual delight, everlasting novelty and sweet recollections, I still hold my way to have been best of any.

——

CHAPTER X.

“He cherished his friend, and he relished a bumper,

Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 2, August 1852

DEPARTED JOYS.

MIDSUMMER DAYS.

WIDOWS.

ASTRONOMY.

HYMN TO THE SUN.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

THE TWO BIRDS.—A STREET LYRIC.

MISS HARPER’S MAID.

“WHATEVER HE DOETH SHALL PROSPER.”

THE USEFUL ARTS.

I. Endowments for Labor.

II. The Hunter.

III. Pastoral Life.

IV. Agriculture.

V. Settlers in towns.

VI. Inhabitants of Cities.

TO A WHIP-POOR-WILL

HESPERIUS—A VISION.

THE PEDANT:

CHAPTER V.

“Dialogue.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.