In the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields.
Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half way; and as they now turned
back to the parsonage, they looked behind, to catch a glimpse of the
tall, outlandish figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the waves
of the green corn.
"Poor man!" said Mrs. Dale, feelingly; "and the button was off his
wristband! What a pity he has nobody to take care of him! He seems very
domestic. Don't you think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we
could get him a good wife?"
"Um," said the Parson; "I doubt if he values the married state as he
ought."
"What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man more polite to ladies in my
life."
"Yes, but--"
"But what? You are always so mysterious, Charles dear."
"Mysterious! No, Carry; but if you could hear what the Doctor says of the
ladies sometimes."
"Ay, when you men get together, my dear, I know what that means-pretty
things you say of us. But you are all alike; you know you are, love!"
"I am sure," said the Parson, simply, "that I have good cause to speak
well of the sex--when I think of you, and my poor mother."
Mrs. Dale, who, with all her "tempers," was an excellent woman, and loved
her husband with the whole of her quick little heart, was touched. She
pressed his hand, and did not call him _dear_ all the way home.
Meanwhile the Italian passed the fields, and came upon the high-road
about two miles from Hazeldean. On one side stood an old-fashioned
solitary inn, such as English inns used to be before they became railway
hotels--square, solid, old-fashioned, looking so hospitable and
comfortable, with their great signs swinging from some elm tree in front,
and the long row of stables standing a little back, with a chaise or two
in the yard, and the jolly landlord talking of the crops to some stout
farmer, who has stopped his rough pony at the well-known door. Opposite
this inn, on the other side the road, stood the habitation of Dr.
Riccabocca.
A few years before the date of these annals, the stage coach, on its way
to London from a seaport town, stopped at the inn, as was its wont, for a
good hour, that its passengers might dine like Christian Englishmen--not
gulp down a basin of scalding soup, like everlasting heathen Yankees,
with that cursed railway whistle shrieking like a fiend in their ears! It
was the best dining-place on the whole road, for the trout in the
neighboring rill were famous, and so was the mutton which came from
Hazeldean Park.
From the outside of the coach had descended two passengers who, alone
insensible to the attractions of mutton and trout, refused to dine--two
melancholy-looking foreigners, of whom one was Signor Riccabocca, much
the same as we see him now, only that the black suit was less threadbare,
the tall form less meager, and he did not then wear spectacles; and the
other was his servant. "They would walk about while the coach stopped."
Now the Italian's eye had been caught by a mouldering dismantled house on
the other side of the road, which nevertheless was well situated;
half-way up a green hill, with its aspect due south, a little cascade
falling down artificial rock-work, and a terrace with a balustrade, and a
few broken urns and statues before its Ionic portico; while on the
roadside stood a board, with characters already half effaced, implying
that the house was to be "Let unfurnished, with or without land."
The abode that looked so cheerless, and which had so evidently hung long
on hand, was the property of Squire Hazeldean. It had been built by his
grandfather on the female side--a country gentleman who had actually been
in Italy (a journey rare enough to boast of in those days), and who, on
his return home, had attempted a miniature imitation of an Italian villa.
He left an only daughter and sole heiress, who married Squire Hazeldean's
father: and since that time, the house, abandoned by its proprietors for
the larger residence of the Hazeldeans, had been uninhabited and
neglected. Several tenants, indeed, had offered themselves; but your
squire is slow in admitting upon his own property a rival neighbor. Some
wanted shooting. "That," said the Hazeldeans, who were great sportsmen
and strict preservers, "was quite out of the question." Others were fine
folks from London. "London servants," said the Hazeldeans, who were moral
and prudent people, "would corrupt their own, and bring London prices."
Others, again, were retired manufacturers, at whom the Hazeldeans turned
up their agricultural noses. In short, some were too grand, and others
too vulgar. Some were refused because they were known so well: "Friends
are best at a distance," said the Hazeldeans. Others because they were
not known at all: "No good comes of strangers," said the Hazeldeans. And
finally, as the house fell more and more into decay, no one would take it
unless it was put into thorough repair: "As if one was made of money!"
said the Hazeldeans. In short, there stood the house unoccupied and
ruinous; and there, on its terrace, stood the two forlorn Italians,
surveying it with a smile at each other, as, for the first time since
they set foot in England, they recognized, in dilapidated pilasters and
broken statues, in a weed-grown terrace and the remains of an orangery,
something that reminded them of the land they had left behind.
On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion of learning
from the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant of the Squire's) such
particulars as he could collect; and a few days afterward Mr. Hazeldean
received a letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a
very respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for
Clump Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino;" that the said gentleman did
not shoot--lived in great seclusion--and, having no family, did not care
about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made
weather-proof--if the omission of more expensive reparations could render
the rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited. The offer
came at a fortunate moment--when the steward had just been representing
to the Squire the necessity of doing something to keep the Casino from
falling into positive ruin, and the Squire was cursing the fates which
had put the Casino into an entail--so that he could not pull it down for
the building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore, caught at the proposal
even as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the kingdom,
catches at last at some battered old Captain on half-pay, and replied
that, as for rent, if the solicitors client was a quiet respectable man,
he did not care for that. But that the gentleman might have it for the
first year rent free, on condition of paying the taxes and putting the
place a little in order. If they suited each other, they could then come
to terms. Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply, Signer Riccabocca
and his servant arrived; and, before the years end, the Squire was so
contented with his tenant that he gave him a running lease of seven,
fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent nearly nominal, on condition
that Signer Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in repair,
barring the roof and fences, which the Squire generously renewed at his
own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, what a pretty
place the Italian had made of it, and what is more astonishing, how
little it had cost him. He had indeed painted the walls of the hall,
staircase, and the rooms appropriated to himself, with his own hands. His
servant had done the greater part of the upholstery. The two between them
had got the garden into order. The Italians seemed to have taken a joint
love to the place, and to deck it as they would have done some favorite
chapel to their Madonna.
It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to the odd ways of
the foreign settlers. The first thing that offended them was the
exceeding smallness of the household bills. Three days out of the seven,
indeed, both man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in
the garden, and the fishes in the neighboring rill; when no trout could
be caught they fried the minnows, (and certainly, even in the best
streams, minnows are more frequently caught than trouts.) The next thing
which angered the natives quite as much, especially the female part of
the neighborhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures
gave to the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters. At
first indeed, they had no woman servant at all. But this created such
horror that Parson Dale ventured a hint upon the matter, which Riccabocca
took in very good part, and an old woman was forthwith engaged, after
some bargaining--at three shillings a week--to wash and scrub as much as
she liked during the daytime. She always returned to her own cottage to
sleep. The man servant, who was styled in the neighborhood "Jackeymo,"
did all else for his master--smoothed his room, dusted his papers,
prepared his coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed his clothes, and cleaned
his pipes, of which Riccabocca had a large collection. But however close
a man's character, it generally creeps out in driblets; and on many
little occasions the Italian had shown acts of kindness, and, on some
more rare occasions, even of generosity, which had served to silence his
calumniators, and by degrees he had established a very fair
reputation--suspected, it is true, of being a little inclined to the
Black Art, and of a strange inclination to starve Jackeymo and
himself,--in other respects harmless enough.
Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the
Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the Squire was inclined to
be very friendly to all his neighbors--he was, like most country
gentlemen, rather easily _huffed_. Riccabocca had, if with great
politeness, still with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean's earlier
invitations to dinner; and when the Squire found that the Italian rarely
declined to dine at the Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak
points--viz., his regard for the honor of the hospitality of Hazeldean
Hall--and he ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected.
Nevertheless, as it was impossible for the Squire, however huffed, to
bear malice, he now and then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by
presents of game, and would have called on him more often than he did,
but that Riccabocca received him with such excessive politeness that the
blunt country gentleman felt shy and put out, and used to say, that "to
call on Riccabocca was as bad as going to court."
But I left Dr. Riccabocca on the high-road. By this time he has ascended
a narrow path that winds by the side of the cascade, he has passed a
trellis-work covered with vines, from the which Jacheymo has positively
succeeded in making what he calls _wine_--a liquid, indeed, that, if the
cholera had been popularly known in those days, would have soured the
mildest member of the Board of Health; for Squire Hazeldean, though a
robust man, who daily carried off his bottle of port with impunity,
having once rashly tasted it, did not recover the effect till he had had
a bill from the apothecary as long as his own arm. Passing this trellis,
Dr. Riccabocca entered upon the terrace, with its stone pavement smoothed
and trim as hands could make it. Here, on neat stands, all his favorite
flowers were arranged. Here four orange-trees were in full blossom; here
a kind of summer-house or Belvidere, built by Jackeymo and himself, made
his chosen morning-room from May till October; and from this Belvidere
there was as beautiful an expanse of prospect as if our English Nature
had hospitably spread on her green board all that she had to offer as a
banquet to the exile.
A man without his coat, which was thrown over the balustrade, was
employed in watering the flowers: a man with movements so
mechanical--with a face so rigidly grave in its tawny hues--that he
seemed like an automaton made out of mahogany.
"Giacomo," said Dr. Riccabocca, softly.
The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head.
"Put by the watering-pot, and come here," continued Riccabocca in
Italian; and moving toward the balustrade, he leaned over it. Mr.
Mitford, the historian, calls Jean Jacques _John James_. Following that
illustrious example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo.
Jackeymo came to the balustrade also, and stood a little behind his
master.
"Friend," said Riccabocca, "enterprises have not always succeeded with
us. Don't you think, after all, it is tempting our evil star to rent
those fields from the landlord?" Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some
strange movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a ring on
his finger.
"If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad cheap?" said
Jackeymo, doubtfully.
"_Piu vale un presente che due futuri_," said Riccabocca--"A bird in the
hand is worth two in the bush."
"_Chi non fa quondo può, non può fare quondo vuole_"--("He who will not
when he may, when he will it shall have nay")--answered Jackeymo, as
sententiously as his master. "And the Padrone should think in time that
he must lay by for the dower of the poor signorina"--(young lady.)
Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply.
"She must be _that_ high now!" said Jackeymo, putting his band on some
imaginary line a little above the balustrade. Riccabocca's eyes, raised
over the spectacles, followed the hand.
"If the Padrone could but see her here"--
"I thought I did!" muttered the Italian.
"He would never let her go from his side till she went to a husband's,"
continued Jackeymo.
"But this climate--she could never stand it," said Riccabocca, drawing
his cloak round him, as a north wind took him in the rear.
"The orange-trees blossom even here with care," said Jackeymo, turning
back to draw down an awning where the orange-trees faced the north.
"See!" he added, as he returned with a sprig in fall bud.
Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed it in his bosom.
"The _other_ one should be there too." said Jackeymo.
"To die--as this does already!" answered Riccabocca. "Say no more."
Jackeymo shrugged his shoulders; and then, glancing at his master, threw
his hand over his eyes.
There was a pause. Jackeymo was the first to break it.
"But, whether here or there, beauty without money is the orange-tree
without shelter. If a lad could be got cheap, I would hire the land, and
trust for the crop to the Madonna."
"I think I know of such a lad," said Riccabocca, recovering himself, and
with his sardonic smile once more lurking about the corner of his
mouth--"a lad made for us!"
"Diavolo!"
"No, not the Diavolo! Friend, I have this day seen a boy who-refused
sixpence!"
"_Cosa stupenda_!"--(Stupendous thing!) exclaimed Jackeymo, opening his
eyes, and letting fall the watering-pot.
"It is true, my friend."
"Take him, Padrone, in Heaven's name, and the fields will grow gold."
"I will think of it, for it must require management to catch such a boy,"
said Riccabocca. "Meanwhile, light a candle in the parlor, and bring from
my bedroom--that great folio of Machiavelli."
* * * * *
RECENT DEATHS.
LOUIS PHILIPPE, EX-KING OF THE FRENCH.
The vicissitudes of kings form an impressive chapter in the history of
Europe; and one of the most striking episodes in the narrative is the
checkered life of the last king of France--one week among the mightiest
monarchs on the loftiest pinnacle of ambition, he was, the next, an exile
in a foreign land--his past supremacy almost forgotten.
Louis Philippe died on the morning of the 26th of August, at Claremont,
in the presence of the Queen and several members of his family. He had
been made aware of his approaching dissolution early the previous day,
and receiving with calmness the melancholy intimation, prepared for the
final arrangements he wished to make. After a conversion with the Queen,
he dictated, with remarkable clearness, the concluding portion of his
Memoirs, and then, having caused to be assembled his chaplain, the Abbé
Gaelle, and all his children and grandchildren who were at Claremont, he
received, with resignation and firmness, the last rites of the Catholic
Church. Toward seven in the evening the debility that had oppressed him
appeared to pass off, and fever came on, which continued during the night
with much violence, but without disturbing his composure of mind.
At eight o'clock in the morning he expired, in the presence of his wife,
and of the Duchess of Orleans, the Count of Paris, the Duke de Chartres,
the Duke and Duchess de Nemours, the Prince and Princess de Joinville,
the Duke and Duchess d'Aureale, and the Duchess Augusta of Saxe-Coburg.
Thus ended the closing scene of the life of Louis Philippe of
Orleans,--the wise and judicious sovereign of a great people, the soldier
of one revolution, the conqueror of a second, and the victim of a third.
Louis Philippe was born in Paris, 6th October, 1773, the eldest son of
Philippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans (so well-known under the revolutionary
_soubriquet_ of Egalité), by Marie Louise Adelaide de Bourbon his wife,
daughter and heir of the wealthy Duke de Penthievre. At his birth he bore
the title of Valois; but after the death of his grandfather, in 1785, was
styled Duke of Chartres. The care of the young Prince's education was
assigned to Madame de Genlis, who ably and admirably performed her
important duties. From her guidance Louis Philippe passed at once to the
arena of active life. In 1791, the Prince, then Duke of Chartres, having
previously received the appointment of Colonel in the 14th Dragoons,
assumed the command of that regiment, and shortly after, quitting the
garrison of Vendôme, proceeded to Valenciennes, where he continued to
pursue his military avocations. In the April of the following year, war
being declared against Austria, the Duke made his first campaign,
fighting with gallantry under Kellerman at Valmy, and with Dumouriez at
Jemappes. But the horrors of the Revolution were progressing with giant
strides; the unfortunate Louis XVI. was carried to the scaffold, and
within a few months after, the Duke of Orleans was seized on a plea of
conspiracy against the French nation, and after a mock trial, consigned
to the executioner. A short time previously to the death of his father,
the Duke de Chartres had effected his escape through Belgium into
Switzerland, and there was joined by his sister Adelaide and Madame de
Genlis. Our confined space precludes the possibility of our dwelling on
the romantic events of this period of Louis Philippe's life, and permits
us to glance only at his wanderings through Switzerland, Denmark,
Lapland, Finland, America, and England. For one year he held the
Appointment of Professor in the College of Reichenau, at a salary of
fifty-eight pounds; and for that sum undertook to teach history,
mathematics, and English. He bore the name of Chabaud-Latour, and none
but the superiors of the institution were aware of his rank. The news of
his father's execution reached him while quietly instructing the youth of
Reichenau, and he instantly threw up his Professorship, and after a
protracted journey through northern Europe, succeeded, by the kind
instrumentality of Mr. Gouverneur Morris, the American Ambassador at
Paris, in reaching the United States. He landed at Philadelphia on the
24th October, 1796, and was soon after joined by his brothers,
Montpensier and Beaujolais. The three brothers passed the winter in that
city, and afterward made a journey through the Western States, and
visited General Washington at Mount Vernon. Their residence in this
country was not however of very long duration. After an inhospitable
reception by the Spanish authorities in Cuba, the royal exiles made their
way to England, in February, 1800, and thence immediately proceeded to
Barcelona, in the hope of meeting their mother. But this object failing,
they returned to England, and took up their abode at Twickenham, on the
banks of the Thames. In Great Britain they were treated with respect and
consideration, and were furnished with ample opportunities for repose
after their exciting adventures. Within a few years, however, the Duke of
Montpensier and the Count Beaujolais both died--the former in England,
the latter at Malta. Louis Philippe had accompanied his last surviving
brother to that island, and after his interment sailed for Sicily, on the
invitation of the King of Naples. There he gained the affections of the
Princess Amelia, and their marriage took place in November, 1809. No
event of material importance marks the subsequent life of the Duke, until
the year 1814, when, on the abdication of Napoleon, he returned to Paris,
and for a short period was in full enjoyment of his honors. In 1815,
Napoleon's escape from Elba again called the Duke of Orleans into active
employment, and he proceeded, in obedience to the desire of Louis XVIII.,
to take the command of the Army of the North. In this situation he
remained until the 24th of March, hen he surrendered his command to the
Duke de Treviso, and retired to Twickenham. After the Hundred Days, the
Duke of Orleans obeyed the ordinance authorizing the Princes of the blood
to take their seats in the Chamber of Peers; but subsequently incurring
the jealousy and displeasure of the Court, he resought his old residence
on the Thames, and dwelt there in seclusion until 1817, when he went back
to France, and devoted himself to the education of his children, until
the Revolution of 1830 broke out, resulting in his elevation to the
throne. The subsequent events of his reign, and the memorable outbreak
of 1848, that finally overthrew the dynasty that the monarch had strained
every nerve to establish, are too fresh on the public mind to require
recapitulation here.
* * * * *
JOHN INMAN.
John Inman, a son of William Inman, was born in Utica in 1805. He had two
brothers, William, a commander in the Navy, and Henry, so well known as
one of the finest artists of this country. John Inman was educated pretty
much by chance; he had the usual country schooling; but whatever valuable
cultivation he had was in after-life when he was alone in the world,
seeking his fortune. In 1823 he went to North Carolina where he taught
school for two years. In the spring of 1826, with the profits of his
schoolmastership, he went to Europe, and traveled there a little more
than a year. On his return, being admitted to the bar, he practiced law
about two years, when, in 1829, he became one of the editors of _The
Standard_ newspaper, which he left in 1830 to conduct the _Mirror_. In
1833 he was married to Miss Fisher, a sister of the popular and estimable
actress, Clara Fisher, and about this time he devoted the leisure left
from the duties of the Mirror office to a paper owned by his
brother-in-law and himself, called _The Spirit of the Times_. In 1833 he
accepted an offer from the late Colonel Stone to become one of the
editors of the _Commercial Advertiser_, of which he became the editor in
chief upon the death of that gentleman, in 1844. He continued in this
post until his failing health last spring compelled him entirely to
relinquish the use of the pen; and gradually declining, he died on the
30th of August.
Mr. Inman had edited several books, and for two or three years he
conducted the _Columbian Magazine_. He was for a long time the critical
reader of the great house of Harper & Brothers, who learned by a happy
experience to confide unhesitatingly in his judgment of books. He wrote
many tales and sketches for the annuals and other publications, and a
few poems, of which "Byron, a Fragment," was the longest. Of the
_Columbian Magazine_, he wrote with his own hand the _whole_ of one
number, partly from an ambition to achieve what seemed an impossible
feat, and partly from his habit of close and unremitting labor. He also
wrote several literary papers for the _New York Review_.
He was a gentleman of the most honorable nature, and of the finest taste
and most refined habits. Perhaps there was not connected with the press
in this city a writer of purer English, and very few of our literary men
have had a more thorough knowledge of French and English literature.
* * * * *
ADONIRAM JUDSON, D.D.
The death of this widely-known and eminently devoted missionary is
announced in an article of _The Tribune_, to have taken place on the 12th
of April, on board of the French brig Ariotide, bound to the Isle of
Bourbon, in which he had taken passage for the benefit of his health. His
remains were committed to the deep on the evening of his death. For some
time past the health of Dr. Judson, which had been seriously impaired for
several years, has been known to be in an alarming state, and the news of
his decease accordingly will not come as an unlooked-for blow upon his
wide circle of friends. Dr. Judson was the son of Rev. Adoniram Judson, a
Congregational clergyman in Plymouth county, Mass. He received his
collegiate education at Brown University, with the original intention of
pursuing the profession of the law, but experiencing a great change in
his religious views soon after his graduation, he entered the Theological
Seminary at Andover. During his residence at this institution, a profound
interest in Foreign Missions was awakened among the students which
resulted in his determination to devote his life to the missionary
service. Leaving his native land, among the first missionaries sent forth
by the American Board, in company with Samuel Nevill, Luther Rice, and
Samuel Nott, he arrived in Calcutta, in 1812. In consequence of studies
during the voyage, he was led to change his opinions on the subject of
baptism, and a short time after his landing, received the rite of
immersion from the hands of one of the English missionaries resident in
Calcutta. His sermon on that occasion, which produced a deep impression
on the religious world, is a masterpiece of logical argument, Scriptural
research and grave eloquence. After connecting himself with the Baptist
denomination, he selected the Burman empire as the seat of his future
labors--at which post he has remained, with scarcely an interval of
relaxation, for nearly forty years. His efforts and sufferings in the
prosecution of his mission are well known. He was a man of high and
resolute courage, of remarkable self-reliance, of more than common mental
ability and of devotion to the performance of his duty, almost without a
parallel in modern times. He had all the elements of a hero in his
composition, and whoever would look for a rare specimen of a life
consecrated to noble, ideal aims, inspired with an elevated and almost
romantic self-devotion, and daily exercising a valiant energy more
difficult of attainment than that which animates the soldier amid the
smoke of battle, must contemplate the strange and beautiful history of
the lion-hearted missionary of Burmah.
* * * * *
HENRY WHITE, D.D.
The REV. HENRY WHITE, D.D., Professor of Theology in the Union
Theological Seminary, died in this city on Sunday, August 25th, in
the fifty-first year of his age. We obtain the following biographical
facts from _The Independent:_ "Professor White was born in Durham,
Greene county, in this state. He had nearly reached the age of manhood
before commencing a liberal course of education; was graduated at Union
College in 1824; studied theology at Princeton, N.J., and after being
licensed to preach the Gospel, was employed as an agent of the American
Bible Society in Georgia and the Carolinas. In this service he remained
during parts of the years 1826 and 1827. In 1827-28 he was engaged as an
agent of the same society in New York and the vicinity; and during that
period he supplied for some time the pulpit of the second Presbyterian
church in Newark, N.J. In March, 1829, he became pastor of the
Allen-street Presbyterian church in this city, in which office he
remained until after his appointment to the Professorship of Theology in
the Union Theological Seminary, then newly formed in this city. He was
dismissed from his pastoral charge in March, 1837. The labors of his
professorship were begun and carried on for some years in discouragement.
The pecuniary basis on which the Seminary rested was inadequate, and
there were arrearages in the salaries. In 1843 Professor W. was invited
to Auburn, and great anxiety was felt lest he should accept the
invitation. But his own attachment to the Seminary and the entreaties of
his friends, and an effort which was made to endow his Professorship with
a sufficient permanent fund, induced him to remain, and he held the
office as long as he lived."
* * * * *
SIR MARTIN ARCHER SHEE, P.R.A.
SIR MARTIN ARCHER SHEE, long known in art and letters, and for some years
the oldest member as well as the President of the Royal Society, died at
Brighton, on the 13th of August, in the eighty-first year of his age. He
was descended lineally from one of the Kings of Munster, in the third
century, and his family in more recent times has been honorably
distinguished. He was born in Dublin, on the 23d of December, 1770. He
evinced extraordinary precocity in his art, and when but twelve years old
obtained of the Irish Academy medals for figures, landscapes and flowers.
The author of "Wine and Walnuts," as quoted in the London _Athenaeum_,
gives the following account of his first appearance in the Great
Metropolis:
"I well remember this gentleman on his first arrival from Ireland to the
British metropolis; he was introduced to the notice of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, and to some other distinguished persons by his illustrious
Friend and countryman Mr. Edmund Burke. I was at that time making a
drawing in the Plaster Academy in Somerset House, and perfectly recollect
the first evening Mr. Shee joining the students there. He selected the
figure of the Discobolus for his probationary exercises to procure a
permanent student's ticket. I need not say that he obtained it,--for it
was acknowledged to be one of the best copies that had yet been seen of
that fine figure. I further remarked that Mr. Wilton, the then keeper of
the Royal Academy, was so pleased with the performance that he expressed
a wish to retain it, after Mr. Shee had received his ticket; and Mr.
Shee, with that politeness which marked his early career, presented it
to the worthy old gentleman."
Mr. Shee became an exhibitor at the Royal Academy for the first time in
1789. He abstained from exhibiting in the following year, wisely
husbanding his strength--worked hard at his art--gave his nights and days
to Sir Joshua; and in 1791 took handsome apartments, and sent four
portraits to the Exhibition. In 1792 he removed to yet better rooms, and
sent in all seven works to the Exhibition. In the same year he walked as
one of the students of the Royal Academy at the funeral of Sir Joshua
Reynolds. In 1793 he reached what is now the full Academical number of
eight portraits. The Exhibition of the following year contained his as
yet most ambitious efforts:--a portrait of a young lady as Miranda in
"The Tempest," and "Jephtha's Daughter" from the Book of Judges. In 1795
he exhibited a portrait of himself,--and a portrait of Mr. Addington,
afterward Lord Sidmouth. In 1797 he exhibited in all ten works; including
portraits of Pope and Fawcett the actors. He continued equally
industrious for many successive years; and was in such favor with his
fellow artists that he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in
1798, immediately after the election of Flaxman into the same honorary
rank. The same year, on Romney's withdrawal from London, he removed to
the house which that artist had built for himself in Cavendish Square;
and in this he continued as Romney's successor to reside until age and
growing infirmities compelled him to withdraw to Brighton, and abandon
his pencil. In 1800, he was elected a full Royal Academician:--and of his
thirty-nine brethren by whom he was chosen he was the last survivor.
Mr. Shee continued to produce for years with amazing readiness of hand
and fertility in posture. People of all ranks in life went to Cavendish
Square, and for a time Shee was in greater request than either Beechey
or Hoppner, though not so much so as Lawrence, or even as Owen or
Phillips somewhat later. Lord Spencer was the first nobleman who sat to
him; and his example was followed by the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of
Leinster, the Marquis of Exeter, and others. The ladies flocked less
readily around him; for Lawrence had then, as he continued to have, the
entire artist monopoly of the beauty of Great Britain.
Much to the surprise of his friends, and to the infinite wonder of some
of his brethren in the Academy, Mr. Shee made his appearance as a poet by
the publication, in 1805, of his "Rhymes on Art, or the Remonstrance of a
Painter; in two parts, with Notes and a Preface, including Strictures on
the State of the Arts, Criticism, Patronage, and Public Taste": and the
wonder had not ceased with Nollekins and Northcote, when, in 1809, he
published a second poem, in six cantos, entitled "Elements of Art." It is
to these poems that Byron alludes in his "English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers":
"And here let Shee and Genius find a place,
Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace;
To guide whose hand the sister-arts combine,
And trace the poet's or painter's line;
Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow,
Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow;
While honors, doubly merited, attend
The poet's rival, but the painter's friend."
The _Quarterly_ was complimentary, but less kind to the painter than the
noble lord.
Mr. Shee appears to have always evinced taste for the theater; and when
his gravity of years and his position as a popular portrait-painter
forbade his any longer entertaining a wish to appear there, he began to
woo the dramatic Muse, and commenced a tragedy called "Alasco," of which
the scene was laid in Poland. The play was accepted at Covent Garden, but
excluded, it was said, from the stage by Colman, who was then licenser.
This is not strictly true. Colman objected to about eighty-five lines,
which Shee refused to alter. Colman was equally obstinate; and Shee in
1824 printed his play, and appealed to the public against the licenser in
a lengthy and angry preface. "Alasco," notwithstanding, is still on the
list of the unacted drama.
On the death of Lawrence in 1830, Shee was elected President of the Royal
Academy, and immediately knighted. His election was by a large majority,
though Wilkie was a candidate; the members being governed in their votes
rather, it is said, by the necessities of their annual dinner than by
their sense of the merits of Shee as a painter. He excelled in short,
well-timed and well-delivered speeches. He was seldom at a loss; and so
highly was his eloquence appreciated within the walls of the Academy,
that it had been common with more than one Royal Academician to remark
whenever a great speaker was mentioned--"Did you ever hear the
President--you should hear the President,"--as if Canning and Stanley had
been united in Sir Martin Archer Shee.
He has but little claim to be remembered as a poet. His verse wants
vigor, and his examples are deficient in novelty of illustration. The
notes to both his poems are, however, valuable, and his poetry is perhaps
more frequently read for its prose illustrations than for the beauty of
its versification or the value of the truths which it seeks to inculcate.
As a portrait-painter he was eclipsed by several or his
contemporaries,--by Lawrence and by Hoppner,--by Phillips, Jackson, and
Raeburn. He had a fine eye for color; while his leading want was,
proportion, more especially in his heads. Compare his head of Chantrey
with the portraits of Chantrey by Jackson and Raeburn, and the defect is
at once obvious; or compare his head of Mr. Hallam with the head of Mr.
Hallam by Phillips, or with the living head--since happily Mr. Hallam is
still among us. How, then, it will be asked, is Sir Martin to be
remembered: by his poems or by his portraits?--by his speeches or by his
annual addresses to the students? The question is not difficult of
solution. His pictures in the Vernon Gallery will not preserve his name,
nor will his portraits viewed as works of Art. His name will scend in the
History of Painting as a clever artist with greater accomplishments than
have commonly fallen to the class to which he belongs,--and as the
painter who has preserved to us the faces and figures of Sir Thomas
Munro, Sir Thomas Picton, Sir Eyre Coote, Sir James Scarlett, and Sir
Henry Halford. There was merit, we may add, in his portrait of the poet
Moore. Principally, however, he will be remembered as one of the
Presidents of the Royal Academy.
* * * * *
GERARD TROOST, M.D.
Dr. GERARD TROOST, for a long period one of the most eminent naturalists
of the United States, died on the 14th of August at Nashville, where he
had been for twenty years Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in
the University of Tennessee. A native of Holland, and educated in one of
her universities, he devoted himself to the natural sciences. For the
sake of improvement he visited Paris, and for several years was a pupil
of the celebrated Hauy. He removed to the United States about forty years
ago, and in due time became an American citizen. In 1824 and 1825 he was
with Robert Owen at New Harmony, and he appears always to have been
distinguished for eccentricities of opinion and conduct, but to have
commanded in every situation respect and affection. His entire life was
consecrated to geology and the kindred sciences, with what ability and
success, his published writings and his well-earned reputation at home
and abroad may eloquently testify. Among the subjects upon which he wrote
are, amber of Cape Sable, Maryland; the minerals of Missouri; five
reports on the geology of Tennessee; meteoric iron from Tennessee and
Alabama; a shower of red matter in Tennessee; meteorites, &c., &c.
* * * * *
PERCEVAL W. BANKS.
This gentleman--better known as _Morgan Rattler_ of "Fraser's
Magazine"--died in London on the 13th of August. Mr. Banks, though only
in his forty-fifth year, was the last of the race of writers, who, with
Dr. Maginn, Mr. Churchill, and others, gave a sting and pungency (of a
vicious and unwholesome kind however), to the early numbers of that
journal. He seldom did justice to his own talents, for he wrote too often
in haste, always at the last moment, and too rarely with good taste. He
was by profession a barrister. The world at large, who admired the
sportive fancy, classical eloquence, and kind yet firm criticism of poor
_Morgan Rattler_, in his later years, will regret the early decease of
one so gifted.
* * * * *
ROBERT HUNT.
Mr. ROBERT HUNT, the eldest brother of Mr. Leigh Hunt, often mentioned in
the "Autobiography," is dead. He was lately nominated by the Queen to the
brotherhood of the Charter house, but has not lived very long to enjoy
the royal bounty. He was seventy-six years old when he died.
* * * * *
JOHN COMLY.
JOHN COMLY, an eminent minister of the Society of Friends, died on the
17th of August at Byberry in Pennsylvania, in the seventy-seventh year of
his age. "Comly's Spelling-Book," and "Comly's Grammar," have to
thousands now living made his name "familiar as household words."
* * * * *
BISHOP BASCOMB.
THE REV. DR. BASCOMB, long eminent for various abilities, and most of all
for a brilliant and effective elocution, died at Louisville, Ky., on the
9th of August. He was editor of the Southern Methodist Quarterly Review,
and one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
* * * * *
COUNT PIRE.
GENERAL COUNT PIRE, one of the most distinguished officers of the French
Empire, died recently. He fought as a private soldier of the National
Guard of Paris, on the barricades, against the insurgents of June, 1848.
* * * * *
GLEANINGS FROM THE JOURNALS.
The _Athenæum_ is incredulous upon the subject of the falling of Table
Rock, at Niagara, and in reprinting the account of the event, thought it
necessary to offer a few remarks upon the credibility of American
intelligence:--"Our readers," says the _Athenæum_, "know that we have
great fears of the American penny-a-liner, and are carefully on our guard
against his feats. Our own specimens of the class are commonplace artists
compared with their American brethren. The season is at hand when we are
looking out for the performances at the former,--but we expect little
from beyond the old routine. In their sluggish imaginations, the annual
pike is doubtless already growing up to his great dimensions, which, on
failure of the accustomed springs of intelligence, we are soon to find
floating in the newspaper shallows,--and the preposterous cucumber is
probably having an inch added to its stature, which will shortly shoot
rankly up where the parliamentary harvest has been cut down. The most
daring thing that we can expect from these geniuses is, a trick or two
perhaps with the Nelson Column. But the American penny-a-liner, our
readers know, does the thing on the vast scale of his country. He takes
down Niagara at his pleasure,--and puts it up again in its place, or
anywhere else that he will. He transports the great Falls about the soil
of his country at halt a crown an adventure,--and for five shillings
would probably set them playing in the moon."
* * * *
A "MASONIC SWORD" FOR THE EMPEROR OF HAYTI.--A magnificent sword,
intended to be presented to the Emperor Soulouque on his installation to
the mysteries of the "Grand Masonic Order of Hayti," has been made at
Birmingham, thirty-two inches in length. The blade is richly ornamented
along its whole length with devices in blue and gold, bearing the
inscription in French on the one side, "To the illustrious F. Faustin
Soulouque, Emperor of Hayti," and on the other, "Homage of the Grand
Order of Hayti." The hilt is surmounted by an imperial crown, and adorned
with various masonic emblems. On the shield are richly chased the arms of
Hayti, with the motto, "God! my Country, and my Sword," "Liberty and
Independence." We perceive, also, from the French papers, that a
celebrated goldsmith at Paris, has forwarded to Hayti a crown, a scepter,
a wand of justice, and a sword of state, manufactured expressly for his
sable Majesty, at a cost of £20,000 sterling. The latter has moreover,
commanded, for his coronation, a sky-blue velvet mantle, embroidered with
bees and richly bound with gold lace, and a Court dress of scarlet
velvet, lined with white satin, and trimmed with the most expensive point
lace, "with most valuable ornaments to match."
* * * * *
TIME WORKS WONDERS.--A correspondent Of the _Melbourne Daily News_
remarks that in June, 1847, he met Prince Louis Napoleon and his cousin
Jerome Napoleon at Lady Blessington's. "The president was then living in
a very modest house in King-street, St. James's-square, and his very
unaffected demeanor led me to form an intimate acquaintance with him. He
appeared to me a person more fond of the ordinary amusements of the
metropolis, frequenting the theaters, casinos, and other similar places,
than an ambitious adventurer. On the following May as I was entering the
chambers of my solicitor, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, an old gentleman with
an umbrella under his arm passed me as I opened the swing doors, and
politely removed his hat as I made way for him. It was Louis Philippe. It
is scarce three weeks ago I was ordering a waistcoat of my tailor, when
two gentlemen entered the shop, and one of them in broken English gave an
order for a paletot; I looked up, It was Ledru Rollin and Etienne Arago;
when they had gone, the worthy tradesman, knowing I had lived much in
Paris, asked me if I knew his customer (M. Arago,) and if he could safely
_give him credit!_"
* * * *
AMERICAN MUMMIES.--A letter from Ratisbon states, that the Museum of the
Zoological and Mineralogical Society of that town has made a curious
acquisition,--that of two mummies found in the sands of the desert of
Atacama in Upper Peru, by Dr. Ried, a Bavarian physician resident at
Valparaiso. These mummies, male and female, both of American race, are
natural mummies,--that is to say, dried without embalming or any other
species of preparation. The man is in a stooping posture, his head
sustained on his hands, and his elbows renting on his knees. The face has
an expression of pain which seems to indicate a, violent death. The woman
is stretched at length, with arms crossed on her breast. Both heads are
covered with long hair, dark and silky, and divided into an infinity of
small plaits. When Dr. Reid discovered these mummies both had their teeth
complete; but during their transport to Europe many of these have fallen
out, and were found at the bottom of the cases containing these curious
relics of American antiquity.
* * * *
THE COMMON SLANDERS AGAINST DANIEL WEBSTER are noted in the English
Journals in connection with his acceptance of the Secretaryship of State.
"These scandals," observes the _Spectator,_ "cannot, however, hide from
us the fact, that of all public men in America, _perhaps_ with one
exception, Mr. Webster is he who has evinced the greatest knowledge of
public affairs, the greatest acumen in administration, and the greatest
common sense in emergency. High intelligence is probably the best of all
substitutes for high honor--if, indeed, it does not necessarily include
that nobler quality."
* * * * *
COFFINS OF BAKED CLAY OF THE CHALDEANS.--Mr. Kennet Loftus, the first
European who has visited the ancient ruins of Warka in Mesopotamia, and
who is attached to the surveying staff of Colonel Williams, appointed to
settle the question of the boundary line between Turkey and Persia,
writes thus:--"Warka is no doubt the Erech of Scripture, the second city
of Nimrod, and it is the Orchoe of the Chaldees. The mounds within the
walls afford subjects of high interest to the historian and antiquarian;
they are filled, nay, I may say, they are literally composed of coffins,
piled upon each other to the height of forty-five feet. It has,
evidently, been the great burial-place of generations of Chaldeans, as
Meshad Ali and Kerbella at the present day are of the Persians. The
coffins are very strange affairs; they are in general form like a
slipper-bath, but more depressed and symmetrical, with a large oval
aperture to admit the body, which is closed with a lid of earthenware.
The coffins themselves are also of baked clay, covered with green glaze,
and embossed with figures of warriors, with strange and enormous
coiffures, dressed in a short tunic and long under garments, a sword by
the side, the arms resting on the hips, the legs apart. Great quantities
of pottery and also clay figures, some most delicately modeled, are found
around them; and ornaments of gold, silver, iron, copper, glass, &c.,
within."--_Art-Journal_.
* * * * *
ANCIENT PRICE OF LABOR.--In the year 1352, 25th Edward III., wages paid
to haymakers were 1d. a day. A mower of meadows, 3d. a day, or 5d an
acre. Reapers of corn in the first week of August, 2d.; in the second,
3d. a day, and so on till the end of August, without meat, drink, or
other allowance, finding their own tools. For threshing a quarter of
wheat or rye, 21/2d.; a quarter of barley, beans, peas, and oats 11/2d. A
master carpenter, 3d. a day, other carpenters, 2d. A master mason, 4d. a
day, other masons, 3d., and their servants, 11/2d. Tilers, 3d., and their
"knaves," 11/2d. Thatchers, 3d a day, and their knaves, 11/2. Plasterers,
and other workers of mud walls, and their knaves, in like manner, without
meat or drink; and this from Easter to Michaelmas; and from that time
less, according to the direction of the justices.
* * * * *
THE "QUARTERLY REVIEW" suggests that "If an additional postage of one
penny per letter were to be charged to every person who prefers making
the postman, or rather the public, wait until his servant shall think
proper to open the door to receive a handful of prepaid letters, which
could rapidly be dropped, exactly as they were posted, through a
receiving slit into a tortuous receptacle, from which it would be
impossible for any but the right person to extract them, the delivery
of the correspondence of the country would be perfect."
* * * * *
SOME LIBERALS in France have been carrying on a kind of duel by libel,
the libel being enforced apparently by its strict truth. Some of M.
Thiers's political antagonists, seeking to annoy him, volunteered to
circulate in the form of a card the following advertisement for a lady
who appears to be related to M. Thiers, and also to carry on an honest
avocation:--
"MADAME L. RIPERT,
Sister of M. A. THIERS,
_Ex-President of the Council of Ministers, &c. &c._
keeps an excellent _table méridionale_ at 3fr. a-head, wine included.
Breakfast at all hours, at 3fr. 25c.
44, Rue Basse-du-Rempart, Paris."
The retaliation was a counter-card:--
"Mdlle. ----, _brèvetée de la police_, et M. ----, liberated convict, the
sister and cousin-germain of M. ---- a thorough-bred Montagnard, continue
to carry on their business, Rue de la Lune. _On va en ville._"
These attacks are very mean, and paltry, but it is clear that their
castigation is beyond the effective handling of the law. Yet society
exercises no effective jurisdiction in the matter; it shields offenders
against decency and generosity so long as the offense is committed in
subserviency to party.
* * * * *
LANGUAGES OF AFRICA.--At a religious meeting in London, the Rev. John
Clark, formerly missionary in Jamaica, and afterward in Fernando Po, in
Africa, said that at Fernandina there were persons belonging to fifty
Different tribes, who understood English so well as to be of help to a
translator of the Bible into their respective languages. He thought the
Word of God would have to be translated into two hundred languages before
all the tribes of Africa will be able to read it in their own tongue. The
Mohammedans, who are spread through the length of the continent, have
many who can read the Koran in the Arabic characters. If, therefore, the
Word of God were translated into their tongues and printed in that
character, many, not only of the Hovas and the Arabs of the desert, but
also of the Foolahs, Mandingoes, and Housah, who professed Mahommedanism,
would be able to read concerning Jesus Christ.
* * * * *
LETTERS FROM MR. RICHARDSON, the African explorer, have been received in
London, dated at Mourzouk, June 22d. Mr. R. and his companions were
detained six weeks waiting for the promised escort of the Touarick chiefs
for Soudan by the way of Ghat. They expect to meet the many caravans
coming down from the interior to Ghat. The actual arrival of the chiefs
was greatly to the astonishment of the Moors and Turks of Mourzouk, who
could never believe that the hardy bandits of the Sahara would obey the
summons of a Christian, and escort English travelers through the
unexplored regions of Central Africa. The Turks had on previous occasions
repeatedly invited the Touaricks to visit the town of Mourzouk, but they
never would do so.
* * * * *
THE PEACE CONGRESS of Frankfort closed its session on the 22d of August.
However commendable its apparent object, it cannot be concealed that this
and the preceding congress of the same kind have been little more than
processes for the elevation of insignificant people into a transient
notoriety. This year the usual philanthropic resolutions were passed.
Victor Hugo, of France, excused himself from attendance on the score of
ill-health; but the country was represented by Emile de Girardin. The
congress is to meet next year simultaneously with the great World's
Exposition at London. The most piquant incidents of the session were the
speech of George Copway, a veritable American Indian Chief, and the
presence, in one of the visitors' tribunes, of the famous General Haynau,
whose victories and cruelties last year, in prosecuting the Hungarian
war, were the theme in the congress of much fine eloquence and
indignation.
* * * * *
A PROJECT is on foot for opening a spacious Zoological and Botanical
Garden in the north part of the island of New York, immediately on the
Hudson. A plan of an association for the purpose has been drawn up by Mr.
Audubon, a son of the eminent ornithologist--the same who lately made an
overland journey to California. His courage and perseverance in that
expedition have given the public a sufficient pledge of the energy and
constancy of his character, and his scientific knowledge, educated as he
has been from his early childhood to be a naturalist, qualifies him as
few are qualified, for the superintendence of such an establishment. The
spot chosen for the garden is the property of the Audubon family,
adjoining the Trinity Cemetery, and contains about twenty acres, which
is about a third larger than the London Zoological Gardens.
* * * * *
The _London Standard_ having asserted that "Mr. D'Israeli is not nor ever
was a Jew," a correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_ testifies that the
Member from Buckinghamshire was at one time a Jew; at least that "he
became a Jew _outwardly_, according to the customary and prescriptive
rites of that ancient persuasion; for a most respectable gentleman
(connected with literature) now deceased, has been heard to boast a
hundred times that he was present at the entertainment given in honor of
the ceremony."
* * * * *
Dr. GROSS, who has lately been appointed to the professorship of surgery
in the medical department of the New York University, is a gentleman of
very eminent abilities, who has long been conspicuous as a teacher and
practitioner at Louisville. He is a native of Berks county in
Pennsylvania, is descended from one of the old Dutch families there, and
was twelve or fourteen years of age before he knew a word of English. In
his _specialite_ he is of the first rank in America.
* * * * *
ANOTHER FESTIVAL IN GERMANY.--Near the close of August, musical and
Dramatic ceremonies in inauguration of the statue of Herder took place at
Weimar. On the 24th was represented at the theater the "Prometheus
Unbound," with overture and choruses by M. Liszt. On the 25th, after the
inauguration of the statue, Handel's "Messiah" was performed in the
Cathedral, where Herder used to preach, and where he lies buried. On the
28th, was given at the theater the first representation of "Lohengrin,"
anew opera, by Herr Wagner, with a prologue written for the occasion by
Herr Dingelstedt.
* * * * *
THE WORDSWORTH MONUMENT.--In a former number of this journal we noticed
the organization of a very influential committee, for raising
subscriptions, in order that suitable monuments might be erected to the
memory of the late poet, both in Westminster Abbey and in the locality
which was his chosen residence, and so often his chosen theme. We
perceive, with more regret than surprise, that the amounts advertised are
mean in the extreme. We fear that ten times the sums would have been more
readily collected, to do honor to a dancer or a singer.
* * * * *
REVOLUTIONARY STAMPS.--The Secretary of the New Jersey Historical
Society, W. A. Whitehead, Esq., has received through the Hon. W. B.
Kinney, Chargé d'Affaires to Sardinia, several of the identical stamps
that were made for use in the Colonies, and which were the immediate
cause of the American Revolution. A box of them was recently found in the
Colonial Office in London, where our Minister procured them.
* * * * *
There are no lineal descendants of Warren Hastings in existence. The
estates of Mr. Hastings passed into the sister's family, and are held at
present by Sir C. Imhoff, who resides at Daglesford House, near
Stow-on-the-Wold. The house has much interest attached to it. The whole
furniture of one room is composed of solid ivory.
* * * * *
IN THE LATE MEETING OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, of Paris, it was
announced that the Academy had received from Mr. Pennington of Baltimore,
United States of America, a manuscript and a printed prospectus
Concerning a project of a steam balloon, upon which he wished the Academy
to decide.
* * * * *
The holder of the appointment of Examiner of Plays, in England, enjoys a
salary of $2000 per annum, beside a tax upon every play, interlude,
farce, or song, licensed for representation upon the stage. This
appointment is in the gift of the Lord Chamberlain.
* * * * *
GEORGE CATLIN, the Indian traveler, is soon to sail to Texas from
Liverpool, with a large body of emigrants; they will settle on the lands
of the Emigration Colonization Society.
* * * * *
AGES OF PUBLIC MEN.--The Duke of Wellington is aged 81: Lord Lyndhurst,
78; Lord Dunfermline, 74; Mr. Joseph Hume, 73; Lord Brougham, 72; Lord
Heytesbury, 71; Lord Denman, 71; Lord Campbell, 71; Lord Gough, 71; Earl
of Haddington, 70; Marquis of Landsdowne, 70; Lord Cottenham, 69; Earl of
Ripon, 68; Earl of Minto, 68; Earl of Aberdeen, 66; Viscount Palmerston,
66; Right Hon. H. Goulburn, 66; Viscount Hardinge, 65; Sir Robert Inglis,
64; Sir John Cam Hobhouse, 64; Duke of Sutherland, 64; Sir George Clerk,
63; Duke of Richmond, 59; Mr. Andrew Rutherford, 59; Sir James Graham,
58; Lord John Russell, 58; Right Hon. C. Lefevre, Speaker of the House of
Commons, 56; Right Hon. Richard L. Shiel, 56; Sir Frederick Thesiger, 56;
Sir Francis Baring, First Lord of the Admiralty, 54; Sir Fitzroy Kelly,
54; Marquis of Normanby, 53; Right Hon. H. Labouchere, 52; Lord Stanley,
51; Sir George Grey, 51; Right Hon. T.B. Macaulay, 51; Earl of Clarendon,
50; Sir Charles Wood, 50; Mr. Fox Maule, 49; Lord Ashley, 49; Mr. J.A.
Roebuck, 49; Earl of Carlisle, 48; Marquis of Clanricarde, 48; Earl Grey,
48; Sir John Jervis, 48; Mr. Cobden, 47; Mr. Benjamin D'Israeli, 45;
Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 41; Right Hon. Sydney Herbert, 40; Earl of
Lincoln, 39; Mr. John Bright, 39; Hon. George A. Smythe, 32; Lord John
Manners, 32.
* * * * *
ANCIENT DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA.--In the popular and unique work, "Notes
And Queries," we find the following paragraph, from a correspondent who
probably gleaned it from the last years Proceedings of the New-York
Historical Society. "In the _Voyage Round the World_, by Captain George
Shelvocke, begun February 1719, he says of California, (_Harris's
Collection_, vol. i., p. 233:)--'The soil about Puerto, Seguro, and very
likely in most of the valleys, is a rich black mould, which, as you turn
it up fresh to the sun, appears as if intermingled with gold dust, some
of which we endeavored to purify and wash from the dirt. But, though we
were a little prejudiced against the thoughts that it could be possible
that this metal should be so promiscuously and universally mingled with
common earth, yet we endeavored to cleanse and wash the earth from some
of it; and the more we did the more it appeared like gold. In order to be
further satisfied, I brought away some of it, which we lost in our
confusion in China.'" How an accident prevented the discovery, more than
a century back, of the golden harvest now gathering in California!
* * * * *
THE PRESIDENT OF PERU has issued a decree, appointing the Minister of the
Home Department, Don Lucas Fonceas, Don Nicolas Pierola, and Don Nicolas
Rodrigo, a commission to select and take charge of articles intended to
be sent to England for exhibition next year.
* * * * *
MR. GLIDDON'S MUMMY.--We find in the _Boston Transcript_ a long letter
from Mr. Gliddon, telling the whole story, which the latest and complete
examinations of papyrus, straps, bandages, &c. have unfolded about his
mummy early this summer in Boston. It seems the said mummy was all right,
in the right coffin duly embalmed; the body being that of a priest who
died about B. C. 900. The Theban undertakers, in this particular _case_,
were honest; and all suspicion of fraud on their part is unnecessary and
unfair. Mr. Gliddon made a slight mistake, before the opening of the
coffin, in reading the fragments of the inscription; and so got the
notion that the contents were a female body. The frank, manly,
good-natured, and generous manner in which Mr. G. explains the whole
affair and owns his error, should now stop the laugh, and satisfy
everybody.
* * * * *
RACHEL is making a lucrative professional tour in Germany. The last
accounts leave her in Berlin. She has lately had built in Paris, not far
in the rear of the Madelaine, a hotel for her private residence. It is
not large, but is a perfect gem of taste, (as the French understand it)
and luxury. She receives there a choice circle of gentlemen of all
professions. The ladies who frequent her _salons_ are rarer, if not more
select. Of course none but ladies of the same profession, or of equivocal
reputation, would enjoy the elegant hospitality of the illustrious
_tragédienne_.
* * * * *
INDIA RUBBER is now so cheap and common, that the following reference to
it in the "New Monthly Review" for February, 1772, sent to "_Notes and
Queries_" by a correspondent, may cause a smile: "I have seen," says Dr.
Priestly, "a substance, excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from
paper the marks of a black lead pencil. It must, therefore, be of
singular use to those who practice drawing. It is sold by Mr. Nairne,
mathematical instrument-maker, opposite the Royal Exchange. He sells a
cubical piece, of about _half an inch_, for _three shillings_; and, he
says, it will last several years."
* * * * *
CONVENIENT UMBRELLA.-A gentleman residing at Taunton has constructed an
umbrella on a novel principle, the main feature of which is that it can
be carried in the pocket with ease. He intends sending it to the great
Exhibition of next year.
* * * * *
THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE DAILY NEWS at Constantinople; writing on the
25th ult., says: "Yesterday, the 15th of Ramazan, witnessed a famous
ceremony, which consists in adoring the _shirt_ of the prophet, preserved
in an apartment of the old Seraglio at Topkapon (Cannon-gate). The
Sultan, ministers, and high dignitaries, were admitted to kiss this
sacred relic, which will remain exposed during some days for the
veneration of the faithful."
* * * * *
THE CONTINUED EMIGRATION OF THE IRISH is one of the most remarkable
points of contemporary history. Subsequent to, or in consequence of, the
great failure of the potato crop in 1846--that calamity which
revolutionized Ireland--not less than a million of people must have left
its shores to try their fortunes this side the Atlantic. Between
emigration and the ravages of famine and pestilence, we may calculate
that the population of Ireland has diminished by at least a million and a
half or two millions since the autumn of 1846. How long the emigration
will continue, it is, of course, impossible to predict, as every new
settler in America who prospers, is the agent by which a fresh demand is
made upon the old country. It is one of the best features in the Irish
character, that, in the new land to which they flock, they do not forget
the friends or relatives that they have left behind them, and that every
packet carries money from America for the relief of people in Ireland, or
to pay their passage out to the forests or prairies of a world where
there is elbow-room for all, and where a willing heart and a stout pair
of hands are the surest passports to independence and a competency.
* * * * *
DWARKANTH TAGORE was a marvelously intelligent man, greatly in advance of
his countrymen--a man who could discern the value of European
civilization, and who devoted his energies and his means to the duty of
grafting them on Hindu society. His riches were, like all merchants', in
supposition. He had argosies, and lands, and merchandise; but what with
land rats and water rats, and mortgages, glutted markets, and
competitions of all kinds, that which had an untellable value to-day, was
at a discount to-morrow. His influence in the southern provinces of India
maintained the credit of his house while he lived; he died bequeathing no
atom of his commanding spirit and exquisite tact, and the house which he
had created, together with the Bank he had sustained, fell in the general
commercial wreck which afflicted all Calcutta three years ago. Thus much
of admirable Dwarkanth Tagore.
* * * * *
MADAME BOULANGER--the Mrs. Glover of the Paris _Opéra Comique_, has a
Conspicuous place in the recent foreign obituaries. The French, in their
musical comedies, cherish _dramatis personæ_ of a maturity not known on
any other musical stage, save among the background figures. "So often as
we think of the good lady in question, with hardly a note of voice left,
but overflowing with quaint humor, and willingly turning her years and
ill looks to the utmost account, with a readiness to be absurd, if the
part needed, which even a Lablache could not outdo,--so often as we
recollect her _Madame Barnek_, in 'L'Ambassadrice,' and her _La
Bocchetta_ in 'Polichinelle, some of our most comic operatic impressions
will be revived. Madame Boulanger was buried in the church of Notre
Dame."
* * * * *
TRAVELING, in France, like everything else there, has been reduced to
science, or rather to art. Companies are now formed at Paris which convey
passengers to London and back at an expense of only thirty francs--about
six dollars. They will pay all your expenses for this sum, and give you
four days in London to see all the lions. It took more time and more
money a few years ago to journey from Paris to Rouen, which is only a
few miles off. These pleasure trains, as they are called, quit Paris on
Saturday, cross the channel in a good steamer on Sunday, reaching London
in the afternoon, give the voyagers Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday in the city, leaving in time to get back to Paris by Friday
night.
* * * * *
FOUR courses of lectures will be delivered the coming season before the
Lowell Institute, Boston. One is to be on Political Economy, by Prof.
Bowen, of Cambridge; another course on Natural Religion, by Rev. Dr.
Blagden, of Boston; another by Prof. Agassiz, subject not known; and the
fourth, on the Comparative Physical Geography of the United States, and
the race that will shortly inhabit these States, by Prof. Guyot.
* * * * *
The _Gazette des Tribunaux_ announces that M. Libri has ceased to be a
member of the Legion of Honor, in virtue of the sentence of the Assize
Court of Paris, pronounced on the demand of the Grand Chancellor of the
order. Since his flight to England, some two years and a half since, he
has married there. Madame Libri is now in Paris, attempting to recover
possession of the furniture, and other personal effects, which M. Libri
was compelled to leave behind him in his flight.
* * * * *
The _Opinion Publique_ has the following:--"Is it known who at this
moment inhabits the small house at Brompton, occupied some few months
since by M. Guizof? It is M. Ledru-Rollin. Thus, M. Ledru-Rollin, an
exile, succeeds at Brompton in his house of exile, M. Guizot, whom he
succeeded at Paris in the Government."
* * * * *
The Committee of the Associate Institution for Improving and Enforcing
the Laws for the Protection of Women, intends to offer a prize of 100
guineas for the best Essay on the Laws for the Protection of Women.
* * * * *
DR. T. SOUTHWOOD SMITH, who was the medical member of the General Board
of Health during the period of the Orders in Council, has been appointed
the second member of the Board provided by the English Metropolitan
Interment Act.
* * * * *
The _Gazette_ of Rome, of the 9th, contains the nomination of the Abbé
Talbot, son of Lord Talbot of Malahide, and lately priest of St.
George's, Westminster-bridge-road, to the office of _camereire secreto._
* * * * *
[Illustration: JENNY LIND AT THE CASTLE AMPHITHEATER.]
The arrival of JENNY LIND is the most memorable event thus far in our
musical history. The note of preparation had been sounding for half a
year; her name, through all the country, had become a household word;
and every incident in her life, and every judgment of her capacities, had
been made familiar, by the admirable tactician who had hazarded so much
of his fortune in her engagement. The general interest was increased by
the accounts in the chief foreign journals of her triumphal progress
through England, and when at length she reached New-York, her reception
resembled the ovations that are offered to heroes. Her first concert was
given at the Castle Amphitheater, on the 11th September, to the largest
audience ever assembled for any such occasion in America. There was an
apprehension among the more judicious that the performances would fall
below the common expectations; but the most sanguine were surprised by
the completeness of her triumph. She surpassed all that they had ever
heard, or dreamed, or imagined. It was, as the _Christian Inquirer_
happily observes, as if all the birds of Eden had melted their voices
into one, to rise in gushing song upon the streaming light to salute the
sun. Her later concerts have increased rather than diminished the
enthusiasm produced by her first appearance. Mlle. Lind is accompanied
by M. Benedict, the well known composer, and by Signer Belletti, whose
voice is the finest _baritone_ probably ever heard in New York, and whose
style is described by the _Albion_ as "near perfection." The orchestral
arrangements for her concerts have never been surpassed here. Many were
deterred from being present at her first appearance by a fear of crowds
and tumults, but so perfect were Mr. Barnum's appointments that all the
vast assemblies at the Castle have been as orderly as the most quiet
evening parties in private houses.
The personal interest in Mlle. Lind is almost as great as the interest in
the singer. Her charities in New York have already reached more than
$15,000. and it is understood that all the profits of her engagement in
America, not thus dispensed here, are appropriated by her for the
establishment of free schools in Sweden.
Mlle. Lind has given to the Fire Department Fund, $3,000; Musical Fund
Society, $2,000; Home for the Friendless, Society for the Relief of
Indigent Females, Dramatic Fund Association, Home for Colored and Aged
Persons, Colored and Orphan Association, Lying-in Asylum for Destitute
Females, New York Orphan Asylum, Protestant Half-Orphan Asylum, Roman
Catholic Half-Orphan Asylum, and Old Ladies Asylum, each $500. Total,
$10,000. The lives of Mr. Barnum, Jenny Lind, M. Benedict, and Signor
Belletti, with all the details of the concerts, have been issued in a
pamphlet displaying the usual tyographical richness and elegance of Van
Norden & Leslie, Fulton-street.