Page images
PDF
EPUB

ket people, and others. There is no invidious or con-exertions. Year after year passed away ere he even temptuous epithet applied to the Wagon-no calling it obtained the chance of arriving at success. Yet he the Tub, and making people stand up to deter them from never drooped, nor was his time thrown away. Conresorting to it-there is no contrivance to render certain tinuing to study nature with ardent diligence, he carriages inconvenient in order that you should be forced made rapid progress towards perfection both in conto select a more expensive seat elsewhere-plans which,ceiving and executing. He was yet unknown, how-the result, as might have been expected where a com whilst they manifest a narrow and unaccommodating spirit, reflect upon the impolicy and short-sightedness of those who devise them, and prove that they have formed an erroneous estimate of the proper mode of acting upon the taste and feeling of the public. The class-arrange ments of the foreign railroads (I speak of the German and Belgian lines) are such as show that the directors know how to meet the wants and appreciate the tastes of the people better than we do at present. People fall into that class which suits them, and where they meet with persons of that station of life with whom they are accustomed to associate ordinarily. These and other considerations cause travellers to select their seats with reference to comfort, and not to do as many do, choose the Tub, or an inferior class, because the second-class is so uncomfortable that there is no alternative between the first and third, or no intermediate carriage to tempt them."

BIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES.

SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY.

FRANCIS CHANTREY was born at Norton, a village on the borders of Derbyshire, on the 7th of April, 1782. His family was respectable, some branches of it being yet possessed of considerable heritable property. Agriculture was the occupation of his immediate progenitors; and, though not wealthy, his mother, who was prematurely left a widow, was able to educate her only child respectably. Francis was sent to the school at Norton; and up to his sixteenth or seventeenth year, passed his time betwixt that place and the paternal farm. It is said, that in very early boyhood he amused the leisure hours of his agricultural terms by making clay men, as well as other figures with the same material. Nevertheless, though the promptings of natural genius were thus far indicated, he never entertained a thought of turning his attention permanently to such pursuits, most probably from his having no opportunity of witnessing any workings in statuary that could stimulate his latent powers. Accordingly, not being an enthusiast in agriculture, he resolved, or was advised, to study the law under a solicitor at Sheffield. All was arranged for this purpose, and the day was fixed when Chantrey should go to Sheffield and meet some friends who were to witness his entrance on his apprenticeship. A full hour before the time, the young man reached the town; and in order to while away the interval, he walked up and down the streets, little deeming, when he commenced his stroll, that those few minutes were to form the crisis of his life. So the case turned out. The window of one Ramsay, a carver and gilder, attracted the eye of Chantrey. He stopped to gaze on various figures there; and as he gazed, emotions novel and unexpected were awakened within him. The strongest and finest chord in his nature was struck forcibly and at once, and the tones elicited were so powerful as to drown all the deterring whispers of youthful timidity or shame. Chantrey turned from the window with his resolve firmly taken -"I will be an artist."

The counsels of friends made no change in his determination. In place of articling himself to the Sheffield solicitor, young Chantrey went and bound himself to the carver and gilder Ramsay. The work to which he was here set by no means suited his expectations; but he found a compensation in the voluntary tasks of his leisure hours. Drawing and modelling were his amusements, and for these he forsook all the pleasures natural to his age. The people of Sheffield yet speak of the gleaming of the lamp, through the long hours of night, from the window of the young lover of art, when, in his enthusiasm, he forgot day and night, and all around him, save the ripening conceptions of his creative fancy. Ile had no teacher to aid him in his progress. He drew and modelled after nature, and his rules of art were the rules of nature. His master repressed rather than encouraged his attempts; yet, ere the three years of his engagement with Ramsay had closed, the casual productions of Chantrey had begun to attract some notice; so much so, that various friends, some of them gentlemen of taste and respectability, strongly advised the young artist to go to London, and apply himself directly to the pursuit of the art of statuary. As his kind mother was one of those who had penetration enough to perceive the high promise of her son's modellings-a promise which she lived to see amply fulfilled-Chantrey found no difficulty in purchasing a release from the latter term of his engagement with Ramsay.

The future sculptor was in his twentieth year when he settled in London, the date being May 1802. His entrance upon that great field of success and failure was as unpromising as might well be. No proofs of study nor flattering testimonials from teachers had he, for he was entirely self-instructed; and at the very close of his life the case was the same, as we find him then saying, that "he never had received a lesson in art in his life." No handsome studio, rich with the evidences of talent, had he to attract employers; he was poor, and his works were to execute. He had almost no acquaintances, to leave friends and patrons out of the question. In short, he had to climb the steep path to eminence solely by his own unaided

ever, after a cheerless period of seven or eight years, when, almost by chance, he was employed to execute a bust of Horne Tooke, then the Nestor, as it were, of liberalism in Great Britain, from whose lips the younger adherents to the same principles were content to draw inspiration. The execution of this work formed an era in Chantrey's career. The mere features of the ancient adversary of Junius were not only given to the marble, but the sculptor succeeded also in conveying with them that expression of keen penetration and sagacity which characterised the living individual. Horne Tooke was widely known, and numbered among his friends Sir Francis Burdett, and many other persons both wealthy and influential. Their attention was called to Chantrey; and in the course of one month, as he himself tells us, orders poured upon him to the pecuniary amount of five or six thousand pounds. The opportunity had alone been wanted; and when it did come, he stepped, by one effort of genius, from obscurity to eminence, from poverty to wealth.

Chantrey immediately (in 1810) fixed his residence in Pimlico, and erected there a studio for his labours. His earliest works, after this period, were chiefly busts; and it is universally admitted that he never excelled, at any future period, the productions of this order then executed by him. His first prominent public work was the statue of George III., for the city of London. His design for this monument, though the one approved of, was almost rendered unsuccessful by a curious cause. Mr Chantrey handled the pencil as well as the chisel; and such was the beauty of his design, that one of the Common Councilmen observed-" This artist is a painter, and must therefore be incapable of executing a work of sculpture." The remark called the attention of others to the subject, and they summoned Chantrey. "What say you, sir," said Sir W. Curtis; "are you a painter or a sculptor?" "I live by sculpture," simply answered Chantrey. The task was confided to him without more words, and he produced a statue, the ease, dignity, and versimilitude of which render it one of the chief public monuments of the British capital.

While engaged on this statue, another commission was given to him, the result of which was the production of a work held to this hour one of the most finished specimens of English sculpture, and known by engravings over the whole civilised world. This was a monument to the memory of the daughter of Mr Johnes of Hafod, translator of Froissart. In this work, Chantrey's peculiarities of style were first fully developed. Blindly following the customs of their predecessors, sculptors continued, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, to expend all their power upon emblematic figures, allegorical groups, and imaginary mythological models. The powerful examples of Canova and Thorwaldsen have, indeed, done much to sustain the system to this hour. Chantrey adopted and acted on very different principles. With a mind unbiassed by the regulations of the schools, he followed nature alone as his guide. The perpetual repetitions of Britannia, Victory, Peace, Justice, and the like, upon our public monuments, and of Piety, Hope, Religion, Virtue, &c., on private ones, were things too forced and strained to accord with his simple taste. The object of monumental sculpture is to perpetuate the remembrance of the great or the good, and to call up in the minds of the spectators appropriate emotions of sympathy and regret for their loss. Who ever shed tears with Britannia, or participated in the feelings of any others of these frigid generalities? The sculpture may be admired as a work of art; but it is then a monument, at best, only to the artist, not to the occupant of the tomb. Chantrey threw off all conventional trammels, and sought to make his monuments what common sense dictated that they should be. The monument at Hafod, for example, introduces the real party concerned, and presents an exquisite scene of domestic sorrow, exalted by the meditative beauty thrown over the main figure. Another splendid example of Chantrey's art is to be seen in the monument in Lichfield Cathedral, where two lamented sisters are figured asleep in each other's arms. The grace and beauty of the forms cannot be depicted in words; nor can the pen express the skill with which the state of calm and profound repose is imaged forth. Suffice it to say, that the spectator views this group with breathless awe, and that the marble portraiture of "death's counterfeit, balmy sleep," causes the tear to start at thought of the fair innocents, prematurely plunged into the deeper slumbers of the grave itself. Such, surely, is the effect that a monument to the dead should produce; and if the beholders should turn away, in such a case, without even asking the artist's name, a higher compliment would then be paid to him than if his skill had been the sole object of their admiration.

The Lichfield monument was modelled by Chantrey in 1816. Before that time, however, he had been called to execute several public works, and in all of them the same principles were displayed. He executed, for the Scottish Court of Session, a statue of Lord President Blair-a noble work, embodying

vividly in marble the calm, thoughtful, and discriminative expression of that judge's features. Another figure, executed by the sculptor for Scotland, was that of Lord Melville. A bust of Professor Playfair was also modelled by Chantrey, and a beautiful work was petent artist had so intellectual a head to work upon. In 1814, Chantrey produced for St Paul's two historical monuments for Colonel Cadogan and General Bowes. Before and after the Hundred Days, the artist visited Paris, and saw the great collection of ancient works of art in the Louvre, ere the fall of Napoleon scattered them anew over Europe. Though he felt and acknowledged the beauty of these works, they did not change his style, as the Lichfield monument immediately afterwards proved. A similar proof was given by another of his most celebrated and truly classical works, the statue of Lady Louisa Russel, a child of the Bedford house, who is represented breast. So exquisite is the simplicity and fidelity to as standing on tiptoe and fondling a dove on her nature of this figure, that children of three years old, or so, have been observed to address it, in the perfect assurance of receiving an answer from their playmate.

Advancing every day in public favour, Mr. Chantrey successively executed, among a multitude of private busts and statues, those of Rennie the engineer, James Watt, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Walter Scott, and many others. Equestrian statues of George IV. and the Duke of Wellington (the latter for the city of London) were also executed by Chantrey, who was knighted by William IV. in 1835. He was offered a baronetcy shortly afterwards, but declined it on account of his want of personal heirs.

In the latter years of Chantrey he was an honoured and admired man, as his works had deserved that he should be. His statuary establishment became an extensive and splendid one, being intrusted to his valued friend Allan Cunningham, the distinguished poet, as secretary and manager of the works. Sir Francis for some time had been, not in ill health, but in such a condition of body that his friends had expected to find him fall a victim to apoplexy; and, on the 25th of November 1841, he was seized with that disease, and expired at his house in Pimlico.

Sir Francis Chantrey was about five feet seven inches in height, with a fine face, and an address at once pleasing and courteous. At his death he left, from the ample fortune accumulated by him, provision at once for the maintenance of the arts which he loved, and for the support of the poor, with whom his kind heart deeply sympathised,

PEDESTRIAN TOUR IN SWITZERLAND.

MONT BLANC.

AUGUST 27.-We intended, if the weather favoured us, to spend the day on the Mer de Glace, and some of the other glaciers of Mont Blanc ; and, if we could accomplish it, to penetrate as far as the Jardin, in the glacier of Talefre. The sky, so far as visible from the depths of the valley of Chamouni, was of stainless blue, and promised a day exactly adapted to our purpose. When we had taken a very early breakfast, a guide was sent for, and we held a consultation under his auspices. He seemed a shrewd, sensible fellow, whose words were few, simple, and explanatory, for he probably saw, from our travel-stained aspect, and, indeed, we very distinctly explained to him, that the usual operations for impressing the visiters of the glacier with an awful consciousness of its perils and horrors would be very much thrown away upon us. He had the discretion not to propose cramps for the feet, or ropes about the waist and here let me remark, that the guide who subjects his protegées to these portentous preparations, indicates thereby a palpable design to lead them through a series of dangers corresponding to the extent of the precautions. The duty of a guide on the glacier is indeed precisely that of a pilot, who is expected rather to avoid dangerous places than to rescue those who have encountered them. There is an analogy between the perilous inequalities of the glacier and breakers at sea, for both are caused by the same circumstance, namely, by rocky projections on the terrestrial surface, covered by water in the one case, and by ice in the other. When the glacier moves over a smooth unbroken level, its own surface is equally plain, and though intercepted by numerous cracks or fissures, these have a certain uniformity in their arrangement, running parallel to each other, and appearing at tolerably regular intervals. But when the ice, in its descent, encounters rocks, or is pressed through narrow openings between precipices, it is tossed into a chaos of spikey and precipitous icebergs, beetling over yawning caverns, for the bottom of which the eye searches in vain. The professional skill of the guide is exemplified in a knowledge of the parts of the glacier where these formidable inequalities occur, and it is his duty to conduct his employers by the least dangerous route. There is one instrument, however, without which no one should venture on the glacier-the alpen-stock, or spiked pole, so serviceable in leaping the chasms, and giving support on narrow ledges or abrupt slopes of ice. Not being prepared for the extent of service we required of these instruments, we thoughtlessly accepted the loan from the guide of some which had previously been used. I would recommend to any one who intends to penetrate to the Jardin, to buy a new pole

for the purpose, as this one expedition will fully
exhaust its capabilities for use.
Our path lay first through gentle meadows, reposing
in the shadow of the hills, and then we crossed the
fierce Arve, and began the ascent of the forest girdle
of Mont Blane, or, as this particular spur of the moun-
tain is called, of the Montanvert. Mile after mile we
kept ascending the steep bank by a rutty pathway,
ribbed here and there by the mossy roots of a dense
forest, and, in other places, overwhelmed by the
chaotic debris of the spring avalanches. There is no
feature in the scenery of Switzerland from which I
have had more enjoyment than in the long walks
under the shade of great pine forests. There is some-
thing so solemn and majestic, and so suited to the
scenery it is cast among in the pine, whether we en-
counter it among the dark heather hills of Scotland,
or on the turved and wavy mounds of the Black Forest,
or clustering round the base of the snowy Alps, that
one feels his heart less worldly, and his thoughts more
solemn, in those deep solitudes,

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pino
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

In our ascent, we had an opportunity of observing how a French family could turn their means to the best account. There were two ladies among the party, and while one rode on the back of a mule, another kept hold of the tail, and was in that manner assisted up the acclivity. So dense was the canopy of pines overhead, that only at a few points could we obtain any view of the surrounding scenery. At these we could see the village of Chamouni apparently under our feet, with the Arve looking like a tiny brook, the broad meadows like paddocks, and the inhabitants like Lilliputians. At some other points we saw, glimmering through the dark foliage, the broad white masses of the glacier, and the dark rocks rising here and there from its surface. At length we reached the edge of the forest, and looked down from a range of rocks on the mighty ocean of ice to which we were about to commit ourselves. Here there is a house of refreshment, called the Pavilion. After we had passed it a mile or two, and while we were seated contemplating the view, there came to us two beautiful kids-the most gracefully-formed creatures of the kind I had ever seen-clamorously demanding marks of attention from us. One of them was fawn-coloured, and the other pure white. The latter had taken a peculiar fancy to me-it scraped me with its sharp little hoofs till I was fain to cry mercy; and varying the method of its kindness, leapt on my shoulder, and rubbed its head on my cheek, to the imminent risk of poking out my eyes with its little horns. Truly, these children of the desert had found nothing but kindness and good faith among the few members of the human family it had been their fate to encounter. The milk-white kid followed us for some distance, and when it saw at last that part we must, it looked after us most wistfully and affectionately from the top of a small rock as long as we were in sight. When we reached the point where we were to descend upon the ice, we were told that we had then walked three leagues or nine miles from Chamouni, and were half way to the Jardin. We were upwards of 7000 feet above the sea level, and the place of our destination was nearly 3090 farther up. The descent was a tedious and laborious business. We had to work our way down the sides of rocks, with occasional notches cut in them to facilitate the progress, and then we had to cross the moraine of the glacier. The moraine is a heap of rubbish-if stones or rocks sometimes eighty or a hundred feet high can admit of so depreciatory an appellative-ranged, to a greater or less extent, along the side of each glacier. It is, in fact, the hard stream of ice depositing upon its border its still harder scum of rock. In the case of the Mer de Glace, the moraine is on a prodigious scale-it is a little mountain range of itself, with its valleys and precipices.

And now, letting it be understood that we have our feet on the ice, instead of detailing individually, as it occurred, every object and incident that might seem worthy of notice, I propose to give, in a few words, a collective and general view of the objects most likely to attract the attention of the traveller on the glacier. There are few readers of this narrative who will not have had an opportunity, in the columns of the publication in which it appears, of making themselves acquainted with the natural history of glaciers. They lie in those deep valleys which form grooves between the snowy summits of the higher alps, and the plains or wide valleys at their bases. The masses of congealed matter formed in the upper regions by the fall of snow and hail, and by the refrigeration of those portions of the snowy matter which may have been melted by the heat of the sun, gradually find their way into these grooves, and thus descend the mountain side, conveying an icy stream into the temperate regions below. A great proportion of the glacier is in a temperature far warmer than that of perpetual congelation, but it carries its own frost along with it. As it melts away into a river, its bulk is supplied from above; and from its great thickness, being generally from 150 to 300 feet, its own inherent coldness provides it with a local freezing temperature in all its parts, with the exception of a stratum on its upper and another at its lower surface. The former is only occasionally warmed and melted by the heat of the summer sun; the latter is kept in a perpetual state of fusion by the internal warmth or caloric of the earth. It thus happens that the lower stratum, as it were, of

the ice, is perpetually losing bulk, which is supplied, | valuable as an instrument for balancing the person in by some action or other (as to which naturalists are narrow ledges, and without it, the passage of the not agreed), from the higher layers. It is believed glacier would be certainly very formidable. It often that the lower portion of every glacier is triturated happens that the surface of the wall of ice between into a succession of caverns, so that the superincum- two chasms is not above an inch or two wide. For bent mass, like the strata over an exhausted coal field, some feet, however, it slopes down gradually on either is supported on a multitude of pillars; but the visiters side, as the roof of a house does from the apex to the who return after a descent into these regions of ice edge of the wall; on this slope, when the cavern is and torrent, where death meets them in so many not wide, it is easy to walk with the body slanting forms, have been too scanty to provide much informa- over the abyss, and balanced by sticking the alpention about its mysterious terrors. There are two stock in the corresponding slope on the other side. A principles of motion almost perpetually at work in the little practice makes one quite familiar with such glacier; the one, the simply mechanical operation of a operations. A false step, to be sure, is destruction; descent from the higher to the lower regions-a mo- but in how many of the operations of every-day city tion so slow, that it will take centuries to convey a life would a false step place one in imminent hazard! stone for a few miles in this slothful but irresistible A slip on a flight of steps will be likely to cause the vehicle. The other principle of motion is in the fracture of a limb; and a stumble in a crossing of the chemical influence of the alternate freezing and Strand would be almost certain to finish our earthly solution of portions of the mass according to the pilgrimage. change in temperature, and the subsidiary agents set at work by the same phenomena, namely, the escape of compressed air through the cracks in the ice, and the torrents set in motion by its conversion into water, &c. Those who have witnessed the effect of the crystallisation of water into ice in bursting vessels for ordinary domestic use, will readily imagine the terrific phenomena which must accompany the same agency in a mass of ice varying from 150 to 300 feet in thickness. In spring, when large portions of the ice are thawed during the day and refrozen in the night, the glacier startles the echoes of the quiet valleys around by the continued roar of its artillery. At all times, there is more or less of cracking and crashing going on, and more than once were our steps arrested by a loud report, as if a cannon had boomed forth from beneath our feet.

Independently of the moraines at its edge, great rocks, and masses of triturated rubbish, are borne along on the surface of the glacier. The methods by which it gets possession of these relics of the mountain top are two. By one process, it insidiously removes masses of rock by the expansive power of frost acting on the interstices; by the other process, it boldly knocks them down with an avalanche, and carries them off in triumph. The larger rocks, when they reach the lower part of the glacier, protect the ice immediately under them from the heat of the sun; and so, while the general surface of the glacier is becoming melted to a lower level, they become raised on the top of a pedestal, where they remain till it is too long and slender to support them, and then they fall with a crash. We saw many of these raised high in air, looking like gigantic mushrooms, or, if a more domestic simile be wanted, like stone music-stools, on which the spirit of the storm might be supposed to perform his wild symphonies. Far different is the fate of the smaller fragments. Becoming heated with the effect of the sun, they melt their way into the ice, where they make cavities, filled with translucent water. It will happen sometimes that the water collected on the surface of the ice by the operation of the mid-day sun, going about hither and thither in search of an outlet, comes to this hollow, which it immediately enlarges, and either by finding a passage through it into one of the cracks of the ice, or by working its way steadily downwards, reaches the cavernous bottom of the cake of ice, and joins the great river issuing from it. Other rills join and enlarge the torrent, and thus it happens, that what was in the morning a round hole the size of a punch-bowl, with sides of the most exquisite cerulian blue, and filled with water pellucid as crystal, becomes, ore evening, a yawning rent, hundreds of feet deep, into whose black jaws descends a fierce and roaring cataract. As the day advanced, and the sun acted strongly on the surface, we beheld many of these wild torrents, and a fearful and exciting thing it was to look down through the pits into which they fall, and sce their blue sides deepening into blackness, till the eye loses all trace of the cataract, and sees its white foam disappear in the darkness. The rents in the glacier are seldom quite perpendicular; and as a bulge on one side is met by a corresponding recess on the other, we could seldom see far into them. Even where they seemed to run straight down, however, we could never see the bottom; and it was only by toppling in the huge stones, lying in multitudes on the edges, and hearing their descent from bank to bank, that we could form an estimate of the great depth of the fissures.

Crossing a glacier with an experienced guide, we found to be by no means so difficult or dangerous an operation as we anticipated. The ice is not so compact and brittle as that formed by the congealing of pure water, but spongy and porous. The quantities of gravel and rubbish on the surface honeycomb it, each particle melting the ice it lies on by the heat acquired from the sun, and thus there is a level but rough surface, pleasant to the foot, which reminded us of an asphaltum pavement. With such a footing, if a man be strong-headed and tolerably circumspect, and if he knows how far he can loap, he need have no dread of crossing a glacier. The alpen-stock is in

themselves at the bottom of the cake of ice, where they are Meanwhile, by such and other means, the small stones find carried about in accordance with its motions. A stone thus stuck in the lower part of a moving glacier will score the rock it moves over, just as a grain of sand stuck to the bottom of a decanter will score a mahogany table as it is pushed along. It is in this cirits origin. cumstance that the renowned theory of glacial scratches has had

We crossed the glacier nearly in a direction from south to north, and then left it, to scramble round the rocks at the base of the Aiguille de Taléfre, which runs its sharp peak several thousand feet up. The line of glacier is continuous; but it here materially changes its level through a portion which is called the glacier of Lechaud; and for the reason already stated, instead of a tolerably flat surface intercepted by clefts, this portion of the waste of ice is a chaos of stormy-looking icebergs, rising horn-shaped and spikey, and affording no chance of a passage. While clambering among the rocks of the Taléfre, we met the only human being we saw within the region of ice-a chamois hunter fol lowing his trade. This man was a pure child of the wilderness, with all the "savage wildness" of "a dweller cut of doors." One could imagine him indigenous to the snows and rocks he was surrounded by. His costume had not the fastidiousness of being even in any way national; it was a simple putting together of all convenient and accessible pieces of manufactured texture, on two simple principles-the preservation of warmth, and the freedom of motion. He had a heavy business-looking rifle, which must at one time have been a costly article. There was neither obsequiousness nor rudeness in the man's manner; he was a gentleman after his own fashion-for who could catch vulgarity by converse with the avalanches and the cataracts 1and we exchanged some compliments in reference to tobacco and the lighting of pipes, with a hearty good fellowship. Having circumnavigated, as it were, the dangerous glacier of Lechaud, we descended again upon the ice, on the glacier of Taléfre. Here, being on a higher level, from 9000 to 10,000 feet above the sea, we were within the line where the snow falls at all seasons, and, covering the openings of the rents with a thin treacherous coating, renders the services of a guide doubly necessary. At one place we passed along a steep bank where the new snow had been melted by the sun, and converted into a deep slush, which afforded a most unpleasant footing.

At length we reached the Jardin, or Garden, so called from its being the highest spot where there is a space free from snow, on which bright-coloured lichens and the smaller Alpine plants produce the effect of a garden smiling amidat everlasting winter. Here we rested and refreshed ourselves, and took a leisurely survey of the wondrous scenery by which we were surrounded. It was literally like a boundless sea of ice, from which there shot up multitudes of the spikey narrow rocks, so descriptively called aiguilles or needles. Grand, however, as were these towering rocks, we were bound to admit that they were inforior in their proportions to the giant masses of the Jungfrau, the Eigher, and the other members of the Oberland range. Mont Blanc is a higher mountain than any one of them, but it does not present anywhere at one view so large an amount of perpendicular precipice, and is much broken into details. But there was a feature of solemn grandeur here, which compensated for the difference in the size of the masses. In the Oberland, if we had snow and rocks on one side, the other might exhibit pastures, or chalets, or forests; but here, all around us was a wide ocean of ico. The guide almost startled us by remarking, how impossible it would be for us to retrace the path by which we had reached that spot. When I looked around, indeed, I felt how entirely our fate depended on the skill of our hired attendant, and that the mariner deposited on a solitary rock in the far ocean could not feel more desolate and helpless than we would have been on such a spot without a pilot. But it was getting cold, and the sun was beginning to cast his rays slantingly across the snows, so we started to our feet, and said we must return home. Yes, it was literally returning home, for now our leisure for wandering was at an end, and, some twelve hundred miles or so from our own doors, we turned cur steps for the first time towards them, with the intention of returning with the utmost rapidity. It was not without some regret that we bade adieu to the wandering life we had been leading for some time past-for vagabondism has many charms.

Returning along the bank, where we had sunk nearly knee-deep in melted snow, we found the effect of the rapid operation of the frosts which, since the sun had hid his head, had made the surface slippery and brittle. As we went along, the line of the sun's rays, leaving entirely the surface of ice, climbed higher and higher up the needle-like rocks, and bathed them in a reddish-purple light, which grew warmer and warmer as the rim of shadow rose higher

up towards their summits. The sky at the same time astonished us by the wondrous depth and beauty of its blue. It was such a blue as I cannot describe otherwise than by saying, that any colour of sky or water I had ever seen before was muddy and opaque in comparison with its heavenly brightness. The hill side was in deep shadow when we clomb the rocky barrier of the Mer de Glace, and so varied and full of interest had been our excursion, that it was difficult to believe we had walked eighteen miles on the ice. The shade of the trees gave addition to the gloom, and we passed down the forest girdle in deep darkness. It was ten o'clock when we reached the brilliant and thronging inn at Chamouni, and we had occupied between fifteen and sixteen hours in the excursion.

Of our journey homewards through regions already described, nothing, it is presumed, need be said; and so here finishes these rough notes of our pedestrian excursion in Switzerland and Savoy.

PROPOSED FOURTH COLONY IN NEW

ZEALAND.

THE New Zealand Company has now established three distinct settlements in that region, all of which may be presumed to be prospering, since nothing to the contrary purport ever obtrudes itself upon public notice. We have not for some time been attending to the proceedings connected with this great effort in colonisation, but we believe these have been characterised by extraordinary activity, and that the original plans of the company have been in all respects honourably adhered to. Our attention has now been drawn by the proposal of a fourth settlement, in which, it ap pears to us, a remarkable advance is made towards that perfect facilitation to the efflux of our population into the waste territories of the British crown, which seems to be generally held as desirable in the present posture of our affairs.

sufficient time has elapsed for the proximate comple-
tion of these important operations, or some of them,
the first body of colonists, consisting of a due propor-
tion of capitalists and labourers, should be dispatched
from this country.

Under these arrangements, the new settlement will
present a field for the immediate commencement of
productive industry. The impediments to early pro-
gress which occurred in the first experimental colonies
will be removed; the labour and cost of landing and
conveying the goods of the settlers will be abridged;
the settlers, on their arrival, will not be exposed to
hardship and privation; they will be placed at once
upon their locations, and will be enabled to purchase
at moderate prices the seed and stock previously pro-
vided by the company. The capital which ought to
be devoted to immediate cultivation will not be ex-
ported for the purchase of provisions. The settlement
will be made from the first an appropriate residence
for a civilised community."

costing the same as the one; and when killed, the two weighed 140 stone, while the short-horned beast only weighed 110 stone, and it had eaten more food than the two Devons. Mr Coke considers the North Devons as by far the best for ploughing. As we passed slowly along through the park, Mr Coke gave us a very interesting account of the way in which his attention was first directed to agricultural pursuits. "When," said he, "I came to the Holkham estate, in 1776, the land had been let for two leases of twenty-one years each, at 3s. per acre; the leases came out in 1778, and I then offered the tenants new leases at 5s. per acre, tithe-free, but my offer was refused, and I was compelled to turn farmer, or take 3s. per acre. I chose the former; and having been favoured with a long life, have certainly seen the estate greatly improved. When I came to it, the rental was only L.1400 a-year, but now I make L.2500 a-year of the thinnings of my plantations; at that time upwards of 10,000 quarters of wheat were imported annually at the port of Wells, now there is full that quantity exported from the same place; at that time the population of Holkham was under 200, now it exceeds 1100, and all fully employed; at that period (1776), on 4500 acres of land, which now form Holkham Park, there were only 800 sheep kept; I have since planted 2500 acres, and now keep 2500 sleep." We were also highly amused by an account from Mr Coke of his first visit to his majesty William IV., whose hand he shook, instead of kissing it. The king gave him a hearty welcome, and then said, "Now, Coke, go home and take care of your freeholders." It is worth a journey of a hundred miles to see the village of Holkham: what a contrast does it present to that of Houghton, which we visited the day before! In Holkham every cottage is neat and clean; each cottage has a garden of considerable size, and for this neat house and garden he is charged two guineas a-year rent; it was not needful for me to ask if

The mode of proceeding is thus explained :-It is proposed that the company shall select 100,600 acres of land for the settlement. The 600 acres are to form a town, 200 being reserved for roads, streets, public works, &c., and 400 disposed in 1600 lots of a quarter of an acre each. To 1000 of these lots will be attached a suburban section of 20 acres, and a rural section of 80 acres, making up in all the 100,600 acres. The 600 town lots at L.25 each, and the 1000 lots of all three kinds of land at L.125 each, will bring L.140,000, which it is proposed to employ in this manner, namely, L.40,000 for defraying expenses not otherwise charge able, for guarding against unforeseen difficulties, and for the company's commission upon the transac the poor men valued their gardens; the absence of weeds, tion; and L.100,000 for the expenses of surveys and the neat clipped hedges which surrounded them, and the management, the formation of roads, wharfs, bridges, excellent crops which they exhibited, told me, in lanand buildings for the reception of the first emigrants, guage I could not misunderstand, that they were highly and for emigration. Mr Rennie adds-" By this ar- prized by their possessors. I wish that all those gentlerangement, after setting aside an adequate sum for men who suffer their cottages to be without the comfort the company's expenses and remuneration, the large of a garden, could be prevailed upon to visit the village of fund of L.100,000 will be employed in defraying the Holkham, and to follow the excellent example which is expense of the surveys and management, in sending there set them. In the centre of the village is a school, which is under the peculiar care of Lady Anne. Such, A great evil, or at least a monstrous inconvenience, out labour to the colony, and in effecting those imindeed, is the attention bestowed upon this village, such has been experienced in every one of the recent Aus-provements by which labour is abridged. This ar inhabitants should eat the bread of industry and peace, tralian settlements, and all those of the New Zealand rangement will be found more beneficial to the capi- the anxiety on the part of its owner and his lady that its talist who employs labour, than that of devoting a that, were I to judge only from outward circumstances, archipelago, in the arrival of great numbers of settlers larger portion of the proceeds of the land-sales to I should at once say the inhabitants of this village must upon the ground before the lands had been surveyed, emigration, as was done in the former settlements be happy. While looking at the crops of potatoes in the or any other preparation made for them. One or two founded by the company. The quantity of work per gardens, we had from Mr Coke some interesting hints and formed by two labourers, in a settlement provided observations on the culture of that useful root. He inyears were in general lost before the survey alone was with wharfs, roads, and bridges, will be greater than troduced it himself on the Holkham estate, but five years completed; during which time, the settlers could that which could be performed by those labourers on elapsed before he could prevail upon the poor people to exercise scarcely any productive industry, and were a settlement not provided with these important faci- eat or cultivate it, such were their strong prejudices obliged to spend their capital upon high-priced articles lities for rendering industry effective. Immediate la- against the stranger he introduced amongst them: he of necessity imported from the home country. In one bour, when not aided by the results of previous labour, offered them land upon which to plant it without rent, can accomplish little: when the means of communibut in vain, until at last he introduced the ox noble, a instance, at least, this delay gave occasion to a land- cation are imperfect, a great portion of the available very large species, when they consented to raise a few,

jobbing and speculative system, which has cast a shade tion perhaps of habits which it may require much time over the first years of the colony, and laid the foundato get quit of. We have always felt the force of this obstruction to colonisation, but supposed that it was just one of those difficulties which could not be over come, and which it was therefore necessary to submit to. We find, however, that this view has not been everywhere adopted. A plan for extinguishing it has been suggested by Mr George Rennie, late M.P. for Ipswich, who, we suppose, must be considered as the author of the proposal for a fourth colony in New Zealand, since he takes the lead in proposing it to the New Zealand Company. "Mr Rennie is of a family famous in the annals of Scottish agriculture-a family who have also earned a high name in science and art: he is himself a practical agriculturist, a sculptor, versed in the useful sister art of architecture, with a capacity for business, and willing to employ his capital as well as énergies in a career that promises to blend public usefulness with profitable investment."* His scheme is proposed in a letter to the company, of date the 28th of July 1842.

Mr Rennie proposes that this fourth settlement shall be made upon the east shore of the Middle Island, which "presents the very important advantage of having been already examined, and found to comprise an ample extent of fertile land, and to contain several safe and commodious harbours." He continues-" An advantageous site for the new settlement being in the first instance secured, we propose that the company commence their operations by sending out a preliminary expedition, consisting of surveyors, civil engineers, mechanics, and a few agricultural labourers. On the arrival of the preliminary expedition at its destination, the surveyors should proceed to lay out the town, and the engineers to construct a landingplace, a wharf, and a road from the wharf to the centre of the town. At the same time, a portion of the mechanics should be engaged in erecting, in the immediate vicinity of the wharf, an extensive range of sheds for the reception of goods, and a spacious building, comprising a large dormitory, for the immediate accommodation of the first body of colonists on their landing. These objects being effected, a portion of the mechanics might perhaps be employed in erecting a church and a school-house. And while these several operations are in progress, the agricultural labourers should be employed in clearing and cropping an extensive suburban farm, which the company might judiciously cause to be stocked with the best breeds of cattle and sheep from the Australian colonies. After

* Colonial Gazette, Aug. 17, 1842.

labour of the community must be devoted not to im
of transport. Estimated not by the number of hands,
mediate production, but to overcoming the difficulty
but by the quantity of work, the actual supply of la-
proceeds of the land-sales from emigration to the exe-
bour will be increased by diverting a portion of the
cution of works by which labour is abridged."

body of persons who contemplate the formation of a
Mr Rennie makes his proposition" on behalf of a
settlement" on the plan which he describes; and the
company, in its answer, expresses its readiness to enter
upon the scheme, provided that the government will
sonable remuneration for the responsibilities and risk
consent to it "upon such terms as will afford a rea-
of the undertaking." This reservation is understood
to be designed for the purpose of securing that the
project shall be independent of the governor, Captain
Hobson, of whose proceedings, it would appear, the
Whatever may be the arrangements made, or the
company have hitherto found cause to complain.
think there can be little doubt that the scheme itself
success of the scheme in this particular instance, we
bespeaks an immense step forward in the policy of an
enlarged system of colonisation, and, as such, merits
the approbation of the public.

RECOLLECTIONS OF HOLKHAM, 1830.

Having accepted an invitation to spend the 1st of Sepafter being greeted with a hearty welcome by Mr Coke, tember at Holkham, we arrived there at nine o'clock, and, with whom, and a party of nine gentlemen, who had been were introduced to Lady Anne and her sister Lady Mary, invited to meet us, we sat down to breakfast; and the kind attentions of our host and hostess soon made us feel ourselves "at home." Breakfast being finished, Mr Coke ordered his coach and four, with a barouche and a pair of horses, to convey himself and visiters on a farming tour; and as our particular object was to examine the crop of barley, every facility was afforded us by our kind conductor, whose constant endeavour appeared to be to mingle the useful with the agreeable. The postilions were first desired to stop near some beasts of the North mentioned several facts illustrative of the superiority of Devon breed, which were grazing in the park. Mr Coke the North Devons: amongst others, that he called on Mr Handcock, a butcher in London, who supplies some of the first families, and asked him if he had killed any Devon beasts; he replied, no; they were not good enough for his trade; he could only use the best Scots. Mr Coke persuaded him to try the Devons, and he so much approved of them, that he bought all Mr Coke sent to market for a considerable time-more than one hundred beasts. He also mentioned a trial between the fattening of two Devons against one short-horned beast, the two

saying they might do for the pigs. Time, however, has wrought a mighty change.-Stamford Mercury.

TRUE HISTORY OF MACBETH. SOME weeks since, the original story of King Llyr, or Lear, upon which Shakspeare founded his magnificent tragedy of that name, was transferred to our columns Believing that every person of literary tastes will feel from an English version of an old Welsh chronicle. it interesting thus to trace out the materials upon which the fancy of our great poot based such superb superstructures, we subjoin what appears to be the by Mr Collet, in his "Relics of Literature." The direct real story of Macbeth, printed from an old chronicle have been Holinshed, though Buchanan's history of source to which Shakspeare was indebted seems to Scotland may also have been in his hands, being published just when he was rising into manhood. Both the narrative of Hector Boece. The names of all the Holinshed and Buchanan, however, simply retailed Duncan, Malcolm, Donaldbain, Bancho, Fleance, Macleading persons in the play are given by Buchanan, duff, and Sibard (Siward), being of the number. Macbeth is called by the historian "thane of Angus." Stirred by ambition, as well as by a dream in which "three women of more than human stature appeared to him," and hailed him successively "thane of Angus," ""thane of Moray," and "king of Scotland," Macbeth, according to the historian, murdered Dunhis victim taking to flight. As the witches had progcan at Inverness, and seized the sceptre, the sons of Macbeth assassinated him, but Fleance escaped. The nosticated that the posterity of Bancho should reign, murder of Macduff's children, the flight of that thane to Malcolm in England, the return of the two with auxiliaries under Siward, the besieging of Macbeth in Dunsinane castle, and the death of the tyrant by the hands of Macduff, are all given by Buchanan as in the play. Minor incidents, such as that of the green boughs taken by the soldiers of Malcolm, so finely woven into the plot by Shakspeare, are also noticed by the historian, and he concludes with a hint to which here," says Buchanan, "a number of fables more adwe may possibly owe this noble tragedy. "I omit apted for theatrical representation than history." The direct idea of the weird sisters, we see, was derived monton, Shakspeare may have been indebted for some from history. To the old play of the Witch of Edhints in composing his incantation scenes.

But what is probably the true story of Macbeth differs considerably from the preceding, which various annalists have repeated almost literally from Boece. "The more veracious Wyntown," says Mr Collet,

MUSINGS IN SEPTEMBER.
Out we went, we three,

In loving companie:

Faith, I mote remember,

'Twas the moneth of September!
Haws were red and fields mowne,
And the song-byrd sate lone

On the brown bough; singing, she
Made amends for companie.

"calls Macbeth the thane of Crumbachty, which is without destroying the beds entirely. The usual plan |
the Gaelic name of Cromarty; and in the well- would have been to trench the ground; but, aware that
known story of the Weird Sisters, the chronicler I should only increase the evil by dividing the roots of
makes the first witch hail Macbeth thane of Crum- such weeds as could not be picked out, amidst an accu-
bachty, the second thane of Moray, and the third mulation of strawberry plants, I had them mown off close
king. These intimations lead directly up to the by breaking each spadeful, and picking out every root
to the ground, which was afterwards trenched carefully,
several fictions of Bocce, Holinshed, and Shak- that could be seen. It was then planted with celery, and
speare. Macbeth was by birth the thane of Ross,
every time the plants were moulded up, those roots which
by marriage with the Lady Gruoch the thane of Mo- had escaped in the trenching were picked out. In the
ray, and by his crimes the king of Scots. Finley, as spring I again gave it a shallow trenching, to incorporate
we may learn from Torfeus, was maormor, or, as the the dung in which the celery grew; and I afterwards
Norwegian historian calls him, jarl, of Ross, who, at planted the ground with early spring-sown cauliflowers,
the commencement of the eleventh century, carried which were all cut by the middle of August. A good coat
on a vigorous war, in defence of his country, against of manure was then dug in, and strawberries were planted
the incursions of that powerful vikingr, Sigurd, the in patches, three or five together (according to the sorts),
Earl of Orkney and Caithness. With his dominions two feet apart in the rows, which are two and a half and
the district of Finley was contiguous, while the coun-
four feet wide alternately. These plants bore a crop the
try of Angus lay southward at a great distance. Fin-following season, equal to what they would have done had
ley lost his life about 1020, in some hostile conflict with they been planted out singly the previous spring. When-
ever I make a new plantation, I usually follow the same
Malcolm II. This fact alone evinces that Finley rotation, except that I have no occasion to trench the
would scarcely have fought with his wife's father if ground. Previously to making the celery trenches, I have
he had been the husband of Doada. The Lady Gruoch, only to strike a spade under the patches, and remove them
when driven from her castle by the cruel fate of her with the few runners they have made attached; a little
husband, the maormor of Moray, naturally fled with hoeing being sometimes necessary, if there are weeds on
her infant son, Lulach, into the neighbouring country the ground. I annually dig amongst them; and, as soon
of Ross, which was then ruled by Macbeth, who mar- as possible after the fruit is gathered, I remove from the
ried her, during the reign of Duncan. We have now patches all the runners they have made. It may be
seen distinctly that Macbeth was maormor of Ross, objected, that it is more difficult to keep the fruit clean
the son of Finley, and the grandson of Rory, or Rode- than when the plants occupy the whole row; but as I
rick; and that he was the husband of Gruoch, who
can get plenty of short grass, it is easily accomplished. I
was the daughter of Boedhe, and the grand-daughter
am of opinion, that, if the patches had double the room,
of Kenneth IV. Macbeth thus united in himself all
I should be no loser; for, about six years ago, I removed
alternate patches from two rows of Keen's seedling-the
the power which was possessed by the partisans of fruit they have since borne has been very fine, and not
Kenneth IV., all the influence of the Lady Gruoch, less in quantity than there would have been had not
and of her son Lulach, together with the authority of removed any. They continue to bear well still, but I
maormor of Ross, but not of Angus. With all these seldom allow them to stand longer than four years. Some-
powers, in addition to his own character for address times, instead of cauliflowers after the celery, I have a
and vigour, Macbeth became superior to Duncan and late crop of peas, in which case I do not plant the straw-
the partisans of his family. Macbeth had to avenge berries till the following spring; but I cannot calculate
the wrongs of his wife, and to resent for himself the on much fruit that season.-James Murdoch.
death of his father. The superiority of Macbeth, and
the weakness of Duncan, were felt, when the unhappy
king expiated the crimes of his fathers by 'his most
sacrilegious murder; and Macbeth hastily marched
to Scone, where he was inaugurated as the king of
Scots, supported by the clans of Moray and Ross, and
applauded by the partisans of Kenneth IV. If Mac-
beth had been, in fact, what fiction has supposed, the
son of the second daughter of Malcolm, his title to
the throne would have been preferable to the right of
Duncan's son, according to the Scottish constitution
from the earliest epoch of the monarchy. Whatever
defect there may have been in his title to the sullied
sceptre of his unhappy predecessor, he seems to have
been studious to make up for it by a vigorous and
beneficent administration. He even practised the
hospitality which gives shelter to the fugitive. Dur-
ing his reign, plenty is said to have abounded; justice
was administered; the chieftains, who would have
raised disturbances, were either overawed by his
power or repressed by his valour. Yet injury busied
herself in plotting vengeance. Crian, the abbot of
Dunkeld, who, as the father of Duncan, and the grand-
father of his sons, must have been now well stricken
in years, put himself at the head of the friends of
Duncan, and made a gallant but unsuccessful at-
tempt to restore them to their rights. The odious
crime, however, by which Macbeth acquired his autho-
rity, seems to have haunted his most prosperous mo-
ments. He tried, by distributing money at Rome, by
largesses to the clergy, and by charity to the poor,
to obtain relief from the affliction of those terrible
dreams that did shake him nightly.' Macbeth and
the lady Gruoch, his wife, gave the lands of Kirkness,
and also the manor of Bolgy, to the Culdees of Loch-
leven. Yet the friendship of the pope, and the support
of the clergy, did not insure Macbeth a quiet reign.
His rigour increased with his sense of insecurity. The
injuries of Macduff, the maormor of Fife, constantly
prompted the son of Duncan to attempt the redress
of their wrongs. With the approbation, perhaps by
the command, of Edward the Confessor, Siward, the
potent Earl of Northumberland, and the relation of
Malcolm, conducted a numerous army into Scotland
during the year 1054. The Northumbrians, led by
Siward and his son Osbert, penetrated, probably, to
Dunsinane. In this vicinity were they confronted by
Macbeth, when a furious conflict ensued. The num-
bers of the slain evince the length of the battle and
the bravery of the combatants. Osbert was slain;
yet Macbeth, after all his efforts of valour and vigour
of conduct, was overcome. He retired into the north,
where he had numerous friends, and where he might
find many fastnesses. Siward returned into Northum
berland, and died at York in 1055. Meantime, Mac-intensity. If there is one thing more than another that
beth continued his bloody contest with Malcolm; and
this uncommon character was at length slain at
Lumphanan, on the 5th of December 1056, by the
hand of the injured Macduff."

ROTATION OF CROPS IN GARDENS.

I have pursued with success for many years the following rotation in preparing ground, which has been almost exclusively devoted, during fifty years, to the growth of strawberries:-It was usual, in renewing the beds, to mow down the plants after the fruit was gathered, and to dig up the middle of the beds for a path, retaining the runners that had struck in the old one to bear the following But the ground being overrun with couch-grass, fox-tail grass, and blind-weed, I despaired of cleaning it

season.

By a brooke sate we,

And discoursed of destinie-
"See you now, how things change
As they draw near to die?
Man slackens in 's gait,
Hair whitens on 's pate,
Puff, goeth out 's breath!
So comes the year's death:
Verily, friends, it is strange!"

Out then spake another,
In hollow accents, "Brother,
There's a charnel for the flesh,
And a grave for all matter,
But there's what springeth fresh
From the first as the latter.
The field getteth a new green cloth,
But who knoweth how it doth?
And man quickeneth again,
How or where we seek in vain!
The life of nature it is given
To our view our own to Heaven."
-Collnurn's Kalendar of Amusements.

USES OF THE DAGUERREOTYPE.
[From the "Spectator."]

THE Daguerreotype process, as improved by M. Claudet,
can represent objects all but in motion; a momentary
suspension of movement only is necessary to fix the
image on the plate, and a transient expression of the
countenance is rendered permanent. Several members
of the corps de ballet at the Italian opera lately stood---
or rather danced---for their portraits to M. Claudet, in
postures that could be retained but for an instant, such
resting on the points of both feet. These miniatures may
as poising on one toe with the other leg extended, and
be seen at the Adelaide Gallery, and very curious they
are; the whole of the figure, and even groups of two or
three dancers, being delineated on a plate of two or three
inches high, in which the play of the features and the
minutest characteristics of the dress are discernible. M.
Claudet's collection of likenesses includes the queen-
dowager and other distinguished personages; but the
most interesting of the series to us were those of Made-
moiselle Rachel, in ordinary costume, and with her habi-
and character are so vividly and delicately pourtrayed,
tual look when in a thoughtful state of quietude. Mind
that we could not but wish that the great tragic actress
had sat in some of those different states of emotion which
her eloquent countenance can express at will with so much
the magic power of the Daguerreotype is valuable for, it
is this of limning the fleeting shades of expression in the
human face: for here the art of the painter, however great
his skill, is most at fault; and it is only in his happiest
moments that the artist of genius can transfer to the can-
vass the indications of lively sensation, strong passion,
and profound thought, or even of individual character in
a quiescent state. Could Garrick have looked all his cha-
racters before the lens of the Daguerreotype, generation
would have beheld again and again what was given to his
contemporaries to see once and away. Charles Mathews,
who dipped for faces behind his green table, and brought
up a fresh one every time, would have had nothing to do but
to present his various physiognomies successively before
the Daguerreotype camera to have them reflected in that
retinent mirror. We instance actors in particular, Rachel

having put us on the histrionic track; and also because, their art consisting in assuming at will certain characters and feelings, the Daguerreotype is peculiarly well adapted to take their portraits in a state of emotion: orators and others could only be so taken unawares, which would be scarcely practicable except in rare in

stances.

But some readers, having a prejudice against the Daguerreotype miniatures, may be ready to protest against their incorrectness as well as their grimness; and this brings us to the point which we are aiming to enforce, namely, the necessity for viewing the photographs through a medium of high magnifying power, not only to correct the slight aberration caused by the diminishing lens of the camera, but to amplify their shadows so as to lessen their density and remove the harshness and blackness consequent thereon. The image is too minute for any but a microscopic scrutiny to develop all its minutiæ of form; and, looking at the plate with the naked eye, one does not perceive the object truly and completely, even in point of form. A compensating lens, through which the visiters might view the photographic limnings, and artists might copy them when required, would be a desirable addition to the new arrangements that M. Claudet is now making at the Adelaide Gallery for facilitating his operations and promoting the convenience of visiters.

The value of the Daguerreotype as an aid to artists both in landscape and portraiture, is not yet fully appreciated; nor is the practice of producing prints from photographs so general as it is likely to become. We allude not to the experiments of taking impressions from the plates themselves (which the specimens that have been shown, though very imperfect, prove to be not altogether impossible), but to copies from them. A work has been commenced in Paris, called "Excursions Daguerriennes," containing views of the principal cities and remarkable places in the world, some numbers of which we have seen in London. The engravings are very neat and accurate copies in aquatint of the plates, the size of the originals; notwithstanding the absence of very minute detail, and the inferiority of the execution to the marvellous delicacy of nature's image, they are beautiful as works of art, and of course exact representations of the places.

THE ENGLISH ABROAD.

The Russians and the English are the two great travelling nations, and they are the only two who travel in the large, heavy, family coach, though the latter seem to be giving up that heavy machine which one cannot see out of. One of these carriages arrived two nights ago, and there was an immediate wager to which it belonged, England or Russia: the former gained it. The English have little idea how everything they do and say is discussed by foreigners. They mark and remark the most trifling circumstances; everything seems of consequence; even the dress is noted in the memory. Madame

was

the mise à merveille," or "comme un ours ;" and while they are going in or out, walking or talking, just as they would if they were at home, they are little aware of the construction put upon every word and action, particularly in countries where they are not much known. The want of risibility of the countenance and flexibility of the body" is the first thing that strikes; and it may be a question, whether the general acquirement of these agrémens in society might not be useful, inasmuch as the first would increase our own happiness, and the last the contentment of our neighbours. All persons like to be respected; "preferring one another" is a Christian principle; and there is a pleasure in the feeling of a wellregulated mind in showing deference to others, as well as receiving it one's self; and if we do not pay it, we cannot expect to receive it. The outward attention and respect paid by foreigners to women, and the inattention to her of our lords of the creation, is evident to the most unobserving. I could give many examples of my own experience of this; but were I to mention them, it might be called vanity: however, one is vivid in my imagination. We were once in a hurry to get our passports, and, knowing there is nothing like "making a page of your own age," that is, doing your own business, I drove first to the English, then to the Austrian ambassador's; my own "countryman" received me in dishabille-civilly, how ever, though hurried in his movements; the passport was signed, the gentleman bowed and retired to his den, leav ing the lady to make her way out as she could. I then proceeded to the Austrian ambassador, and was shown into his room, where he was writing. I ought to have mentioned, the Englishman kept me waiting some time. Monsieur received me with the grace and politeness of his nation. When he found we were going to Italy, he inquired by what route, discussed the merits of them all, gave me much information, and, when the passport was ready, accompanied me to the head of the stairs, presented it, and, with many good wishes for an agreeable journey, and as many obeisances as if we had been at court, we parted. One was an unpleasant business, the If it is true that action is three parts of speaking, manner other an agreeable visit; and manner made the difference. must be three parts of diplomacy.-Lady Vavasour's

Last Tour and First Work.

CAST-IRON BUILDINGS.

Buildings of cast-iron are daily increasing in England. As the walls will be hollow, it will be easy to warm the buildings by a single stove placed in the kitchen. A threestorey house, containing ten or twelve rooms, will not cost more than L.1100. Houses may be taken to pieces, and transported from one place to another, at an expense of not more than L.25.-From a newspaper.

[We entertain serious doubts as to the propriety of using cast-iron buildings as dwelling-houses; the liability to attract lightning is not the least of the evils to be dreaded.]

LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprietors, by W. S. ORR, Paternoster Row.

Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars.

[graphic]

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF "CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE," "CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c.

NUMBER 559.

SELF-IMPOSED TAXES.

IT is a great mistake to allege of mankind that they do not like taxes. There is, indeed, some truth in the allegation, but it also includes a large amount of falsehood. Mankind only do not like taxes which other people impose upon them. They are quite contented under taxes which they impose upon themselves. To speak with more rigid accuracy, no man likes taxes which others impose upon him, but every man is happy to pay taxes which he imposes upon himself. Comparative amount is of no moment. A man will pay very large self-imposed taxes with all the good humour imaginable, while he will be found to grumble at a very small rate imposed by others. Generally speaking, the voluntary taxes are greatly in excess of the compulsory, so that it may be said there is but a small proportion of truth in the allegation that mankind do not like taxes. It would be much more philosophical to say that mankind like taxes, only admitting that there was a small exception from the rule with regard to a certain way in which taxes were occasionally imposed, namely, when they were put by one man upon another.

I admit this exception to the fullest extent. I do not even deny it with regard to those instances of taxation in which a man is supposed to tax himself through the medium of representatives. Somehow, though statesmen have ever shown a great anxiety to uphold this fiction of the law, and thereby, if possible, make the public taxes seem self-imposed, there are few well-authenticated instances of individuals liking such taxes any more than those to which the dictate of a despot has subjected them. The relation between the will of the represented citizen and the order for payment which he in time receives, with due penalties specified for delay and refusal, is apt to be not very clearly perceived, and all De Lolme and Blackstone's efforts to mend the matter go much in vain. The fact, then, is certain, that men do not like taxes of a public nature. Alas, how little need is there to impress this truth! Does not almost every newspaper convey the groans and grumblings of the unfortunate public on the enormity of these imposts! How do high and low, young and old, rich and poor, and "men of all shades of political thinking," unite in detesting these at the best necessary evils! Yes, I think the proposition that men do not like public taxes will be pretty generally acceded to.

But it is quite different with the far larger class of taxes which men do really and without fiction lay upon themselves. Here all is serenity and complacency. If we consider every expense incurred under the influence of some false maxim, sentiment, or appetite, and which does not redound to real enjoyment, as a self-imposed tax, I think it will be allowed that most men pay more in voluntary than compulsory taxation; yet not a single genuine groan is ever heard about the matter. Sometimes, indeed, the voluntary is curiously mixed up with the compulsory taxation, as we shall see in the sequel; but in these cases the only remarkable thing is, that the part which is voluntary usually serves in a great measure to reconcile the sufferer to that which is otherwise-and many are so happy to pay the voluntary as to overlook the compulsory altogether.

Spontaneous taxation is of several kinds, and it would require a much more skilful hand than mine to anatomise it properly. Sometimes we see it in the whole style of a man's life, sometimes only in particular habits or particular acts. In the fashionable and affluent world, it has ever borne extensive sway. There we see men and women content to spend but a

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1842.

small portion of their incomes, in the manner which their natural tastes would dictate, and paying nearly the whole of it away in self-imposed taxes, merely that they may appear to live as some other persons live, whose good opinion they think they are thus culti vating, while in truth nobody is ever once thinking about them. Some tax themselves in a pack with which they never hunt; some in a racing stud which they never accompany to Ascot's. Some pay a vast impost in the maintenance of a gratis hotel in the shape of a country house; some in the keeping up of an equipage which they think their rank calls for; some in a retinue of servants whom they do not need, and who are only a cumber to them, so that they may be considered as a sort of double tax. A box at the opera makes a very neat self-imposed tax of some hundreds per annum, which some persons of no particular taste for music pay with a great deal of pleasure. Private concerts, routs, and fetês champetres, are occasional cesses of the same kind, which many are happy to pay, taxing their own patience and spirits at the same time to entertain the company who may be assembled. In short, almost all the gaieties of the beau monde may be described as self-imposed taxes, for those at whose cost they are instituted obviously have very little real enjoyment in them. "I don't care for going to town next season-to tell the truth, I am tired of it--but I suppose we must go, my dear, or it would be thought very odd." So says a country gentleman to his wife, in the true spirit of submission to self-imposed taxation. And they go and pay the tax accordingly, with all the cheerfulness imaginable. Talk of self-devotion and self-sacrifice! - where is there anything of the kind comparable to a life passed in constant submission to restraints and expenses, incurred in order to carry out the idea of what is proper to one's class in the gay world?

The less affluent classes submit to their self-imposed taxes with a patience equally edifying. It is calculated that from forty-five to fifty millions, or about the amount of the whole of the public taxes of the United Kingdom, are spent in it annually on ardent spirits, beer, tobacco, and some other things which, so far from benefiting the people, do them harm. This is a splendid amount of voluntary taxation, and it is, of course, only a portion of the whole. Yet not a word of grumbling is ever heard from those who pay it. The expenditure on ardent spirits alone is estimated at twenty-four millions, and this at least must be regarded as a very pure tax of the voluntary kind, seeing that not an atom of utility can be attributed to the article, but much that is the reverse. Nevertheless, I now am old who once was young, and I do not recollect ever hearing any one vent a word of complaint respecting this tax. What stronger subject for indignation, it may be asked, could a poet or an orator wish for, than the well-fed, well-clad emissaries of a despot, extorting oppressive taxes from a population, such as that of Egypt, sunk into the depths of poverty? The same contrast is to be seen every day between the magnificent tax-offices called gin-palaces in all our large towns, and the poor wretches who hourly come there to pay in their spontaneous impost; but no one connected with the tax-paying class in this instance is ever seen to get warm upon the subject. In the town of Bury, which contains 25,000 inhabitants, the annual expenditure on spirits and beer is estimated at L.54,190, or about L.8 for each family, being sufficient to pay the rent and public taxes of comfortable houses for the whole of the population. A large proportion of the humbler classes do there live in very mean and ill-furnished dwellings, there being no fewer than fifteen hundred in which the inmates

PRICE 1td.

sleep more than two in a bed. Yet I venture to say, the immense self-taxation which is the chief cause of all this poverty is submitted to without a murmur. It is calculated that the town of Dundee, which contains 60,000 inhabitants, taxes itself for spirits to the amount of L.180,000 per annum : there is one parish in it which gives a new version of Falstaff's tavern bill-a hundred and eight places for the sale of liquor to eleven bakers' shops. Now, the angels may weep over these taxes of Dundee, but the people themselves do not. In the principal street of the old town of Edinburgh, there are upwards of a hundred tax-offices open; if there were half so many for compulsory taxes, human nature would be in constant rebellion under it; but being all for self-imposed taxes, the thing is thought nothing of. Some years ago, there was in Glasgow one office for these self-imposed taxes to every thirteen houses, and all submitted to with marked resignation. Such is the general case throughout the empire: everywhere we see numerous offices for spontaneous imposts, which the people are hourly paying without a murmur, while the smallest cess laid upon them for something really useful to them, would rouse their "ignorant impatience of taxation" in a moment. With what heroic indifference does a patriotic citizen pay out his self-imposed taxes in one of these offices on a Saturday evening, ay, even till he has denuded himself of perhaps a sixth or fifth part of his weekly earnings! Not a qualm seizes him, not a whisper of complaint escapes. But take the same citizen, and tell him that it would be well for him to pay a health rate or an education rate of the most trifling amount, and see how he would receive the idea. It is a remarkable fact, which I have often had occasion to note, that when you speak to a man about any new proposed tax of a public and compulsory nature, however small it may be, he is sure to begin a long elegy on the severity of the taxes of that kind which he already has to pay but when he is in the way of subjecting himself to a tax of the other kind, albeit a pretty heavy one, he never says a single word about this department of his hardships. His demeanour, when paying his selfimposed taxes, is in general rather of a cheerful kind as if they were a source of positive happiness to him, and so much to be enjoyed, that he could not bear to indulge at the moment in a single painful association.

Do not let it for an instant be supposed, that any one class of the community is more addicted to the paying of self-imposed taxes than another. It is an universally prevalent disposition, and the same essentially, whether exemplified by the gentleman whiffing at his cigar or the workman at his clay pipe, whether in the same tavern amongst mugs and jugs, or at a table where five kinds of wine and a dessert tempt to a bewailment of the unfortunate habits of the lower orders, and a general discussion of the distresses of the country. I may chance, however, to have met with an illustration amongst a humble portion of the people, better than any which have accrued from higher quarters. This illustration I here introduce, without wishing it to be supposed that it is more characteristic of one class than another. When Sir Charles Shaw took charge of the police force in Manchester a few years ago, he found the work-people in the habit of paying sixpence per week each to the old watch for calling them up in the mornings. He put a stop to the practice, as being one which interfered with the regular duties of the police, and as being founded on a habit which might be corrected. The employers, however, complained of the interruption of the practice, and requested that it might be renewed. Sir Charles, considering that sixpence was too high a charge, offered to allow the police to call up the work

« PreviousContinue »