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Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 38, March 20, 1841

Author: Various

Release date: July 7, 2017 [eBook #55066]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Brownfox and the Online Distributed Proofreading
        Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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                        THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

        NUMBER 38.      SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1841.      VOLUME I.

[Illustration: HOLY-CROSS ABBEY, COUNTY OF TIPPERARY.]

In a recent number of our Journal we led our readers to the banks of that
beautiful river,

      “The gentle Shire, that, making way
    By sweet Clonmel, adorns rich Waterford;”

and we now return to it with pleasure to notice another of the beautiful
architectural remains of antiquity seated on its banks--the celebrated
Abbey of the Holy Cross. This noble monastic ruin is situated in the
barony of Eliogarty, county of Tipperary, three miles from Thurles, on
the road to Cashel, and seven miles north-east of the latter.

The origin as well as the name of this celebrated monastery is derived
from a piece of the holy cross for which it was erected as a fitting
depository. This relic, covered with gold and ornamented with precious
stones, was, as O’Halloran states, but without naming his authority,
a present from Pope Pascal II, in 1110, to Murtogh O’Brien, monarch
of Ireland, and grandson to Brian Boru, who determined to found a
monastery in its honour, but did not live to complete it. But, however
true this account may be as to the gift of the relic, there is every
reason to doubt it as far as the date of the foundation of the monastery
is concerned, which, as appears from the original charter still in
existence, was founded by Donald O’Brien, King of Limerick, the son of
the Murtogh above named, as late as the year 1182, at which time it was
richly endowed with lands for its support by its founder. These grants
were confirmed in 1186, by King John, then Lord of Ireland, who further
ordered that the monks of this abbey should enjoy all chartered liberties
and freedoms, as appears from the following record of the 20th Edward I.
A.D. 1320:--

“EDWARD, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke
of Aquitain, to all to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Know
ye that brother Thomas, Abbot of the Church of Mary of the Holy Cross,
near Cashel, came into our Chancery of Ireland the day after the feast
of Michael the Archangel, in the 13th year of our reign, at Cashel, and
exhibited in our said Chancery a certain charter, not cancelled, nor in
any respect vitiated, under the seal of John, formerly Lord of Ireland
and Earl of Morton, in these words:

‘JOHN, Lord of Ireland and Earl of Morton, to all justices, barons, &c.,
as well French as English, Welsh and Irish, and all other liege men
of Ireland, greeting. Know ye, that, for the love of God, and for the
salvation of my own and the souls of my predecessors and successors, I
have granted and given, and by these presents do grant and give, to God
and the blessed Mary of the Holy Cross, and to the Cistertian Monks
serving God there, in free, pure, and perpetual alms, the under-written
lands, as fully and freely as Domuald O’Brien, King of Lymberick, gave
and granted, and by this charter confirmed to the Cistertian Monks of the
Holy Cross; to wit: Kelkaterlamunu, Ballydubal, Ballyidugin, Ballygirryr,
Ballymyoletobin, and Ballytheloth, Gardath, Ballaschelagh, Balythougal
et Ithologin. These lands I have given for the salvation of my soul, and
those of my predecessors and successors, and for the souls of my soldiers
who lie there, to enjoy peaceably, with all liberties and free customs,
without any secular exactions in fields, ways, forests, fisheries, &c. I
have also granted that they shall be free from all mulcts in my courts,
for what cause soever they shall be amerced, and also free of all toll
whatever; they shall sell or buy, for their own use, throughout my land
of Normandy, England, Wales, and Ireland; and that their lands be not put
in plevine.--Witnesses, a Bishop of Ferns; John de Courcy, de Angulo,
Riddel, Chancellor, and David of Wales.’”

It appears also that in 1233 the above charter of King John was confirmed
by King Henry III, who took this monastery into his protection, which
protection he again renewed in 1234; and that it was again confirmed by
King Richard II. in 1395, and that in 1414, James Earl of Ormond, and the
Lord Deputy Thomas le Botiller or Butler, prior of St John of Jerusalem,
further granted the protection of the crown to this house.

Thus protected and fostered by royalty, the Abbey of the Holy Cross
became one of the most magnificent and wealthy in the kingdom, and its
mitred abbot was styled Earl of Holy Cross, the lands belonging to the
abbey constituting an earldom. He was also a baron of parliament, and
usually vicar-general of the Cistertian order in Ireland. The abbey was
originally a daughter of the Abbey of Maig, or Monaster-Nenagh, in the
county of Limerick, and was subjected to that of Furnes in Lancashire by
the Abbot of Clarevaux, in a general chapter of the order in 1249. After
the dissolution of the monasteries in Ireland, Holy Cross Abbey with its
appurtenances was granted by Queen Elizabeth in 1563 to Gerald Earl of
Ormond, _in capite_, at the annual rent of £15, 10s. 4d.; and we believe
this constitutes at present the estate, by purchase, of a worthy and
deeply learned fellow of Trinity College, namely, Dr Wall.

As a monastic ruin, the Abbey of Holy Cross ranks in popular esteem as
one of the first, if not the very first, in Ireland. But though many of
its architectural features are of remarkable beauty, it is perhaps as
a whole scarcely deserving of so high a character; and its effect upon
the mind is greatly diminished by the cabins and other objects of a mean
character by which it is nearly surrounded. Like most monastic structures
of considerable importance, its general form is that of a cross,
consisting of a nave, chancel, and transept, with a lofty square belfry
at the intersection of the cross; but it is distinguished from other
structures of the kind in having in both of its transepts two distinct
chapels beautifully groined--a feature which imparts much interest and
picturesqueness to the general effect. Between two of these chapels
and the south transept there is a double row of three pointed arches,
supported by twisted pillars, each distant about two feet four inches
from the other, and having a similar pointed arch in front. The object
of this singular feature has given rise to much conjecture, but the more
rational opinion seems to be, that it was designed as a resting place
for the dead bodies of the monks and other persons previous to interment
in the abbey, or its cemetery. In addition to this, the interior of the
church has another very unique and remarkable feature, namely, that the
choir arch is not placed as usual beneath the tower, but thirty feet
in advance of it, thus making the choir of greater length by fourteen
feet than the nave, which is but fifty-eight feet long, the entire
length of the church being one hundred and thirty feet. This peculiarity
appears, however, to be an after-thought, and not the design of the
original architect, which was evidently to limit, as usual, the length
of the choir to the arch in front of the tower, and the second arch is
unquestionably of more modern construction. The steeple rests on four
beautifully groined arches, the supporters of which are connected in the
centre by a great variety of ogives passing diagonally from their angles;
and the roof of the choir, as well as those of the side chapels, is
similarly enriched. The nave appears to have been of meaner architecture,
and has lost its roof; but it has aisles formed by four pointed arches
on each side, and which lead into the transepts. Of the windows in this
church we may observe generally, that they are of very elegant taste of
design.

Thus much of the abbey church itself; but of the ruins of the cloisters,
which are of meaner architecture, and of all the other edifices
appertaining to a monastic establishment of this grandeur, though in
a tolerable state of preservation, it would be tedious to the general
reader to give a detailed account, nor would our present space permit
it. Neither can we describe what is of higher interest, the magnificent
monumental remains for which this abbey is so eminently distinguished.
But we shall return to the subject in a future number, and in the mean
time we shall only add, that this abbey is well worthy the attention of
the antiquary and architectural student, and that to the pleasure tourist
of cultivated tastes it is of the most delightful interest.

                                                                       P.




THE ITALIAN ORGAN BOY.

CONCLUSION.


Carlo having recovered himself, proceeded as follows:--

“In the thus light-hearted and unmurmuring though tedious and toilsome
accumulation of the fund that was to purchase station and happiness
for Bianca, the first of the three years sped prosperously past.
Francesco--for old Marcolini, confiding in the integrity and industry of
my father to fulfil the conditional arrangement, laid no restraint upon
him--was our almost daily visitor, and not rarely a cheerful assistant in
the lighter labours of our garden, in tending our rich parterres, our fig
trees, and our vines. One serious drawback on our happiness--the first
flush of devotion to Bianca over--we soon experienced. Ludovico, though
at times he worked harder and longer than the rest, and rejected the
occasional cheap indulgences my father permitted, had unfortunately been
so entangled with his lawless and loose-living companions, that after a
while he was again seduced by them into scenes of profligate amusement
and disgraceful licence. It mischanced that near the close of the year,
the very day before the great fair of Telese, to which we had long looked
forward as likely to swell our savings much, our father met with an
accident which disabled him from going to it. The cart, laden with our
richest and choicest garden produce, my mother’s eggs and poultry, and
Bianca’s contribution of nosegays, needlework, and straw plaits, was in
his unfitness necessarily entrusted to the charge of Ludovico. At the
fair he unfortunately fell in with some of his low-principled associates,
who seduced him into a gambling booth, where soon, infected with the
excitement of play, he hazarded a small sum, which by an evil chance
was returned to him threefold. Inflamed by the easy acquisition, he
thought with rapture how much readier a way this was for a lucky fellow,
as he appeared to be, to make his money, than by the slow and dull
and difficult returns of labour, and almost anticipated his returning
home that night with Bianca’s fortune in his pocket, and an immediate
abridgement, in consequence, of the weary postponement of her wedding. He
risked a higher sum with success, another with disappointment, and so on
with varying fortune, till a friendly neighbour, who had heard where he
was, came in and forced him with difficulty from the fatal fascination.
He had been at the table but a short time, and had lost but little,
which, to escape detection, he replaced by a loan; but he was inspired
with a passion for play, which, whenever an occasion was afforded, he
eagerly indulged. But notwithstanding this, and the occasional losses
and anxious evasions to which it exposed us, our efforts flourished,
and our reserved earnings increased apace. Never before had we gathered
such abundant returns from our garden and few fields, for never before
had we tended them with half the care. Our sales were quick as our
produce was luxuriant, and before half the allotted period had expired,
Bianca’s purse was by the half more valuable than we had ventured to
expect. At this time my father was induced by my mother’s influence and
representations to try and bring the suspense and postponement of the
nuptials to a close, by borrowing on security what would complete the
stipulated sum, and engage old Marcolini’s consent to an immediate union.
This was accordingly done, the necessary sum furnished by a money-lender,
Marcolini’s approval obtained, a day fixed, our festive arrangements
made, and all was light and merriment. But, alas and alas! a cruel blow
was in wait to dash to pieces our fond and joyous schemes, just as they
seemed to approach reality.

One morning, as by sunrise my father was going to the garden--it
was to decorate a bridal arbour which we had constructed for the
occasion--I heard from him, as he passed through the inner room, a cry
of astonishment and dismay, and hurrying in, found him gazing in horror
upon an open and, alas, empty box--it was the one in which Bianca’s long
hoarded dower had been kept! All was gone--the hardly gathered earnings,
the borrowed money, and with it all our mirthful plans and sparkling
expectations; and, though a grave, strong-minded man, he was for the time
quite crushed and broken by the shock. ‘Carlo,’ said he, ‘we are ruined,
utterly undone. Villains have plundered us: your sister’s heart will be
broken, and there is nothing left for us but despair. These weakened
limbs could not go through such another term of trial in the face of
such misfortune. It will be well if they last long enough to earn what
will meet the demands of Bartolo the broker. Your brother, to whom we
might else have looked for aid, is getting worse and worse in his evil
ways: he has turned--that ever I should have to speak such words of son
of mine!--yes, turned a worthless profligate and gamester. The God of
Heaven grant,’ continued he, turning ghastly pale, and staggering against
the wall as his eye fell upon a well-known knife, that, with its blade
broken, lay upon the floor, ‘that it be not even worse. Carlo, look
on that, and tell me, O tell me, that you know it not!’ With horror I
recognized my unhappy brother’s knife; and a fragment of the steel fixed
in the box showed too plainly in what base work it had been employed. I
was struck speechless at the sight; but in defiance of all evidence, when
I thought of my warm-hearted generous brother, I burned with anger at
myself for my momentary misgiving, and almost fiercely chid my father for
his dark suspicion. ‘Carlo,’ answered he gravely, ‘you are yet childish
and inexperienced, and know not the power of evil company, the blight
of that accursed vice upon every principle of truth and honesty. Your
brother, I have told you, is an abandoned gambler--consorts with all the
dregs and refuse of the country, mocks at the entreaties of a mother, the
warnings of a father, the honest, ay, till he bore it, the ever honest
name of his family; and he who does all this, will, time and temptation
pressing him, but feebly shrink from the basest act. But go,’ added he
with stern emphasis, ‘call him. Though guilty, I will see him face to
face before I lay my curse upon him.’ With fear and trembling, for I knew
how terrible my father’s temper was when roused, I was obliged to confess
that he had not spent the night at home; and his forehead grew still
gloomier and more wrinkled as he listened.

He said nothing, but fell upon a seat, folded his arms, and remained
looking fixedly upon the ground in great and fearful agony of thought.

About half an hour afterwards, my heart leaped within me as I caught the
sound of Ludovico’s cautiously approaching steps--for on such occasions
he strove to steal in unnoticed--and I rushed to the door. There indeed
he was coming up the walk in front. But what a figure!--his eyes were
bloodshot, his face haggard, his dress disordered, his gait uneven, and
altogether he appeared still under the power of a deep overnight debauch.
My father upon hearing rose to meet him, and at the sight of his agitated
and afflicted features, Ludovico, overcome with dismay and confusion,
only afforded confirmatory evidence of guilt. Without a word, my father
beckoned with his hand to him, and walking into the room, pointed to the
forced and vacant box, fixing his eyes sternly and accusingly upon my
poor brother, who with fainting knees accompanied him. With constrained
silence he then lifted up the broken knife from the floor, fitted it
before Ludovico’s eyes to the fragment remaining in the lid, and then
turning up the haft, presented it to him. A cry of dismay and horror
broke from his lips as he recognized his knife, and the terrible truth
burst upon him.

‘I am innocent, oh, my father, I am innocent,’ he cried as he fell on his
knees before him. But, alas, the action, in place of removing, was about
to rivet the evidence of his guilt, for as he stooped, a key fell from
his pocket--a false one for the door which led from the very room into
the garden, which he had privately procured for the purpose of secret
admission when belated in his revels. My father, without other reply,
seized it, applied it to the door, and opened the lock. He then turned to
him, as if every stay and doubt were banished, and with a voice in which
pain and sorrow only aggravated passion, exclaimed, ‘Wretched boy, I
disown thee! Never shall villain, gambler, robber, liar, be called son of
mine. Away, then, from my presence and my roof for ever! He who could so
basely forget every lesson of honesty he was taught from his childhood,
who could plunder his poor sister of what we have painfully earned for
her by the sweat of our brows, and doom her to hopelessness and life-long
loneliness, to feed his own vile profligacy, would not scruple to dip his
hand in blood, ay, in the blood of his household, for their inheritance.
We are not safe with such a one. Away to your brigand comrades of the
hills--lead the villain life you incline to--do what you will--but
never cross this threshold again!’ My mother and Bianca, roused by the
noise, now hurried fearfully into the room, and a glance at Ludovico’s
horror-struck and supplicating posture, at the shattered box, and my
father’s inflamed and convulsed countenance, was enough without words to
inform them of the revolting truth.

‘My father’s heart is hardened against me,’ exclaimed Ludovico, ‘and I
wonder not. I have indeed been loose-lived and disobedient, but never
base nor dishonest, and let me not be now condemned because these
appearances are against me. I solemnly swear by----’ My father fiercely
checked him. ‘Add not perjury to infamy--it needs not swearing--the
matter can be put beyond a doubt, ay, even beyond your own audacious
denial. Mark those footsteps in the soft soil before the door: that bed
was left by me smooth and unruffled yesternight--they are those of the
villain thief; and, Ludovico, I cannot mistake the footprints of him
who has wrought by my side since boyhood--wretched father that I am!
they are _yours_. Deny it if you can.’ Convinced in my own heart of
his innocence, I sprang forward to apply the test, but soon recoiled
in horror, as before the anxious eyes of all I proved the accurate
correspondence of the marks--a shock which for a moment crushed my own
faith in my brother’s truth. What now availed my mother’s entreaties,
my sister’s tears, Ludovico’s continued passionate assertion of his
innocence, to change the stern conviction of my father? He vehemently
reiterated his sentence of banishment, and counselled him, if he would
mitigate the keenness of remorse, to confess his crime and return its
ill-gotten fruits. Ludovico, stung to the quick by his reproaches, and by
the agonies of my mother and Bianca, felt resentment rise in his heart
to strengthen him to support his fate, and indignantly rose to depart.
‘Cease your prayers, my mother and my Bianca. Carlo, you will live, I
feel, to see me righted, and my father, too, to repent his harshness to
his son, and his distrust in one whom he has often detected in error,
but never yet in ignominy. My sister, if my heart’s blood could at this
moment be coined into treasure to replace that which you have lost, and
build again your shattered hopes, freely would I pour it out. But words
are idle to make your heart what it was but an hour ago. I go--better
any where than here--and if you hear of me again, it will be of one who
has learned seriousness from suffering, and proved by acts his love and
interest for you all.’ As he finished speaking, he hurried from the door
without further farewell, and, plunging among the thickly wooded slopes,
was speedily lost to my passionate pursuit.

That evening, however, a boy left a billet from him to Bianca, in which
he mentioned his intention of trying to turn his musical talent to
account, by proceeding to England, where he was told that money was but
lightly thought of, and purses were ever open, and where he might readily
glean both what would support himself, and supply something towards
enabling my father to meet Bartolo the usurer, and perhaps, too, old
Marcolini, upon the day first fixed for her union with Francesco. He
concluded by asking pardon from our offended confidence and affection for
once more scornfully denying the odious charge--a denial which, amid our
joint tears over the letter, we believed as firmly as the words of holy
writ.

Why need I stay to mention all the gloom and grief which was now spread
over our but lately so bright and hopeful household, for Ludovico,
despite his thoughtless forwardness, had been the life and spring of all
our movements.

My father’s dark locks soon became streaked with grey, for his pride
of honesty in an unblemished name was sorely abased: his heart was
wounded and enfeebled; and when the fever of his first anger was past,
he began to think at times that perhaps he had dealt too hardly and
hastily with Ludovico. My mother often wept: my sister’s cheek became
wan and pale even with Francesco by her side: my own heart was faint and
joyless: a cloud of spiritless sadness and depression settled over all,
and every thing seemed to lament him who was far away among strangers,
in loneliness and disgrace--him whose bold spirit, athletic form, and
buoyant beauty, had, notwithstanding his frailties, been the pride and
glory, secret or avowed, of all.

But Providence is able and merciful to cleanse the character of the
innocent and calumniated in the end, and after many weary months
Ludovico’s was cleared before all the village by the death-bed confession
of one of his former associates, who, under the impulse of a late
remorse, stated that the robbery had been committed by himself--that
Ludovico had on the night in question been designedly drugged by some
of his accomplices--his knife taken and purposely left in the room, and
his shoes borrowed for the same end, of warding search or suspicion from
themselves by his condemnation. By way of expiation for the diabolical
villany, he secretly menaced his partners in the plot that he would
reveal their names and give them up to justice, unless the money with
the interest in full was forthwith restored, which in consequence was
quickly done. And now that his son’s good fame was established in
the light of day, my father’s breast was lightened of the burthen of
conscious disgrace, but only to suffer the more keenly the poignancy of
self-reproach for the extreme and unjust severity of his treatment; and
often would he bitterly accuse himself of savage inhumanity, and madly
wish that by the sacrifice of his own life he could restore his exiled
son to his embrace once more. As I listened to his painful lamentations
and upbraiding, I formed a scheme, which was no sooner devised than I
hurried to execute, of following Ludovico to England, of finding him,
as in the credulity of inexperience I doubted not readily to do, and
bringing him back with me to home, to reputation, and to happiness.
Knowing the opposition I would meet if I mentioned my secret, I collected
as speedily as I could what money I supposed would defray my first
expenses, procured this organ, and my poor little marmoset, as I knew
my wandering countrymen were wont to furnish themselves; and leaving a
letter with a young neighbour to give when I was gone, took my way to
Naples, whence I got a passage to London. My heart often died within me
as I wandered through its great and busy streets, and many is the hour
of sorrow and hardship I endured; but desire for Ludovico, and the hope
of finding him which never failed me, carried me through all. For nearly
a year I traversed England, much of Scotland and Ireland, supporting
myself by grinding this poor music. I have not my brother’s fine voice
and skill, but the people here are for the most part indulgent, and
not so delicate to please as those of Italy. But the good God guided
me at last to a happy meeting with an old Neapolitan, who alone, of
the hundreds whom I questioned, was able to give me any information of
Ludovico, with whom he had fortunately fallen in a few months before in
this very city. With that cordial confidence which one is apt to flare in
a fellow countryman when cast among strangers, Ludovico had made known
to him all his story, adding that, having now by prudence and exertion
of his talent for music--and few could touch a guitar or raise a voice
like him--gathered a sufficient sum of money, he was about to return
to Italy and to the neighbourhood of his native village, to apportion
Bianca once more, and set on foot some inquiry to redeem, if possible,
his forfeited character, and fix the guilt of the robbery upon the real
offenders, whom long reflection on the circumstances had erewhile led
him to suspect. Oh! how my heart thrilled and burned within me as I
listened to the long-sought blissful words, and knew that in very deed I
was at last upon the track of him--though the rapture of an unexpected
meeting in this foreign land I was not to have--after whom I had made
such a weary pilgrimage in vain. Not in vain neither. I have done what
I could, and when I stand proudly amid my family once more, and receive
their embraces and congratulations, say, shall I be without my reward? My
daily gleanings I hoard with the eagerness of a miser: little do I spend
on food or lodging: for when I think of my own dear Montanio, of those
to complete whose happiness I alone am wanting, I have but one wish, one
prayer--to have wherewithal to carry me to my own beautiful land again,
to my father’s blessing, my brother’s love, my mother’s and my sister’s
arms.”

Tears of tenderness and rapture started to the eyes of the ardent and
devoted youth as he thus concluded his narrative, in which the fervour
and interest of truth were, as he told it, beautifully blended with much
of the elevation and singularity of romance.

Further particulars respecting this generous witness to the
disinterestedness and fortitude with which family and fraternal love can
inspire the young, the delicate, and the undisciplined, my necessary
limitation of space compels me to forego. I need scarcely add that I
was instrumental in furnishing a supplement for his insufficient means,
and I did not lose sight of the noble lad, till, with mixed emotions of
buoyant anticipation, and perhaps momentarily regretful gratitude, he
parted from me on his return to Italy. In imagination I often make one of
the reunited family, and at times, too, indulge the hope that the chances
and changes of a shifting lot may some time enable me in very deed to
look on old Girardi and his spouse, Carlo and the reformed Ludovico, the
fair Bianca and the faithful Francesco, and claim a return in kind--an
evening spent among their gleeful rural party--for the fellow-feeling I
had the good fortune to conceive for the desolation, and the part I was
privileged to take in abridging the banishment, of the Italian Organ Boy.

                                                                 J. J. M.




KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE.

Second Article.

BOULDERS--CONTINUED.


If the dreary waste of the sandy desert, when the hot and suffocating
blast sweeps over its parched surface, appears to the affrighted
traveller invested with all the characters of sublimity, not less
impressed with awe is the wanderer of polar regions, when, gazing on the
heart-chilling magnificence of the interminable ice which surrounds him,
he hears the sigh of the coming snow-storm, fraught with danger or with
death. But at a time when repeated voyages and spirit-stirring narratives
have rendered familiar to every one the beauties and the dangers of ice
in every conceivable form of floe, of field, or of berg, and have excited
sympathy for the sufferings or admiration of the daring of those who, to
advance the cause of science, or to pursue for commercial purposes the
mighty whale, have ventured within the precincts of that icy kingdom, it
is not necessary to describe the solitary grandeur of a scene in which
ice spreads like a sea beneath the feet, and rises as a mountain above
the head. Not even, then, by the side of a cheerful fire, in these more
temperate regions, shall we unnecessarily indulge in shudderings at the
thought of distant powers of congelation, or enter further into the
subject of polar picturesqueness. It is as a geological agent that we
have now to contemplate ice in the various forms of fields and bergs, or
of glaciers; its efficiency as a moving power being first considered.
Scoresby justly denominates ice-fields “one of the wonders of the deep.
They are often,” he says, “met with of the diameter of twenty or thirty
miles; and when in a state of such close combination that no interstice
can be seen, they sometimes extend to a length of fifty, or nearly a
hundred miles.” The average thickness of these fields is from ten to
fifteen feet, and their surface is varied by hummocks, which rise to a
height of from forty to fifty feet. The weight of a piece of field ice,
one mile square and thirteen feet thick, is, according to Scoresby’s
estimate, 11,314,284 tons; and from the difference of specific gravity
between ice and sea-water, this floating mass is sufficiently buoyant to
support a weight of stones or other heavy bodies equal to 1,257,142, or
in round numbers one million tons.

Grand, however, as such floating fields of ice are, they are exceeded in
magnificence by bergs. One of these, Scoresby relates, was one mile in
circumference, fifteen hundred feet square, and a hundred feet above the
level of the sea; so that, allowing for the inequalities of its surface,
he considered its depth in the water seven hundred feet, its total
thickness eight hundred feet, and its weight about forty-five millions of
tons--an enormous mass, capable of transporting at least five millions
of tons of extraneous weight. In number, too, they are as remarkable
as in magnitude: above five hundred were counted by Scoresby from the
mast-head at one time, of which scarcely one was less than the hull of
a ship, about a hundred as high as the ship’s mast, and some twice that
height, or two hundred feet above the surface of the sea; hence in total
thickness about sixteen hundred feet. These, then, it must be admitted,
are mighty engines fitted for the transport of rocks of colossal
magnitude. But in the reasonings of sound philosophy, the apparent
fitness of an object to perform some particular function cannot be
deemed sufficient to establish the reality of its action: further proof
is necessary, either derived from analogy or from positive facts. In
respect to ice-fields, the easiest of observation, it is remarkable that
neither of the Captains Scoresby speaks of having noticed extraneous
matter upon them, unless the expression “heaps of rubbish,” in a passage
of the voyage of Scoresby senior, means rubbish of stones as well as
rubbish of ice. Examples will indeed be quoted from other writers, but
the comparative scarcity of transported matter on the upper surface of
the fields of ice, seems a natural consequence of their mode and place
of formation. Formed in bays or gulfs, some portions of them are broken
off by the violence of the waves at a distance from the shore, and never
therefore come in contact with rocks or stones; whilst others, grounding
in shallow water, encase many in the substance of their lower surface,
although none are seen on the upper.

The conditions, indeed, which are necessary to ensure a load for the
carrying ice, such as proximity to the rocks the detached fragments of
which are to rest on its surface, are more peculiarly present in ice
formed under or brought into contact with precipitous rocky banks, and
in that formed in deep narrow gulfs--in short, in ice constituted after
the manner of glaciers. A large portion, therefore, of field ice must
necessarily float about unencumbered with rubbish or fragments of rocks.
Boethlingk, in treating on the diluvial and alluvial formations of South
Finland, incidentally touches upon this subject. “The dispersion,”
he observes, “of these blocks, is very probably in accordance with a
phenomenon which may be observed on many seas and rivers, and which
depends on the presence of blocks of stone near the shore. Through what
force and in what manner the deposition of large blocks on the surface
of all those formations which are at the water’s brink even now happens,
can be observed every spring, by any one who, at the breaking up of the
ice, repairs to those parts of the coast where the shore bears testimony,
by the numerous blocks heaped up one upon the other, of their forcible
deposition. Near Kiwinjemei, on the Wwoxen, there is, as it were, a wall
nine feet high, stretching along the flat shore, composed of blocks of
stone which have been gradually raised by the masses of ice. In several
places such stones, three feet in diameter, were lying on flakes of ice,
which, pressing onwards to the shore, had been shoved one over the other
to the height of six or eight feet; so that no one could doubt the fact
that the ice-flakes had been the carriers of the stones; and also, where
the steepness of the ground permits the near approach of ice-shoals to
the shore, that the blocks would be heaped up one over the other into a
terrace or wall; whilst, on the contrary, on shallow coasts they would
be scattered in the water, at a distance from the shore. The deposition
of blocks depends therefore on the shore being accessible to ice-shoals
driven in by winds or currents. Small blocks, also, are often cemented
together by ice when the water over shallows, the bottoms of which are
covered with loose stones, freezes; and when the water rises in the
spring, or in consequence of storms setting in from the sea, the ice also
rises, and with it the encased stones; and being driven out to sea, the
stones, by the melting of the icy cement, are dropped in various places.
In this way it is very probable that the boulders which lie scattered
over the surface of the countries south of the Baltic were transported
from Scandinavia and Finland on ice-shoals, at a time when the East Sea
yet spread over those regions. Banks also are thrown up along the shore
by the ice; they are never composed of large stones, but on flat sandy
shores principally of sand.

Where the water-level was constant for a considerable time, during which
banks were formed, they show by their height above the present flow of
the water how much the condition of the latter has been changed. When two
such banks lie one behind the other, at the same level, or successively
like terraces, we are justified in concluding that the level of the water
has changed and the land been increased, or that the one has sunk and the
other in consequence advanced upon it. In confined basins this sinking
may have been the consequence of the outlet widening by wear, and in open
seas by the upheaving of the land. On all the large lakes of Finland
are seen banks and terraces, as well as single blocks of stone, on the
slopes. The terraces often lie one above the other, which indicates
sudden depressions of the water’s surface at different periods, each
bank or terrace marking the water-line of a particular period, in which
were deposited in strata many kinds of detritus mixed up with vegetable
substances.” These remarks of Boethlingk, originally recorded in the
“Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences of St Petersburg,” are here cited
from the “Neues Jahrbuch von Leonhard und Bronn.” They are valuable, as
results of personal observation, and have doubtless already given a
tolerable inkling of the reasons upon which this species of explanation
of the phenomenon of boulders has been founded. Captain Bayfield, of the
Royal Navy, the able surveyor of the Canadian lakes and of the river St
Lawrence, records similar facts observed by him in that river. The St
Lawrence is in winter low, and the ice on the shallows along both banks
of the river is frozen into one connected mass by a temperature which
often sinks to thirty degrees below zero, or sixty-two degrees below
the freezing point. When the thaw sets in, these masses are raised up
and floated away, and with them an extraordinary quantity of blocks and
stones which had been encased by the frost in their substance. In like
manner, anchors which for the security of the ship in winter had been
fixed near the shore, were obliged to be cut out of the ice, or they
would have been carried away. Half a ton weight of one of the strongest
chain cables was torn off and carried many yards away, when means were
taken to cut it out. Captain Bayfield also mentions the fact that he
had often seen at sea icebergs laden with stones, in the Straits of
Belleisle the captain examined one amongst many which must have come
from Baffin’s Bay; it was thickly covered over with blocks, gravel, and
stones. M. Reinecke, an officer of the Russian navy employed on a survey
of the coast of Finland, relates two pleasing though minor incidents of
a similar kind. The fishermen of Sweaborg pointed out to his officers
that the sea-bottom of their coast was subject to frequent change, partly
from the action of the waves in violent storms, but more particularly
from the force of traction exercised by enormous bodies of ice which
are set adrift at the breaking up of the frost, and being arrested in
their progress by some of the numerous headlands of the coast, or by the
shoals which there encumber the sea, are heaped up one upon the other
into colossal masses, which, liberated by some new shock, are again
violently urged forward, and drag along with them the sand of the bottom,
and even large fragments of the rocks. At the village of Kittelholm,
near Sweaborg, the inhabitants directed the officers’ special attention
to two such erratic blocks of stone, which at a very recent period had
changed their place: resting on a rock of the coast called Witthella,
and at a height of three sagènes (about 21 feet) above the level of the
sea, there now appears a block of granite, called by the sailors “sea
calf,” from its resemblance to a seal basking in the sun. This block
was first seen in its present position in 1815. It had been encased in
a mass of ice, which, raised up by the waves in a storm, had rested on
the level top of the rock, and there melted as it thawed: the boulder,
brought probably from a distant region, being left where it now stands.
The other erratic block or boulder of Kittelholm had been observed by
the inhabitants in the winter of 1806 to shift its place, being dragged
on by the ice for a distance of about one-third of a mile. But all these
were carriers of small note and name when compared to those of vast
bulk and power described by Scoresby. “Many,” says he, “of the icebergs
contained strata of earth and stones, and some were loaded with beds
of rock of great thickness, and weighing by calculation from 50,000 to
100,000 tons.” When, therefore, we see such operations going forward in
our own time--the iceberg loaded with its freight of gravel and of rocks,
moving slowly from the frozen north to the south, where, melted by the
increasing heat, it is destined to discharge its cargo indiscriminately
on mud, on gravel, or on rock, in the plain or on the hill, in the valley
or on the mountain top (for all these forms of matter and of feature may
be reasonably assumed to diversify the bottom of the present ocean, as it
did that of a former one, now the surface of our dry land)--may we not
conclude with Lyell or with Wissman, with Murchison or with Darwin, that
were that bottom exposed dry to our view, it would in like manner exhibit
its phenomena of gravel and of boulders?

Nor would those appearances be confined to the northern regions; the
reign of frost and snow has extended over a wider space in the antarctic
than it has in the arctic circle. Mr Murchison quotes from a letter of
Captain Harcourt, R. N., who in returning from South America met with a
vast number of ice-floes in the Pacific, in latitude 50 degrees. Some
of them were not less than two miles square, and 250 to 300 feet above
the water, and consequently about 2000 feet thick. It is remarkable
that this phenomenon occurred from 85 degrees west longitude, at a
considerable distance from any land, to the meridian of Cape Pillar,
while the immediate coasts of Chili and Cape Horn offered no trace of
them. The winter was comparatively mild, which might indeed account for
the liberation of such large masses of ice from the South Pole, and their
being wafted into seas usually quite free from them. The number and size
of these ice-floes were so astonishing, that Captain Harcourt, during the
long winter moonless nights of eighteen hours, had great difficulty in
steering through them without shipwreck; their course seemed to be from
south-east to north-west, and they were met with through five degrees of
latitude (50 to 55 degrees), which would be the exact position of England
if transferred to the other hemisphere. May we not then shudder at the
thought of that dreary future, in which, by some physical changes of the
earth’s surface, according to the theory of Mr Lyell, the conditions of
the earth’s superficial temperature may be reversed, and bring down upon
the coasts of our ill-fated island those frost-bearing monsters to bite
up every living thing by one common congelation; for we may well suppose,
that long ere that dismal period our cold-dispelling fuel, turf, coal,
and all, will have been utterly consumed. But let us comfort ourselves
with this selfish reflection--it will not be in our day.

Numerous as the icebergs of the antarctic regions are, they have as yet
afforded few examples of transported materials. One, however, of very
considerable interest, is thus recorded in a Journal of Discoveries in
the Antarctic Ocean in 1839, by Mr John Balleny, communicated to the
Geographical Society by Mr Enderby, the ship-owner. “March 13. Light
variable winds from the eastward; surrounded by icebergs. In latitude 61
degrees, longitude 103 degrees 40 minutes, passed within a quarter of a
mile of an iceberg about 300 feet high, with a block of rock attached
to it.” The rock is described as about 12 feet in height and about
one-third up the berg. The nearest certainly known land (Enderby’s Land)
was distant from the spot 1400 miles; Sabrina Land, if such exists,
was distant 450 miles; and it is very improbable that any land will be
discovered within 100 miles. Mr Darwin, in an interesting note on this
Journal, mentions a preceding case of an iceberg with a considerable
block lying on it, seen east of South Shetland by Mr Sorrell, when in
a sealing vessel; and though another voyager, Captain Briscoe, during
several cruises in the antarctic seas, had never once seen a piece of
rock in the ice, he remarks, that if but one iceberg in a thousand or in
ten thousand transports its fragment, the bottom of the antarctic sea
and the shores of its islands must already be scattered with masses of
foreign rock, the counterpart of the erratic boulders of the northern
hemisphere.

Such, then, are the facts on which modern geologists, and more especially
Mr Lyell, have founded the theory of ice-transported boulders, appealing
to the experience of that which is now occurring in existing seas as
evidence of that which did occur in seas not now existing--seas which
once covered or at least rose to the level of places which exhibit these
relics of their presence. Presuming, then, for an instant, that the fact
is conceded, that at some ancient epoch the low lands of a large portion
of the northern and southern hemispheres were under water, whilst the
higher hills and mountains were covered with snow, and their gorges and
valleys filled with glaciers, which on descending to the ocean carried
with them fragments of rocks, and became as icebergs their carriers to
distant regions, do we not obtain an explanation of the phenomena of
boulders more simple and rational than any of those previously advanced?
For example, Kirwan in his Essays tells us that the Bay of Galway must
have been occupied by a granitic mountain, which in a great catastrophe
was shattered and swallowed up, because he found a mass of granite called
“the Gregory” on one of the isles of Arran, 100 feet above the sea, and
8 or 10 miles from the nearest granitic locality, the islands themselves
being limestone. But such a mass, though 20 feet long, 10 high, and 11
broad, if floated across on an iceberg, could have been deposited at its
destined place by machinery more simple than such a catastrophe. In like
manner, how easily the granitic blocks of Scandinavia could by similar
means have been transported across the Baltic!--and at the same time many
of the phenomena of drift (a name now given by many geologists to what
was formerly called diluvian) might be explained, as shown by Mr Lyell in
his account of the Norfolk drift, by the action of floating fields of ice
carrying with them sand and gravel, or grating and heaping up the sand
and gravel of shoals on which they were beginning to ground, as shown in
the examples cited. The long lines of drift and boulders extending from
north to south in northern Europe were indeed in all probability the
result of the joint operation of the marine current which moved onwards
the floating ice, and of the ice itself. In these lines or trainées,
two sets have been discovered--one crossing the other at a very acute
angle, a circumstance which may possibly be explained by supposing two
currents simultaneously running from the north being inflected by local
peculiarities into slightly differing directions, and then, on meeting,
proceeding in a direction the resultant of the two; the direction of
the resultant varying at different epochs according as one or the other
current, from varying local causes, possessed the greater or less
velocity; if so, the natural result of such meeting currents would be to
deposit along their resulting direction lines of drift, to form in this
manner shoals on which the floating ice would occasionally ground, and by
its load of gravel and boulders assist the work of detritic accumulation.

In as far, then, as the phenomenon of boulders is exhibited in the low
lands of Europe (leaving other countries out of the question), it seems
quite in conformity with the operations of causes such as have been
here explained. But it may next be asked, How does the ice-transporting
theory explain the boulders of the Alps? Had the waters been sufficiently
elevated to convey icebergs over the Jura chain, the Scandinavian
mountains would have been deeply submerged, and no longer, therefore, a
source either of ice or of boulders. This is unquestionably a difficulty,
unless it be assumed either that some great change of relative altitude
has taken place by the uplifting of the Alps since the deposition of
its boulders, or that the Alpine boulders have not been conveyed by
marine agencies. Lyell supposed it possible that falling “hill-sides”
might have dammed up the rallies of Switzerland, and have formed lakes,
on which the icebergs from its uplifted glaciers might have floated
across to the Jura, and have been carried down to the low country at
the base of the Alps, by the sudden bursting of the barrier, and the
flood following it; and Wissmann (who strangely enough ranks Lyell,
manifestly his precursor in this idea, amongst the advocates of the
theory of torrents) in like manner assumes the existence of a large sea
extending over the low portion of Switzerland, the country now bordering
on the Lake of Constance, and the greater part of Bavaria, on the
waters of which the ice of falling glaciers with its cargo of boulders
floated across. This sea was not however, like Lyell’s, the result of a
secondary accident, but arose, encircled and walled in by mountains, on
the last upheaving of the Alps. Its waters overflowing their boundary
at the lowest points, according to Wissmann enlarged the passages of
discharge, which giving vent to the waters, gradually lowered and finally
emptied the sea, leaving the valley of the Rhone and of the Rhine as a
relic. If, however, hypotheses of at least equal probability have been
rejected either as depending too much on supposititious data, or as
being imperfect explanations of the phenomena, there seems no greater
reason for admitting these. Such accidents as those suggested by Mr Lyell
have indeed occurred in the Alpine regions; rivers have been dammed up
either by falling hill-sides or by falling masses of ice, and on bursting
through these obstacles, have poured down in fearful destruction on the
plain below. But how diminutive are such catastrophes in comparison to
that which must have attended on the dispersion of the Alpine boulders!
and although the lake of Wissmann’s hypothesis is sufficiently extensive
to transport the boulders through a very wide space, it is insufficient
to account for those in Franche-compté; whilst, if we suppose with him
that the last elevation of the Alps was prior to the deposition of the
Molasse, it seems improbable that all the great openings of discharge,
or vallies, should have been formed since that period. Must we then turn
from these explanations, and again suppose great relative changes of
altitude by vast upheavings of mountain chains in comparatively recent
times, giving rise to diluvial waves, or, as supposed by De Beaumont,
such upheavings being accompanied by a sudden rise of temperature, to
the sudden melting of huge masses of snow and ice, and to powerful
torrents resulting from it? Are we in short to appeal with Kapp to the
testimony of the Chinese Annals, elucidated by Edward Biot of the French
Academy, for evidence of such changes? In them, mention is indeed made
at dates of 2400 and 3300 years before our era, of the elevation of two
mighty chains of mountains, by which an ancient sea was raised up and
became the present Marsh of Gobi, having been drained by an arm of the
Yellow River, or through the valley of Tsischi, and at the same time
the course of the Yellow and many other rivers were greatly changed.
But, truly curious as such documents undoubtedly are, and worthy of
the most attentive research in order to ascertain what support can
really be given to geological theories by historical evidence, they
could not be received as conclusive in respect to the face of Europe,
unless something like a chain of deductive reasoning from observed
facts could be adduced in support of them. What, then, is the state of
the case? Must we reject the ice-transporting theory as insufficient,
and stand in despair of ever finding a clue to our difficulties? Far
from it: the very difficulty itself points to the true explanation.
The northern or Scandinavian boulders are not mixed with the Alpine on
the low grounds at the base of the Jura, and this circumstance shows
us that there was a limit to the space over which these boulders were
transported, and that limit was, probably, the result of the elevation
at which the ocean then stood. Whilst, then, this ancient ocean was
conveying from the Scandinavian peaks its falling glaciers loaded with
fragments of rocks, the glaciers of the Alps were conveying over the
ice-covered land the fragments of its broken pinnacles. Such a union of
the two modes of transport, combined with sea currents, seems at once
consistent with reason and efficient in explanation; for example, it
explains the difficulty experienced in understanding the ancient glaciers
of the northern face of our Dublin mountains, where we see limestone
gravel and fragments of red sandstone accumulated against their base
up to a certain point where they end abruptly, and gravel of primitive
rocks begins. The limestone gravel and fragments of sandstone may have
been conveyed there, and heaped up by the pressure of drifting ice,
whilst the descending glacier conveyed primitive fragments, and pushed
up before it into a heap the limestone gravel. We have therefore now
come to the consideration of the glacier theory, which, propounded and
explained by Agassiz, has assumed not merely a character of sublimity,
but of demonstration. This I shall enter upon in another article, to
which I shall also defer some necessary remarks on the supposed causes
of that great and general refrigeration which Agassiz assumes, and the
facts support. But even now I cannot refrain from answering a question
which may possibly be asked by some, Why do you place so abstruse and
difficult a subject before the readers of a popular work? I do so,
because, though assuredly of no easy solution, the boulder question is
one replete with interest, and calculated to excite the attention of
many who perhaps never before thought that in those time-worn stones was
matter to exercise the deepest reflection of the philosopher. But this
is not all. To follow up the theories of the astronomer, instruments,
and “appliances to boot,” are necessary, which few can possess; but to
seek for geological data, the inquirer needs only health, his hammer, and
his bag. When, therefore, as so powerfully urged by Mr Patterson, in his
beautiful address to the Natural History Society of Belfast, our national
system of education shall include within it an elementary course of
natural history, we may hope to see in each of its trained schoolmasters
not a “village Hampden,” but a “village White” or “village Saussure,”
and in each locality around him a group of young and ardent naturalists
growing up with a taste and enthusiasm for scientific research which not
only will infuse happiness over their own breasts, but multiply the data
for correct deductions. And in what branch of geological inquiry is such
a multiplication of materials more required than in the one we have been
discussing? Happy times, then, for science, morality, and religion, when
a taste for research shall have been budded on the earliest shoot of
man’s intelligence!

                                                                 J. E. P.

       *       *       *       *       *

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.--Though civilization may in some degree abate the
native ferocity which prompts men to torture the brute creation, it
can never quite extirpate it. The most polished are not ashamed to be
pleased with scenes of barbarity, and, to the disgrace of human nature,
to dignify them with the name of sports. They arm cocks with artificial
weapons, which nature had kindly denied to their malevolence, and with
shouts of applause and triumph see them plunge them into each other’s
hearts; they view with delight the trembling deer and defenceless hare,
flying for hours in the utmost agonies of terror and despair, and at
last sinking under fatigue, devoured by their merciless pursuers. They
see with joy the beautiful pheasant and harmless partridge drop from
their flight, weltering in their blood, or perhaps perishing with wounds
and hunger, under the cover of some friendly thicket to which they
have in vain retreated for safety; they triumph over the unsuspecting
fish, whom they have decoyed by an insidious pretence of feeding, and
drag him from his native element by a hook fixed to and tearing out his
entrails; and to add to all this, they spare neither labour nor expense
to preserve and propagate these innocent animals, for no other, and but
to multiply the objects of their persecution. What name should we bestow
on a superior being whose whole endeavours were employed and whose whole
pleasure consisted in terrifying, ensnaring, tormenting, and destroying
mankind?--whose superior faculties were exerted in fomenting animosity
amongst them, in contriving engines of destruction, and inciting them
to use them in maiming and murdering each other?--whose power over
them was employed in assisting the rapacious, deceiving the simple,
and oppressing the innocent?--who, without provocation or advantage,
should continue from day to day, void of all pity and remorse, thus to
torment mankind for diversion, and at the same time endeavour with the
utmost care to preserve their lives, and to propagate their species, in
order to increase the number of victims devoted to his malevolence, and
be delighted in proportion to the miseries which he occasioned? I say,
what name detestable enough could we find for such a being? Yet if we
impartially consider the case, and our intermediate situation, we must
acknowledge, that, with regard to inferior animals, just such a being is
a sportsman.--_Disquisitions on Several Subjects, by Soame Jenyns._




HISTORY OF PAPER-HANGINGS.

    Abridged from a paper by Mr Crace, read before the Royal
    Institute of Architects.


Paper hangings may be divided into three separate branches, the flock,
the metal, and the coloured; and each of these seems to have been
invented at a different time, as an imitation of a distinct material--the
flock to imitate the tapestries and figured velvets, the metal in
imitation of the gilt leather, and the coloured as a cheap substitute for
painted decorations. Professor Beckman says that the former of these, the
flock, was first manufactured in England, and invented by Jerome Langer,
who carried on the art in London in the reign of Charles the First,
and obtained a patent for his discovery, dated May 1st, 1634. Various
French and German authors give us the credit of this invention, yet it
is disputed by a Frenchman, M. Tierce, who in the Journal Æconomique
says, that a man named Francois carried on this art at Rouen so early
as the years 1620 and 1630, and affirms that the wooden blocks employed
are still preserved with the before-mentioned dates inscribed on them.
Francois was succeeded by his son, who followed the business with
success for fifty years, and died at Rouen in 1748. M. Savary, in his
Dictionnaire de Commerce, thus describes the manner in which the French
manufactured their tonture de lane, or flock hangings:--The artist having
prepared his design, drew on the cloth, with a fat oil or varnish, the
subject intended to be represented; and then the flocker, from a tray
containing the different tints of flocks, arranged in divisions, took the
colours he required, and sprinkled them in a peculiar manner with his
finger and thumb, so that the various shadows and colours were properly
blended, and an imitation of the woven tapestry produced.

Of the second branch, the metal papers, I do not find much mentioned
by the older writers; and of the coloured papers I almost despaired of
finding any early account, till, in an old French dictionary of commerce,
printed in 1723, under the head of Dominoterie, I discovered an account
which seems to give the origin of the present system of paper-staining.
Dominoterie is an ancient French name for marble paper, such as used by
bookbinders; and the early French paper-stainers were associated with the
makers of that article, as a class called dominotiers. The manufacture is
thus described:--

The design having been drawn in outline, on paper pasted together of the
size required, the paper was then divided into parts of a suitable size,
and given to the carver or wood engraver, to cut the designs on blocks
of pear-tree, much in the same manner as at present. The outline thus
cut was printed in ink with a press, resembling that then used by the
letter-press printers, on separate sheets of paper. When dry, they were
then painted and relieved with different colours in _distemper_, and
afterwards joined together, so as to form the required design. The author
then adds, that grotesques and panels in which are intermingled flowers,
fruits, animals, and small figures, have up to this time succeeded better
than imitations of landscapes, or other tapestry hangings, which are
sometimes attempted, and refers to article 61 of the French laws in 1686,
which confirms the statutes published in 1586, 1618, and 1649, in which
rules are given as to what kind of presses, &c. are to be used by the
dominotiers, and prohibiting them under heavy penalties from printing
with types.

Recurring to the subject as connected with this country: in the year
1754, a Mr Jackson, a manufacturer of paper-hangings at Battersea,
published a work on the invention of printing in chiaro oscuro, and the
application of it to the making of paper-hangings, illustrated with
prints in proper colours. This book is a sort of advertisement of the
kinds of papers made, and the mode of manufacture employed by him. He
adopted a style of paper-hangings executed with blocks in chiaro oscuro,
in imitation of the most celebrated classic subjects.

To use his words, “The persons who cannot purchase the statues
themselves, may have these prints in their places, and thus effectually
show their taste. ’Tis the choice and not the price which discovers
the true taste of the possessor; and thus the Apollo Belvedere, the
Medicean Venus, or the Dying Gladiator, may be disposed of in niches, or
surrounded with a mosaic work in imitation of frames, or with festoons
and garlands of flowers, with great taste and elegance; or, if preferred,
landscapes after the most famous masters may be introduced into the
paper. That it need not be mentioned to any person of taste how much this
way of finishing with colours, softening into one another with harmony
and repose, exceeds every other kind of paper-hanging hitherto known,
though it has none of the gay, glaring colours in patches of red, green,
yellow, and blue, &c. which are to pass for flowers and other objects in
the common papers.”

By the account of this gentleman we find that paper-hangings were then
in common use, and had reached a certain degree of perfection, for that
even arabesques were executed; and I therefore conceive that the art
discovered by Lanyer had been continued from his time to the present;
particularly as in the year 1712, the 10th of Queen Anne, a duty of
1¾d. per square yard is imposed on this manufacture. In the reign of
that queen the Chinese paper-hangings were very much employed, and have
continued in fashion to the present day. These hangings, though parts of
them may be executed by blocks or stencils, are almost wholly painted
by hand. Cotemporary with Jackson, I have learned that a Mr Taylor, the
grandfather of one of our present most eminent manufacturers, carried on
this business to a considerable extent, and accumulated a large fortune.
He was succeeded by his son, who, I am informed, visited France, and was
enabled to give the manufacturers there considerable information. He
said on his return that he found the French paper-hangings very inferior
to our own, both as to execution and beauty of design. In those days
we had an extensive export trade in this material to America and other
foreign parts, but we are now driven out of this market by the French.
The paper-hangings at that date, about 1770, were manufactured nearly
in the same manner as at present; I have indeed seen a flock paper of a
large rich damask pattern, more than 100 years old, which resembles in
every way the modern material; it is singular that this art of flocking
was disused and almost lost during a period of twenty years, and revived
only about forty years ago; a mode of decorating papers was also formerly
employed, which is now never adopted. I have seen papers ornamented with
a substance commonly called frost, a species of talc.

In the year 1786, there was established at Chelsea a manufactory for
paper-hangings of a superior description, conducted by Messrs George
and Frederick Echardts, gentlemen of considerable taste and spirit. The
mode of manufacture was different to that in general use; for, besides
the usual printing blocks, copper plates, on which were engraved designs
of great finish and beauty, were likewise employed, and they not only
printed on paper, but also on silk and linen; and by an underground of
silver or gold, they obtained very beautiful effects of colour.

Only part of the design was given by printing; it was finished by artists
constantly retained by the manufacturers, men of considerable talent,
who again were assisted in the inferior parts by young girls, of whom
more than fifty were employed; and had this undertaking been supported by
the government, it would, I think, have been more available as a school
for our rising artists, and of infinitely greater service, than our
present school of design, for it would have been a _working school_, and
no other, I am convinced, will be of any use in forming a talented race
of decorative artists in this country. There was also about this time
another establishment similar to the former, conducted by Mr Sheringham,
in Marlborough-street.

From this time the French began to excel in this superior branch of the
art, which with us had fallen on such barren ground. Their manufacturers
were encouraged in every way by their government and the Emperor
Napoleon to attempt that perfection which they have now so successfully
attained.--_Engineer and Architect’s Journal._

       *       *       *       *       *

SIR WALTER SCOTT.--The following extract from the Diary of Sir Walter
Scott (see his Life by Lockhart) touchingly exemplifies the state of
his feelings at the period of his ruin, of the total loss of property
and frustration of all his bright hopes by the bankruptcies of the
Ballantynes and Constable:--“It is a bitter thought; but if tears start
at it, let them flow. My heart clings to the place I have created.
There is scarce a tree on it that does not owe its being to me. What a
life mine has been!--half educated, almost wholly neglected or left to
myself; stuffing my head with most nonsensical trash, and undervalued
by most of my companions for a time; getting forward, and held a bold
and clever fellow, contrary to the opinion of all who thought me a mere
dreamer; broken-hearted for two years; my heart handsomely pieced again,
but the crack will remain till my dying day. Rich and poor four or five
times; once on the verge of ruin, yet opened a new source of wealth
almost overflowing. Now to be broken in my pitch of pride, and nearly
winged (unless good news should come), because London chooses to be in
an uproar, and in the tumult of bulls and bears, a poor inoffensive lion
like myself is pushed to the wall. But what is to be the end of it? God
knows; and so ends the catechism. Nobody in the end can lose a penny
by me: that is one comfort. Men will think pride has had a fall. Let
them indulge their own pride in thinking that my fall will make them
higher, or seem so at least. I have the satisfaction to recollect that
my prosperity has been of advantage to many, and to hope that some at
least will forgive my transient wealth on account of the innocence of my
intentions, and my real wish to do good to the poor. Sad hearts, too, at
Darnick, and in the cottages of Abbotsford. I have half resolved never
to see the place again. How could I tread my hall with such a diminished
crest? How live a poor indebted man, where I was once the wealthy--the
honoured. I was to have gone there on Saturday in joy and prosperity to
receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is foolish; but
the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more than
any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things, I must get
them kind masters! There may be yet those, who loving me, may love my
dog, because it has been mine. I must end these gloomy forebodings, or I
shall lose the tone of mind with which men should meet distress. I feel
my dogs’ feet on my knees. I hear them whining and seeking me everywhere.
This is nonsense, but it is what they would do, could they know how
things may be. An odd thought strikes me--when I die, will the journal of
these days be taken out of the ebony cabinet at Abbotsford, and read with
wonder, that the well-seeming baronet should ever have experienced the
risk of such a hitch? Or will it be found in some obscure lodging-house,
where the decayed son of chivalry had hung up his scutcheon, and where
one or two old friends will look grave and whisper to each other, “Poor
gentleman”--“a well-meaning man”--“nobody’s enemy but his own”--“thought
his parts would never wear out”--“family poorly left”--“pity he took that
foolish title.” Who can answer this question?”

       *       *       *       *       *

    Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at
    the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane,
    College Green, Dublin.--Agents:--R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley,
    Paternoster Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street,
    Manchester; C. DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; SLOCOMBE and
    SIMMS, Leeds; J. MENZIES, Prince’s Street, Edinburgh; and DAVID
    ROBERTSON, Trongate, Glasgow.







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, VOL. 1 NO. 38, MARCH 20, 1841 ***


    

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