Chapter X (2)

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.

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=JAMES LOGAN OF PENNSYLVANIA.=

=FROM THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE.=

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 100_l._ 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.

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=USEFUL ARTS OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.=

=BY CHARLES WILLIAMS.=

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 3_s._ 4_d._, 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 2_s._ 6_d._ 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 131,000_l._; and one of the Scauri possessed a Tusculan villa, valued--together with its furniture, decorations, and works of art--at the vast sum of 885,000_l._

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 9000_l._ 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.