CHAPTER X.

How like an angel’s sigh of loving pity that summer’s wind breathed on

the cheek of the sufferer! How kindly the crimson sunset clouds tried to

shed their own glow on its pallor, and even to fill with light the tear

that glittered on it. The blush roses, too, that swayed to and fro at

the open window, vied with each other who should kiss the thin, white

hand that rested on the sill; and her sad eyes beamed forth a grateful

blessing on them all, as she lay there, like a child, in her father’s

arms.

His face bore a strange contrast to the mournful gentleness of hers; for

his dark, heavy brows were knit, and his lips compressed, as though in

anger; yet that firm lip quivered, as he said, tenderly--

“How much you have suffered, my poor child! No wonder that it has made

you sick and delirious!”

“I have suffered no more than I deserved,” murmured Clara.

“But how did the man try to extenuate his villany?” exclaimed her

father, with a sudden flash of indignation from his dark eyes.

“Don’t speak harshly, dear father?” whispered she. “He confessed, at

last, that he was married, but said he had long ceased to love; and

then, he loved me--so madly!”

A smile of pure scorn curled Doctor Gregory’s lip, and he clasped his

child closer in his arms, as he exclaimed--

“Thank God, my daughter, you are safe in your father’s arms once more!”

“Oh, I am thankful,” said Clara, earnestly, raising her tearful eyes to

her father’s face, “and I do hope that I may be a better child to you

than I have ever been. I have been proud and selfish, but I do think

that I am humbled now. Ah! how much I owe you, my father, to atone for

the grief I have caused you. It seems to me, now, so strange that I

could be so undutiful! I lived long in those few days I was absent from

you--and, then,” she added, hesitating, “there is another thing for

which I ought to make a long and sad confession--I have been most unkind

to her you gave me in my mother’s stead. I have felt it all as I have

lain upon my bed, and watched her noiseless footsteps stealing about,

ministering to me. I have suffered for it as I have felt her cool, soft

hand upon my burning forehead--and, most of all, have I repented it, as

I have noticed the beautiful delicacy with which she avoids the most

remote allusion to my ingratitude and folly.”

“God bless you, my child!” breathed Doctor Gregory, with deep emotion.

“I trusted long to your good sense to correct the evil which I so much

mourned. I pitied you--for I knew, but too well, whence you inherited

the self-will that was your bane. But your heart is the victor, at

last,” and a glow of satisfaction lighted his countenance, as he bowed

his manly head to kiss the sweet face that rested on his breast. “But

you will have great disappointment and loneliness to sustain, my dear

Clara. I fear you will be very unhappy.”

Clara gazed cheerfully and seriously into her father’s face as she

replied--

“I think I have learned to be happy in the love of home, and I shall

delight in trying to repay the long forbearance and gentleness of my

_Step-Mother_.”

* * * * *

=SHAWLS.=

=FROM HOUSEHOLD WORDS.=

In that part of Asia, where some of our brave countrymen have penetrated

only to die--in that country where Charles Stoddart and his friend

Conolly, whose faces will never be forgotten by some of us, and whose

voices still sound in our ears, consoled each other through a loathsome

imprisonment, and went out together to lose their heads in the

market-place of the capital; in that distant and impracticable country

of Bokhara, which we are ready to say we will never have any connection

with--there are people always employed in our service. We are not now

thinking of the Bokhara clover, which is such a treat to our cows and

horses. We owe that, and lucerne, and others of our green crops, to the

interior of Asia; but we are thinking of something more elaborate. In

Bokhara, the camel is watched while the fine hair on the belly is

growing: this fine hair is cut off so carefully that not a fibre is

lost; it is put by until there is enough to spin into a yarn, unequalled

for softness, and then it is dyed all manner of bright colors, and woven

in strips eight inches wide of shawl patterns, such as--with all our

pains and cost, with all our Schools of Design, and study of nature and

art--we are not yet able to rival. These strips are then sewn together

so cunningly that no European can discover the joins. The precious

merchandise is delivered to traders who receive it on credit. On their

return from market, they pay the price of the shawls at the Bokhara

value, with 30 per cent. interest; or, if they cannot do this in

consequence of having been robbed, or of any other misfortune, they stay

away, and are never seen again in their native land.

Where is this market?--So far away from home that the traders wear out

their clothes during their journey, and their fair skins become as brown

as mulattoes. On, on, on they go, day after day, month after month, on

their pacing camels or beside them, over table-lands mounting one above

another; over grass, among rocks, over sand, through snows; now chilled

to the marrow by icy winds; now scorched by sunshine, from which there

is no shelter but the flat cotton caps with which they thatch their bare

crowns: on, on, for fifteen thousand miles, to the borders of Russia, to

sell the shawls which are to hang on ladies’ shoulders in Hyde Park, and

where beauties most do congregate in Paris and Vienna.

The passion for shawls among all women everywhere is remarkable. In one

country, the shawl may flow from the head like a veil; in another, it

hangs from the shoulders; in another, it is knotted round the loins as a

sash; in yet another, it is swathed round the body as a petticoat.

Wherever worn at all, it is the pet article of dress. From a time remote

beyond computation, the sheep of Cashmere have been cherished on their

hills, and the goats of Thibet on their plains, and the camels of

Tartary on their steppes, to furnish material for the choicest shawls.

From time immemorial, the patterns which we know so well have been

handed down in a half-sacred tradition through a Hindoo ancestry, which

puts even Welsh pedigrees to shame. For thousands of years have the

bright dyes, which are the despair of our science and art, been

glittering in Indian looms, in those primitive pits under the palm-tree,

where the whimsical patterns grow like the wildflower springing from the

soil. For thousands of years have Eastern potentates made presents of

shawls to distinguished strangers, together with diamonds and pearls.

At this day, when an Eastern prince sends gifts to European sovereigns,

there are shawls to the value of thousands of pounds, together with

jewels, perfumes, and wild beasts, and valuable horses; just as was done

in the days of the Pharaohs, as the paintings on Egyptian tombs show us

at this day. And the subjects of sovereigns have as much liking for

shawls as any queen. At the Russian Court, the ladies judge one another

by their shawls as by their diamonds. In France, the bridegroom wins

favor by a judicious gift of this kind. In Cairo and Damascus, the gift

of a shawl will cause almost as much heart-burning in the harem as the

introduction of a new wife. In England, the daughter of the house spends

the whole of her first quarter’s allowance in the purchase of a shawl.

The Paris grisette and the London dressmaker go to their work with the

little shawl pinned neatly at the waist. The lost gin-drinker covers her

rags with the remnants of the shawl of better days. The farmer’s

daughter buys a white cotton shawl, with a gay border, for her wedding;

and it washes and dyes until, having wrapped all her babies in turn, it

is finally dyed black to signalize her widowhood. The maiden aunt,

growing elderly, takes to wearing a shawl in the house in mid-winter;

and the granny would no more think of going without it at any season

than without her cap. When son or grandson comes home from travel, far

or near, his present is a new shawl, which she puts on with deep

consideration, parting with the old one with a sigh. The Manchester or

Birmingham factory-girl buys a gay shawl on credit, wears it on Sunday,

puts it in pawn on Monday morning, and takes it out again on Saturday

night for another Sunday’s wear, and so on, until she has wasted money

that would have bought her a good wardrobe. Thus, from China round the

world to Oregon, and from the queen down to the pauper, is the shawl the

symbol of woman’s taste and condition. Whence come all these shawls? For

it is clear that the supply which arrives from Asia--over bleak

continents and wide oceans--can only be for the rich and great. Some of

the shawls from Bokhara sell, in the market on the Russian frontier, for

two thousand four hundred pounds each. Whence come the hundred thousand

shawls that the women of Great Britain purchase every year?

Some of the richest that our ladies wear are from Lyons; and the French

taste is so highly esteemed, that our principal manufacturers go to

Lyons once or twice a year for specimens and patterns. Some of our

greatest ladies of all, even the queen and certain duchesses and

countesses offer to our chief manufacturers a sight of their treasures

from India, their Cashmeres and other shawls, from a patriotic desire

for the improvement of our English patterns. From these, the

manufacturers of Norwich and Paisley devise such beautiful things that,

but for the unaccountable and unrivaled superiority of the Orientals in

the production of this particular article, we should be all satisfaction

and admiration. The common cotton shawls, continually lessening in

number, worn by women of the working-classes, are made at Manchester,

and wherever the cotton manufacture is instituted. In order to study the

production of British shawls in perfection, one should visit the Norwich

or Paisley manufactures.

If any article of dress could be immutable, it would be the

shawl--designed for eternity in the unchanging East--copied from

patterns which are the heirloom of a caste--and woven by fatalists, to

be worn by adorers of the ancient garment, who resent the idea of the

smallest change. Yet has the day arrived which exhibits the manufacture

of three distinct kinds of shawls in Paisley. There is the genuine woven

shawl with its Asiatic patterns; and there is that which is called a

shawl for convenience, but which has nothing Asiatic about it: the

tartan--which name is given not only to the checks of divers colors

which signify so much to the Scottish eye, but to any kind of mixed or

mottled colors and fabric--woven in squares or lengths to cover the

shoulder. The third kind is quite modern: the showy, slight and elegant

printed shawl, derived from Lyons, and now daily rising in favor. The

woven kind is the oldest in Paisley. The tartan kind was introduced from

Stirlingshire--without injury to Stirlingshire--which makes as many as

ever, but to the great benefit of Paisley. The printed kind has been

made about six years, and it is by far the greatest and most expanding

manufacture. The most devoted worshipers of the genuine shawl can hardly

wonder at this, considering the love of change that is inherent in

ladies who dress well, and the difference of cost. A genuine shawl lasts

a quarter of a lifetime. Ordinary purchasers give from one pound to ten

pounds for one, and can give more if they desire a very superior shawl:

a process which it is not convenient to repeat every two or three years.

The handsomest printed shawls, meantime, can be had for two pounds, and

they will last two years; by the end of which time, probably, the wearer

has a mind for something new. The time required for the production

answers pretty accurately to these circumstances. It takes a week to

weave a shawl of the genuine sort--in the same time, ten or twelve of

the tartan or plaid, and twenty or thirty of the printed can be

produced.

The processes employed for these three kinds of shawls are wholly

different; and we will therefore look at them separately, though we saw

them, in fact, under the same roof. As for the tartan shawls, there is

no need to enlarge upon them, as their production is much like that of

any other kind of variegated cloth. We need mention only one fact in

regard to them, which is, however, very noticeable, the recent invention

of a machine by which vast time and labor are saved. As we all know, the

fringes of cloth shawls are twisted--some threads being twisted together

in one direction, and then two of these twists being twisted in the

opposite direction. Till a month ago this work was done by girls, in not

the pleasantest way, either to themselves or the purchaser, by their

wetting their hands from their own mouths, and twisting the threads

between their palms. The machine does, in a second of time, the work of

fourteen pairs of hands; that is, as two girls attend it, there is a

saving of twelve pairs of hands and some portion of time, and the work

is done with thorough certainty and perfection; whereas, under the old

method, for one girl who could do the work well, there might be several

who did it indifferently or ill. The machine--invented by Mr.

Hutchinson--must be seen to be understood; for there is no giving an

idea, by description, of the nicety with which the brass tongues rise to

lift up the threads and to twist them; then throw them together, and rub

them against the leather-covered shafts, which--instead of human

palms--twist them in the opposite direction. In seeing this machine the

old amazement recurs at the size, complication, and dignity of an

instrument contrived for so simple a purpose. The dignity, however,

resides not in the magnitude of the office, but in the saving of time

and human labor.

Of the other two kinds of shawls, which shall we look at first? Let it

be the true and venerable woven shawl.

The wool is Australian or German--chiefly Australian. It comes in the

form of yarn from Bradford, in hanks which are any thing but white, so

that they have first to be washed. Of the washing, dyeing, and warping

we need not speak, as they are much the same to the observer’s--and

therefore to the reader’s--eye as the preparation of yarns for carpets

in Kendal, and of silk for ribbons in Coventry. While the washing and

drying, and the dyeing and drying again, are proceeding, the higher

labor of preparing the pattern is advancing.

But how much of the lower kind of work can be done during the slow

elaboration of the higher? It really requires some patience and

fortitude even to witness the mighty task of composing and preparing the

pattern of an elaborate shawl. Let the reader study any three square

inches of a good shawl border; let the threads be counted, and the

colors, and the twists and turnings of the pattern, and then let it be

remembered that the general form has to be invented, and the

subdivisions, and the details within each form, and the filling up of

the spaces between, and the colors--as a whole, and in each particular;

and that, before the material can be arranged for the weaving, every

separate stitch (so to speak) must be painted down on paper, in its

right place. Is it not bewildering to think of?--Much more bewildering

and imposing is it to see. As for the first sketch of the design, that

is all very pretty; and, the strain on the faculties not being

cognizable by the stranger, is easy enough.

There goes the artist-pencil--tracing waving lines and elegant forms,

giving no more notion of the operations within than the hands of a clock

do of the complication of the works. Formerly, the employers put two or

three good foreign patterns into the artist’s hands, and said--“Make a

new pattern out of these.” Now that we have schools of design, and more

accessible specimens of art, the direction is given without the

aids--“Make a new pattern,” and the artist sits down with nothing before

him but pencil and paper--unless, indeed, he finds aids for himself in

wild flowers, and other such instructors in beauty of form and color. By

degrees, the different parts of the pattern shape themselves out, and

combine--the centre groups with the ends, and the ends grow out into the

sides with a natural and graceful transition. Then the portions,

properly outlined, are delivered to the colorers, who cover the drawing

with oiled paper, and begin to paint. It would not do to color the

outlined drawing, because there are no outlines in the woven fabric. It

is dazzling only to look upon. Much less minute is the transferring to

the diced paper which is the real working pattern. The separate portions

of the finished pattern of a single shawl, when laid on the floor, would

cover the carpet of a large drawing-room. The taking down such a pattern

upon paper occupies four months.

The weaving is done either by “lashing” or from Jacquard cards. The

Jacquard loom answers for the eternal patterns, and the “lashing” method

suffices for those which are not likely to be repeated. The man seated

at the “piano-machine,” playing on a sort of keys from the colored

pattern stuck up before his eyes, is punching the Jacquard cards, which

are then transferred in their order to the lacing-machine, where they

are strung together by boys into that series which is to operate upon

the warp in the weaving, lifting up the right threads for the shuttle to

pass under to form the pattern, as in other more familiar manufactures.

The “lashing” is read off from the pattern, too, in the same way as with

carpet patterns at Kendal; so many threads being taken up and interlaced

with twine for a red stitch, and then so many more for a green, and so

on. Boys then fasten each symbol of a hue to a netting of whipcord, by

that tail of the netting which, by its knots, signifies that particular

hue; so that, when the weaving comes to be done, the boy, pulling the

symbolic cord, raises the threads of the warp--green, blue, or

other--which are required for that throw of the shuttle. Thus the work

is really all done before-hand, except the mere putting together of the

threads; done, moreover, by any body but the weaver, who is--to say the

truth--a mere shuttle-throwing machine. The poor man does not even see

and know what he is doing. The wrong side of the shawl is uppermost--and

not even such a wrong side as we see, which gives some notion of the

pattern on the other. Previous to cutting, the wrong side of a shawl is

a loose surface of floating threads of all colors; of the threads, in

fact, which are thrown out of the pattern, and destined to be cut away

and given to the papermakers to make coarse gray paper. One pities the

weaver, who sits all day long throwing the shuttle, while the boy at the

end of his loom pulls the cords which make the pattern, and throw up

nothing but refuse to the eye. He has not even the relief of stopping to

roll up what he has done; for a little machine is now attached to his

loom, which saves the necessity of stopping for any such purpose. It is

called “the up-taking motion.” By it a few little cogwheels are set to

turn one another, and, finally, the roller, on which the woven fabric is

wound as finished.

The bundles of weaving-strings and netting which regulate the pattern,

are called “flowers.” From the quantity of labor and skill wrought up in

their arrangement, they are very valuable. A pile of them, on a small

table, were, as we were assured, worth one thousand pounds. We may

regard each as the soul or spirit of the shawl--not creating its

material, but animating it with character, personality, and beauty. We

have said that it takes a man a week to weave a shawl: but this means a

“long” shawl, and not a “square.” The square remain our favorites; but

the female world does not seem to be of our mind. It is true the

symmetry of the pattern is spoiled when the white centre hangs over one

shoulder. It is true, the “longs” are heavy and very warm, from being

twice doubled. But they have one advantage, which ladies hold to

compensate for those difficulties; they can be folded to any size, and

therefore to suit any figure--tall or short, stout or thin. We are

assured that, for one square shawl that is sold, there are a hundred

“longs.”

A capital machine now intervenes, with its labor-saving power; this time

of French invention. Formerly, it took two girls a whole day to cut off

the refuse threads from the back of a shawl. But this machine,

superintended by a man, does it in a minute and a half. A horizontal

blade is traversed by spiral blades fixed on a cylinder, the revolving

of which gives to the blades the action of a pair of scissors. The man’s

office is to put in the shawl, set the machine going, and to beat down

the refuse as fast as it is cut off.

The upper surface of the shawl remains somewhat rough--rough enough to

become soon a rather dirty article of dress, from the dust which it

would catch up and retain. It is therefore smoothed by singing. This

very offensive process is performed by a man who must have gone through

a severe discipline before he could endure his business. He heats his

iron (which is like a very large, heavy knife, turned up at the end) red

hot, spreads the shawl on a table rather larger than itself, and passes

the red-hot iron over the surface, with an even and not very rapid

movement. What would that Egyptian dragoman have said, who, being asked

to iron out an English clergyman’s white ducks, burned off the right leg

with the first touch of his box-iron? That box-iron was not red-hot, nor

any thing like it; yet there is no such destruction here. There is only

the brown dust fizzing. Pah! that’s enough! let us go somewhere else.

In a light, upper room, women and girls are at work, sitting on low

stools, each with a shawl stretched tightly over her knees. Some of

these are darning, with the utmost nicety, any cracks, thin places, or

“faults” in the fabric; darning each in its exact color. Some are

putting silk fringes upon the printed shawls, tacking them in with a

needle, measuring each length by eye and touch, and then knotting, or,

as it is called, “netting” the lengths by cross-ties. One diminutive

girl of nearly ten, is doing this with wonderful quickness, as she sits

by her mother’s knee. The girls do not come to work before this age; nor

the boys before twelve. In other rooms, women are seated at tables, or

leaning over them, twisting the fringes of plaid shawls, or picking out

knots and blemishes with pincers, and brushing all clean, and then

folding them, with sheets of stiff pasteboard between, ready for the

final pressure in the hydraulic press, which makes them fit for the

shop.

The fabric for the printed shawls is light and thin, in comparison with

the woven. The thinness is various; from the barège to the lightest

gossamer that will bear the pressure of the block. The whole importance

of the production consists in printing; for the fabric is simple and

common enough. A man can weave ten yards per day of the barège; and the

silk gauze, striped or plain, requires no particular remark.

The designing is done with the same pains and care as for the genuine

shawl, but the range of subjects is larger. While something of the

Oriental character of the shawl patterns must be preserved, much of the

beauty of French figured silks and brocades and embroidery may be

admitted. Thus the designing and coloring-rooms contain much that

pleases the eye, though one does not see there the means and appliances

which fill some apartment or another of Birmingham factories--the casts

from the antique, the volumes of plates, the flower in water, and so on.

The preparation of the blocks for printing, and yet more the application

of them, reminded us of the paper-staining, which we had certainly never

thought of before in connection with shawls. The wood used is lime-wood.

Some of the blocks are chiseled and picked out, like those of the

paper-stainer. The cast-blocks are more curious. A punch is used, the

point or needle of which is kept hot by a flame, from which the

workman’s head is defended by a shield of metal. He burns holes by

puncturing with this hot needle along all the outlines of the block he

holds in his hands, much as a little child pricks outlines on paper on a

horse-hair chair-bottom. There is a groove along the face of each block,

to allow the metal to run in. The burned blocks are screwed tight in a

press, their joined tops forming a saucer, into which the molten metal

(composed of tin, bismuth and lead) is poured. In it goes, and down the

grooves, penetrating into all the burnt holes; and, of course, when

cool, furnishing a cast of the patterns desired, in the form of upright

thorns or spikes on a metallic ground or plate. These plates are filed

smooth at the back, and fixed on wood, and you have the blocks ready to

print from; one representing one color, another another, and so on, till

the plates for a single shawl of many colors may mount up in value to a

very large sum.

Before printing, the fabric has been well washed; the barège being

passed, by machinery, over cylinders which apply and squeeze out a wash

of soap, soda, and glue. All roughness had previously been removed by a

“cropping” machine. After drying, it comes to the printing-table, where

it is treated much like a paper-hanging. This is all very well; but what

is to be done in case of a shower of rain? a not improbable incident in

the life of a shawl. A paper-hanging would not stand a driving rain. Are

ladies imposed upon in this matter, when they are offered a gay-printed

shawl as wearable out of doors? By no means. Nobody knows how it is, but

the fact is certain, that a good steaming, at a tremendous heat, fixes

the colors by some chemical action, without in the least hurting their

lustre: so the shawls go into the steaming-box, and come out of it able

to bear as many washings as you please, without any change of color.

After drying, in a heat of one hundred and ten degrees, they go up

stairs to be surveyed, fringed, folded and pressed.

It seems a pity that the fat, easy, lazy Bokharian, and the slim, lithe,

patient Hindoo, should not come to Paisley, and see how shawls are made

there. To the one, shaving his camel on the plain, and the other,

throwing his antique shuttle under the palm, how strange would be the

noise, and the stench, and the speed, and the numbers employed, and the

amount of production! To the one, it may be the work of years to furnish

to the traveling merchant strips of eight inches wide, enough to make a

shawl; and to the other, the production of such an article is an event

in life; while here, at Paisley, if the pattern requires months, the

weaving of the most genuine and valuable kind occupies only a week. We

do not believe that the simple and patient Oriental will be driven out

of the market by us, because there is no promise, at present, of our

overtaking their excellence. We hope there will be room in the world of

fashion for them and us forever--(the “forever” of that world.) We shall

not go back to their methods, and it is not very likely that they should

come up to ours; so we shall probably each go on in our own way, which

is what everybody likes best.

* * * * *

=AMONG THE MOORS.=

=THE LEGEND OF THE CASTLE.=

Notwithstanding its proximity to Gibraltar, and the constant intercourse

and commerce kept up with Europeans, Tangier preserves its primitive

appearance and bears the stamp of a thoroughly Moorish town. Like most

Moslem cities it is surrounded by beautiful gardens, and the ride of a

few miles will reward the tourist with some very pretty scenery. There

is work, too, for the antiquary round about Tangier. Ruins of cities,

remains of a Roman aqueduct, traces of the Portuguese dominion, strange

tombs of warrior saints who fell in battle, are to be visited. To the

north, also, near the sea, there stand the ruins of an old castle,

famous as having once been the retreat of a bold chieftain who rebelled

against the sultan. This ruin, with portions of its massive outer wall

yet standing, covers a large extent of ground, and used frequently to be

the destination of my morning rides. Day after day, when riding

listlessly through the neighboring lanes, between hedges of the aloe and

prickly pear, my horse paused at the old castle, and I went in to raise

a panic among bats and owls that were disturbed by my wandering among

its gloomy passages and desolate old halls.

A very matter-of-fact soldier had, for a long time, been the attendant

on our rides--for it is unsafe to trespass far beyond the town without a

guard; this gentleman had not a word wherewith to satisfy my curiosity,

or gratify my feminine desire to provide every ruin with its legend. A

change of guide, however, brought me at last under the shadow of a

charming fellow, a battered, tale-telling old hunter, named Shebah, or

the Lion, no doubt from his courage. His conversation was stocked

largely with magicians, genii, and enchanted castles, which he built up

with much gorgeousness of detail, yet speaking always with a certain

dignified simplicity and a peculiarity of idiom that gave a piquant

relish to the richness of the diet upon which my ears were put.

One bright September morning, as a small party of us rested on a grassy

spot on what perhaps had been the tilt-yard of the castle

before-mentioned, enjoying a cool pic-nic breakfast, the old hunter sat

cross-legged in our neighborhood, with his long gun beside him, and a

knife glittering in his belt, looking with grave wistfulness at the

sparkle of our wine, and wrestling mentally, perhaps, with the hard veto

of his prophet. To console himself, he lifted up his voice and told us

all he knew about surrounding objects, sliding eventually into what he

called the Legend of the Castle. I really cannot repeat it after him in

his own gorgeous words, that sounded very well upon his lips under the

Moorish castle walls, but would trip less successfully from mine in

England. I will tell the story as I can, beginning properly with Once

upon a Time.

Once upon a time when this castle, now decayed, was a strong fortress,

there dwelt in it a certain Arab chief named Muley ben Abel, _alias_ Al

Zagal, or the Valiant. Al Zagal’s valor was not tempered with mercy, and

he was by no means universally esteemed by all who knew him. The two

half-brothers of Al Zagal were, however, known as the Good Lords, and

the public preference of these two brothers caused their sudden

disappearance. They were followed out of the world by their father, Ibn

Amir, when he was a man still in the prime of life. Al Zagal had, after

this time, many fingers pointed at him, and became so greatly dreaded by

the people that he was not unwilling to give them other cause for dread.

He began accordingly to prey upon the country people, and the Sultan,

being busy in a war with mountain tribes, had neither time nor

inclination to put any check on his proceedings. So Al Zagal collected a

troop of black warriors, with consciences of a like color with their

skins, and levied black mail on all travelers and merchants as they

passed on their way to Granada, “which then,” said the hunter, “our

people possessed, and, by the blessing of Allah, will again possess.”

The Moors faithfully believe that they shall in due time reconquer

Spain; and many families of note, tracing descent from Moors of Granada,

still keep the keys of houses, and the title-deeds of lands held by

their ancestors, ready to be produced in the good time that is coming.

Every Friday the Imaums in the mosque pray for the consummation so

devoutly wished.

Al Zagal and his black guards did more mischief than a herd of wolves

among the surrounding hamlets, and their den came to be called

accordingly the Black Castle. The robbers would sweep by in the night,

like a hot wind from the desert, and leave every thing destroyed upon

their track.

Now it so happened that the shiek of a small mountain village, distant

about half a day’s journey from the Black Castle, (Hamet al Hassan was

his name,) had a fair daughter, the only child left to him by thirteen

wives, and she was named Lindora. Lindora means light of the dawn; and

the damsel was as soft, and quiet, and delightful as her godmother,

Aurora. Necessarily she was, for is she not the heroine of the legend

that was told us by the Moorish hunter under the Black Castle’s walls?

Hamet, the father, for the sake of peace and quietness, seeing how weak

he was, paid a black mail to Al Zagal, that was collected on behalf of

the castle, at fixed periods, by one of the chief’s swarthy followers.

It happened that such a messenger one day chanced to behold Lindora when

she returned from drawing water at the village well.

“Son of Al Hassan,” said the envoy, “give me, I pray thee, thy daughter

to my wife, for the maid finds favor in my sight. I will befriend thee

with my influence, and cause Al Zagal to remit this tribute.”

“Most worthy envoy of the most noble Al Zagal,” said the old man in

reply, “many have asked Lindora at my hands in marriage, but she is

betrothed to Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, my brother’s son; and when he

returns from fighting for the sultan, I have promised that they shall be

wedded. So even the marriage gifts are prepared against his coming. Wo

is me! I have said it.”

But the same night, when the inmates of that mountain hamlet were

asleep, a strong light fell upon their eyes, and shrieks and war-cries

fell upon their ears, and they awoke to the slaughter, for the band of

the Black Castle had come down, and fired the village. Young men fought,

and women fled; but in the morning the hamlet was a ruin far behind the

backs of the marauders, who drove sheep and oxen on the way before them,

and with Lindora and her father in the middle of their band, marched

back to the Black Castle, well content with the good stroke of business

they had done.

Several weeks after that night, a young Moorish warrior, handsomely

equipped, attended by about a dozen lances, galloped up-hill toward the

ruin of Al Hassan’s tents. He was an extremely handsome man, you may be

sure, because he is the hero of the legend. Not having expected to find

any ruin on the spot, his first impression, when he saw no tents, was,

that his father’s brother must have struck them, and removed into

another neighborhood. Soon, however, he discovered marks of fire,

and--by the beard of the Prophet!--blood. Need I say that the young man

was Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, and that his agony at this discovery was

dreadful? He sent his spears abroad in vain for tidings, and then turned

his own horse’s head toward Tetuan, the nearest town.

Lindora was at this time, of course, in the Black Castle, imprisoned in

a lonely tower. The old man, too old to be sold as a slave, would have

been promptly dispatched, if the cries of Lindora for her father had not

suggested that his life and presence were essential to the preservation

of her beauty. The dark envoy was most instrumental in the securing of

his safety, but Al Zagal having seen the maiden, who had been seized for

his envoy’s satisfaction, was desirous, of course, as the dullest legend

reader would perceive, to add her to the roll of his own wives.

When Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, knowing nothing of all this, reached

Tetuan, he went to the house of Al Hadj Halek Ibn Abdallah, a famous

marabout, and said, “Salaam on Aleekomm! Know, O holy man, that I am

come to thee for news, the odor of which would be sweet unto my

nostrils.” The wise man, having heard his question, was able,

fortunately, to return an answer. And the youth said: “I will depart

this hour again to Fez, and throw myself at the feet of the Prince of

Believers to ask vengeance; and it shall come to pass that he shall

grant me power to lead his warriors against Al Zagal, destroy his

castle, and deliver Lindora from its walls; for the maiden loves me

still,” he added, looking at the hilt of his dagger, in which a large

opal glittered cheerfully. “Tabeeb, farewell!”

Lindora was at that time in her lonely tower, shrieking with but little

intermission. Al Zagal appeared on the battlements, and leaning over,

shouted to one of his followers: “Asharky, place thyself at the head of

a score of lances, and ride the country through till thou findest a

Tabeeb, for the daughter of Al Hassan is possessed.” The Tabeeb who was

brought declared the maiden to be in the delirium of fever; so

thereafter Al Zagal, who by no means desired that she should die,

frequently paced the battlements in a moody way, invoking on her case

the blessing of the Prophet.

One day he was awakened from such a reverie by the sound of distant

tom-toms and cymbals, and looking up he saw the royal banner coming down

the road from Fez. Bright arms of warriors glittered about it, and a

dark crowd of country people, that had joined with the great army of the

Sultan, was shouting his name; they were his debtors from the

surrounding country, now resolved to take this advantageous opportunity

of paying him the little things they owed. When the multitude had halted

near the castle walls, a single horseman spurred out of the main body--a

herald he was--summoning Muley ben Abel, _alias_ Al Zagal, to surrender

his castle and give up the prisoners therein, particularly Lindora and

her father, otherwise the Lord Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar, Caliph of the

Sultan, was prepared in the Sultan’s name to lay siege to its walls. A

valorous discussion followed, which was closed by a follower of Al

Zagal, who, with a stone from a sling, struck the herald on the

forehead, and unhorsed him. Then the siege commenced.

The siege was tedious, for the castle walls were thick, but as the black

band was not accustomed to live peaceably on short provisions, it turned

very blue when the wine failed, and became finally seditious.

Nevertheless the siege was tedious, and Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar began to

fear the approach of the rainy season and the departure of his peasant

allies, when one day he saw, in strong relief against the morning sky,

Lindora and her father led out chained upon the battlements of the Black

Castle. Al Zagal had an offer of accommodation to suggest. If the siege

were raised he would give up his captives for a ransom of a thousand

mets-kal. If not, he would cut off their heads next morning, and throw

them down into the camp.

This threw Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar into great perplexity, for his honor

as a soldier and his desire as a lover, were played off unpleasantly

against each other. While he still pondered in his tent, the tent

curtain was drawn aside and the dark envoy entered. Cedi Mohammed Ibn

Amar knew the dark envoy well, although he did not know him as the first

cause of Lindora’s misery: he knew him only as a doughty fighting man

throughout the siege. What did the dark envoy want. “Son of Amar,” he

said, “grant but a free pass to myself and a few companions, and the

castle shall be delivered up to-night into your hands. Al Zagal has

wronged me, and the sons of Allah are not able to forgive.”

“Can I believe this?”

“Fear not, Cedi; I will remain in this tent till my word has been

fulfilled. To-night Al Zagal, having lulled and deceived thee by this

morning’s offer, will make a sally with his whole band, and attempt to

cut a way to safety for himself and for his captives through your

unsuspicious ranks. He hopes to get beyond the mountains into Rif. His

men will be divided into two bands, one headed by myself, the other by

my brother, who will join against him at a given signal.”

“Fight thine own battles with Al Zagal,” said Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar; “I

will have no traitor for ally.” The youth, nevertheless, profited by the

dark envoy’s useful information, and disseminated it industriously

throughout his camp. In the night, the castle gates having been thrown

open, a band of horsemen passed the drawbridge stealthily with muffled

hoofs, formed into rank, and placed their captives in the centre,

intending to burst in their old way with a sudden cry upon the sleeping

enemy. “By the beard of my father,” said Al Zagal, “we will yet teach

the shepherds what it is to have a lion at bay.” He had not long spoken

before the lances of the shepherds came upon him, and lances of his own

troops also were turned against him. Seeing that he was betrayed, he

closed with those men who were faithful to him round the captives, and

endeavored to regain the castle; but the enemy possessed the path. There

was a terrible fight, and Cedi Mohammed riding high among the torches,

friends fought against friends, emirs, splendidly caparisoned on Arab

steeds, engaged with half-clad members of the black band, on wiry

mountain ponies. Al Zagal, through the tumult and the torch-light

fighting desperately, succeeded with a few followers in forcing a way

with Lindora back into the castle, of which a large part was already in

the hands of the besiegers. He secured Lindora in a secret room, and

then descending through dark vaults and passages to a magazine that had

long been prepared for any such occasion, added arson to his other

crimes. The savage horror of the scene was at its highest as the flames

leaped their highest up into the night. The red blaze was a pleasant

beacon-fire to men who, waking up by chance in distant places, said it

must be the Black Castle that was then on fire, and so there would be

peace again upon their tents now that the Black Castle was destroyed.

But among the blazing ruins the strife still went on. The band of Al

Zagal had their lives to sell, and valued their lives dearly. “There is

one chance more,” said Al Zagal to a gigantic black who had been

unhorsed in the struggle; “let us mount the first horses we can get, and

we may yet escape beyond the mountains into Rif.” Al Zagal had soon

forced an emir from his charger, and was darting from the castle when

the dark envoy confronted him. “Know me!” the chief said, “I am Al

Zagal.” But the dark envoy struck him, bidding him die like a dog; and

after a great struggle he did die, like a brave dog, fighting gallantly.

But the dark envoy had fought for Lindora, and had made Lindora his

war-cry in the act of treason. Down there came, therefore, in wrath,

upon the head of the dark envoy the sword of Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar.

There was another desperate encounter, and I suppose no shrewdness could

discover which of the two combatants was killed.

Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar rushed, at great peril of his life, among the

chambers of the burning castle seeking his Lindora. In the uppermost

apartment of the western tower, still spared from the flames, he found

her stretched upon a low divan, pale and disheveled, almost senseless.

Her lover carried her among the ruins to a resting-place upon the

trampled, blood-stained grass, and there under the fresh breeze of early

morning she revived: “I am indeed saved by thy hand; O, my beloved,

Allah hath heard my prayers, and great is my reward. To-morrow I sleep

with my fathers and see thee no more.” The light of the dawn was on her

face. “Lindora!” the youth cried, with a sudden fear; “Lindora, speak to

me again!” He looked at the opal in his dagger, which for an instant

shot forth rays, and then its light departed: it became a dull, dead

stone. The soul of Lindora, light of the dawn, had left that couch of

trampled grass and blood, and floated forth into the morning sky.

“And what became of her lover?” I inquired of the old hunter, who

appeared disposed to make an end at this part of the tale, whereas I

desire always to know distinctly what becomes of every one. We were told

in reply, that some said he died at the storming of the castle, some

said that he went to Granada and fought in a reckless way, became a

great man, and never smiled and never married; but the old hunter

himself inclined to think that he abandoned war, and being a caliph

married largely, and escaped the observation of the world by being

overmuch secluded in his harem.

We requested the old huntsman not to kill Lindora when he told the story

next. He listened gravely, and replied, with more reproof in his looks

than in his voice, that Lindora had become possessed--that is to say,

mentally deranged--and in that state, according to his faith, she was

regarded as a saint, and sacred to every good Moslem. It was, therefore,

good that she should in that state be compensated for her troubles by a

certain passage into heaven.

* * * * *

=LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES.=

Were I to discuss, to describe, or even cursorily to touch on the social

characteristics of any one of the numerous classes of Continental

coffee-houses, I should require a book rather than a column. The subject

is one so cosmopolitan, so intimately bound up with the progress of

civilization, that, while ostensibly penning a paper on coffee-shops, I

should be in reality writing a history of the manners, customs and

social peculiarities of the peoples who were coffee-drinkers. So,

seductive as are the temptations of Continental coffee-shops, I will not

venture to touch upon them now. I will reserve for a more convenient

opportunity the brilliant Parisian _cafés_, and the consideration of the

influence they have had upon the progress of the decorative arts in

France; I will reserve the coffee-houses of Germany where pipes and

dominoes are the rule, and clean coffee-cups and clean waiters the

exception; the _cafés_ of Venice and Milan; the _cafés_ and _cafejis_ of

Stamboul and Smyrna; the coffee-houses where there are concerts; where

there are dramatic performances; where there are orchestras recruited by

blind men; where there are dances and orgies, and feasts of cucumbers

and hard eggs, as on the Port at Antwerp; where circulate massive white

tureens of coffee considerably modified, or aggravated by schnaps, as at

the great pilots’ coffee-house, the “Kœning Leopold” at Ostend.

Of the present state and position of coffee-shops in one country, I feel

myself called upon, however, briefly to treat. The coffee-houses of

London have, within the last thirty years, done, to my mind, so much

good; have worked such important results, and offer so many curious

questions for solution, both social and commercial, that I should be

unjust were I to pass them over. I mean the genuine, orthodox, London

coffee-houses--coffee-shops, if you will; where coffee is dispensed to

the million at varying rates of one penny, three half-pence, and

two-pence per cup; where eggs, bread and butter, bacon, and similar

refreshments are provided at moderate rates; but where no ardent spirits

or fermented liquors of any kind are either demanded by the customers or

conceded by the proprietors; where--in lieu of the glasses that were

wont to circle round the board, and the good company that was wont to

fall underneath it in the old-fashioned coffee-houses--there is provided

for the serious, well-conducted frequenters, a feast of newspapers and a

flow of cheap periodicals. You and I can remember when such

coffee-houses were not. If, in the old time, we wanted a cup, a dish or

a bowl of coffee, we were compelled to go to the coffee-room of an hotel

for it; provided always that we did not care to consume it at home. And

coffee at home, even, was in those days, not by any means a faultless

compound. Our aunts and mothers and sisters were blindly attached to

certain prejudices and superstitions respecting the fining or clearing

of coffee. Noxious compositions, such as dried fish-skins, egg-shells,

what ought to have been isinglass (but was fish-bones boiled to a

jelly,) together with red-hot coals, were thrown into the unresisting

coffee-pot to faciliate the fining operation. Certain strange and fetish

rites were also performed with the same view, by knocking the coffee-pot

a cabalistic number of times on the hob, and chucking it up in mid air

till the hot liquid within became a confused mass of grouts and

conflicting flavors. Coffee-houses have effected a great reform in this

respect, and have driven away many baneful, though time-honored

superstitions.

There is scarcely a street in London--certainly it would be difficult to

find three together, unprovided with a coffee-shop. The types do not

vary much. Where men go simply for amusement or dissipation, they will

naturally congregate in classes: the beggar will go to the beggar’s

public-house, and the thief to the thieves’ theatre. But a coffee-house

is neutral ground. There are in every coffee-shop whig, and tory, and

radical publications, and whigs, tories and radicals assembled

harmoniously to read them; for the readers are as mute as the papers.

Something like uniformity, almost amounting to monotony, prevails in the

majority of London coffee-shops. The ornamental is generally sacrificed

to the useful. A plain room, divided into plain stalls by varnished

partitions, and fitted with plain Pembroke tables, papers, periodicals,

and magazines, not quite guiltless of coffee stains and bread-and-butter

spots, a neat waitress, economical of speech, and who is forever ringing

the changes between two refrains of “coffee and slice,” and “tea and an

hegg”--are common to all coffee-houses. There is more deal in some, more

mahogany in others; there are aristocratic coffee-houses, where they

serve you silver salt-castors with your muffins, and silver cream-jugs

with your coffee; there are low--very low--coffee-shops, where there is

sand on the floor, and an ill odor pervading the place “generally all

over.” Yet, in all these coffee-houses, high or low, aristocratic or

humble, clean or dirty, deal or mahogany furnished, night or day; I can

sit for hours and wonder. I ponder on the evidence of Mr. Pamphilon

before the coffee-committee of the House of Commons, not twenty years

ago; and, reading that, and reading the excise returns, how I wonder! I

wonder when I see these strong bands of honest working-men; of swart

artisans; of burly coal-heavers and grimy ballast-porters; who are

content to come straight from the factory, the anvil, or the wharf to

the coffee-shop; who can bid the shining river of beer flow on unheeded,

and content themselves with the moderate evening’s amusement to be found

in cheap periodicals. And, forced as I am sometimes to admit the

presence in my coffee-cup of some other ingredients besides coffee, such

as chicory, burnt beans, pounded bones, calcined clover, or such

trifling little strangers--I wonder still at the immense good the penny

cup of coffee (as it should be,) but still the cup, coffee or not

coffee, has worked in this huge London. Whatever it be, they drink it,

and it does not make them drunk; and drinking, they read; and reading,

they learn to think, and to wash, and to teach their little children to

read, and to think, and to wash, too. I doubt if a murder were ever

planned in a coffee-shop.

Charles Dickens.

* * * * *

=JAMES LOGAN OF PENNSYLVANIA.=

=FROM THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE.=

James Logan was descended from the Scottish family of Logan of

Restalrig, known in history for little else save its connection with the

celebrated Gowrie conspiracy. Driven from Scotland by the legal

proceedings consequent upon the singular discovery of their father’s

letters to Gowrie in 1608, the two sons of the last Logan of Restalrig

migrated to Ireland and established themselves at Lurgan. Robert, the

younger son, subsequently returned to Scotland, where he married, and

had a son Patrick, who removed to Ireland, taking with him a

well-connected Scottish bride, and an affection for the religious

opinions of George Fox. Out of a considerable family, only two children

of Patrick Logan grew up to manhood, William, who was a physician at

Bristol, and James, the subject of the present biography. The latter was

born at Lurgan “in 1674 or 1675.” He seems to have had an aptitude for

the acquisition of languages, and daring a youth passed in various

places in the three kingdoms--for his parents removed from Ireland back

to Scotland and thence to England--James Logan picked up considerable

knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish.

How or when he became acquainted with William Penn does not appear.

Probably it was through Penn’s second wife, with whose father Logan was

acquainted. However begun, community of religious opinions and some

superiority in manners and education to the Quakers in general, riveted

the bond of union between the proprietor of Pennsylvania and the young

disciple, and induced Penn, in 1699, to propose to James Logan, to

relinquish his intention of engaging in trade at Bristol, and accompany

him to Pennsylvania in the character of his secretary. They sailed in

September 1699, and after a three months’ voyage the proprietor and his

secretary touched the shore of the new land of promise, in which it was

Penn’s intention to pass the remainder of his life. After two years Penn

found it necessary to return to England, but he left his secretary in

America as his agent and representative. In that arrangement Penn was

particularly fortunate. Every body else in authority in Pennsylvania

looked upon Penn with jealousy, and strove to attain some selfish ends

by infringing his acknowledged rights, or by taking advantage of his

necessities. Logan alone acted fairly by him, and exhibited in his

correspondence and in his conduct a due regard to his patron’s interest,

and a calm consideration of the practical possibilities of the position

in which both of them stood. A more unquiet, litigious, hard-dealing set

of men than Penn’s colonists can scarcely be conceived. If all is true

that is told of them, they certainly used Penn himself very ill, and

oppressed every one who was inclined to treat him with more justice or

liberality than themselves. Logan did not escape. In 1710 he was obliged

to visit England in order to vindicate his conduct before the home

authorities. He did so fully, and then returned to pursue his duties and

his fortune in the new world. During the six years of paralytic

helplessness which preceded the death of William Penn, a correspondence

passed between Penn’s wife and Logan, in which we have on the one side

interesting but melancholy glimpses of the condition of the great Quaker

philanthropist, and on the other valuable information respecting the

growing colony. Penn sent his scapegrace eldest son to Pennsylvania,

consigning him to the care of Logan and his other sober friends, but

other companions were better suited to his taste, and the silly youth

brought discredit upon his father and himself. In vain Logan addressed

to him letters of sensible but cold advice--too wise by half to have had

any weight with a youth so far gone in dissipation. Sage, sentimental

aphorisms fall dead upon a wanderer whose own heart and conscience can

supply him with better teaching than any mere moral lessons, if he can

but be persuaded to listen to its still small voice. This melancholy

episode in the life of Penn will be best read in Mr. Dixon’s recent

volume.

Logan had ere this time married, and settled himself in Pennsylvania. He

prudently continued to devote his attention to commerce, as well as to

the public affairs of the colony, and attained to eminent wealth as well

as to the highest station. As his years and infirmities increased he

partially withdrew from public affairs, and in a residence in the

suburbs of Philadelphia devoted his declining years to literature and

science. The last office he continued to hold was that of “Chief Justice

of the Province of Pennsylvania,” at a salary of 100_l._ per annum. In

1736 he speaks of having already been obliged for five years past to

mount the bench on crutches. He desired to retire, but the government

could not find a satisfactory successor to his office. During his period

of retirement Logan corresponded with his friends in Europe upon

metaphysical subjects, and made communications on natural phenomena to

the Royal Society, in letters addressed to Sir Hans Sloane, Peter

Collinson, and others. He also employed himself in collecting a

library--then not an easy task in that part of the world--and having

built a room for its preservation, and endowed it with £35 per annum for

a librarian, he left the whole to the city of Philadelphia. The Loganian

library still exists, but in combination with two other public

libraries. The founder is also perpetuated in one of the public squares

of Philadelphia, which bears his name. He died on 31st October, 1751.

Among the founders of Pennsylvania, Logan ought to be had in honorable

remembrance. Firm in his friendship to William Penn, and in his

adherence to his personal religious opinions, a zealous and useful

citizen, honorable and upright in every relation of life, he has also

the still further credit of having been the first to tincture the rising

colony with literature and all those amenities which learning brings in

its train.

* * * * *

=USEFUL ARTS OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.=

=BY CHARLES WILLIAMS.=

In an age when the useful arts have attained so high a development, we

are, perhaps, prone to treat with neglect, or even unmerited contempt,

the efforts of the nations of antiquity in the same sphere. It is not

here as in the province of thought and genius. The poet, sculptor,

painter, or philosopher, at the very outset of his labors, is accustomed

to contemplate and mould himself to those perfect models spared for his

use by the hand of Time. But the artificer, whose nearer concern is with

the material and its uses, not with the form, is apt to fix a less ample

scope; and while intent on supplying a want, often forgets that the same

necessity indicated a similar effort thousands of years ago--an effort

often crowned with the same results.

“The world grows old and again grows young,”

says a German poet; and it may be added, that the sturdy development of

new youth often causes men to forget the results attained, before the

previous old age had issued in second childhood. Let us, then, consider

some of these results, which meet the eye in far too great number and

variety to be even succinctly detailed, as they appear in those records

which remain of the useful arts of the Greeks and Romans.

Many such results are evidenced by tangible monuments; others can only

be sought for in history. The marble, bronzes, temples, aqueducts,

theatres, roads, and baths, with numerous similar remains, are with us

still--imperishable witnesses to attest the high development of the arts

by which they were created. The wines, clothing, tapestries, and

suchlike perishable materials, must be sought out and described from the

written records of the past.

Any attempt at detail is precluded by the limits of the present article,

but we will sketch in outline what we cannot minutely represent. Our

object is, to regard the every-day life of the Greeks and Romans as it

has been so often pictured--to view their houses and furniture--to cast

a hasty glance at their fields and gardens--to survey their roads and

their edifices, with the various remains indicative of their industrial

condition; and we shall then turn with feelings of less astonishment to

the wonderful scenes which the world, now two thousand years older,

exhibits to our view in the nineteenth century.

One word more before commencing our task. The useful arts of these

nations necessarily followed, in their rise and progress, those

fundamental laws which have their seat in the inmost nature of man the

inventor. To instance one: with them, as with us, there was seen the

unity of end effected by necessity and luxury. We see the mother of

invention originate, and luxury or fashion improve, till the first and

simpler product has been rendered cheaper and more common--till the art

of making something better has rendered easy the production of a

necessary, and the artificial wants of the wealthy in the end minister

to the convenience and necessities of the poor.

But the identity of these laws we need only suggest to the reader; his

own mind will gather them from the scenes of daily life, and more

especially from the great collection of the results of industry, open to

his view. The influence and connection of religious feeling with the

arts of the old world must, however, receive a word of notice. The vast

variety of forms into which the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans

expanded--forms often beautiful, sometimes grotesque, but always

powerful--did not fail to include, in one mode or another, every

province of art. Sometimes this influence might retard, sometimes

accelerate progress; but, whether to aid or to hinder, it was ever

present. Not only in their pillared temples--not only in the gorgeous

and elaborate products of their high art, but by the household hearth,

in the simple labors of the field, and in the operations of the

artificer, religion was a companion and guide. The plough and the loom,

no less than the sacred shrine, were under Divine protection; the

workers in metal and the potters would look to the god of fire as their

patron; rustics to the mighty Pan; the gatherer of the grape to Bacchus;

indeed, to such a point was the feeling carried, that the very sewers in

Rome were supposed to be under the guardian care of a goddess.

I. _Agriculture--Bread and Wine._

Taking a natural arrangement of our subject, into food, clothing,

dwellings, traveling, and so forth, we must first glance at those arts

which supply the merely animal wants of man. Agriculture was highly

valued and skillfully pursued among both nations, though the Romans

appear to have estimated the art even more highly than the Greeks. In

both countries the soil was fertile, and the productions very similar.

Wheat, barley, the olive, the vine, flax, and the fig-tree, with a great

variety of garden products, may be enumerated. With regard to the

live-stock, horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, and swine were reared for

the ends of labor or for consumption; but the first-mentioned appear to

have been scarce in Greece. The flesh of the kid and pork were the meats

in most general use; but animal food, especially among the Greeks, was

not so generally consumed as in our own day. Details of production and

consumption cannot here be gone into; and we will therefore take the two

main productions of both countries--their bread and wine--as examples in

this respect.

The plough in use among the ancients differs very little from that still

employed in modern times; in all important points, a close similarity is

visible. The fashion and combination of these parts varied with them as

with us, in order to fit the instrument for different soils. The Greeks

and Romans usually ploughed their land three times before sowing;

namely, in the spring, summer, and autumn of the year. But in some soils

of great tenacity there were nine different ploughings, as mentioned by

the younger Pliny in the description of his villa and lands in Tuscany.

The harrows, rakes, hoes, spades, and agricultural implements, scarcely

demand more than to be mentioned. We need only say, that the general

processes of agriculture, including systems of manuring and irrigation,

furnished materials for copious dissertations, and were not in Rome

considered beneath the notice of the highest citizens.

Grain, when trodden out, shaken, or beaten by the flail from the straw,

was, in very early times, pounded in mortars. But a simple form of mill,

generally worked by hand, soon superseded the first rough contrivance.

In its best form, this consisted of a cone of rough stone, on which was

applied a hollow cone of the same material, which revolved in contact

with the first. The upper mill-stone was furnished with levers, and

turned either by slaves, by mules, or asses. It was hollowed out above

into a cup-like shape, to receive the corn, which fell in a stream into

a space between the two surfaces, and was reduced to flour before its

escape below. Each country family had one or more mills, to grind for

its own consumption; and thus the want of public machine mills was

supplied. Water-mills were an invention of comparatively late date. They

were of simple construction, consisting merely of a cogged wheel, which

turned a second connected with the upper mill-stone.

In Rome, the bread continued for a long period to be made by the women

of the household, and the trade of baker was unknown; but in Athens

bread was mostly bought in the market, and eventually in both nations

the art of baking became highly elaborate. Indeed, the variety of breads

in use among the Greeks and Romans very much exceeded our own; and in

the sumptuous private establishments of later periods, there were many

slaves educated professedly for the care of the baking department. The

many kinds of bread enumerated by Athenæus may be divided into two

sorts, the leavened and the unleavened; many, doubtless, answered to our

pastry and confectionary, but there was also a particular class of

medicated breads expressly for use in physic. Indeed, so far was this

carried, that a certain baker is mentioned by Plato quite in the light

of an accomplished physician. The chief article of consumption in Greece

was a kind of soft cake, made of barley-meal and sometimes mixed with

honey or wine.

The Pelasgians appear to have introduced the culture of the vine into

Greece, and subsequently into Italy. The art of making wine was known

from the earliest ages, and its origin is lost in fable. To the careful

selection of the site for a vineyard, the pruning of the vine, the

props, training, manure, and careful cleaning of the soil, we can only

allude. The solemn or festal character of the vintage-time, the

religious aspect of the customs then observed, their near connection

with the origin of the Greek drama, the general joy, and often riotous

excess, which marked the gathering-in of the grape, will all recur to

mind in connection with this part of our subject. But our more immediate

object is, to give a short sketch of the methods by which the juice of

the grape was prepared for use.

When gathered, the grapes were first placed in the vat and trodden by

men, who often moved in time to the sound of some vintage strain, or

enlivened their labors with the song. When the juice thus collected had

been drained off, the remaining mass was still further subjected to the

action of wooden screw-presses. The first yield of juice was most

prized, as producing the best-flavored and richest wine; the second was

only used for inferior purposes. One exquisitely rich kind of wine was

formed from the juice exuding from over-ripe clusters before they were

gathered. The sweet juice, or “must,” before fermentation, was

frequently drunk, after undergoing a clarifying process. This “must,”

too, was often preserved sweet and unfermented, by inclosing it in

air-tight vessels; while grape-jellies were formed by boiling it down to

the required consistency, and the addition of honey. This essence of the

grape was used for “doctoring” poor wines.

To form the “must” into wine, it was placed in long, bell-mouthed

vessels of earthenware, to undergo fermentation. These were sunk in the

ground, and exposed to a moderate, equable temperature. When the “must”

had become wine, these large vessels were carefully closed, and only

opened at intervals to purify their contents, or to subject them to any

mixing process. Similar arts to those of modern wine-makers were in use

among the ancients, in order to produce the desired qualities. But

further, the lids of these vessels were rubbed with an aromatic compound

of saffron, pitch, grape-jelly, mastic, and fir-cones; which process was

supposed to communicate an agreeable flavor.

Some wines were drunk from the “dolium,” or, as we should say, from the

“wood;” but the choicer kinds were drawn off into smaller earthenware

vases, called amphoræ--in short, bottled as with us. We may mention that

glass was used for these vessels in later times, and a wooden cask was

sometimes substituted for the “dolium.” Even after bottling, the Greek

and Roman wines were frequently very thick, and required fining or

straining before they could be used. Bottled wines were often kept to a

great age before consumption; some required from twenty to twenty-five

years for attaining perfection, but the ordinary time allowed was seven

years. If an earlier ripening was desired, it was produced artificially

by heat. Powdered resin was sometimes added on bottling, and various

alkaline correctives, aromatic adjuncts, perfumes, essential oils,

bitters, and spices, were added to produce the desired flavor; while

imitation wines, in great variety, were manufactured in Rome. The colors

of wines in Italy and Greece were, as among the moderns, white, red, and

brown; the red being either brackish, like some of our port, or

ruby-colored, like claret. Sweet wines were formed by incomplete

fermentation, and wines prepared from raisins, or partly dried grapes,

were also common. An inferior drink for laborers was formed by boiling

the grape-husks after the process of expression: it probably resembled

our worst kinds of cider.

The commoner wines were ridiculously cheap. We hear of ten gallons being

sold for threepence, and a high order of wine in Athens only fetched

two-pence a gallon. But then, as with us, high prices were given by

connoisseurs for the choice vintages and varieties. The Thracian wine

given to Ulysses, the Pramnian mentioned in the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,”

and in later times the Thasian, Lesbian, Chian, and the wine of Cos,

were among the best kinds of Greek wine. In Italy the wines of Latium

and Campana, the Imperial wine, the Cæcuban, Falernian, Alban,

Surrentine, Massic, Setinian, and Statinian, were the most highly

prized.

The cultivation of the olive, the fig, flax, and the various productions

of the field and garden, was doubtless conducted with equal skill. The

Romans were familiar with all the appliances of husbandry and gardening,

and especially with the arts of grafting and budding; but in this branch

of our subject the two examples above given will suffice to furnish a

general idea of Greek and Roman skill, and we must hasten to give the

reader an account of the modes in use for appropriating the mineral

wealth of the soil.

II. _Extraction and Use of Metals._

The art of extracting the metals from their ores, lying, as it does, at

the very foundation of the means by which the useful arts advance,

cannot be said to have reached a high point of perfection in Greece,

Rome, or the other countries from which they derived their supply. An

idea of mining processes can scarcely be better given than by a

description of those used in the Attic silver mines at Laurium.

The veins of silver were situated in a range of pine-covered hills of no

considerable height, affording quarries of good marble, in contact with

which substance the silver ore was mostly found. These mines were

probably opened at a very early period, but the precise date does not

appear. The ore, or “silver earth,” as the Greeks called it, was

extremely hard and probably very pure and rich in the yield of metal, as

the Greeks, from their defective knowledge of chemical processes, could

not extract the silver with profit when united with large proportions of

other metals. Contrary to common experience, the ore appears to have

assumed the form of layers rather than of veins.

The mines were worked, either by perpendicular shafts, or by tunneling

the side of the hill. Pillars of the ore were of course left, or the

superincumbent mass was supported by props of timber, which was largely

imported for the purpose. The noxious vapors exhaling from the mines

were carried off by shafts of ventilation. The ore was removed partly by

simple machines, partly by unassisted labor. On reaching the mouth of

the mine it was broken small with iron pestles in stone mortars. These

pieces were then ground down smaller, washed, strained through sieves,

and sorted into qualities of different richness.

The art of smelting the ore thus obtained was imperfect, when viewed in

comparison with the greater skill of the moderns. “Even in the time of

Strabo, when considerable improvements had been effected, there was

still no profit to be gained by the extraction of silver from lead ore,

in which it was present in small proportions.”[2] But that some

improvement took place is evident from the fact, that much ore rejected

by the earlier operators was at a later period profitably employed.

Crucibles have been found in Egypt similar to those in modern use.

Similar ones were probably known to the Greeks, and old remains of

bell-shaped smelting furnaces have been met with, furnished with a

channel for the escape of the molten metal, which renders it probable

that such furnaces were employed in Greece and Rome.

In the silver ore of Laurium lead was largely present, and according to

Pliny, the ore was first melted down to the substance called “Stannum,”

a union of lead with silver. This was taken to the refining oven, where

the silver was separated by heat, and the lead remained half glazed in

the form of litharge, which in its turn was reduced. But the ancients

were also familiar with the use of quicksilver in the extraction of

other metals, and the moderns have only a claim to re-discovery in this

respect. The bellows and charcoal were employed to produce the extreme

heat required in refining processes.

Various substances are mentioned as the products of these ancient

metallic operations; the “flower” of gold and of copper; the “foam” of

silver, with some others, all of which were used in medicine. In the

mines of Laurium, copper, cinnabar, and “sil,” a lightish yellow earth

much used by painters, and containing iron, were also found.

But though Greece had mines of silver and even of gold, still great part

of the precious metals in circulation was imported from Asia and Africa.

India, the great source of wealth and luxury in all times, furnished

copious supplies for those large deposits of bullion stored in the

temples and treasuries of Greece.

A very natural transition leads us to the Greek and Roman coinage.

Silver money was first coined at Ægina, so early as 869 B. C., and was

originally the only current coin in Greece. The early coins are rather

rough in appearance, and bear a rude mark on the reverse, as if from a

puncheon on which the metal was placed for striking the piece. The

Athenian silver money was remarkably pure, indeed so much so as to be

taken at a premium throughout Greece. Some coins contained only

one-sixtieth part of their weight in baser metal, whilst our own silver

coinage contains a twelfth. Among the Greeks, gold coinage was

subsequent to silver, and bronze was still later introduced.

The earliest Roman coins were composed of bronze, and were cast in a

mould instead of being struck as in Greece. Some remains of Roman

coinage show the cut edge of the line of metal which united adjacent

coins when taken from the mould, in which the whole row had been cast

together; and some such rows are still found in an undivided state. The

cumbrous nature of the early Roman coinage was such that each piece

weighed a pound. In fact, in this respect it seemed to come near the

weighty iron coinage of Sparta, of which we may add that no remains

exist.

In Athens and Rome the smallest silver coins were very minute indeed.

The Athenians possessed separate silver coins, running from the piece of

four drachmæ, in value about 3_s._ 4_d._, down to the quarter of an

obolus, which was less in value than our halfpenny. The silver coin

responding to this value was very minute, weighing less than three

grains. There were Roman silver coins even smaller than this; probably

some existed of no more than 1½ grain in weight, or considerably less

than one quarter of the size of our silver pence. But the great

inconvenience of such small coins led to the striking of corresponding

values in bronze, and these “silver scales,” for they had just the

appearance of such, went out of use.

A gold coinage in Greece probably did not exist before the age of

Alexander the Great, though their near neighbors in Asia undoubtedly

possessed gold money from an early age; and pieces of this became

current in Greece. The few remaining gold coins of Greece appear not to

have been struck before the period mentioned above. But on the rise of

the Macedonian empire gold coins became plentiful through the country.

Gold was first coined in Rome B. C. 207, sixty years after the

commencement of their silver currency. The common size of their pieces

was probably about the same with that of our sovereign; but some existed

in size only one quarter of our half sovereigns, and representing about

2_s._ 6_d._ in silver.

It is necessary in this place to give some account of the bronze of the

ancients, a compound fulfilling the most important uses in Greece and

Rome. “Money, vases, and utensils of all sorts, whether for domestic or

sacrificial purposes, ornaments, arms offensive and defensive,

furniture, tablets for inscriptions, musical instruments, and, indeed,

every object to which it could be applied, was made of bronze.”[3] Zinc,

like steel, was unknown to the ancients. The discovery of a case of

surgical instruments in Pompeii, in which the lancets are made of

bronze, almost demonstrates to a certainty a want of the art of making

steel, and the same conclusion is supported by the existing remains of

Greek and Roman weapons. Their bronze was composed of copper and tin,

and contained about seven parts of the former to one of the latter. The

Corinthian bronze was most valued for the purposes of art, and there

were certain varieties of this, into the composition of which silver and

even gold were introduced, so as to produce a white or yellow shade in

the color. The Delians and Æginetans also excelled in the manufacture of

bronze.

The ancients cast metals in moulds, worked them into plates with the

hammer, or engraved and embossed them elaborately, as in the manufacture

of their metal vases. Their colossal statues, of which the one at

Rhodes, 100 feet high, is the most famous example, were mostly cast of

bronze.

A constant source of employment to the workers in metal was the

manufacture of arms, offensive and defensive. Among the latter may be

mentioned shields, greaves, cuirasses, helmets, and coats of mail,

consisting either of forged rings linked one within the other, or of

scales and rings fastened to some firmly-woven linen or woollen cloth.

The offensive arms must have been defective, owing to the ignorance of

steel. Iron, silver, and gold were all used in making or ornamenting

arms, besides the more common bronze. With the welding of iron, and the

use of a kind of solder, the workmen in those days appear to have been

familiar.

The necklaces, eardrops, rings, brooches, collars, crowns, goblets,

salvers, and vases, manufactured of the precious metals or the finer

sorts of bronze, and often set with precious stones, may be enumerated

as the chief articles of the jeweler’s and silversmith’s trade. The

various tools employed by workmen, the variety of form and modes of

working, were all very similar to those of modern days.

III. _Houses and Furniture._

The numerous splendid architectural remains in Greece and Italy,

sufficiently establish the proficiency of the two great nations of

antiquity in the art of building. With architecture, where it becomes

one of the fine arts, we have not now to deal; the scope of the present

chapter embraces merely their masonry, and its application to the common

uses of life. Still we cannot avoid remarking, that elegance of

proportion and beauty of design are no less apparent in their works,

than solid strength and correct adaptation to the particular uses for

which they were intended.

The earlier walls in both countries were undoubtedly very rude

efforts--mere lath and plaster, or rough earthen structures strengthened

with beams. Log-houses were then common in well-wooded districts. When

the art of building had made some progress, brick, rubble, and stone

came into general use; until finally, in their best works of art, their

stone and marble columns and walls were distinguished by a solidity and

accuracy of construction rarely since excelled.

The earliest form of Grecian masonry of which we have any remains is the

Cyclopean, in which the walls are formed of huge stones, the interstices

of these being filled up with smaller ones. The walls of Mycenæ and

Tiryns furnish the best specimens; and in some places the outer walls

are supposed to have been sixty feet thick. The labor of constructing

such works must have been immense. Another form, sometimes termed the

second Cyclopean, consisted of polygonal blocks of large size, fitted

together with tolerable accuracy, sometimes with great precision and,

like the former, not united by mortar.

A common form of construction was that of facing a rubble wall with

square pieces of stone, arranged in a wedge-like manner on their angles.

This mode of arrangement was united with the commoner one of horizontal

courses, so as to form a kind of pattern, which produced a pleasing

effect, still imitated in some of our own buildings. Thick walls among

the Romans were often formed by facing the outer and inner surfaces with

stones squared and fitted, or with brick, while the interior was filled

with rough fragments, strongly imbedded in a mass of their admirable

mortar. To bind together the two encasing surfaces, large stones were

introduced, extending through the whole thickness of the wall.

But the most perfect kind of wall was that which we call ashlar work,

and is still to be seen in the temples of Athens, Corinth, and other

Greek cities. The stone or marble was quarried, and then accurately

worked with the chisel, so that the eye could scarcely trace the union

of the large adjacent blocks. These blocks were connected with those

above them by dovetailing; and the stones lying side by side were firmly

united by iron cramps fixed with lead. So constant and abundant was this

employment of metallic fastenings, that the vast remains of ancient

buildings have proved perfect mines for peculators. In a marble temple

at Cyzicus, the lines of union of the slabs were covered with gold.

In contrasting the Greek and Roman masonry, we see that the great works

of the former were mostly of marble and highly finished, while many

Roman remains of great magnificence are composed of rougher stone-work

united by mortar, or of a union of stone and brick in alternate courses.

The chief superiority of the Romans was in their complete knowledge and

application of the principle of the arch, with which the Greeks were not

acquainted. There was, it is true, a kind of pointed arch in use among

them for corridors; but this was probably formed by cutting a passage

through the solid walls when built, not by building the stones up

archwise. Such passages are found in the vast Cyclopean walls before

mentioned.

Before subjoining any particular account of edifices, we may mention

that the lever, the capstan, the crane, pulley, and other simple

machines for raising or adjusting stones, were known to the Greeks and

Romans. Though they could not pretend to a knowledge of machinery and

mechanics even remotely approaching our own, still they had sufficient

to answer the ordinary requirements of building. In carpentry, too, the

Romans must have possessed considerable skill, or they could never have

connected, by a structure of timber, arches so wide as those of Trajan’s

bridge over the Danube.

We will now give a short description of the general _form_ and

appearance of the Greek and Roman house. In neither nation had the

external appearance of a dwelling-house much pretension to beauty. Lying

chiefly, almost exclusively, on the ground floor, there did not exist

that elevation of structure, or regularity of plan necessary to produce

a striking effect on the eye from without. In the Greek house there were

two principal divisions, the men’s quarter and the women’s quarter. The

outer door was approached by steps, and opened on a narrow passage, on

one side of which, in a large house, were the stables, on the other a

lodge for the porter. This passage entered on the men’s quarter--an open

quadrangle surrounded by porticoes, forming a kind of cloister for

exercise or meals. In this court was placed an altar for domestic

sacrifice. Various chambers were ranged round the quadrangle behind the

porticoes, answering the purposes of private dining-rooms,

withdrawing-rooms, picture-galleries, libraries, bed-chambers, and so

forth. The great object in the arrangement of chambers was to gain warm

rooms, exposed to the sun, for use during winter, and cool, shady

apartments for summer occupation. Directly opposite the entrance to the

men’s quarter was a passage, closed by a door, and leading to the

women’s quadrangle.

Three sides of this square were surrounded by porticoes, as in the men’s

quarter; but on the fourth side, opposite to the entrance-door, and

usually fronting south, there was a kind of vestibule, on either side of

which were placed bed-chambers, the principal in the house. Behind these

were large rooms, in which women worked at their spinning, weaving, or

embroidery. An upper story, in most cases, extended partly over the

space occupied by the lower; but the rooms on the upper floor bore a

very small proportion to those on the ground. In early times, before the

house had attained its usual main division into separate quarters for

the men and women, the upper chambers were assigned to the latter.

Afterward they were usually occupied by slaves, or by strangers visiting

the family. Balconies were sometimes built, projecting from the windows

of this upper floor. The roof was usually flat, and calculated for

exercise or basking in the sun; in rarer cases a pointed roof existed.

Windows were not common as with us; the necessity for them was not so

great; the mildness of the climate, and the fact that nearly all the

rooms opened on one or other of the quadrangles--which was, of course, a

protection against rain and wind--were sufficient reasons for this

arrangement. But some windows did look out on the street, and were

closed by curtains and shutters.

Those usual adjuncts of a room in modern times, a fire-place and

chimney, were unknown until after their employment by the later Romans.

The Greek rooms were usually warmed by portable stoves, or braziers, in

which charcoal or wood was burnt. Some of these stoves were, of course,

fixed for the common culinary purposes; and in all cases the smoke found

its way out as it best could.

Externally the Greek houses were plain in appearance, and destitute of

the marble facings so frequent in those of Rome. A glance at the

mansions of the wealthy in the latter days of the Roman Republic and

under the Emperors, discloses a scene of magnificence perhaps without

parallel even in our own days. The thatched or tiled cottages, built of

sun-dried bricks and wood, with plainly washed walls and scanty

accommodation, where the floors were of rough stone or hardened earth,

whence the hardy warriors had issued forth to conquer the world, were no

places for the refined luxury of the magnates of the imperial city.

Foreign conquest brought the arts ministering to luxury, and the wealth

requisite for splendor. Then came the age of splendid palaces in the

city, and elegant country villas, seated on shaded and sheltered slopes,

and adorned with every mark of urban splendor in the midst of the most

attractive rural scenes--mansions and villas crowded with articles of

vertù, with costly statues and paintings, with Babylonian tapestries,

with Corinthian bronze, moulded, to all the forms that Greek fancy could

suggest. Marble columns, of weight so great as to endanger the arches of

the sewers over which they passed in their transit to the destined spot,

were erected in their lofty halls, and the profuse aristocracy of rank

and wealth oftentimes squandered immense fortunes on a dwelling. The

house of Publius Clodius cost 131,000_l._; and one of the Scauri

possessed a Tusculan villa, valued--together with its furniture,

decorations, and works of art--at the vast sum of 885,000_l._

Before the door of a Roman house of the higher order was an open

space--the vestibule. This was a recess open toward the road, but

bounded on the other three sides by the outer walls of chambers in the

house. The house-door facing the road admitted the visitor into an outer

hall. Let us, too, follow his steps, and view the scene of so much

magnificence. Passing the porter and his watch-dog, we find ourselves in

a lofty hall, the finished development of what, in simpler times, was

the chief room of the house. The ancestral images, the sacred hearth,

the looms and spinning-wheels are still here to denote the traditional

uses of the chief domestic chamber, though now surrounded and overgrown

by tokens of a luxury that dazzles the eye and has long weakened the

arm. Polished shafts of the finest marble support an elaborate roof rich

with gold and ivory, save in the centre, where an opening reveals the

deep blue of an Italian sky. Beneath this opening is a marble basin,

filled to the brim with the purest water, in the centre of which a

fountain casts its spray, dancing and sparkling in the sunbeams. In a

recess at the farther end of the hall, we see the chests where family

records are guarded with religious care, while through the open doors,

or the raised curtains of Eastern tapestry which supply their place, the

eye wanders into suites of apartments, everywhere denoting a refined

taste delighting in the beautiful effects of proportion and perspective.

Cedar or citron tables, some from the world-old forests of Atlas, so

costly that the price of one would buy a moderate estate; side-boards

for the display of gold and silver plate, formed of costly woods or

marble slabs, and supported by feet of bronze, silver, or even gold

itself, moulded into elegant or fantastic devices; chairs and couches of

ebony, inlaid with ivory, and covered with cushions, overlaid with

coverlets of the richest Eastern fabrics, sparkling with gold and silver

threads, or dyed in the brightest tints of the Tyrian purple; elegant

bronzes and lofty candelabra, paintings, statues, and marble columns,

all unite in realizing a dream of splendor scarcely dreamed of by the

poets. Look for one moment at that side-board, where a cup from which

Nestor is fabled to have quenched his thirst stands in antique contrast

to the latest products of the Alexandrian glass-works--a mingled

profusion of beakers, bowls, and vases, superb in their mouldings, and

imitating so naturally the tints of the ruby or amethyst as completely

to bewilder the gazer’s eye. Some shine like opals, or are cut in

relief, representing scenes from ancient history or fable; and among

them, perhaps, the wolf-suckled brothers, who laid the foundation of

imperial Rome. Others there are, gems of minuteness, cut from amber,

doubly valuable because preserving in its interior the perfect remains

of some insect thus immortalized.

Passing through this magnificent hall, we gain the peristyle or open

quadrangle, which forms so important a part of the Greek house. This is

perhaps adorned with flowers and shrubs, or, in a country villa, shaded

by a few plane-trees. Porticoes for air and exercise, some of them open

to the south for the luxury of basking in the sun, to express which the

Romans had a separate word in their language; cool summer-rooms,

fronting north, and opening into ornamental gardens, with rows of

fantastically-clipped trees; private withdrawing-rooms, bedrooms, baths,

terraces and a library, complete the scene of comfort and luxury. These

rooms were added according to the wealth or taste of the owner; they

were not arranged on a regular plan as in modern houses. The exterior of

the house was frequently faced with marble; but, owing to the want of

plan and the lowness of elevation, it was usually destitute of effect,

though presenting so much splendor internally. The outer door, however,

was of striking height, and often surmounted by an elegant cornice. The

door-posts of the wealthy were richly inlaid with ivory, tortoise-shell,

or even more costly material. The door itself consisted of two halves

meeting in the centre, each of which was broad enough to allow two

persons to pass. In the days of luxury, precious woods, marble and

bronze were in common use among the upper class, for the construction of

this outer door. The door turned upon pivots, which either worked in

sockets in the sill and lintel, or were encircled by metal rings--the

ordinary form of metal hinges being never employed. It was furnished

with a circular knocker, and closed by bolts and locks, the remains of

which show a skill in the locksmith’s art by no means contemptible.

The floors of the Roman houses were not boarded. In plainer dwellings

they were covered with a mixture of fragments of stone and mortar, or

with pavement of brick, stone, or common tiles. But in great mansions

the floor was one of the special points for display. It was either

formed of white, black, or colored marbles, arranged in a check pattern,

or it was a specimen of elaborate inlaid work. The tesselated pavements,

of which so many remains exist, display two varieties. The first, or

plainer kind, is formed of tiles moulded into various forms of animals,

flowers, or such devices, each tile being a perfect figure in itself.

The second, or real mosaic, was composed of pieces separately formless,

but put together in a pattern. The most costly kind of this formed a

beautiful inlaid painting composed of highly minute fragments, and

representing animals, landscapes, historic, or other scenes. The

fragments composing this fine mosaic were of glass, earthen-ware,

marble, or even precious stones, as agate and onyx. So minute were they,

that one hundred and fifty have been found on a square inch of surface.

The walls were sometimes overlaid with costly marbles; and, as if no

product of nature could be sufficiently rich for Roman display, even the

marble itself was not unfrequently covered with paintings by first-rate

artists. Artificial marbles, in the production of which the workmen of

Italy at that time excelled, sometimes supplied the place of the real.

But a favorite mode of decoration was by painting the walls in

panels--either in fresco, distemper, or encaustic. The colors were

usually very brilliant. Wreaths of flowers, architectural, historic, and

domestic scenes, or copies of still life, were among the usual subjects

for such paintings. Elaborate mouldings cornices, and ornaments in

relief, were also employed in decorating the walls. The ceilings were

formed of polished beams, with their interstices glued; or they were

arranged in panels and then decorated. The beams and panels were gilt,

richly inlaid with ivory and tortoise-shell, or painted in brilliant

colors.

As the rooms generally derived their air and light from the large hall

and the peristyle, both of which opened upward, there was no great

necessity for closed windows. But these existed in such rooms as opened

on the street, or directly on the air without. They were fitted with

lattice-work and shutters, with plates of tile imported from Cappadocia,

and at a later period with glass.

The ordinary methods for warming rooms were the same as in Greece, with

this important addition, that the use of hot air, conveyed to the

various chambers by pipes, was common among the Romans. The hot air was

derived from a furnace--either special for the purpose, or that used for

heating water supplied to the baths. Moreover, in Rome and northern

Italy chimneys were used in dwelling-houses, and probably they were

everywhere employed for the baths and bake-houses. It seems to us

strange that a contrivance apparently simple should have been so long

unknown, and always looked on as a luxury.

Another point in which the Greeks and Romans were very deficient was in

the manner of lighting their chambers. The use of oil-lamps was almost

universal, and as these were not furnished with glass shades to consume

the soot, their rooms were filled with smoke, and the beautiful

decorations much defaced. In the older times, candles with a rush wick

appear to have been common, and it seems strange that wax-lights when

known were not generally adopted. But though the lights were bad, the

lamps and their supporting candelabra were distinguished by the elegance

of their shape and the beauty of their workmanship. The lamps were made

chiefly of terra cotta; but bronze, marble, and the precious metals were

also used in their construction. The wicks were of hemp or flax; the

lamps either suspended by chains from the ceiling, or placed on

candelabra. The ordinary form of these was a slender column, resting on

three feet of a griffin, lion, or other animal; the column tall, as it

was intended to rest on the ground. Another form was that of a pillar

with branches, from which the lamps were suspended by chains. Lanterns,

fitted with glass or horn, were used for carrying light.

The Greeks and Romans had not, perhaps, the same variety of articles of

furniture which we see around us, but those which they did possess were

produced in high perfection of design and workmanship. The couches of

the rich were made, of valuable woods, as cedar and terebinth, or more

frequently, perhaps, of bronze. Ebony, inlaid with ivory, was frequent

in the more splendid specimens. Others were inlaid with tortoise-shell,

gold and silver, and furnished with silver, golden, or ivory feet,

carved or cast into the resemblance of some animal. Ropes or bands

strained across the framework supported the cushion or matress, stuffed

with wool, feathers, or down. Over the bed or sofa thus formed were

spread the gorgeous tapestries and silks imported from Egypt, Persia and

India. Another curious kind of covering was a species of tapestry

manufactured of feathers.

Though the ancients mostly reclined, still there were chairs used by the

women and by casual visitors. A throne, on which all the ornaments of

elaborate workmanship and Eastern manufacture were profusely lavished,

was used by the head of the family, when sitting in state to receive his

clients. The ordinary chairs had sloping backs, and were always without

arms; some of the forms in use are very similar to those of our

dining-room chairs. But by far the most expensive article of furniture

in the house of a Roman noble was the table, formed either of maple or

the citrus wood of Africa. The horizontal sections of this tree near the

root were most prized, and when polished and mounted on an ivory or

inlaid pillar, often sold for enormous sums. Cicero is said to have

given nearly 9000_l._ for one specimen. The grain of the best wood is

described by a Roman writer as “striped like the tiger’s skin, spotted

like the panther, purling in a wave-like pattern, or eyed like the

feathers in the peacock’s tail.” These were all formed of a solid thick

section, and were for particular occasions; others, for common use, were

veneered. Smaller tables were frequently made of marble, or imitation

marble, of silver, and even gold, their supports being usually formed of

carved griffins, and ornamented with wreaths of leaves and flowers.

Mirrors of polished metal, either silver or a compound of copper and

tin, were hung on the walls or supported on a marble stand; and tripods

supporting slabs of marble were frequent for use and ornament. Cupboards

and chests made of bronze or wood, plain or inlaid, were ranged against

the walls.

IV. _Pottery and Glass._

From the frequent mention of vessels of glass and earthenware, the

reader will naturally expect a notice of the arts to which they were

due. In Greece and Etruria the fictile art was early developed, and

there existed a guild of potters in Rome so early as the time of Numa.

The instruments used in the manufacture of pottery--the horizontal

revolving table, and the sticks used to vary the shape of the clay

during its rotation, together with moulds and graving tools, are among

the most ancient inventions. The pottery formed by the Greeks and Romans

was of the soft variety, that is, the baked clay of which the vessels

are composed may be easily scratched with the knife. The earth was

commonly red in color, as we see in the ground of so many Etrurian

vases. But other specimens are white, and an artificial black was

frequently produced. Varnishes of asphalte, pitch, or tar, burned into

the clay, were often employed, and the inner surface of the wine-jars

was roughly coated in this manner. For their bright colors the ancients

used earths and the ores of various metals. The art of painting vases

employed a large number of artists in Greece. Curiously enough, it seems

to have died a natural death before the times of the Roman empire; and

in consequence, ancient painted vases became very costly, and were much

sought for by the connoisseurs. The chief colors employed were black and

yellow; the designing is frequently good, but the execution cannot

compare with that of the middle-age Italian and other schools of vase

painting.

Samos, Athens, end Etruria, were most famous for the exercise of the

potter’s art, though many other places were seats of the manufacture.

The kilns used for baking were circular in form--in general appearance

something like a lime-kiln, but differing in the greater care with which

they were built, and in their internal arrangement. They were covered

with a dome-shaped roof, and the wares were baked on a circular floor,

supported in the centre by a column, round which the fire was lighted.

One object of emulation among the Greek potters was to make vessels of

perfect form and great tenuity. Such vessels when produced were highly

valued, and some Athenians seem to have attained a high pitch of

excellence in the production of these thin and light vases. Greece was

the chief school of design in pottery, as in most other arts; and the

less inventive Romans were content to borrow, imitate, or at most,

modify the forms and patterns of their neighbors.

It was long thought that the ancients did not understand, or at most

practiced in a very imperfect manner, the art of making glass; but the

vast number of beautiful specimens which have at length been brought to

light, have completely dispelled all doubts of their high proficiency in

the manufacture of a great variety of vessels from this material. The

blowing of glass is an art of high antiquity, and, together with that of

casting the fused material into moulds, was probably derived from the

East. Even in later times Alexandria was, perhaps, the chief mart from

which Rome derived her supply, though manufactories were established in

Italy. In the conception and execution of the more elegant designs, the

Greek artists, doubtless, found a peculiar province for the display of

their taste and ingenuity. Glass was most extensively employed, both for

use and ornament: so common, indeed, did it become, that

drinking-vessels were sold in Rome at a cheaper rate than they now are

in our own country. The methods of working in glass were, probably, very

similar to those now in use. “Some glass is fashioned by blowing, some

ground on the lathe, and some chased like silver,” says Pliny; and we

know that the diamond was used in this last process. One beautiful

specimen yet remains to demonstrate the skill with which they worked the

brittle material, in the shape of a cup of opaline hue, round which a

blue net-work and a green inscription have been carved; the meshes of

the net-work, and the letters of the inscription, being united to the

body of the cup by slender supports left during the engraving process.

The celebrated Portland vase, now in the British Museum, is composed of

a rich, dark-blue glass, covered with designs beautifully executed in

opaque white enamel, and afterward fined into union with the body of the

vessel. This cup was long supposed to have been cut out of a real

sardonyx. The Greeks and Romans were adepts in the art of imitating

precious stones by colored glass. To use the words of Beckman--“In the

Museum Victorium, for example, there are shown a chrysolite and an

emerald, both of which are so well executed, that they are not only

perfectly transparent and colored throughout, but neither externally nor

internally have the smallest blemish.” The metallic oxides were employed

to produce the various colors, and with such success, that frauds by

palming false stones on the ignorant were as common then as in our own

day. Glass was sometimes made in layers of different colors, and then

cut cameo-fashion; or colored stems were united longitudinally in a

column, so that the horizontal sections displayed a beautiful pattern.

Slips of grass were used, as we have seen, in mosaic pavements; glass in

panes was employed for windows, or inserted in walls and ceilings for

ornament. A story, perhaps fabulous, is told of an invention by which

glass was so far deprived of its brittle qualities, that, when thrown

down, the vessel composed of it would not break, but merely bruise, like

metal.

V. _Books and Writing._

Other points yet remain for notice before we quit the subject of

domestic life. And first, as in our catalogue of chambers we have

mentioned the library, a few words on books and writing materials will

not be out of place. The books of the Greeks and Romans were written on

long rolls of parchment, or sheets of papyrus connected by glue. This

long roll of paper or parchment was fitted at each end to a wooden

roller. The reader wound that part of the roll which he had perused on

to the left-hand roller, and unrolled the next page from the right-hand

roller, proceeding thus until he reached the end of the volume. The

writing was arranged in lines which ran lengthwise along the roll, and

were divided into columns or pages of a convenient width. The back of

the roll was stained, usually of a saffron color, and the volume

provided with a yellow or purple parchment case. The ends of the rollers

were often ornamented with carved bosses, and a label bearing the title

was affixed to the roll. The ink for writing was similar to the Indian

ink in use among ourselves; and was prepared either from lamp-black or

the dye of the cuttle-fish. Red ink was also employed. The pen was

formed from a reed, split and shaped much like our own quills. The

booksellers in Rome were, of course, few when compared with the same

class in a modern town; but their numbers were great, from the fact that

they not only sold books, but also transcribed them. But nations had

their public and private libraries, and the value of some collections

was immense. The books in a library were arranged in cedar-wood presses

round the walls.

The ordinary apparatus for writing consisted of thin wooden tablets,

overlaid on one side with a coat of wax, on which the letters were

traced by indentation with a pointed metal pencil, or style. The waxen

side of each tablet was furnished with a rim, to prevent the characters

from rubbing. Two tablets, commonly, and sometimes three, were bound

together so as to form a small book; and when three were united, the

centre leaf had a layer of wax on both sides. The frames were pierced

with holes, and when the letter or memorandum was finished, the adjacent

edges of the closed tablets were bound together by a thread passed

through the holes, knotted and secured by a seal of simple wax. The

signets used for impression were cut in various devices; and this

engraving of gems is an art in which the Greeks and Romans excelled most

highly. Some tablets have been discovered in which the writing ran from

right to left. The custom of using wax tablets again appears in the

middle ages.

In their contrivances for measuring time the ancients were strikingly

deficient. The length of their hours depended on that of the day,

inasmuch as they divided the space between sunrise and sunset into

twelve equal portions. Even their sun-dials were but imperfect; and the

clepsydræ or hour-glasses, in which the flow of water, not of sand, was

the measure of time, were very inaccurate, in spite of all improvements

effected in them. They were at first constructed of bronze or

earthenware, but afterward of glass. Ctesibius, an Alexandrian

mathematician, invented a kind of water-clock, B. C. 135, in which the

dropping of water turned various wheels, and raised a small statue,

which pointed to the hours. But the great element of inaccuracy, the

unequal flow of the liquid, was manifestly present in this contrivance.

Punctuality among the ancients must have been no more than a coincidence

of guesses.

VI. _Dress._

To describe the general type of Greek and Roman dress is a comparatively

simple task. There was but little employment for the tailor or

dressmaker in Greece or Italy, most of the fabrics of the loom being

worn as scarfs or shawls, arranged in loose folds about the person.

Fashion, therefore, had much more influence on the material than on the

form.

By the Ionic race a long, loose under-garment, or tunic, was at first

worn by the men; but afterward this was exchanged for the shorter

woollen tunic, worn almost exclusively by the other tribes of Greece.

Over this, a large square or oblong cloth, fastened above the right

shoulder with a brooch, fell in those graceful folds which constitute

the charm of ancient costume. In Rome the outer garment was semicircular

in form, of more ample size, white in color, and familiar to us all

under the celebrated name of toga. The mode of arranging the folds of

the toga varied at different times, but the general idea of the garment

was always the same. The color of the toga was either that of the undyed

wool, or it was further whitened by the fuller’s art. In one form--the

trabea--worn by kings, consuls or knights, purple and white alternated

in stripes. The toga was long worn by women, until a loose robe--the

stola--reaching to the feet, ornamented with a flounce, and generally

furnished with sleeves, usurped its place among the fair sex. Various

beautiful shawls, veils, and scarfs, of elaborate tissues, embroidered

and richly dyed, were worn by ladies of rank in both nations.

In Greece and Rome those wonderful inventions by which a few towns have

become the workshop of the world were as yet undreamt of, and the

simpler operations of the loom were frequent beside every household

hearth. Even the plan of the house among the Greeks was influenced by

this circumstance, for we have seen that a distinct place was assigned

for the domestic works of spinning and weaving.

The first operation to be noticed is the spinning of the flax, cotton,

or wool into thread. The material to be spun was first rolled into a

ball and supported on the distaff, a stick of wood or ivory, which

passed through the centre of the ball and was held in the left hand of

the person spinning. The fibres of the raw material were drawn out and

twisted by the finger, and then fixed into the notch or cleft of the

spindle. This was formed of a slender shaft of wood about a foot long,

furnished at one end with a slit to catch the thread, and inserted at

the other end into a circular piece of heavy wood, stone, or metal. The

spindle was kept in constant revolution by the hand of the spinner, and

by its weight drew the fibres out of the ball of raw material. These

fibres were twisted into thread, partly by the fingers and partly by the

whirling of the spindle. When the spindle reached the ground the thread

was wound on its shaft, again fixed in the cleft, and the same process

repeated till the shaft was covered with as much spun thread as it could

carry. The reel thus formed was fixed in a hollow case--the shuttle--so

as to revolve freely within it, and the thread was drawn out through a

small hole in the enclosing case.