Chapter V (2)

"It is now with us no longer a formal, but a spiritual system of things; the heavenly good, the communion of God with man, are no more confined to particular places and signs, nor, on the other hand, to singular acts and language. Christ hath made all things, yea, the very commonest, holy to us and sacramental, if we only strive to apprehend their deep inward meaning. It is the religion of The Homely,--of Him who as a child in Bethlehem concerned himself with little household matters as they befell; and thus prepared himself for being about his Greater Father's business in the Temple. Duty extends her mighty, solemn chain unbrokenly from the lowest to the highest: nay, the least insect in the grass performs a behest that is not to be contemned. This was one chief lesson of The Great Master's earthly life,--and in his Resurrection from death, also, taught he his disciples not to limit his presence to any one form of things, but to look for _it_ in all: when they found the Grave empty, and yet in an ordinary figure, or in a passenger by the way, they suddenly recognised their Lord, and He seemed to break out of every thing that was around them. There is nothing now in itself common or unclean, nothing in itself that contains a peculiar sacred virtue; but that which is next and nearest ourselves is capable, by inexpressible degrees, of all good, having been framed by God Himself. So often we seek far off what would have come to us and been ours, had we but sat still, waiting, acting with a simple heart. We mark out to us high deeds, we would fain search out somewhat great and painful to accomplish,--as if there were not small matters enough, and pleasant ones,--ay, and the most difficult, toilsome ones too, with their secret crowns and garlands of reward,--all bounded within the poorest threshold!--Now, my little youths and maidens, having listened so gravely to the old man's discourse, go like children and play yourselves homeward: there, and here you have need of all reverence, obedience, and thoughtfulness."

Whether or not old Wendel's hearers appreciated the particulars of his lesson, we are not aware; but from the excitement in the village having after that taken a decided turn, we may suppose that, on the whole, it was not without its use there and round about the place. And so, if more perfectly expressed, and when rightly and fully understood, the doctrine implied by this and numberless similar facts in human history might be in many another community.

TAXIDERMY IN ROME

In turning over the voluminous records of our travels abroad, we pause more particularly at those passages of our journals which relate to the study of Natural History. In these occur frequent references to agreeable pedestrian rambles undertaken alone, or in the company of unaffected friends, in France and Switzerland, Italy and its islands: of whole days spent, and twilight at last surprising us still bending over the unexplored treasures of unexhausted museums. Of Paris winters cheerfully passed in the _enceinte_ of the class-rooms of the Sorbonne; of pleasant occasions in which our ears refused to take cognisance of the sound of town clocks and dinner bells, while our eyes were so agreeably forgetting themselves amid the profusion and variety of southern fish and bird markets. On this, if on any portion of our by-gone life, we look back with sadness indeed, but with a sadness unembittered by regrets; our only sorrow here being, that we knew not earlier in life those studies of which it may be pre-eminently said, that while they "delight abroad they hinder not at home." Happy indeed are the children who dream of butterflies, and wise the parents who encourage theirs to intertwine objects of natural history with their earliest associations! Not only has this charming study a strong tendency to confirm the health, to embellish the mind, and to improve the moral character of those who pursue it;

"Pour le bien savourer, c'est trop peu que des sens;
Il faut une ame pure et des gouts innocens;"

it is likewise a strong bond of union between man and man--where shall we find such another? Hounds and horses may connect, indeed, a greater _number_, but if one of the field breaks his neck, who cares? "he should have been better mounted,"[1] or else, "he could not ride;"--but ours is a gentler and a kindlier community. Where else exists that unanimity to which this body may justly lay claim? Not in the professions, where law detracts, medicine dislikes, and the church does not always hold the truth in charity; nor yet amidst mankind in general, for philosophers misquote, scholars revile, merchants monopolise, courtiers traduce, statesmen deceive: but here no conflicting interests, nor uncharitable surmises, no morbid sensibility, nor false and narrow views of life, arise to estrange those whom Linnaeus and Cuvier have once united in fellowship. Constant, cheerful, unaffected, and sincere, the happy members of our _coterie_, every where, and in all ranks alike, show an instinctive tact in making each other out, and once friends continue so for life. We speak from long and intimate acquaintance with many naturalists: to some, courteous reader, we purpose, with your consent, hereafter to introduce you. Our object meanwhile is, to set before you now two humble foreigners of the gentler sex, who have passed their whole lives in the study and practice of taxidermy. Real and zealous enthusiasts are Annetta Cadet and her mother, who, in order to surprise in their haunts, and study before they embalm them, the various inhabitants of the _Campagna_ about Rome, think nothing of braving any amount of heat, fatigue, and inconvenience; and such adepts are they in this art, that when stuffed, their birds, beasts, and reptiles seem to have received new life at their hands, and to be about to spring from the ground or to leave their perches, and glide out of sight. When, therefore, you shall have examined the out-doors[2] antiquities, (and unless you would reconstruct the Forum for the thousandth time on some original plan of your own, or were to go mare's-nest hunting amidst the ruins with certain German _Barbatuli_,--the Bunsenists of a season--ten days will be more than sufficient,) we charge you not to fail calling at No. 23, Via della Vite, where, if you should possess any lurking propensities for natural history, they are sure to be elicited. As to your first reception, if this should be of a somewhat abnormal kind, why, so was ours;--for Cadet and her mother are certainly originals: but that you should not be disconcerted, and in order to prepare you for the personal appearance, as well as the unusual qualities of our friends, we transcribe the memorandum of our own introduction to them. Prince Musignano, whose birds they mounted, professor Metaxa, who sent rare insects for them to determine, and W----who affirmed, (_par parenthese_,) that no one could stuff birds like them but himself, had all proeconised their accomplishments to us; so one morning with a note-book full of queries, and a bottle full of insects, we descended the _Scalinata_, and knocked at the door. It was opened by a cord pulled from above, while a female voice demanded, _more solito_, "_chi c'e?_" On answering, that our visit was to the _Signore_ who prepared insects, the _voice_ said, "Come up, go in at the door to the right, and we will join you as soon as we have made ourselves tidy." Obeying this Little-red-riding-hood invitation, we entered the reception room, and began to amuse ourselves with a survey of a score or two of queer-looking pictures, (for the most part without frames,) with which the walls were adorned; strange landscapes were there, and allegorical subjects, treated with an equal perversity. On one that first caught our eye, a waning moon, resting on the grass with its horns upwards, formed a couch for Diana and Endymion; from this we had turned to a naked nymph with a pretty face, and a torso half hidden under a cataract of dishevelled tresses, "not penitent enough for a Magdalen," thought we, when mother and daughter entering together, "_Ecco la mia madre_," said the girl pointing to the picture in question. "_Come?_" asked we, "that your mother?" "Certainly, it was painted by my own father, six months after their marriage; she was then as you see, _una bella giovanne assai_." "Was your father, then, a painter by profession?" "Not originally," interposed the old dame: "he was designed for a missionary by his patron, who brought him over from his native country, San Domingo, when a boy; but the old man dying shortly afterwards, the Propaganda undertook to complete the youth's education with the same view. As, however, he chose to think that painting, not preaching, was his calling, and as an attachment had sprung up between us, and I preferred passing my life with him rather than with Santa Ursula and her virgins, to whom my friends would have dedicated me, we determined to take our own case into our own hands, married without asking permission, and then, to support ourselves, I turned my attention to Taxidermy and he to the Fine Arts. Thus we managed to subsist till Annetta was nine years old, when I lost him." "And I," interposed Annetta, "gained a score of old botany books, and these beautiful paintings; I wonder no one comes to propose for me." "_E pazza quella ragazza!_" said the mother; and, to judge by her appearance and attire alone, she might have been so. Her descent sufficiently accounted for her woolly hair; but in addition to its negro texture, it was unteazled and neglected, being mixed with bits of feather and other extraneous elements. She was swathed from head to foot in coarse soiled dimity; in one hand she was holding a half stuffed hawk, in the other a sponge, dipped in some arsenical solution to preserve it. Our eyes had never rested upon so wild, so plain, so apparently hopeless a slattern; but these unpromising appearances were soon forgotten, and amply made amends for by the intelligence of her remarks, and the sprightliness of her conversation; and we know,

"Before such merits all objections fly,
Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick six feet high."

The _officina_ was a curious place, and worthy of its mistress. It was something between a shambles, a museum, and a tanyard, and exhaled in consequence the mixed effluvia of decomposing flesh, alcohol, tannin, and the oil of petroleum. In one corner stood a large tawny dog, stuffed, and fixed to a board, with a new pair of eyes in his head, and his mouth well furnished with grinders. "_Era molto vecchio questo cane_," going up to introduce him to our notice, and patting his back affectionately: "his sockets have not had such eyes in them for many a day, nor his jaws such teeth. I have strengthened his legs with wire, and restored the proper curl to the tail; nothing further is now lacking but some tufts of hair to cover these bare patches on his haunches, when his master will at once recognise unaltered the favourite of fourteen years ago." "And whence the supplies necessary for your purpose?" "From this," replied she, drawing out from under the table a skin of the same tawny colour, "_Eccola_," and then pinching off with her tweezers a small tuft from the supplementary hide, and gumming over with a camel's hair brush, a bare spot, she proceeded to cover it. "And what's your remedy here?" said we, laying our hand upon a large duck,[3] whose glossy grass-green neck had lost much of its plumage, especially at the base, where it is wont to be, encircled with a cravat of white feathers. "By robbing others of the same family: for I always think a bird, while he lacks any of his feathers, is looking reproachfully at me, and if a parrot could find tongue it might say,

''Tis cruel to look ragged now I'm dead;
Annetta, give my tail a little red.'

But here are my stores;" and, touching a spring, the door of a small room opened, and revealed unstuffed skins of all sorts, dangling from strings like _Fantoccini_ near the _Sapienza_, at Christmas-time. "Yonder is a bird, Annetta, that shot across our path yesterday in the villa Borghese; was he not then a foreigner of distinction escaped from the prince's aviary?"--"No; a Campagna bird, but rare;" and she proceeded to display his lapis-lazuli wings, which shone like burnished armour, and were set off by a brilliant edging of black feathers, as polished as jet, while the back was a rich dark brown, and the neck and breast light azure. "Oh! stuff us one of these birds, pray!"--"_Non dubitate_, one shall be on his perch expecting you when you return to Rome in November."--"And we must have, too, that beautiful neighbour of his who wears a short silk spencer over his back and shoulders, and a full-breasted waistcoat of buff."--"The Alcedo Hispida: he shall be ready too; they call him hereabouts, 'Martin the Fisher.'"

We took leave for the time, but frequently returned to the workshop. On one occasion, we asked Cadet how she attained such skill in taxidermy? "Our art," she replied, "like yours, consists mainly in observation, and therefore it must needs come slowly. In fact it has taken my mother and myself fifteen years to learn the natural instincts, habits, and attitudes of the birds and beasts of the Roman Fauna; every summer we visit their haunts, and bring back such specimens as we may catch or as the peasants, who all know us, may bring. Thus, we return, ever richly laden, sometimes with the carcass of an eagle, or it may be of an African Phenicopterus; or, failing in such large game, we are tolerably sure of porcupines, fine snakes, a nest of vipers, specimens of our three several kinds of tortoises, and different species of land crabs; to say nothing of the Tarantulas, Scholias, and Hippobosques, which I pin round my bonnet, or pop into spirits of wine. As to stuffing--the witnessing how some, who call themselves naturalists, stuff birds, has been long as a beacon to me! They really seem to forget, that it is one thing to prepare a goose for the spit, and another to fill his skin for the museum; they cram whatever they have in hand, as Fuocista Beppo crams a sky-rocket to repletion. Few take the natural shape as a model for the embalmed body. In such hands, sparrows become linnets, owls appear to have died of apoplexy, kestril eyes shine in Civetta's sockets, and the jackdaw has a pupil like the vulture. Then in grouping, they make _all_ to look straight forward, as if, when a hawk has swooped upon a teal, his eyes did not turn downwards in the direction of his victim, or those of the poor teal upwards, in the direction of the expected blow; _he_ too, should be represented as striving to extend his neck beyond the drooping screen of the other's impenetrable wing. Then birds of prey should not perch like barn-door fowls, nor a parrot divide his toes before and behind unequally; yet some taxidermists there are, who consider these things _trifles_!" "Well, sir, what do you think of my daughter's stuffing?" said the old woman. "Why, that she stuffs beautifully, but the smell of those old hides in the corner makes me sick." Whereupon they both laughed out at our affectation. "A doctor, and made sick!" said they, and they laughed again. "Have you heard of the Brazilian consul's lion?" interrogated the daughter, endeavouring to make us forget our sickness by exciting our curiosity. "No; nor even that he had a lion." "Oh, tell the story to the Signor Dottore, mother!" said the girl; "I can't for laughing." Upon which the old woman, summoning to her aid a ludicrously solemn look, prefaced the anecdote by supposing "We must know the Brazilian consul?"--"Not even by name."--"In that case we were to understand that he was by nature a man of great tenderness of character, but had once been chafed into an act of extraordinary ferocity, killing with his own hand, during the last year of his consulate, (but unfortunately, like Ulysses, without a witness,) a lordly lion: as there was no embalmer on the spot, he simply flayed his victim, and preserved the skin with spice till his return last year, when the wish naturally arose to have the lion mounted after the most approved models, in order that the dimensions of the body and the respective length of tusks, tail, and claws, might appear to the best advantage, making it very evident that this had been a lion that none but Hercules or a Brazilian consul would have ventured to cope with. On making inquiries for an accomplished embalmer, our diplomatist unfortunately stumbles upon a Frenchman--a gentleman of rare accomplishments, as they all are, perfectly versed, by his own account, in that ancient Egyptian art in all its branches; this man, on seeing the skin, takes care duly to appreciate the courage of the consul in killing so immense a beast, whom he promises forthwith to restore to his pristine dimensions and fierceness of physiognomy; his adroitness is rewarded by _carte blanche_, to purchase any amount of spices and cotton he may require, and his _honoraire_ is fixed at fifty _scudi_ on the completion of the job. Hoping to increase the family satisfaction by showing them the lion once again on his legs, without their previously witnessing the steps by which this was to be effected, he requests that in the interval no one would visit the workshop." "Mind you make him big enough;" says the Consul, signing the contract. "_Laissez-moi faire_," rejoins the other. After three weeks' mystery, the artist sends for his employer, who, speedily obeying the summons, finds the exhibition-room arranged for a surprise, and the Frenchman in anticipation of an assured triumph, rubbing his hands before a curtain, on the other side of which is the object of this visit. "_Hortense, levez la toile!_" says the Frenchman, giving the word of command. Hortense does as he is bid; up goes the curtain, and the Consul beholds his old friend, not only with a new face but with a new body: whereat, astounded and aghast,--"That's not, _my_ lion, sir," says the Brazilian. "How, sir, not _your_ lion; whose lion then?--you are facetious." "_I_ facetious, sir," _roars_ the impatient lion-killer, "and what should make _me_ facetious?" "I have the honour to tell you, sir, that this is your lion," says the Frenchman chafing in his turn. "And I have the _honour_ to tell you, then," reiterated the other, "that you never _saw_ a lion." When the Consular family assembled, it was worse still; the children laughed in his face, and the lady said, "that but for his mane and colour she should not have guessed what animal he personated." It was a family misfortune. "Why did you trust a _Frenchman_ with it?" asked his affectionate spouse: "you recollect that Alfieri calls them a nation of Charlatans, whose origin is _mud_,[4] and that all he ever learned of them was, to be silent when they spoke." "But what's to be done now?" demands the disconsolate man. "Send for the little women who understand stuffing, and take their advice." "So we went," continued the old woman, "and were personally introduced to this lion." "_Ah! che Leone!_" interrupted the daughter, laughing at the recollection of the quizzical beast. "A _lion_ indeed!" said the mother laughing, but less boisterously than her daughter. "What a king of the forest!" said the girl, going off again into inextinguishable merriment: "mother, do you remember his eyes sunk in his head as if he had died of a decline, his chest pinched in to correspond, his belly bulging out like the pouch of an opossum, with all her family at home, his mouth twisted into a sardonic grin, his teeth like some old dowager, one row overlapping the other, his cheeks inflated as if his stomach was in his mouth, and then the position of one of his fore-legs, evidently copied from that of the old bronze _horse_ on the Capitol, while his tail wound three times and a half round its own tip!" "_Basta, basta!_" said the old woman, "he _was_ a queer lion, and looked easy enough to kill if you could only keep your gravity while you attacked him." "And what said the Consul?" asked we, laughing with them. "The Consul _cospettoed_ again and again, and was for knocking him off his legs at once, and then giving him to us to re-arrange. 'You and your daughter,' said he, 'will take him home and do what you can for me;' but we told him plainly, that to expect a new birth, after such a miscarriage as this, was only to indulge a vain hope, sure to issue in new disappointment. Why, the very tail would have taken us a fortnight to uncurl and make a _lion's_ tail of it; the ears were quite past redemption; the _bustle_ might have been removed from behind, and the wadding placed in front, where it was wanted; but the hide itself was corrugated into plaits that nothing could have removed. '_Cospetto!_' said the Consul, _poveretto_, who had nothing else to say--'and am I thus to lose my lion, the only lion I ever killed, and such a fine lion too!' and then he fell to abusing the Frenchman. 'I can't keep him here to show my friends,' pursued he; 'for it is obvious, if I do, that instead of admiring my courage, they will only ridicule me, and perhaps betray me into the hands of that rogue _Pinelli_ as a fit subject for his caricature.' We could not say they would not; so we recommended him, upon the whole, as the best thing under the misfortune, to _re_-consult the French artist. '_Scelarato porco!_ consult him about a lion? why the commonest daub on a _Trattoria_ sign-board gives a better idea of the noble animal than this." "It is difficult to stuff a lion," said the girl, half apologetically: "one cost me a fortnight's hard work to prepare." "Yes," added the mother eagerly--"yes, but he looked like a lion, he did." Then turning to us, "Well, sir, at last, as we could not help the Consul, he was obliged to have recourse to this Frenchman again, who admitted that the bulk of the animal was in the wrong place, and _une idee trop large_, and removed some of it accordingly. With respect to the hind-quarters, he cleverly got rid of this difficulty, by inserting three-quarters of the noble beast into a den, formed in a recess of the drawing-room, and hung with a profusion of green paper, representing bushes falling across its mouth, while beyond them protruded the head and open jaws of the lord of the forest, as reconnoitring the ground previous to a sally upon the guests; and there, doubtless, he is still exhibiting.".... Well did Cadet herself avoid the errors she thus ridiculed. We possess one of her animated groups, of which the subject is an eagle killing a snake, and the execution is so true to nature, and so beautifully disposed for effect as to render improvement impossible: from some such original did the Locrian and Girgenti mints copy one of their finest reverses, and Virgil and Ariosto their lively descriptions. Our bird, which lay, a month before, an unsightly mass of blood-stained feathers, broken-winged, on the ground, when he came into our possession, _stuffed_, looked not only alive but in action. The talon which supported the body seemed to grasp the perch beneath it so tightly, as to convey a very lively impression both of his prehensile powers and of his weight; round the other, (embracing it as in a vice,) writhed the body of a large snake; the eagle's neck was erect, his head slightly bent, his wonderfully expressive eye glancing downwards, his hooked beak opening and disclosing the tongue slightly raised; the scant feathers round the olfactory fissures up; the snake hissing, his head elevated, and darting upwards, to anticipate the lacerating blow:

"_Hic_ sinuosa volumina versat,
Arrectisque horret squammis, et sibilat ore,
Arduus insurgens; _illa_ haud minus urget adunco,
Luctantem rostro."

The delusion as to the substance and weight of the bird was perfect. At first we doubted being able to lift him without considerable effort. On making the attempt, however, we find him light as a Nola jar. A glorious bird is the eagle, well worthy the attention and regard bestowed on him in ancient times by prophet, priest, and poet; but had they been silent, we should have learned the veneration in which he was popularly held by the frequent recurrence of his image--whether incised on Egyptian obelisk, chiselled by Grecian hands on ornamented casque, guarding the tombs of heroes, grasping the thunderbolts of colossal Joves, perched on Latin, standards, carrying off young Ganymedes to wait, _invita Junone_, on the gods above[5]--or bearing aloft, on consecrated coin, some most religious and gracious _Augusta_ to Glory and to Olympus!

One day, meeting the elder Cadet in the street returning alone from the bird-market--a very unusual occurrence, for they generally hunted in couples--we asked after the daughter, and hearing she was _ammalata assai_, and wanted one of our little pills to set her to rights, turned in with the mother, and found the young _naturalista_ reclining on an ill-stuffed _bergere_, with a large Coluber coiled round her temples, and a half-prepared Hoopoe in her hand. In the same apartment were a vulture picking an old shoe to pieces under the belly of an Esquimaux dog, and some little land-tortoises nibbling away at a large lettuce in the middle of the floor. Our inquiries were somewhat embarrassed by the unusual circumstances of our patient, particularly by the presence of the snake, which now began to untwist. "See! he has recognised his master," said the dame: "or perhaps has raised his head with a view of taking part in the consultation." We had seen snakes entwining the lovely brow of Medusa, in marble, cameo, and intaglio--painted snakes in clusters hissing in the hair of the Eumenides--but a living snake wound round living temples we had never seen till to-day. "Come, sir, you are only the _snake_ to Esculapius; and though I am not ungrateful for what you have done in refreshing my hot forehead with your cool skin, now the _doctor_ is come, _bon giorno_!" and, removing him like a turban from her head, she placed him in a box at her side. This was, then, that Epidaurian Coluber which we had so frequently seen in marble effigy wound round the consultation cane of the God of Physic,[6] and not to be viewed by us alive for the first time without interest. "Mother," said the younger Cadet, brightening up when she perceived this, "bring our snake-boxes, and let us show them all to the _dottore_." In less than five minutes the cases were before us. The first contained a mother blind-worm and her viviparous family of ten offspring, not two inches long, while she stretched to about twelve. A Coluber Natrix inhabited the second. "He is a great favourite with children in Sardinia," said Cadet, "twisting himself round their arms, and sucking milk from their mouths; but if these supplies fail, he feeds on frogs and fish. His flesh is a sovereign remedy, say our doctors, in skin diseases; and they also say--but you know best how true this may be--that one of the late Dukes of Bavaria became a father by merely eating fowls that had been fattened on them." A Coluber Austriacus followed--a rare snake, and chiefly remarkable for his pleasant herbaceous smell, very unlike what proceeded from a neighbouring box, holding a Coluber Viperinus, who secretes, when irritated, a yellow fluid of intense foetor, like the mixed stinks from asafoetida and rotten eggs. The specimen in this box was large. It had vomited, we were told, two frogs the day after its capture; and on cutting open another of the same species, Annetta had seen a living toad creep, Jonas-like, from the paunch, and make the best of three legs to escape, the fourth being already disposed of, and digested in the body of the serpent. The solitary Coluber Atro-virens passed next in review. She gave him a character for preferring good cheer to the best company, _ex gr._--Out of two taken last week, one only survived; the other devoured his friend in the night, and next morning they found his enormously distended body dilated almost to transparency, and palpitating under the feeble movement of the victim, doubled up in his inside, but not yet dead. Being very exclusive, some call him "_il milordo_;" others, from the beauty of his colour, _"il bello."_ When about to moult, his wonted vivacity changes to moroseness. Like a mad dog, he will snap at every thing. Perhaps the loss of all his beauty, which then takes place, may account for such peevishness. A glaucomatous state of the eye always precedes by some days the moult, which is accomplished by the skin cracking from the jaws, and afterwards being reflected over the head and shoulders, till by degrees the snake skins himself alive, leaving his old investment turned completely inside out. As gross a feeder as an alderman, he more frequently recovers from a surfeit, perhaps because, though a glutton, he will not touch wine.

Snakes are not so plentiful about Rome as farther south. Terracina in particular swarms with them, as did its ancient predecessor _Amycle_, which was once nearly depopulated by them. Their chief haunt hereabouts is two miles beyond the Porta Salara, at a place called Serpentina, on the opposite side of the Tiber, and nearly in front of the embouchure of the Cremara. At last we come to the family viper box, which perhaps we "would like to peep into with our gloves on?" "_Per Carita_, no," said we seizing the naturalista's hand--"on no account--a bite would be no joke!" Cadet laughed, observing that curiosity should not be baulked by timidity for a trifle.--"A trifle! had she ever been bitten, then?" "_Come? sicuro ogni anno._" It was of familiar occurrence: the part would swell, be stiff and sore for a couple of days, but that was all. Fontana found that it required four large and very angry vipers to kill a dog--of course it must require as many to kill a man. As to the Egyptian Queen's death being caused by a viper's bite, that question having been properly _ventilated_ (ventillata) by Professor Lancisci, might be considered as set at rest. One viper could not kill one person, much less _three_; and we might remember that Cleopatra's memorable asp is said to have bitten two maids of honour, Neaera and Carmione, before it came to her turn, by which time the poison must have been expended and the viper's tooth dry. "Two things," added she, "I have noted about vipers; one regards the parturient viper, and is to the effect that, a prisoner, she never survives her confinement many days; long before the _quarante jours y compris l'accouchement_[7] are over, she has ceased to be a mother and a viper. The other regards her progeny, and is this; that young viperlings come into the world in full maturity of malice, offering to bite as soon as their mouths are open, and flying at each other when they have no other society to attack. We have five varieties in Rome." "Is the viper deaf, Cadet?" "You should read the experiments of Peter Manni, a great friend of ours who tames snakes; these will completely satisfy your curiosity on this point:" and she fetched us the work of Manni, in which he gives curious account of the influence exercised upon several varieties of the species by the sound of a pianoforte, and afterwards goes on to relate the effects produced upon the same serpents by electricity and light. "The Viper," says he, "was impassive to the second of these agents, suffering a lighted candle to be brought close to his eyes before he turned away his head; of the harmless snakes, Coluber Esculapius came up to look at a lighted torch, but, finding it too strong for him, gnashed his teeth and bolted; Coluber Elaphis bore the heat of a lighted candle in his mouth with apparent indifference; but the Coluber Atro-virens flew at it in a passion, snapping and biting while he struggled to retreat; _he_ also appeared most distressed under the application of slight electric shocks, from which indeed all the snakes suffered, and the smaller ones died."

The action of some _poisons_ upon snakes is similar to that on our own economy. For instance, on administering half a grain of strychnine to a full-grown Coluber Atro-virens, four minutes elapsed before, any change was visible. During this period the snake moved in the hand with his usual vivacity; the flesh then began to grow rigid under the finger; and in half a minute, the whole body, with the exception of three inches of coil, was seized with a tetanic spasm--the beautiful imbrication of the scales was dislocated by the violence of the muscular action, and the sleek round cylinder of the body was hardened into knots and reduced to half its former bulk. Reviving for a few seconds, the snake started, opened its jaws, but immediately afterwards became stiff and motionless except at the tail, which continued to exhibit feeble contractile action for about twenty minutes. After death, the body, losing its unnatural rigidity, became unnaturally supple, seemed without a spine, and might be doubled upon itself like a ribbon. In two cases which we witnessed of individuals poisoned by strychnine, similar tetanic phenomena were observed. Corrosive sublimate and prussic acid do not appear to act on snakes either with such violence or rapidity as on warm-blooded animals; for a dose of three grains of the former, and several drops of the latter, (Majendie's,) remained inactive for a quarter of an hour; then, two grains of arsenic being added, the snake suddenly raised his head half a foot from the ground, remained motionless as in a trance, for a minute, then fell back quite dead. We are not proud of these experiments, nor do we intend to repeat such; but having been guilty of them, the recital of the results can do no harm.

What various and even opposite qualities, owing to the supposed versatility of his character, have been ever attributed to the serpent! Viewed as fancy dictated, under different phases, men were not content to ascribe to him their vices only, but must also attribute to him most of their moral excellencies: wisdom, prudence, vigilance, fortitude and sobriety were all his; he was symbolical of the divine nature, of eternity, and of youth. Long before _viper broth_ was used in medicine, the Coluber was at Hygeia's side by the fountain of health, and was twined round the stick of Esculapius, at once silent and expeditious in his motion. Harpocrates favoured, and Mercury the Olympic messenger employed him as his deputy; though victim on one occasion to the archery of Apollo, the god of verse found something in his

------ "winding 'bout
Of linked structure long drawn out,"

so akin to poetry, (particularly to the kind called epic,) that he took an additional cognomen (Pythius) out of compliment to him; whilst Alexander and Augustus, those worthy descendants of Jove (whom he is said to have befriended in his amours), stamped his image on their coins, and assumed it as their crest. So far we behold him in favour both with gods and men: but opinions vary, applause is inconstant; and accordingly we equally find him charged with envy, hatred, malice, hypocrisy, ingratitude, cruelty, and almost every other vice. He is also accused of devastating towns, of usurping islands,[8] of impeding armies,[9] of destroying priests at the altar, and it is certain that he lent his name to heresy, and permitted the great Heresiarch to assume his form in order to beguile Eve.

MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF OIL PAINTING.[10]

In the prosecution of an object, it often happens that the means employed lead unexpectedly to results of immeasurably more importance than the end originally proposed; and that, while the ostensible end may turn out to be a failure or of doubtful benefit, some real good, some lasting advantage, shall be brought out by the exercise of the ability, energy, and faithfulness of the agents employed.

The mind can scarcely work on given materials without making some discovery. In this sense did Socrates adopt the line of Hesiod--

"Employ thyself in any thing rather than stand idle."

We are of those who would doubt the advantages proposed by the Commission of the Fine Arts. If it were likely to lead to a permanent patronage for _great works_, it would be a boon indeed; but if it be the cause of only a temporary excitement, holding out a promise which it has no means of fulfilling, encouraging talent, and making it unprofitable, turning it from the line in which it is wanted, to that in which it is not likely to be sought after, the artists will have little reason in the end to be thankful for the establishing of this Commission. The competition which it proposes is not altogether wholesome: it is sicklied over from the beginning with the fear and jealousy of a class. The tried hands of an academy abstain from a contest which may take away from them the honour (in the world's eye) which has been exclusively appropriated to them; and the new aspirants work at too probable a loss, scarcely hoping that their labours will be adopted or rewarded: while in that absence of a higher competition, the public, and possibly the Commission itself, expect inferiority; and if these _great_ pictures, great in dimensions as in attempt, are not purchased by the public, there can be little hope that any private dwellings will contain them. If the object be to adorn the Houses of Parliament with pictures, it would be far better to select from the painters we have, and give them their work to do, than to raise up a host of artists, nine-tenths of whom must sink under a hopeless lack of employment; for there is not a general taste for the particular style which it is the object of the Commission to promote, nor can there well be in a country where there are so few public edifices of importance and of public resort, and so few palaces capable of containing works of great size. Indeed the art of decoration is with us quite of another character, and one little adapted for the display of great works. There, is paint in profusion, and of a dazzling splendour,--we do not mean to speak slightingly of this architectural adjunct;--but there is little room for the _sobriety_ of great art; and be it remembered that art, to be great, must have in it a certain sobriety, awe, and majesty, that does not quite accord with our style of decoration. We require a kind of furniture decoration. We doubt if in our Houses of Parliament and palaces, much room will be spared to what is so facetiously termed "High Art." Nor can we expect to be always building Houses of Parliament; and, therefore, too soon the magniloquent patronage must come to an end. Domesticity is the habit of modern life, (for even our club-houses are of that character, and assume the appearance of a home;) and, for such habits, easel pictures will ever have the greatest charm. Nor would it be correct to deny to them a very scope in the field of art. We doubt if we can recur to any extensive patronage for frescoes; and their great cost must exclude them from our churches, which we are more desirous of multiplying than of ornamenting. Nor can we wonder at this; for, whereas the churches and all public buildings in Italy, were and are open at all times, and the great works they contain, are to be seen every day, and at every hour of the day, with us it is a great thing to have them open once or twice in the week, for an hour and a half at a time. So that we fear the Commission for the promotion of the Fine Arts are, as far as we can judge of their ostensible object, in a labyrinth, from which if they find an exit, they will not have enlarged their prospect, and will have to congratulate themselves, at best, on being where they were when they entered it.

We do not here express a doubt as to the advantage of our having a Commission of the Fine Arts. We only doubt their judgment in the exclusiveness of their aim, and the largeness of their implied promises.

But if there be a suspicion of failure in the ostensible object, in some of its working the greatest benefit will have been conferred upon modern art. A more judicious or more fortunate choice could not have been made, than that made in the appointment of the Secretary to the Commission. Much as the world has reason to regret that this appointment has for a long, too long a period, been a sore let and hinderance to Mr Eastlake in the practice of his art,--the conscientious view he has taken of the duties of his office, and his entire faithfulness in discharging them, have led to results of a most beneficial character,--beneficial to artists, and to the arts as a perpetuity. His highly valuable work, though with the most modest title, "Materials for a History of Oil Painting," is the real boon, and will be the lasting proof of his faithful service. Considering the sacrifice with which a work of so much labour, thought, and research must have been achieved, we hope the Commissioners are empowered to reward his energy, ability, and fidelity, according to their merits, and according to the sacrifice.

Mr Eastlake, justly judging it to be of the first importance, in whatever schemes might be entertained for the promotion of the Fine Arts, to secure to the artist the best materials, and the approved methods of the best times, and to give him as complete a knowledge of the history of the art he professes as might be obtained, undertook to search out and examine records with the greatest care, leaving as little to conjecture as possible. He could not dictate to the mind, but he might be able to put means into the hands of genius; the more perfect the instruments, the greater would be the freedom, and, what is of no small importance, the more durable would be the works. The first step in this direction was evidently towards a knowledge of what had been done, and had been universally admired and approved:--to discover first, if possible, what was the method and what were the technical means in the hands of Titian and Correggio, of Rubens and most of the Flemish painters.

Aware of the discussions and disputes concerning the invention of Van Eyck, he found it necessary to trace the progress of art from its earliest records to the date of the supposed discoverer of painting in oil--or rather discoverers, Hubert and John Van Eyck, in 1410. The conclusion to which the documentary evidence led him was this, that:--

"The technical improvements which Van Eyck introduced were unquestionably great; but the mere materials employed by him may have differed little, if at all, from those which had been long familiar. The application of oil painting to figures, and such other objects as (with rare exceptions) had before been executed only _in tempera_, was a consequence of an improvement in the vehicle." "It is apparent, that much has been attributed to John Van Eyck, which was really the invention of Hubert; and both may have been indebted to earlier painters for the elements of their improved process."

The _very_ early use of oil in painting need not here be discussed, though it was necessary to go into much detail in forming a history of the art, which was the object of Mr Eastlake. Perhaps, the earliest in our practice will be found to have been in England, and may have been the legacy of art bequeathed at the departure of the Romans. It did not commence in Italy. "The use of resinous solutions combined in various proportions with oil, as a medium or vehicle for the colours, was an early technical characteristic of the northern schools, and merits attention here, accordingly."

It is the opinion of the author of "Materials for a History," &c., that the Van Eycks did not so much invent as improve; it was therefore most desirable to ascertain what was previously ready to their hands to be improved. And as to the improvement, that was perhaps really less than has been supposed, the application being the novelty. Oleo-resinous varnishes had before been in use, even from a very early period; but the admixture of these with the pigments was the great step in advance, and it may be inferred that the method of rendering these oleo-resinous vehicles colourless, or nearly so, was the great invention of John Van Eyck.

Drying oil was well known to the ancients, that is before the Christian era. "Dioscorides, whose works were familiar to medieval writers on medicine, is supposed to have lived in the age of Augustus. He mentions two drying oils; walnut-oil and poppy-oil. The principal materials employed in modern oil painting were at least ready for the artist, and waited only for a Van Eyck,--in the age of Ludius[11] and the painters of Pompeii."

We will not attempt further to pursue the history of oil painting to the time of the Van Eycks; suffice it to say, that a recipe of Theophilus, a monk of the twelfth century, furnishes materials--an oleo-resinous vehicle generally used after the time of Van Eyck--and that the improvement by Van Eyck was the substituting amber for the sandarach of Theophilus. The work of Theophilus has recently appeared, translated by Mr Hendrie from the Latin, and forms a very valuable addition to the painter's library, as well as to that of the curious and scientific, in general. The artist will find in Mr Hendrie's preface, the information he will be most desirous to possess. He strongly insists upon amber varnish as being the real vehicle or discovery of Van Eyck, and lays much stress upon a certain distilled oil as a diluent. He says:--

"Amber varnish, and probably other thick oil varnishes, would be equally benefitted, thinned with this distilled oil. It dries without a pellicle when mixed with colours. Colours used for finishing a picture, such as in the light for solid painting, or glazing for colour and shadows, are rendered very pure and without the slightest appearance of a skin, although it may be plentifully used. It dries much more slowly than any other distilled oil, and hence its great value, as it allows the artist as much time as he requires, in order to blend his colours and finish his work. In conjunction with amber varnish, it forms a vehicle which leaves nothing to be desired, and which doubtless was the vehicle of Van Eyck, and in many instances of the Venetian masters, and of Correggio; the different modes of painting necessarily producing the varied appearances of the different schools and masters."

This promises the remedy for the disease, as it were, of vehicles, the not drying from the bottom, which will delight every artist, if he finds it a practical truth. We confess, we somewhat fear the sanguine temperament of the translator of Theophilus, and should have preferred some proof to the bare assertion that the picture by John Bellini, in the National Gallery, was painted in amber varnish. Nor can we quite trust his translation of the recipe for making this amber varnish. We were startled with this account of 1 lb litharge to 1 lb linseed oil and 4 ounces of amber--is he correct in translating _spigelhors_ litharge? It should be rosin. With regard to the value of amber varnish, Mr Eastlake quite agrees with Mr Hendrie. Another important improvement of the Van Eycks was the substitution of calcined white copperas for litharge. In a note, Mr Eastlake gives the information that on experiment it has been proved that oil does not take up any portion of the copperas, which nevertheless renders it very drying and hard, but that oil does take up sugar of lead. It should be added, however, that he does not think lead so prejudicial to colours as some have thought it to be.

The value of Mr Eastlake's book chiefly consists in the documentary evidence which is now brought to bear upon the question of vehicles; and doubtless, that which is subsequent to the time of Van Eyck is by far the most valuable. Evidence is produced not only of oils in use, and the methods of purifying them, but of varnishes, and recipes for making them, likewise of the colours used. There is yet, however, much untold with regard to the Italian practice, concerning which Mr Eastlake proposes to treat in a second volume. Yet, with regard to the Italian methods, we are not left without some important knowledge, which, however, must be considered as offered rather incidentally; for the Italians having modified, and in some respects much varied the vehicle they derived from the Flemish masters, their methods were again partially adopted by the latter; so that the methods of these two great schools of art could not be kept entirely separate.

To those much acquainted with art, it will be thought of the utmost importance to obtain any recipes of the time of Rubens and Vandyke. Such we are in possession of--contained in a manuscript in the British Museum--of which we may expect the publication entire. It may be interesting to give some account of this MS. and its author. The manuscript is entitled "Pictoria, Sculptura, Tinctoria, et quaesub alternarum artium spectantia, in Lingua Latina, Gallica, Italica, Germanica conscripta, a Petro Paulo, Rubens, Vandyke, Somers, Greenberry, Jansen, &c.--Fo. xix. A.D. 1620; T. de Mayerne." Theodore Mayerne, the author, was born at Geneva, 1573. "He selected the medical profession; and after studying at Montpelier and Paris, accompanied Henri Duc de Rohan to Germany and Italy. On his return he opened a school, in which he delivered lectures to students in surgery and medicine. This proceeding, and the innovation, as it then appears to have been, of employing mineral specifics in the healing art, excited a spirit of opposition which led to a public resolution, emanating from the faculty at Paris, in which his practice was condemned. His reputation rapidly increased from this period. He had before been appointed one of the physicians in ordinary to Henry IV. In 1611, James I. invited him to England, and appointed him his first physician. De Mayerne enjoyed the same title under Charles I. He died at Chelsea, leaving a large fortune, 1655."... "Dallaway, in his annotations on Walpole, after noticing the influence of De Mayerne's medical practice on the modern pharmacopoeia, remarks that 'his application of chemistry to the composition of pigments, and which he liberally communicated to the painters who enjoyed the royal patronage,--to Rubens, Vandyke, and Pelitot--tended most essentially to the promotion of the art. From his experiments were discovered the principal colours to be used for enamelling, and the means of vitrifying them. Rubens painted his portrait; certainly one of the finest now extant. It originally ornamented the Arundel collection: was then at Dr Mead's, Lord Besborough's, and is now (1826) at Cleveland House.'... A monarch who was so fond of painting as Charles I., was fortunate in having the assistance of a person who combined a love of art with a scientific knowledge applicable to its mechanical operations. It is not surprising that such an amateur as De Mayerne should enjoy the confidence of the first painters of his time; or that in return for the useful hints which he was sometimes enabled to give them, they should freely open to him the results of their practical knowledge. Such communications, registered at the time by an intelligent observer, threw considerable light on the state of painting at one of its most brilliant periods, and tend especially to illustrate the habits of the Flemish and Dutch schools."

De Mayerne records the use of sand in purifying oils, as a communication from Mytens, painter to Charles I., _before the arrival of Vandyke_. "Coming from such a source," says Mr Eastlake, "it may be classed among the processes which were familiar to the Flemish and Dutch painters."