Chapter XXII: Part 22

Of the expenses incurred for schoolboys at Eton early in the reign of Elizabeth, we find some curious particulars in a manuscript of the time: the boys were sons of Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth, and the entries are worth notice, as showing the manners of those days. Among the items, a breast of roast mutton is charged ten-pence; a small chicken, fourpence; a week's board, five shillings each; besides the wood burned in their chamber; to an old woman for sweeping and cleaning the chamber, twopence; mending a shoe, one penny; three candles, nine-pence; a book, Esop's Fables, fourpence; two pair of shoes, sixteen-pence; two bunches of wax lights, one penny; the sum total of the payments, including board paid to the bursars of Eton College, living expenses for the two boys and their man, clothes, books, washing, &c., amounts to twelve pounds twelve shillings and seven-pence. The expense of a scholar at the university in 1514 was but five pounds annually, affording as much accommodation as would cost sixty pounds, though the accommodation would be far short of that now customary at Eton.

AN EVENTFUL LIFE.

It is much to be feared that on the field of battle and naval actions many individuals, apparently dead, are buried or thrown overboard. The history of Francois de Civille, a French captain, who was missing at the siege of Rouen, is rather curious. At the storming of the town he was supposed to have been killed, and was thrown, with other bodies, in the ditch, where he remained from eleven in the morning to half-past six in the evening; when his servant, observing some latent heat, carried the body into the house. For five days and five nights his master did not exhibit the slightest sign of life, although the body gradually recovered its warmth. At the expiration of this time, the town was carried by assault, and the servants of an officer belonging to the besiegers, having found the supposed corpse of Civille, threw it out of the window, with no other covering than his shirt. Fortunately for the captain, he had fallen upon a dunghill, where he remained senseless for three days longer, when his body was taken up by his relatives for sepulture, and ultimately brought to life. What was still more strange, Civille, like Macduff, had "been from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd," having been brought into the world by a Caesarean operation, which his mother did not survive; and after his last wonderful escape he used to sign his name with the addition of "three times born, three times buried, and three times risen from the dead by the grace of God."

FIRST BRIDGE OVER THE THAMES.

First Bridge over the Thames.]

The humble village bridge which we here engrave is well deserving of a place in our pages as being the first of that grand series of bridges whose last member is London-bridge. What a contrast between the first bridge over the Thames and the last! Thames Head, where the river rises, is in the county of Gloucester, but so near to its southern border, that the stream, after meandering a mile or two, enters Wiltshire, near the village of Kemble. On leaving this village, and proceeding on the main road towards the rustic hamlet of Ewen, the traveller passes over the bridge which forms the subject of our woodcut. It has no parapet, and is level with the road, the water running through three narrow arches. Such is the first bridge over the mighty Thames.

THE VENETIANS.

The Venetians were the first people in Italy who had printed books. They originated a Gazette in the year 1600, and the example was followed at Oxford in 1667, and at Vienna in 1700. They also undertook the discovery of America, and the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope.

MEDMENHAM ABBEY.

On descending the river Thames, from Henley, after passing Culham Court and Hambledon Lock, the adjacent country become exceedingly beautiful, varied by alternate mills, islands, meadows, and hills, with every now and then ornamental forest trees hanging over the stream, and giving pleasant shade to the current on its downward flow. The wood of Medmenham soon comes in sight; the ruined Abbey is seen among the trees, and close beside it is a pretty ferry, with the pleasant wayside inn of Mrs. Bitmead--a domicile well known to artists, her frequent guests, one of whom, who has since become famous, painted a sign-board which hangs over the door, and is of so good a quality that it might grace the exhibition of the Royal Academy. The Abbey has been pictured a hundred times, and is a capital subject seen from any point of view; the river runs close beside it; there is a hill adjacent--Dane's Hill; dark woods and green meadows are at hand; gay boats and traffic barges are continually passing; the ferry is always picturesque, and the artist is constantly supplied on the spot with themes for pictures; especially he has before him the venerable ruin--"venerable," at least, as far as the eye is concerned. Time has touched it leniently; some of its best "bits" are as they were a century ago, except that the lichens have given to them that rich clothing of grey and gold which the painter ever loves, and added to it, here and there, a green drapery of ivy.

Manor of Medmenham.]

The manor of Medmenham was, in the reign of King Stephen, given by its lord, Walter de Bolebec, to the Abbey of Cistercian Monks he had founded at Woburn in Bedfordshire; and in 1204 the monks placed some of their society here, on this pleasant bank of the Thames. Here arose a small monastery, being rather--as the writers of the order express themselves--"a daughter than a cell to Woburn." In 1536 it was annexed to Bisham. At the Dissolution, according to returns made by the commissioners, "the clear value of this religious house was 20_l._ 6s.; it had two monks designing to go to houses of religion; servants, none; woods, none; debts, none; its bells worth 2_l._ 1s. 8d.; the value of its moveable goods 1_l._ 3s. 8d.; and the house wholly in ruin." It must have undergone considerable repair early in the sixteenth century, and probably very little of the original structure now exists, although relics of antiquity may be traced in many of its remains. That portion which fronts the Thames is kept in proper repair, and a large room is used for the convenience of pleasure parties. The property belongs to the Scots of Danesfield, a mansion that crowns a neighbouring hill. Medmenham derives notoriety from events of more recent date than the occupation of its monks, without goods and without debt. Here, about the middle of the last century, was established, a society of men of wit and fashion, who assumed the title of the Monks of St. Francis, and wore the habit of the Franciscan order. Although it is said that the statements contained in a now forgotten but once popular novel--"Chrysal; or the Adventures of a Guinea,"--were exaggerated, the character which the assumed monks bore in the open world was sufficiently notorious to justify the worst suspicions of their acts in this comparative solitude. Their principal members were Sir Francis Dashwood (afterwards Lord Le Despencer), the Earl of Sandwich, John Wilks, Bubb Doddington, Churchill, and Paul Whitehead, the poet. The motto--"Fay ce que voudras," indicative of the principle on which the society was founded--still remains over the doorway of the Abbey House. Tradition yet preserves some anecdotes illustrative of the habits of the "order," and there can be little doubt that this now lonely and quiet spot was the scene of orgies that were infamous.

PERSECUTION.

Grotius, an historian celebrated for moderation and caution, has computed that in the several persecutions promoted by Charles V., no less than a hundred thousand persons perished by the hands of the executioner. In the Netherlands alone, from the time that his edict against the reformers was promulgated, he states that there had been fifty thousand persons hanged, beheaded, buried alive, or burned, on account of their religion. Indeed, during the reign of Philip the Second, the Duke of Alva boasted that in the space of nine years he had destroyed, in the Low Countries, 36,000 persons by the hands of the executioner alone. At the massacre of Paris, on the feast of St. Bartholomew, King Charles the Ninth of France assisted in person, and boasted that he had sacrificed in one night 10,000 of his subjects; for that massacre the Pope had "Te Deum" sung in the chapel of the Vatican and issued a bull for a jubilee to be celebrated throughout France on the 7th December, 1512, in commemoration of what he termed the _happy success of the king against his heretic subjects_, and concluded by writing with his own hand a letter to Charles the Ninth, exhorting him to pursue this salutary and blessed enterprise. In the short reign of Queen Mary, there were in this realm burned at the stake one archbishop, four bishops, twenty-one ministers, and nearly three hundred persons of all classes, of whom fifty-five were women, and four were children, one of whom sprang from its mother's womb while she was consuming, and was flung into the flames by the spectators. In 1640 the same spirit of papal bigotry occasioned in Ireland the butchery of 40,000 Protestants, under circumstances of aggravated atrocity which a Christian will shudder to peruse. Lewis XIV., the most Christian king and eldest son of the church, starved a million Huguenots at home, and sent another million grazing in foreign countries.

INNKEEPER'S BILL IN 1762.

The following innkeeper's bill was sent in to the Duke de Nivernois, who supped and breakfasted at an inn in Canterbury, in 1762; and considering the value of money at that time, must be deemed extremely moderate:--

L s. d.

Tea, coffee, and chocolate 1 4 0
Supper for self and servant 15 10 0
Bread and beer 3 0 0
Fruit 2 15 0
Wine and punch 10 8 8
Wax candles and charcoal 3 0 0
Broken glass and china 2 10 0
Lodging 1 7 0
Tea, coffee, and chocolate 2 0 0
Chaise and horse, for next stage 2 16 0

There were only twelve persons in the whole company.

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.

Joseph Battaglia, a surgeon of Ponte Bosio, relates the following case: Don. G. Maria Bertholi, a priest of Mount Valerius, went to the fair of Filetto, and afterwards visited a relation in Fenilo, where he intended to pass the night. Before retiring to rest, he was left reading his breviary; when, shortly afterwards, the family were alarmed by his loud cries and a strange noise in his chamber. On opening the door, he was lying prostrate on the floor, and surrounded by flickering flames. Battaglia was immediately sent for, and on his arrival the unfortunate man was found in a most deplorable state. The integuments of the arms and the back were either consumed or detached in hanging flaps. The sufferer was sufficiently sensible to give an account of himself. He said that he felt, all of a sudden, as if his arm had received a violent blow from a club, and at the same time he saw scintillations of fire rising from his shirt-sleeves, which were consumed without having burned the wrists; a handkerchief, which he had tied round his shoulders, between the shirt and the skin, was intact. His drawers were also sound; but, strange to say, his silk skull-cap was burnt while his hair bore no marks of combustion. The unfortunate man only survived the event four days. The circumstances which attended this case would seem to warrant the conclusion that the electric fluid was the chief agent in the combustion.

SHOOTING FISH.

Our shores have produced a few specimens of a richly-coloured fish called Ray's Sea Bream (_Brama Rayi_), interesting because it represents a family, almost confined to the tropical seas, of very singular forms and habits. The family is named _Chaetodontidae_, from the principal genus in it. They are very high perpendicularly, but thin and flattened sidewise; the mouth in some projects into a sort of snout, the fins are frequently much elevated, and send off long filaments. They are generally adorned with highly-contrasted colours, which run in perpendicular bands. They are often called scaly-finned fishes, because the dorsal and anal are clothed, at least in part, with scales, so as not to be distinguished from the body. The tubular snout of some, as of a little species which we here represent, is applied to an extraordinary use, that of shooting flies! The fish approaches under a fly which it has discovered, resting on a leaf or twig, a few feet above the water, taking care not to alarm it by too sudden a motion; then, projecting the tip of its beak from the surface, it shoots a single drop at the insect with so clever an aim, as very rarely to miss it, when it falls into the water and is devoured. Being common in the Indian seas, it is often kept by the Chinese in vases, as we keep golden-fish, for the amusement of witnessing this feat. A fly is fastened at some distance, at which the fish shoots, but, disappointed of course, and wondering that its prey does not fall, it goes on to repeat the discharge for many times in succession, without seeming to take in a fresh stock of ammunition, and scarcely ever missing the mark, though at a distance of three or four feet.

EXTRAORDINARY EARTHQUAKES.

Around the Papandayang, one of the loftiest mountains in Java, no less than forty villages were reposing in peace. But in August 1772, a remarkable luminous cloud enveloping its top aroused them from their security. But it was too late; for at once the mountain began to sink into the earth, and soon it had disappeared, with the forty villages and most of the inhabitants, over a space fifteen miles long and six broad. Still more extraordinary, the most remarkable on record was an eruption in Sumbawa, one of the Molucca islands, in 1815. It began on the fifth day of April, and did not cease till July. The explosions were heard in one direction nine hundred and seventy miles, and in another seven hundred and twenty miles. So heavy was the fall of ashes at the distance of forty miles that houses were crushed and destroyed. The floating cinders in the ocean, hundreds of miles distant, were two feet thick, and vessels were forced through with difficulty. The darkness in Java, three hundred miles distant, was deeper than the blackest night; and, finally, out of the twelve thousand inhabitants of the island, only twenty-six survived the catastrophe.

BEAUTIFUL ARCH.

One of the rarities of architecture is the beautiful arch in the choir of Cannistown Church, not far from Bective, near Trim, in Ireland. Down to the very latest period of Gothic architecture, the original plan of a simple nave, or nave and chancel, was followed, and the chief or only difference observable in churches of very late date, from those of the sixth and seventh centuries, consists in the form of the arch-heads, the position of the doorway, the style of the masonry, which is usually much better in the more ancient examples, and the use of bell-turrets, the cloigeteach, or detached round tower, having answered this purpose during the earlier ages. A beautiful and highly characteristic example of an early pointed church is that at Cannistown. As usual, it consists of a nave and chancel, and there are the remains of a bell-turret upon the west gable, the usual position. The choir arch is represented in the annexed cut.

Arch in the Choir of Cannistown Church.]

There are numerous examples of churches of this style scattered over Ireland, but they are usually plain, and the choir arch is generally the plainest feature in the building. As example, we can refer our readers to the churches of Kilbarrack, Dalkey, Kinsale, and Rathmichael, all in the immediate neighbourhood of Dublin.

THOMAS CONECTE.

There was a Carmelite friar, Thomas Conecte, who, previous to his being burnt as a heretic at Rome, in 1434, excited the admiration of all Flanders by his vehement sermons against the luxury of the women. His satire was chiefly levelled against their head-dresses, which rose to so enormous a height, that the most exalted head-dresses of a late day were but dwarfs to them. Juvenal des Ursins, who lived at that period, declares that, notwithstanding the troubles of the times, the maidens and married ladies rose to prodigious excess in their attire, and wore hair of a surprising height and breadth, having on each side two ears of so unaccountable a size, that it was impossible for them to pass through a door. Their dresses were the hennins of Flanders, which the worthy Carmelite was so inveterate against. He made them dress themselves in a more modest manner. But, alas no sooner had Friar Thomas left the country than the head-dresses shot up to a greater height than ever. They had only bowed their heads like bullrushes during the storm. Poor Thomas attacked the infallible church itself, and they, in default of better arguments, burnt him.

CURIOUS COINCIDENCES.

On the 21st of April, 1770, Lewis XVI. was married.

21st of June, 1770, fifteen hundred people were trampled to death at the _fete_.

21st of January, 1782, _fete_ for the birth of the Dauphin.

21st of June, 1791, the flight to Varennes.

21st of September, 1792, the abolition of royalty.

21st of January, 1793, the unfortunate monarch's decapitation.

AMPHITHEATRES.

The deficiency of theatres erected by the Romans is far more than compensated by the number and splendour of their amphitheatres, which, with their baths, may be considered as the true types of Roman art. It seems almost certain that they derived this class of public buildings from the Etruscans. At Sutri there is a very noble one cut out of the tufa rock, which was no doubt used by that people for festal representations long before Rome attempted anything of the kind. It is uncertain whether gladiatorial fights or combats of wild beasts formed any part of the amusements of the arena in those days, though boxing, wrestling, and contests of that description certainly did; but whether the Etruscans actually proceeded to the shedding of blood and slaughter is more than doubtful.

Even in the remotest parts of Britain, in Germany, and Gaul, wherever we find a Roman settlement, we find the traces of their amphitheatres. Their soldiery, it seems, could not exist without the enjoyment of seeing men engage in doubtful and mortal combats--either killing one another, or torn to pieces by wild beasts. It is not to be wondered at that a people who delighted so much in the bloody scenes of the arena should feel but very little pleasure in the mimic sorrows and tame humour of the stage. It fitted them, it is true, to be a nation of conquerors, and gave them the empire of the world, but it brought with it feelings singularly inimical to all the softer arts, and was perhaps the great cause of their debasement.

As might be expected, the largest and most splendid of these buildings is that which adorns the capital; and of all the ruins which Rome contains, none have excited such universal admiration as the Flavian amphitheatre. Poets, painters, rhapsodists, have exhausted all the resources of their arts in the attempt to convey to others the overpowering impression this building produces on their own minds. With the single exception, perhaps, of the Hall at Karnac, no ruin has met with such universal admiration as this. Its association with the ancient mistress of the world, its destruction, and the half-prophetic destiny ascribed to it, all contribute to this. Still it must be confessed that

"The gladiator's bloody circus stands
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,"

and worthy of all or nearly all the admiration of which it has been the object. Its interior is almost wholly devoid of ornament, or anything that can be called architecture--a vast inverted pyramid. The exterior does not possess one detail which is not open to criticism, and indeed to positive blame. Notwithstanding all this, its mass, its form, and its associations, all combine to produce an effect against which the critic struggles in vain.

The length of the building, measured along its greatest diameter, is 620 ft., its breadth 513, or nearly in the ratio of 6 to 5, which may be taken as the general proportion of these buildings, the variations from it being slight, and apparently either mistakes in setting out the work in ancient times, or in measuring it in modern days, rather than an intentional deviation. The height of the 3 lower stories is 120 ft.; the total height as it now stands, 157 ft. The arena itself measures 287 ft. in length by 180 in breadth, and it is calculated that the building would contain 80,000 spectators; 50,000 or 60,000 would be much nearer the truth, at least according to the data by which space is calculated in our theatres and public places.

HUNDRED FAMILIES' LOCK.

A common Chinese talisman is the "hundred families' lock," to procure which a father goes round among his friends, and, having obtained from a hundred different parties a few of the copper coins of the country, he himself adds the balance, to purchase an ornament or appendage fashioned like a lock, which he hangs on his child's neck, for the purpose of locking him figuratively to life, and making the hundred persons concerned in his attaining old age.

THE DUKE DE REICHSTADT.

At the Imperial Palace of Schoenbrun, about five English miles from Vienna, is shown the window fractured by the bullet of the enthusiastic student who shot at Napoleon while he was reviewing the Imperial Guard, and also the apartment he occupied when he made this his head-quarters, instead of entering the city. An additional interest is imparted to the place, by the circumstance of the Duke de Reichstadt having, when taken ill, chosen the identical chamber and spot in which his father Napoleon had slept, to close his mortal career: and by a singular coincidence, the remains of the young prince were subjected to a post-mortem examination upon the same table at which the Emperor had held his councils. In imitation of the military hardihood of his sire, the young duke was in the habit of exposing himself to all weathers, and keeping guard during successive nights, a practice which often called forth from his surgeon, Dr. Malfati, the expressive words, '_Rappelez vous, mon Prince, que vouz avez un Coeur de Fer dans un Corp de Verre_.'

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS' CANDLESTICK.

Almost every article, however trifling its intrinsic value, and however homely its appearance, which once belonged to a celebrated individual, is always regarded as an object of interest, and we have, therefore, no hesitation in presenting our readers with the annexed engraving of one of a pair of candlesticks which were once the property of the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots.

Mary Queen of Scots' Candlestick.]

They are made of brass, each of them of eleven and a-half inches in height. They are of French manufacture; the sunk parts are filled up with an inlay of blue, green, and white enamel, very similar to that done at Limoge. These extremely elegant and curious articles are the property of Lord Holland, and are preserved at Holland House, Kensington.

Holland House is associated "with the costly magnificence of Rich, with the loves of Ormond, the councils of Cromwell, and the death of Addison." It has been for nearly two centuries and a-half the favourite resort of wits and beauties, of painters and poets, of scholars, philosophers, and statesmen. In the lifetime of the late Lord Holland, it was the meeting-place of "the Whig Party;" and his liberal hospitality made it "the resort, not only of the most interesting persons composing English society--literary, philosophical, and political, but also to all belonging to those classes who ever visited this country from abroad."

EXTRAORDINARY INSTANCES OF INHUMANITY.

In 1534, in the wars of Edward III. with France, Fordun relates that a Frenchman purchased from the Scots several English prisoners, and that he beheaded them to avenge the death of his father. This sentimental cruelty can perhaps be paralleled by that of Coccinas, who, at the massacre of Paris, bought many Huguenots, that he might torture them to death for his private satisfaction. Philip Galeas Visconti, Duke of Milan, was a man of a nature so timid, that thunder threw him into agonies; yet was he so inhuman, that he could _enjoy the shrieks of a female stretched upon a rack_. Wenceslaus, the German Emperor, say Mezeray, Voltaire, and others, _roasted his cook alive_, for dressing his dinner amiss; and never had so intimate a friend in Prague as the common executioner; and even _him_ he put to death at last, for not taking him at his word, when he once had bid him cut his head off, and actually knelt down to receive the stroke.

ANCIENT ROMAN LAMPS.

The earliest lamps fabricated by the potters of ancient Rome have an open circular body, with a curved projecting rim to prevent the oil from spilling, and occur both in terra-cotta, and also in the black glazed ware found in the sepulchres of Nola. Many have a projecting hollow pipe in the centre, in order to fix them to a stick on the top of a candelabrum. These lamps have no handles. They may have been placed in the sacella or lararia, and were turned on the potter's wheel.

The shoe-shaped is the most usual, with a round body, a projecting spout or nozzle having a hole for the wick, and a small annular handle, which is more or less raised.

Ancient Roman Lamp.]

A singular variety of lamp, well adapted for a table, was fitted into a kind of small altar, the sides of which were ornamented with reliefs. Several however, from their unusual shape, maybe considered as fancy ware, the upper part, or the whole lamp, being moulded into the resemblance of some object. Such are lamps in the British Museum in the shape of a female head surmounted by a flower, or of the head of a negro or Nubian with open jaws, through which the wick was inserted.

Most of these lamps appear to have been made between the age of Augustus and that of Constantine. The style, of course best at the earlier period of the empire, degenerates under the later emperors, such as Philip and Maximus, and becomes at last Byzantine and bad.

Most lamps had only one wick, but the light they afforded must have been feeble, and consequently some have two wicks, the nozzle for which project beyond the body of the lamp. In the same manner were fabricated lamps of three, five, and seven wicks. If more were required the nozzles did not project far beyond the body of the lamp, which was then moulded in a shape adapted for the purpose, and especially the favourite one of a galley. Sometimes a conglomeration of small lamps was manufactured in a row, or in a serrated shape, which enabled the purchaser to obtain what light he required; still the amount of illumination must have been feeble. As many as twenty wicks have been found in some lamps.

The greater number average from three to four inches long, and one inch high; the walls are about one-eighth of an inch thick, and the circular handles not more than one inch in diameter. Some of the larger lamps, however, are about nine inches or a foot long, with handles eight or nine inches high.

AN ECCENTRIC ENGLISHMAN.

Mr. Henry Hastings, a most singular character, and genuine sportsman lived in the time of James and Charles I. Mr. Hastings was second son to the Earl of Huntingdon; and inherited a good estate in Dorsetshire from his mother. He was one of the keepers of New Forest, Hampshire; and resided in the lodge there during a part of every summer season. But his principal residence was at Woodlands, in Dorsetshire, where he had a capital mansion. One of his nearest neighbours, was the Lord Chancellor Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury. Two men could not be more opposite in their disposition and pursuits. They had little communication therefore; and their occasional meetings were rendered more disagreeable to both from their opposite sentiments in politics. Lord Shaftesbury, who was the younger man, was the survivor; and the following account of Mr. Hastings is said to have been the production of his pen. "Mr. Hastings was low of stature, but very strong, and very active; of a ruddy complexion, with flaxen hair. His clothes were always of green cloth. His house was of the old fashion; in the midst of a large park, well stocked with deer, rabbits, and fish-ponds. He had a long narrow bowling-green in it; and used to play with round sand-bowls. Here, too, he had a banqueting-room built, like a stand in a large tree. He kept all sorts of hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and had hawks of all kinds, both long and short-winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow-bones; and full of hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. The upper end of it was hung with fox-skins of this and the last year's killing. Here and there a pole-cat was intermixed; and hunter's poles in great abundance. The parlour was a large room, completely furnished in the same style. On a broad hearth, paved with bricks, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels. One or two of the great chairs had litters of cats in them, which were not to be disturbed. Of these, three or four always attended him at dinner; and a little white wand lay by his trencher, to defend it, if they were too troublesome. In the windows, which were very large, lay his arrows, cross-bows, and other accoutrements. The corners of the room were filled with his best hunting and hawking poles. His oyster-table stood at the lower end of the room, which was in constant use twice a day, all the year round; for he never failed to eat oysters both at dinner and supper; with which the neighbouring town of Poole supplied him. At the upper end of the room stood a small table with a double desk; one side of which held a church Bible; the other, the Book of Martyrs. On different tables of the room lay hawks' hoods; bells, old hats with their crowns thrust in, full of pheasants' eggs, tables, dice, cards, and a store of tobacco pipes. At one end of this room was a door, which opened into a closet, where stood bottles of strong beer and wine, which never came out but in single glasses, which was the rule of the house; for he never exceeded himself, nor permitted others to exceed. Answering to this closet was a door into an old chapel, which had been long disused for devotion; but, in the pulpit, as the safest place, was always to be found a cold chine of beef, a venison pasty, a gammon of bacon, or a great apple-pie with thick crust, well baked. His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at. His sports supplied all but beef and mutton, except on Fridays, when he had the best of fish. He never wanted a London pudding; and he always sang it in with, "_My part lies therein-a._" He drank a glass or two of wine at meals; put syrup of gilly-flowers into his sack; and had always a tun-glass of small-beer standing by him, which he often stirred about with rosemary. He lived to be an hundred; and never lost his eyesight, nor used spectacles. He got on horseback without help; and rode to the death of the stag, till he was past fourscore."

PERFUMED BANQUETS OF THE ANCIENTS.

A very remarkable peculiarity in the banquets of the ancients was, their not confining the resources of the table to the gratification of one sense alone. Having exhausted their invention in the confection of stimulants for the palate, they broke new ground, and called in another sense to their aid; and by the delicate application of odours and richly-distilled perfumes, these refined voluptuaries aroused the fainting appetite, and added a more exquisite and ethereal enjoyment to the grosser pleasures of the board. The gratification of the sense of smelling (a sense held by us in very undeserved neglect, probably on account of its delicacy) was a subject of no little importance to the Romans. However this may be, it is certain that the Romans considered flowers as forming a very essential article in their festal preparations; and it is the opinion of Bassius, that at their desserts the number of flowers far exceeded that of fruits. When Nero supped in his Golden House, a mingled shower of flowers and odorous essences fell upon him; and one of Heliogabalus' recreations was to smother his courtiers with flowers, of whom it may be said, they "died of a rose in aromatic pain." Nor was it entirely as an object of luxury that the ancients made use of flowers; they were considered to possess sanative and medicinal qualities. According to Pliny, Athenaeus, and Plutarch, certain herbs and flowers were of sovereign power to prevent the approaches of ebriety, or, as Bassius less clearly expresses it, clarify the functions of the brain.

CHINESE BRIDGES.

Of Chinese bridges, some have been very much exaggerated in the accounts by Du Halde and the missionaries, as it appears from the later reports concerning the bridge at Foo-chow-foo, visited during the unsuccessful commercial voyage of the ship "Amherst," in 1832, and since the war become familiar to our countrymen. This same bridge, which proved a very poor structure after all, had been extolled by the Jesuits as something quite extraordinary. A bridge of ninety-one arches, being in fact a very long causeway, was passed by Lord Macartney between Soo-chow and Hang-chow, and near the Lake called Tae-hoo. The highest arch, however, was supposed to be between twenty and thirty feet in height, and the whole length of the causeway half a mile. It was thrown across an arm of the lake, on the eastern side of the canal. The late Sir George Staunton observed a bridge between Peking and Tartary, built across a river which was subject to being swelled by mountain floods. This was erected upon caissons of wattles filled with stones. It appeared to have been built with expedition, and at small cost, where the most solid bridge would be endangered by inundations. The caissons were fixed by large perpendicular spars, and over the whole were laid planks, hurdles, and gravel. It was only in Keang-nan that solid bridges were observed to be thrown over the canal, being constructed of coarse grey marble, or of a reddish granite. Some of the arches were semicircular, others the transverse section of an ellipse, and others again approached the shape of a horseshoe, or Greek [Greek: capital Omega], the space being widest at top. In the ornamental bridges that adorn gardens and pleasure-grounds, the arch is often of height sufficient to admit a boat under sail, and the bridge is ascended by steps.

Chinese Bridge.]

All the stones of a Chinese arch are commonly wedge-shaped, their sides forming radii which converge towards the centre of the curve. It is observable that, according to the opinion of Captain Parish, who surveyed and made plans of the Great Wall, no masonry could be superior to it. The arched and vaulted work was considered by him as exceedingly well turned. The Chinese, therefore, must have understood the construction and properties of the arch long before the Greeks and Romans, whose original and most ancient edifices consisted of columns, connected by straight architraves, of bulk sufficient to support the incumbent pressure of solid masonry.

SOCIABLE WEAVER-BIRD.

There are some birds whose social instinct impels them to live in company, and to unite their powers in the construction of a common edifice: in this respect resembling the Beaver among quadrupeds, and the Bee among insects. Among these we may mention the Ani (_Crotophaga ani_) of the West Indies; the Pensile Grosbeak (_Loxia pensilis_) of West Africa; and the Bottle-nested Sparrow of India: but more remarkable than any of these is the Sociable Grosbeak (_Loxia socialis_) of South Africa, whose habits are described by Le Vaillant.

"Figure to yourself," says this enterprising traveller, "a huge, irregular, sloping roof, with all the eaves completely covered with nests, crowded close together, and you will have a tolerably correct idea of these singular edifices." The birds commence this structure by forming the immense canopy of a mass of grass, so compact and firmly basketed together as to be impenetrable to the rain. This sometimes surrounds a large tree, giving it, but for the upper branches, somewhat the form of a mushroom. Beneath the eaves of this canopy the nests are formed; the upper surface is not used for this purpose, but as it is sloping, with a projecting rim, it serves to let the rain-water run off, and preserves each little dwelling from the wet. Le Vaillant procured one of these great shelters, and cut it in pieces with a hatchet: the chief portion consisted of Boshman's grass, so compact as to be impenetrable by rain. Each nest is three or four inches in diameter, which is sufficient for the bird; but, as they are all close together around the eaves, they appear to the eye to form but one building, and, in fact, are distinguishable from each other only by a little external aperture, which serves as an entrance to the nest. This large nest contained 320 inhabited cells.

WOLVES IN ENGLAND.

King Edward the First commissioned Peter Corbet to destroy the wolves in the counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Salop, and Stafford; and ordered John Gifford to hunt them in all the forests of England.

The forest of Chiltern was infested by wolves and wild bulls in the time of Edward the Confessor. William the Conqueror granted the lordship of Riddesdale, in Northumberland, to Robert de Umfraville, on condition of defending that part of the country against enemies and wolves. King John gave a premium of ten shillings for catching two wolves.

In the reign of King Henry the Third Vitalis de Engaine held the manors of Laxton and Pitchley, in the county of Northampton, by the service of hunting the wolf, whenever the king should command him. In the reign of Edward the First, it was found by inquisition that John de Engaine held the manor of Great Gidding, in the county of Huntingdon, by the service of hunting the hare, fox, wild cat, and wolf, within the counties of Huntingdon, Northampton, Buckingham, Oxford, and Rutland. In the reign of Edward the Third, Thomas de Engaine held certain manors by the service of finding, at his own proper cost, certain dogs for the destruction of wolves, foxes, martins, and wild cats in the counties of Northampton, Rutland, Oxford, Essex, and Buckingham.

TEMPLES OF BRAMBANAM.

In the island of Java, and not far from the ruins of Boro Buddor, are situated the Buddhist temples of Brambanam; certainly one of the most extraordinary groups of buildings of its class, and very unlike anything we now find in India; though there can scarcely be a doubt but that the whole is derived from an Indian original now lost.

The great temple is a square building above 45 ft. square, and 75 ft. high, terminating upwards in an octagonal straight-lined pyramid. On each face of this is a smaller temple of similar design joined to the great one by corridors; the whole five thus constituting a cruciform building. It is raised upon a richly ornamented square base. One of the smaller temples serves as an entrance-porch. The building itself is very curiously and richly ornamented with sculpture; but the most remarkable feature of the whole group is the multitude of smaller temples which surround the central one, 239 in number. Immediately beyond the square terrace which supports the central temple stand 28 of these, forming a square of 8 on each side, counting the angular ones both ways. Beyond these, at a distance of 35 ft., is the second square, 44 in number; between this and the next row is a wide space of above 80 ft., in which only 6 temples are situated, two in the centre of the north and south faces, and one on each of the others. The two outer rows of temples are situated close to one another, back to back, and are 160 in number, each face of the square they form being about 525 ft. All these 239 temples are similar to one another, about 12 ft. square at the base, and 22 ft. high, all richly carved and ornamented, and in every one is a small square cell, in which was originally placed a cross-legged figure, probably of one of the Jaina saints, though the drawings which have been hitherto published do not enable us to determine whom they represent--the persons who made them not being aware of the distinction between Buddhist and Jaina images.

The date given to these monuments by the natives is about the 9th or 10th century, at which time the Jains were making great progress at Guzerat and the western parts of India; and if the traditions are to be relied upon, which bring the Hindu colonists of Java from that quarter, it is almost certain that they would have brought that religion with them. If the age, however, that is assigned to them be correct, they are specimens of an earlier date and form than anything we now find in India, and less removed from the old Buddhist type than anything that now remains there.

GRAHAM ISLAND.

The most recent instance of subaqueous eruption, with which we are acquainted is that which produced Hotham or Graham Island, in the year 1831. This island was thrown up in the Mediterranean, between the south-west coast of Sicily and the African coast, in latitude 37 deg. 8' 30" north, and longitude 12 deg. 42' 15" east. The eruption seems to have been first observed by John Corrao, the captain of a Sicilian vessel, who passing near to the spot on the 10th of July, observed an immense column of water ejected from the sea to the height of sixty feet, and about eight hundred yards in circumference.

On the 16th of July, Corrao again passed the same spot, and he found that a small island had been formed, twelve feet high, with a crater in the centre, from which immense columns of vapour and masses of volcanic matter were ejected.

The island was afterwards visited by several scientific gentlemen, and is said to have been two hundred feet high, and three miles in circumference, on the 4th of August. But from this time the island decreased in size; for being composed of loose scoriae and pumice, it was rapidly acted upon by the water; and on the 3rd of September, when carefully measured by Captain Wodehouse, was only three-fifths of a mile in circumference, and one hundred and seven feet high. At the end of October the island had entirely disappeared, except one small point composed of sand and scoriae. Captain Swinburne examined the spot in the beginning of the year 1832, and found an extensive shoal to occupy the place where the island had once been. In 1833 there was a dangerous reef, of an oval form, three-fifths of a mile in circumference.

A ROYAL SPORTSMAN.

When the King of Naples (the greatest sportsman in Europe) was in Germany, about the year 1792, it was said in the German papers, that in the different times he had been shooting in Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia, he had killed 5 bears, 1,820 wild boars, 1,968 stags, 13 wolves, 354 foxes, 15,350 pheasants, 1,121 rabbits, 16,354 hares, 1,625 she-goats, 1,625 roebucks, and 12,435 partridges.

LIFE IN DEATH.

The wife of the consul of Cologne, Retchmuth, apparently died of the plague, in 1571; a ring of great value, with which she was buried, tempted the cupidity of the grave-digger, and was the cause of many future years of happiness. At night the purloiner marched to his plunder, and she revived. She lived to be the mother of three children, and, when deceased in reality, was re-buried in the same church, where a monument was erected, reciting the particulars above stated in German verse. A woman of Poictiers, being buried with four rings, tempted the resurrection-man, who _awoke_ the woman in the attempt, as he was rather rude in his mode of possessing them. She called out; he, being frightened, fled. The lady walked home, recovered, and had many children afterwards.

ROCK-CUT MONUMENTS OF ASIA MINOR.

The engraving below represents an example of rock-cut monuments which are found at Doganlu, in Asia Minor. They are placed on the rocky side of a narrow valley, and unconnected apparently with any great city or centre of population. Generally they are called tombs, but there are no chambers nor anything about them to indicate a funereal purpose, and the inscriptions which accompany them are not on the monuments themselves, nor do they refer to such a purpose. Altogether, they are certainly among the most mysterious remains of antiquity, and, beyond a certain similarity to the rock-cut tombs around Persepolis, it is not easy to point out any monuments that afford even a remote analogy to guide us in our conjectures. They are of a style of art clearly indicating a wooden origin, and consist of a square frontispiece, either carved into certain geometric shapes, or prepared apparently for painting; at each side is a flat pilaster, and above a pediment terminating in two scrolls. Some, apparently the more modern, have pillars of a rude Doric order, and all indeed are much more curious than beautiful. When more of the same class are discovered, they may help us to some historic data: all that we can now say of them is, that, judging from their inscriptions and the traditions in Herodotus, they seem to belong to some Indo-Germanic race from Thessaly, or thereabouts, who had crossed the Hellespont and settled in their neighbourhood; and their date is possibly as far back as 1000, and most probably before 700 B.C.

Rock-Cut Monument.]

ARCH OF TRAJAN AT BENEVENTUM.

Triumphal arches were among the most peculiar forms of art which the Romans borrowed from those around them, and used with that strange mixture of splendour and bad taste which characterises all their works.

Arch of Trajan at Beneventum.]

These were in the first instance no doubt borrowed from the Etruscans, as was also the ceremony of the triumph with which they were ultimately associated. At first they seem rather to have been used as festal entrances to the great public roads, whose construction was considered as one of the most important benefits a ruler could confer on his country. There was one erected at Rimini in honour of an important restoration of the Flaminian Way by Augustus; another at Susa in Piedmont, to commemorate a similar act of the same Emperor. Trajan built one on the pier at Ancona, when he restored that harbour, and another at Beneventum, when he repaired the Via Appia, represented in the woodcut here given. It is one of the best preserved as well as most graceful of its class in Italy. The arch of the Sergii at Pola in Istria seems also to have been erected for a like purpose. That of Hadrian at Athens, and another built by him at Antinoe in Egypt, were monuments merely commemorative of the benefits which he had conferred on those cities by the architectural works he had erected within their walls. By far the most important application of these gateways, in Rome at least, was to commemorate a triumph which may have passed along the road over which the arch was erected beforehand, for the triumphal procession to pass through, of which it would remain a memorial.

JUDGES' SALARIES.

In the reign of Henry III. the King's Justices enjoyed a salary of ten marks per annum, which, in the twenty-third year of that King, was augmented to twenty pounds, and soon after to more. Under Henry IV. the Chief Justices of the King's Bench and Common Pleas had forty pounds, and one of the judges of Common Pleas had fifty-five marks. In 1466, the salary of Thomas Littleton, judge of the King's Bench, amounted to L136 13s. 4d. modern money; besides about L17 7s. for his fur-gown, robes, &c.

EXTRAORDINARY OAK.

Gilpin, in his "Forest Scenery," says, "Close by the gate of the water-walk at Magdalen College, in Oxford, grew an oak, which perhaps stood there a sapling when Alfred the Great founded the university. This period only includes a space of nine hundred years, which is no great age for an oak. It is a difficult matter indeed to ascertain the age of a tree. The age of a castle or abbey is the object of history; even a common house is recorded by the families that built it. All these objects arrive at maturity in their youth, if I may so speak. But the tree, gradually completing its growth, is not worth recording in the early part of its existence. It is then only a common tree; and afterwards, when it becomes remarkable for its age, all memory of its youth is lost. This tree, however, can almost produce historical evidence for the age assigned to it. About five hundred years after the time of Alfred, William of Wainfleet, Dr. Stukely tells us, expressly ordered his college to be founded near the Great Oak; and an oak could not, I think, be less than five hundred years of age to merit that title, together with the honour of fixing the site of a college. When the magnificence of Cardinal Wolsey erected that handsome tower which is so ornamental to the whole building, this tree might probably be in the meridian of its glory, or rather, perhaps, it had attained a green old age. But it must have been manifestly in its decline at that memorable era when the tyranny of James gave the fellows of Magdalen so noble an opportunity of withstanding bigotry and superstition. It was afterwards much injured in Charles the Second's time, when the present walks were laid out. Its roots were disturbed, and from that period it declined fast, and became reduced by degrees to little more than a mere trunk. The oldest members of the university can scarcely recollect it in better plight. But the faithful records of history have handed down its ancient dimensions. Through a space of sixteen yards on every side from its trunk, it once flung its boughs, and under its magnificent pavilion could have sheltered with ease three thousand men, though in its decayed state it could for many years do little more than shelter some luckless individual whom the driving shower had overtaken in his evening walk. In the summer of 1788, this magnificent ruin fell to the ground, alarming the college with its rushing sound. It then appeared how precariously it had stood for many years. Its grand tap-root was decayed, and it had hold of the earth only by two or three roots, of which none was more than a couple of inches in diameter. From a part of its ruins a chair has been made for the President of the College, which will long continue its memory."

ECCENTRIC ADVERTISEMENT.

The following strange advertisement is copied from the Harleian MSS.: "_In Nova fert Animus_. These are to give notice, (for the benefit of the public,) that there is newly arrived from his travels, a gentleman, who, after above forty years' study, hath, by a wonderful blessing on his endeavours, discovered, as well the nature as the infallible cure of several strange diseases, which (though as yet not known to the world) he will plainly demonstrate to any ingenious artist, to be the greatest causes of the most common distempers incident to the body of man. The names of which take as follow:

The strong fives
The marthambles
The moon-pall
The hockogrocle.

"Now, though the names, natures, symptoms, and several cures of these diseases, are altogether unknown to our greatest physicians, and the particular knowledge of them would (if concealed) be a vast advantage to the aforesaid person; yet, he well knowing that his country's good is to be preferred to his private interest, doth hereby promise all sorts of people, a faithful cure of all or any of the diseases aforesaid, at as reasonable rates as our modern doctors have for that of any common distemper.

"He is spoken with at the ordinary hours of business, at the Three Compasses, in Maiden-lane."

MODERN EGYPTIAN FEMALE ORNAMENTS.

Ckoo'r.]