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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77140 ***




                           THE PENNY MAGAZINE

                                 OF THE

             Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 29.]                   PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.   [September 15, 1832

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                           THE WARWICK VASE.

   [Illustration: A large, wide vase with two handles and a number of
                            sculpted heads.]

In an account which we recently gave of Warwick Castle, we mentioned the
beautiful and celebrated specimen of Grecian art, which now embellishes
the grounds of one of the finest monuments of the feudal grandeur of
England. There is something extremely captivating to the imagination to
witness one of the most exquisite pieces of ancient workmanship, said to
be the production of Lysippus, a statuary of the age of Alexander the
Great, thus preserved from the ravages of time, amidst the scenes which
tell their story of a past age, not so far removed from the present day,
but equally recalling lives and actors essentially different from our
present habits and modes of thinking. ‘The Warwick Vase’ was dug up from
the ruins of the Emperor Adrian’s villa at Tivoli, and was sent to
England by the late Sir William Hamilton, in 1774. It is probably one of
the most entire, and, to a certain extent, the most beautiful specimen
of ancient sculpture which this country possesses. The material of which
it is made is white marble. Its form is nearly spherical, with a deep
reverted rim. Two interlacing vines, whose stems run into and constitute
the handles, wreathe their tendrils, with fruit and foliage, round the
upper part. The centre is composed of antique heads, which stand forward
in grand relief. A panther’s skin, with the thyrsus of Bacchus (a
favourite antique ornament) and other embellishments, complete the
composition. This vase is of very large size, as it is capable of
containing a hundred and sixty-three gallons. We have seen a copy of
this vase, of the original dimensions, at Birmingham, executed in
bronze; which work is one of the many proofs which exist in this country
of the intimate union between the manufacturing arts and those which are
connected with the highest display of taste. The importance of this
union ought never to be lost sight of.


                         ---------------------


                 ESCAPE OF DE LATUDE FROM THE BASTILLE.

                   (Concluded from the last Number.)

De Latude goes on to detail the precautions which he and his companion
in misfortune took, in case any of the jailers should be listening, to
give feigned names for every thing they used in their work, and states
the names used by them for each article. He then proceeds with his
narrative: “These things being complete, we set about our principal
ladder, which was to be at least eighty feet long. We began by
unravelling our linen, shirts, napkins, nightcaps, stockings, drawers,
pocket handkerchiefs--every thing which could supply thread or silk. As
we made a ball we concealed it in Polyphemus, (the name they called the
hiding-place,) and when we had a sufficient quantity we employed a whole
night in twisting it into a rope; and I defy a rope-maker to have done
it better.[1] The upper part of the building of the Bastille overhangs
three or four feet. This would necessarily occasion our ladder to wave
and swing about as we came down it, enough to turn the strongest head.
To obviate this, and to prevent our fall, we made a second rope 160 feet
long. This rope was to be reeved through a kind of double block without
sheaves, in case the person descending should be suspended in the air
without being able to get down lower.[2] Besides these we made several
other ropes of shorter lengths, to fasten our ladder to a cannon, and
for other unforeseen occasions. When all these ropes were finished, we
measured them--they amounted to 1400 feet. We then made 208 rounds for
the rope and wooden ladders. To prevent the noise which the rounds would
make against the wall during our descent, we gave them coverings formed
of pieces of the linings of our morning gowns, of our waistcoats, and
our under-waistcoats. In all these preparations we employed eighteen
months, but still they were incomplete. We had provided means to get to
the top of the tower, to get into and out of the fossé: two more were
wanting--one to climb up on the parapet; from the parapet into the
governor’s garden; from thence to get down into the fossé of the Port
St. Antoine; but the parapet which we had to cross was always well
furnished with sentinels. We might fix on a dark and rainy night, when
the sentinels did not go their rounds, and escape by those means, but it
might rain when we climbed our chimney, and might clear up at the very
moment when we arrived at the parapet: we should then meet with the
chief of the rounds, who constantly inspected the parapet, and he being
always provided with lights, it would be impossible to conceal
ourselves, and we should be inevitably ruined. The other plan increased
our labours, but was the less dangerous of the two. It consisted in
making a way through the wall which separates the fossé of the Bastille
from that of the Port St. Antoine. I considered that in the numerous
floods, during which the Seine had filled this fossé, the water must
have injured the mortar, and rendered it less difficult, and so we
should be enabled to break a passage through the wall. For this purpose
we should require an augur to make holes in the mortar, so as to insert
the points of the two iron bars to be taken out of our chimney, and with
them force out the stones, and so make our way through. Accordingly we
made an augur with one of the feet of our bedsteads, and fastened a
handle to it in the form of a cross. We fixed on Wednesday the 25th
February, 1756, for our flight: the river had overflowed its banks:
there were four feet of water in the fossé of the Bastille, as well as
in that of the Port St. Antoine, by which we hoped to effect our
deliverance. I filled a leathern portmanteau with a change of clothes
for both, in case we were so fortunate as to escape.

“Dinner was scarcely over when we set up our great ladder of ropes, that
is, we put the rounds to it, and hid it under our beds; then we arranged
our wooden ladder in three pieces. We put our iron bars in their cases
to prevent their making a noise; and we packed up our bottle of
usquebaugh to warm us, and restore our strength during our work in the
water, up to the neck, for nine hours. These precautions taken, we
waited till our supper was brought up. I first got up the chimney. I had
the rheumatism in my left arm, but I thought little of the pain: I soon
experienced one much more severe. I had taken none of the precautions
used by chimney-sweepers. I was nearly choked by the soot; and having no
guards on my knees and elbows, they were so excoriated that the blood
ran down on my legs and hands. As soon as I got to the top of the
chimney I let down a piece of twine to D’Alegre: to this he attached the
end of the rope to which our portmanteau was fastened. I drew it up,
unfastened it, and threw it on the platform of the Bastille. In the same
way we hoisted up the wooden ladder, the two iron bars, and all our
other articles: we finished by the ladder of ropes, the end of which I
allowed to hang down to aid D’Alegre in getting up, while I held the
upper part by means of a large wooden peg which we had prepared on
purpose. I passed it through the cord and placed it across the funnel of
the chimney. By these means my companion avoided suffering what I did.
This done, I came down from the top of the chimney, where I had been in
a very painful position, and both of us were on the platform of the
Bastille. We now arranged our different articles. We began by making a
roll of our ladder of ropes, of about four feet diameter, and one thick.
We rolled it to the tower called La Tour du Treson, which appeared to us
the most favourable for our descent. We fastened one end of the ladder
of ropes to a piece of cannon, and then lowered it down the wall; then
we fastened the block, and passed the rope of 160 feet long through it.
This I tied round my body, and D’Alegre slackened it as I went down.
Notwithstanding this precaution I swung about in the air at every step I
made. Judge what my situation was, when one shudders at the recital of
it. At length I landed without accident in the fossé. Immediately
D’Alegre lowered my portmanteau and other things. I found a little spot
uncovered by water, on which I put them. Then my companion followed my
example; but he had an advantage which I had not had, for I held the
ladder for him with all my strength, which greatly prevented its
swinging. It did not rain; and we heard the sentinel marching at about
four toises distance; and we were therefore forced to give up our plan
of escaping by the parapet and the governor’s garden. We resolved to use
our iron bars. We crossed the fossé straight over to the wall which
divides it from the Port St. Antoine, and went to work sturdily. Just at
this point there was a small ditch about six feet broad and one deep,
which increased the depth of the water. Elsewhere it was about up to our
middles; here, to our armpits. It had thawed only a few days, so that
the water had yet floating ice in it: we were nine hours in it,
exhausted by fatigue, and benumbed by the cold. We had hardly begun our
work before the chief of the watch came round with his lantern, which
cast a light on the place we were in: we had no alternative but to put
our heads under water as he passed, which was every half-hour. At
length, after nine hours of incessant alarm and exertion; after having
worked out the stones one by one, we succeeded in making, in a wall of
four feet six inches thick, a hole sufficiently wide, and we both crept
through. We were giving way to our transports when we fell into a danger
which we had not foreseen, and which had nearly been fatal to us. In
crossing the fossé St. Antoine, to get into the road to Berey, we fell
into the aqueduct which was in the middle. This aqueduct had ten feet
water over our heads, and two feet of mud on the side. D’Alegre fell on
me, and had nearly thrown me down: had that misfortune happened we were
lost, for we had not strength enough left to get up again, and we must
have been smothered. Finding myself laid hold of by D’Alegre, I gave him
a blow with my fist, which made him let go; and at the same instant
throwing myself forward I got out of the aqueduct. I then felt for
D’Alegre, and getting hold of his hair, drew him to me; we were soon out
of the fossé, and just as the clock struck five were on the high road.
Penetrated by the same feeling, we threw ourselves into each other’s
arms, and after a long embrace we fell on our knees to offer our thanks
to the Almighty, who had snatched us from so many dangers.”

-----

Footnote 1:

  This is really no exaggeration.

Footnote 2:

  This part of the narrative is by no means clear.


                         ---------------------


                           VENOMOUS SERPENTS.

  ⁂ We have received the following interesting communication from a
    gentleman who has spent much of a valuable life in Africa.

The serpents of South Africa, commonly accounted the most dangerous, are
the Cobra-Capello, (or hooded snake,) the Puff-Adder, and the Berg-Adder
(or mountain snake.) The first of these is exceedingly fierce and
active, and sometimes, it is said, attains the formidable length of ten
feet; I have, however, never met with any of much more than half that
size. The Cobra has been known to spring at a man on horseback, and to
dart himself with such force as to overshoot his aim. The Puff-Adder, on
the other hand, is a heavy and sluggish animal, very thick in proportion
to its length, and incapable, when attacked in front, of projecting
itself upon its enemy. To make amends, however, it possesses the faculty
of throwing itself backward with perilous and unexpected effect; but its
disposition is inert, and unless accidentally trod upon or otherwise
provoked, it will seldom attack mankind. The Berg-Adder, though much
smaller in size than either of the preceding, is generally considered
not less deadly, and it is the more dangerous from its being less easily
discovered and avoided.

During a residence of six years in the interior of the Cape Colony, and
in the course of various journeys through the interior, (extending to
upwards of three thousand miles,) I have met with a considerable number
of snakes; yet I do not recollect of ever being exposed, except in one
instance, to any imminent hazard of being bit by any of them. On the
occasion referred to I was superintending some Hottentots, whom I had
employed to clear away a patch of thicket from a spot selected for
cultivation, when one of the men, suddenly recoiling, with signs of
great alarm, exclaimed that there was a Cobra-Capello in the bush. Not
being at that time fully aware of the dangerous character of this
species of snake, I approached to look at him. The Hottentots called out
to me to take care, for he was going to spring. Before they had well
spoken, or I had caught a view of the reptile, I heard him hiss
fiercely, and then dart himself towards me amidst the underwood. At the
same instant, instinctively springing backward to avoid him, I fell over
a steep bank into the dry stony bed of a torrent; by which I suffered
some severe bruises, but fortunately escaped the more formidable danger
to which I had too incautiously exposed myself. The Hottentots then
assailed the snake with sticks and stones, and forced him (though not
before he had made another spring and missed one of them still more
narrowly than myself) to take refuge up a mimosa tree. Here he became a
safe and easy mark to their missiles, and was speedily beaten down, with
a broken back, and consequently rendered incapable of farther mischief.
The Hottentots having cut off his head, carefully buried it in the
ground, a practice which they never omit on such occasions, and which
arises from their apprehension of some one incautiously treading on the
head of the dead snake, and sustaining injury from its fangs; for they
believe that the deathful virus, far from being extinguished with life,
retains its fatal energy for weeks, and even months afterwards. This
snake measured nearly six feet in length, and was the largest Cobra I
have met with.

My little Hottentot corporal, Piet (or Peter) Spandilly, who assisted in
killing this Cobra, had a still narrower escape from a small but
venomous snake of which I have forgotten the colonial appellation. Piet
and his men (six soldiers of the Cape corps, placed at that time under
my direction for the protection of our remote settlement against the
Caffres) slept in a tent adjoining to mine, pitched in a grove of
mimosas on the brink of the Bavian’s river; and one morning when he rose
from his couch of dry grass, Piet felt some living creature moving about
his thigh in the inside of his leathern trowsers. Thinking it was only
one of the harmless lizards which swarm in every part of South Africa,
he did not at first much mind it, but came out to the open air laughing,
and shaking his limb to dislodge the vermin. But when a black wriggling
snake came tumbling down about his naked ancles, poor Spandilly uttered
a cry of horror, kicked the reptile off, springing at the same moment
nearly his own height from the ground; and though he had in reality
sustained no injury, could scarcely for some time be persuaded that he
was not “a gone man.”

It is, in fact, from apprehensions of danger, or the instinct of
self-defence, far more than from any peculiar fierceness or innate
malignity, that the serpent race ever assail man or any of the larger
animals. They turn, of course, against the foot that tramples or the
hand that threatens them; but happily nature has not armed them, in
addition to their formidable powers of destruction, with the disposition
of exerting these powers from motives of mere wanton cruelty, or for
purposes unconnected with their own subsistence or security. Were it
otherwise, countries like the Cape would be altogether uninhabitable. As
it is, the annoyance experienced from the numerous poisonous snakes is
not such as, on the whole, to affect in any considerable degree the
comfort of those accustomed to them.

Conversing on this subject one day with my friend Captain Harding, who
had been for many years a resident and magistrate in the interior, I
inquired whether he had ever, in the course of his campaigns on the
Caffer and Bushman frontiers, and when necessarily obliged to sleep in
the desert or jungle in the open air, suffered injury or incurred danger
from serpents--he replied, that the only occasion he recollected of
incurring any great hazard of this sort, was the following:--

“Being upon a military expedition across the frontier,” said he, “I had
slept one night, as usual, wrapt in my cloak, beneath a tree. On awaking
at daybreak, the first object I perceived on raising my head from the
saddle, which served for my pillow, was the tail of an enormous
Puff-Adder lying across my breast, the head of the reptile being muffled
under the folds of the cloak close to my body, whither it had betaken
itself, apparently for warmth, during the chillness of the night. There
was extreme hazard that if I alarmed it by moving, it might bite me in a
vital part;--seizing it therefore softly by the tail, I pulled it out
with a sudden jerk, and threw it violently to a distance. By this means
I escaped without injury; but had I happened to have unwittingly
offended this uninvited bedfellow before I was aware of his presence, I
might in all probability have fatally atoned for my heedlessness.”

It is not very unusual for snakes of various sorts to be found in the
houses at the Cape, nor does it, in ordinary cases, excite any violent
alarm when such inmates are discovered. They make their way both through
the roofs and under the walls, in search of food and shelter, and
especially in pursuit of mice, which many of them chiefly subsist upon.
During my residence in the interior, however, I recollect only two
instances of their being found in my own cabin. On one of these
occasions I had sent a servant girl (a bare-legged Hottentot) to bring
me some article from a neighbouring hut. It was after night-fall; and on
returning with it, she cried out before entering the cabin--“Oh,
Mynheer! Mynheer! what shall I do? A snake has twined itself round my
ancles, and if I open the door he will come into the house.” “Never
mind,” I replied. “open the door, and let him come if he dare.” She
obeyed, and in glided the snake, luckily without having harmed the poor
girl. I stood prepared and instantly smote him dead; and afterwards
found him to be one of the very venomous sort called _Nachtslang_.

People get used to these things, and even Europeans by degrees come to
regard them with much indifference. Just before leaving the colony, I
spent a week or two with my friend Major Pigot, at his residence near
Graham’s Town; and going one day to take a book from some shelves in the
drawing-room, I found a beautiful yellow snake, about five feet long,
lying asleep upon the uppermost range of books. It lay so still that I
at first thought it was a stuffed specimen; but perceiving a slight
movement in its tail, I lent him such a thwack with a quarto volume as
broke the poor fellow’s back, and enabled me to demolish him at my
leisure. I afterwards learned that another snake had been killed a few
days previously in the very same spot, and a third in Major P.’s
dressing-room. They had all entered through a loop-hole which had
casually been left open, and apparently had no other object in coming
there (mousing apart) than literary seclusion.

Such as these are no very uncommon occurrences, and as such pass even
for subjects of jocularity amidst the adventures of a wild country.
Instances, however, both frightful and revolting, sometimes occur.

It is well known that the Bushmen, a tribe of wild Hottentots who
inhabit the mountains and deserts of South Africa, imbue the points of
their arrows in a strong and subtle poison, and that the venom of the
most dangerous serpents to be found in that country forms a principal
ingredient in its composition. The boldness and dexterity displayed by
these wild huntsmen, and by many also of the colonial Hottentots, in
searching out and seizing alive the formidable Cobra-Capello and
Puff-Adder, are truly astonishing. Still more surprising is it to
witness the snake-hunter extracting from the yet living and writhing
reptile, held fast by his naked foot planted on its neck, the little bag
containing the secreted venom, which the rage of the animal injects into
the wound made by its fangs at the moment it strikes its victim--to see
him take this, and fearlessly drink its contents, as school-boys in
England would suck the blob of the honey-bee! The swallowing of this
venom, they conceive, renders them in time proof against its deleterious
effects, when it is brought into immediate contact with the blood,
whether by the bite of a snake or the barb of an arrow.

                     [Illustration: Cobra-Capello.]

Several of the most respectable Dutch colonists assured me, as a fact
which had come within their own knowledge, that there are to be found
among the wandering Bushmen persons whom they term _slang-meesters_
(snake-masters,) who actually possess the power of charming the fiercest
serpents, and of readily curing their bite; and who pretend that they
can communicate to others their mysterious powers and invulnerability,
by putting them through a regular course of _poison-eating_.

The more usual object, however, of the Bushman in catching serpents
(exclusive of their value to him as an article of food,) is to procure
poison for his arrows. The animal venom, too thin and volatile to
preserve its efficacy long unimpaired when used alone, is skilfully
concocted into a black glutinous consistency, by the admixture of
powerful vegetable and mineral poisons; the former being generally the
juice of the root of a species of amaryllis, called by the boors, from
this circumstance, the _gift-bol_, or poison-bulb; the latter, a
bituminous or unctuous substance which is said to exude from certain
rocks and caverns. With this deadly mixture the dwarfish and despised
African anoints the desperate weapons with which he resists (though
unavailingly) the aggressions of the colonists, and sometimes cruelly
revenges the injuries they have inflicted.


                         ---------------------


                             FINGAL’S CAVE.

                [Illustration: Distant View of Staffa.]

Staffa, one of the Hebrides, or Western Isles of Scotland, lies a few
miles to the west of Mull, within a sort of bay formed by the two
projecting extremities of that island, and a short distance to the
north-east of the more celebrated islet of the same group, Iona, or
Icolmkill. It forms part of the county of Argyle, and of the parish of
Kilninian, the principal portion of which is in Mull. Staffa is a very
small island, scarcely a mile in length from north to south, and about
half that extent at its greatest breadth from east to west. Although one
of the most wonderful natural curiosities in the world, and lying so
near our own shores, this island appears to have remained almost
entirely unnoticed till a comparatively very recent period. It is said,
in most of the late accounts of it (which are in great part copied from
one another,) that its columns and caverns are shortly described by
Buchanan. In point of fact, however, that historian merely mentions its
name. It is not, we believe, so much as named by Martin in his account
of the Western Isles, published in the beginning of last century. Its
existence was first made generally known by Sir Joseph Banks who visited
it in August, 1772, and whose account was printed in the second volume
of ‘Pennant’s Tour in Scotland.’ Banks, in the course of a voyage to
Iceland, in company with Dr. Uno von Troil (afterwards Archbishop of
Upsal,) was induced to put in at a port in Mull, where he was very
hospitably received by Mr. Maclean, the principal proprietor of the
island. At Mr. Maclean’s the travellers met with a Mr. Leach, an Irish
gentleman, who told them that the day before, in the course of a fishing
excursion, he had fallen in with what, in his opinion, was one of the
greatest wonders in the world, though none of his Highland acquaintances
seemed ever to have had their attention attracted to it. His account so
greatly excited the curiosity of Banks and his friend, that it was
resolved forthwith to make an expedition to the island. They reached it,
and found it to be by far the most stupendous example of that striking
production of nature, basaltic architecture, of which they had ever
heard.

At that time the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland was the chief collection of
pillars of basalt which was generally known either to the public or
among scientific inquirers. Since then, many other specimens of the same
phenomenon have been described by travellers and geologists in Wales,
Iceland, Germany, Italy, France, and other countries. Various theories
have been suggested to account for the origin and formation of these
pillars. They may be described generally as consisting of a greyish or
brownish stone, of finer or coarser grain, formed into clusters of
angular columns, having each from three or four to six or seven sides or
faces, and in many cases so regularly cut, if we may so express
ourselves, as to rival the symmetry of human architecture. Sometimes
these columns are found as it were chopped down into fragments, and
lying scattered and in confusion like a heap of ruins; in other
instances, although the several blocks which compose each shaft still
adhere firmly together, the inclination of the whole from the
perpendicular is so considerable as to present at best only the
appearance of an edifice half fallen down; but in some rare specimens
the magnificent pile stands almost as erect as any work of human hands,
thus forming a structure in which all the regularity of art is combined
with a grandeur which art never reached. From the circumstance of lava
being always an accompaniment of these basaltic formations, it is now
commonly held that they are a volcanic product, or in other words have
been thrown up from the earth by the action of internal fire. It does
not, however, seem so easy to explain how the fused stone, in the
process of cooling, crystallized into the regular shapes which it now
exhibits. This effect can only be supposed to have taken place in virtue
of certain affinities or mutual tendencies naturally belonging to the
atoms of which the material consists.

The island of Staffa is a mere mass of lava and basalt. The columns of
the latter substance, which compose the chief part of it, are generally
hidden beneath a thin layer of soil; but in many places, even of the
surface of the island, they are to be found shooting out through this
acquired covering; and the stone is every where come at on digging a few
feet down. Around almost the whole circumference of the island the rock
stands bare to the view. The grassy top of the isle seems to be
supported nearly all round on a range of pillars, in some places indeed
so low as to be almost on a level with the surface of the water, but for
the greater part elevated far above it, and in some places rising into
the air to the lofty height of 150 feet. The name of this extraordinary
isle, accordingly, describes it by its most remarkable feature. Staffa
is a Norse term, meaning staffs or columns.

               [Illustration: Entrance to Fingal’s Cave.]

The highest part of the line of pillars is at the southern end of the
island; and it is here that the celebrated natural excavation called
Fingal’s Cave is situated. Its opening is very near the south-east
corner, and it extends nearly due north. The name by which it is
commonly known, we may remark in passing, would rather appear to be
merely a modern and accidental designation. Sir Joseph Banks states,
that upon asking his Highland guide what it was called, the boy answered
in Gaelic, the Cave of Finlin; and in reply to a second question,
explained Finlin to be Finlin-Mac-Coul; or, as he had been called by the
English translator of Ossian’s poems, Fingal. This fragment of
criticism, however, we may fairly suppose to have been really the
remark, not of the guide, but of the interpreter. A subsequent visitor
of Staffa, the French geologist, M. Faujas Saint Fond, says, that on
making minute and careful inquiry into the matter, on the spot and in
the neighbourhood, he could not learn that any person there knew the
cave by the name which Banks had given it. It was universally called
Uamh an Binn, that is, the Cave of Music. And the explanation which he
received of Banks’s error, or rather that of his interpreter, was, that
_binn_ being pronounced _vinn_, and _Finlin_ being in the genitive
_Fin_, of which the sound is nearly the same, the one word had been
mistaken for the other. This is a curious and not an uninstructive
example of the degree of certainty that belongs to information thus
obtained. However, it is not impossible, whatever be the common name of
the cave, that there may be also a tradition of its having been the work
of the great Fingal, to whom other such stupendous miracles of nature in
various other parts of the Highlands of Scotland are popularly ascribed,
and who has also, we believe, the credit of being the architect of the
Giant’s Causeway in the sister island. This conjecture is rather
confirmed by an anecdote which is related by another traveller among the
Hebrides, Dr. Thomas Garnett, who has also given us an account of
Staffa. “Our interpreter,” says he, “on hearing me express my admiration
of this wonder of nature, told me that it was generally considered as
the work of Fion-macool, but that for his part he thought it had been
built by St. Columba!”

The excavation in question, at all events, is a vast opening, 42 feet in
width at the mouth, extending 227 feet in depth, and gradually
diminishing from nearly 100 to about 50 feet in height, supported
throughout on both sides by perpendicular columns of extraordinary
regularity. The opening is surmounted by a noble arch, and from this to
the farther extremity of the cave the roof extends in an unbroken
surface, composed in some parts of smooth and unvariegated rock, in
others at the ends of pillars stuck together in groups or bunches, and
with the stalagmitic substance which fills up the interstices,
displaying a species of mosaic work of great regularity and beauty. On
the west side the wall of pillars is 36 feet in height; but on the east,
although the roof is of the same elevation, they spring from a much
higher base, and are themselves only 18 feet in length. Along this side
is a narrow footpath, raised above the water which covers the floor,
along which it is possible for an expert climber to make his way to the
farther end of the cave, although the attempt is rather hazardous. The
proper and usual mode of viewing the cave is by entering it in a boat;
but even this can only be done with safety when the weather is tolerably
calm. From the opening being so spacious there is abundance of light to
the extremity; and from the same cause the waves, when there is a heavy
sea, roll into it with great force. Dr. von Troil, who has given us a
description of it in his Letters on Iceland, states that, very far in,
there is a hole in the rock below the water, which makes a singularly
agreeable sound on the flux and reflux of the tide. It is this melodious
murmur of the waters passing into it, which has doubtless given origin
to its common name of the Cave of Music.

According to Dr. Macculloch, who, in his Description of the Western
Islands, has given the latest and most accurate account of Staffa that
has appeared, the basaltic pillars of this cave are “of one ingredient
only, which is a granular splintery material resembling clinkstone,
highly coloured with iron, but of a greenish black hue.” Between the
several pillars has exuded a yellowish substance, producing everywhere a
deep contrast of two distinctly defined colours, which admirably
relieves what would otherwise be the sombre aspect of the cave. The
stone, according to Dr. Garnett, is in many places richly coloured with
light green, yellow, and orange, produced by different species of lichen
growing on it. Dr. Macculloch says, in concluding his account, “It would
be no less presumptuous than useless to attempt a description of the
picturesque effect of that to which the pencil itself is inadequate. But
if this cave were even destitute of that order and symmetry, that
richness arising from multiplicity of parts, combined with greatness of
dimensions and simplicity of style, which it possesses; still the
prolonged length, the twilight gloom, half concealing the playful and
varying effects of reflected light, the echo of the measured surge as it
rises and falls, the transparent green of the water, and the profound
and fairy solitude of the whole scene, could not fail strongly to
impress a mind gifted with any sense of beauty in art or in nature. If
to those be added that peculiar sentiment with which nature perhaps most
impresses us when she allows us to draw comparisons between her works
and those of art, we shall be compelled to own it is not without cause
that celebrity has been conferred on the Cave of Fingal.”


                         ---------------------


                SCOTTISH HUSBANDMEN OF THE LAST CENTURY

The patriarchal simplicity of manners which about the middle of last
century, so especially characterised the Scottish husbandmen of the
Lowlands, was calculated, in a high degree, to foster deep affections,
and a sober but manly earnestness both of principle and deportment; and
it may be fairly stated as one of the happy privileges of the Scottish
church, that so large a number of its ministers have sprung from this
virtuous and valuable order of men. The following brief description of
the mode of life and household discipline of a Scottish farmer of former
days, is a sketch, by an eye-witness, from early recollections of scenes
long gone by:--

         “When old simplicity was yet in prime;
          For now among our glens the faithful fail,
          Forgetful of their sires in olden time;
          That grey-haired race is gone, of look sublime,
          Calm in demeanour, courteous, and sincere,
          Yet stern when duty called them, as their clime,
          When it flings off the autumnal foliage sere,
      And shakes the shuddering woods with solemn voice severe.”

The habitation of a Scottish husbandman in the southern counties, sixty
or seventy years ago, was generally a plain, substantial stone building,
holding a middle rank between the residences of the inferior gentry and
the humble cottages of the labouring peasantry. The farm-house, with the
small windows of its second story often projecting through the thatched
roof, occupied for the most part, the one side of a quadrangle, in which
the young cattle were folded; the other three sides being enclosed and
sheltered by the barns, stables, and other farm offices. A
kitchen-garden stocked with the common potherbs then in use, and
sometimes with a few fruit trees, extended on one side, sheltered
perhaps by a hedge of boortree or elder, and often skirted by a few aged
forest trees; while the low, thatched dwellings of the hinds and cotters
stood at a little distance, each with its small cabbage-garden, or
_kail-yard_, behind, and its stack of peat, or turf fuel in front.

An upland farm, of the common average size, extending to three, four or
five hundred acres, partly arable and partly pastoral, usually employed
three or four ploughs; and the master’s household, exclusive of his own
family, consisted of six or seven unmarried servants, male and female.
The married servants--namely, a head shepherd, and a _hind_ or two (as
the married ploughmen were termed)--occupied cottages apart; as likewise
did the _cotters_, who were rather a sort of farm-retainers than
servants, being bound only to give the master, in lieu of rent, their
services in hay-time and harvest, and at other stated periods. The
whole, however, especially in remote situations, formed a sort of little
independent community in themselves, deriving their subsistence almost
exclusively from the produce of the farm. The master’s household alone
usually amounted to fifteen or twenty souls; and the whole population of
the farm, or _onstead_, to double or treble that number,--a number
considerably greater, perhaps, than will now be commonly found on a farm
of the same extent,--but maintained with much frugality, and always
industriously occupied, though not oppressed with labour.

Little of the jealous distinction of ranks which now subsists between
the farming class and their hired servants, was then known. The
connexion between master and servant had less of a commercial, and more
of a patriarchal character. Every household formed but one society. The
masters (at that time generally a sober, virtuous, and religious class)
extended a parental care over their servants, and the servants cherished
a filial affection for their masters. They sat together, they ate
together, they often wrought together; and after the labours of the day
were finished, they assembled together around the blazing fire in the
“farmer’s ha’,” conversing over the occurrences of the day, the floating
rumours of the country, or “auld warld stories;” and not unfrequently
religious subjects were introduced, or the memory of godly men, and of
those who, in evil times, had battled or suffered for the right, was
affectionately commemorated. This familiar intercourse was equally
decorous as it was kindly,--for decent order and due subordination were
strictly maintained. It was the great concern of masters and mistresses,
when new servants were required, to obtain such as were of sober and
religious habits: if one of a different character got in, his dismissal,
at the first term, was certain. Servants in those days never thought of
changing masters, unless something occurred which rendered the change
indispensable.

At ordinary meals, the master (or _good-man_, as he was termed) took his
seat at the head of the large hall table, the mistress sitting on his
right hand, the children on his left, the men-servants next in station,
and the maid-servants at the bottom,--one of the latter serving. The use
of tea was then unknown, except in the houses of the gentry. Porridge
was the constant dish at breakfast and supper; at dinner broth and meat,
milk, cheese, and butter. Twice in the year, exclusive of extraordinary
occasions, there was a farm festival, in which every inhabitant of the
place partook; namely, the _kirn_ or harvest-home, at the close of
autumn, and the celebration of the new year. On these occasions, an
abundant feast of baked and boiled cheered the heart of the humblest
labourer on the land, and was closed with decent hilarity by a cheerful
beaker or two of home-brewed ale.

But the religious order of the family was the distinguishing trait. The
whole household assembled in the hall (or kitchen) in the morning,
before breakfast, for family worship, and in the evening before supper.
The good-man, of course, led their devotions, every one having his Bible
in his hand. This was the stated course even in seed-time and harvest;
between five and six in the morning was the hour of prayer in these busy
seasons.

On Sabbath all went to church, however great the distance, except one
person, in turn, to take care of the house or younger children, and
others to tend the cattle. After a late dinner, on their return, the
family assembled around the master, who first catechised the children
and then the servants. Each was required to tell what he remembered of
the religious services in which they had joined; each repeated a portion
of the shorter catechism; and all were then examined on heads of
divinity, from the mouth of the master. Throughout the whole of the
Sabbath, all worldly concerns except such as necessity or mercy required
to be attended to, were strictly laid aside; and nothing was allowed to
enter into conversation save subjects of religion.

These homely details may perhaps seem, at first sight, calculated to
corroborate, in some respects, the exaggerated notions which prevail in
England, respecting the religious austerity of the old Presbyterians;
and readers, looking exclusively to the strictness of their discipline,
their alleged “proscription of all amusements,” the limited education,
the want of books, and, above all, the want of refinement which,
according to our modern notions, might be expected to be the necessary
result of familiar association with menial servants,--may possibly
picture to themselves a state of society altogether clownish,
melancholy, and monotonous. Yet this would be a very false estimate of
the real character and condition of the old Scottish tenantry.

The life of the husbandman and his dependents, in those days, were so
far from being unenlivened by mirth and enjoyment, that there was in
truth much more real enjoyment than is now often to be witnessed. They
had more _leisure_ to be merry than their descendants, and there was, in
reality, no proscription of _innocent_ amusements. Spring and autumn
were the only seasons that required _very_ arduous labour in the old
system of husbandry; and then those seasons came round with an air of
more festivity, and more of a heart-stirring aspect about them, and
their toils were encountered with a more grateful alacrity than in our
days:--at least so it appears to one who looks back upon them. At other
seasons of the year the labours were comparatively light. The _winning_
of peats and hay, ewe-milking, sheep-shearing, the dairy, and the
tending of the flocks and herds, chiefly occupied the jocund days of
summer. In winter their leisure was still greater, and their enjoyments
not less diversified. Field-sports were eagerly followed in the
intervals of labour, or when frost and snow had stopped the progress of
the plough; nor were the peasantry then restrained from such hardy
amusements by the enforcement of demoralizing game-laws. At other times,
the grave good-man would toss down to his sons and servant-lads the
foot-ball or the _kitticat_, and bid them take a bout to warm their
youthful blood. And in the long winter evenings, when seated around the
fire, harmless mirth and jocularity pleasantly alternated with more
grave and instructive conversation; nor did any puritanical sourness
forbid the recitation of the old romantic border ballads and legends, or
the singing of the sweet pastoral songs, of which both the poetry and
the music were, like the broom and birch of the braes around them, the
spontaneous and unsophisticated growth of their own beautiful country.
And thus, with very few books of mere amusement, and without any games
of chance, or stimulating liquors, our simple ancestors managed to
beguile their hours of leisure and relaxation cheerfully and innocently;
and, on the whole perhaps, quite as rationally, if not quite so
elegantly, as their more bustling and ambitious offspring. Amidst the
manifold improvements of more recent times, (the value of which, in many
respects, we are far from denying,) it may yet be considered very
questionable, whether _all_ that has been abandoned of former manners
has been equally well replaced, and whether even our progress in
refinement has not been but too dearly purchased by the sacrifice of
qualities still more valuable.

  ⁂ The preceding article is extracted from a ‘Memoir of the Rev. Dr.
    Waugh,’ and has been furnished to us, with some alterations, by the
    writer, himself the son of a Scottish farmer.


                         ---------------------


                              INSCRIPTION.

           Pizarro here was born; a greater name
           The list of glory boasts not, toil and pain,
           Famine, and hostile elements, and hosts
           Embattled, failed to check him in his course;
           Not to be wearied, not to be deterred,
           Not to be overcome. A mighty realm
           He overran, and with relentless arms
           Slew or enslaved its unoffending sons,
           And wealth, and power, and fame, were his rewards.
           There is another world beyond the grave,
           According to their deeds where men are judged.
           O reader! if thy daily bread be earned
           By daily labour,--yea however low,
           However wretched be thy lot assigned,
           Thank thou, with deepest gratitude, the God
           Who made thee, that thou art not such as he.

                                                                SOUTHEY.


                         ---------------------


                               THE WEEK.

                    [Illustration: Marshal Turenne.]

September 16.--This is the anniversary of the birth of Marshal Turenne,
one of the most renowned generals of modern times. Henri de la Tour
d’Auvergne, Viscount Turenne, was the second son of the Duke de
Bouillon, Prince of Sedan, in Champaigne, where he was born in 1611. His
mother was Elizabeth of Nassau, daughter of William, Prince of Orange,
commonly called William the First, the illustrious founder of the Dutch
republic. His father having died, Turenne was sent by his mother, at the
early age of thirteen, to the Netherlands, to be trained to the art of
war under his uncle, Prince Maurice, who, since the assassination of
William in 1584, had presided over the affairs of that country. The
young recruit was placed at first in the ranks, and served for a year as
a common soldier, taking his share in all the labours and hardships of
his comrades, before he was raised to a post of command. In 1630 he
returned to France, and was immediately invested with the command of a
regiment. In 1634, having made a brilliant display of his skill and
courage at the siege of the fortress of La Motte in Lorraine, he was
raised to the rank of Marechal de Camp. The next year he was sent to
Germany to take part in the war against the Emperor. From this date till
his death, he was almost constantly engaged in active service; and for
the next forty years no military name in France, or in Europe, was more
renowned than that of Turenne, but we cannot here follow him through his
successive campaigns. He was made a Marshal of France in 1642, at the
early age of twenty-seven, and Marshal-General of the French armies on
the marriage of Louis IV. in 1660. The chief scenes of his exploits were
Holland and Flanders, Italy, and different parts of Germany. He also
took a leading part in the civil dissensions which distracted his native
country during the minority of Louis XIV., espousing in the first
instance the cause of the Fronde, or combination of malcontented
nobility, but afterwards taking the side of the court, and fighting as
valiantly against his late associates. The career of Turenne was closed
by one of the accidents of war which may befall the highest or the
humblest soldier. As he was reconnoitring the position of the Austrian
General Montecuculi, near Saltzbach, he was struck by a cannon ball, and
fell dead from his horse, on the 27th of July, 1675. Turenne had married
in 1653 the daughter of the Duke de la Force, who died however in 1666,
without leaving children. This lady was a person of great piety, and
strongly attached to the Protestant faith, of which her ancestors had
been among the first and most strenuous defenders. While she lived,
Turenne, a Protestant also by education and by descent, both on his
father’s and mother’s side, resisted all the solicitations of the court
to change his religion. Not long after the death of his wife, however,
after professing to have studied the points in dispute between the two
churches, he publicly declared himself a Catholic. In sagacity, steady
perseverance, self-reliance, and many of the other qualities which go to
form an able commander of an army, Marshal Turenne has scarcely been
surpassed; and he was also brave as his sword, and so wholly devoted in
heart to his profession, that he thought as little of its toils as of
its dangers, and was at all times ready to share both with the meanest
in the camp. Hence he was the idol of his men as well as their pride;
they not only admired, and followed with alacrity to the field, the
consummate captain and hero of a hundred victories, but they loved the
man. This military spirit was the soul of Turenne’s character and the
source both of its bright and of its darker points. Indeed, bred as he
was to the trade of arms almost from his childhood, and living in an age
of such incessant warfare, it was hardly possible that he should have
been anything more than a mere soldier. His name will be eternally
disgraced by the ravages which he caused to be committed in the campaign
of 1674, in the Palatinate, or the dominions of the Elector of Palatine.
At the same time it should be borne in mind that war was the spirit of
his age; and it would be unjust to pronounce upon the character of an
individual, who certainly possessed many high qualities, by subjecting
him to the standard by which we have learnt to estimate the pretensions
of mere warriors.

                    [Illustration: French Cavalier.]

------------------------------------------------------------------------




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                          Transcriber’s Notes


This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover
art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized
changes from the original text:

 • p. 234: Added opening quotation mark before phrase “Dinner was
   scarcely over when we set up our great ladder of ropes.”
 • p. 235: Added period after phrase “or mountain snake.”
 • p. 240: Replaced period with comma after phrase “no military name in
   France, or in Europe, was more renowned than that of Turenne.”

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77140 ***