Rivers constitute an important part of the aqueous portion of the globe; with the great lines of water, with streams and rivulets, they form a numerous family, of which lakes, springs, or the meltings of ice and snow, upon the summits of high mountain chains, are the parents. The Shannon has its source in a lake; the Rhone in a glacier; and the Abyssinian branch of the Nile in a confluence of fountains. The country where some of the mightiest rivers of the globe have their rise has not yet been sufficiently explored to render their true source ascertainable. The origin of others is doubtful, owing to a number of rills presenting equal claims to be considered as the river-head; but many are clearly referable to a single spring, the current of which is speedily swelled by tributary waters, ultimately flowing in broad and deep channels to the sea. Inglis, who wandered on foot through many lands, had a fancy, which he generally indulged, to visit the sources of rivers, when the chances of his journey threw him in their vicinity. Such a pilgrimage will often repay the traveler, by the scenes of picturesque and secluded beauty into which it leads him; and even when the primal fount is insignificant in itself, and the surrounding landscape exhibits the tamest features, there is a reward in the associations that are instantly wakened up—the thought of a humble and modest commencement issuing in a long and victorious career—of the tiny rill, proceeding, by gradual advances, to become an ample stream, fertilizing by its exudations and rolling on to meet the tides of the ocean, bearing the merchandise of cities upon its bosom. The Duddon, one of the most picturesque of the English rivers, oozes up through a bed of moss near the top of Wrynose Fell, a desolate solitude, yet remarkable for its huge masses of protruding crag, and the varied and vivid colors of the mosses watered by the stream. Petrarch’s letters and verses have given celebrity to the source of the Sorques—the spring of Vaucleuse, which bursts in an imposing manner out of a cavern, and forms at once a copious torrent. The Scamandar is one of the most remarkable rivers for the grandeur of its source—a yawning chasm in Mount Gargarus, shaded with enormous plane-trees, and surrounded with high cliffs from which the river impetuously dashes in all the greatness of the divine origin assigned to it by ancient fable. To discover the source of the Nile, hid from the knowledge of all antiquity, was the object of Bruce’s adventurous journey; and we can readily enter into his emotions, as he stood by the two fountains, after the toils and hazard he had braved. “It is easier to guess,” he remarks, “than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment—standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns, for the course of three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies; and each expedition was distinguished from the last, only by the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly, and without exception, followed them all. Fame, riches and honor, had been held out for a series of ages to every individual of those myriads these princes commanded, without having produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, or adding this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here, in my own mind, over kings and their armies; and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer to presumption, when the place itself where I stood—the object of my vain-glory—suggested what depressed my short-lived triumphs. I was but a few minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me, but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence: I was, however, but then half through my journey; and all those dangers, which I had already passed, awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself.” Bruce, however, labored under an error, in supposing the stream he had followed to be the main branch of the Nile. He had traced to its springs the smaller of the two great rivers which contribute to form this celebrated stream. The larger arm issues from a more remote part of Africa, and has not yet been ascended to its source.

Upon examining the map of a country, we see many of its rivers traveling in opposite directions, and emptying their waters into different seas, although their sources frequently lie in the immediate neighborhood of each other. The springs of the Missouri, which proceed south-east to the Gulf of Mexico, and those of the Columbia, which flow north-west to the Pacific Ocean, are only a mile apart, while those of some of the tributaries of the Amazon, flowing north, and the La Plata, flowing south, are closely contiguous. There is a part of Volhynia, of no considerable extent, which sends off its waters, north and south, to the Black and Baltic seas; while, from the field on which the battle of Naseby was fought, the Avon, Trent, and Nen receive affluents, which reach the ocean at opposite coasts of the island, through the Humber, the Wash, and the Bristol Channel. The field in question is an elevated piece of table-land in the centre of England. The district referred to, where rivers proceeding to the Baltic and the Euxine take their rise, is a plateau about a thousand feet above the level of the sea. The springs of the Missouri and the Columbia are in the Rocky Mountains; and it is generally the case, that those parts of a country from which large rivers flow in contrary directions, are the most elevated sites in their respective districts, consisting either of mountain-chains, plateaus, or high table-lands. There is one remarkable exception to this in European Russia, where the Volga rises in a plain only a few hundred feet above the level of the sea, and no hills separate its waters from those which run into the Baltic. The great majority of the first-class rivers commence from chains of mountains, because springs are there most abundant, perpetually fed by the melting of the snows and glaciers. They have almost invariably an easterly direction, the westward-bound streams being few in number, and of very subordinate rank. Of rivers flowing east, we have grand examples in the St. Lawrence, Orinoco, Amazon, Danube, Ganges, Amour, Yang-tse-Kiang, and Hoang Ho. The chief western streams are the Columbia, Tagus, Garonne, Loire and Neva, which are of far inferior rank to the former. The rivers running south, as the Mississippi, La Plata, Rhone, Volga and Indus, are more important, as well as those which proceed to the north, as the Rhine, Vistula, Nile, Irtish, Lena and Yenisei. The easterly direction of the great rivers of America is obviously due to the position of the Andes, which run north and south, on the western side of the continent, while the chain of mountains which traverses Europe and Asia, from west to east, cause the great number of rivers which flow north and south. In our own island, the chief course of the streams is to the east. This is the case with the Tay, Forth, Tweed, Tyne, Humber and Thames, the Clyde and Severn being the most remarkable exceptions to this direction. The whole extent of country from which a river receives its supply of water, by brooks and rivulets, is termed its basin, because a region generally bounded by a rim of high lands, beyond which the waters are drained off into another channel. The basin of a superior river includes those of all its tributary streams. It is sometimes the case, however, that the basins of rivers are not divided by any elevations, but pass into each other, a connection subsisting between their waters. This is the case with the hydro-graphical regions of the Amazon and Orinoco, the Cassiaquaire, a branch of the latter, joining the Rio Negro, an affluent of the former. The vague rumors that were at first afloat respecting this singular circumstance, were treated by most geographers with discredit, till Humboldt ascertained its reality, by proceeding from the Rio Negro to the Orinoco, along the natural canal of the Cassiaquaire.

Rivers have a thousand points of similarity, and of discordance. Some exhibit an unbroken sheet of water through their whole course, while others are diversified by numerous islands. This peculiarly characterizes the vast streams of the American continent, and contributes greatly to their scenical effect, of which our illustration gives us an example, selected from the beautiful Susquehanna, the largest Atlantic river of the United States. The St. Lawrence, soon after issuing from the Lake Ontario, presents the most remarkable instance to be found of islands occurring in a river channel. It is here called the Lake of the Thousand Islands. The vast number implied in this name was considered a vague exaggeration, till the commissioners employed in fixing the boundary with the United States actually counted them, and found that they amounted to 1692. They are of every imaginable size, shape, and appearance; some barely visible, others covering fifteen acres; but in general their broken outline presents the most picturesque combinations of wood and rock. The navigator in steering through them sees an ever-changing scene, which reminds an elegant writer of the Happy Islands in the Vision of Mirza. Sometimes he is inclosed in a narrow channel; then he discovers before him twelve openings, like so many noble rivers; and soon after a spacious lake seems to surround him on every side. River-islands are due to original surface inequalities, but many are formed by the arrest and gradual accretion of the alluvial matter brought down by the waters.

The Susquehanna.

There is great diversity in the length of rivers, the force of their current, and the mass and complexion of their waters; but their peculiar character is obviously dependent upon that of the country in which they are situated. As it is the property of water to follow a descent, and the greatest descent that occurs in its way, the course of a river points out generally the direction in which the land declines, and the degree of the declination determines in part the velocity of its current, for the rapidity of the stream is influenced both by its volume of water and the declivity of its channel. Hence one river often pours its tide into another without causing any perceptible enlargement of its bed, the additional waters being disposed of by the creation of a more rapid current, for large masses of water travel with a swift and powerful impetus over nearly a level surface, upon which smaller rivers would have only a languid flow. In general, the fall of the great streams is much less than what would be supposed from a glance at their currents. The rapid Rhine has only a descent of four feet in a mile between Shaffhausen and Strasburg, and of two feet between the latter place and Schenckenschauts; and the mighty Amazon, whose collision with the tide of the Atlantic is of the most tremendous description, falls but four yards in the last 700 miles of its course, or one-fourth of an inch in 1¼ mile. In one part of its channel the Seine descends one foot in a mile; the Loire, between Pouilly and Briare, one foot in 7,500, and between Briare and Orleans one foot in 13,596; the Ganges, only nine inches; and, for 400 miles from its termination, the Paraguay has but a descent of one thirty-third of an inch in the whole distance. The fall of rivers is very unequally distributed; such, for instance, as the difference of the Rhine below Cologne and above Strasburg. The greatest fall is commonly experienced at their commencement, though there are some striking exceptions to this. The whole descent of the Shannon, from its source in Loch Allen to the sea, a distance of 234 miles, is 146 feet, which is seven inches and a fraction in a mile, but it falls 97 feet in a distance of 15 miles, between Killaloe and Limerick, and occupies the remaining 219 miles in descending 49 feet. When water has once received an impulse by following a descent, the simple pressure of the particles upon each other is sufficient to keep it in motion long after its bed has lost all inclination. The chief effect of the absence of a declivity is a slower movement of the stream, and a more winding course, owing to the aqueous particles being more susceptible of divergence from their original direction by impediments in their path. Hence the tortuous character of the water-courses, chiefly arising from the streams meeting with levels after descending inclined planes, which so slackens their speed that they are easily diverted from a right-onward direction by natural obstacles, to which the force of their current is inferior. The Mæander was famed in classical antiquity for its mazy course, descending from the pastures of Phrygia, with many involutions, into the vine-clad province of the Carians, which it divided from Lydia near a plain properly called the Mæandrian, where the bed was winding in a remarkable degree. From the name of this river we have our word meandering, as applied to erratic streams.

The Rhine at Oberweisel.

This circumstance increases prodigiously the extent of their channels, and renders their navigation tedious, but the absence of that velocity of the current which would make it difficult is a compensation, while a larger portion of the earth enjoys the benefit of their waters. The sources of the Mississippi are only 1250 miles from its mouth, following a straight line, but 3200 miles, pursuing its real path; and the Forth is actually three times the length of a straight line drawn from its rise to its termination. The rivers which flow through flat alluvial plains frequently exhibit great sinuosities, their waters returning nearly to the same point after an extensive tour. The Moselle, after a curved course of seventeen miles, returns to within a few hundred yards of the same spot; and a steamer on the Mississippi, after a sail of twenty-five or thirty miles, is brought round again, almost within hail of the place where it was two or three hours before. In high floods, the waters frequently force a passage through the isthmuses which are thus formed, converting the peninsulas into islands, and forming a nearer route for the navigator to pursue. By the “grand cut off” on the Mississippi, vessels now pass from one point to another in half a mile, in order to accomplish which they had formerly a distance of twenty miles to traverse.

Rivers receive a peculiar impress from the geological character of the districts through which they flow. Those of primary or transition countries, where sudden declivities abound, are bold and rapid streams, with steep and high banks, and usually pure waters, owing to the surface not being readily abraded, generally emptying themselves by a single mouth which is deep and unobstructed. The streams of secondary and alluvial districts flow with slow but powerful current, between low and gradually descending banks, which, being composed of soft rocks or alluvial grounds, are easily worn away by the waters, and hence great changes are effected in their channels, and a peculiar color is given to their streams by the earthy particles with which they are charged. Many rivers have their names from this last circumstance. The Rio Negro, or Black River, which flows into the Amazon, is so called on account of the dark color of its waters, which are of an amber hue wherever it is shallow, and dark brown wherever the depth is great. The names of the two great streams which unite to form the Nile, the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White River, from the Mountains of the Moon, and the Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue River, from Abyssinia, refer to the color which they receive from the quantity of earth with which they are impregnated. The united rivers, for some distance after their junction, preserve their colors distinct. This is the case likewise with the Rhine and the Moselle; the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa. The Upper Mississippi is a transparent stream, but assumes the color of the Missouri upon joining that river, the mud of which is as copious as the water can hold in suspension, and of a white soapy hue. The Ohio brings into it a flood of a greenish color. The bright and dark red waters of the Arkansas and Red River afterward diminish the whiteness derived from the Missouri, and the volume of the Lower Mississippi bears along a tribute of vegetable soil, collected from the most distant quarters, and of the most various kind—the marl of the Rocky and the clay of the Black Mountains—the earth of the Alleghanies—and the red-loam washed from the hills at the sources of the Arkansas and the Red River. Mr. Lyell states that water flowing at the rate of three inches per second will tear up fine clay; six inches per second, fine sand; twelve inches per second, fine gravel; and three feet per second, stones of the size of an egg. He remarks, likewise, that the rapidity at the bottom of a stream is everywhere less than in any part above it, and is greatest at the surface; and that in the middle of the stream the particles at the top move swifter than those at the sides. The ease with which running water bears along large quantities of sand, gravel, and pebbles, ceases to surprise when we consider that the specific gravity of rocks in water is much less than in air.

It is chiefly in primary and transition countries that the rivers exhibit those sudden descents, which pass under the general denomination of falls, and form either cataracts or rapids. They occur in secondary regions, but more rarely, and the descent is of a more gentle description. The falls are generally found in the passage of streams from the primitive to the other formations. Thus the line which divides the primitive and alluvial formations on the coast of the United States, is marked by the falls or rapids of its rivers, while none occur in the alluvial below. Cataracts are formed by the descent of a river over a precipice which is perpendicular, or nearly so, and depend, for their sublimity, upon the height of the fall, and the magnitude of the stream. Rapids are produced by the occurrence of a steeply-inclined plane, over which the flood rushes with great impetuosity, yet without being projected over a precipice. The great rivers of England—the Thames, Trent and Severn—exhibit no example of either cataract or rapid, but pursue a generally even and noiseless course; though near their sources, while yet mere brooks and rivulets, most of our home streams present these features in a very miniature manner. A true rapid occurs in the course of the Shannon, just above Limerick, where the river, forty feet deep, and three hundred yards wide, pours its body of water through and above a congregation of huge rocks and stones, extending nearly half a mile, and becomes quite unnavigable. Inglis had never heard of this rapid before arriving in its neighborhood; but ranks it in grandeur and effect, above either the Welsh water-falls or the Geisbach in Switzerland. The river Adige, in the Tyrol, near Meran, rushes, with resistless force and deafening noise, down a descent nearly a mile in length, between quiet, green, pastoral banks, presenting one of the most magnificent spectacles to be met with in Europe. The celebrated cataracts of the Nile are, more properly speaking, rapids, as there is no considerable perpendicular fall of the river; but for a hundred miles at Wady Hafel, the second cataract reckoning upward, there is a succession of steep descents, and a multitude of rocky islands, among which the river dashes amid clouds of foam, and is tossed in perpetual eddies. It is along the course of the American rivers, however, that the most sublime and imposing rapids are found, rendered so by the great volumes of water contained in their channels. The more remarkable are those of the St. Lawrence, the chief of which, called the Coteau de Luc, the Cedars, the Split Rock, and the Cascades, occur in succession for about nine miles above Montreal and the junction of the Ottawa. At the rapid of St. Anne, on the latter river, the more devout of the Canadian voyageurs are accustomed to land, and implore the protection of the patron saint on their perilous expeditions, before a large cross at the village that bears her name. The words of a popular song have familiarized English ears with this habit of the hardy boatmen:—

“Faintly as tolls the evening chime,

Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.

Soon as the woods on shore look dim,

We’ll sing at St. Ann’s our parting hymn.

Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,

The Rapids are near, and the daylight’s past.

“Utawa’s tide! this trembling moon

Shall see us float over thy surges soon.

Saint of this green isle hear our prayers,

Oh, grant us cool heavens and favoring airs.

Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,

The Rapids are near, and the daylight’s past.”

Kaaterskill Falls.

The Kaaterskill Falls here represented are celebrated in America for their picturesque beauty. The waters which supply these cascades flow from two small lakes in the Catskill Mountains, on the west bank of the Hudson. The upper cascade falls one hundred and seventy-five feet, and a few rods below the second pours its waters over a precipice eighty feet high, passing into a picturesque ravine, the banks of which rise abruptly on each side to the height of a thousand to fifteen hundred feet.

In the grandeur of their cataracts, also, the American rivers far surpass those of other countries, though several falls on the ancient continent have a greater perpendicular height, and are magnificent objects. In Sweden, the Gotha falls about 130 feet at Trolhetta, the greatest fall in Europe of the same body of water. The river is the only outlet of a lake, a hundred miles in length and fifty in breadth, which receives no fewer than twenty-four rivers; the water glides smoothly on, increasing in rapidity, but quite unruffled, until it reaches the verge of the precipice; it then darts over it in one broad sheet, which is broken by some jutting rocks, after a descent of about forty feet. Here begins a spectacle of great grandeur. The moving mass is tossed from rock to rock, now heaving itself up in yellow foam, now boiling and tossing in huge eddies, growing whiter and whiter in its descent, till completely fretted into one beautiful sea of snowy froth, the spray, rising in dense clouds, hides the abyss into which the torrent dashes; but when momentarily cleared away by the wind, a dreadful gulf is revealed, which the eye cannot fathom. Upon the arrival of a visitor at Trolhetta, a log of wood is sent down the fall, by persons who expect a trifle for the exhibition. It displays the resistless power of the element. The log, which is of gigantic dimensions, is tossed like a feather upon the surface of the water, and is borne to the foot almost in an instant. In Scotland, the falls of its rivers are seldom of great size; but the rocky beds over which they roar and dash in foam and spray—the dark, precipitous glens into which they rush—and the frequent wildness of the whole scenery around, are compensating features. The most remarkable instances are the Upper and Lower Falls of Foyers, near Loch Ness. At the upper fall, the river precipitates itself, at three leaps, down as many precipices, whose united depth is about 200 feet; but, at the lower, it makes a descent at once of 212 feet, and, after heavy rains, exhibits a grand appearance. The fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen is only 70 feet; but the great mass of its waters, 450 feet in breadth, gives it an imposing character. The Teverone, near Tivoli, a comparatively small stream, is precipitated nearly 100 feet; and the Velino, near Terni, falls 300, which is generally considered the finest of the European cataracts. This “hell of waters,” as Byron calls it, is of artificial construction. A channel was dug by the Consul Carius Dentatus in the year 274 B. C., to convey the waters to the precipice, but having become filled up by a deposition of calcareous matter, it was widened and deepened by order of Pope Paul IV. “I saw,” says Byron, “the Cascata del Marmore of Terni twice at different periods; once from the summit of the precipice, and again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveler has time for one only; but in any point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together.”

Falls of Trolhetta.

In the Alpine highlands, the Evanson descends upward of 1200 feet, and the Orco forms a vertical cataract of 2400; but in these instances the quantity of water is small, and the chief interest is produced by the height from which it falls. At Staubbach, in the Swiss Canton of Berne, a small stream descends 1400 feet, and is shattered almost entirely into spray before it reaches the bottom.

Falls of Terni.

Waterfalls appear upon their grandest scale in the American continent. They are not remarkable for the height of the precipices over which they descend, or for the picturesque forms of the rocky cliffs amid which they are precipitated, like the Alpine cataracts; but while these are usually the fall of streamlets merely, those of the western world are the rush of mighty rivers. The majority are in the northern part of the continent, but the greatest vertical descent of a considerable body of water is in the southern, at the Falls of Tequendama, where the river of Funza disembogues from the elevated plain or valley of Santa Fe de Bogota. This valley is at a greater height above the level of the sea than the summit of the great St. Bernard, and is surrounded by lofty mountains. It appears to have been formerly the bed of an extensive lake, whose waters were drained off when the narrow passage was forced through which the Funza river now descends from the elevated inclosed valley toward the bed of the Rio Magdalena. Respecting this physical occurrence Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada, the conqueror of the country, found the following tradition disseminated among the people, which probably contains a stratum of truth invested with a fabulous legend. In remote times the inhabitants of Bogota were barbarians, living without religion, laws, or arts. An old man on a certain occasion suddenly appeared among them of a race unlike that of the natives, and having a long, bushy beard. He instructed them in the arts, but he brought with him a malignant, although beautiful woman, who thwarted all his benevolent enterprises. By her magical power she swelled the current of the Funza, and inundated the valley, so that most of the inhabitants perished, a few only having found refuge in the neighboring mountains. The aged visitor then drove his consort from the earth, and she became the moon. He next broke the rocks that inclosed the valley on the Tequendama side, and by this means drained off the waters. Then he introduced the worship of the sun, appointed two chiefs, and finally withdrew to a valley, where he lived in the exercise of the most austere penitence during 2000 years. The Tequendama cataract is remarkably picturesque. The river a little above it is 144 feet in breadth, but at the crevice it is much narrower. The height of the fall is 574 feet, and the column of vapor that rises from it is visible from Santa Fe at the distance of 17 miles. At the foot of the precipice the vegetation has a totally different appearance from that at the summit, and the traveler, following the course of the river, passes from a plain in which the cereal plants of Europe are cultivated, and which abounds with oaks, elms, and other trees resembling those of the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, and enters a country covered with palms, bananas, and sugar-canes.

In Northern America, however, we find the greatest of all cataracts, that of the Niagara, the sublimest object on earth, according to the general opinion of all travelers. More varied magnificence is displayed by the ocean, and giant masses of the Andes and Himalaya; but no single spectacle is so striking and wonderful as the descent of this sea-like flood, the overplus of four extensive lakes. The river is about thirty-three miles in length, extending from lake Erie to lake Ontario, and three-quarters of a mile wide at the fall. There is nothing in the neighboring country to indicate the vicinity of the astonishing phenomenon here exhibited. Leaving out lake Erie, the traveler passes over a level though somewhat elevated plain, through which the river flows tranquilly, bordered by fertile and beautiful banks; but soon a deep, awful sound, gradually growing louder, breaks upon the ear—the roar of the distant cataract. Yet the eye discerns no sign of the spectacle about to be disclosed until a mile from it, when the water begins to ripple, and is broken into a series of dashing and foaming rapids. After passing these, the river becomes more tranquil, though rolling onward with tremendous force, till it reaches the brink of the great precipice. The fall itself is divided into two unequal portions by the intervention of Goat Island, a façade near 1000 feet in breadth. The one on the British side of the river, called the Horse-Shoe fall, from its shape, according to the most careful estimate, is 2100 feet broad, and 149 feet 9 inches high. The other or American fall is 1140 feet broad, and 164 feet high. The former is far superior to the latter in grandeur. The great body of the water passes over the precipice with such force, that it forms a curved sheet which strikes the stream below at the distance of 50 feet from the base, and some travelers have ventured between the descending flood and the rock itself. Hannequin asserts that four coaches might be driven abreast through this awful chasm. The quantity of water rolling over these falls has been estimated at 670,250 tons per minute. It is impossible to appreciate the scene created by this immense torrent, apart from its site.

“The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain,

While I look upward to thee. It would seem

As if God poured thee from his hollow hand,

And hung his bow upon thine awful front;

And spoke in that loud voice which seemed to him

Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour’s sake,

The sound of many waters; and had bade

Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,

And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks.

Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,

That hear the question of that voice sublime?

Oh! what are all the notes that ever rung

From war’s vain trumpet, by thy thundering side?

Yea, what is all the riot man can make,

In his short life, to thy unceasing roar?

And yet, Bold Babbler! what art thou to Him,

Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far

Above its loftiest mountains?—a light wave,

That breaks, and whispers of its Maker’s might.”

It has been remarked that at Niagara, several objects composing the chief beauty of other celebrated water-falls are altogether wanting. There are no cliffs reaching to an extraordinary height, crowned with trees, or broken into picturesque and varied forms; for, though one of the banks is wooded, the forest scenery on the whole is not imposing. The accompaniments, in short, rank here as nothing. There is merely the display, on a scale elsewhere unrivaled, of the phenomena appropriate to this class of objects. There is the spectacle of a falling sea, the eye filled almost to its utmost reach by the rushing of mighty waters. There is the awful plunge into the abyss beneath, and the reverberation thence in endless lines of foam, and in numberless whirlpools and eddies; there are clouds of spray that fill the whole atmosphere, amid which the most brilliant rainbows, in rapid succession, glitter and disappear; above all, there is the stupendous sound, of the peculiar character of which all writers, with their utmost efforts, seem to have vainly attempted to convey an idea. Bouchette describes it as “grand, commanding and majestic, filling the vault of heaven when heard in its fullness”—as “a deep, round roar, and alternation of muffled and open sounds, to which there is nothing exactly corresponding.” Captain Hall compares it to the ceaseless, rumbling, deep-monotonous sound of a vast mill, which, though not very practical, is generally considered as approaching near to the reality. Dr. Reed states, “it is not like the sea; nor like the thunder; nor like any thing I have heard. There is no roar, no rattle; nothing sharp or angry in its tones; it is deep, awful—One.” The diffusion of the noise varies according to the state of the atmosphere and the direction of the wind, but it may be heard under favorable circumstances through a distance of forty-six miles: at Toronto, across Lake Ontario. To the geologist the Niagara falls have interest, on account of the movement which it is supposed has taken place in their position. The force of the waters appears to be wearing away the rock over which they rush, and gradually shifting the cataract higher up the river. It is conceived that by this process it has already receded in the course of ages through a distance of more than seven miles, from a point between Queenstown and Lewiston, to which the high level of the country continues. The rate of procession is fixed, according to an estimate, mentioned by Mr. M’Gregor, at eighteen feet during the thirty years previous to 1810; but he adds another more recent, which raises it to one hundred and fifty feet in fifty years.

The following account of a visit to the Falls of Niagara has been communicated to us by Mr. N. Gould. It forms a part of his unpublished Notes on America and Canada.

“My attention had been kept alive, and I was all awake to the sound of the cataract; but, though within a few miles, I heard nothing. A cloud hanging nearly steady over the forest, was pointed out to me as the ‘spray cloud;’ at length we drove up to Forsyth’s hotel, and the mighty Niagara was full in view. My first impression was that of disappointment—a sour sort of deep disappointment, causing, for a few minutes, a kind of vacuity; but, while I mused, I began to take in the grandeur of the scene. This impression is not unusual on viewing objects beyond the ready catch of the senses; Stonehenge and St. Paul’s cathedral seldom excite much surprise at first sight; the enormous Pyramids, I have heard travelers say, strike with awe and silence on the near approach, but require time to appreciate. The fact is, that the first view of Niagara is a bad one; and the eye, in this situation, can comprehend but a small part of the wonderful scene. You look down upon the cataract instead of up to it; the confined channel, and the depth of it, prevent the astounding roar which was anticipated; and, at the same time, the eye wanders midway between the water and the cloud formed by the spray, which it sees not. After a quarter of an hour’s gaze, I felt a kind of fascination—a desire to find myself gliding into eternity in the centre of the Grand Fall, over which the bright green water appears to glide, like oil, without the least commotion. I approached nearly to the edge of the ‘Table Rock,’ and looked into the abyss. A lady from Devonshire had just retired from the spot; I was informed she had approached its very edge, and sat with her feet over the edge—an awful and dangerous proceeding. Having viewed the spot, and made myself acquainted with some of its localities, I returned to the hotel (Forsyth’s) which, as well as its neighboring rival, is admirably situated for the view; from my chamber-window I looked directly upon it, and the first night I could find but little sleep from the noise. Every view I took increased my admiration; and I began to think that the other Falls I had seen were, in comparison, like runs from kettle-spouts on hot plates. I remained in this interesting neighborhood five days, and saw the Fall in almost every point of view. From its extent, and the angular line it forms, the eye cannot embrace it all at once; and, probably, from this cause it is that no drawing has ever yet done justice to it. The grandest view, in my opinion, is at the bottom, and close to it, on the British side, where it is awful to look up through the spray at the immense body as it comes pouring over, deafening you with its roar; the lighter spray, at a considerable distance, hangs poised in the air like an eternal cloud. The next best view is on the American side, to reach which you cross in a crazy ferry-boat: the passage is safe enough, but the current is strongly agitated. Its depth, as near to the falls as can be approached, is from 180 to 200 feet. The water, as it passes over the rock, where it is not whipped into foam, is a most beautiful sea-green, and it is the same at the bottom of the Falls. The foam, which floats away in large bodies, feels and looks like salt water after a storm: it has a strong fishy smell. The river, at the ferry, is 1170 feet wide. There is a great quantity of fish, particularly sturgeon and bass, as well as eels; the latter creep up against the rock under the Falls, as if desirous of finding some mode of surmounting the heights. Some of the visitors go under the Falls, an undertaking more curious than pleasant. Three times did I go down to the house, and once paid for my guide and bathing dress, when something occurred to prevent me. The lady before alluded to performed the ceremony, and it is recorded, with her name, in the book, that she went to the farthest extent that the guides can or will proceed. It is described as like being under a heavy shower-bath, with a tremendous whirlwind driving your breath from you, and causing a peculiarly unpleasant sensation at the chest; the footing over the débris being slippery, the darkness barely visible, and the roar almost deafening. In the passage you kick against eels, many of them unwilling to move, even when touched: they appear to be endeavoring to work their way up the stream.”

Supposing the cataract to be receding at the rate of fifty yards in forty years, as it is stated by Captain Hall, the ravine which extends from thence to Queenstown, a distance of seven miles, will have required nearly ten thousand years for its excavation; and, at the same rate, it will require upward of thirty-five thousand years for the falls to recede to Lake Erie, a distance of twenty-five miles. The draining of the lake, which is not more than ten or twelve fathoms in average depth, must then take place, causing a tremendous deluge by the sudden escape of its waters. In addition to the gradual erosion of the limestone, which forms the bed of the Niagara at and above the falls, huge masses of the rock are occasionally detached by the undermining of the soft shale upon which it rests. This effect is produced by the action of the spray powerfully thrown back upon the stratum of shale; and hence has arisen the great hollow between the descending flood and the precipice. An immense fragment fell on the 28th of December, 1828, with a crash that shook the glass vessels in the adjoining inn, and was felt at the distance of two miles from the spot. By this disintegration, the angular or horse-shoe form of the great fall was lessened, and its grandeur heightened by the line of the torrent becoming more horizontal. A similar dislocation had occurred in the year 1818; and the aspect of the precipice always so threatening, owing to the wearing away of the lower stratum, as to render it an affair of some real hazard to venture between the falling waters and the rock. Miss Martineau undertook the enterprise, clad in the oil-skin costume used for the expedition, and thus remarks concerning it:—“A hurricane blows up from the cauldron; a deluge drives at you from all parts; and the noise of both wind and waters, reverberated from the cavern, is inconceivable. Our path was sometimes a wet ledge of rock, just broad enough to allow one person at a time to creep along: in other places we walked over heaps of fragments, both slippery and unstable. If all had been dry and quiet, I might probably have thought this path above the boiling basin dangerous, and have trembled to pass it; but, amidst the hubbub of gusts and floods, it appeared so firm a footing, that I had no fear of slipping into the cauldron. From the moment that I perceived we were actually behind the cataract, and not in a mere cloud of spray, the enjoyment was intense. I not only saw the watery curtain before me like tempest-driven snow, but, by momentary glances, could see the crystal roof of this most wonderful of Nature’s palaces. The precise point where the flood quitted the rock was marked by a gush of silvery light, which of course was brighter where the waters were shooting forward, than below, where they fell perpendicularly.” There have been several hair-breadth escapes, and not a few fatal accidents, at Niagara, the relation of which is highly illustrative of Indian magnanimity. Tradition preserves the memory of the warrior of the red race, who got entangled in the rapids above the falls, and, seeing his fate inevitable, calmly resigned himself to it, and sat singing in his canoe till buried by the torrent in the abyss to which it plunges. The celebrated Chateaubriand narrowly escaped a similar fate. On his arrival he had repaired to the fall, having the bridle of his horse twisted round his arm. While he was stopping to look down, a rattle-snake stirred among the neighboring bushes. The horse was startled, reared, and ran back toward the abyss. He could not disengage his arm from the bridle; and the horse, more and more frightened, dragged him after him. His fore-legs were all but off the ground; and, squatting on the brink of the precipice, he was upheld merely by the bridle. He gave himself up for lost; when the animal, astonished at this new danger, threw itself forward with a pirouette, and sprang to the distance of ten feet from the edge of the abyss.

The erosive action of running water, which is urging the Niagara Falls toward Lake Erie, is strikingly exhibited by several rivers which penetrate through rocks and beds of compact strata, and have either scooped out their own passage entirely, or widened and deepened original tracks and fissures in the surface, into enormous wall-sided valleys. The current of the Simeto—the largest Sicilian river round the base of Etna—was crossed by a great stream of lava about two centuries and a half ago; but, since that era, the river has completely triumphed over the barrier of homogeneous hard blue rock that intruded into its channel, and cut a passage through it from fifty to a hundred feet broad, and from forty to fifty deep. The formation of the magnificent rock-bridge which overhangs the course of the Cedar creek, one of the natural wonders of Virginia, is very probably due in part to the solvent and abrading power of the stream. This sublime curiosity is 213 feet above the river, 60 feet wide, 90 long, and the thickness of the mass at the summit of the arch is about 40 feet. The bridge has a coating of earth, which gives growth to several large trees. To look down from its edge into the chasm inspires a feeling answering to the words of Shakspeare:

“Come on, sir; here’s the place:—stand still. How fearful

And dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eyes so low!”

Few have resolution enough to walk to the parapet, in order to peep over it. But if the view from the top is painful and intolerable, that from below is pleasing in an equal degree. The beauty, elevation, and lightness of the arch, springing as it were up to heaven, present a striking instance of the graceful in combination with the sublime. This great arch of rock gives the name of Rock-bridge to the county in which it is situated, and affords a public and commodious passage over a valley which cannot be crossed elsewhere for a considerable distance. Under the arch, thirty feet from the water, the lower part of the letters G. W. may be seen, carved in the rock. They are the initials of Washington, who, when a youth, climbed up hither, and left this record of his adventure. We have several examples of the disappearance of rivers, and their emergence after pursuing for some distance a subterranean course. In these cases a barrier of solid rock, overlaying a softer stratum has occurred in their path; and the latter has been gradually worn away by the waters, and a passage been constructed through it. Thus the Tigris, about twenty miles from its source, meets with a mountainous ridge at Diglou, and, running under it, flows out at the opposite side. The Rhone, also, soon after coming within the French frontier, passes under ground for about a quarter of a mile. Milton, in one of his juvenile poems, speaks of the

“Sullen Mole, that runneth underneath;”

and Pope calls it, after him, the

“Sullen Mole, that hides his diving flood.”

Natural Bridge, Virginia.

The Hamps and the Manifold, likewise—two small streams in Derbyshire—flow in separate subterraneous channels for several miles, and emerge within fifteen yards of each other in the grounds of Ilam Hall. That these are really the streams which are swallowed up at points several miles distant has been frequently proved, by watching the exit of various light bodies that have been absorbed at the swallows. At their emergence, the waters of the two rivers differ in temperature about two degrees—an obvious proof that they do not anywhere intermingle. On the side of the hill, which is overshadowed with spreading trees, just above the spot where the streams break forth into daylight, there is a rude grotto, scooped out of the rock, in which Congreve is said to have written his comedy of the “Old Bachelor,” and a part of his “Mourning Bride.” In Spain, a similar phenomenon is exhibited by the Guadiana; but it occurs under different circumstances. It disappears for about seven leagues—an effect of the absorbing power of the soil—the intervening space consisting of sandy and marshy grounds, across which the road to Andalusia passes by a long bridge or causeway. The river reappears with greater power, after its dispersion, at the Ojos de Guadiana—the Eyes of the stream.

[To be continued.

REMEMBERED ONES.

———

BY J. HUNT, JR.

———

Not those who’ve trod the martial field,

And led to arms a battling host,

And at whose name “the world grew pale,”

Will be in time remembered most:

But they who’ve walked the “paths of peace,”

And gave their aid to deeds t’were just,

Shall live for aye, on Mem’ry’s page,

When heroes sleep in unknown dust.

THE GAME OF THE MONTH.

———

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS,” “FISH AND FISHING,” ETC.

———

THE BITTERN. AMERICAN BITTERN. Ardea Minor sive Lentiginos.

THE INDIAN HEN. THE QUAWK. THE DUNKADOO.

This, though a very common and extremely beautiful bird, with an exceedingly extensive geographic range, is the object of a very general and perfectly inexplicable prejudice and dislike, common, it would seem, to all classes. The gunner never spares it, although it is perfectly inoffensive; and although the absurd prejudice, to which I have alluded, causes him to cast it aside, when killed, as uneatable carrion; its flesh being in reality very delicate and juicy, and still held in high repute in Europe; while here one is regarded very much in the light of a cannibal, as I have myself experienced, for venturing to eat it. The farmer and the boatman stigmatize it by a filthy and indecent name. The cook turns up her nose at it, and throws it to the cat; for the dog, wiser than his master, declines it—not as unfit to eat, but as game, and therefore meat for his masters.

Now the Bittern would not probably be much aggrieved at being voted carrion, provided his imputed carrion-dom, as Willis would probably designate the condition, procured him immunity from the gun.

But to be shot first and thrown away afterward, would seem to be the very excess of that condition described by the common phrase of adding injury to insult.

Under this state of mingled persecution and degradation, it must be the Bittern’s best consolation that, in the days of old, when the wine of Auxerre, now the common drink of republican Yankeedom, which annually consumes of it, or in lieu of it, more than grows of it annually in all France, was voted by common consent the drink of kings—he, with his congener and compatriot the Heronschaw, was carved by knightly hands, upon the noble deas under the royal canopy, for gentle dames and peerless damoiselles; nay, was held in such repute, that it was the wont of prowest chevaliers, when devoting themselves to feats of emprise most perilous, to swear “before God, the bittern, and the ladies!” an honor to which no quadruped, and but two plumy bipeds, other than himself, the heron and the peacock, were admitted.

Those were the days, before gunpowder, “grave of chivalry,” was taught to Doctor Faustus by the Devil, who did himself no good by the indoctrination, but exactly the reverse, since war is thereby rendered less bloody, and much more uncruel—the days when no booming duck-gun keeled him over with certain and inglorious death, as he flapped up with his broad vans beating the cool autumnal air, and his long, greenish-yellow legs pendulous behind him, from out of the dark sheltering water-flags by the side of the brimful river, or the dark woodland tarn; but when the cheery yelp of a cry of feathery-legged spaniels aroused him from his arundinaceous, which is interpreted by moderns reedy, lair; when the triumphant whoop of the jovial falconers saluted his uprising; and when he was done to death right chivalrously, with honorable law permitted to him, as to the royal stag, before the long-winged Norway falcons, noblest of all the fowls of air, were unhooded and cast off to give him gallant chase.

If, when struck down from his pride of place by the crook-beaked blood-hound of the air, his legs were mercilessly broken, and his long bill thrust into the ground, that the falcon might dispatch him without fear of consequences, and at leisure, it was doubtless a source of pride to him, as to the tortured Indian at the stake, to be so tormented, since the amount of the torture was commensurate with the renown of the tortured; besides—for which the Bittern was, of course, truly grateful—it was his high and extraordinary prerogative to have his legs broken as aforesaid, and his long bill thrust into the ground, by the fair hand of the loveliest lady present—thrice blessed Bittern of the days of old.

A very different fate, in sooth, from being riddled with a charge of double Bs from a rusty flint-lock Queen Anne’s musket, poised by the horny paws of John Verity, and then ignobly cast to fester in the sun, among the up-piled eel-skins, fish-heads, king-crabs, and the like, with which, in lieu of garden-patch or well-trained rose-bush, the south-side Long Islander ornaments his front-door yard, rejoicing in the effluvia of the said decomposed piscine exuviæ, which he regards as “considerable hullsome,” beyond Sabæan odors, Syrian nard, or frankincense from Araby the blest!

Being eaten is being eaten after all; whether it be by a New Zealand war-chief, a New York alderman, a peerless lady, or a muck-worm; and I suppose it feels much the same, after one is once well dead; but, if I had my choice, I would most prefer to be eaten by the damoiselle of high degree, and most dislike to be battened on by the alderman, as being more ravenous and less appreciative than either Zealander or muck-worm.

The Bittern, however, be it said in sober earnest, although like many other delicious dishes prized by the wiser ancients, but now fallen into disuse, if not into disrepute—to wit, the heronschaw, the peacock, the curlew, and the swan—all first-rate dainties to the wise—is a viand not easily to be beaten, especially if he be sagely cooked in a well-baked, rich-crusted pastry, with a tender and fat rump-steak in the bottom of the dish, a beef’s kidney scored to make gravy, a handful of cloves, salt and black pepper quantum suff., a dozen hard-boiled eggs, and a pint of scalding-hot port wine poured in just before you serve up.

What you say, is perfectly true, my dear madam, cooked in that manner an old India rubber shoe is good; not only would be, but is. But you’d better believe it, a Bittern is a great deal better. If you don’t believe me, try the Bittern, and then if you prefer it, adhere to the shoe.

But now to quit his edible qualifications and turn to his personal appearance, habits of life, and location, and other characteristics, we will say of him, in the words of Wilson, that eloquent pioneer in the natural history of America, that the American Bittern, whom it pleases the Count de Buffon to designate as Le Butor de la Baye de Hudson, “is another nocturnal species, common to all our sea and river marshes, though nowhere numerous. It rests all day among the reeds and rushes, and, unless disturbed, flies and feeds only during the night. In some places it is called the Indian Hen; on the sea-coast of New Jersey it is known by the name of dunkadoo, a word probably imitative of its common note. They are also found in the interior, having myself killed one at the inlet of the Seneca Lake, in October. It utters at times, a hollow, guttural note among the reeds, but has nothing of that loud, booming sound for which the European Bittern is so remarkable. This circumstance, with its great inferiority of size, and difference of marking, sufficiently prove them to be two distinct species, although, hitherto, the present has been classed as a mere variety of the European Bittern. These birds, we are informed, visit Severn river, at Hudson’s Bay, about the beginning of June; make their nests in swamps, laying four cinereous green eggs among the long grass. The young are said to be, at first, black.

“These birds, when disturbed, rise with a hollow kwa, and are then easily shot down, as they fly heavily. Like other night birds, their sight is most acute during the evening twilight; but their hearing is, at all times, exquisite.

“The American Bittern is twenty-seven inches long, and three feet four inches in extent; from the point of the bill to the extremity of the toes, it measures three feet; the bill is four inches long; the upper mandible black; the lower, greenish yellow; lores and eyelids, yellow; irides, bright yellow; upper part of the head, flat, and remarkably depressed; the plumage there is of a deep blackish brown, long behind and on the neck, the general color of which is a yellowish brown, shaded with darker; this long plumage of the neck the bird can throw forward at will, when irritated, so as to give him a more formidable appearance; throat, whitish, streaked with deep brown; from the posterior and lower part of the auriculars, a broad patch of deep black passes diagonally across the neck, a distinguished characteristic of this species; the back is deep brown, barred, and mottled with innumerable specks and streaks of brownish yellow; quills, black, with a leaden gloss, and tipped with yellowish brown; legs and feet, yellow, tinged with pale green; middle claw, pectinated; belly, light yellowish brown, streaked with darker; vent, plain; thighs, sprinkled on the outside with grains of dark brown; male and female, nearly alike, the latter somewhat less. According to Bewick, the tail of the European Bittern contains only ten feathers; the American species has, invariably, twelve. The intestines measured five feet six inches in length, and were very little thicker than a common knitting-needle; the stomach is usually filled with fish or frogs.[^[1]]

“This bird, when fat, is considered by many to be excellent eating.”

It is on the strength of Mr. Wilson’s statement as above that I have given among the vulgar appellations of this beautiful bird that of Dunkadoo; though I must admit that I never heard him called a Dunkadoo, either on the sea-coast of New Jersey or any where else; and further must put it on record, that if the sea-coasters of New Jersey did coin the said melodious word as imitative of its common note, they proved much worse imitators than I have found them in whistling bay snipe, hawnking Canada geese, or yelping Brant. They might just as well have called him a Cockatoo, while they were about it.

The other name, Quawk, by which it is generally known both on the sea-coast of New Jersey, and every where else where the vernacular of America prevails, is precisely imitative of the harsh clanging cry with which he rises from the reeds in which he lurks during the day-time, and which he utters while disporting himself in queer clumsy gyrations in mid air, over the twilight marshes in the dusk of summer evenings; and how nearly Quawk approaches to Dunkadoo, that one of my readers who is the least appreciative of the comparative value of sweet sounds, can judge as well as I can.

In England the Bittern, who there is possessed of a voice between the sounds of a bassoon and kettle-drum, with which he makes a most extraordinary booming noise, which can be heard for miles, if not for leagues, over the midnight marshes, a noise the most melancholy and unearthly that ever shot superstitious horror into the bosom of the belated wayfarer, who is unconscious of its cause, has also been designated by the country people, from his cry, “the bog-bumper,” and the “bluttery bump”—but as our bird—the United Stateser, I mean, or Alleghanian, as the New York Historical Society Associates would designate their countrymen—Bittern never either booms, blutters or bumps, but only quawks; a quawk only he must be content to remain, whether with the sea-coasters of New Jersey, the south-siders of Long Island, or my friends, the Ojibwas of Lake Huron.

In another respect I cannot precisely agree with the acute and observant naturalist quoted above, as to its ungregarious nature, since on more occasions than one I have seen these birds together in such numbers, and under such circumstances of association, as would certainly justify the application to them of the word flock.

One of these occasions I remember well, as it occurred while snipe-shooting on the fine marshes about the riviere aux Canards in Canada West, when several times I saw as many as five or six flush together from out of the high reeds, as if in coveys; and this was late in September, so that they could not well have been young broods still under the parental care.

At another time I saw them in yet greater numbers and acting together, as it appeared, in a sort of concert. I was walking, I cannot now recollect why, or to what end, along the marshes on the bank of the Hackensack river, between the railroad bridge and that very singular knoll named Snakehill, which rises abruptly out of the meadows like an island out of the ocean. It was late in the summer evening, the sun had gone quite down, and a thick gray mist covered the broad and gloomy river. On a sudden, I was almost startled by a loud quawk close above my head; and, on looking up, observed a large Bittern wheeling round and round, now soaring up a hundred feet or more, and then suddenly diving, or to speak more accurately, falling, plump down, with his legs and wings all relaxed and abroad, precisely as if he had been shot dead, uttering at the moment of each dive a loud quawk. While I was still engaged in watching his manœuvres, he was answered, and a second Bittern came floating through the darksome air, and joined his companion. Another and another followed, and within ten or twelve minutes, there must have been from fifteen to twenty of these large birds all gamboling and disporting themselves together, circling round one another in their gyratory flight, and making the night any thing, certainly, but melodious by their clamors. What was the meaning of those strange nocturnal movements I cannot so much as guess; it was not early enough in the spring to be connected in any way with the amatory propensities of the birds, or I should have certainly set it down, like the peculiar flight, the unusual chatter, and the drumming, performed with the quill-feathers, of the American snipe—Scolopax Wilsonii—commonly known as the English snipe, during the breeding season, as a preliminary to incubation, nidification, and the reproduction of the species—in a word, as a sort of bird courtship. The season of the year put a stopper on that interpretation, and I can conceive none other than that the Quawks were indulging themselves in an innocent game of romps, preparatory to the more serious and solemn enjoyment of a fish and frog supper.

The Bittern, it appears, on the Severn river, emptying into Hudson’s Bay, makes its nest in the long grass of the marshes, and there lays its eggs and rears its black, downy young; but several years ago, while residing at Bangor, in Maine, while on a visit to a neighboring heronry, situated on an island covered with a dense forest of tall pines and hemlocks, I observed a pair of Bitterns flying to and fro, from the tree-tops to the river and back, with fish in their bills, among the herons which were similarly engaged in the same interesting occupation of feeding their young. One of these, the male bird, I shot, for the purpose of settling the fact, and we afterward harried the nest, and obtained two full-grown young birds, almost ready to fly.

Hence, I presume, that, like many other varieties of birds, the Bittern adapts his habits, even of nidification, to the purposes of the case, and that where no trees are to be found, in which he can breed, he makes the best he can of it, and builds on the ground; but it is my opinion that his more usual and preferred situation for his nest is in high trees, as is the case with his congeners, the Green Bittern, the blue heron, the beautiful white egret, the night heron, which may be all found breeding together in hundreds among the red cedars on the sea beach of Cape May. The nest, which I found in Maine, was built of sticks, precisely similar to that of the herons.

The Bittern is a more nocturnal bird than the heron, and is never seen, like him, standing motionless as a gray stone, with his long slender neck recurved, his javelin-like bill poised for the stroke, and his keen eye piercing the transparent water in search of the passing fry.

All day he rambles about among the tall grass and reeds of the marshes, sometimes pouncing on an unfortunate frog, a garter-snake, or a mouse, for, like the blue heron, he is a clever and indefatigable mouser; but when the evening comes, he bestirs himself, spreads his broad vans, rises in air, summoning up his comrades by his hoarse clang, and wings his way over the dim morasses, to the banks of some neighboring rivulet or pool, where he watches, erect sentinel, for the passing fish, shiners, small eels, or any of the lesser tribes of the cyprinidæ, and whom he detects, wo-betide; for the stroke of his sharp-pointed bill, dealt with Parthian velocity and certitude by the long arrowy neck, is sure death to the unfortunate.

Mr. Giraud, in his excellent book on the birds of Long Island, thus speaks of the American Bittern, and that so truthfully and agreeably withal, that I make no apology for quoting his words at length.

“This species is said to have been the favorite bird of the Indians, and at this day is known to many persons by the name of “Indian Hen,” or “Pullet,” though more familiarly by the appellation of “Look-up,” so called from its habit, when standing on the marshes, of elevating its head, which position, though probably adopted as a precautionary measure, frequently leads to its destruction. The gunners seem to have a strong prejudice against this unoffending bird, and whenever opportunity offers, seldom allow it to escape. It does not move about much by day, though it is not strictly nocturnal, but is sometimes seen flying low over the meadow, in pursuit of short-tailed or meadow-mice, which I have taken whole from its stomach. It also feeds on fish, frogs, lizards, etc.; and late in the season, its flesh is in high esteem—but it cannot be procured in any number except when the marshes are overflowed by unusually high tides, when it is hunted much after the manner the gunners adopt when in pursuit of rail. On ordinary occasions, it is difficult to flush; the instant it becomes aware that it has attracted the attention of the fowler, it lowers its head and runs quickly through the grass, and when again seen, is usually in a different direction from that taken by its pursuer, whose movements it closely watches; and when thus pursued, seldom exposes more than the head, leading the gunner over the marsh without giving him an opportunity to accomplish his purpose.

“When wounded, it makes a vigorous resistance, erects the feathers on the head and neck, extends its wings, opens its bill, and assumes a fierce expression—will attack the dog, and even its master, and when defending itself, directs its acute bill at its assailant’s eye. It does not usually associate with other herons, nor does it seem fond of the society of its own species. Singly or in pairs it is distributed over the marshes, but with us it is not abundant.”

The geographical range of this bird is, as I have before stated, very extensive, extending from the shores of Hudson’s Bay, in the extreme north, so far south at least as to the Cape of Florida, and probably yet farther down the coasts of the Mexican gulfs.

That fanciful blockhead, the Count de Buffon—for he was a most almighty blockhead when he set himself drawing on his imagination for facts—with his usual eloquent absurdity, describes the species as “exhibiting the picture of wretchedness, anxiety, and indigence; condemned to struggle perpetually with misery and want; sickened with the restless cravings of a famished appetite;” a description so ridiculously untrue, that were it possible for these birds to comprehend it, it would excite the risibility of the whole tribe.

If the count had seen the Quawks, as I did, at their high jinks, by the Hackensack, he would have scarce written such folly; and had he been a little more of a true philosopher, and thorough naturalist, he would have comprehended that whatsoever being the Universal Creator hath created unto any end—to that end he adapted him, not in his physical structure only, but in his instincts, his appetites, his tastes, his pleasures and his pains; and that to the patient Bittern, motionless on his mud-bank, that watch is as charming, as is the swift pursuit of the small bird to the falcon, of the rabbit to the fox, of the hare to the greyhound, of all the animals devoured to all the devourers; and that his frog diet is as dear to Ardea Lentiginosa, as his flower dew to the humming-bird, or his canvas-backs, in the tea-room, to an alderman of Manhattan.

As for the Bittern starving, eat a fat one in a pie, and you’ll be a better judge of that probability, than any Buffon ever bred in France; and as for all the rest—it is just French humbug.

At another opportunity, I may speak of others of this interesting tribe. Sportsmen rarely go out especially to hunt them, except in boats, as described by Mr. Giraud, but in snipe and duck-shooting in the marshes they are constantly flushed and shot.

Pointers and setters will both stand them steadily, and cocking spaniels chase them with ardor. Their flight is slow and heavy, and their tardy movements and large size render them an easy mark even to a novice. They are not a hardy bird, as to the bearing off shot; for the loose texture of their feathers is more than ordinarily penetrable, and a light charge of No. 8, will usually bring them down with certainty.

When wing-tipped they fight fiercely, striking with their long beaks at the eyes of the assailant, whether dog or man, and laying aside resistance only with their lives.

Early in the autumn is the best time both for shooting him and eating him, and for the latter purpose he is better than for the former; but for the noble art of falconry, the mystery of rivers, he is the best of all. Avium facile princeps; easily the Topsawyer of the birds of flight, unless it be his cousin german heronshaw, whom the princely Dane knew from a hawk, when the wind was nor-nor-west.

[1]	I have taken an entire water-rail from the stomach of the European Bittern.—Ed.

WILD ROSES BY THE RIVER GROW.

———

BY CAROLINE F. ORNE.

———

Wild roses by the river grow,

And lilies by the stream,

And there I pulled the blossoms fair

In young love’s happy dream.

The lilies bent upon the stem

In many a graceful twine,

But lighter was the slender form

Of her I dreamed was mine.

The wilding-rose hath fairer hues

Than other flowers have known,

But lovelier tints were on the cheek

Of her I called mine own.

I pulled my love the wilding-rose,

The lily-bell so frail,

Sudden the flowers were scattered far,

Reft by the envious gale.

So from my life was reft away

Love’s flower; I dwell alone,

Far severed by relentless fate

From her I called mine own.

Still by the river blooms the rose,

The lily by the stream,

I pull no more the blossoms fair,

Fled is love’s happy dream.

THE SONG-STREAM.

———

BY ELLEN MORE.

———

“My right to love, and thine to know,

The life-stream, in its seaward flow,

Glides, chainless, ’neath the drifted snow.”

Wherever it listeth the free-born wind bloweth:

Wherever it willeth the stream of song floweth:

It revels in twin-light—its lone threads run single;

It passeth calm seas with wild Caspians to mingle.

If blest with true life-mate, in roughest of weather,

They join their glad voices and rush on together;

If lost in a lake whose fair surface is calmer,

It but hides in its bosom to warble there warmer.

If Spring lay a couch all enameled with flowers,

It lingers, enrapt, with the soft rosy hours,

And lists the wood-birds, and the meek insect-hummer,

Through the soft, growing idless of thought-teeming Summer.

And when Fall strews a carpet of brown o’er the meadow

It rests in the dusk of some mountain’s vast shadow;

Laughs out at the vain who look in for their faces,

For it mirrors great groups of the Nations and Races.

Though the Song-stream must cease all its rich, liquid flowing

When Time’s boreal breath o’er cold icebergs is blowing,

While closed the chill surface its depths who shall number,

Or the beats of its heart through the long polar slumber!

For the stream of true song hath a far-reaching mission;

It but gropeth while here, like sick sleeper in vision;

Or like volatile babe, its first word-lessons taking,

It catches faint glimpse of the vastness awaking.

As whither it listeth the free-born wind bloweth,

Wherever God willeth the true Song-stream floweth:

From all Dead Seas it holdeth its crystal wave single,

Till it riseth from earth with sky-dews to commingle.

MACHINERY, FOR MACHINE MAKING.

MESSRS. LEONARD, BROS. MACHINISTS.

MATTEAWAN WORKS, FISHKILL, DUCHESS COUNTY, NEW YORK.

MACHINERY DEPOT 109 PEARL AND 60 BEAVER STREET, NEW YORK.

NO. 1.—IMPROVED POWER PLANER.

Of all the leading characteristics of the present age, the most remarkable, and that which is evolving results of the greatest moment, is the general prevalence, and almost universal application of labor-saving machines, of one sort or another, which are gradually but surely bringing about a thorough revolution in all the forms of human industry.

Horse-power, man-power, nay! but almost wind and water power also, are rapidly becoming things almost obsolete and disused; while the giant might of the labor-imprisoned steam is pressed into services the most multifarious and diverse; now speeding the mighty ship with a regularity of time and pace exceeded only, if exceeded, by that of the chronometer; now whirling along, through the ringing grooves of iron, trains, the weight of which must be reckoned not by hundreds nor by thousands, but by tens of thousands of tons, measuring miles by minutes, and almost annihilating time and space; now drilling the smallest eye of the finest needle, turning the most delicate thread of the scarce visible screw, drawing out metallic wires to truly fabulous fineness, or spinning the sea island cottons of the South to threads, beside which the silkiest hair of the softest and most feminine of women waxes apparently to the thickness of a cable.

Henceforth it is apparent that of man, the worker, the skill and the slight, no more the sinews and the sweat, are to be called into requisition; that the head, and not the hand, is to be the chief instrument; that the intellectual and no longer the physical forces are to predominate, even in the merest labor.

To direct, not to wield, the power is henceforth to be the principal duty of the mechanic, even of the lowest grade; and in no respect is the progression, set in movement by the progress of science, more real than in this—that increased intelligence, increased capacity of comprehension, increased application to study, is hourly becoming more and more essential to the working-man of the present and the coming ages.

To be as strong as an elephant and as patient as a camel, with an average intelligence inferior probably to that of either animal, will no longer suffice to the swart smith, who now wields, by simple direction of a small spring or tiny lever, forces ten thousand times superior to any power that could be effected by the mightiest of sledge-hammers swung by the brawniest of human arms.

It is worthy of note, that at all periods, from the first introduction of labor-saving machinery, fears have been entertained, even by scientific men and political economists of high order, that the vast increase of working power would exert an injurious influence against the human worker; as if production were about to outrun demand and consumption, so that there would not in the end be enough of labor to be done to employ those seeking to exercise their industry or ingenuity, and depending on that exercise for the support of themselves and their families. Panics have, moreover, arisen among the workmen of the manufacturing classes, as if the machinery were about to rob them of their daily labor, whence their daily bread; and the consequences have been, especially in the large English manufacturing towns, fearful riots, conflagrations of mills and factories, destruction of much valuable machinery, the ruin of owners and employers, and—as a natural consequence of the cause last named—stagnation in business, deterioration of the laborer’s condition, and actual loss of life.

Now, it is not to be denied that on the first introduction into any factory, or class of factories, of any new labor-saving machine, by which perhaps one man is enabled to perform the work of a dozen or twenty, a large number of hands must necessarily be thrown out of work, and more or less immediate distress arise therefrom; neither is it to be admired, or held as an especial wonder, that poor men, ignorant of the operation of great principles, suffering the extremes of poverty, smarting under the idea that their right to be employed and to earn is superseded and usurped forever by the twin colossi, capital and machinery, and goaded to frenzy by the gross folly of socialist editors and journalists, should attempt to abate, what they naturally esteem dangerous and aggressive nuisances, by physical violence.

But it is certain that they do so wrongfully as regards theoretical rights, wrongfully as regards general principles and the general good, and not least wrongfully as regards their own particular welfare.

For not only is it manifestly unjust that the great mass of mankind, as consumers, throughout the universe, should be deprived of the incalculable benefit of increased supplies of necessaries at decreased prices, in order to advance the interests of a certain class of producers—not only is it manifestly absurd to dream of a return to first principles, either in arts, manufacture or science, to fancy that, once invented, elaborated and rendered public, labor-saving machinery can be abolished and thrown into compulsory disuse—but it can be shown, evidently enough, that the condition of the mechanical and manufacturing laborer is in fact improved, not deteriorated, by every successive step gained in saving labor and lowering the prices of production by the agency of machines.

Their intellectual capacity is improved; their powers of production are increased, in a much more rapid progression than their prices are lowered; and, above all, so infinitely and incalculably is the consumption of products augmented, in excess of the decrease of money values, that, the demand increasing in a ratio far greater than any arithmetical progression, the call for laborers, the increased prices of the entire production, and the command of wages by ability, skill and intellect, increase pari passu. Nor is this all; for it cannot be denied that the mechanic, the artisan and the manufacturer must necessarily rise in position, in self-respect, in social esteem, and in the natural scale of humanity, as a higher range of qualifications are required of him, and as he is compelled to advance in his own attainments and capacities, in order to keep up with the advances of the age and nation.

This is the true solution of the great problem of the laboring classes, their prospects and their condition; and this is the true reply to all the imbecile jargon of the pseudo-philosophical socialists of the French school, concerning the nobility of manual labor, and the equality, or I believe, superiority of the hand-worker to the head-worker; of the delver, the ditcher, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, to the thinker, the inventor, the creator—or in other words, of the equality, or superiority, accordingly as it may be claimed, of mere physical force, unguided by any thing of judgment or intellect, to the highest cultivation of the thinking powers, to the completest development of the loftiest human capabilities, to the largest expansion of those qualities in which, after the affections, we approximate the nearest to divinity. But there is no such thing, nor ever will be. There is no nobility, whatsoever, in the mere act and exercise of bodily labor, or even of patient industry—although in the causes, which stimulate to that exertion and lend endurance to that industry, there may be much of the very noblest.

There is, in the nature of things, no possible show of equality, much less of superiority, as between physical and intellectual ability, between the head-worker and the hand-worker; because, in the latter, the utmost powers that man can put forward are as the toils of a pigmy, a mere Lilliputian, to the enormous forces of the elephant or of the camel; while in the former, the genius of the man, and the grasp of his mental attainments, are a little lower only than those of the angels; and these are hourly making progress toward that perfectionment which never will be attained in this world; whereas, in those there has been no increase, but probably the reverse, from the days of the patriarchs to the present hour.

The world neither does, nor ever will, accept of any equality between mental and physical labors and abilities; and the only hope of raising the condition and social scale of the working-classes lies not in striving impotently to drag down those naturally, constitutionally and educationally their superiors to the lower level, but by encouraging the inferiors to aspire to the like elevation, to cultivate on every occasion their higher faculties, to aim at the attainment of capacity for head-labor in their degree, to learn to think, and not to act only, to strive, in fact, to resemble less the beasts that perish, and more the men who live forever.

Encouragement may do this, kindling the worker to a hope of better things, and showing him that such a hope is not the vain imagination of a dream, but a real, tangible possibility.

Making him discontented with his lot; leading him to misapprehend his own position and to undervalue that of his superior, can tend only to render him a very bad member of society, and a very unhappy member of the human family.

Fortunately, other and far higher causes are at work, than the Utopian dreams of visionary sophists and the sentimental false philosophy of world-reforming lunatics, for the ameliorating the condition, both physical and social, of the laborer. And one of these—nor that the least—when superadded to the increasing purposes and enlarged principles of the times—will be found, I believe, in the necessity arising from the general use of complicated machines, which is compelling the mechanic and hand-laborer to educate his head as well as to harden his hands; to develop his soul as well as his sinews, and to become himself head-worker no less than handy-craftsman. In this most desirable change, not a false pride and real ignorance of their own real position, but a clear perception and humble estimate of their own deficiencies and of the means of overcoming them, are requisite to the working-classes; and he is their true friend who insists to them on the former and assists them toward the latter—not he who mendaciously and mischievously asserts to them—as is now too frequently done—that a hodman is at least equal if not superior to a Herschel, an Irish ditcher to a Descartes or a Newton, and the meanest stoker that fires up a furnace to him whose intellect combined the various principles, and conceived the vast system, of that motive power which, in the last quarter of a century has revolutionized the world of art and science, joined ocean shores by bridges of almost continuous steamboats, and linked continents together by the iron groves and metallic wires which speed the space-annihilating messengers of steam and electricity from hemisphere to hemisphere unhindered.

To these considerations we are naturally led when we envisage the fact that these very labor-saving machines are themselves created by other machines of like principles and scarcely inferior powers, such as we purpose to introduce to our readers, by a series of cuts, with some brief explanation of their uses and principles of action, in this present article.

The unparalleled extension of rail-roads in this country, so peculiarly calculated for their creation by its natural configuration and geological structure, has called for a supply of rail-road materials, both raw and manufactured, to a degree almost inconceivable even at the present day; and so great have been the improvements recently introduced into machinery, so enormous the weight of the persons and freight to be transported, and so extraordinary the speed expected, and in fact demanded, by the traveling public, that nothing short of perfection in finish and strength will suffice, whether for marine engines, locomotives, or in fact, any power machines.

This will easily be admitted when it is considered that on all the really good and well supported lines of road, in the Eastern states more especially, the rate of travel averages from thirty to fifty miles per hour, at an average cost to each passenger of about one-and-a-half cent per the mile of distance.

We of course do not here take into account such miserable effete monopolies as some of our own interior, and some of the Southern roads, or that of the New Jersey Rail-Road and Transportation Company, the rates of which do not exceed fourteen miles to the hour, at a charge of something exceeding three cents per mile—since these are the exceptions to the rule, arising from the mistaken policy of the states through which they pass, in granting them exclusive privileges, enabling them with a minimum of speed, punctuality, civility, cleanliness, safety and comfort, to exact a maximum of fare from all who are so unfortunate as to be compelled to travel by them.

These unimproved concerns, retrogressive in the very centre of the most brilliant progression, may, however, count their days as numbered, their unhallowed and enormous gains as arrested. The latter rail-road, never exceeding the average speed of good stage-coach travel, is now so seriously rivaled by heavy omnibuses running on a plank-road, that its locomotives to-day barely draw an average of three empty cars, where six weeks since they drew from eight to ten, filled to discomfort.

Hitherto all their underhand attempts to buy up this road, by means of individual stockholders, in order to destroy its efficiency and raise the prices, have failed so signally, that it is evident that the people over whom they have so long driven roughshod will endure their insolent tyranny no longer, and they must either tranquilly submit to pass away into contempt, bankruptcy and abeyance, or they must make their road reasonably cheap, as speedy, punctual and convenient to passengers as others—which they can readily do by diverting a portion of their colossal gains from dividends and personal profits to the exigencies of the public, in laying proper tracks, adopting improved engines, employing clean, comfortable and roomy cars, guided by capable and civil conductors, all at the ordinary price of rail-road transportation on the best, fleetest, and most favored lines.

To produce this excellence and finish, tools of peculiar quality—in the form of power-machines, adapted for planing, turning, and drilling iron, cutting gears, and the like—have become actually necessary; doing their work at an incalculably lower price, and greater celerity than the ablest human hands, and with a mathematical regularity and precision which no human experience or dexterity could possibly equal.

It is the creation of these various power-tool-machines, which, as I have stated, is indispensable for the building of power-machinery of any kind; from the marine-engine, which drives the huge steamships of Cunard or Collins over the wild surges of the Atlantic, with all the punctuality, and nearly all the speed of birds of passage; from the locomotive, with its team of iron chargers, bringing the farthest west to our very doors in the oceanic cities, to the fast power-presses, which roll off the news, collected from the uttermost ends of the earth by the agency of steam and lightning, at the rate of 20,000 copies to the hour—and intellectually feeding their hundred thousand hungry readers or ere the paper is well dry—freighted with the fates of nations.

And it is to the creation of these, in their best form and utmost perfection, that the great works at Matteawan, a lovely spot, embosomed in the grandest part of the Highlands of the Hudson, are devoted; while the Depots in New York are intended to keep, at all times, on hand a large supply of tools, required by machinists of all classes, particularly needed in the railroad and machine shop, and such, in a word, as cannot be dispensed with by any of those artificers, who work upon the tough and stubborn produce of the mines.

All these tools are either manufactured by the Messrs. Leonard themselves at the “Matteawan works,” employing some three hundred and fifty hands, or furnished from the “Lowell machine shops,” where from five hundred to a thousand hands are constantly employed in this class of business; or, again, from “The Great Hadley-Falls shop,” at Holyoke; all of which establishments are represented by the same firm, and all of which turn out work, which—it is believed—cannot be surpassed, if equalled, in the world.

The first of these machines which we propose to notice, a representation of which stands at the head of this paper, is perhaps one of the most important, if not the most important of all the tools employed in the machine shop.

This engine has already been noticed in Graham, as employed in the noble press-works of Messrs. Hoe & Co., of New York—vol. XL., No. 6, p. 576. It is used for finishing the surfaces of whatever portions of the machinery must be brought to a smooth and polished face. This is done by the propulsion of the pieces of iron to be planed in a horizontal and longitudinal direction against cutting edges, which again move horizontally across the moving planes, and are pressed downward on them vertically, so as to effect the planing to the uniform depth required. The abraded portions of the metal are thrown off—from the surface of cast iron in a sort of scaly dust, from that of wrought iron in long curled shavings—and the planes can be wrought up to almost any desirable degree of smoothness and finish.

It is but a short time, comparatively, since this machine was first introduced: it is one of the most important among mechanical tools; and it is indeed a triumph of art to see one of these machines under the direction of one person, performing the usual labor of some fifteen or twenty mechanics in former times with their chisels and files. Art observes, and experience confirms the fact, that machinery can and does perform work much more accurately than the most skillful mechanic; and, perhaps, in no instance is this general principle so happily illustrated as in the performance of these machines. The usual cost of motive power is about twenty-five cents per day, per horse power, and allowing one horse to be equivalent to five men, we shall have the labor of one mechanic furnished for five cents a-day. From this it will be seen how important every invention or improvement becomes to the machine-builder, which tends to perform the usual labor on the machine by machinery.

The above cut represents a very excellent planer. There is a great degree of taste and finish employed in its design; indeed the builder may flatter himself that he has one of the best machines built in this country.

This machine, according to its size, weight, and cost, is divided into Nos. 4, 5, and 6, capable of planeing metal from four feet long, by eighteen inches wide and high, to six feet six inches long, by twenty-four inches wide and high—and weighs respectively 1000, 2,600, and 3,500 pounds.

The machine from which the design at the head of this paper is taken may be seen at No. 60 Beaver Street, New York.

NO. 2.—IMPROVED ENGINE LATHE.

This again is a highly valuable and ingenious machine; its special operation is, as its name implies, the turning of any iron work to its required round circumference and requisite degree of polish, whether it is a perfect cylinder, or of various diameters at various points.

By it, all round work for engines is formed and finished—as rods, shafts, and the like. The action of the machine is simple, easy and almost noiseless. The piece of metal is fixed in the spindle, shown in the cut above in contact with the right elbow of the spectator, and secured, longitudinally of the machine, on the sharp point proceeding from the fixture at the left end of the Lathe, behind the operator’s shoulder.

To this, the object of operation, a rapid rotatory movement on its own axis is given by steam-power, and the cutting is produced by its rotation against two steel edges impinging on it laterally, and made to travel horizontally and longitudinally on a bed, so as to cut the bar, submitted to its agency, equally throughout all its length. This instrument is also directed by one man only, while acting with the combined power of very many, and performs its work with an ease equalled only by its great exactitude.

NO. 3.—IMPROVED GEAR CUTTING ENGINE.

For the benefit of those of our readers, who have no previous acquaintance with mechanism, we shall merely premise that a gear is a wheel with a toothed circumference, like watch-wheels, or what in ruder mechanism are known as cogged-wheels; and those gears, known as level gears, are such as have the toothing on the circumference not perpendicular to the plane of the diameter, but at an acute angle to it, so that when two gears of a peculiar degree of bevil are set in contact, a horizontal rotatory movement may be communicated to one by a corresponding perpendicular rotation of the other. This will be rendered comprehensible by a careful examination of the motive power of the borer in the representation of the instrument, No. 5.

The above cut represents a very cheap and simple gear-cutter. Its principal novelty consists in the use of the large gear-wheel instead of the common graduated table. It is extremely simple, and at the same time possesses all the advantages of the old machine. It will be observed that the crank is connected to the large wheel by a set of intermediate gears, every revolution of which is made to correspond with the number of teeth in the wheel to be cut. This is accomplished by a set of change gears, which accompany the machine.

The changes are made in the opposite end of the Crank Shaft.

It will be observed that one revolution of the crank bears the same relation to the number of teeth in the large wheel, as one tooth in the wheel to be cut bears to the whole number it is to contain. The number of teeth and the pitch of the wheel is consequently derived from the change gears.

When level gears are cut, the head is then set at the proper inclination, and secured by the screw which projects at the rear of the head.

The cheapness of this machine more particularly recommends it, the price being but $250, while its efficiency and regular operation are so well established as to require no further comment.

NO. 4.—THE UPRIGHT DRILL.

This is another admirable engine for diminishing and simplifying human labor. It is applied to the boring of all kinds of iron-work for machinery.

The perpendicular drill, as will be readily observed, is worked with a swift, rotatory movement, by means of the bevil gears at its upper extremity. By a wheel—the circumference of which only is displayed in the cut—acting upon the thread of a screw midway its length, it is pressed down upon the piece of work to be drilled.

This piece is secured upon a horizontal table placed under the point of the rotary drill, which table may be elevated or depressed at pleasure, by aid of the small lever projecting backward, which acts on a geared wheel playing on the thread of the great perpendicular screw of the main shaft.

NO. 5.—ENGINE LATHE.

The nature, operation, and application of power in this engine are precisely similar to those shown and explained at No. 2. But it is employed only for the cutting of screws and screw bolts, and the boring of plates, pulleys, etc., which latter operations it performs by aid of Fairmen’s Universal Chuck, which will be described hereafter. In working this lathe, the implement last named is attached to the spindle, immediately under the right hand of the operator.

The engine itself is of unusual neatness and finish.

NO. 6.—SMALL POWER PLANER.

This little engine is similar in action and principle to the cut, No. 1; the iron, to be planed, moving horizontally and longitudinally on a bed, across which the cutting edges move with a downward pressure and a lateral movement, cutting and finishing the surface to the requisite depth and degree, easily and almost to perfection.

The machine works very simply, and almost noiselessly; it is exceedingly handy, and is directed by one person; is very portable; occupies but an inconsiderable space, and does work precisely of the same description as No. 1, though of inferior dimensions in all respects.

NO. 7.—FAIRMAN’S UNIVERSAL CHUCK.

A Chuck generally is explained as being a round plate, which is fastened on to the spindle of a lathe—see No. 5—and is used to bore holes in round or variously shaped plates of metal. It will be observed, in the cut above, that all the upright studs converge toward the centre by one motion of the lever, so that the centre of the article to be bored must correspond with the centre of the spindle. Besides all sorts of plates, as above mentioned, the centres of gear wheels and pulleys are bored by it.

There is a beautiful principle involved in the action of this chuck, though its novelty is in some sort lost in its simplicity. Here, by a simple movement of the hand, the article to be worked is brought to its proper position; while, by the old method, the same position could only be arrived at after a series of trials; nor, in the end, is the article so firmly held, after its correct place shall have been ascertained.

The last representation we shall offer to our readers is the subjoined cut of an improved borer for the wheels of railroad cars. The extreme simplicity of its general arrangements is its most conspicuous feature, and the small space it occupies is another highly important consideration. It will chuck all sized wheels up to three feet diameter, and can bolt on wheels of yet larger dimensions.

In the cut, a car-wheel is shown set on the machine; the upright spindle which passes through it contains the cutters, and is driven by the pulley shown on the left side of the machine, which gives to the spindle-lathe its rotary and alternate motion.

The brief account here given of these very ingenious and simple machines will, it is hoped, answer the desired end of conveying to the general reader some idea of the principles of operation, the perfection, and the immense general utility of these most emphatically labor-saving engines.

We say emphatically labor-saving, because they not only spare and simplify labor by their own direct operation, but indirectly do so fifty or a hundred fold, because they are applied to the creation of those vast space-and-time-annihilating machines, which in the present day surpass the wildest and most marvelous legends of Fairy-land, of necromancers and magicians, as to the powers—incalculable and almost ubiquitous—which they bestow on their possessors, and which create wealth for the countries having sons expert to invent and use them, surpassing the gold of Ophir, and the gems of Golconda.

NO. 8.—FAIRMAN’S BORING MACHINE.

FORGOTTEN.

Forgotten! ’tis the sentence passed on every thing of earth;

Naught can escape the heavy doom, that in this world has birth;

The cloud that floats in azure skies, the flower that blooms so bright,

The leaf that casts a cooling shade, unnoticed pass from sight.

—Forgotten! can it be that all, the beautiful, the good,

The wise, the great, must buried be, ’neath Lethe’s waveless flood?

Must all this world’s magnificence, its splendid pomp and pride,

The fanes which man has proudly raised, and Time’s strong arm defied,

Oh! must it all return to dust, and from remembrance fade—

Will no faint memory remain, no thought, not e’en a shade?

Alas! it must; thus has it been—thus must it be again;

Who reared the lofty pyramids? Their work was all in vain!

Stricken with awe, we gaze upon those monuments to fame,

And ask, but ask unanswered, for the mighty builder’s name!

The countless tumuli outspread upon our western lands,

Who piled their shapeless forms, and why? Where are the busy hands

Which ages since heaped high those mounds? Alas! we ne’er can know;

Their names were blotted out from life long centuries ago.

And must I be forgotten thus? When earth sees me no more

Will all this working world plod on as calmly as before?

Will no sweet memory of me cling round some constant heart?

Must all remembrance of my life from every soul depart?

It must not be! Build me a tomb whose top shall pierce the cloud—

Pile high the marble! set it round with stately columns proud—

Rear me some fane, dig deep the base, outspread it far and wide,

And write my name indelibly upon its gleaming side!

Down! down! rebellious soul, not thus must thou remembered be—

Not thus a world must ages hence be taught to think of me—

Not thus would I be carried on by Time’s resistless flood;

I would not be remembered with the great, but with the good—

If in my heart one virtue live, one pure and holy thought,

If in my character one high and noble trait be wrought,

If in my life one act be found from earthly blemish free,

If one bright impulse point to Heaven, by that remember me!

C. E. T.

CLARA GREGORY:

OR THE STEP-MOTHER.

CHAPTER I.

“Do, dear Clara, stay at home to-night; father will be so grieved.”

“He certainly has shown no great regard for my feelings, and he cannot expect me to be over-tender of his. I am sure I could not endure to stay here, and my marvel is that you can.”

Clara Gregory did not observe the tear that glistened in her sister’s eye, as she spoke these words, in a bitter tone; yet her voice was gentler when she spoke again.

“Please, Alice, just tie my tippet for me; my hands are gloved. There, thank you.”

She opened the hall-door, and stood for a moment listening to the moan the leafless trees made as they shivered in the blast.

“Well, Alice, I suppose it is of no use asking you to go with me; so, good-night!” And she slowly descended the steps, and passed down the street.

Alice stood watching her receding form until she disappeared, and then, with a shiver, she turned away.

“How cold it is!” she said to herself. “I must be sure to have it warm and pleasant for them when they come. Let me see. I will have a fire in the little back parlor; it looks so bright and cheery. I know father will like that best.”

The fire was kindled, the rooms were lighted, and the young girl wandered through them, again and again, to assure herself that nothing could make them more home-like and inviting. In the large parlors, with their rich furniture and furnace-heat, there was little for her to do.

A certain awe forbade her to interfere with “Aunt Debby’s” accustomed arrangements, but in the “dear little back parlor” she might do as she listed; and she found ample employment for her fairy fingers.

The fuchsia must be taught to droop its bright blossoms over the pale calla, the door of Canary’s cage was to be set open, the father’s slippers to be placed before his chair, the favorite books to be laid upon the table.

All, at last, was done. The pictures on the wall, the crimson curtains, and the carpet on the floor, reflected the streaming light of the fire with a grateful glow of comfort. One momentous question remained to be decided. Should the old dog be suffered to crouch as usual on the hearth-rug, or be banished to less honorable quarters? After deep and anxious deliberation this was also settled. Carlo was permitted to ensconce himself in the chimney-corner, while his young mistress placed herself in the great arm-chair before the fire and fell to dreaming.

Alice Gregory was but fifteen years old; yet, any one would have longed to know of her dreams, who might have looked on her as she sat there, her thoughtful eyes fixed on the glowing coals, and her youthful face inwrought with feeling. And much she had to make her think and feel; for Alice was a motherless child, and this night was to bring a stranger into that place, so hallowed by the memory of her who had passed thence into the heavens.

Two long hours did the girl sit there, awaiting her father’s return. Sweet visions of the past, dim visions of the future, were about her. All the saddest and the happiest hours of her brief life came back to her. They came as old, familiar friends, sorrowful as were some of their faces; and she clung to them, and could not bear to leave them for those coming hours that beckoned to her with so doubtful promise.

“I hope she will love me,” mused she of the strange mother; “but she cannot as Aunt Mary does, and nobody, nobody can ever love me as my own dear mother did!” she sobbed, with a gush of tears. But presently they staid in their fountain, for she thought of her mother, still loving her, and of her Saviour, ever near, loving her more than mortal could. “I will try to be good and gentle,” thought she, “and she will love me. Nine o’clock! Aunt Debby thought they would be here by seven, I must go and ask her what the matter can be.”

The individual yclept “Aunt Debby” was no less a personage than Mrs. Deborah Dalrymple, whose pride it was, that for twenty years the light of her wisdom, and the strength of her hands, had been the dependence of Dr. Arthur Gregory’s household. On this occasion, Alice found her in the dining-room, seated in state, her bronzed visage graced by the veritable cap with which she had honored the reception of the first Mrs. Gregory. Its full double ruffle, and bountiful corn-colored bows, made her resemble the pictures, in the primers, of the sun with puffed cheeks, surrounded by his beams. She would show no partiality, not she. What Dr. Gregory thought was right, was right. He had been a good master to her as ever a woman need have, and she was sure of a comfortable home the rest of her days whoever came there. Dr. Gregory was in all things her oracle, her admiration, her sovereign authority. The world did not often see such a man as he, that it didn’t. But, barring the doctor, she sensibly realized the world had no more reliable authority than Mrs. Deborah Dalrymple. There she sat, anxiously speculating on the approaching regime, and plying the needles on her best knitting-work with uncommon zeal.

“Aunt Debby, do you know it is nine o’clock?”

“I heard the clock strike nine.”

“Father should have been here two hours ago.”

“I don’t know that.”

“Why! you said he would be here at seven.”

“I don’t know that.”

“What then?”

“I expected him.”

“Well, what can be the reason that he does not come?”

“Great many things.”

“But what is the reason?”

“He knows better than I.”

“What do you suppose?”

“Nothing.”

Alice came to a pause with a decidedly unsatisfied expression.

“Was it winter when he brought my mother home?”

“No.”

“Summer?”

“Yes.”

“Was it a pleasant day?”

“Yes.”

Despairing of Aunt Debby’s communicativeness, Alice returned to her solitude, roused a vigorous flame in the grate, and sitting down on an ottoman beside Carlo, commenced an attack on his taciturnity.

“But hark! those are father’s bells! No—yes! yes, they are come!”

Girl and dog sprang to their feet together, and ran to the door. In her haste Alice brushed something from the work-table. It was nothing but her mother’s needle-book, but she pressed it to her lips as she tenderly replaced it, and passed more slowly into the hall.

The cordial greetings were over. The cloaks and furs were laid aside, and Alice sat down in the chimney-corner to observe the new-comer, in whose face the full radiance of the bright fire shone, while she conversed with Aunt Debby about the journey and the weather.

“She is not pretty,” thought she. “Very unlike mother—taller and statelier, with black eyes and hair—still, her features are noble, and she looks good.”

She came to this satisfactory conclusion just as her father suddenly exclaimed—

“Where did you say Clara was, Alice? Has she not returned from Belford?”

“Yes, sir; she is staying with Ellen Morgan to-night.”

“Is Ellen Morgan sick?”

How Alice wished she could say yes, or any thing else than the plain, reluctant no—but out it must come. An expression of pain and displeasure came over the doctor’s countenance, and he glanced quickly at his wife. But she seemed to have no other thought than of the plants over which she was bending.

“What sweet flowers have come to you, in the midst of the snow, Alice!” she exclaimed, as she lifted a spray of monthly rose, weighed down with its blossoms.

Alice’s eyes glistened with pleasure as she saw that her darlings had found a friend.

“They were mother’s,” she began, then stopped suddenly.

“You must love them very dearly,” said Mrs. Gregory, with feeling. “But where is the little Eddie? Shall I not see him?”

“Oh! he begged to sit up and wait, but he fell asleep, and Aunt Debby put him to bed. Would you like to go up and look at him? He is so pretty in his sleep!”

“Indeed he is pretty in his sleep,” thought the step-mother, as she bent over the beautiful child in his rosy dreams. She laid back his soft, bright curls, and lightly kissed his pure cheek, gazing long and tenderly upon him. Tears shone in her eyes as she, turning toward Alice, said softly,

“Can we be happy together, Alice dear?”

“I am sure we shall,” answered the warm-hearted girl impulsively. “Indeed, I will try to make you happy.”

——

CHAPTER II.

Late the next morning, Mrs. Gregory was sitting in the parlor with little Eddie at her side, where he had been enchained for five long minutes by the charms of a fairy tale. But as some one glided by the door he bounded away, crying,

“There’s sister Clara! Clara, come and see my new mamma!”

Presently, however, he came back with a dolorous countenance, complaining,

“She says I have no new mamma, and she does not want to see her either. But I have,” he continued emphatically, laying hold on one of her fingers with each of his round, white fists, “and you will stay always, and tell me stories, wont you? Was that all about Fenella?”

“We will have the rest another time, for there is the dinner-bell, and here comes your father.”

The joyous child ran to his father’s arms, and then assuming a stride of ineffable dignity led the way to the dining-room.

“Has not Clara yet returned?” asked the doctor, in a tone of some severity.

“Yes, father,” said her voice behind him; and as he turned she greeted him, respectfully, yet without her usual affectionate warmth.

Then came her introduction to the step-mother, who greeted her with a gentle dignity peculiar to her. Clara’s manner, on the contrary, was extremely dignified, without any special gentleness, ceremonious and cold. As the family gathered around the table all but one made an attempt at conversation. But the presence of one silent iceberg was enough to congeal the sociability of the group. Remarks became shorter than the intervals between them, and finally quite ceased. Mrs. Gregory, meanwhile, had time to observe her eldest daughter. She was a handsome, genteel girl of about seventeen, elegantly dressed. Her fair face was intelligent, though clouded at this time with an expression of determined dissatisfaction. The red lips of her pretty little mouth pressed firmly together, as though to make sure that no word should escape them; the dark-blue eyes were continually downcast.

Suddenly little Eddie exclaimed, directing his spoon very pointedly toward Clara,

“What made you say I had no new mamma? There she is!”

The crimson blood rushed to Clara’s temples, as she visited a most reproving glance on the child, while Alice hastened to relieve the awkward predicament by suggesting to him the desirableness of more sauce on his pudding. He was hushed for the moment, but presently broke forth again, as though a bright thought had flashed upon him.

“She isn’t the same dear mamma I used to have, is she? Say, father, did you go up to Heaven and bring her back? Oh! why didn’t you let me go too?”

“No, my child,” said Dr. Gregory very seriously, “I could not go for your dear mamma, nor would I if I could, for she is with those whom she loves more than even us. But, perhaps, she has sent you this mother to love you, and take care of you, till you can go to her, if you are good.”

“I will be good,” said the child very resolutely, and they rose from the table.

Alice and her mother lingered talking at the western window, which commanded a fine sea view.

“She is certainly a delightful woman,” thought Alice, as, after a long chat, she tripped blithely up to her chamber.

As she opened the door, she discovered Clara thrown upon the bed, her face hidden in the pillows, sobbing aloud. She hesitated a moment, then going up to her, said entreatingly—

“Don’t, dear Clara, cry so!”

But her only answer was a fresh burst of tears. So she sat down on the bed-side and took her mother’s miniature, which Clara clasped between her hands. It was a picture of rare beauty, as well might be that of a faultless form, in the first pride of womanhood, glowing with life and love. Alice gazed on it with mournful fondness, and kissed its small, sweet face many times.

“Oh, I am wretched, wretched!” moaned Clara; “the happiness of my life is gone forever.”

Alice took her hand in hers, and said softly—

“You know we thought, when mother died, we could never cease to weep, we could not live at all. Yet we have been even happy since that, though we love her and think of her just as much as ever. Indeed, I believe I love her more and more. I think we shall be happy still.”

“Happy! with this strange woman thrust upon me, every day, in my mother’s stead? I tell you, Alice, it will never, never be. I cannot say but you may enjoy life as well as ever, but not I. I do not want to be happy—I will not be happy with a step-mother. Oh, the odious name!”

In her excitement she rose from the bed and paced the floor.

“You can, undoubtedly, be as unhappy as you choose, and you can hate father’s wife if you want to; but I think it would be a great deal easier to love her,” said Alice. “I am sure, if our own blessed mother could speak to us, she would bid us treat her very kindly and try to make her happy with us.”

“There is no danger but she will be happy enough,” retorted Clara. “Yet she shall lament the day she ever intruded upon us here.”

“Oh, Clara, Clara! you are very wrong. You ought not to speak so or to feel so,” said Alice, sadly, putting her arm about her sister’s waist and joining in her walk. “Certainly she had a right to love our father and to marry him, and I do not see the need of suspecting her of a plot upon our peace.”

“But what infatuated father to ask her? How could he forget my beautiful mother so soon!” and Clara threw herself, weeping, into a chair.

“He has not forgotten her,” replied Alice, almost indignantly. “And you and I have no right to doubt that he loved her even better than we. But I know not why that should render it impossible for him to appreciate loveliness in another. He was very desolate, and I am thankful that he has found such a friend.”

“Such a friend? I see nothing remarkably lovely about her.”

“Why, I think she is very attractive.”

“Attractive! Pray what has attracted you, dear? She is, certainly, very plain.”

“I do not think she is.”

“She looks as though she meant to rule the world, with her great black eyes and military form.”

“Her ‘great black eyes’ are soft, I am sure, and I admire her form. Then she looks so animated when she speaks, and her smile is absolutely fascinating.”

“Only look at the picture you hold in your hand, Alice, and say, if you can, that you admire her.”

“Nobody is so lovely as mother. But, if you were not determined to find fault, I know this face would please you. At any rate, you cannot dislike her manner; she is very ladylike. She dresses, too, in perfect taste.”

“I suppose she is well-bred, and I have no reason to doubt her dress-maker’s taste. But once more, Alice, I never shall like her, and I beg you never to speak to me of her except from necessity. You, of course, can love her just as well as you have a mind to, but you must not expect me to. I shall try to be civil to her.”

“Oh, I wish you could see Aunt Mary, I am sure she could convince you that you are wrong.

“You think that I cannot understand your feelings, and that nothing is easier for me than to receive a stranger here. But, Clara, you do know that you love not our precious mother more devotedly than I, nor cherish her memory more sacredly; I am quite sure that no child could. It was terrible for me, at first, to think of seeing another here in her place, of calling another by her consecrated name. It was sacrilege to me. But Aunt Mary talked to me so kindly, and taught me to think calmly and reasonably about it, and I became certain that I ought to be an affectionate, dutiful child to my father’s wife if it were in my power. And I am sure it will be easy, for she is loveable.

“I am grateful to father for giving me so excellent a friend. I shall never love her better than Aunt Mary, indeed; but it is so pleasant for us to be together once more in our own home. Only think—you at boarding-school, Neddie at grandfather’s, I at Uncle Talford’s, and poor father here alone. I am sure we shall be vastly happier here together, if you will only be a good girl.”

“I am not going to be!” said Clara, with a pouting smile.

“Ah! not another word,” cried Alice, with a playful menace. “I shall call it treason to listen to you. I shall go away so that you may have nobody to say wicked things to.”

And with the words she ran from the room and shut the culprit in.

——

CHAPTER III.

Weeks flitted over the Gregorys, whose course it is needless to trace.

Aunt Debby became fully satisfied that if there was a woman in the world fit for Dr. Gregory it was the one he had married. Few children ever had a step-mother like her, very few indeed. Never a loud word nor a cross look had she seen, never! She guessed, too, there were not many women, ladies born and bred, that knew when work was done about right better than she, not many. She didn’t know who should be a judge if she wasn’t, that had kept Dr. Arthur Gregory’s house for upward of twenty years—twenty years last August.

What was that gentleman’s private opinion in the matter, these closing sentences of an epistle given under his hand will tell.

“. . . . A strangely excellent wife is this same Catharine Gregory. Alone in her society, I love her; with my children, I am grateful to her; among my friends, I am proud of her. Every day convinces me more perfectly that I have found in her such a combination of virtues as I have never seen or hoped to see since departed

‘The being beauteous

Who unto my youth was given.’

Hoping, for your sake, my dear Ashmun, (though with doubt I confess,) that this planet bears such another, I am yours,

Gregory.”

And many were the doctor’s patients whose pale faces lighted at the sight of her, and whose wo-laden hearts beat freer to the music of her step.

“Ah, Nell!” sighed old, bed-ridden Betty Begoin, “Dr. Gregory is a good doctor, as nobody may better believe than I, for the Lord knows you would have been in your grave nine years ago, Christmas, if He hadn’t put it in the doctor’s heart to save ye. The doctor’s a good doctor, I say, but his wife is better than all his medicines to a poor old thing like me! Nobody looks so kindly and sunny like, nobody reads the Scriptures so plain and clear as she.

“The first Mrs. Gregory was a fine lady, I dare say; I have often heard it. But she never came near us. Well, well! she had a young family to look to, and was weakly and ailin’ toward the last, poor thing! I have nothing against her now she’s dead and gone, anyway.

“A’n’t the gruel hot, dear?

“The doctor is a good doctor as anybody need have, but his wife is better than all his medicines to a poor, sick, old thing like me.”

And many a sufferer was there in whose breast old Betty’s sentiment would find an echo. For, while her husband labored to upbuild the outer man, Mrs. Gregory breathed courage into the fainting heart, and braced it to the effort of recovery. Then, nobody could keep wide awake all night like her; nobody’s cordials were so grateful, yet so harmless; nobody knew so exactly just what one wanted.

And in that dark, dark hour, when life’s last promise is broken, and science can do no more, and loving hearts are quivering under the first keen anguish of despair, how often did they implore that her voice might tell the dying one his doom, that in its gentleness the death-warrant might lose its terror.

How tenderly did she try to undo the ties that bound the trembling spirit to this world and commit it to the arms of Him, who should bear it safe above the swelling waters! How trustingly did she point the guilt-stricken, despairing soul to the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.” And who shall conceive an intenser thrill of joy than was hers, as she witnessed the sublimity of that weak Child of Earth triumphant over Death, passing away not as to “pleasant dreams,” but as to “an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

It was only in the inner circle of her life that hearts were cold toward Mrs. Gregory. Alice, it is true, clung to her with the fond dependence of a child upon its parent. Eddie was a wayward and ungovernable creature, perfectly subject to his passionate impulses; in one moment, foaming in a frenzy of infantine rage, the next, exhausting his childish resources for expressions of his extravagant love.

It was no light or transient task to teach such a nature self-control. She unspeakably dreaded to employ that rigid firmness which she saw so indispensible to gaining a permanent ascendency over him. Watchful eyes were upon her and lithe tongues were aching to be busy. She well knew how the thrilling tale would fly of the heartless hardness of the step-mother toward the little innocent.

He had been the darling of most doating grand-parents, to whom he had been committed, a mere baby, at his mother’s death. Mrs. Gregory understood how galling restraint would be to him, hitherto unthwarted in a single wish, uncurbed in a single passion, and she feared to blast the affection which she saw beginning to twine itself about her.

“Yet,” thought she, “I must govern, or the child is ruined. He is given to me to be educated for honor, usefulness, Heaven. And shall I suffer passion and self-indulgence to fasten their clutches on him and drag him down to destruction, lest forsooth, my fair name should get some slander. No, no, I will not be so selfish. I will be faithful to my duty, to my husband. I will treat him as though he were my own.”

But it required many a hard struggle, many a long trial of unfailing forbearance and inexorable resolution, to execute her purpose. Still, she had the satisfaction of seeing that at the end of each the little rebel was drawn more closely to her. With the unerring instinct of childhood, he revered her justice and appreciated her patience.

For him she labored in hope. With delight she watched the development of better dispositions, the formation of healthful habits. It was rare pleasure to follow the rovings of his untiring curiosity; to open to his wondering mind the mysteries of the unfolding leaves, the limitless ocean, and the deep heavens; to watch the strange light that kindled in his beaming eye as Truth dawned upon him.

In this was the step-mother happy. But there was one member of her household in whose heart she had no home. Clara still held herself unapproachable. Neither Mrs. Gregory’s uniform, cordial courtesy toward herself, nor her undeniable superiority as a woman, could avail to move her. She would not like a step-mother, and she was possessed of a strength of will very extraordinary for one of her youth and sex. From this inflexible purpose to dislike, unavoidably grew a habit of perpetual misconstruction. In order not to see good where it obviously is, one must turn good into evil. This Clara unconsciously yet studiously did. To her sister it was at once painful and amusing to notice the ingenuity with which she sought out some selfish motive for the beautiful action, some sinister meaning for the well-spoken words. It was a continual vexation to her to observe the love with which the new-comer was regarded by every other member of the family, and the esteem and admiration in which she was held among the villagers. Yet she was far too proud to intimate her feelings to those sympathizing friends who are ever so very ready to listen to one’s inmost secrets and offer their condolence, then hasten away, wiping their eyes, to gather for one the sympathies of a whole neighborhood. Nevertheless, her cold reserve toward her step-mother, and about her, was not unmarked.

One there was, however, to whom Clara poured forth her sorrows with that perfect freedom which, it is said, exists nowhere except among schoolgirls. Arabella Acton had been her room-mate at Belford, and had parted from her with an agony of tears. Indeed, it was Arabella’s extreme pity that had first impressed upon her the breadth and depth of her misfortune in becoming a step-daughter. Seldom has the post-office establishment been blessed with more faithful patrons than were these two friends. Clara would have blushed to yield her fortress so long as she had such an ally to whom to acknowledge it. Therefore, she lived much secluded from the rest of the family in her little boudoir, where she had assembled all the most sacred relics of her mother, in the persuasion that she was the only one true to her memory. Indeed, she was in the act of conveying her portrait thither one day, when her father met her and forbade it, saying kindly—

“You are too selfish, my daughter; the rest of us love it as well as you.”

Toward her father she was always respectful. She had the greatest reverence for him, but there could no more be that familiarity between them that once had been.

To Mrs. Gregory, this state of feeling was a source of continual but unavailing regret. She could but see that Clara was fast losing her native generosity of character, and falling into habits of selfishness and indolence; but she was perfectly aware that any direct effort of hers to win her could but repel, and that her only way was to wait, hoping for a happier day.

——

CHAPTER IV.

“Alice, it is getting late, and I beg leave to bid you good night. I will wait for Clara.”

“She said no one need wait for her,” replied Alice, “and you are tired to-night, I know. I beg you will not sit up.”

“It will be dreary for her, and I can very well sit up: I shall be writing to my mother—good night, love.”

Mrs. Gregory’s letter was finished, and the last “Graham” read before her solitude was disturbed. At length, as she stood looking out into the starlight, footsteps and mirthful voices broke the stillness. The loitering footsteps draw near, and halt at the door. The mirthful voices subside into the low, earnest hum of conversation. Then the light “Adieu!” and the two part.

A smile still lingered on Clara’s face as she entered and—without observing that the room was occupied—threw herself down beside the fire, whose warmth was no unwelcome thing in the chill April night, and slowly pulled off her gloves. Mrs. Gregory still stood at the window, half hidden by the folds of the curtain. She thought she had rarely seen a more beautiful face than was Clara’s at that moment. Joyous words seemed to tremble on her lips, and laughing fancies to peep out through the long lashes of her eyes, so roguishly! Then, when the little white hands untied the bonnet and took it off, dropping it on the carpet, and let the rich, clustering hair flow about the bright face,

“Ah, she is very charming!” thought her mother, while she said—

“You have passed a delightful evening, Clara.”

Clara started and looked up. The radiant smile instantly died away, and replying coldly—

“Very passable, I thank you,” she rose, and taking a light from the table, left the room.

Mrs. Gregory sighed deeply; and, leaning her forehead against the cold window-pane, stood lost in painful thought, till many stars were set, and the embers on the hearth grew white and cold.

She for whom she thus sorrowed, meanwhile, flew to her chamber and, wrapping her shawl about her, sat down to her writing-desk and scribbled these lines—

“A word with thee, dearest Bel, before I sleep. Oh! if you could have been with me to-night! A little select party at Mrs. Hall’s, and such a delectable evening! All our choice spirits were there, and one entirely new star. A “real, live” star, too, Bel, unquestionably the most elegant man that ever wore a mustache. Oh, you should see him! So distingué! Neither M——, nor Monsieur de V—— is a circumstance to him! I cannot conceive where Mrs. Hall found him; but she is always the first to introduce strangers—the only polite woman in town, I think. I suspect, however, that he is a friend of Frank, who has just returned from his winter’s residence in the south.

“They kept me at the piano half the evening; and this exquisite ‘Don Whiskerando’ accompanied me—so sweetly!—with the flute. Under a perfect cannonade of entreaties he consented to sing, too; although he would be persuaded to nothing but a duett with your humble friend. The richest barytone.

“He will be here to-morrow, and I would give the world if my Bel might be here also! Oh! I forgot to tell you my hero’s name is Brentford—did you ever hear it before?

“Do you not think Ellen Morgan an envious thing? Good night, love—dream of your Clara!

“Oh, one word more. Don’t you think ma chére mère must have an active mind to keep her up till this time, to observe my arrival? Oh, Eve, thou art undone!

“I hope all she saw and heard was satisfactory to her. I suppose she expected that I should continue the conversation after I came in, for she kept so whist, that I was not aware of her presence till she discovered herself by the sagacious observation—

“‘You have had a charming evening, dear,’ in such an insinuating tone! Aweel!”

——

CHAPTER V.

One morning, a few days after the evening of the last chapter, Mrs. Gregory—on entering the breakfast-room—found her husband reading a letter.

“This is from my sister, Mrs. Horland, of Cincinnati: she is suffering a great bereavement in the death of her husband. It will be difficult, but I believe I must go to her, Catharine. Poor Ellen was always a dependent creature, and I cannot leave her alone. A note from Mr. Horland’s clerk says, that his affairs were left in a very embarrassed condition, and presses urgently that I should come to save Ellen from imposition and fraud.”

“She does, indeed, need you sadly, and we ought to let you go; but, can your practice spare you?”

“There are no patients now whom it would not do to leave with young Philips, I think. I shall return as soon as possible.”

The journey and its object formed the topic of conversation at the breakfast-table, and it was decided that Doctor Gregory should start the next morning.

“Dear Catharine,” said he, at parting, “I pray you to feel that you are mistress of this house. Be sure that the children revere your authority—I am happy in intrusting them to you.”

One week from that day, in the pleasant twilight, an antique family carriage, that had been splendid in its day, drew up before the gateway, and two individuals very much of the same description emerged from its cavernous interior.

“Grandfather and Grandmother Newell, as true as I live!” cried Alice, who was looking out.

All rushed to the window and then to the door to welcome the venerable visitants. With joyous exclamations and great running to and fro, they were at last seated so comfortably that nothing more could be done without making them less comfortable. Eddie was on his grandfather’s knee, Alice leaned over her grandmother’s chair, while Clara was seated between them. Mrs. Gregory hastened to prepare a dish of tea, to refresh them after their ride.

“Well, my poor dears, how do you get along?” asked Mrs. Newell, as soon as the step-mother had disappeared.

Clara looked to Alice.

“As well as we possibly could without our own dear mother,” said Alice. “I am glad you are come to see for yourself,” and she kissed the old lady’s pale, wrinkled cheek.

“Yes, I shall see,” replied the grandmother; and accordingly that evening and the next day were spent in the closest observation.

“See what Mr. Brentford gave me!” cried Eddie, as, returning from a walk with Clara on the following afternoon, he bounded into the room, brandishing above his head an enormous paper of bon-bons.

“Mr. Brentford was very kind, was he not?” said his mother, taking a sugar-plum which the child generously extended to her. He bestowed a similar bounty on every one in the room, and then sat down to the work of feeding himself, which he performed with extraordinary celerity, bolting the sugar-coated poison by the handful.

“There, Neddie, you have had quite enough for this time,” interposed his mother. “You will make yourself sick.”

“No, no!” cried the young gourmand, grasping his precious package with great energy, and turning away, “I want them all.”

“Not all, now—Oh, no, that would not do, at all. Bring them to me, and I will keep them for you, and give them to you when it is best for you to have them.”

Emboldened to disobedience by the presence of those whom he had never failed to conquer, the child hugged his treasure still closer, and arranged his physiognomy for a cry.

“Neddie—I want you to bring me your sweetmeats,” said Mrs. G.

He took refuge by the chair of his grandmother, who began to caress him. The step-mother’s color deepened; but she said in a low, firm tone, not to be mistaken—

“Edward, my child, bring me that package.”

It was with rather slow and reluctant footsteps; but he did bring it and place it in her hands. She said simply—

“That is right,” and left the room.

As she closed the door, however, she heard tremulous tones telling how “they shouldn’t abuse grandma’s little dove—no, they shouldn’t!—who was grandma’s darling!”

This was but one instance, among many, that occurred during the visit, when the step-mother found herself forced to exercise her parental authority, and then to listen to the condolence bestowed on the victim of her despotism.

That evening Mr. Brentford spent there. He made himself very much at home, holding old Mrs. Newell’s yarn for her, listening with the most exemplary complaisance to Mr. Newell’s interminable tales, consigning to Eddie his elegant repeater for a plaything, singing with Clara, playing chess with Alice, talking with Mrs. Gregory, evidently bent on earning for himself the epithet, which the old lady was not slow in bestowing, of “a very pretty young man.”

Mrs. Gregory admired him in all but his conversation, and in this she could not persuade herself that he was not shallow, flippant, and arrogant. She sought to draw him out on many subjects, but found none on which he was thoroughly informed—none on which he expressed fine sentiments that had about them any of the freshness of originality.

——

CHAPTER VI.

“What a genial, delicious air it is, to-night,” said Mrs. Gregory to herself, as she sat alone in her chamber one evening, “so light, too! How beautiful!” she exclaimed, as she opened the window and stepped out on the balcony. As she did so, the sound of voices arrested her attention.

She looked down into the garden, and saw Brentford and Clara slowly pacing along the garden walk, in the light of “the young May moon.” His arm girdled the light shawl that floated about her waist; his cap was placed coquetishly over her dark curls; his musical voice filled her ear.

“Poor, poor child!” murmured her step-mother, as she turned away; “how I wish this stranger had never come here! How continually he is in her society—how much he fascinates her, and how destitute he really is of every thing worthy of her regard. What shall I do? What would my husband have me do? Shall I leave her to her own discretion?—‘I am happy in intrusting them to you!’—Oh! if she only had a mother!”

At that moment, the soft sound of music stole up through the sleeping air. How deep and rich, yet how delicately modulated, was the voice that sung,

In parlors of splendor, though beauty be glancing,

Bright mirrors reflecting the fairy forms dancing,

In banqueting halls, by the lily cheek glowing,

With flush of the wine, in the silver cup flowing,

Fair fingers disporting with musical sprite,

And stealthily clipping the wings of the night;

I’d hie to the home where the roses are dreaming,

And Hope, from those eyes, on my spirit is beaming;

I’d choose the still moonlight, thro’ vine-lattice stealing,

The face that I love, in its beauty revealing.

I’d list to the voice that is sweeter by far

Than the tones of the lute or the heartless guitar.

The accents of love all my spirit are filling

With rapture subduing, yet blissful and thrilling.

Alas! the kind minutes, unkindly are speeding,

For joy or for sorrow, unstaying, unheeding,

Oh! dearest, mine own one, wherever may be

This presence, my spirit ne’er parteth from thee.

The last words melted away in the most liquid melody. “Ah! he will sing her heart away!” thought Catharine, as the magical tone died, echo-like. “How ravishingly-sweet that was! and how adoringly Clara loves music!” She sat down and leaned her head upon her hand, thinking anxiously; then suddenly taking her pencil, wrote these words:

“Dear Clara,—Listen kindly, I entreat you, to a few words, which nothing but the most anxious solicitude for your interest could induce me to intrude upon you.

“Are you sure that your father, that your mother would approve so great an intimacy with one so much a stranger as Mr. Brentford? Be chary of your heart, I implore you. He may be all his very prepossessing appearance seems to claim, but remember, you do not know him.

“Forgive these suggestions, at once so unwelcome and so reluctant, and believe that you have no sincerer friend than

Catharine Gregory.”

She folded the little note, and stepping across the hall, laid it on Clara’s table.

As she sat at the window, reading, the next morning, the trampling of horses in the court-yard attracted her notice. There sat Clara on her horse, Brentford encouraging her graceful timidity, and caressing the fiery animal on which she was mounted. Another moment and he, too, vaulted into the saddle, and away! Nobody knew better than Brentford that he looked no where so well as on a horse, and understood nothing so well as horsemanship. Mrs. Gregory admired them all, riders and horses, as they passed, looking so elegant, so excited, and so happy.

“Perhaps she did not observe my note,” thought she.

“Do they not look beautiful!” cried Alice, entering at that moment; “Clara’s riding-dress is so becoming to her perfect form. She sits like a queen. And then Brentford—I hardly know which to admire most, him or his horse—and that is saying a great deal.”

“Your comparison is very apt, Alice,” said her mother, laughing: “for Mr. Brentford’s beauty is very much of the same character as that of the noble brute he bestrides. They certainly are both extremely handsome.”

“Well, I wouldn’t care if he were as ugly as Caliban, if I could only ride his magnificent gray. Oh! if I were only old enough to be invited! But I must to my quadratic equations! Oh, I had forgotten—this note Clara left for you.”

Mrs. Gregory hastily opened it, and read thus,

“Clara’s father is not in the habit of troubling himself with the inspection of her affairs; and Mrs. Gregory is entreated not to burden her mind with any undue solicitude.

C. L. Gregory.””

The tears sprang to the step-mother’s eyes as she read these lines; but she brushed them away, for she heard footsteps at her door. It opened, and there stood Dr. Gregory himself. A right joyous meeting was there.

“And where are the children?” he asked.

“Alice left me but a moment ago, Neddie is in the garden, at play, I believe, and Clara has gone to ride.”

“To ride?—With whom?”

“With Mr. Brentford, a young man who came to town about the time you left, and has become somewhat intimate here. I should like to have you make his acquaintance.”

“Why, what is he?”

“You will see for yourself,” answered his wife, with a smile. “But you have told me nothing about your poor sister yet.”

It was not long before Dr. Gregory had an opportunity of meeting the stranger, and holding quite a long conversation with him in his own house.

“That is the man you spoke of?” said he abruptly to his wife, as the door closed on the visitor.

She assented.

“A man, indeed, if hair and cloth can make one. It is a pity he hadn’t a brain inside his comely cranium.”

Clara flashed a vengeful glance on her step-mother, as the doctor thus characteristically uttered himself, and sailed majestically out of the room.

——

CHAPTER VII.

The last rays of a June sun were streaming into Clara’s chamber through the open window at which she sat.

“There goes father into his office!” she exclaimed. “He is alone. Now or never!” and snatching her sun-bonnet, she ran quickly down the stairs and across the garden to the little white vine-covered office that stood at its foot. A moment’s hesitation, as she laid her hand on the latch, and then, with a sudden air of resolution, she opened the door and went in. Her father, who sat at the window, reading, glanced at her as she entered, nodded slightly, and went on with his book.

Clara walked across the floor to the library, and searched it diligently. Yet her father did not ask her what she wanted. She rattled gently the bones of a skeleton that hung in the corner. Still he did not look up. She played a tattoo on the skull of a Hottentot. The imperturbable doctor moved not. So she went up to him and laid her hand on the back of his chair, saying,

“Have you a few minutes for me, father?”

“Oh yes, my dear. Can you wait till I finish this article?” So she leaned upon his chair, gazing out of the window, and wishing herself back in her room.

“Well, Clara, I am ready for you,” said her father at last, closing his book.

But she seemed to have nothing ready to say, and began to pull to pieces a stray branch of woodbine that looked in at the window.

“Why what is it, my child—do you want a new frock, or what?”

“No, sir. I want—I came to ask you—why the truth is, father, that I want to be married, and beg you to tell me yes, when I ask you if I may.”

“Want to be married!” cried the doctor, laughing immoderately. “Now I protest, of all the fooleries, that is the last I should have thought of the child’s asking for! Why, see here, dear—how long is it since you were romping about here, in short dresses, and short hair, and all that? Want to be married!” and he gazed at her with an incredulous smile.

“I am nearly seventeen,” observed Clara, with considerable dignity.

“Oh, indeed! I beg your pardon, madam!” exclaimed her father, in a tone of profound deference, at the same time seating her on his knee. “You want to be married. Now, what for, my little lady?”

“Why, I think, without it, neither I nor one other can ever be happy.”

“And who might that other individual be?”

“I dare not tell you, for you are prejudiced against him, and will refuse me.”

“Prejudiced, am I? What, do you opine, has prejudiced me?”

“I think you adopted the opinions of another before seeing him, and so were not prepared to judge justly.”

“Is it this Brentford, you mean?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the girl, coloring deeply, and turning away her head.

“And what do you suppose would make your happiness with him?”

“We love each other!”

“What is it that you love in him?”

“Why, he is so noble, so generous, so honorable.”

“Are you quite sure that is it, Clara? Or is it that he is so handsome, so genteel, so elegantly bearded, so devoted to you? But I will not keep you on the rack, my poor child. I will tell you at once, that it is not my wish that you should marry mortal man, be he who he may, till you come to years of discretion, which is not likely to be for four or five yet.

“You do not know, now, what you will want when your taste is fully formed, your character consolidated. I am convinced that this man who now captivates you so much, possesses none, or next to none, of the qualities necessary to secure your permanent happiness and elevation in the connection you desire. He is far from being the person to whose influence I should be willing to have you subject your whole future life. And, indeed, if he met my entire approval, I should be very reluctant to have you pledge yourself so early.

“Be not in haste to assume the cares and responsibilities of life, my dear child; they will come soon enough at furthest. I would have you a strong, right-minded, well-developed woman, before you take the station and duties of a woman. I would not suffer you to marry now, unless I were willing to risk the peace of your whole life, which I am far enough from being.” And he drew down her blushing cheek, and kissed it.

“Do you not suppose your lover would find another lady as much to his taste, should you reject him?”

“Never!” replied Clara, emphatically; “he has told me a hundred times that he never loved before, and he never should again.”

“Very well,” returned her father, with a quiet smile, “if he will give you bail for his reappearance here, four years from this day, I shall be ready to listen to his proposals, if I am alive. But why did he not proffer his suit himself like a man, instead of pilfering your heart, and then sending you, poor, quailing thing, to ask the powers if he might have it!” A heavy frown lowered on Doctor Gregory’s brow, which his daughter hastened to dissipate, saying,

“Indeed, he would have seen you, but I preferred to, because—”

“Because what?”

“I thought you would be more willing to listen to me.”

“I hope I should be reasonable with any one. You understand my wishes, Clara, and no doubt, I may depend on your acquiescence in them. You need not trouble yourself any further about a marriage, till you are of age, at least. As to Mr. Brentford, I rely on your judgment and sense of propriety, my daughter, to direct your future conduct. Of course, you will discontinue any intimate friendship with him.

“I am heartily sorry to disappoint you, love, but I have not a doubt you will be infinitely happier in the end.”

Clara’s lip quivered, and her eyes were so full of tears she dared not close them, as she rose, and pulling her sun-bonnet over her face, glided out of the office and up the garden walk. She ran up the stairs to her room, turned the key, and burst into tears.

——

CHAPTER VIII.

Weeks have passed, and young Clara Gregory sits again, alone, at that western window, pale and troubled. The letter which she holds in her hand is the secret of her perplexity.

“He still loves me, then! He cannot give me up! He is so miserable—am I not cruel to condemn to misery one whose only crime is loving me too well? How gently he hints it—dear Brentford! But then a secret marriage seems so mean. Father, too. Then I have refused once, so positively. Shall I recant? I that am so inflexible! Indeed I should be ashamed to; still nobody would know it but Brentford himself.

“I never did disobey my father in my life; still, as this letter says, I am the best judge what is necessary to my own happiness—and it concerns me only. Father did not consult my wishes about marrying himself, and so he could not help forgiving me if I should disregard his. Shall I shut myself up at home to see that detestable step-mother exult in her success in frustrating my plans? No, Brentford, no! She shall not exult, she shall know that there are no thanks to her that I am not yours. Yet, but for her, I do not believe father would ever have objected. I will not be thwarted by her! An elopement? What is that more than a thousand ladies have consented to? Some of the very most perfect that ever were imagined, too. Why should I set myself up above all the world in my puritanism? It is no such shocking thing, after all.

“But father relies upon my honor and sense of propriety; oh, well, he will be glad afterward, when he sees how happy I am, and will like me the better, perhaps, for showing a little of his own energy. It will be just the same in the end as though I were married at home, only a bit of romance about it.”

And so the girl went on, zealously persuading her willing self that nothing could be more excusable—justifiable—commendable, than for her to abscond from her father’s house, and secretly to wed against his will.

“Yes, I come, Brentford!” she exclaimed aloud; and seizing a pen, she wrote and sealed a bond to that effect.

“Now I must go,” thought she, “for I have promised.”

That evening she asked her father’s permission to go on a few weeks’ visit to her friend Arabella, who had recently returned to her home.

“Oh yes, my dear, I shall be glad to have you go and enjoy yourself as much as you can, and as fast, too, for we cannot spare you a long while.”

Clara’s cheek burned as she thanked him, and turned away, for she knew he little imagined how long or how eventful was the absence she contemplated.

They thought she seemed strangely sad and agitated the next morning, as she bade them adieu to start on her excursion. Her sister felt a tear drop on her hand, as Clara embraced her and whispered,

“Good bye, dear, dear Alice!”

How anxious she seemed to do every little kindness for her father that morning, how solicitous to please him in all things! When he bade her “good morning,” she seemed to wait for him to say something more; but he only added,

“Be a good girl, my daughter.”

What a rush of emotions crowded each other through her mind, when she found herself seated among strangers in the railway car, speeding away like the wind from that sweet home, and the lifelong friends who loved her as themselves; from the grave of her mother—whither? To the arms of one of whose very existence she had been ignorant but a few weeks ago! For his sake she had forsaken those tried and precious friends—had parted from them with a lie upon her lips. To him she was about to give herself.

Perhaps a painful doubt crossed her mind of the honor of one who could demand from one so young, so unadvised, such a sacrifice of truth, of duty, of home, just for his sake. Perhaps a query arose whether there was enough in him to compensate for all she lost—whether the charm of his society would last through all the vicissitudes of life.

An old man sat before her, and from every wrinkle of his time-worn visage, a quiet tone seemed to ask her,

“Will your heart still cling to its hero when the rust of poverty is on his shining garments, and care has furrowed his fair forehead, and his raven hair has grown gray, and his proud form bent, and his rich voice wasted and broken?”

She felt, too, like a fugitive; she fancied that people looked suspiciously at her. Especially was there an eye that vexed her; a black, piercing eye, that peered out from a pale face through a mourning veil. It looked as though it might read the inmost secrets of one’s heart—and its frequent gaze became almost insupportable to Clara.

But they were rapidly approaching Burrill Bridge, the station where her lover had promised to join her. How intently she gazed from the window, as the Iron Horse began to halt, and the conductor shouted “Burrill Bridge!”

There he stood, as distinguished as ever among the crowd. She felt a thrill of pride as she marked the involuntary deference with which the throng made way for his lofty form, and said within herself, “He is mine!”

With him once more at her side, listening to his fascinating tones, she felt that she was in little danger of making too great a sacrifice for him; she reproached herself that she had ever faltered. Still she felt guilty and unsafe, startled at every new entrance; and it was with an emotion of dread that she glanced toward the stranger, whose observation had been so oppressive to her. But her eye brightened with an expression of relief as it caught the wave of her black garments passing into another car.

After a long, long ride of nearly forty-eight hours, they stopped.

“Oh! how far I am from dear, quiet Vernon, in this great, strange city!” thought Clara. But her heart fluttered as she heard Brentford order the hackman to “drive to —— church.”

“You shall be mine before we rest,” he whispered to her. Before another hour had passed, the solemn, irrevocable words were spoken which sealed her destiny! She felt their momentous import as she never had before.

A little group of loiterers in the vestibule gazed curiously at them as they passed out, and behind them Clara saw the same black eye that had annoyed her so much on the journey. Why should she be there, in the sultry noon, from the dust and weariness of travel?

——

CHAPTER IX.

That same afternoon the bride sat alone in her room in a fashionable hotel. A tap at her door—it is that stranger of the black eye and mourning dress. Though amazed and not altogether pleased, Clara invited her to a seat.

“I think, ma’am, you were married this morning in —— church, to Mr. Bernal Brentford?”

Clara assented, with a faint blush.

“I could not tell you, if I should try, how sorry I am to blast your happiness; but perhaps you will be thankful to me sometime. I must tell you that he, who has just wedded you, is the husband of another. Mr. Brentford has been, for four years, a married man!”

Clara stared at the woman in blank amazement, as though she did not comprehend what monstrous tale she was trying to make her believe.

At last, however, she seemed to understand, and with a sudden burst of indignation, and flashing eyes, she exclaimed,

“Who are you, that dare say such a thing? It is false! I know it is false! Brentford is true—he is honorable. I say, how dare you come here with that foul, despicable slander against him, my noble husband?”

She stood directly before her visitant, and clasped her cold hands together very tightly, that she might not seem to tremble. The black eyes looked mournfully and steadily on her, as the stranger replied,

“Poor girl! I dare come here and tell you this, because I know it is the truth, and I would save an innocent young fellow-being from disgrace and misery. I know one who, five years ago, was as light-hearted a creature as ever trilled a song. Then she met Bernal Brentford. He flattered her. He sang with her. He said he loved her. He took her away from her happy, happy home in the sunny south, and carried her to the city. There he squandered her fortune, and deserted her.

“Could I be human and suffer another poor heart to be murdered in this same way?”

As she spoke she drew a paper from her pocket, and handed it to Clara, who had sunk down into a chair, pale and speechless. She took it, and opened it mechanically. It was a record of the marriage of Bernal Brentford and Bertha Vale, signed and attested in due form. She read it, again and again, then said, suddenly,

“How do I know that this is genuine?”

“There are witnesses, to whom you can refer, if you care to. The means of proof are ample.”

Clara’s ear caught the sound of a well-known footfall on the stairs.

“You are Bertha Vale?” said she.

“Yes.”

“Sit in that recess, and be silent.”

Summoning all the fortitude of her nature, Clara resumed the book which she had dropped on the entrance of the stranger, and threw herself, in a careless attitude, on the sofa. She was glad of its support—for it seemed to her she should sink to the ground. Brentford entered, and approached her with some playful speech. But as he crossed the floor, his eye fell on the shadow of the figure in the recess. He looked at it and stood aghast. Then in a voice tremulous with passion, he cried,

“How on earth came you here?”

She made no reply, and Clara said, very calmly,

“Why should the lady not be here? She called to see me.”

“You called to see her!” he exclaimed, advancing toward the intruder, and glaring fiercely on her, “You shall not see her, you shall not speak a word to her! Get you hence!”

She rose, saying simply, “I am ready to go.”

“I tell you, Bertha Vale,” hissed her husband in her ear, “if you ever cross my path again, you shall bitterly rue it!”

Her eye fixed itself unwaveringly on his as he spoke, while her small hand freed her arm from the grasp he had taken on it. She did not speak, and casting one pitying glance on Clara, glided out of the room. Brentford stared after her as she went, then walked to the window, to see, apparently, whether she went into the street. There he stood, motionless, for several minutes, then, placing himself, with folded arms, before the faded form upon the sofa, demanded,

“What did she say to you?”

She raised her pallid face from the hands in which it had been hidden, and said sorrowfully,

“I cannot tell what she did say, but she made me know that I have been deceived, and I want to go home.

“Yes, yes, I must go home,” she murmured to herself.

“No, no, she lied, I say. You shall not go—would you go and desert your own Brentford, dearest?”

“You are not mine,” said she, putting away the arm with which he would have encircled her, “you are another woman’s. I want to go home.”

She raised herself and strayed toward the table, where her bonnet lay. Brentford sprang after her and seized her hand, pouring forth a torrent of remonstrance, denial, invective, and command, in the utmost confusion. But Clara’s inexorable will was, for once, her good angel; and, whether he raved or implored, she was still firm. Although so weak and trembling that she could hardly support herself, she suffered him to see nothing but cold, strong resolve; but as she opened the door to go, and saw his look of dark despair, she hesitated, and gave him her hand, saying—

“I do forgive you, Brentford.”

But the gleam of hope that shot into his eyes admonished her, and she quickly shut the door and ran down stairs, without stopping to think, and was soon seated in a carriage and rattling rapidly away.

——

CHAPTER X.

How like an angel’s sigh of loving pity that summer’s wind breathed on the cheek of the sufferer! How kindly the crimson sunset clouds tried to shed their own glow on its pallor, and even to fill with light the tear that glittered on it. The blush roses, too, that swayed to and fro at the open window, vied with each other who should kiss the thin, white hand that rested on the sill; and her sad eyes beamed forth a grateful blessing on them all, as she lay there, like a child, in her father’s arms.

His face bore a strange contrast to the mournful gentleness of hers; for his dark, heavy brows were knit, and his lips compressed, as though in anger; yet that firm lip quivered, as he said, tenderly—

“How much you have suffered, my poor child! No wonder that it has made you sick and delirious!”

“I have suffered no more than I deserved,” murmured Clara.

“But how did the man try to extenuate his villany?” exclaimed her father, with a sudden flash of indignation from his dark eyes.

“Don’t speak harshly, dear father?” whispered she. “He confessed, at last, that he was married, but said he had long ceased to love; and then, he loved me—so madly!”

A smile of pure scorn curled Doctor Gregory’s lip, and he clasped his child closer in his arms, as he exclaimed—

“Thank God, my daughter, you are safe in your father’s arms once more!”

“Oh, I am thankful,” said Clara, earnestly, raising her tearful eyes to her father’s face, “and I do hope that I may be a better child to you than I have ever been. I have been proud and selfish, but I do think that I am humbled now. Ah! how much I owe you, my father, to atone for the grief I have caused you. It seems to me, now, so strange that I could be so undutiful! I lived long in those few days I was absent from you—and, then,” she added, hesitating, “there is another thing for which I ought to make a long and sad confession—I have been most unkind to her you gave me in my mother’s stead. I have felt it all as I have lain upon my bed, and watched her noiseless footsteps stealing about, ministering to me. I have suffered for it as I have felt her cool, soft hand upon my burning forehead—and, most of all, have I repented it, as I have noticed the beautiful delicacy with which she avoids the most remote allusion to my ingratitude and folly.”

“God bless you, my child!” breathed Doctor Gregory, with deep emotion. “I trusted long to your good sense to correct the evil which I so much mourned. I pitied you—for I knew, but too well, whence you inherited the self-will that was your bane. But your heart is the victor, at last,” and a glow of satisfaction lighted his countenance, as he bowed his manly head to kiss the sweet face that rested on his breast. “But you will have great disappointment and loneliness to sustain, my dear Clara. I fear you will be very unhappy.”

Clara gazed cheerfully and seriously into her father’s face as she replied—

“I think I have learned to be happy in the love of home, and I shall delight in trying to repay the long forbearance and gentleness of my Step-Mother.”

SHAWLS.

———

FROM HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

———

In that part of Asia, where some of our brave countrymen have penetrated only to die—in that country where Charles Stoddart and his friend Conolly, whose faces will never be forgotten by some of us, and whose voices still sound in our ears, consoled each other through a loathsome imprisonment, and went out together to lose their heads in the market-place of the capital; in that distant and impracticable country of Bokhara, which we are ready to say we will never have any connection with—there are people always employed in our service. We are not now thinking of the Bokhara clover, which is such a treat to our cows and horses. We owe that, and lucerne, and others of our green crops, to the interior of Asia; but we are thinking of something more elaborate. In Bokhara, the camel is watched while the fine hair on the belly is growing: this fine hair is cut off so carefully that not a fibre is lost; it is put by until there is enough to spin into a yarn, unequalled for softness, and then it is dyed all manner of bright colors, and woven in strips eight inches wide of shawl patterns, such as—with all our pains and cost, with all our Schools of Design, and study of nature and art—we are not yet able to rival. These strips are then sewn together so cunningly that no European can discover the joins. The precious merchandise is delivered to traders who receive it on credit. On their return from market, they pay the price of the shawls at the Bokhara value, with 30 per cent. interest; or, if they cannot do this in consequence of having been robbed, or of any other misfortune, they stay away, and are never seen again in their native land.

Where is this market?—So far away from home that the traders wear out their clothes during their journey, and their fair skins become as brown as mulattoes. On, on, on they go, day after day, month after month, on their pacing camels or beside them, over table-lands mounting one above another; over grass, among rocks, over sand, through snows; now chilled to the marrow by icy winds; now scorched by sunshine, from which there is no shelter but the flat cotton caps with which they thatch their bare crowns: on, on, for fifteen thousand miles, to the borders of Russia, to sell the shawls which are to hang on ladies’ shoulders in Hyde Park, and where beauties most do congregate in Paris and Vienna.

The passion for shawls among all women everywhere is remarkable. In one country, the shawl may flow from the head like a veil; in another, it hangs from the shoulders; in another, it is knotted round the loins as a sash; in yet another, it is swathed round the body as a petticoat. Wherever worn at all, it is the pet article of dress. From a time remote beyond computation, the sheep of Cashmere have been cherished on their hills, and the goats of Thibet on their plains, and the camels of Tartary on their steppes, to furnish material for the choicest shawls. From time immemorial, the patterns which we know so well have been handed down in a half-sacred tradition through a Hindoo ancestry, which puts even Welsh pedigrees to shame. For thousands of years have the bright dyes, which are the despair of our science and art, been glittering in Indian looms, in those primitive pits under the palm-tree, where the whimsical patterns grow like the wildflower springing from the soil. For thousands of years have Eastern potentates made presents of shawls to distinguished strangers, together with diamonds and pearls.

At this day, when an Eastern prince sends gifts to European sovereigns, there are shawls to the value of thousands of pounds, together with jewels, perfumes, and wild beasts, and valuable horses; just as was done in the days of the Pharaohs, as the paintings on Egyptian tombs show us at this day. And the subjects of sovereigns have as much liking for shawls as any queen. At the Russian Court, the ladies judge one another by their shawls as by their diamonds. In France, the bridegroom wins favor by a judicious gift of this kind. In Cairo and Damascus, the gift of a shawl will cause almost as much heart-burning in the harem as the introduction of a new wife. In England, the daughter of the house spends the whole of her first quarter’s allowance in the purchase of a shawl. The Paris grisette and the London dressmaker go to their work with the little shawl pinned neatly at the waist. The lost gin-drinker covers her rags with the remnants of the shawl of better days. The farmer’s daughter buys a white cotton shawl, with a gay border, for her wedding; and it washes and dyes until, having wrapped all her babies in turn, it is finally dyed black to signalize her widowhood. The maiden aunt, growing elderly, takes to wearing a shawl in the house in mid-winter; and the granny would no more think of going without it at any season than without her cap. When son or grandson comes home from travel, far or near, his present is a new shawl, which she puts on with deep consideration, parting with the old one with a sigh. The Manchester or Birmingham factory-girl buys a gay shawl on credit, wears it on Sunday, puts it in pawn on Monday morning, and takes it out again on Saturday night for another Sunday’s wear, and so on, until she has wasted money that would have bought her a good wardrobe. Thus, from China round the world to Oregon, and from the queen down to the pauper, is the shawl the symbol of woman’s taste and condition. Whence come all these shawls? For it is clear that the supply which arrives from Asia—over bleak continents and wide oceans—can only be for the rich and great. Some of the shawls from Bokhara sell, in the market on the Russian frontier, for two thousand four hundred pounds each. Whence come the hundred thousand shawls that the women of Great Britain purchase every year?

Some of the richest that our ladies wear are from Lyons; and the French taste is so highly esteemed, that our principal manufacturers go to Lyons once or twice a year for specimens and patterns. Some of our greatest ladies of all, even the queen and certain duchesses and countesses offer to our chief manufacturers a sight of their treasures from India, their Cashmeres and other shawls, from a patriotic desire for the improvement of our English patterns. From these, the manufacturers of Norwich and Paisley devise such beautiful things that, but for the unaccountable and unrivaled superiority of the Orientals in the production of this particular article, we should be all satisfaction and admiration. The common cotton shawls, continually lessening in number, worn by women of the working-classes, are made at Manchester, and wherever the cotton manufacture is instituted. In order to study the production of British shawls in perfection, one should visit the Norwich or Paisley manufactures.

If any article of dress could be immutable, it would be the shawl—designed for eternity in the unchanging East—copied from patterns which are the heirloom of a caste—and woven by fatalists, to be worn by adorers of the ancient garment, who resent the idea of the smallest change. Yet has the day arrived which exhibits the manufacture of three distinct kinds of shawls in Paisley. There is the genuine woven shawl with its Asiatic patterns; and there is that which is called a shawl for convenience, but which has nothing Asiatic about it: the tartan—which name is given not only to the checks of divers colors which signify so much to the Scottish eye, but to any kind of mixed or mottled colors and fabric—woven in squares or lengths to cover the shoulder. The third kind is quite modern: the showy, slight and elegant printed shawl, derived from Lyons, and now daily rising in favor. The woven kind is the oldest in Paisley. The tartan kind was introduced from Stirlingshire—without injury to Stirlingshire—which makes as many as ever, but to the great benefit of Paisley. The printed kind has been made about six years, and it is by far the greatest and most expanding manufacture. The most devoted worshipers of the genuine shawl can hardly wonder at this, considering the love of change that is inherent in ladies who dress well, and the difference of cost. A genuine shawl lasts a quarter of a lifetime. Ordinary purchasers give from one pound to ten pounds for one, and can give more if they desire a very superior shawl: a process which it is not convenient to repeat every two or three years. The handsomest printed shawls, meantime, can be had for two pounds, and they will last two years; by the end of which time, probably, the wearer has a mind for something new. The time required for the production answers pretty accurately to these circumstances. It takes a week to weave a shawl of the genuine sort—in the same time, ten or twelve of the tartan or plaid, and twenty or thirty of the printed can be produced.

The processes employed for these three kinds of shawls are wholly different; and we will therefore look at them separately, though we saw them, in fact, under the same roof. As for the tartan shawls, there is no need to enlarge upon them, as their production is much like that of any other kind of variegated cloth. We need mention only one fact in regard to them, which is, however, very noticeable, the recent invention of a machine by which vast time and labor are saved. As we all know, the fringes of cloth shawls are twisted—some threads being twisted together in one direction, and then two of these twists being twisted in the opposite direction. Till a month ago this work was done by girls, in not the pleasantest way, either to themselves or the purchaser, by their wetting their hands from their own mouths, and twisting the threads between their palms. The machine does, in a second of time, the work of fourteen pairs of hands; that is, as two girls attend it, there is a saving of twelve pairs of hands and some portion of time, and the work is done with thorough certainty and perfection; whereas, under the old method, for one girl who could do the work well, there might be several who did it indifferently or ill. The machine—invented by Mr. Hutchinson—must be seen to be understood; for there is no giving an idea, by description, of the nicety with which the brass tongues rise to lift up the threads and to twist them; then throw them together, and rub them against the leather-covered shafts, which—instead of human palms—twist them in the opposite direction. In seeing this machine the old amazement recurs at the size, complication, and dignity of an instrument contrived for so simple a purpose. The dignity, however, resides not in the magnitude of the office, but in the saving of time and human labor.

Of the other two kinds of shawls, which shall we look at first? Let it be the true and venerable woven shawl.

The wool is Australian or German—chiefly Australian. It comes in the form of yarn from Bradford, in hanks which are any thing but white, so that they have first to be washed. Of the washing, dyeing, and warping we need not speak, as they are much the same to the observer’s—and therefore to the reader’s—eye as the preparation of yarns for carpets in Kendal, and of silk for ribbons in Coventry. While the washing and drying, and the dyeing and drying again, are proceeding, the higher labor of preparing the pattern is advancing.

But how much of the lower kind of work can be done during the slow elaboration of the higher? It really requires some patience and fortitude even to witness the mighty task of composing and preparing the pattern of an elaborate shawl. Let the reader study any three square inches of a good shawl border; let the threads be counted, and the colors, and the twists and turnings of the pattern, and then let it be remembered that the general form has to be invented, and the subdivisions, and the details within each form, and the filling up of the spaces between, and the colors—as a whole, and in each particular; and that, before the material can be arranged for the weaving, every separate stitch (so to speak) must be painted down on paper, in its right place. Is it not bewildering to think of?—Much more bewildering and imposing is it to see. As for the first sketch of the design, that is all very pretty; and, the strain on the faculties not being cognizable by the stranger, is easy enough.

There goes the artist-pencil—tracing waving lines and elegant forms, giving no more notion of the operations within than the hands of a clock do of the complication of the works. Formerly, the employers put two or three good foreign patterns into the artist’s hands, and said—“Make a new pattern out of these.” Now that we have schools of design, and more accessible specimens of art, the direction is given without the aids—“Make a new pattern,” and the artist sits down with nothing before him but pencil and paper—unless, indeed, he finds aids for himself in wild flowers, and other such instructors in beauty of form and color. By degrees, the different parts of the pattern shape themselves out, and combine—the centre groups with the ends, and the ends grow out into the sides with a natural and graceful transition. Then the portions, properly outlined, are delivered to the colorers, who cover the drawing with oiled paper, and begin to paint. It would not do to color the outlined drawing, because there are no outlines in the woven fabric. It is dazzling only to look upon. Much less minute is the transferring to the diced paper which is the real working pattern. The separate portions of the finished pattern of a single shawl, when laid on the floor, would cover the carpet of a large drawing-room. The taking down such a pattern upon paper occupies four months.

The weaving is done either by “lashing” or from Jacquard cards. The Jacquard loom answers for the eternal patterns, and the “lashing” method suffices for those which are not likely to be repeated. The man seated at the “piano-machine,” playing on a sort of keys from the colored pattern stuck up before his eyes, is punching the Jacquard cards, which are then transferred in their order to the lacing-machine, where they are strung together by boys into that series which is to operate upon the warp in the weaving, lifting up the right threads for the shuttle to pass under to form the pattern, as in other more familiar manufactures. The “lashing” is read off from the pattern, too, in the same way as with carpet patterns at Kendal; so many threads being taken up and interlaced with twine for a red stitch, and then so many more for a green, and so on. Boys then fasten each symbol of a hue to a netting of whipcord, by that tail of the netting which, by its knots, signifies that particular hue; so that, when the weaving comes to be done, the boy, pulling the symbolic cord, raises the threads of the warp—green, blue, or other—which are required for that throw of the shuttle. Thus the work is really all done before-hand, except the mere putting together of the threads; done, moreover, by any body but the weaver, who is—to say the truth—a mere shuttle-throwing machine. The poor man does not even see and know what he is doing. The wrong side of the shawl is uppermost—and not even such a wrong side as we see, which gives some notion of the pattern on the other. Previous to cutting, the wrong side of a shawl is a loose surface of floating threads of all colors; of the threads, in fact, which are thrown out of the pattern, and destined to be cut away and given to the papermakers to make coarse gray paper. One pities the weaver, who sits all day long throwing the shuttle, while the boy at the end of his loom pulls the cords which make the pattern, and throw up nothing but refuse to the eye. He has not even the relief of stopping to roll up what he has done; for a little machine is now attached to his loom, which saves the necessity of stopping for any such purpose. It is called “the up-taking motion.” By it a few little cogwheels are set to turn one another, and, finally, the roller, on which the woven fabric is wound as finished.

The bundles of weaving-strings and netting which regulate the pattern, are called “flowers.” From the quantity of labor and skill wrought up in their arrangement, they are very valuable. A pile of them, on a small table, were, as we were assured, worth one thousand pounds. We may regard each as the soul or spirit of the shawl—not creating its material, but animating it with character, personality, and beauty. We have said that it takes a man a week to weave a shawl: but this means a “long” shawl, and not a “square.” The square remain our favorites; but the female world does not seem to be of our mind. It is true the symmetry of the pattern is spoiled when the white centre hangs over one shoulder. It is true, the “longs” are heavy and very warm, from being twice doubled. But they have one advantage, which ladies hold to compensate for those difficulties; they can be folded to any size, and therefore to suit any figure—tall or short, stout or thin. We are assured that, for one square shawl that is sold, there are a hundred “longs.”

A capital machine now intervenes, with its labor-saving power; this time of French invention. Formerly, it took two girls a whole day to cut off the refuse threads from the back of a shawl. But this machine, superintended by a man, does it in a minute and a half. A horizontal blade is traversed by spiral blades fixed on a cylinder, the revolving of which gives to the blades the action of a pair of scissors. The man’s office is to put in the shawl, set the machine going, and to beat down the refuse as fast as it is cut off.

The upper surface of the shawl remains somewhat rough—rough enough to become soon a rather dirty article of dress, from the dust which it would catch up and retain. It is therefore smoothed by singing. This very offensive process is performed by a man who must have gone through a severe discipline before he could endure his business. He heats his iron (which is like a very large, heavy knife, turned up at the end) red hot, spreads the shawl on a table rather larger than itself, and passes the red-hot iron over the surface, with an even and not very rapid movement. What would that Egyptian dragoman have said, who, being asked to iron out an English clergyman’s white ducks, burned off the right leg with the first touch of his box-iron? That box-iron was not red-hot, nor any thing like it; yet there is no such destruction here. There is only the brown dust fizzing. Pah! that’s enough! let us go somewhere else.

In a light, upper room, women and girls are at work, sitting on low stools, each with a shawl stretched tightly over her knees. Some of these are darning, with the utmost nicety, any cracks, thin places, or “faults” in the fabric; darning each in its exact color. Some are putting silk fringes upon the printed shawls, tacking them in with a needle, measuring each length by eye and touch, and then knotting, or, as it is called, “netting” the lengths by cross-ties. One diminutive girl of nearly ten, is doing this with wonderful quickness, as she sits by her mother’s knee. The girls do not come to work before this age; nor the boys before twelve. In other rooms, women are seated at tables, or leaning over them, twisting the fringes of plaid shawls, or picking out knots and blemishes with pincers, and brushing all clean, and then folding them, with sheets of stiff pasteboard between, ready for the final pressure in the hydraulic press, which makes them fit for the shop.

The fabric for the printed shawls is light and thin, in comparison with the woven. The thinness is various; from the barège to the lightest gossamer that will bear the pressure of the block. The whole importance of the production consists in printing; for the fabric is simple and common enough. A man can weave ten yards per day of the barège; and the silk gauze, striped or plain, requires no particular remark.

The designing is done with the same pains and care as for the genuine shawl, but the range of subjects is larger. While something of the Oriental character of the shawl patterns must be preserved, much of the beauty of French figured silks and brocades and embroidery may be admitted. Thus the designing and coloring-rooms contain much that pleases the eye, though one does not see there the means and appliances which fill some apartment or another of Birmingham factories—the casts from the antique, the volumes of plates, the flower in water, and so on. The preparation of the blocks for printing, and yet more the application of them, reminded us of the paper-staining, which we had certainly never thought of before in connection with shawls. The wood used is lime-wood. Some of the blocks are chiseled and picked out, like those of the paper-stainer. The cast-blocks are more curious. A punch is used, the point or needle of which is kept hot by a flame, from which the workman’s head is defended by a shield of metal. He burns holes by puncturing with this hot needle along all the outlines of the block he holds in his hands, much as a little child pricks outlines on paper on a horse-hair chair-bottom. There is a groove along the face of each block, to allow the metal to run in. The burned blocks are screwed tight in a press, their joined tops forming a saucer, into which the molten metal (composed of tin, bismuth and lead) is poured. In it goes, and down the grooves, penetrating into all the burnt holes; and, of course, when cool, furnishing a cast of the patterns desired, in the form of upright thorns or spikes on a metallic ground or plate. These plates are filed smooth at the back, and fixed on wood, and you have the blocks ready to print from; one representing one color, another another, and so on, till the plates for a single shawl of many colors may mount up in value to a very large sum.

Before printing, the fabric has been well washed; the barège being passed, by machinery, over cylinders which apply and squeeze out a wash of soap, soda, and glue. All roughness had previously been removed by a “cropping” machine. After drying, it comes to the printing-table, where it is treated much like a paper-hanging. This is all very well; but what is to be done in case of a shower of rain? a not improbable incident in the life of a shawl. A paper-hanging would not stand a driving rain. Are ladies imposed upon in this matter, when they are offered a gay-printed shawl as wearable out of doors? By no means. Nobody knows how it is, but the fact is certain, that a good steaming, at a tremendous heat, fixes the colors by some chemical action, without in the least hurting their lustre: so the shawls go into the steaming-box, and come out of it able to bear as many washings as you please, without any change of color. After drying, in a heat of one hundred and ten degrees, they go up stairs to be surveyed, fringed, folded and pressed.

It seems a pity that the fat, easy, lazy Bokharian, and the slim, lithe, patient Hindoo, should not come to Paisley, and see how shawls are made there. To the one, shaving his camel on the plain, and the other, throwing his antique shuttle under the palm, how strange would be the noise, and the stench, and the speed, and the numbers employed, and the amount of production! To the one, it may be the work of years to furnish to the traveling merchant strips of eight inches wide, enough to make a shawl; and to the other, the production of such an article is an event in life; while here, at Paisley, if the pattern requires months, the weaving of the most genuine and valuable kind occupies only a week. We do not believe that the simple and patient Oriental will be driven out of the market by us, because there is no promise, at present, of our overtaking their excellence. We hope there will be room in the world of fashion for them and us forever—(the “forever” of that world.) We shall not go back to their methods, and it is not very likely that they should come up to ours; so we shall probably each go on in our own way, which is what everybody likes best.

AMONG THE MOORS.

THE LEGEND OF THE CASTLE.

Notwithstanding its proximity to Gibraltar, and the constant intercourse and commerce kept up with Europeans, Tangier preserves its primitive appearance and bears the stamp of a thoroughly Moorish town. Like most Moslem cities it is surrounded by beautiful gardens, and the ride of a few miles will reward the tourist with some very pretty scenery. There is work, too, for the antiquary round about Tangier. Ruins of cities, remains of a Roman aqueduct, traces of the Portuguese dominion, strange tombs of warrior saints who fell in battle, are to be visited. To the north, also, near the sea, there stand the ruins of an old castle, famous as having once been the retreat of a bold chieftain who rebelled against the sultan. This ruin, with portions of its massive outer wall yet standing, covers a large extent of ground, and used frequently to be the destination of my morning rides. Day after day, when riding listlessly through the neighboring lanes, between hedges of the aloe and prickly pear, my horse paused at the old castle, and I went in to raise a panic among bats and owls that were disturbed by my wandering among its gloomy passages and desolate old halls.

A very matter-of-fact soldier had, for a long time, been the attendant on our rides—for it is unsafe to trespass far beyond the town without a guard; this gentleman had not a word wherewith to satisfy my curiosity, or gratify my feminine desire to provide every ruin with its legend. A change of guide, however, brought me at last under the shadow of a charming fellow, a battered, tale-telling old hunter, named Shebah, or the Lion, no doubt from his courage. His conversation was stocked largely with magicians, genii, and enchanted castles, which he built up with much gorgeousness of detail, yet speaking always with a certain dignified simplicity and a peculiarity of idiom that gave a piquant relish to the richness of the diet upon which my ears were put.

One bright September morning, as a small party of us rested on a grassy spot on what perhaps had been the tilt-yard of the castle before-mentioned, enjoying a cool pic-nic breakfast, the old hunter sat cross-legged in our neighborhood, with his long gun beside him, and a knife glittering in his belt, looking with grave wistfulness at the sparkle of our wine, and wrestling mentally, perhaps, with the hard veto of his prophet. To console himself, he lifted up his voice and told us all he knew about surrounding objects, sliding eventually into what he called the Legend of the Castle. I really cannot repeat it after him in his own gorgeous words, that sounded very well upon his lips under the Moorish castle walls, but would trip less successfully from mine in England. I will tell the story as I can, beginning properly with Once upon a Time.

Once upon a time when this castle, now decayed, was a strong fortress, there dwelt in it a certain Arab chief named Muley ben Abel, alias Al Zagal, or the Valiant. Al Zagal’s valor was not tempered with mercy, and he was by no means universally esteemed by all who knew him. The two half-brothers of Al Zagal were, however, known as the Good Lords, and the public preference of these two brothers caused their sudden disappearance. They were followed out of the world by their father, Ibn Amir, when he was a man still in the prime of life. Al Zagal had, after this time, many fingers pointed at him, and became so greatly dreaded by the people that he was not unwilling to give them other cause for dread. He began accordingly to prey upon the country people, and the Sultan, being busy in a war with mountain tribes, had neither time nor inclination to put any check on his proceedings. So Al Zagal collected a troop of black warriors, with consciences of a like color with their skins, and levied black mail on all travelers and merchants as they passed on their way to Granada, “which then,” said the hunter, “our people possessed, and, by the blessing of Allah, will again possess.” The Moors faithfully believe that they shall in due time reconquer Spain; and many families of note, tracing descent from Moors of Granada, still keep the keys of houses, and the title-deeds of lands held by their ancestors, ready to be produced in the good time that is coming. Every Friday the Imaums in the mosque pray for the consummation so devoutly wished.

Al Zagal and his black guards did more mischief than a herd of wolves among the surrounding hamlets, and their den came to be called accordingly the Black Castle. The robbers would sweep by in the night, like a hot wind from the desert, and leave every thing destroyed upon their track.

Now it so happened that the shiek of a small mountain village, distant about half a day’s journey from the Black Castle, (Hamet al Hassan was his name,) had a fair daughter, the only child left to him by thirteen wives, and she was named Lindora. Lindora means light of the dawn; and the damsel was as soft, and quiet, and delightful as her godmother, Aurora. Necessarily she was, for is she not the heroine of the legend that was told us by the Moorish hunter under the Black Castle’s walls?

Hamet, the father, for the sake of peace and quietness, seeing how weak he was, paid a black mail to Al Zagal, that was collected on behalf of the castle, at fixed periods, by one of the chief’s swarthy followers. It happened that such a messenger one day chanced to behold Lindora when she returned from drawing water at the village well.

“Son of Al Hassan,” said the envoy, “give me, I pray thee, thy daughter to my wife, for the maid finds favor in my sight. I will befriend thee with my influence, and cause Al Zagal to remit this tribute.”

“Most worthy envoy of the most noble Al Zagal,” said the old man in reply, “many have asked Lindora at my hands in marriage, but she is betrothed to Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, my brother’s son; and when he returns from fighting for the sultan, I have promised that they shall be wedded. So even the marriage gifts are prepared against his coming. Wo is me! I have said it.”

But the same night, when the inmates of that mountain hamlet were asleep, a strong light fell upon their eyes, and shrieks and war-cries fell upon their ears, and they awoke to the slaughter, for the band of the Black Castle had come down, and fired the village. Young men fought, and women fled; but in the morning the hamlet was a ruin far behind the backs of the marauders, who drove sheep and oxen on the way before them, and with Lindora and her father in the middle of their band, marched back to the Black Castle, well content with the good stroke of business they had done.

Several weeks after that night, a young Moorish warrior, handsomely equipped, attended by about a dozen lances, galloped up-hill toward the ruin of Al Hassan’s tents. He was an extremely handsome man, you may be sure, because he is the hero of the legend. Not having expected to find any ruin on the spot, his first impression, when he saw no tents, was, that his father’s brother must have struck them, and removed into another neighborhood. Soon, however, he discovered marks of fire, and—by the beard of the Prophet!—blood. Need I say that the young man was Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, and that his agony at this discovery was dreadful? He sent his spears abroad in vain for tidings, and then turned his own horse’s head toward Tetuan, the nearest town.

Lindora was at this time, of course, in the Black Castle, imprisoned in a lonely tower. The old man, too old to be sold as a slave, would have been promptly dispatched, if the cries of Lindora for her father had not suggested that his life and presence were essential to the preservation of her beauty. The dark envoy was most instrumental in the securing of his safety, but Al Zagal having seen the maiden, who had been seized for his envoy’s satisfaction, was desirous, of course, as the dullest legend reader would perceive, to add her to the roll of his own wives.

When Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, knowing nothing of all this, reached Tetuan, he went to the house of Al Hadj Halek Ibn Abdallah, a famous marabout, and said, “Salaam on Aleekomm! Know, O holy man, that I am come to thee for news, the odor of which would be sweet unto my nostrils.” The wise man, having heard his question, was able, fortunately, to return an answer. And the youth said: “I will depart this hour again to Fez, and throw myself at the feet of the Prince of Believers to ask vengeance; and it shall come to pass that he shall grant me power to lead his warriors against Al Zagal, destroy his castle, and deliver Lindora from its walls; for the maiden loves me still,” he added, looking at the hilt of his dagger, in which a large opal glittered cheerfully. “Tabeeb, farewell!”

Lindora was at that time in her lonely tower, shrieking with but little intermission. Al Zagal appeared on the battlements, and leaning over, shouted to one of his followers: “Asharky, place thyself at the head of a score of lances, and ride the country through till thou findest a Tabeeb, for the daughter of Al Hassan is possessed.” The Tabeeb who was brought declared the maiden to be in the delirium of fever; so thereafter Al Zagal, who by no means desired that she should die, frequently paced the battlements in a moody way, invoking on her case the blessing of the Prophet.

One day he was awakened from such a reverie by the sound of distant tom-toms and cymbals, and looking up he saw the royal banner coming down the road from Fez. Bright arms of warriors glittered about it, and a dark crowd of country people, that had joined with the great army of the Sultan, was shouting his name; they were his debtors from the surrounding country, now resolved to take this advantageous opportunity of paying him the little things they owed. When the multitude had halted near the castle walls, a single horseman spurred out of the main body—a herald he was—summoning Muley ben Abel, alias Al Zagal, to surrender his castle and give up the prisoners therein, particularly Lindora and her father, otherwise the Lord Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, Caliph of the Sultan, was prepared in the Sultan’s name to lay siege to its walls. A valorous discussion followed, which was closed by a follower of Al Zagal, who, with a stone from a sling, struck the herald on the forehead, and unhorsed him. Then the siege commenced.

The siege was tedious, for the castle walls were thick, but as the black band was not accustomed to live peaceably on short provisions, it turned very blue when the wine failed, and became finally seditious. Nevertheless the siege was tedious, and Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar began to fear the approach of the rainy season and the departure of his peasant allies, when one day he saw, in strong relief against the morning sky, Lindora and her father led out chained upon the battlements of the Black Castle. Al Zagal had an offer of accommodation to suggest. If the siege were raised he would give up his captives for a ransom of a thousand mets-kal. If not, he would cut off their heads next morning, and throw them down into the camp.

This threw Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar into great perplexity, for his honor as a soldier and his desire as a lover, were played off unpleasantly against each other. While he still pondered in his tent, the tent curtain was drawn aside and the dark envoy entered. Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar knew the dark envoy well, although he did not know him as the first cause of Lindora’s misery: he knew him only as a doughty fighting man throughout the siege. What did the dark envoy want. “Son of Amar,” he said, “grant but a free pass to myself and a few companions, and the castle shall be delivered up to-night into your hands. Al Zagal has wronged me, and the sons of Allah are not able to forgive.”

“Can I believe this?”

“Fear not, Cedi; I will remain in this tent till my word has been fulfilled. To-night Al Zagal, having lulled and deceived thee by this morning’s offer, will make a sally with his whole band, and attempt to cut a way to safety for himself and for his captives through your unsuspicious ranks. He hopes to get beyond the mountains into Rif. His men will be divided into two bands, one headed by myself, the other by my brother, who will join against him at a given signal.”

“Fight thine own battles with Al Zagal,” said Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar; “I will have no traitor for ally.” The youth, nevertheless, profited by the dark envoy’s useful information, and disseminated it industriously throughout his camp. In the night, the castle gates having been thrown open, a band of horsemen passed the drawbridge stealthily with muffled hoofs, formed into rank, and placed their captives in the centre, intending to burst in their old way with a sudden cry upon the sleeping enemy. “By the beard of my father,” said Al Zagal, “we will yet teach the shepherds what it is to have a lion at bay.” He had not long spoken before the lances of the shepherds came upon him, and lances of his own troops also were turned against him. Seeing that he was betrayed, he closed with those men who were faithful to him round the captives, and endeavored to regain the castle; but the enemy possessed the path. There was a terrible fight, and Cedi Mohammed riding high among the torches, friends fought against friends, emirs, splendidly caparisoned on Arab steeds, engaged with half-clad members of the black band, on wiry mountain ponies. Al Zagal, through the tumult and the torch-light fighting desperately, succeeded with a few followers in forcing a way with Lindora back into the castle, of which a large part was already in the hands of the besiegers. He secured Lindora in a secret room, and then descending through dark vaults and passages to a magazine that had long been prepared for any such occasion, added arson to his other crimes. The savage horror of the scene was at its highest as the flames leaped their highest up into the night. The red blaze was a pleasant beacon-fire to men who, waking up by chance in distant places, said it must be the Black Castle that was then on fire, and so there would be peace again upon their tents now that the Black Castle was destroyed.

But among the blazing ruins the strife still went on. The band of Al Zagal had their lives to sell, and valued their lives dearly. “There is one chance more,” said Al Zagal to a gigantic black who had been unhorsed in the struggle; “let us mount the first horses we can get, and we may yet escape beyond the mountains into Rif.” Al Zagal had soon forced an emir from his charger, and was darting from the castle when the dark envoy confronted him. “Know me!” the chief said, “I am Al Zagal.” But the dark envoy struck him, bidding him die like a dog; and after a great struggle he did die, like a brave dog, fighting gallantly. But the dark envoy had fought for Lindora, and had made Lindora his war-cry in the act of treason. Down there came, therefore, in wrath, upon the head of the dark envoy the sword of Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar. There was another desperate encounter, and I suppose no shrewdness could discover which of the two combatants was killed.

Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar rushed, at great peril of his life, among the chambers of the burning castle seeking his Lindora. In the uppermost apartment of the western tower, still spared from the flames, he found her stretched upon a low divan, pale and disheveled, almost senseless. Her lover carried her among the ruins to a resting-place upon the trampled, blood-stained grass, and there under the fresh breeze of early morning she revived: “I am indeed saved by thy hand; O, my beloved, Allah hath heard my prayers, and great is my reward. To-morrow I sleep with my fathers and see thee no more.” The light of the dawn was on her face. “Lindora!” the youth cried, with a sudden fear; “Lindora, speak to me again!” He looked at the opal in his dagger, which for an instant shot forth rays, and then its light departed: it became a dull, dead stone. The soul of Lindora, light of the dawn, had left that couch of trampled grass and blood, and floated forth into the morning sky.

“And what became of her lover?” I inquired of the old hunter, who appeared disposed to make an end at this part of the tale, whereas I desire always to know distinctly what becomes of every one. We were told in reply, that some said he died at the storming of the castle, some said that he went to Granada and fought in a reckless way, became a great man, and never smiled and never married; but the old hunter himself inclined to think that he abandoned war, and being a caliph married largely, and escaped the observation of the world by being overmuch secluded in his harem.

We requested the old huntsman not to kill Lindora when he told the story next. He listened gravely, and replied, with more reproof in his looks than in his voice, that Lindora had become possessed—that is to say, mentally deranged—and in that state, according to his faith, she was regarded as a saint, and sacred to every good Moslem. It was, therefore, good that she should in that state be compensated for her troubles by a certain passage into heaven.

LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES.

Were I to discuss, to describe, or even cursorily to touch on the social characteristics of any one of the numerous classes of Continental coffee-houses, I should require a book rather than a column. The subject is one so cosmopolitan, so intimately bound up with the progress of civilization, that, while ostensibly penning a paper on coffee-shops, I should be in reality writing a history of the manners, customs and social peculiarities of the peoples who were coffee-drinkers. So, seductive as are the temptations of Continental coffee-shops, I will not venture to touch upon them now. I will reserve for a more convenient opportunity the brilliant Parisian cafés, and the consideration of the influence they have had upon the progress of the decorative arts in France; I will reserve the coffee-houses of Germany where pipes and dominoes are the rule, and clean coffee-cups and clean waiters the exception; the cafés of Venice and Milan; the cafés and cafejis of Stamboul and Smyrna; the coffee-houses where there are concerts; where there are dramatic performances; where there are orchestras recruited by blind men; where there are dances and orgies, and feasts of cucumbers and hard eggs, as on the Port at Antwerp; where circulate massive white tureens of coffee considerably modified, or aggravated by schnaps, as at the great pilots’ coffee-house, the “Kœning Leopold” at Ostend.

Of the present state and position of coffee-shops in one country, I feel myself called upon, however, briefly to treat. The coffee-houses of London have, within the last thirty years, done, to my mind, so much good; have worked such important results, and offer so many curious questions for solution, both social and commercial, that I should be unjust were I to pass them over. I mean the genuine, orthodox, London coffee-houses—coffee-shops, if you will; where coffee is dispensed to the million at varying rates of one penny, three half-pence, and two-pence per cup; where eggs, bread and butter, bacon, and similar refreshments are provided at moderate rates; but where no ardent spirits or fermented liquors of any kind are either demanded by the customers or conceded by the proprietors; where—in lieu of the glasses that were wont to circle round the board, and the good company that was wont to fall underneath it in the old-fashioned coffee-houses—there is provided for the serious, well-conducted frequenters, a feast of newspapers and a flow of cheap periodicals. You and I can remember when such coffee-houses were not. If, in the old time, we wanted a cup, a dish or a bowl of coffee, we were compelled to go to the coffee-room of an hotel for it; provided always that we did not care to consume it at home. And coffee at home, even, was in those days, not by any means a faultless compound. Our aunts and mothers and sisters were blindly attached to certain prejudices and superstitions respecting the fining or clearing of coffee. Noxious compositions, such as dried fish-skins, egg-shells, what ought to have been isinglass (but was fish-bones boiled to a jelly,) together with red-hot coals, were thrown into the unresisting coffee-pot to faciliate the fining operation. Certain strange and fetish rites were also performed with the same view, by knocking the coffee-pot a cabalistic number of times on the hob, and chucking it up in mid air till the hot liquid within became a confused mass of grouts and conflicting flavors. Coffee-houses have effected a great reform in this respect, and have driven away many baneful, though time-honored superstitions.

There is scarcely a street in London—certainly it would be difficult to find three together, unprovided with a coffee-shop. The types do not vary much. Where men go simply for amusement or dissipation, they will naturally congregate in classes: the beggar will go to the beggar’s public-house, and the thief to the thieves’ theatre. But a coffee-house is neutral ground. There are in every coffee-shop whig, and tory, and radical publications, and whigs, tories and radicals assembled harmoniously to read them; for the readers are as mute as the papers.

Something like uniformity, almost amounting to monotony, prevails in the majority of London coffee-shops. The ornamental is generally sacrificed to the useful. A plain room, divided into plain stalls by varnished partitions, and fitted with plain Pembroke tables, papers, periodicals, and magazines, not quite guiltless of coffee stains and bread-and-butter spots, a neat waitress, economical of speech, and who is forever ringing the changes between two refrains of “coffee and slice,” and “tea and an hegg”—are common to all coffee-houses. There is more deal in some, more mahogany in others; there are aristocratic coffee-houses, where they serve you silver salt-castors with your muffins, and silver cream-jugs with your coffee; there are low—very low—coffee-shops, where there is sand on the floor, and an ill odor pervading the place “generally all over.” Yet, in all these coffee-houses, high or low, aristocratic or humble, clean or dirty, deal or mahogany furnished, night or day; I can sit for hours and wonder. I ponder on the evidence of Mr. Pamphilon before the coffee-committee of the House of Commons, not twenty years ago; and, reading that, and reading the excise returns, how I wonder! I wonder when I see these strong bands of honest working-men; of swart artisans; of burly coal-heavers and grimy ballast-porters; who are content to come straight from the factory, the anvil, or the wharf to the coffee-shop; who can bid the shining river of beer flow on unheeded, and content themselves with the moderate evening’s amusement to be found in cheap periodicals. And, forced as I am sometimes to admit the presence in my coffee-cup of some other ingredients besides coffee, such as chicory, burnt beans, pounded bones, calcined clover, or such trifling little strangers—I wonder still at the immense good the penny cup of coffee (as it should be,) but still the cup, coffee or not coffee, has worked in this huge London. Whatever it be, they drink it, and it does not make them drunk; and drinking, they read; and reading, they learn to think, and to wash, and to teach their little children to read, and to think, and to wash, too. I doubt if a murder were ever planned in a coffee-shop.

Charles Dickens.

JAMES LOGAN OF PENNSYLVANIA.

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FROM THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE.

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James Logan was descended from the Scottish family of Logan of Restalrig, known in history for little else save its connection with the celebrated Gowrie conspiracy. Driven from Scotland by the legal proceedings consequent upon the singular discovery of their father’s letters to Gowrie in 1608, the two sons of the last Logan of Restalrig migrated to Ireland and established themselves at Lurgan. Robert, the younger son, subsequently returned to Scotland, where he married, and had a son Patrick, who removed to Ireland, taking with him a well-connected Scottish bride, and an affection for the religious opinions of George Fox. Out of a considerable family, only two children of Patrick Logan grew up to manhood, William, who was a physician at Bristol, and James, the subject of the present biography. The latter was born at Lurgan “in 1674 or 1675.” He seems to have had an aptitude for the acquisition of languages, and daring a youth passed in various places in the three kingdoms—for his parents removed from Ireland back to Scotland and thence to England—James Logan picked up considerable knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish.

How or when he became acquainted with William Penn does not appear. Probably it was through Penn’s second wife, with whose father Logan was acquainted. However begun, community of religious opinions and some superiority in manners and education to the Quakers in general, riveted the bond of union between the proprietor of Pennsylvania and the young disciple, and induced Penn, in 1699, to propose to James Logan, to relinquish his intention of engaging in trade at Bristol, and accompany him to Pennsylvania in the character of his secretary. They sailed in September 1699, and after a three months’ voyage the proprietor and his secretary touched the shore of the new land of promise, in which it was Penn’s intention to pass the remainder of his life. After two years Penn found it necessary to return to England, but he left his secretary in America as his agent and representative. In that arrangement Penn was particularly fortunate. Every body else in authority in Pennsylvania looked upon Penn with jealousy, and strove to attain some selfish ends by infringing his acknowledged rights, or by taking advantage of his necessities. Logan alone acted fairly by him, and exhibited in his correspondence and in his conduct a due regard to his patron’s interest, and a calm consideration of the practical possibilities of the position in which both of them stood. A more unquiet, litigious, hard-dealing set of men than Penn’s colonists can scarcely be conceived. If all is true that is told of them, they certainly used Penn himself very ill, and oppressed every one who was inclined to treat him with more justice or liberality than themselves. Logan did not escape. In 1710 he was obliged to visit England in order to vindicate his conduct before the home authorities. He did so fully, and then returned to pursue his duties and his fortune in the new world. During the six years of paralytic helplessness which preceded the death of William Penn, a correspondence passed between Penn’s wife and Logan, in which we have on the one side interesting but melancholy glimpses of the condition of the great Quaker philanthropist, and on the other valuable information respecting the growing colony. Penn sent his scapegrace eldest son to Pennsylvania, consigning him to the care of Logan and his other sober friends, but other companions were better suited to his taste, and the silly youth brought discredit upon his father and himself. In vain Logan addressed to him letters of sensible but cold advice—too wise by half to have had any weight with a youth so far gone in dissipation. Sage, sentimental aphorisms fall dead upon a wanderer whose own heart and conscience can supply him with better teaching than any mere moral lessons, if he can but be persuaded to listen to its still small voice. This melancholy episode in the life of Penn will be best read in Mr. Dixon’s recent volume.

Logan had ere this time married, and settled himself in Pennsylvania. He prudently continued to devote his attention to commerce, as well as to the public affairs of the colony, and attained to eminent wealth as well as to the highest station. As his years and infirmities increased he partially withdrew from public affairs, and in a residence in the suburbs of Philadelphia devoted his declining years to literature and science. The last office he continued to hold was that of “Chief Justice of the Province of Pennsylvania,” at a salary of 100l. per annum. In 1736 he speaks of having already been obliged for five years past to mount the bench on crutches. He desired to retire, but the government could not find a satisfactory successor to his office. During his period of retirement Logan corresponded with his friends in Europe upon metaphysical subjects, and made communications on natural phenomena to the Royal Society, in letters addressed to Sir Hans Sloane, Peter Collinson, and others. He also employed himself in collecting a library—then not an easy task in that part of the world—and having built a room for its preservation, and endowed it with £35 per annum for a librarian, he left the whole to the city of Philadelphia. The Loganian library still exists, but in combination with two other public libraries. The founder is also perpetuated in one of the public squares of Philadelphia, which bears his name. He died on 31st October, 1751.

Among the founders of Pennsylvania, Logan ought to be had in honorable remembrance. Firm in his friendship to William Penn, and in his adherence to his personal religious opinions, a zealous and useful citizen, honorable and upright in every relation of life, he has also the still further credit of having been the first to tincture the rising colony with literature and all those amenities which learning brings in its train.

USEFUL ARTS OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

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BY CHARLES WILLIAMS.

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In an age when the useful arts have attained so high a development, we are, perhaps, prone to treat with neglect, or even unmerited contempt, the efforts of the nations of antiquity in the same sphere. It is not here as in the province of thought and genius. The poet, sculptor, painter, or philosopher, at the very outset of his labors, is accustomed to contemplate and mould himself to those perfect models spared for his use by the hand of Time. But the artificer, whose nearer concern is with the material and its uses, not with the form, is apt to fix a less ample scope; and while intent on supplying a want, often forgets that the same necessity indicated a similar effort thousands of years ago—an effort often crowned with the same results.

“The world grows old and again grows young,”

says a German poet; and it may be added, that the sturdy development of new youth often causes men to forget the results attained, before the previous old age had issued in second childhood. Let us, then, consider some of these results, which meet the eye in far too great number and variety to be even succinctly detailed, as they appear in those records which remain of the useful arts of the Greeks and Romans.

Many such results are evidenced by tangible monuments; others can only be sought for in history. The marble, bronzes, temples, aqueducts, theatres, roads, and baths, with numerous similar remains, are with us still—imperishable witnesses to attest the high development of the arts by which they were created. The wines, clothing, tapestries, and suchlike perishable materials, must be sought out and described from the written records of the past.

Any attempt at detail is precluded by the limits of the present article, but we will sketch in outline what we cannot minutely represent. Our object is, to regard the every-day life of the Greeks and Romans as it has been so often pictured—to view their houses and furniture—to cast a hasty glance at their fields and gardens—to survey their roads and their edifices, with the various remains indicative of their industrial condition; and we shall then turn with feelings of less astonishment to the wonderful scenes which the world, now two thousand years older, exhibits to our view in the nineteenth century.

One word more before commencing our task. The useful arts of these nations necessarily followed, in their rise and progress, those fundamental laws which have their seat in the inmost nature of man the inventor. To instance one: with them, as with us, there was seen the unity of end effected by necessity and luxury. We see the mother of invention originate, and luxury or fashion improve, till the first and simpler product has been rendered cheaper and more common—till the art of making something better has rendered easy the production of a necessary, and the artificial wants of the wealthy in the end minister to the convenience and necessities of the poor.

But the identity of these laws we need only suggest to the reader; his own mind will gather them from the scenes of daily life, and more especially from the great collection of the results of industry, open to his view. The influence and connection of religious feeling with the arts of the old world must, however, receive a word of notice. The vast variety of forms into which the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans expanded—forms often beautiful, sometimes grotesque, but always powerful—did not fail to include, in one mode or another, every province of art. Sometimes this influence might retard, sometimes accelerate progress; but, whether to aid or to hinder, it was ever present. Not only in their pillared temples—not only in the gorgeous and elaborate products of their high art, but by the household hearth, in the simple labors of the field, and in the operations of the artificer, religion was a companion and guide. The plough and the loom, no less than the sacred shrine, were under Divine protection; the workers in metal and the potters would look to the god of fire as their patron; rustics to the mighty Pan; the gatherer of the grape to Bacchus; indeed, to such a point was the feeling carried, that the very sewers in Rome were supposed to be under the guardian care of a goddess.

I. Agriculture—Bread and Wine.

Taking a natural arrangement of our subject, into food, clothing, dwellings, traveling, and so forth, we must first glance at those arts which supply the merely animal wants of man. Agriculture was highly valued and skillfully pursued among both nations, though the Romans appear to have estimated the art even more highly than the Greeks. In both countries the soil was fertile, and the productions very similar. Wheat, barley, the olive, the vine, flax, and the fig-tree, with a great variety of garden products, may be enumerated. With regard to the live-stock, horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, and swine were reared for the ends of labor or for consumption; but the first-mentioned appear to have been scarce in Greece. The flesh of the kid and pork were the meats in most general use; but animal food, especially among the Greeks, was not so generally consumed as in our own day. Details of production and consumption cannot here be gone into; and we will therefore take the two main productions of both countries—their bread and wine—as examples in this respect.

The plough in use among the ancients differs very little from that still employed in modern times; in all important points, a close similarity is visible. The fashion and combination of these parts varied with them as with us, in order to fit the instrument for different soils. The Greeks and Romans usually ploughed their land three times before sowing; namely, in the spring, summer, and autumn of the year. But in some soils of great tenacity there were nine different ploughings, as mentioned by the younger Pliny in the description of his villa and lands in Tuscany. The harrows, rakes, hoes, spades, and agricultural implements, scarcely demand more than to be mentioned. We need only say, that the general processes of agriculture, including systems of manuring and irrigation, furnished materials for copious dissertations, and were not in Rome considered beneath the notice of the highest citizens.

Grain, when trodden out, shaken, or beaten by the flail from the straw, was, in very early times, pounded in mortars. But a simple form of mill, generally worked by hand, soon superseded the first rough contrivance. In its best form, this consisted of a cone of rough stone, on which was applied a hollow cone of the same material, which revolved in contact with the first. The upper mill-stone was furnished with levers, and turned either by slaves, by mules, or asses. It was hollowed out above into a cup-like shape, to receive the corn, which fell in a stream into a space between the two surfaces, and was reduced to flour before its escape below. Each country family had one or more mills, to grind for its own consumption; and thus the want of public machine mills was supplied. Water-mills were an invention of comparatively late date. They were of simple construction, consisting merely of a cogged wheel, which turned a second connected with the upper mill-stone.

In Rome, the bread continued for a long period to be made by the women of the household, and the trade of baker was unknown; but in Athens bread was mostly bought in the market, and eventually in both nations the art of baking became highly elaborate. Indeed, the variety of breads in use among the Greeks and Romans very much exceeded our own; and in the sumptuous private establishments of later periods, there were many slaves educated professedly for the care of the baking department. The many kinds of bread enumerated by Athenæus may be divided into two sorts, the leavened and the unleavened; many, doubtless, answered to our pastry and confectionary, but there was also a particular class of medicated breads expressly for use in physic. Indeed, so far was this carried, that a certain baker is mentioned by Plato quite in the light of an accomplished physician. The chief article of consumption in Greece was a kind of soft cake, made of barley-meal and sometimes mixed with honey or wine.

The Pelasgians appear to have introduced the culture of the vine into Greece, and subsequently into Italy. The art of making wine was known from the earliest ages, and its origin is lost in fable. To the careful selection of the site for a vineyard, the pruning of the vine, the props, training, manure, and careful cleaning of the soil, we can only allude. The solemn or festal character of the vintage-time, the religious aspect of the customs then observed, their near connection with the origin of the Greek drama, the general joy, and often riotous excess, which marked the gathering-in of the grape, will all recur to mind in connection with this part of our subject. But our more immediate object is, to give a short sketch of the methods by which the juice of the grape was prepared for use.

When gathered, the grapes were first placed in the vat and trodden by men, who often moved in time to the sound of some vintage strain, or enlivened their labors with the song. When the juice thus collected had been drained off, the remaining mass was still further subjected to the action of wooden screw-presses. The first yield of juice was most prized, as producing the best-flavored and richest wine; the second was only used for inferior purposes. One exquisitely rich kind of wine was formed from the juice exuding from over-ripe clusters before they were gathered. The sweet juice, or “must,” before fermentation, was frequently drunk, after undergoing a clarifying process. This “must,” too, was often preserved sweet and unfermented, by inclosing it in air-tight vessels; while grape-jellies were formed by boiling it down to the required consistency, and the addition of honey. This essence of the grape was used for “doctoring” poor wines.

To form the “must” into wine, it was placed in long, bell-mouthed vessels of earthenware, to undergo fermentation. These were sunk in the ground, and exposed to a moderate, equable temperature. When the “must” had become wine, these large vessels were carefully closed, and only opened at intervals to purify their contents, or to subject them to any mixing process. Similar arts to those of modern wine-makers were in use among the ancients, in order to produce the desired qualities. But further, the lids of these vessels were rubbed with an aromatic compound of saffron, pitch, grape-jelly, mastic, and fir-cones; which process was supposed to communicate an agreeable flavor.

Some wines were drunk from the “dolium,” or, as we should say, from the “wood;” but the choicer kinds were drawn off into smaller earthenware vases, called amphoræ—in short, bottled as with us. We may mention that glass was used for these vessels in later times, and a wooden cask was sometimes substituted for the “dolium.” Even after bottling, the Greek and Roman wines were frequently very thick, and required fining or straining before they could be used. Bottled wines were often kept to a great age before consumption; some required from twenty to twenty-five years for attaining perfection, but the ordinary time allowed was seven years. If an earlier ripening was desired, it was produced artificially by heat. Powdered resin was sometimes added on bottling, and various alkaline correctives, aromatic adjuncts, perfumes, essential oils, bitters, and spices, were added to produce the desired flavor; while imitation wines, in great variety, were manufactured in Rome. The colors of wines in Italy and Greece were, as among the moderns, white, red, and brown; the red being either brackish, like some of our port, or ruby-colored, like claret. Sweet wines were formed by incomplete fermentation, and wines prepared from raisins, or partly dried grapes, were also common. An inferior drink for laborers was formed by boiling the grape-husks after the process of expression: it probably resembled our worst kinds of cider.

The commoner wines were ridiculously cheap. We hear of ten gallons being sold for threepence, and a high order of wine in Athens only fetched two-pence a gallon. But then, as with us, high prices were given by connoisseurs for the choice vintages and varieties. The Thracian wine given to Ulysses, the Pramnian mentioned in the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” and in later times the Thasian, Lesbian, Chian, and the wine of Cos, were among the best kinds of Greek wine. In Italy the wines of Latium and Campana, the Imperial wine, the Cæcuban, Falernian, Alban, Surrentine, Massic, Setinian, and Statinian, were the most highly prized.

The cultivation of the olive, the fig, flax, and the various productions of the field and garden, was doubtless conducted with equal skill. The Romans were familiar with all the appliances of husbandry and gardening, and especially with the arts of grafting and budding; but in this branch of our subject the two examples above given will suffice to furnish a general idea of Greek and Roman skill, and we must hasten to give the reader an account of the modes in use for appropriating the mineral wealth of the soil.

II. Extraction and Use of Metals.

The art of extracting the metals from their ores, lying, as it does, at the very foundation of the means by which the useful arts advance, cannot be said to have reached a high point of perfection in Greece, Rome, or the other countries from which they derived their supply. An idea of mining processes can scarcely be better given than by a description of those used in the Attic silver mines at Laurium.

The veins of silver were situated in a range of pine-covered hills of no considerable height, affording quarries of good marble, in contact with which substance the silver ore was mostly found. These mines were probably opened at a very early period, but the precise date does not appear. The ore, or “silver earth,” as the Greeks called it, was extremely hard and probably very pure and rich in the yield of metal, as the Greeks, from their defective knowledge of chemical processes, could not extract the silver with profit when united with large proportions of other metals. Contrary to common experience, the ore appears to have assumed the form of layers rather than of veins.

The mines were worked, either by perpendicular shafts, or by tunneling the side of the hill. Pillars of the ore were of course left, or the superincumbent mass was supported by props of timber, which was largely imported for the purpose. The noxious vapors exhaling from the mines were carried off by shafts of ventilation. The ore was removed partly by simple machines, partly by unassisted labor. On reaching the mouth of the mine it was broken small with iron pestles in stone mortars. These pieces were then ground down smaller, washed, strained through sieves, and sorted into qualities of different richness.

The art of smelting the ore thus obtained was imperfect, when viewed in comparison with the greater skill of the moderns. “Even in the time of Strabo, when considerable improvements had been effected, there was still no profit to be gained by the extraction of silver from lead ore, in which it was present in small proportions.”[^[2]] But that some improvement took place is evident from the fact, that much ore rejected by the earlier operators was at a later period profitably employed. Crucibles have been found in Egypt similar to those in modern use. Similar ones were probably known to the Greeks, and old remains of bell-shaped smelting furnaces have been met with, furnished with a channel for the escape of the molten metal, which renders it probable that such furnaces were employed in Greece and Rome.

In the silver ore of Laurium lead was largely present, and according to Pliny, the ore was first melted down to the substance called “Stannum,” a union of lead with silver. This was taken to the refining oven, where the silver was separated by heat, and the lead remained half glazed in the form of litharge, which in its turn was reduced. But the ancients were also familiar with the use of quicksilver in the extraction of other metals, and the moderns have only a claim to re-discovery in this respect. The bellows and charcoal were employed to produce the extreme heat required in refining processes.

Various substances are mentioned as the products of these ancient metallic operations; the “flower” of gold and of copper; the “foam” of silver, with some others, all of which were used in medicine. In the mines of Laurium, copper, cinnabar, and “sil,” a lightish yellow earth much used by painters, and containing iron, were also found.

But though Greece had mines of silver and even of gold, still great part of the precious metals in circulation was imported from Asia and Africa. India, the great source of wealth and luxury in all times, furnished copious supplies for those large deposits of bullion stored in the temples and treasuries of Greece.

A very natural transition leads us to the Greek and Roman coinage. Silver money was first coined at Ægina, so early as 869 B. C., and was originally the only current coin in Greece. The early coins are rather rough in appearance, and bear a rude mark on the reverse, as if from a puncheon on which the metal was placed for striking the piece. The Athenian silver money was remarkably pure, indeed so much so as to be taken at a premium throughout Greece. Some coins contained only one-sixtieth part of their weight in baser metal, whilst our own silver coinage contains a twelfth. Among the Greeks, gold coinage was subsequent to silver, and bronze was still later introduced.

The earliest Roman coins were composed of bronze, and were cast in a mould instead of being struck as in Greece. Some remains of Roman coinage show the cut edge of the line of metal which united adjacent coins when taken from the mould, in which the whole row had been cast together; and some such rows are still found in an undivided state. The cumbrous nature of the early Roman coinage was such that each piece weighed a pound. In fact, in this respect it seemed to come near the weighty iron coinage of Sparta, of which we may add that no remains exist.

In Athens and Rome the smallest silver coins were very minute indeed. The Athenians possessed separate silver coins, running from the piece of four drachmæ, in value about 3s. 4d., down to the quarter of an obolus, which was less in value than our halfpenny. The silver coin responding to this value was very minute, weighing less than three grains. There were Roman silver coins even smaller than this; probably some existed of no more than 1½ grain in weight, or considerably less than one quarter of the size of our silver pence. But the great inconvenience of such small coins led to the striking of corresponding values in bronze, and these “silver scales,” for they had just the appearance of such, went out of use.

A gold coinage in Greece probably did not exist before the age of Alexander the Great, though their near neighbors in Asia undoubtedly possessed gold money from an early age; and pieces of this became current in Greece. The few remaining gold coins of Greece appear not to have been struck before the period mentioned above. But on the rise of the Macedonian empire gold coins became plentiful through the country.

Gold was first coined in Rome B. C. 207, sixty years after the commencement of their silver currency. The common size of their pieces was probably about the same with that of our sovereign; but some existed in size only one quarter of our half sovereigns, and representing about 2s. 6d. in silver.

It is necessary in this place to give some account of the bronze of the ancients, a compound fulfilling the most important uses in Greece and Rome. “Money, vases, and utensils of all sorts, whether for domestic or sacrificial purposes, ornaments, arms offensive and defensive, furniture, tablets for inscriptions, musical instruments, and, indeed, every object to which it could be applied, was made of bronze.”[^[3]] Zinc, like steel, was unknown to the ancients. The discovery of a case of surgical instruments in Pompeii, in which the lancets are made of bronze, almost demonstrates to a certainty a want of the art of making steel, and the same conclusion is supported by the existing remains of Greek and Roman weapons. Their bronze was composed of copper and tin, and contained about seven parts of the former to one of the latter. The Corinthian bronze was most valued for the purposes of art, and there were certain varieties of this, into the composition of which silver and even gold were introduced, so as to produce a white or yellow shade in the color. The Delians and Æginetans also excelled in the manufacture of bronze.

The ancients cast metals in moulds, worked them into plates with the hammer, or engraved and embossed them elaborately, as in the manufacture of their metal vases. Their colossal statues, of which the one at Rhodes, 100 feet high, is the most famous example, were mostly cast of bronze.

A constant source of employment to the workers in metal was the manufacture of arms, offensive and defensive. Among the latter may be mentioned shields, greaves, cuirasses, helmets, and coats of mail, consisting either of forged rings linked one within the other, or of scales and rings fastened to some firmly-woven linen or woollen cloth. The offensive arms must have been defective, owing to the ignorance of steel. Iron, silver, and gold were all used in making or ornamenting arms, besides the more common bronze. With the welding of iron, and the use of a kind of solder, the workmen in those days appear to have been familiar.

The necklaces, eardrops, rings, brooches, collars, crowns, goblets, salvers, and vases, manufactured of the precious metals or the finer sorts of bronze, and often set with precious stones, may be enumerated as the chief articles of the jeweler’s and silversmith’s trade. The various tools employed by workmen, the variety of form and modes of working, were all very similar to those of modern days.

III. Houses and Furniture.

The numerous splendid architectural remains in Greece and Italy, sufficiently establish the proficiency of the two great nations of antiquity in the art of building. With architecture, where it becomes one of the fine arts, we have not now to deal; the scope of the present chapter embraces merely their masonry, and its application to the common uses of life. Still we cannot avoid remarking, that elegance of proportion and beauty of design are no less apparent in their works, than solid strength and correct adaptation to the particular uses for which they were intended.

The earlier walls in both countries were undoubtedly very rude efforts—mere lath and plaster, or rough earthen structures strengthened with beams. Log-houses were then common in well-wooded districts. When the art of building had made some progress, brick, rubble, and stone came into general use; until finally, in their best works of art, their stone and marble columns and walls were distinguished by a solidity and accuracy of construction rarely since excelled.

The earliest form of Grecian masonry of which we have any remains is the Cyclopean, in which the walls are formed of huge stones, the interstices of these being filled up with smaller ones. The walls of Mycenæ and Tiryns furnish the best specimens; and in some places the outer walls are supposed to have been sixty feet thick. The labor of constructing such works must have been immense. Another form, sometimes termed the second Cyclopean, consisted of polygonal blocks of large size, fitted together with tolerable accuracy, sometimes with great precision and, like the former, not united by mortar.

A common form of construction was that of facing a rubble wall with square pieces of stone, arranged in a wedge-like manner on their angles. This mode of arrangement was united with the commoner one of horizontal courses, so as to form a kind of pattern, which produced a pleasing effect, still imitated in some of our own buildings. Thick walls among the Romans were often formed by facing the outer and inner surfaces with stones squared and fitted, or with brick, while the interior was filled with rough fragments, strongly imbedded in a mass of their admirable mortar. To bind together the two encasing surfaces, large stones were introduced, extending through the whole thickness of the wall.

But the most perfect kind of wall was that which we call ashlar work, and is still to be seen in the temples of Athens, Corinth, and other Greek cities. The stone or marble was quarried, and then accurately worked with the chisel, so that the eye could scarcely trace the union of the large adjacent blocks. These blocks were connected with those above them by dovetailing; and the stones lying side by side were firmly united by iron cramps fixed with lead. So constant and abundant was this employment of metallic fastenings, that the vast remains of ancient buildings have proved perfect mines for peculators. In a marble temple at Cyzicus, the lines of union of the slabs were covered with gold.

In contrasting the Greek and Roman masonry, we see that the great works of the former were mostly of marble and highly finished, while many Roman remains of great magnificence are composed of rougher stone-work united by mortar, or of a union of stone and brick in alternate courses. The chief superiority of the Romans was in their complete knowledge and application of the principle of the arch, with which the Greeks were not acquainted. There was, it is true, a kind of pointed arch in use among them for corridors; but this was probably formed by cutting a passage through the solid walls when built, not by building the stones up archwise. Such passages are found in the vast Cyclopean walls before mentioned.

Before subjoining any particular account of edifices, we may mention that the lever, the capstan, the crane, pulley, and other simple machines for raising or adjusting stones, were known to the Greeks and Romans. Though they could not pretend to a knowledge of machinery and mechanics even remotely approaching our own, still they had sufficient to answer the ordinary requirements of building. In carpentry, too, the Romans must have possessed considerable skill, or they could never have connected, by a structure of timber, arches so wide as those of Trajan’s bridge over the Danube.

We will now give a short description of the general form and appearance of the Greek and Roman house. In neither nation had the external appearance of a dwelling-house much pretension to beauty. Lying chiefly, almost exclusively, on the ground floor, there did not exist that elevation of structure, or regularity of plan necessary to produce a striking effect on the eye from without. In the Greek house there were two principal divisions, the men’s quarter and the women’s quarter. The outer door was approached by steps, and opened on a narrow passage, on one side of which, in a large house, were the stables, on the other a lodge for the porter. This passage entered on the men’s quarter—an open quadrangle surrounded by porticoes, forming a kind of cloister for exercise or meals. In this court was placed an altar for domestic sacrifice. Various chambers were ranged round the quadrangle behind the porticoes, answering the purposes of private dining-rooms, withdrawing-rooms, picture-galleries, libraries, bed-chambers, and so forth. The great object in the arrangement of chambers was to gain warm rooms, exposed to the sun, for use during winter, and cool, shady apartments for summer occupation. Directly opposite the entrance to the men’s quarter was a passage, closed by a door, and leading to the women’s quadrangle.

Three sides of this square were surrounded by porticoes, as in the men’s quarter; but on the fourth side, opposite to the entrance-door, and usually fronting south, there was a kind of vestibule, on either side of which were placed bed-chambers, the principal in the house. Behind these were large rooms, in which women worked at their spinning, weaving, or embroidery. An upper story, in most cases, extended partly over the space occupied by the lower; but the rooms on the upper floor bore a very small proportion to those on the ground. In early times, before the house had attained its usual main division into separate quarters for the men and women, the upper chambers were assigned to the latter. Afterward they were usually occupied by slaves, or by strangers visiting the family. Balconies were sometimes built, projecting from the windows of this upper floor. The roof was usually flat, and calculated for exercise or basking in the sun; in rarer cases a pointed roof existed. Windows were not common as with us; the necessity for them was not so great; the mildness of the climate, and the fact that nearly all the rooms opened on one or other of the quadrangles—which was, of course, a protection against rain and wind—were sufficient reasons for this arrangement. But some windows did look out on the street, and were closed by curtains and shutters.

Those usual adjuncts of a room in modern times, a fire-place and chimney, were unknown until after their employment by the later Romans. The Greek rooms were usually warmed by portable stoves, or braziers, in which charcoal or wood was burnt. Some of these stoves were, of course, fixed for the common culinary purposes; and in all cases the smoke found its way out as it best could.

Externally the Greek houses were plain in appearance, and destitute of the marble facings so frequent in those of Rome. A glance at the mansions of the wealthy in the latter days of the Roman Republic and under the Emperors, discloses a scene of magnificence perhaps without parallel even in our own days. The thatched or tiled cottages, built of sun-dried bricks and wood, with plainly washed walls and scanty accommodation, where the floors were of rough stone or hardened earth, whence the hardy warriors had issued forth to conquer the world, were no places for the refined luxury of the magnates of the imperial city. Foreign conquest brought the arts ministering to luxury, and the wealth requisite for splendor. Then came the age of splendid palaces in the city, and elegant country villas, seated on shaded and sheltered slopes, and adorned with every mark of urban splendor in the midst of the most attractive rural scenes—mansions and villas crowded with articles of vertù, with costly statues and paintings, with Babylonian tapestries, with Corinthian bronze, moulded, to all the forms that Greek fancy could suggest. Marble columns, of weight so great as to endanger the arches of the sewers over which they passed in their transit to the destined spot, were erected in their lofty halls, and the profuse aristocracy of rank and wealth oftentimes squandered immense fortunes on a dwelling. The house of Publius Clodius cost 131,000l.; and one of the Scauri possessed a Tusculan villa, valued—together with its furniture, decorations, and works of art—at the vast sum of 885,000l.

Before the door of a Roman house of the higher order was an open space—the vestibule. This was a recess open toward the road, but bounded on the other three sides by the outer walls of chambers in the house. The house-door facing the road admitted the visitor into an outer hall. Let us, too, follow his steps, and view the scene of so much magnificence. Passing the porter and his watch-dog, we find ourselves in a lofty hall, the finished development of what, in simpler times, was the chief room of the house. The ancestral images, the sacred hearth, the looms and spinning-wheels are still here to denote the traditional uses of the chief domestic chamber, though now surrounded and overgrown by tokens of a luxury that dazzles the eye and has long weakened the arm. Polished shafts of the finest marble support an elaborate roof rich with gold and ivory, save in the centre, where an opening reveals the deep blue of an Italian sky. Beneath this opening is a marble basin, filled to the brim with the purest water, in the centre of which a fountain casts its spray, dancing and sparkling in the sunbeams. In a recess at the farther end of the hall, we see the chests where family records are guarded with religious care, while through the open doors, or the raised curtains of Eastern tapestry which supply their place, the eye wanders into suites of apartments, everywhere denoting a refined taste delighting in the beautiful effects of proportion and perspective.

Cedar or citron tables, some from the world-old forests of Atlas, so costly that the price of one would buy a moderate estate; side-boards for the display of gold and silver plate, formed of costly woods or marble slabs, and supported by feet of bronze, silver, or even gold itself, moulded into elegant or fantastic devices; chairs and couches of ebony, inlaid with ivory, and covered with cushions, overlaid with coverlets of the richest Eastern fabrics, sparkling with gold and silver threads, or dyed in the brightest tints of the Tyrian purple; elegant bronzes and lofty candelabra, paintings, statues, and marble columns, all unite in realizing a dream of splendor scarcely dreamed of by the poets. Look for one moment at that side-board, where a cup from which Nestor is fabled to have quenched his thirst stands in antique contrast to the latest products of the Alexandrian glass-works—a mingled profusion of beakers, bowls, and vases, superb in their mouldings, and imitating so naturally the tints of the ruby or amethyst as completely to bewilder the gazer’s eye. Some shine like opals, or are cut in relief, representing scenes from ancient history or fable; and among them, perhaps, the wolf-suckled brothers, who laid the foundation of imperial Rome. Others there are, gems of minuteness, cut from amber, doubly valuable because preserving in its interior the perfect remains of some insect thus immortalized.

Passing through this magnificent hall, we gain the peristyle or open quadrangle, which forms so important a part of the Greek house. This is perhaps adorned with flowers and shrubs, or, in a country villa, shaded by a few plane-trees. Porticoes for air and exercise, some of them open to the south for the luxury of basking in the sun, to express which the Romans had a separate word in their language; cool summer-rooms, fronting north, and opening into ornamental gardens, with rows of fantastically-clipped trees; private withdrawing-rooms, bedrooms, baths, terraces and a library, complete the scene of comfort and luxury. These rooms were added according to the wealth or taste of the owner; they were not arranged on a regular plan as in modern houses. The exterior of the house was frequently faced with marble; but, owing to the want of plan and the lowness of elevation, it was usually destitute of effect, though presenting so much splendor internally. The outer door, however, was of striking height, and often surmounted by an elegant cornice. The door-posts of the wealthy were richly inlaid with ivory, tortoise-shell, or even more costly material. The door itself consisted of two halves meeting in the centre, each of which was broad enough to allow two persons to pass. In the days of luxury, precious woods, marble and bronze were in common use among the upper class, for the construction of this outer door. The door turned upon pivots, which either worked in sockets in the sill and lintel, or were encircled by metal rings—the ordinary form of metal hinges being never employed. It was furnished with a circular knocker, and closed by bolts and locks, the remains of which show a skill in the locksmith’s art by no means contemptible.

The floors of the Roman houses were not boarded. In plainer dwellings they were covered with a mixture of fragments of stone and mortar, or with pavement of brick, stone, or common tiles. But in great mansions the floor was one of the special points for display. It was either formed of white, black, or colored marbles, arranged in a check pattern, or it was a specimen of elaborate inlaid work. The tesselated pavements, of which so many remains exist, display two varieties. The first, or plainer kind, is formed of tiles moulded into various forms of animals, flowers, or such devices, each tile being a perfect figure in itself. The second, or real mosaic, was composed of pieces separately formless, but put together in a pattern. The most costly kind of this formed a beautiful inlaid painting composed of highly minute fragments, and representing animals, landscapes, historic, or other scenes. The fragments composing this fine mosaic were of glass, earthen-ware, marble, or even precious stones, as agate and onyx. So minute were they, that one hundred and fifty have been found on a square inch of surface.

The walls were sometimes overlaid with costly marbles; and, as if no product of nature could be sufficiently rich for Roman display, even the marble itself was not unfrequently covered with paintings by first-rate artists. Artificial marbles, in the production of which the workmen of Italy at that time excelled, sometimes supplied the place of the real. But a favorite mode of decoration was by painting the walls in panels—either in fresco, distemper, or encaustic. The colors were usually very brilliant. Wreaths of flowers, architectural, historic, and domestic scenes, or copies of still life, were among the usual subjects for such paintings. Elaborate mouldings cornices, and ornaments in relief, were also employed in decorating the walls. The ceilings were formed of polished beams, with their interstices glued; or they were arranged in panels and then decorated. The beams and panels were gilt, richly inlaid with ivory and tortoise-shell, or painted in brilliant colors.

As the rooms generally derived their air and light from the large hall and the peristyle, both of which opened upward, there was no great necessity for closed windows. But these existed in such rooms as opened on the street, or directly on the air without. They were fitted with lattice-work and shutters, with plates of tile imported from Cappadocia, and at a later period with glass.

The ordinary methods for warming rooms were the same as in Greece, with this important addition, that the use of hot air, conveyed to the various chambers by pipes, was common among the Romans. The hot air was derived from a furnace—either special for the purpose, or that used for heating water supplied to the baths. Moreover, in Rome and northern Italy chimneys were used in dwelling-houses, and probably they were everywhere employed for the baths and bake-houses. It seems to us strange that a contrivance apparently simple should have been so long unknown, and always looked on as a luxury.

Another point in which the Greeks and Romans were very deficient was in the manner of lighting their chambers. The use of oil-lamps was almost universal, and as these were not furnished with glass shades to consume the soot, their rooms were filled with smoke, and the beautiful decorations much defaced. In the older times, candles with a rush wick appear to have been common, and it seems strange that wax-lights when known were not generally adopted. But though the lights were bad, the lamps and their supporting candelabra were distinguished by the elegance of their shape and the beauty of their workmanship. The lamps were made chiefly of terra cotta; but bronze, marble, and the precious metals were also used in their construction. The wicks were of hemp or flax; the lamps either suspended by chains from the ceiling, or placed on candelabra. The ordinary form of these was a slender column, resting on three feet of a griffin, lion, or other animal; the column tall, as it was intended to rest on the ground. Another form was that of a pillar with branches, from which the lamps were suspended by chains. Lanterns, fitted with glass or horn, were used for carrying light.

The Greeks and Romans had not, perhaps, the same variety of articles of furniture which we see around us, but those which they did possess were produced in high perfection of design and workmanship. The couches of the rich were made, of valuable woods, as cedar and terebinth, or more frequently, perhaps, of bronze. Ebony, inlaid with ivory, was frequent in the more splendid specimens. Others were inlaid with tortoise-shell, gold and silver, and furnished with silver, golden, or ivory feet, carved or cast into the resemblance of some animal. Ropes or bands strained across the framework supported the cushion or matress, stuffed with wool, feathers, or down. Over the bed or sofa thus formed were spread the gorgeous tapestries and silks imported from Egypt, Persia and India. Another curious kind of covering was a species of tapestry manufactured of feathers.

Though the ancients mostly reclined, still there were chairs used by the women and by casual visitors. A throne, on which all the ornaments of elaborate workmanship and Eastern manufacture were profusely lavished, was used by the head of the family, when sitting in state to receive his clients. The ordinary chairs had sloping backs, and were always without arms; some of the forms in use are very similar to those of our dining-room chairs. But by far the most expensive article of furniture in the house of a Roman noble was the table, formed either of maple or the citrus wood of Africa. The horizontal sections of this tree near the root were most prized, and when polished and mounted on an ivory or inlaid pillar, often sold for enormous sums. Cicero is said to have given nearly 9000l. for one specimen. The grain of the best wood is described by a Roman writer as “striped like the tiger’s skin, spotted like the panther, purling in a wave-like pattern, or eyed like the feathers in the peacock’s tail.” These were all formed of a solid thick section, and were for particular occasions; others, for common use, were veneered. Smaller tables were frequently made of marble, or imitation marble, of silver, and even gold, their supports being usually formed of carved griffins, and ornamented with wreaths of leaves and flowers.

Mirrors of polished metal, either silver or a compound of copper and tin, were hung on the walls or supported on a marble stand; and tripods supporting slabs of marble were frequent for use and ornament. Cupboards and chests made of bronze or wood, plain or inlaid, were ranged against the walls.

IV. Pottery and Glass.

From the frequent mention of vessels of glass and earthenware, the reader will naturally expect a notice of the arts to which they were due. In Greece and Etruria the fictile art was early developed, and there existed a guild of potters in Rome so early as the time of Numa. The instruments used in the manufacture of pottery—the horizontal revolving table, and the sticks used to vary the shape of the clay during its rotation, together with moulds and graving tools, are among the most ancient inventions. The pottery formed by the Greeks and Romans was of the soft variety, that is, the baked clay of which the vessels are composed may be easily scratched with the knife. The earth was commonly red in color, as we see in the ground of so many Etrurian vases. But other specimens are white, and an artificial black was frequently produced. Varnishes of asphalte, pitch, or tar, burned into the clay, were often employed, and the inner surface of the wine-jars was roughly coated in this manner. For their bright colors the ancients used earths and the ores of various metals. The art of painting vases employed a large number of artists in Greece. Curiously enough, it seems to have died a natural death before the times of the Roman empire; and in consequence, ancient painted vases became very costly, and were much sought for by the connoisseurs. The chief colors employed were black and yellow; the designing is frequently good, but the execution cannot compare with that of the middle-age Italian and other schools of vase painting.

Samos, Athens, end Etruria, were most famous for the exercise of the potter’s art, though many other places were seats of the manufacture. The kilns used for baking were circular in form—in general appearance something like a lime-kiln, but differing in the greater care with which they were built, and in their internal arrangement. They were covered with a dome-shaped roof, and the wares were baked on a circular floor, supported in the centre by a column, round which the fire was lighted.

One object of emulation among the Greek potters was to make vessels of perfect form and great tenuity. Such vessels when produced were highly valued, and some Athenians seem to have attained a high pitch of excellence in the production of these thin and light vases. Greece was the chief school of design in pottery, as in most other arts; and the less inventive Romans were content to borrow, imitate, or at most, modify the forms and patterns of their neighbors.

It was long thought that the ancients did not understand, or at most practiced in a very imperfect manner, the art of making glass; but the vast number of beautiful specimens which have at length been brought to light, have completely dispelled all doubts of their high proficiency in the manufacture of a great variety of vessels from this material. The blowing of glass is an art of high antiquity, and, together with that of casting the fused material into moulds, was probably derived from the East. Even in later times Alexandria was, perhaps, the chief mart from which Rome derived her supply, though manufactories were established in Italy. In the conception and execution of the more elegant designs, the Greek artists, doubtless, found a peculiar province for the display of their taste and ingenuity. Glass was most extensively employed, both for use and ornament: so common, indeed, did it become, that drinking-vessels were sold in Rome at a cheaper rate than they now are in our own country. The methods of working in glass were, probably, very similar to those now in use. “Some glass is fashioned by blowing, some ground on the lathe, and some chased like silver,” says Pliny; and we know that the diamond was used in this last process. One beautiful specimen yet remains to demonstrate the skill with which they worked the brittle material, in the shape of a cup of opaline hue, round which a blue net-work and a green inscription have been carved; the meshes of the net-work, and the letters of the inscription, being united to the body of the cup by slender supports left during the engraving process. The celebrated Portland vase, now in the British Museum, is composed of a rich, dark-blue glass, covered with designs beautifully executed in opaque white enamel, and afterward fined into union with the body of the vessel. This cup was long supposed to have been cut out of a real sardonyx. The Greeks and Romans were adepts in the art of imitating precious stones by colored glass. To use the words of Beckman—“In the Museum Victorium, for example, there are shown a chrysolite and an emerald, both of which are so well executed, that they are not only perfectly transparent and colored throughout, but neither externally nor internally have the smallest blemish.” The metallic oxides were employed to produce the various colors, and with such success, that frauds by palming false stones on the ignorant were as common then as in our own day. Glass was sometimes made in layers of different colors, and then cut cameo-fashion; or colored stems were united longitudinally in a column, so that the horizontal sections displayed a beautiful pattern. Slips of grass were used, as we have seen, in mosaic pavements; glass in panes was employed for windows, or inserted in walls and ceilings for ornament. A story, perhaps fabulous, is told of an invention by which glass was so far deprived of its brittle qualities, that, when thrown down, the vessel composed of it would not break, but merely bruise, like metal.

V. Books and Writing.

Other points yet remain for notice before we quit the subject of domestic life. And first, as in our catalogue of chambers we have mentioned the library, a few words on books and writing materials will not be out of place. The books of the Greeks and Romans were written on long rolls of parchment, or sheets of papyrus connected by glue. This long roll of paper or parchment was fitted at each end to a wooden roller. The reader wound that part of the roll which he had perused on to the left-hand roller, and unrolled the next page from the right-hand roller, proceeding thus until he reached the end of the volume. The writing was arranged in lines which ran lengthwise along the roll, and were divided into columns or pages of a convenient width. The back of the roll was stained, usually of a saffron color, and the volume provided with a yellow or purple parchment case. The ends of the rollers were often ornamented with carved bosses, and a label bearing the title was affixed to the roll. The ink for writing was similar to the Indian ink in use among ourselves; and was prepared either from lamp-black or the dye of the cuttle-fish. Red ink was also employed. The pen was formed from a reed, split and shaped much like our own quills. The booksellers in Rome were, of course, few when compared with the same class in a modern town; but their numbers were great, from the fact that they not only sold books, but also transcribed them. But nations had their public and private libraries, and the value of some collections was immense. The books in a library were arranged in cedar-wood presses round the walls.

The ordinary apparatus for writing consisted of thin wooden tablets, overlaid on one side with a coat of wax, on which the letters were traced by indentation with a pointed metal pencil, or style. The waxen side of each tablet was furnished with a rim, to prevent the characters from rubbing. Two tablets, commonly, and sometimes three, were bound together so as to form a small book; and when three were united, the centre leaf had a layer of wax on both sides. The frames were pierced with holes, and when the letter or memorandum was finished, the adjacent edges of the closed tablets were bound together by a thread passed through the holes, knotted and secured by a seal of simple wax. The signets used for impression were cut in various devices; and this engraving of gems is an art in which the Greeks and Romans excelled most highly. Some tablets have been discovered in which the writing ran from right to left. The custom of using wax tablets again appears in the middle ages.

In their contrivances for measuring time the ancients were strikingly deficient. The length of their hours depended on that of the day, inasmuch as they divided the space between sunrise and sunset into twelve equal portions. Even their sun-dials were but imperfect; and the clepsydræ or hour-glasses, in which the flow of water, not of sand, was the measure of time, were very inaccurate, in spite of all improvements effected in them. They were at first constructed of bronze or earthenware, but afterward of glass. Ctesibius, an Alexandrian mathematician, invented a kind of water-clock, B. C. 135, in which the dropping of water turned various wheels, and raised a small statue, which pointed to the hours. But the great element of inaccuracy, the unequal flow of the liquid, was manifestly present in this contrivance. Punctuality among the ancients must have been no more than a coincidence of guesses.

VI. Dress.

To describe the general type of Greek and Roman dress is a comparatively simple task. There was but little employment for the tailor or dressmaker in Greece or Italy, most of the fabrics of the loom being worn as scarfs or shawls, arranged in loose folds about the person. Fashion, therefore, had much more influence on the material than on the form.

By the Ionic race a long, loose under-garment, or tunic, was at first worn by the men; but afterward this was exchanged for the shorter woollen tunic, worn almost exclusively by the other tribes of Greece. Over this, a large square or oblong cloth, fastened above the right shoulder with a brooch, fell in those graceful folds which constitute the charm of ancient costume. In Rome the outer garment was semicircular in form, of more ample size, white in color, and familiar to us all under the celebrated name of toga. The mode of arranging the folds of the toga varied at different times, but the general idea of the garment was always the same. The color of the toga was either that of the undyed wool, or it was further whitened by the fuller’s art. In one form—the trabea—worn by kings, consuls or knights, purple and white alternated in stripes. The toga was long worn by women, until a loose robe—the stola—reaching to the feet, ornamented with a flounce, and generally furnished with sleeves, usurped its place among the fair sex. Various beautiful shawls, veils, and scarfs, of elaborate tissues, embroidered and richly dyed, were worn by ladies of rank in both nations.

In Greece and Rome those wonderful inventions by which a few towns have become the workshop of the world were as yet undreamt of, and the simpler operations of the loom were frequent beside every household hearth. Even the plan of the house among the Greeks was influenced by this circumstance, for we have seen that a distinct place was assigned for the domestic works of spinning and weaving.

The first operation to be noticed is the spinning of the flax, cotton, or wool into thread. The material to be spun was first rolled into a ball and supported on the distaff, a stick of wood or ivory, which passed through the centre of the ball and was held in the left hand of the person spinning. The fibres of the raw material were drawn out and twisted by the finger, and then fixed into the notch or cleft of the spindle. This was formed of a slender shaft of wood about a foot long, furnished at one end with a slit to catch the thread, and inserted at the other end into a circular piece of heavy wood, stone, or metal. The spindle was kept in constant revolution by the hand of the spinner, and by its weight drew the fibres out of the ball of raw material. These fibres were twisted into thread, partly by the fingers and partly by the whirling of the spindle. When the spindle reached the ground the thread was wound on its shaft, again fixed in the cleft, and the same process repeated till the shaft was covered with as much spun thread as it could carry. The reel thus formed was fixed in a hollow case—the shuttle—so as to revolve freely within it, and the thread was drawn out through a small hole in the enclosing case.

The loom consisted of a simple frame-work, oblong in shape, and erected almost always in a perpendicular position, so that the weaver stood to perform her task. The warp was arranged in vertical threads between the upper and lower cross-bars of the frame; and the alternate threads were separated by a thin stick or cane, so as to form two sets or layers, between which the threads of the woof were introduced. This passing of the woof-thread was effected either with or without the shuttle; of course, always by hand. When the thread of the woof had been passed between the two layers of the warp, it is plain that these layers must change places in order firmly to inclose the introduced thread; i. e. the anterior layer must become posterior, and vice versa. This end was effected by inclosing each separate thread of the warp in a loop, and fastening all the loops of each layer to a separate stick, so that the person weaving could, by drawing one such stick toward her, cause all the corresponding threads of one layer to start from those of the other layer. By this means, after passing one thread of the woof, the posterior layer of the warp was drawn forward so as firmly to inclose it, and into the space between the layers a new thread of woof was again introduced. The layers of the warp were, of course, decussated in this manner on every successive introduction of a thread of the woof. The woof-thread, when passed, was firmly pressed between the layers of the warp, either by the comb or by the “spatha,” a large, flat wooden instrument, much like an enlarged paper-knife. In simple weaving, the repetition of the process described was all that was requisite to form the material; and striped patterns were easily produced, merely by alternately inserting bands of differently-colored woof. A check resulted when both warp and woof were thus alternately varied in hue. But to form more complicated patterns, an intricate arrangement of the leashes, or sets of loops above described, was necessary.

The warp-threads were always firmer and closer in substance than those of the woof—a necessary consequence of their having to bear the brunt of the whole operation without breaking, which, of course, was an inconvenient hindrance. A thick, soft woof was used to produce the nap required for warm blankets or winter shawls. Any rich material introduced, as Tyrian purple or golden thread, was always used as woof. The colors in Greek and Roman fabrics was always wool-dyed. Dimities, twills, and damasks were all woven by their looms. But the profusion of tapestries, carpets, shawls, and scarfs, of splendid hues and elaborate patterns, were all imported from the East—from Persia, Babylonia, Phœnicia, Egypt, Lydia, and Phrygia; nor were silken fabrics ever a domestic manufacture in Greece or Rome.

Much might be said, did our space permit, of the fulling and dressing of woollen cloths after manufacture. The processes employed were very similar to those in modern use: various kinds of fullers’ earth were used, and alkaline liquids were employed for cleansing; but soap was not known to the ancients.

The art of felting is said to be of greater antiquity even than that of weaving. It was employed among the Greeks and Romans chiefly in the production of coverings for the head, which were worn by people traveling. Among the Greeks caps were more common than among the Romans, who were used to supply their place by drawing a fold of the toga over their heads.

The coverings for the feet were very various in form: some mere sandals, in which the sole was fixed to the foot by bands; others resembled our modern shoes in shape, and covered the foot wholly; whilst a third kind reached up the leg. The tanning and dyeing of leather employed a great number of hands, and the colors chosen were often gay.

VII. Public Architecture.

Quitting the in-door life of the Roman, let us turn our attention to other monuments of labor and art, which are no less remarkable. Foremost among these stand the sewers and aqueducts of Rome. So thoroughly was the drainage of the city provided for, that the ground was tunneled through and through with arched passages; and Pliny’s expression, “the hanging city,” is literally correct. The most important of the sewers was built under the rule of the elder Tarquin, and planned in a spirit prophetic of future greatness. It is composed of three concentric arches, forming a channel of fourteen feet in diameter, and proportional height. This was the main trunk, into which was discharged the drainage flowing through a multitude of subterranean channels, together with the vast surplus quantity of water from the aqueducts used to cleanse the net-work of drains. A cart loaded with hay could be driven down the main passages, and Agrippa is said to have performed a sanitary voyage in a boat through the main sewers, when superintending their repair.

More attractive, though not more useful, monuments of labor and care for the public health, remain in the aqueducts, by which a plentiful supply of water was always insured to the city of the seven hills—the mere dilapidated remains of which still suffice for her present use. A mere glance at the proportions of some of these noble works, which conveyed the purifying and health-giving element, through hills and across valleys, from sources varying in distance from sixty miles downward, may well raise a blush at the scant and meagre substitutes which we can show in the nineteenth century. Well may Frontinus, in an exulting tone, compare the useful splendor of the nine aqueducts, which in his time supplied the city, with the useless, slave-grown bulk of the pyramids, or the merely decorative works of Grecian towns.

The most remarkable of the nine aqueducts were the Anio Vetus, the Aqua Marcia, the Aqua Claudia, and the Anio Novus. The Anio Vetus brought a supply from the river Anio, a distance of forty miles. It was built B. C. 273, and consisted of a stone water-course, the channel of which was coated with cement. A still longer one was the Aqua Marcia, extending along a distance of fifty-four miles, six and a half miles being above ground, and chiefly supported on arches. So lofty was the level of the terminal reservoir, that the highest parts of the Capitoline Mount could be supplied from it. This aqueduct united toward its termination with two others, in the same pile of masonry, so as to form one range of building, in which the three water-courses occupied different levels, one above the other, and finally discharged their streams into the same reservoir. At the same period that this aqueduct was constructed, 700 wells, 150 springs, and 130 subordinate reservoirs, were added to the former sources of supply. The Marcian Aqueduct was remarkable for the vastness and solidity of its proportions and construction.

Augustus caused an aqueduct to be built specially for the purpose of supplying the vast basin in which he exhibited sham naval fights to the citizens: but the Anio Novus, one of two new aqueducts built by the Emperor Claudius, was the most striking of all in its architectural effect. For six miles before its entrance into the city the water flowed along a channel supported by arches, some of which reached the height of 109 feet, and constituted a range of great beauty.

When an aqueduct was to be constructed, the first step consisted in forming a large basin at the source of the supply. In this the liquid rested to deposit its impurities, and for a similar purpose the channel was expanded into other reservoirs at various intervals along its course. The channel in which the water flowed was formed of stone or brick, covered with a layer of cement. The slope of the water-course, according to Pliny, was only one quarter of an inch in every hundred feet, but Vitruvius makes it six inches in the same distance. It probably varied with circumstances. An arched covering excluded the sun, and vent-holes in the sides or top provided for a free circulation of air. From the castella or reservoirs lying along the course of the channel, adjacent lands were sometimes irrigated. From the terminal reservoir the water was conveyed to its various destinations through pipes of metal or earthenware. These terminal reservoirs were works of great size and solidity. One such at Cuma is 200 feet long by 130 wide, and is covered in by a vaulted roof resting on four rows of pillars. At Rome there were 247 subordinate basins, in which the water from the terminal reservoirs of the various aqueducts was collected, previously to passing to the baths and houses. A staff of officers and a body of laborers were specially provided to keep the aqueducts in repair.

In their mining operations and in the formation of some aqueducts, we have seen that the ancients were obliged to tunnel. But their most remarkable works of this kind are the subterranean passages, by which the Romans drained many large lakes. One such channel, through which the lake Fucino discharged its water, is still nearly perfect. It is more than three miles long, one mile of the distance being carried through the hardest rock, under a mountain 1000 feet in height. Perpendicular and lateral shafts were sunk into the tunnel for the convenience of working, and 30,000 men were employed on the spot at the same time. Where the tunnel passes through earth it in vaulted with brick.

After the aqueducts the baths follow in a natural order. The great fondness of the Greeks and Romans for ablution, which the warmth of their climate rendered a great luxury, early led to ample provision for bathing, both public and private. Both people were familiar with the use of the hot-air bath, which was especially employed by the Spartans; but the warm-water bath, succeeded often by the cold douche, or plunging bath, was most usual. All the appliances that could minister to comfort and luxury in this department were not only known but common; and to such a degree did the splendor of the public baths at Rome attain, that it was not unusual for emperors themselves to bathe amid a throng of meaner citizens. Lofty, vaulted rooms, lighted by glass, with temperatures artificially contrived to suit the different states of the bather; spacious basins, lined with marble, and fitted with marble, bronze, or even silver benches, were plentifully supplied with water, hot, cold, pure, or scented with the most precious perfumes and essences. Porticoes and vestibules adorned with finished works of art, where the bather took his exercise listening to the recitations of poets, the declamation of orators, or the subtle disputes of philosophy; or perhaps reclined in luxurious ease amid the pleasant murmur of adjacent fountains; cool avenues for the promenaders at mid-day, lawns, terraces, and all the best efforts of their ornamental gardening, were united in the Roman Thermæ, or great public establishments for bathing and recreation, planned and executed in the imperial city and provincial towns. One of these, the Thermæ of Caracalla, was more than a mile in circuit.

The water for the baths was heated in brick furnaces, consisting of two rows of cells arranged over the fire, with which the lower row was in contact, while the upper row received the water from the branch of the aqueduct furnishing the supply. Pipes from the lower cells led into the baths, and these pipes were surrounded by flues, in order that the water should not cool in its transit. The party-walls between the cells of the furnace were also traversed by flues, in order to economize fuel as much as possible. Private baths, on a smaller scale, were attached to every house of consequence; and were favorite places for the display of the owner’s wealth.

The theatres of both nations were constructed with great skill, and especial adaptation to the ends of sight and hearing. They were generally built on the side of a hill, and sometimes, in Greece, literally hewn out of the solid rock. Some were of vast size; the ruins of one at Argos, semi-circular in form, inclose an area 450 feet in diameter. The seats for spectators were arranged in ascending stages, and the outer wall of the structure, behind the topmost row of spectators, was surmounted by a kind of portico, in order to throw back the sound of the actor’s voice. The semi-circular included space was the “orchestra,” where the chorus danced on a boarded floor. The stage, of course, closed the opening of the semi-circle, and was approached from the orchestra by steps. The back of the stage was bounded by a lofty screen, which in the theatre built of wood during the ædileship of M. Æmil. Scaurus was composed of three different substances—the bottom of white marble, the centre of glass, and the highest of gilt wood. The early theatres of Rome were built of wood, but after the time of Pompey stone was universally employed. The art of scene-painting was well understood, and various machines were employed on the stage for instantly changing the scene, or for introducing the actors flying in mid-air.

The amphitheatres of Rome, so called from being as it were double theatres, formed a complete circle, or rather an ellipse. They, too, like theatres, were built of wood, until the time of Augustus, from which period they gradually increased in size and splendor, until Vespasian and Titus caused the crowning work of the kind—the Colisæum—to be erected for the convenience of the immense crowds of sight-seers flocking to the public games. This most celebrated remain of Roman architectural art covers five acres of ground; the longer diameter being 615 feet, and the shorter 510. Four orders of columns, the first pure Doric, the second Ionic, the third Corinthian, and the fourth, Corinthian pilasters, rise one above the other till they attain the great elevation of 160 feet. These columns have one-fourth of their thickness buried in the face of the wall which they ornament. There are eighty columns in each tier, and from their summits spring arches supporting the tier above. There were, therefore, four tiers of seats for the accommodation of spectators, and this sufficiently explains how the building could contain the immense number of 87,000. The numbers contained by these buildings of antiquity were very large; the Attic theatre held 50,000, and the wooden theatre of Scaurus, before-mentioned, could accommodate 80,000.

We have mentioned that the perfect arch was not known to the Greeks; indeed, they have no word for it in their language. But the frequent use of the arch by the Romans, even in walls, where plain masonry would have sufficed, shows it to have been a favorite form of construction, and the triumphal arches built to commemorate victories are among their most splendid remains. Those erected by Drusus, Titus, Septimius Severus, Gallienus, and Constantine, still remain, and with the bas-reliefs commemorative of the events which they were designed to perpetuate still attest the great amount of Roman skill, and the extent of Roman conquests.

Another class of buildings—the basilicæ, exchanges or law courts, are highly interesting from the fact that they were afterward converted into Christian churches. One such edifice was always placed in the forum for the convenience of traders. It was generally of oblong shape, the length being from two to three times greater than the breadth. The earlier edifices of the kind were mere peristyles, or open spaces inclosed by columns, but subsequently the open space was defended by walls—the columns still remaining for ornament. Small private chambers were cut off from one end, for the use of the law officers and merchants; the main area was divided into a nave and two side-aisles. At one extremity of the central nave was placed the tribunal of the judge, which stood within the oblong area so long as the original use of the building merely as a law-court continued; but afterward, when the same edifice was used as an exchange, a semi-circular space was thrown out at one end, and the tribunal placed within this, in order that the seat of justice might not be disturbed by the noise of traffic. The advocates and jurors occupied the space within the semi-circle, while persons interested in the cause were accommodated with side-seats. The columns of the side-aisles supported a gallery, from which rose other columns sustaining a roof usually flat in the centre, and arched down to the supports so as to resemble the shell of the tortoise.

It may, perhaps, seem strange, that in our notice of so many ancient buildings we have not once alluded to temples. The reason for this course is, that no description could be given of such structures without necessitating an account of orders, styles, and proportion, into which our subject does not strictly enter. But the peculiar use of marble in constructing the roofs of temples may be well alluded to in this place. Slabs of this material were employed and fixed, much in the same manner as earthen tiles; descending in parallel rows from the ridge of the roof to the eaves. Bronze, afterward gilt, was also used for the same purpose.

The Greek and Roman towns were generally irregular in plan; their streets narrow and mean, even in Rome, till the great fire in Nero’s reign; after which the city was rebuilt with great regularity. The increasing value of land led to the erection of many-storied houses in the main streets; but the houses of the wealthy were always chiefly composed of ground-floor apartments, wherever space permitted. This subject, and the house-carpentry generally of the ancients, is involved in some obscurity.

VIII. Traveling.

It remains for us to say a few words regarding the facilities for traveling in those ancient times. The great enterprise displayed by the Romans in undertaking and constructing their road-ways, as well domestic as in foreign countries, is familiar to all of us. There are few who have not seen a long, straight, undeviating road, never turning aside to avoid natural obstacles, but pressing right on to its mark, still denoting by its traditional name the track along which the legions marched to victory. The more perfectly constructed of these ways, after the introduction of paving, were among the most durable monuments of Roman skill in art.

The road was first marked out, then the loose earth was excavated down to a solid foundation, on which the lowest course of stones, about six inches in diameter, was laid. On these was placed a mass of rough stones cemented by mortar, forming a kind of rubble work. Then followed a layer of bricks and pottery broken small, and analogous to the burnt earth frequently now employed in our own railways. This coat was also united into a mass by mortar, and upon it was laid the permanent roadway, consisting of large polygons of flinty pavement or basaltic lava, the edges of which were trimmed and fitted with the greatest care. We must certainly yield the palm to the Romans in the art of paving. They combined strength and finish to a degree that may well put our own efforts out of sight. Where the road lay over rocks, the two lower layers were dispensed with as unnecessary; and in carrying it across a swampy country they employed foundations of piles. A raised pathway laid with gravel, mounting blocks for equestrians, and mile-stones to mark the distances, completed the appurtenances of a Roman road. The general direction of road repairs and works was assigned to a class of officers and workmen. Numerous military roads intersected the Roman empire, and this facility of internal communication was a main cause of its duration. It would exceed our limits to give even the names of the principal.

In the construction of bridges, especially such as were of a temporary nature, the Romans were very skillful. Carpentry must have been well understood, in order to form such structures as the bridge thrown across the Rhine by Cæsar in the short space of ten days. Many stone bridges, some of them distinguished for elegance, connected the opposite banks of the Tiber; but the triumph of Roman art in this department, is seen in the bridge, partly of stone and partly of wood, built by Trajan across the Danube. The whole length of this structure was 3010 feet. There were twenty-two wooden arches supported on stone piers, each arch having a span of about 130 feet. Coffer-dams were used in constructing the foundations of piers.

The carriages used by Greeks and Romans were of various kinds, but though they expended large sums on the more splendid, yet in point of comfort their productions never approached the vehicles of modern coach-builders. The want of springs was an inconvenience, which they attempted to remedy by a luxurious array of feather cushions and down pillows. The carriages were either four-wheeled or two-wheeled; the former being mostly used in journeys. A pair of mules or horses were driven, and sometimes four. There is but little peculiarity in the manufacture of these carriages, but the shapes were elegant, and the poles or other parts were often elaborately carved, while the body of the car was perhaps tastefully inlaid. Traveling carriages in the later times were usually furnished with curtains to exclude the sun and air. Covered litters borne by slaves were also in common use among the wealthy for traveling short distances.

The early history of the inventions by which men came to plough the watery deep, and to convert the element of seeming separation into one vast pathway for the mutual intercourse of nations, belongs to another province. Our space will only permit a brief account of the vessels used by the Greeks and Romans in the times of their more perfect nautical skill. The main division of these was into ships of war and ships of commerce. The former were long and narrow, propelled by rowers, and furnished generally with three ranks of oars, rising obliquely one above the other. But the numbers of these ranks varied much, and in one leviathan galley, built by Ptolemus Philopator, there were even forty ranks of rowers. The average number of the crew engaged in a ship of war was two hundred; and these vessels usually performed their voyages in short times, as the propelling power was independent of the wind. They were furnished with a pointed beak, singly or doubly cleft, and usually situated below the water-level, in order more effectually to run down the adversary.

Ships of burden, on the contrary, were chiefly propelled by sails: their form was clumsy and heavy; of course they did not need the beak, and the number of their crews—the rowers especially—was small in comparison with the complements of men-of-war. With regard to the methods of propulsion, we may mention that sails and rigging were both very simple, as compared with the contrivances of our own days. There was usually only one sail—a large square-sail attached to the mainmast. But sometimes four were present, though even then all were not commonly employed together. The oars were of different lengths, in order to provide for the different heights of the rowers above the water-level. The ancient vessel was usually steered by two rudders or stern-oars, one being placed on either side of the stern. Swift, light galleys, with a large complement of rowers, were in use for performing expeditious voyages.

In the construction of their vessels considerable skill was displayed: the planks were united by iron or copper nails, and the seams stopped with rushes or tow. An outer coating of wax and rosin was commonly overlaid; in some cases black pitch, while in others sheet-lead was added, secured by copper nails.

Harbors were constructed, defended by artificial break-waters; with quays for unlading; porticoes and a temple for the votive offerings of the prosperous voyager; warehouses for goods; the usual apparatus of rings and posts for mooring vessels, and a sloping bank on which to haul them up, if a stay were contemplated. Colossal statues and lighthouses were erected at their entrance. Dry docks for building or repairing, rope-walks, magazines for stores, and other necessary conveniences, completed the portal arrangements.

We have thus passed in review many of the most striking results of the useful arts of Greece and Rome. We have seen these results often rivaling, sometimes even superior to those of our own industry.

And now let us pause for one moment, to regard the crowning development of the useful arts of the old world. We see the polished Roman dwelling amidst all the appliances for luxury, splendor, and utility which art, the minister of man, and the adapter of nature, could then gather around him. The marble palaces, the elaborate tissues of the loom, the polished masterpieces of the artificer, the paintings, the sculptures, the mouldings, and the rare devices of the engraver were one and all to him so perfect, that he doubted not they would remain forever the unsurpassed ornaments of the Queen of Nations. A few centuries, and how changed the scene! The iron bond that held together the civilized world in one vast whole has been torn asunder, and we see a rude barbarian spurning with his foot the delicate masterpieces of finished art. Or still later, perhaps, a half-naked savage wanders above the ruins of the buried cities, without a thought of the rich treasures of human industry hidden in the earth beneath him. The new birth of Freedom is for a time the death of Industry. But new life is following close on this death—a stronger, healthier vitality, more mighty in its development, and crowned by yet higher results. Amid the blackest night of anarchy and rapine, man—“the minister and interpreter of nature”—is busy kindling torches to scatter the darkness.

Some imperishable monuments of antiquity were powerful agents in preserving the useful arts to man. As the aqueducts of ancient Rome, conquering the attacks of Time, and the destroying hand of the barbarian, still continued to lead pure streams to the seven-hilled city, so did a knowledge of the useful arts flow in manifold channels from the old world to the new, and Italy became to the moderns what Greece had been to the ancients—the nursing-mother of the arts, and the refiner of nations.

It was long, doubtless, before the rude barbarians borrowed the refinements and arts of a conquered people, whose very civilization they regarded as a badge of slavery. “The ancient inhabitants of Italy,” says Muratori, “were so enervated, and were cast down to such a pitch of poverty, that no power or force of example remained by which to allure the conquerors to a more refined and elegant manner of living. For this reason the Lombards long retained their primitive ferocity and rudeness, and the barbaric style of look and dress, till the more genial sky of Italy, and the neighboring examples of the Greeks and Romans gradually led them, first to some cultivation of manners, and then to refinement.” And what this eminent antiquarian alleges in this particular case was, doubtless, true of all those barbarian hordes that overran the once fertile plains of the South. It was this fierce and savage independence that rendered the rude conqueror insensible, not only to the sight of his slave’s refinement, but even to the influence of the habitual view and contact of those innumerable and beautiful products of art which surrounded him on every side. Nothing less than the development of one strong passion—the passion for freedom—could have quelled those native instincts in the mind, which lead man so powerfully to embrace the inventions of others, and, in fault of these, to invent for himself. Doubtless, the constant succession of the waves of desolation was another main cause of their effacing power. Each succeeding invasion found a still decreasing civilization: the traces of arts and refinement grew ever fainter and fainter, till finally they were almost lost to view.

[2]	Boeckh, “Economy of Athens.”

[3]	Smith’s “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.”

SONNETS.

———

BY MRS. ESTELLE ANNA LEWIS.

———

I.—THE OASIS.

Think not that I am hapless, ye who read

The pensive numbers of my fervent lyre:

That in the heart is sown some upas-seed,

Is not to prove all healthful germs expire;

That in a garden are some withered bowers,

Crisped buds and yellow leaves bestrew the ground,

Is not to prove it hath nor herbs nor flowers.

Think not because I’ve stood on every round

Of Fortune’s ladder, that no oasis

Amid the desert of my heart upglows

Above the sands and sallow cypresses,

Cheering the weary pilgrim as he goes;

Not all the fires that rend volcanic wombs

Can kill this one green spot that ’mid my heart-waste blooms.

II.—JOYS OF INTELLECTUAL EMPLOYMENT.

’Tis true, I’m poor in what the world calls bliss;

’Tis true, I have known many wounds of pride,

With which a weaker nature might have died.

’Tis true, I’ve passed the fearful Charybdis,

Yet ’mid the maelstrom thrilled with happiness.

We should not murmur ’gainst an earthly trial—

It throws a stronger sunlight on Life’s dial,

Awakes the spirit in its chrysalis,

And plumes it i’ to the broad, bright heavens to soar.

And oh! if I could sing the bliss I’ve known,

While sitting in this study-room alone,

Listing the soul waves wash the eternal shore—

If I could ring it out in one loud song,

Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 5, November 1852

THE DREAMS OF YOUTH.

The Cottage Door

RIVERS.

REMEMBERED ONES.

THE GAME OF THE MONTH.

WILD ROSES BY THE RIVER GROW.

THE SONG-STREAM.

MACHINERY, FOR MACHINE MAKING.

FORGOTTEN.

CLARA GREGORY:

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

SHAWLS.

AMONG THE MOORS.

LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES.

JAMES LOGAN OF PENNSYLVANIA.

USEFUL ARTS OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

I. Agriculture—Bread and Wine.

II. Extraction and Use of Metals.

III. Houses and Furniture.

IV. Pottery and Glass.

V. Books and Writing.

VI. Dress.

VII. Public Architecture.

VIII. Traveling.

SONNETS.