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                     CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

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


  No. 455. NEW SERIES.   SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1852.   PRICE 1-1/2_d._




A GLANCE AT CONTINENTAL RAILWAYS.


When lately making a pretty extensive continental excursion, we were
in no small degree gratified with the progress made in the
construction and operation of railways. These railways, from all that
could be seen, were doing much to improve the countries traversed, and
extend a knowledge of English comforts; for it must always be borne in
mind that the railway system, with its locomotives, carriages,
waiting-rooms, commodious and cheap transit, and other matters, is
essentially English. Hence, wherever one sees a railway in full
operation, he may be said to see a bit of England. And is not this
something to be proud of? The railway being your true civiliser,
England may be said to have sent out a missionary of improvement, whom
nothing can withstand. The continent, with all its stupid despotisms,
must improve, and become enlightened in spite of itself.

The newspapers lately described the opening of the line of railway
from Paris to Strasbourg. Those who know what travelling in France was
a few years ago, cannot wonder that Louis Napoleon should have made
this the occasion of a popular demonstration. The opening of this line
of railway is an important European event; certainly it is a great
thing for both France and Germany. English travellers may also think
much of it. A tourist can now journey from London to Paris--Paris to
the upper part of the Rhine at Strasbourg, going through a most
interesting country by the way--then go down the Rhine to Cologne by
steamer; next, on by railway to Ostend; cross by steamer to Dover;
and, finally, reach London--thus doing in a few days, and all by force
of steam, what a short time ago must have been done imperfectly, and
with great toil and expense. Still more to ease the journey, a branch
railway from the Strasbourg line is about being opened from near Metz,
by Saarbrück, to Manheim; by which means the Rhine will be reached by
a shorter cut, and be considerably more accessible. In a month or two,
it will be possible to travel from Paris to Frankfort in twenty-five
hours. All that is wanted to complete the Strasbourg line, is to
strike off a branch from Metz to Luxembourg and Treves; for by
reaching this last-mentioned city--a curious, ancient place, which we
had the pleasure of visiting--the traveller is on the Moselle at the
spot where it becomes navigable, and he descends with ease by steamer
to Coblenz. And so the Rhine would be reached from Paris at three
important points.

Paris, as a centre, is pushing out other lines, with intermediate
branches. Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rouen, Dieppe, Boulogne,
Calais, and Lille, are the outposts of this series of radiation. The
latest move is a line from Caen to Cherbourg; it will start from the
Paris and Rouen Railway at Rosny, 40 miles from Paris, and proceed
through Caen to the great naval station at Cherbourg--a distance of
191 miles from Rosny. By the time the great lines in France are
finished--probably 3500 miles in the whole--it is expected that the
total expenditure will amount, in round numbers, to a hundred millions
sterling.

It is gratifying to know, that the small German powers which border on
France have been most active in providing themselves with railways;
not only for their own accommodation, but to join the lines of other
countries; so as to make great trunk-thoroughfares through their
dominions. There seems to be a cordiality in making these junctions,
for general accommodation, that cannot but deserve praise. The truth,
however, is, that all these petty states are glad to get hold of means
for bringing travellers--that is, money-spenders--to their cities and
watering-places, and for developing their long-hidden resources. For
example, in the district lying between Saarbrück and Manheim, there
exist vast beds of coal, and powerful brine-springs; but hitherto, in
consequence of being out of the way of traffic, and there being only
wretched cars drawn by cows, as the means of locomotion, this great
mineral wealth has been locked up, and next thing to useless. What an
outlet will the Strasbourg and Manheim Railway furnish! Paris may be
as well and as cheaply supplied with coal as London.

Belgium--a kind of little England--has for a number of years been well
provided with railways; and you may go by locomotion towards its
frontiers in all directions, except one--namely, that of Holland. This
odd exception, of course, arose from the ill-will that has subsisted
for a number of years between the Belgians and Dutch; the latter being
not at all pleased with the violent disjunction of the Netherlands.
However, that coolness is now passing off. The two neighbours begin to
find that ill-nature does not pay, and, like sensible people, are
negotiating for a physical union by rail, seeing that a political one
is out of the question. In short, a railway is proposed to be laid
down in an easterly direction from the Antwerp branch, towards the
border of Holland; and by means of steam-boat ferries across the Maas
and other mouths of the Rhine, the junction will be effected with the
Rotterdam and Amsterdam series of railways. The north of Holland is
yet a stranger to railways, nor are the towns of such importance as to
lead us to expect any great doings there. But the north German
region--from the frontiers of Holland to those of Russia and Poland, a
distance of something like 1000 miles--is rapidly filling up the
chasms in its railway net-work. Emden and Osnaburg and Gottingen in
the west, Danzig and Königsberg and Memel in the east, are yet
unprovided; but almost all the other towns of any note in Prussia and
North Germany are now linked together, and most or all of the above
six will be so in a few years.

The Scandinavian countries are more interesting in respect to our
present subject, on account of _their_ railway enterprises being
wholly written in the future tense. Denmark has so little continuous
land, Sweden has so many lakes, and Norway so many mountains, that,
irrespective of other circumstances, railways have not yet reached
those countries. They are about to do so, however. Hitherto, Denmark
has received almost the whole of its foreign commodities _viâ_ the two
Hanse towns--Hamburg and Bremen; and has exported its cattle and
transmitted its mails by the same routes. The Schleswig-Holstein war
has strengthened a wish long felt in Denmark to shake off this
dependence; but good railways and good steam-ship ports will be
necessary for this purpose. When, in April 1851, a steamer crossed
rapidly from Lowestoft to Hjerting, and brought back a cargo of
cattle, the Danes felt suddenly independent of the Hamburghers; but
the route from Hjerting to Copenhagen is so bad and tiresome, that
much must yet be done before a commercial transit can really be
established. There was at that time only an open basket-wagon on the
route; there has since been established a diligence; but a railway
will be the only effective means of transit. Here we must correct a
mistake in the last paper: Denmark is not quite without railway
accommodation; there is about 15 miles of railway from Copenhagen to
Roeskilde, and this is to be continued across the island of Zealand to
Korsör. The Lowestoft project has led to important plans; for a
railway has been marked out from Hamburg, through the entire length of
Holstein and Schleswig to the north of Jütland, where five hours'
steaming will give access to the Swedish coast; while an east and west
line from Hjerting to Copenhagen, with two breaks at the Little Belt
and the Great Belt, are also planned. If Denmark can by degrees raise
the requisite capital, both of these trunk-lines will probably be
constructed.

Norway has just commenced its railway enterprises. It seems strange to
find the familiar names of Stephenson and Bidder, Peto and Brassey,
connected with first-stone layings, and health-drinkings, &c., in
remote Norway; but this is one among many proofs of the ubiquity of
English capital and enterprise. The government of Norway has conceded
the line to an English company, by whom it will be finished in 1854.
The railway will be 50 miles in length; it will extend from
Christiania to Lake Miösen, and will connect the capital with an
extensive chain of internal navigation. The whole risk seems to have
been undertaken by the English company; but the benefits will be
mutual for both companies--direct steam-communication from Christiania
to some English port being one feature in the comprehensive scheme.

In Russia, the enterprises are so autocratic, and ordinary joint-stock
operations are so rare, that our Stock Exchange people know very
little about them. The great lines of railway in Russia, either being
constructed or definitely planned, are from Warsaw to Cracow (about
170 miles); Warsaw to St Petersburg (680 miles); Moscow to St
Petersburg (400 miles); from a point on the Volga to another point on
the Don (105 miles); and from Kief to Odessa, in Southern Russia. The
great tie which will bind Russia to the rest of Europe, will be the
Warsaw and St Petersburg Railway--a vast work, which nothing but
imperial means will accomplish. Whether all these lines will be opened
by 1862, it is impossible to predict; Russia has to feel its way
towards civilisation. During the progress of the Moscow and St
Petersburg Railway, a curious enterprise was determined on. According
to the _New York Tribune_, Major Whistler, who had the charge of the
construction of the railway, proposed to the emperor that the
rolling-stock should be made in Russia, instead of imported, Messrs
Harrison, Winans, and Eastwick, engineers of the United States,
accepted a contract to effect this. They were to have the use of some
machine-works at Alexandroffsky; the labour of 500 serfs belonging to
those works at low wages; and the privilege of importing coal, iron,
steel, and other necessary articles, duty free. In this way a large
supply of locomotives and carriages was manufactured, to the
satisfaction of the emperor, and the profit of the contractors. The
managers and foremen were all English or American; but the workmen and
labourers, from 2000 to 3000 in number, were nearly all serfs, who
_bought their time_ from their masters for an agreed period, being
induced by the wages offered for their services: they were found to be
excellent imitative workmen, perfectly docile and obedient.

Our attention now turns south-westward: we cross Poland and Germany,
and come to the Alps. To traverse this mountain barrier will be among
the great works of the future, so far as the iron pathway is
concerned. In the early part of 1851, the Administration of Public
Works in Switzerland drew up a sketch of a complete system of railways
for that country. The system includes a line to connect Bâle with the
Rhenish railways; another to traverse the Valley of the Aar, so as to
connect Lakes Zurich, Constance, and Geneva; a junction of this
last-named line with Lucerne, in order to connect it with the Pass of
St Gothard; a line from Lake Constance to the Grisons; a branch
connecting Berne with the Aar-Valley line; and some small isolated
lines in the principal trading valleys. The whole net-work of these
railways is about 570 English miles; and the cost estimated at about
L.4,000,000 sterling. It scarcely needs remark, that in such a
peculiar country as Switzerland, many years must elapse before even an
approach to such a railway net-work can be made.

To drive a railway across the Alps themselves will probably be first
effected by the Austrians. The railway through the Austrian dominions
to the Adriatic at Trieste, although nearly complete, is cut in two by
a formidable elevation at the point where the line crosses the eastern
spur of the great Alpine system. At present, travellers have to post
the distance of seventy miles from Laybach to Trieste, until the
engineers have surmounted the barrier which lies in their way. The
trial of locomotives at Sömmering, noticed in the newspapers a few
months ago, related to the necessity of having powerful engines to
carry the trains up the inclines of this line. Further west, the
Alpine projects are hidden in the future. The Bavarian Railway, at
present ending at Munich, is intended to be carried southward,
traversing the Tyrol, through the Brenner Pass, to Innsprück and
Bautzen, following the ordinary route to Trieste, and finally uniting
at Verona with the Italian railways. This has not yet been commenced.
Westward, again, there is the Würtemberg Railway, which ends at
Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. It is proposed to continue this
line from the southern shore of the lake, across the Alps by the Pass
of the Splügen, and so join the Italian railways at Como. This, too,
is _in nubibus_; the German States and Piedmont are favourable to it;
but the engineering difficulties and the expense will be enormous.
Other Piedmontese projects have been talked about, for crossing the
Alps at different points, and some one among them will probably be
realised in the course of years. Meanwhile, Piedmont has a heavy task
on hand in constructing the railway from Genoa to Turin, which is
being superintended by Mr Stephenson; the Apennines are being crossed
by a succession of tunnels, embankments, and viaducts, as stupendous
as anything yet executed in Europe.

In Central Italy, a railway convention has been signed, which, if
carried out, would be important for that country. It was agreed to in
1851 by the Papal, Austrian, Tuscan, Parmese, and Modenese
governments. The object is to construct a net-work of railways, each
state executing and paying for its own. Austria is to do the work as
far as Piacenza and Mantua; Tuscany is to finish its lines from
Pistoja to Florence and Lucca; the Papal government is to connect
Bologna with both the former; and the small states are to carry out
their respective portions. The great difficulty will be, to cut
through the Apennines, which at present sever Tuscany from the other
states; but a greater still will be the moral one, arising from the
disordered state of Italy. Rome has conceded to an Anglo-French
company the construction of a railway from the capital to Ancona; but
that, like all other commercial enterprises in the Papal dominions, is
lagging sadly.

Crossing the Pyrenees to view the works in the Peninsula, which
_Bradshaw_ may possibly have to register in 1862, we find that, amid
the financial difficulties of Spain, three lines of railway have been
marked out--from Madrid to Irun; from Aranjuez to Almansa; and from
Alar to Santander. The first would be a great line to the vicinity of
the French frontier, to cost 600 millions of reals; the second would
be part of an intended route from Aranjuez, near Madrid, to the
Mediterranean; the length to Almansa, involving an outlay of 220
millions. The third line, from Santander to Alar del Rey, on the
Biscayan seaboard of Spain, is intended to facilitate approach from
the interior to the rising port of Santander; the outlay is put down
at 120 millions. It is difficult to translate these high-sounding sums
into English equivalents, for there are three kinds of reals in Spain,
varying from 2-5/8d. to 5-1/4d. English; but taking even the lowest
equivalent, the sum-total amounts to a capital which Spain will have
some difficulty in raising. The Santander line, however, has attracted
English capital and engineering towards it; the first sod was turned
by the king-consort in May 1852, and the works are now in progress.
There is also an important line from Madrid to the Portuguese frontier
near Badajoz, marked out on paper; but the fruition of this as well as
other schemes will mainly depend on the readiness with which English
capital can be obtained. Unfortunately, 'Spanish bonds' are not in the
best favour in England.

Portugal is a _terra incognita_ to railways. It is on the extremest
verge of Europe towards the Atlantic; and European civilisation finds
entrance there with remarkable slowness. In 1845, the government tried
to invite offers from capitalists to construct railways; in 1849, the
invitations were renewed; but the moneyed men were coy, and would not
be wooed. In 1851, the government appointed a commission to
investigate the whole subject. The commission consisted of five
persons; and their Report, dated October 20, 1851, contains a large
mass of valuable information. It appeared in an English translation in
some of the London journals towards the close of the year. The
commissioners take for granted that Spain will construct railways from
Madrid to the Portuguese frontier at Badajoz on the one side, and to
the French frontier, near Bayonne, on the other; and they then inquire
how best to reach Badajoz from Lisbon. Three routes present
themselves--one to Santarem, and across the Tagus to Badajoz; another
to Santarem and Coimbra, and so on into Spain by way of Almeida; and a
third to Oporto, and thence by Bragança into Spain. The first of
these, being more directly in the route to Madrid, is preferred by the
commissioners, who estimate the outlay at a million and a quarter
sterling. They discuss the terms on which capitalists might possibly
be induced to come to their aid; and they indulge in a hope that, ten
years hence, Lisbon may be united to Central Europe by a railway, of
which 260 kilomètres will cross Portugal to Badajoz, 370 from Badajoz
to Madrid, and about 400 from Madrid to the French frontier, where the
Paris and Bayonne Railway will continue the route. (Five kilomètres
are equal to rather more than three English miles.) The Continental
_Bradshaw_ will, we apprehend, have to wait long before these
peninsular trunk-lines find a place in its pages.

Leaving altogether the countries of Europe, and crossing the
Mediterranean, we find that even Africa is becoming a member of the
great railway system. After a world of trouble, financial and
diplomatic, the present ruler of Egypt has succeeded in giving reality
to a scheme for a railway from Alexandria to the Nile. A glance at a
map of Egypt will shew us that a canal extends from Alexandria to the
Nile, to escape the sanded-up mouths of that famous river. It is
mainly to expedite the overland route, so far as concerns the transit
along this canal, that the railway now in process of construction has
been planned; anything beyond this, it will be for future ages to
develop. The subject of the Isthmus of Suez and its transit has been
frequently treated in this _Journal_, and we will therefore say
nothing more here, than that our friend _Bradshaw_ will, in all
probability, have something to tell us concerning the land of Egypt
before any long time has elapsed.

Asia will have a spider-line of railway by and by, when the slow-coach
proceedings of the East India Company have given something like form
to the Bombay and Bengal projects; but at present the progress is
miserably slow; and _Bradshaw_ need not lay aside a page for the rich
Orient for many years to come.

There are a few general considerations respecting the present aspect
of the railway system, interesting not only in themselves, but as
giving a foretaste of what is to come. In the autumn of last year, a
careful statistician calculated that the railways of Europe and
America, as then in operation, extended in the aggregate to 25,350
miles, the total cost of which was four hundred and fifty millions of
pounds. Of this, the United Kingdom had 7000 miles, costing
L.250,000,000. According to the view here given, the 7000 miles of our
own railways have been constructed at an expense prodigiously greater
than the remaining 18,350 miles in other parts of the world. It needs
no figures to prove that this is the fact. Many of the continental and
American railways are single lines, and so far they have been got up
at a comparatively small cost. But the substantial difference of
expense lies in our plan of leaving railway undertakings to private
parties--rival speculators and jobbers, whose aim has too frequently
been plunder. And how enormous has been that plunder let enriched
engineers and lawyers--let impoverished victims--declare. Shame on the
British legislature, to have tolerated and legalised the railway
villainies of the last ten years; in comparison with which the
enforcements of continental despotisms are angelic innocence!

Besides being got up in a simple and satisfactory manner, under
government decrees and state responsibility, the continental railways
are evidently more under control than those of the United Kingdom. The
speed of trains is regulated to a moderate and safe degree; on all
hands there seems to be a superior class of officials in charge; and
as the lines have been made at a small cost, the fares paid by
travellers are for the most part very much lower than in this country.
Government interference abroad is, therefore, not altogether a wrong.
Annoying as it may sometimes be, and bad as it avowedly is in
principle, there is in it the spirit of protection against private
oppression. And perhaps the English may by and by discover that
jobbing-companies, with stupendous capital and a monopoly of
conveyance, are capable of doing as tyrannical things as any
continental autocrat!

If a section of the English public stands disgraced in the eyes of
Europe by its vicious speculation--properly speaking, gambling--in
railway finance, our country is in some degree redeemed from obloquy
by the grandeur of a social melioration which jobbing has not been
able to obstruct. The wide spread of railways over the continent, we
have said, is working a perceptible change in almost all those
arrangements which bear on the daily comforts of life. No engine of a
merely physical kind has ever wrought so powerfully to secure lasting
international peace as the steam-engine. The locomotive is every hour
breaking down barriers of separation between races of men. And as wars
in future could be conducted only by cutting short the journeys by
railway, arresting trains, and ruining great commercial undertakings,
we may expect that nations will pause before rushing into them.
Already, the French railways, which push across the frontier into the
German countries, are visibly relaxing the custom-house and passport
systems. Stopping a whole train at an imaginary boundary to examine
fifteen hundred passports, is beyond even the French capacity for
official minutiæ. A hurried glance, or no glance at all--a sham
inspection at the best--is all that the gentlemen with moustaches and
cocked-hats can manage. The very attempt to look at bushels of
passports is becoming an absurdity. And what has to be done in the
twinkling of an eye, will, we have no doubt, soon not be done at all.
Thanks to railways for this vast privilege of free locomotion!




A NEW PRINCIPLE IN NATURE.


It is pretty well known that researches by Matteucci, Du Bois-Reymond,
and others, have made us acquainted with the influence of electricity
and galvanism on the muscular system of animals, and that important
physiological effects have been attributed to this influence, more
than perhaps we are warranted in assuming in the present state of our
knowledge. That an influence is exerted in some way, is clear from the
difference in our feelings in dry and wet weather: it has been
supposed, however, that the effects on the nervous system are not
produced by an accumulation of positive or of negative electricity,
but by the combination of the two producing dynamic electricity. While
these points are undergoing discussion, we have an opportunity of
bringing before our readers the results of investigations bearing on
the general question.

Most persons are aware of the fact, that a peculiar taste follows the
application of two different metals to the tongue in a popular
galvanic experiment. This taste is caused by the azotic acid formed
from the oxygen and azote of the atmosphere. An electric discharge,
too, is accompanied by a smell, which smell is due to the presence of
what is called ozone; and not long ago M. Schoenbein, of Basel, the
inventor of guncotton, discovered ozone as a principle in the oxygen
of the atmosphere; and it is considered to be the _active_ principle
of that universal constituent. Later researches have brought out a
striking analogy between the properties of ozone and chlorine, and
have led to conclusions as to the dangerous effect which the former
may produce, in certain cases, on the organs of respiration. Some idea
of its energy may be formed from the fact, that mice perish speedily
in air which contains one six-thousandth of ozone. It is always
present in the atmosphere in a greater or lesser degree, in direct
relation with the amount of atmospheric electricity, and appears to
obey the same laws in its variations, finding its maximum in winter
and its minimum in summer.

Ozone, in scientific language, is described as 'a compound of oxygen
analogous to the peroxide of hydrogen, or, that it is oxygen in an
allotropic state--that is, with the capability of immediate and ready
action impressed upon it.' Besides being produced by electrical
discharges in the atmosphere, it can be obtained artificially by the
passing of what is called the electrical brush into the air from a
moist wooden point, or by electrolyzed water or phosphorus. The
process, when the latter substance is employed, is to put a small
piece, clean scraped, about half an inch long, into a large bottle
which contains just so much of water as to half cover the phosphorus,
and then closing the mouth slightly, to guard against combustion, to
leave it standing for a time in a temperature of about 60 degrees.
Ozone soon begins to be formed, as shewn by the rising of a light
column of smoke from the phosphorus, which, at the same time, becomes
luminous. In five or six hours, the quantity will be abundant, when
the bottle is to be emptied of its contents, washed out, and closed
for use and experiment.

Whichever way the ozone be produced, it is always identical in its
properties; and these are described as numerous and remarkable. Its
odour is peculiar, resembling that of chlorine, and, when diluted,
cannot be distinguished from what is called the electric smell. When
largely diffused in atmospheric air, it causes unpleasant sensations,
makes respiration difficult, and, by acting powerfully on the mucous
membranes, produces catarrhal effects; and as such air will kill small
animals, it shews that pure ozone must be highly injurious to the
animal economy. It is insoluble in water, is powerfully electromotive,
and is most strikingly energetic in numerous chemical agencies, its
action on nearly all metallic bodies being to carry them at once to
the state of peroxide, or to their highest point of oxidation; it
changes sulphurets into sulphates, instantaneously destroys several
gaseous compounds, and bleaches indigo, thus shewing its analogy with
chlorine.

In proceeding to the account of his experiments, M. Schoenbein shews,
that gases can be produced by chemical means, which exercise an
oxidizing influence of a powerful nature, especially in their
physiological effects, even when diffused through the atmosphere in
very minute quantities: also, that owing to the immense number of
organic beings on the earth, their daily death and decomposition, an
enormous amount of gases is produced similar to those which can be
obtained by artificial means; and besides these, a quantity of gaseous
or volatile products, 'whose chemical nature,' as the author observes,
'is as yet unknown, but of which we can easily admit that some, at
least, diffused through the air, even in very small quantities, and
breathed with it, exert a most deplorable action on the animal
organism. Hence it follows, that the decomposition of organic matters
ought to be considered as one of the principal causes of the
corruption of the air by miasmatic substances. Now, a continuous
cause, and acting on so vast a scale, would necessarily diffuse
through the atmosphere a considerable mass of miasmatic gases, and
accumulate them till at length it would be completely poisoned, and
rendered incapable of supporting animal life, if nature had not found
the means of destroying these noxious matters in proportion as they
are produced.'

The question then arises: What are the means employed for this
object? M. Schoenbein believes that he has found it in the action of
ozone, which is continually formed by the electricity of the
atmosphere, and is known to be a most powerful agent of oxidation,
causing serious modifications of organic bodies, and, consequently, of
their physiological action. 'To assure myself,' he pursues, 'that
ozone destroys the miasma arising from the decomposition of animal
matters, I introduced into a balloon containing about 130 pints of
air, a piece of flesh weighing four ounces, taken from a human corpse,
and in a very advanced state of putrefaction. I withdrew it after a
minute; the air in the balloon had acquired a strong and very
repulsive odour, shewing that it was charged with an appreciable
quantity--at least for the smell--of miasm caused by the putrefaction.

'To produce ozone, I introduced into the infected balloon a stick of
phosphorus an inch long, with water sufficient to half cover it. At
the same time, for the sake of comparison, I placed a similar quantity
of phosphorus and water in another balloon full of pure atmospheric
air. After some minutes, the reaction of ozone in the latter was most
evidently manifested, while no trace of it was yet apparent in the
former, which still gave off an odour of putrefaction. This, however,
disappeared completely at the end of ten or twelve minutes, and
immediately the reaction of the ozone was detected.'

The conclusion drawn from this experiment is, that the ozone destroyed
the miasm by oxidation, and could only make its presence evident after
the complete destruction of the noxious volatile substances. This
effect is more strikingly shewn by another experiment.

A balloon of similar capacity to the one above mentioned was charged
as strongly as possible with ozone, and afterwards washed with water.
The same piece of flesh was suspended within it; and the opening being
carefully closed, it was left inside for nine hours before the air of
the balloon presented the least odour of putrefaction. The air was
tested every thirty minutes by an ozonometer, and the proportion of
ozone found to be gradually diminishing; but as long as the paper of
the instrument exhibited the slightest trace of blue, there was no
smell, which only came on as the last signs of ozone disappeared.
Thus, all the miasm given off by the piece of flesh during nine hours
was completely neutralised by the ozone with which the balloon had
been impregnated, so small in quantity as to be but the 6000th part of
a gramme. One balloon filled with ozonified air, would suffice to
disinfect 540 balloons filled with miasmatic air. 'These
considerations,' says M. Schoenbein, 'shew us how little the miasma of
the air are to be appreciated by weight, even when they exist therein
in a quantity very sensible to the smell, and how small is the
proportion of ozone necessary to destroy the miasm produced by the
putrefaction of organic substances, and diffused through the
atmosphere.'

The presence of ozone in any vessel or in the atmosphere, may be
detected by a test-paper which has been moistened with a solution
composed of 1 part of pure iodide of potassium, 10 parts of starch,
and 100 parts of water, boiled together for a few moments. Paper so
prepared turns immediately blue when exposed to the action of ozone,
the tint being lighter or darker according to the quantity.
Schoenbein's ozonometer consists of 750 slips of dry bibulous paper
prepared in the manner described; and with a scale of tints and
instructions, sufficient to make observations on the ozone of the
atmosphere twice a day for a year. After exposure to the ozone, they
require to be moistened to bring out the colour.

M. Schoenbein continues: 'We must admit that the electric discharges
which take place incessantly in different parts of the atmosphere, and
causing therein a formation of ozone, purify the air by this means of
organic, or, more generally, oxidizable miasma; and that they have
thus the important office of maintaining it in a state of purity
suitable to animal life. By means of atmospheric electricity, and,
indirectly, nature thus attains on a great scale the object that we
sometimes seek to accomplish in a limited space by fumigations with
chlorine.

'Here, as in many other cases, we see nature effecting two different
objects at one stroke. For if the oxidizable miasma are destroyed by
atmospheric ozone, they, in turn, cause the latter to disappear, and
we have seen that it is itself a miasm. This is doubtless the reason
why ozone does not accumulate in the atmosphere in greater proportion
than the oxidizable miasma, notwithstanding the constant formation of
one and the other.

'In all times, the idea has been held, that storms purify the air, and
I do not think that this opinion is ill-founded. We know, in fact,
that storms give rise to a more abundant production of ozone. It is
possible, and even probable, that sometimes, in particular localities,
there may not be a just relation between the ozone and the oxidizable
miasma in the air, and that the latter cannot be completely destroyed.
Hence, in accordance with the chemical nature and physiological
influence of these miasma, they would exert a marked action on the
animal economy, and cause diseases among the greater number of those
who breathe the infected air. But numerous experiments prove that, as
a rule, the air contains free ozone, though in very variable
proportions; from which we may conclude that no oxidizable
miasm--sulphuretted hydrogen, for example--can exist in such an
atmosphere, any more than it could exist in air containing but a trace
of chlorine.

'I do not know if it be true, as has been advanced by Mr Hunt and
other persons, that ozone is deficient in the atmospheric air when
some wide-spread malady, such as cholera, is raging. In any case, it
would be easy, by means of the prepared paper, to determine the truth
or fallacy of this opinion.

'There is one fact which should particularly engage the attention of
physicians and physiologists, which is, that, of all seasons, the
winter is distinguished by the greatest proportion of ozone; whence it
follows, that during that season the air contains least of oxidizable
miasma. We can say, therefore, with respect to this class of miasma,
that the air is purer in winter than in summer.

'All my observations agree in shewing, that the proportion of ozone in
the air increases with the height; if this fact be general, as I am
disposed to believe, we must consider the upper regions of the
atmosphere as purer, with regard to oxidizable miasma, than the lower.

'The appearance of certain maladies--intermittent fever, for
example--appears to be connected with certain seasons and particular
geographical conditions. It would be worth while to ascertain, by
ozonometric observations, whether these physiological phenomena have
any relation whatever with the proportion of ozone contained in the
air in which they occur.

'Considering the obscurity which prevails as to the cause of the
greater part of diseases, and the great probability that many among
them owe their origin to the presence of chemical agents dispersed in
the atmosphere, it becomes the duty of medical men and physiologists,
who interest themselves in the progress of their science, to seize
earnestly all the means by which they may hope to arrive at more exact
notions upon the relations which exist between abnormal physiological
phenomena and external circumstances.'

Such is a summary of M. Schoenbein's views as communicated to the
Medical Society of Basel; and we the more readily accord them the
publicity of our columns, as, apart from the intrinsic value of the
subject, it is one which has for some time excited the interest of
scientific inquirers in this country. During the late visitation of
cholera, reports were frequently spread that the atmosphere was
deficient in ozone.




ENGLISH SISTERS OF CHARITY.


How much real good could yet be done in this old, full, struggling
world of ours, where so many among us have need of help, if each in
his or her small circle could manage just not to leave undone some of
the things that should be done. Little more is wanting to effect this
than the will, or perhaps the mere suggestion. A high influence may at
a time confer a considerable benefit; but very humble means,
systematically exerted, even during a comparatively short season, will
certainly relieve a load of misery.

In a small village towards the west of England, there dwelt, some
years ago, two maiden gentlewomen, sisters, the daughters of the
deceased rector of the parish. Their father had early in life entered
upon his duties in this retired locality, contentedly abiding there
where fate had placed him, each passing year increasing his interest
in the charge which engrossed all his energies. His moderate stipend,
assisted by a small private fortune, sufficed for his quiet tastes,
and for the few charities required by his flock; it also enabled him
to rear a large family respectably, and to start them creditably on
their working way.

There was no railway near this village--even the Queen's highway was
at some distance. Fields, meadows, a shady lane, a brook, and the
Welsh mountains for a background, formed the picture of beauty that
attracted the stranger. There was hardly what could be called a
street. The cottages were clustered upon the side of the wooded bank
above the stream, shrouded in gardens of apple-trees; but there was
space near the foot of the hill for a green of rather handsome size,
with a plane-tree in the middle of it, and a few small shops along one
side. Opposite the shops was the inn, the doctor's house, the
market-house, and a public reading-room; and a bylane led from the
green up towards the church--an old, low-walled, steep-roofed
building, with a square, dumpy tower, in which hung a peal of bells,
and where was placed a large, round, clumsy window. A clump of
hardwood trees enclosed the upper end of the church-yard, and extended
to the back of the rector's garden, quite concealing his many-gabled
dwelling. In a still, summer evening, the brook could be heard from
the parlour windows of the rectory, dancing merrily along to its own
music; and at those less pleasant seasons when the foliage was scanty,
it could be seen here and there between the boles of the trees,
sparkling in the sunshine as it rippled on, while glimpses of the rich
plain beyond added to the harmony of the prospect.

The society of the village and its immediate neighbourhood was of a
humble kind--neither the rich nor the great were members of it; yet
there were wisdom, and prudence, and talent, and good faith to be
found in this little community, where all inclined to live as
brethren, kindly together. It was not a bad school this for the young
to grow up in. The rector's family had here been trained; and when
they grew to rise beyond it, and then passed out upon the wider world,
those of them that were again heard of in their birthplace, did no
discredit to its name: and all passed out, all but two--our two
sisters. It is said adversity must at some time reach us all: it had
been late in visiting them, for they had passed a happy youth in that
quiet parsonage. At last, sorrow came, and they were left alone, the
two extremes of the chain which had bound the little household
together--all the intermediate links had broken; and when, upon their
father's death, they had to quit their long-loved home, they found
themselves verging upon old age, in circumstances that natures less
strictly disciplined would have felt to have been at the least dreary.
The younger sister was slightly deformed, and very delicate; the
elder, though still an active woman, was quite beyond the middle of
life; the income of the two, just L.30--no great elements these of
either usefulness or happiness. Let us see, then, what was made of
them. Some relations pressed the sisters to share their distant home,
but they would not leave the village. They felt as if their work lay
there. The friends they knew best were all around them; the
occupations they had been used to still remained to them; the memory
of all they had loved there clung to them, in the old haunts so doubly
dear to the bereaved who bear affliction patiently. So they moved only
to a cottage a little higher up the hill, yet within view of the
church, and of the dear old house, with its garden, sheltering wood,
and pleasant rivulet; and there they lived in comfort, with enough to
use and much to spare, their cruse never failing them when wanted. It
was a real cottage, which a labourer had left: there was no ornament
about it till they added some. Rude and unfashioned did this
low-thatched cabin pass to them; it was their own hands, with very
little help from their light purse, which made of a mere hovel the
prettiest of rural dwellings--her own hands, indeed; for Sister Anne
alone was the working-bee. Sister Catherine helped by hints and
smiles, and by her nimble needle; but for out-of-doors labour she had
not strength. Sister Anne nailed up the trellised porch, over which
gay creepers were in time to grow. Sister Anne laid out the beds of
flowers, protected by a low paling from the sheep which pastured on
the downs. She planned the tidy bit of garden on one side, and the
little yard behind, where pig and poultry throve; but Sister Catherine
watched the bee-hives near the hawthorn hedge, and plied her busy
fingers by the hour to decorate the inside of their pretty cottage.
They almost acted man and wife in the division of their employments,
and with the best effect.

It would have astonished any one unaccustomed to the few wants of
simple tastes, and to the many small gains from various trifling
produce which careful industry alone can accumulate, to see the plenty
consequent on skill, order, and neatness. The happiness was a joy
apart, only to be felt by the sort of poetic mind of the truly
benevolent, for it depended not on luxury, or even comfort, or any
purely selfish feeling. It sprang from warm hearts directed by clear
heads, invigorated by religious feelings, and nourished by country
tastes, softened and elevated by the trials of life, till devotion to
their kind became the one intention of their being; for it is as
Sisters of Charity we introduce our heroines to our readers, one of a
wide class in our reformed church, who, unshackled by vows, under no
bondage of conventual forms, with small means, and by their own
exertions and self-sacrifices, do more good in their generation than
can be easily reckoned--treading in the footsteps of their Master,
bearing healing as they move. Every frugal meal was shared with some
one less favoured. No fragments were too small for use in Sister
Anne's most skilful cookery; not a crumb, nor a dreg, nor a drop was
wasted. Many a cup of comfort fed the sick or the weary, made from
what, in richer households, unthrifty servants would have thrown away.
There were always roots to spare from the small garden, herbs for
medicines, eggs for sale, salves, and lotions, and conserves of fruit
or honey. All the poor infants in the parish were neatly clothed in
baby-linen made out of old garments. There were always bundles of
patches to give away, so useful to poor mothers; strips of rag for
hurts; old flannel, and often new; a little collection of rubbish now
and then for the bagman, though very rarely, the breakage being small
where there were so few hands used, and they so careful.

They gave their time, too; for they were the nurses of all the sick,
the comforters of all the sorrowful, the advisers of all in
difficulty--without parade. They were applied to as of course--it
seemed natural. And they were sociable: they had their little
tea-parties with their acquaintance; they made their little presents
at Christmas-time; they sweetened life throughout their limited
sphere; and all so quietly, that no one guessed the amount of their
influence till it ceased. They preached 'the word' practically,
producing all the charity it taught, inculcating the 'peace on earth,
good-will towards men' which disposes even rude natures to the gentler
feelings, and soothes the chafed murmurer by the tender influence of
that love which is so kind. They were unwearied in their walk of
mercy, though they met with disappointment even among the simple
natures reared in this secluded spot. They bore it meekly; and when
cross or trial came to those around, then could our good sisters carry
comfort to afflicted friends, never pleading quite in vain for the
exercise of that patience which lightens suffering. They were as
mothers to the young, as daughters to the old, of all degree; for they
did not ostentatiously devote themselves to the poor and ignorant
alone--the so-called poor: the poor in spirit, of whatever rank, were
as much their care as were the poor in purse; their charge was all who
needed help--a help they gave simply, lovingly, not as meddlers, but
as sisters bound to a larger family by the breaking of the ties which
had united them to their own peculiar household.

There was no scenic effect visible along the humble walk of their pure
benevolence, no harsh outlines to mark the course they went, or shew
them to the world as devoted to particular excellence all throughout a
lifetime of painful mortifications. Very noiseless was their quiet
way. In a spirit of thankfulness they accepted their lot, turning its
very bitterness into joy, by gratefully receiving the many pleasures
still vouchsafed them; for it is a happy world, in spite of all its
trials, to those who look aright for happiness. Our sisters found it
and bestowed it. How many blessed their name! How many have had reason
to love the memory of these two unobtrusive women, who, without name,
or station, or show, or peculiarity, or distinction of any kind, were
the types of a class the circle of which even this humble memorial, by
its truth and suggestiveness, may aid in extending--of the true,
simple, earnest, brave, holy Sisters of Charity of our country!




BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION.


I am not sure about bribery and corruption. It may be a bad thing, but
many seem to think otherwise. Much may be said on both sides of the
question. Oh! don't tell me of a worm selling his birthright for a
mess of pottage: I never read of such worms in Buffon, or even in
Pliny. But if they do exist in the human form, the baseness consists
in the sale, not in the _quid pro quo_. A mess of pottage in itself is
a very good thing--I should say, a very respectable thing; and no
exchange can take away from it that character. Still, if what we give
for it is an heirloom, coming from our ancestors and belonging to our
posterity, the transaction is shabby, and not only shabby, but
dishonest. If that is proved, I don't defend the worm. Trample on him
by all means--jump on him. But beware of insulting the mess of
pottage, which is as respectable as when newly out of the pot. Fancy
the sale to have been effected by means of some other equivalent: and
that, by the way, is just what puzzles me. There are numerous other
equivalents, not a whit more respectable in themselves--many far less
so--which not only escape all objurgation, but serve to lift the
identical transaction out of the category of basenesses. This confuses
a brain like mine, even to the length of doubting whether there is any
harm in the thing at all. Let us turn the question over patiently. I
confess I am slow; but 'slow and sure,' you know.

Bribery and corruption is a universal element in civilised society;
but let us talk in the meantime of political bribery and corruption.
It is the theory of the law--if the law really has a theory--that in
the matter of a parliamentary canvass, every man, as a celebrated
Irish minister expressed it, should stand upon his own bottom. By this
poetical figure, Lord Londonderry meant that the man should depend
upon himself, upon his own merits and character, without having
recourse to any extrinsic means of working upon the judgment of
others. It is likewise the theory of the law, that a man who _suffers_
his judgment to be indirectly biassed is as bad as the other--and
worse: that he is, in fact, a Worm, unfit to possess his birthright,
of which he should be forthwith deprived. Well, this being premised:
here is the Honourable Tom Snuffleton, who wants to represent our
borough, but having neither merit nor character of any convertible
kind, offers money and gin instead. The substitute is accepted; and
Honourable Tom, slapping his waistcoat several times, congratulates
the free and independent electors on having that day set a glorious
example to the world, by thus exercising their birthright and
upholding their palladium; and the affair is finished amid cheers and
hiccups.

When I say, however, that the substitute is accepted, I do not mean
that it is accepted by, or can be offered to the whole constituency.
That would be a libel. There are many of the electors who have a soul
above sovereigns, and who, if they could accomplish it, would never
drink anything less than claret. These persons are ambitious of being
noticed by the family of Honourable Tom. They are not hungry, but they
take delight in a dinner in that quarter. They also feel intensely
gratified by having their wives and daughters bowed to from the family
carriage. A thousand considerations like these blind them to the
absence of merit and character on the part of the candidate, and lay
them open to that extrinsic influence which, according to the meaning
of the law, is bribery and corruption. As for the man who takes his
bribe, for the sake of convenience, in the direct, portable, and
exchangeable form of a sovereign, he lays it out in any pleasure or
distinction he, on his part, has a fancy for. If he is a dissolute
person, he spends it in the public-house; if he is a proper-behaved
husband, he gives his wife a new gown; if he is a respectable, serious
individual, he devotes it to the conversion of the Wid-a-wak tribe in
Central Africa, and gloats upon the name of John Higgins in the
subscription-list. In whichever way, however, he may seek to gratify
himself, he is neither better nor worse, so far as I can see, than the
voter of more elegant aspirations: they have both been bribed; they
are both corrupt; they have both sold their birthright.

This is a homely way of viewing the question, but it suffices. If we
inquire into the motives of a hundred electors, we shall not find ten
of them free from some alloy of self-interest, direct or indirect. In
cases where the candidates are all equally good, equally bad, or
equally indifferent, there may be no practical harm in this; but it is
not a political but a moral question that is before us. The question
is as to the _bribe_. If we are to be excused because of the nature of
the solatium we accept, then should a thief successfully plead that it
was not money he stole, but a masterpiece of Raphael. What I doubt is,
whether they who have not been solely influenced by patriotic motives,
have any right to cast stones at the free and independent elector who
has sold his vote for a sovereign.

If the common saying be true, that 'every man has his price,' then are
we all open to bribery and corruption; and the only difficulty lies in
ascertaining the weak side of our nature. The distinction in this case
is not between vice and virtue, but between the various positions in
which we are placed. Money will do with some men; others, who would be
shocked at the idea of taking money, will accept of something it has
bought; others, again, who would spurn at both these, will have no
objection to a snug little place for themselves or their dependents.
The English, as a practical, straightforward people, take money--five
to ten pounds being considered a fair thing for a vote, and no shame
about it. The Scotch, as more calculating, like a _situation_;
anything to put sons into, will do--a cadetship in India, a
tide-waitership, a place in the Post-office, or a commission in the
army. From a small Scotch country town, which we have in our eye, as
many as fourteen lads in one year received appointments in the Excise;
everybody knew what for: an election was in expectation. No money,
however, being passed from hand to hand, the fathers of these said
lads would look with horror on such cases of bribery as have given
renown and infamy to Sudbury and St Alban's.

     All men think all men _sinners_ but themselves.

Happy this consciousness of innocence! How fortunate that we should be
such a virtuous and discreet people! And thus does one's very notions
of what is right become a marketable article. Where neither money nor
place is wanted, a gracious look and an invitation to dinner may have
quite a telling effect. In fact, the more refined men have become,
through the action of circumstances, such as education and position,
the more abstracted and attenuated is the equivalent they demand for
their virtue; till we reach the highest grade of all, whose noble
natures, as they are called, can be seduced only by affection and
gratitude. Now observe: in all these cases the _thing_ is the same,
whether it be crime we have been tempted to commit, or mere
illegality; the only distinction lies in the value of the _quid pro
quo_. But is there a distinction even in that? I doubt the fact. I
don't say there is none, but I doubt it. Value is entirely arbitrary.
One man, at the lower end of the scale, sins for the sake of a pound;
and another, at the higher end, does the same thing for the sake of a
kindness. The two men place the same value on their several
equivalents, and each finds his own irresistible. Are they not both
equally guilty?

That a refined man is better than a coarse one, I admit. He is
pleasanter, and not only so, but safer. We know his virtue to be
secure from a thousand temptations before which meaner natures fall;
and to a large extent, therefore, we feel him to be worthy of our
trust. He will not betray us for a pound, or a dinner, or a place, or
a coaxing word, or a condescending bow: but we must not go too far
with him for all that. He has his price as surely as the meanest of
his fellows; and let him only come in the way of a temptation he
values as highly as the other values his miserable pound, and down he
goes! Refined natures, therefore, are only comparatively trustworthy;
and, however estimable or admirable they may be under other
circumstances, when they do fail they are as guilty as the rest. It is
a bad thing altogether, bribery and corruption is; and I don't object
to your putting it down when it takes that material form of money you
can so readily get hold of. But what I hate is the cant that is canted
about it by those who have not even the virtue to take their
equivalent on the sly. For it is a remarkable thing, that when this
does not come in a material shape, such as you can count or handle, it
is looked upon by the bribee as no bribe at all! Nay, in some cases he
will glory in his crime, as if it were a virtue; and in all cases he
will turn round upon his fellow-criminal--him of the vulgar sort--call
him a worm, and throw that mess of pottage at him! This refined
evil-doer may be as energetic as he pleases in his actions, but it
would be well if he were a little more quiet in his words. If he looks
within, he will find that the distinction on which he prides himself
is wholly superficial; and that such language is very unbecoming the
lips of one who might more truly, as well as more politely, say to
corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother
and my sister.

The main cause of such anomalies I take to be, that there is among us
a general want of earnestness. We do not believe in ourselves, or our
duties, or our destinies. Our life has no theory, and we care only for
outward forms and symbols. Our taste is shocked by the grossness of
vice, but we have no quarrel with the thing itself; and if the people
around us will only preserve a polished, or at least inoffensive
exterior, that is all we demand. Why should we look below the surface
in their case, when we do no such thing in our own? We feel amiable,
genteel, and refined; we detest the appearance of low impropriety, and
would take a good deal of trouble to put it down; we look very kindly
on the world in general, if the low people who are in it would only
become as decorous as ourselves. In the old republics, the case was
different. There men had a theory, even if a bad one, and they stuck
to it through good report and through bad report. The theory was the
spirit of the community, and its members sacrificed to it their whole
individuality. No wonder that such little political unities held
together as if their component parts had been welded, and that they
continued to do so till they came into collision, and, from their
hardness and toughness, rubbed one another out.

Put down bribery and corruption: that is fair. And more especially put
down open, shameless, and brutal bribery and corruption, for its very
coarseness is, in itself, an additional crime. But no reform is
efficacious that does not come from within; and when refined men wage
war against vulgar vices, let them look sharply to their own. I do not
say, that by taking thought they will be able to do entirely away with
the seductive influence of a bow, or a dinner, or a kind action; and
that, in spite of these, they will do their duty with the stern
resolve of an ancient Spartan. But they will be less likely to yield
to temptation, and the price of their virtue will at least mount
higher and higher, which is as much as we can expect of human nature.
The grand benefit, however, they will derive from the inquisition, is
the lesson of tolerance it will teach. They will refrain, for shame's
sake, from casting stones and calling names. They will see that the
only part of the offence _they_ can notice is vulgarity and ignorance,
and they will quietly try to refine the one and enlighten the other.




THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM, LIVERPOOL.


In a cross street named Colquitt Street, near a fashionable promenade
of Liverpool, will be found the rich, valuable, and interesting museum
which we are about briefly to describe. It is the property of Mr
Joseph Mayer, F.S.A., a townsman of Liverpool, esteemed as much for
his private worth as for his refined classical taste. This gentleman
has been long known as a collector; and by the purchase of an entire
gallery of antiquities, formed by one who travelled long in Egypt and
Nubia, and visited the remains of ancient Carthage, he became
possessed of a museum so extensive that his private residence could
not contain them, and so rare, that the public desired to know more
about them. With the view, therefore, of keeping them together, and
gratifying the many who longed to acquaint themselves with these
interesting relics of an interesting race, this house in Colquitt
Street has been appropriated. For the purpose of meeting the current
expenses of the exhibition, and enabling the proprietor to add to its
contents, a very trifling charge is made for admission, and a book is
kept for the autographs of the visitors.

The first room entered displays a large collection of Egyptian
_stelæ_ and other monuments, while the outer cases and sarcophagi of
several mummies are placed in another apartment. The word _stela_
means merely a memorial pillar or tombstone; and in this room the
reflective mind will find much food for meditation. We have here the
first elements of all religion brought visibly before us in the
carvings--the recognition of a deity, and the belief in immortality.
More than one of these stelæ has upon it the royal cartouch; one of
them has no fewer than four of these elliptical rings with
inscriptions, and two more from which the hieroglyphics have been
erased. This tells a tale, for in the age commemorated, it was a mark
of disgrace to have the name obliterated. Another stela contains the
jackal, or genius of the departed, with propitiatory offerings from
his friends. The curious will learn with interest, that another of
these monuments dates back to the time of Joseph. It has twice
engraved upon it the name Osortosen--perhaps the Pharaoh 'who gave him
to wife Asenath, the daughter of Potiphorah, priest of On,' and raised
the obelisk at Heliopolis, towns thought to be the same. Near to this
is another stela of great beauty, engraved in low relief and
cavo-relievo, coloured. It belongs to Manetho's sixth dynasty,
and is consequently very ancient. One still more so is in
the same collection: it is of the fourth dynasty of that
historian--consequently, of the time when the Pyramids were built. It
is beautifully executed in intaglio and relievo, with the surface
polished. These stelæ, of which the collection is very rich, are
composed of various rocks--such as granite, syenite, limestone, the
travertino of the Italians, and sandstone.

While the tombs of Egypt have furnished these monuments, Karnac is
represented by a portion of its great obelisk, and Rome has supplied a
cinerary urn with cremated bones, several sepulchral tablets, and an
altar.

In another room on the same floor, we find an extensive collection of
pottery from the tombs of ancient Etruria, and other parts of Italy;
Roman pottery found in Britain; Samian ware, and articles of that
kind, from Pompeii, Carthage, and South America. The central case is
overflowing with riches, containing as it does nearly six hundred
Etruscan vases in terra cotta. It is a subject of doubt among the
learned, whether these painted vessels, so called, are not in reality
Grecian. Bossi, in his great work on Italy, claims the first
manufacture for the Tuscans; but there is a strong argument in favour
of their Grecian origin in the negative evidence obtained from Roman
Italy, where they are not found, and the positive evidence from the
Grecian subjects depicted on the pottery; besides which, the tombs of
the Greek islands of the Archipelago contain them. Their not being met
with in the Asiatic colonies of the Greeks may go merely to shew, that
although the objects might be Grecian, the trade was Etruscan. It is
well known, too, that at Athens the art of making pottery had arrived
at great perfection. That the Tuscans used these as funereal vessels
at a remote period, is fully established; but the custom of depositing
them in sepulchres is not supposed to have originated with that
people, but to have been brought by colonists from Greece Proper.

In this apartment, there are sepulchral lamps in the same material as
the Etruscan vases, and idols not a few. Besides these, there are
numerous Roman fibulæ (a sort of brooch) and bracelets, found at
Treves, and others dug up in England. There are likewise many Roman
antiquities, which have been recently met with at Hoy Lake, near
Liverpool. But we must not attempt to enter into details; let us mount
to the floor above, and notice the contents of the apartments there.

The first room on the second storey is the Mummy Room; and there rest,
side by side, royal personages and humble individuals, male and
female, who, about four thousand years ago, breathed the air of Egypt.
Except by their cerements, and the inscriptions on the cases, who
could tell which had been the greater?

The plan adopted for the display of these human mummies--for the
Museum contains the preserved remains of the ibis and hawk, the cat,
and even the dog, a rare subject for the embalmer, besides the bodies
of other inferior animals--is to remove the outer case and covering,
then to place the inner case upon the floor; above it, resting on
supports, the body; and above that again, the lid, enclosing all
within plates of glass, so that the spectator may go round the mummy,
examining it in all directions, and likewise the case, within and
without, on which the hieroglyphics are inscribed. Before we describe
the mummies so laid out, let us explain briefly the process of
embalming. Herodotus is a great authority on this matter, and we
cannot do better than follow him.

In the first place, the embalmer was a medical practitioner, and
legally pursued his craft. The deceased was taken to his room, and
there the process of preservation was conducted; not, however, till
the agreement had been made between the relatives and the embalmer as
to the style and cost; for there were three methods of embalming,
suitable to different ranks. This having been determined, the operator
began, the relatives having previously retired. In the most expensive
kind of embalming, the brain was extracted without disfiguring the
head, and the intestines were removed by an incision in the side:
these were separated and preserved. The body was now filled with
spices--myrrh cassia, and other perfumes, frankincense excepted; and
the opening was firmly closed. It was now covered with natron for
seventy days; and at the expiration of that time, it was washed and
swathed in linen cloth, dipped in gums and resinous substances, when
it was delivered to the relatives, and by them placed in the mummy
case and sarcophagus. It was finally placed perpendicularly in the
apartment set apart for the dead; so that the Egyptian could view his
ancestors as figured on their coffins; and with the thought that not
only were their portraits there, but their bodies also--for the
Egyptian was a firm believer in immortality, and piously preserved the
body in a fitter state, as he thought, for reunion with the soul, than
if allowed to perish by decay.

According to the second mode of embalming, no incisions were made upon
the body, but absorbing injections were employed. The natron was used
as before; and after the customary days were passed, the injected
fluid was withdrawn, and with it came the entrails. The body was now
enfolded in the cloth, and returned to the friends. This process cost
twenty minæ, the other was a talent. In the third style, that adopted
by the poor, the natron application was almost the only one used; the
body lay for seventy days in this alkaline solution, and was then
accounted fit for preservation. Sometimes the body, enveloped in the
cloth, was covered with bitumen.

The most interesting mummy in this collection is that of a royal
personage, Amenophis I., the most ancient of the Pharaohs whose name
has yet been found. The case is richly decorated, and the name appears
in three different places--that in the interior being in very large
characters, in a royal cartouch. The spectator seems to hang over this
mummy as if spell-bound. Can this in reality be one of the Pharaohs?
Such is the question; and the inscription, thrice repeated--'Amenophis
I.'--is the answer! This monarch reigned in Egypt about half a century
after the exodus of the Israelites, and 3400 years ago, according to
the chronology of Dr Hales; but others give a remoter period--even in
the days of Joseph.

Another mummy has the face covered with gold, and the body is
inscribed with the gods of the Amenti, on those regions over which
they were the genii. Thus _Amset_, with a human head, presided over
the stomach and large intestines, and was the judge of Hades; _Hape_,
with the head of a baboon, presided over the small intestines;
_Soumautf_, the third genius, with a jackal's head, was placed over
the region of the thorax, presiding over the heart and lungs; and the
last, _Kebhsnauf_, with the head of a hawk, presided over the
gall-bladder and liver. Besides these, there are other mummies
exhibiting the style of swathing peculiarly Egyptian, in
contradistinction to the Græco-Egyptian, which differs from the former
in having the limbs separately bandaged, instead of being placed
together and enveloped in one form. There are also fragments of the
human body mummied, one of which contains between the arm and shoulder
a papyrus-roll. And while we are now among the mummies, we must not
forget the vases called canopuses, in which the entrails and other
internal organs were deposited; each bearing upon it the emblem of the
genius presiding over the separately embalmed viscera. On each of
these canopuses, four of which compose a set, an inscription may be
seen. Thus: _Amset_--'I am thy son, a god, loving thee; I have come to
be beside thee, causing to germinate thy head, to fabricate thee with
the words of Phtah, like the brilliancy of the sun for ever.'
_Hape_--'I have come to manifest myself beside thee, to raise thy head
and arms, to reduce thy enemies, to give thee all germination for
ever.' _Soumautf_--'I am thy son, a god, loving thee; I have come to
support my father.' _Kebhsnauf_--'I have come to be beside thee, to
subdue thy form, to submit thy limbs for thee, to lead thy heart to
thee, to give it to thee in the tribunal of thy race, to germinate thy
house with all the other living.'

In this apartment there are many statues, some in wood, some in stone.
In one of wood there is a recess behind intended for a papyrus
manuscript. There are also specimens of Egyptian Mosaic pavement, and
a monumental tablet, interesting from its having a Greek inscription,
while its style and figure are Egyptian--proving the continuance of
the ancient manner down to the Ptolemaic dynasty.

The adjoining room contains infinitely more than we can enumerate,
and, like the others, many articles not Egyptian, yet deeply
interesting in themselves. The centre cases will demand our first
attention; and here we have idolets and amulets innumerable; coins of
the Ptolemies, Cleopatra, and others; and jewellery of all
descriptions, from the golden diadem and the royal signet down to the
pottery rings and glass beads worn by the poor. As might be expected
in an Egyptian collection, the _scarabæus_, or sacred beetle,
frequently meets the eye. Here are scarabæi in gold, cornelion,
chalcedony, heliotrope, torquoise, lapis-lazuli, porphyry, terra
cotta, and other materials; many of them having royal names and
inscriptions engraved.

Two objects claim our first attention, on account not only of their
value, but their associations. They are placed together in a
glass-case, marked No. 3. One of them is perhaps the most ancient ring
in existence, and is a magnificent signet of pure solid gold. It bears
in a cartouch the royal name of Amenophis I., and has an inscription
on either side. The signet is hung upon a swivel, and has
hieroglyphics on what may be called the reverse. It is a large, heavy
ring, weighing 1 ounce, 6 pennyweights, 12 grains, was worn on the
thumb, and taken from the mummy at Memphis. It was purchased by Mr
Sams at the sale of Mr Salt's collection in the year 1835, for upwards
of L.50, and is highly prized by the present proprietor. Some doubt
still rests upon Egyptian chronology. By certain antiquaries, this
ring is supposed to have been worn by the Pharaoh who ruled over the
land while Joseph was prime-minister; but others, as has been
mentioned, place the reign of Amenophis I. after the departure of the
Israelites.

The other is a diadem of pure gold, about seven inches in diameter,
taken from the head of a mummy. In the centre, a pyramid rises with a
double cartouch on one side and a single one on the other. Towards
this twelve scarabæi are approaching, six on either side, emblematic
of the increase and decrease of the days in the twelve months; and
between these is a procession of boats, in which are deities and
figures. In the inner side of this diadem the signs of the zodiac are
represented.

In close proximity to these remarkable objects is another of no less
interest--namely, a pair of earrings of gold, weighing each _half a
shekel_--'And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that
the man took _a golden earring of half a shekel weight_, and two
bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold; and said, Whose
daughter art thou?' Such was the present to Rebekah; and here, before
us, are ornaments similar probably in shape (zone-like), and exactly
similar in weight!

Among the jewellery in this collection we find several valuable
necklaces in gold, coral, and precious stones. Besides the Egyptian,
there are some of Etruscan origin, taken from the tombs of this
ancient people. We cannot leave this subject without noticing the
beauty and perfection of the filigree-work, executed about 2400 years
ago, and equal to modern workmanship. Some exquisite specimens from
Pompeii are preserved here.

Turning now to the walls of this apartment, we find glass-cases filled
with vases in terra cotta and eastern alabaster. On some of these are
royal names, gilt and coloured; that of Cheops, the builder of the
great Pyramid, occurs on one. Another of these vessels, or the neck
part of one, is covered with cement, and sealed with three cartouches,
besides having four others painted on it. This, it is thought, may
have contained the precious Theban wine, sealed with the royal signet.
There are many other things taken from the tombs which our space
forbids us to dwell upon; such as idols and figures, papyri and
phylacteries, paint-pots and colours, workman's tools, stone and
wooden pillows or head-rests, and sandals; a patera with pomegranates,
another with barley, the seven-eared wheat of Scripture, bread and
grapes, besides other fruits and dainties which were supplied to the
dead when deposited in the Theban tombs. On a tablet here we find the
name of that Amenophis or Phamenoph, who is celebrated as the Memnon
of the Greeks. We also find bricks as made by the Israelites, and
stamped probably in accordance with the regulations of the revenue
department of old Egypt. There are preserved in this and the adjoining
apartments some beautiful ancient manuscripts, and an exceedingly
valuable collection of books on antiquities, to which the visitor has
access.

We now ascend to the upper rooms, where in one is a collection of
armour, and in the other, the 'Majolica' Room, specimens of pottery,
as revived in Europe in the fifteenth century by Luca Della Rubbia,
who was born in 1388. He discovered the art of glazing earthenware. In
the former of these rooms, all sorts of weapons and defensive
apparatus are met with--modern, mediæval, and antique; some are highly
finished, others very rude. In the Majolica Room, there is much matter
for study, and those will fail to appreciate the value of the
collection who have not learned something of the history of the ware.
Here is exhibited a Madonna and Child, of about the year 1420, by
Rubbia himself. It was given to Mr Mayer by the Grand Duke of Tuscany,
when the medal of Roscoe was struck and presented. There are five
plates, made after the patterns of the Moors, about the middle of that
century, at Pessaro, near the Po; and four with portraits, marked
'Majolica Amatorii.' We find several other specimens, shewing the most
curious anachronisms and blunders in design. The 'Temptation,' for
example, is represented as a plate, with the drawing of a town and a
Dutch church. 'Jacob's Dream,' 'Joseph and his Brethren,' 'Alexander
and Darius,' 'Actæon and Diana,' and such scenes, seem to have been
favourites. The specimens of 'Mezza Majolica,' with raised centres,
scroll-work borders, and embossed figures, are very curious. There are
two dishes, each eighteen inches in diameter, of Raffaelle ware, on
one of which is 'Christ healing the Sick,' and on the other, 'Christ
driving out the Money-changers.' Another, of Calabrian ware, is very
curious: it is of brown clay, glazed, with four handles, and inside
are the figures of two priests officiating at an altar; behind, are
female figures overlooking, but concealed by latticed-work. There is
one object here of local interest, and with it we bring this
description to a close. It is an earthenware map of Crosby, to the
north of Liverpool, made in 1716, at pottery works in Shaws-brow.




UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.

STORY OF UNCLE TOM.


A former paper on Mrs Stowe's remarkable book, presented a little
episode, the heroine of which was Eliza, a female slave on the estate
of a Mr Shelby in Kentucky. We now turn to the story of Tom himself,
whose transfers from hand to hand afford the authoress an opportunity
of describing the private life and feelings of slave-owners, and the
unwholesome and dangerous condition of society in the south.

Tom, we have hinted, was jet black in colour, trustworthy and valued
by his master, who was compelled by necessity to part with him to
Haley, a slave-trader. The separation of this honest fellow from his
wife Chloe, and his children, was a sad affair; but as Tom was of a
hopeful temperament, and under strong religious impressions, he did
not repine at the fate he was about to encounter, dreaded as that
usually is by persons in his situation. 'In order to appreciate the
sufferings of the negroes sold south, it must be remembered that all
the instinctive affections of that race are peculiarly strong. Their
local attachments are very abiding. They are not naturally daring and
enterprising, but home-loving and affectionate. Add to this all the
terrors with which ignorance invests the unknown, and add to this,
again, that selling to the south is set before the negro from
childhood as the last severity of punishment. The threat that
terrifies more than whipping or torture of any kind, is the threat of
being sent down river.

'A missionary among the fugitives in Canada told us, that many of the
fugitives confessed themselves to have escaped from comparatively kind
masters, and that they were induced to brave the perils of escape, in
almost every case, by the desperate horror with which they regarded
being sold south--a doom which was hanging either over themselves or
their husbands, their wives or children. This nerves the African,
naturally patient, timid, and unenterprising, with heroic courage, and
leads him to suffer hunger, cold, pain, the perils of the wilderness,
and the more dread penalties of recapture.'

After a simple repast in his rude cabin, Tom prepared to start. Chloe
shut and corded his trunk, and getting up, looked gruffly on the
trader who was robbing her of her husband; her tears seemingly turned
to sparks of fire. Tom rose up meekly to follow his new master, and
raised the box on his shoulder. His wife took the baby in her arms, to
go with him as far as the wagon, and the children, crying, trailed on
behind. 'A crowd of all the old and young hands in the place stood
gathered around it, to bid farewell to their old associate. Tom had
been looked up to, both as a head-servant and a Christian teacher, by
all the place, and there was much honest sympathy and grief about him,
particularly among the women. Haley whipped up the horse, and with a
steady, mournful look, fixed to the last on the old place, Tom was
whirled away. Mr Shelby at this time was not at home. He had sold Tom
under the spur of a driving necessity, to get out of the power of a
man he dreaded; and his first feeling, after the consummation of the
bargain, had been that of relief. But his wife's expostulations awoke
his half-slumbering regrets; and Tom's disinterestedness increased the
unpleasantness of his feelings. It was in vain that he said to
himself, that he had a _right_ to do it, that everybody did it, and
that some did it without even the excuse of necessity: he could not
satisfy his own feelings; and that he might not witness the unpleasant
scenes of the consummation, he had gone on a short business tour up
the country, hoping that all would be over before he returned.'

Haley, with his property, reaches the Mississippi; and on that
magnificent river, a steam-boat, piled high with bales of cotton from
many a plantation, receives the party. 'Partly from confidence
inspired by Mr Shelby's representations, and partly from the
remarkably inoffensive and quiet character of the man, Tom had
insensibly won his way far into the confidence even of such a man as
Haley. At first, he had watched him narrowly through the day, and
never allowed him to sleep at night unfettered; but the uncomplaining
patience and apparent contentment of Tom's manner, led him gradually
to discontinue these restraints; and for some time Tom had enjoyed a
sort of parole of honour, being permitted to come and go freely where
he pleased on the boat. Ever quiet and obliging, and more than ready
to lend a hand in every emergency which occurred among the workmen
below, he had won the good opinion of all the hands, and spent many
hours in helping them with as hearty a good-will as ever he worked on
a Kentucky farm. When there seemed to be nothing for him to do, he
would climb to a nook among the cotton-bales of the upper deck, and
busy himself in studying over his Bible--and it is there we see him
now. For a hundred or more miles above New Orleans, the river is
higher than the surrounding country, and rolls its tremendous volume
between massive levees twenty feet in height. The traveller from the
deck of the steamer, as from some floating castle-top, overlooks the
whole country for miles and miles around. Tom, therefore, had spread
out full before him, in plantation after plantation, a map of the life
to which he was approaching. He saw the distant slaves at their toil;
he saw afar their villages of huts gleaming out in long rows on many a
plantation, distant from the stately mansions and pleasure-grounds of
the master; and as the moving picture passed on, his poor foolish
heart would be turning backward to the Kentucky farm, with its old
shadowy beeches, to the master's house, with its wide, cool halls, and
near by the little cabin, overgrown with the multiflora and bignonia.
There he seemed to see familiar faces of comrades who had grown up
with him from infancy: he saw his busy wife, bustling in her
preparations for his evening meals; he heard the merry laugh of his
boys at their play, and the chirrup of the baby at his knee, and then,
with a start, all faded; and he saw again the cane-brakes and
cypresses of gliding plantations, and heard again the creaking and
groaning of the machinery, all telling him too plainly that all that
phase of life had gone by for ever.'

An unlooked-for incident raises up a friend. 'Among the passengers on
the boat was a young gentleman of fortune and family, resident in New
Orleans, who bore the name of St Clare. He had with him a daughter
between five and six years of age, together with a lady who seemed to
claim relationship to both, and to have the little one especially
under her charge. Tom had often caught glimpses of this little girl,
for she was one of those busy, tripping creatures, that can be no
more contained in one place than a sunbeam or a summer breeze; nor
was she one that, once seen, could be easily forgotten. Her form was
the perfection of childish beauty, without its usual chubbiness and
squareness of outline.'

This angelic little creature was attracted by Tom's appearance; and
speaking kindly to him, expressed a hope of serving him, by inducing
her papa to become his purchaser. Tom had just thanked the little lady
for her intentions, when the boat stopped at a landing-place. At its
moving on again, Eva, who leaned imprudently on the railings, fell
overboard. Tom was fortunately standing under her as she fell. 'He saw
her strike the water and sink, and was after her in a moment. A
broad-chested, strong-armed fellow, it was nothing for him to keep
afloat in the water till, in a moment or two, the child rose to the
surface, and he caught her in his arms, and, swimming with her to the
boat-side, handed her up, all dripping, to the grasp of hundreds of
hands, which, as if they had all belonged to one man, were stretched
eagerly out to receive her. A few moments more, and her father bore
her, dripping and senseless, to the ladies' cabin, where, as is usual
in cases of the kind, there ensued a very well-meaning and
kind-hearted strife among the female occupants generally as to who
should do the most things to make a disturbance, and to hinder her
recovery in every way possible.'

Next day, as the vessel approached New Orleans, Tom sat on the lower
deck, with his arms folded, anxiously from time to time turning his
eyes towards a group on the other side of the boat. 'There stood the
fair Evangeline, a little paler than the day before, but otherwise
exhibiting no traces of the accident which had befallen her. A
graceful, elegantly-formed young man stood by her, carelessly leaning
one elbow on a bale of cotton, while a large pocket-book lay open
before him. It was quite evident, at a glance, that the gentleman was
Eva's father. There was the same noble cast of head, the same large
blue eyes, the same golden-brown hair; yet the expression was wholly
different. In the large, clear blue eyes, though in form and colour
exactly similar, there was wanting that misty, dreamy depth of
expression; all was clear, bold, and bright, but with a light wholly
of this world: the beautifully cut mouth had a proud and somewhat
sarcastic expression, while an air of free-and-easy superiority sat
not ungracefully in every turn and movement of his fine form. He was
listening with a good-humoured, negligent air, half comic, half
contemptuous, to Haley, who was very volubly expatiating on the
quality of the article for which they were bargaining.

"All the moral and Christian virtues bound in black morocco,
complete!" he said, when Haley had finished. "Well, now, my good
fellow, what's the damage, as they say in Kentucky; in short, what's
to be paid out for this business? How much are you going to cheat me,
now? Out with it!"

"Wal," said Haley, "if I should say thirteen hundred dollars for that
ar fellow, I shouldn't but just save myself--I shouldn't, now, raily."

"Papa, do buy him! it's no matter what you pay," whispered Eva softly,
getting up on a package, and putting her arm around her father's neck.
"You have money enough, I know. I want him."'

Tom was purchased, and paid for. 'Come, Eva,' said St Clare, as he
stepped across the boat to his newly-acquired property. '"Look up,
Tom, and see how you like your new master." Tom looked up. It was not
in nature to look into that gay, young, handsome face without a
feeling of pleasure; and Tom felt the tears start in his eyes as he
said, heartily: "God bless you, mas'r!"

"Well, I hope he will. What's your name? Tom? Quite as likely to do it
for your asking as mine, from all accounts. Can you drive horses,
Tom?"

"I've been allays used to horses," said Tom.

"Well, I think I shall put you in coachy, on condition that you won't
be drunk more than once a week, unless in cases of emergency, Tom."

'Tom looked surprised, and rather hurt, and said: "I never drink,
mas'r."

"I've heard that story before, Tom; but then we'll see. It will be a
special accommodation to all concerned if you don't. Never mind, my
boy," he added good-humouredly, seeing Tom still looked grave; "I
don't doubt you mean to do well."

"I sartin do, mas'r," said Tom.

"And you shall have good times," said Eva. "Papa is very good to
everybody, only he always will laugh at them."

"Papa is much obliged to you for his recommendation," said St Clare
laughing, as he turned on his heel and walked away.'

Augustine St Clare was a wealthy citizen of New Orleans, and possessed
a domestic establishment of great extent and elegance, with a body of
servants in the condition of slaves, to whom he was an indulgent
master. The description of this splendid mansion, with its lounging
and wasteful attendants, its indolent, pretty, and capricious
lady-mistress, and the account of Ophelia, a shrewd New-England
cousin, who managed the household affairs, must be considered the
best, or at least the most amusing portion of the work. The authoress
also dwells with fondness on the character of the gentle Eva, a child
of uncommon talents, but so delicate in health, so ethereal, that
while still on earth, she seems already an angel of paradise leading
and beckoning to Heaven. Eva was kind to everybody--kind even to
Topsy, a negro girl whom St Clare had one day bought out of mere
charity, on seeing her cruelly lashed by her former master and
mistress. Topsy is a fine picture of a brutalised young negro, who
never speaks the truth even by chance, and steals because she cannot
help it. Every one gives up Topsy as utterly irreclaimable--all except
the gentle Eva. Caught in a fresh act of theft, Topsy is led away by
Eva. 'There was a little glass-room at the corner of the veranda,
which St Clare used as a sort of reading-room; and Eva and Topsy
disappeared into this place.

"What's Eva going about now?" said St Clare; "I mean to see." And
advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the
glass-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his finger on his lips,
he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat
the two children on the floor, with their side-faces towards them,
Topsy with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but,
opposite to her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears
in her large eyes.

"What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won't you try and be good?
Don't you love _anybody_, Topsy?"

"Donno nothing 'bout love. I loves candy and sich--that's all," said
Topsy.

"But you love your father and mother?"

"Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva."

"Oh, I know," said Eva sadly; "but hadn't you any brother, or sister,
or aunt, or"----

"No, none on 'm--never had nothing nor nobody."

"But, Topsy, if you'd only try to be good, you might"----

"Couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger, if I was ever so good," said
Topsy. "If I could be skinned, and come white, I'd try then."

"But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophelia would
love you if you were good."

'Topsy gave the short, blunt laugh that was her common mode of
expressing incredulity.

"Don't you think so?" said Eva.

"No; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger!--she'd's soon have a toad
touch her. There can't nobody love niggers, and niggers can't do
nothin'. _I_ don't care," said Topsy, beginning to whistle.

"O Topsy, poor child, _I_ love you," said Eva, with a sudden burst of
feeling, and laying her little thin white hand on Topsy's shoulder--"I
love you because you haven't had any father, or mother, or
friends--because you've been a poor, abused child! I love you, and I
want you to be good. I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan't
live a great while; and it really grieves me to have you be so
naughty. I wish you would try to be good, for my sake; it's only a
little while I shall be with you."

'The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with tears;
large bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the
little white hand. Yes, in that moment a ray of real belief, a ray of
heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul. She
laid her head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed; while the
beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some
bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.

"Poor Topsy!" said Eva, "don't you know that Jesus loves all alike? He
is just as willing to love you as me. He loves you just as I do, only
more, because he is better. He will help you to be good, and you can
go to heaven at last, and be an angel for ever, just as much as if you
were white. Only think of it, Topsy; _you_ can be one of those spirits
bright Uncle Tom sings about."

"O dear Miss Eva!--dear Miss Eva!" said the child, "I will try--I will
try! I never did care nothin' about it before."'

By such persuasions, Eva had the happiness to see the beginning of
improvement in Topsy, who finally assumed an entirely new character,
and attained a respectable position in society.

Eva, after this, declined rapidly. Uncle Tom was much in her room.
'The child suffered much from nervous restlessness, and it was a
relief to her to be carried; and it was Tom's greatest delight to
carry her little frail form in his arms, resting on a pillow, now up
and down her room, now out into the veranda; and when the fresh
sea-breezes blew from the lake, and the child felt freshest in the
morning, he would sometimes walk with her under the orange-trees in
the garden, or, sitting down in some of their old seats, sing to her
their favourite old hymns. The desire to do something was not confined
to Tom. Every servant in the establishment shewed the same feeling,
and in their way did what they could.' At length, the moment
of departure of this highly-prized being arrives. 'It is
midnight--strange, mystic hour, when the veil between the frail
present and the eternal future grows thin--then came the messenger!'
St Clare was called, and was up in her room in an instant. 'What was
it he saw that made his heart stand still? Why was no word spoken
between the two? Thou canst say, who hast seen that same expression on
the face dearest to thee--that look, indescribable, hopeless,
unmistakable, that says to thee that thy beloved is no longer thine.

'On the face of the child, however, there was no ghastly imprint--only
a high and almost sublime expression--the overshadowing presence of
spiritual natures, the dawning of immortal life in that childish soul.

'They stood there so still, gazing upon her, that even the ticking of
the watch seemed too loud.' Tom arrived with the doctor. The house was
aroused--'lights were seen, footsteps heard, anxious faces thronged
the veranda, and looked tearfully through the glass doors; but St
Clare heard and said nothing; he saw only _that look_ on the face of
the little sleeper.

"Oh, if she would only wake, and speak once more!" he said; and,
stooping over her, lie spoke in her ear: "Eva, darling!"

'The large blue eyes unclosed--a smile passed over her face; she tried
to raise her head, and to speak.

"Do you know me, Eva?"

"Dear papa," said the child with a last effort, throwing her arms
about his neck. In a moment, they dropped again; and as St Clare
raised his head, he saw a spasm of mortal agony pass over the face:
she struggled for breath, and threw up her little hands.

"O God, this is dreadful!" he said, turning away in agony, and
wringing Tom's hand, scarce conscious what he was doing. "O Tom, my
boy, it is killing me!"

'The child lay panting on her pillows, as one exhausted; the large
clear eyes rolled up and fixed. Ah, what said those eyes that spoke so
much of heaven? Earth was passed, and earthly pain; but so solemn, so
mysterious, was the triumphant brightness of that face, that it
checked even the sobs of sorrow. They pressed around her in breathless
stillness.

"Eva!" said St Clare gently. She did not hear.

"O Eva, tell us what you see! What is it?" said her father.

'A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said,
brokenly: "O love--joy--peace!" gave one sigh, and passed from death
unto life!'

Previous to the death of the dear Eva, she had induced her father to
promise to emancipate Tom, and he was taking steps to give this
faithful servant his liberty, when a terrible catastrophe occurred. St
Clare was suddenly killed in attempting to appease a quarrel in one of
the coffee-rooms of New Orleans. His family were plunged into grief
and consternation; and by his trustees the whole of the servants in
the establishment, Uncle Tom included, were brought to sale in the
open market.

'Beneath a splendid dome were men of all nations, moving to and fro
over the marble pavé. On every side of the circular area were little
tribunes, or stations, for the use of speakers and auctioneers. Two of
these, on opposite sides of the area, were now occupied by brilliant
and talented gentlemen, enthusiastically forcing up, in English and
French commingled, the bids of connoisseurs in their various wares. A
third one, on the other side, still unoccupied, was surrounded by a
group waiting the moment of sale to begin. And here we may recognise
the St Clare servants, awaiting their turn with anxious and dejected
faces.

'Tom had been standing wistfully examining the multitude of faces
thronging around him for one whom he would wish to call master; and,
if you should ever be under the necessity, sir, of selecting out of
two hundred men one who was to become your absolute owner and
disposer, you would perhaps realise, just as Tom did, how few there
were that you would feel at all comfortable in being made over to. Tom
saw abundance of men, great, burly, gruff men; little, chirping, dried
men; long-favoured, lank, hard men; and every variety of
stubbed-looking, common-place men, who pick up their fellow-men as one
picks up chips, putting them into the fire or a basket with equal
unconcern, according to their convenience; but he saw no St Clare.

'A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, muscular man, in
a checked shirt, considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons much
the worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd, like
one who is going actively into a business; and, coming up to the
group, began to examine them systematically. From the moment that Tom
saw him approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting horror at him,
that increased as he came near. He was evidently, though short, of
gigantic strength. His round, bullet head, large, light-gray eyes,
with their shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff, wiry, sun-burned hair,
were rather unprepossessing items, it is to be confessed; his large,
coarse mouth was distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time
to time, he ejected from him with great decision and explosive force;
his hands were immensely large, hairy, sun-burned, freckled, and very
dirty, and garnished with long nails, in a very foul condition. This
man proceeded to a very free personal examination of the lot. He
seized Tom by the jaw, and pulled open his mouth to inspect his teeth;
made him strip up his sleeve to shew his muscle; turned him round,
made him jump and spring, to shew his paces.' Almost immediately, Tom
was ordered to mount the block. 'Tom stepped upon the block, gave a
few anxious looks round; all seemed mingled in a common, indistinct
noise--the clatter of the salesman crying off his qualifications in
French and English, the quick fire of French and English bids; and
almost in a moment came the final thump of the hammer, and the clear
ring on the last syllable of the word "_dollars_," as the auctioneer
announced his price, and Tom was made over.--He had a master!

'He was pushed from the block; the short, bullet-headed man, seizing
him roughly by the shoulder, pushed him to one side, saying, in a
harsh voice: "Stand there, _you_!"'

By his new and rude master, Tom was forthwith marched off; put on
board a vessel for a distant cotton-plantation on Red River; stripped
of his decent apparel by his savage owner, and dressed in the meanest
habiliments. The treatment of the poor negro was now most revolting.
He was wrought hard under a burning sun; half-starved; scourged;
loaded with the grossest abuse. All this ends in a rapid decline of
health; and his story terminates with an account of his death, his
last moments being dignified by a strong sentiment of piety, and of
forgiveness towards his inhuman taskmaster.

We have now presented a sufficiently ample abstract of _Uncle Tom's
Cabin_, a work which will undoubtedly be perused at length by all who
feel deeply on the subject of negro slavery. Of the authoress, Mrs H.
B. Stowe, it may be said, that her chief merit consists in close
observation of character, with a forcible and truth-like power of
delineation. In plot, supposing her to aim at such a thing, she
decidedly fails, and the winding-up of her _dramatis personæ_ is
hurried and imperfect. Notwithstanding these defects, however, she has
succeeded in rivetting universal attention, while her aims are in the
highest degree praiseworthy.




HANDEL IN DUBLIN.


If biographers will occasionally make assertions at random, and pass
lightly over important events, because their records are not at hand,
while they give ample development to others, just because the
materials for doing so are more abundant, it is well that there is to
be found here and there an industrious _littérateur_, who will leave
no leaf unturned, and no corner unexplored, if he suspects that any
error has been committed, or any passage of interest slighted, in the
memoirs of a favourite author.

Mr Mainwaring, the earliest biographer of Handel, and, on his
authority, a host of subsequent writers, took upon them to assert,
without any apparent foundation, that the oratorio of the _Messiah_
was performed in London in the year 1741, previously to Handel's visit
to Ireland; but that it met with a cold reception, and this was one
cause of his leaving England. Dr Burney, when composing his _History
of Music_, examined all the London newspapers where public amusements
were advertised during 1741 and for several previous years, but found
no mention whatever of this oratorio. He remembered, too, being a
school-boy at Chester when Handel spent a week there, waiting for fair
winds to carry him across the Channel, and taking advantage of the
delay 'to prove some books that had been hastily transcribed, by
trying the choruses which he intended to perform in Ireland.' An
amateur band was mustered for him, and the manuscript choruses thus
verified were those of the _Messiah_. In the absence, therefore, of
stronger evidence to the contrary, Dr Burney believed that Dublin had
the honour of its first performance. An Irish barrister has now proved
this, we think, beyond dispute.[1] His evidence has been drawn from
the newspaper tomes of 1741, preserved in the public libraries of
Dublin, confirmed by the records of the cathedrals and some of the
charitable institutions, and yet more emphatically from some original
letters of this date. He has thus succeeded in doing 'justice to
Ireland,' by securing for it, in all time to come, the distinguished
place which it is entitled to occupy in the history of this great man.
Perhaps we should rather say, he has done justice to England, by
clearing it of the imputation of having 'coldly received' a musical
production to which immortal fame has since been decreed. While the
musical world will thank our author for several new facts particularly
interesting to them, the main attraction for general readers will
probably be found in the glimpses which this volume affords of a _beau
monde_ which has passed away.

In 1720, a royal academy for the promotion of Italian operas was
founded in London by some of the nobility and gentry under royal
auspices. Handel, Bononcini, and Areosti, were engaged as a
triumvirate of composers; and to Handel was committed the charge of
engaging the singers. But the rivalry between him and Bononcini rose
to strife; the aristocratic patrons took nearly equal sides; and a
furious controversy on their respective merits was carried on for
years. Hence the epigram of Dean Swift--

    Some say that Signor Bononcini,
    Compared to Handel, is a ninny;
    Others aver that to him Handel
    Is scarcely fit to hold the candle.
    Strange that such difference should be
    'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee!

When the withdrawal of both his rivals left Handel in sole possession
of the field, he quarrelled with some of his principal performers, and
thereupon ensued new scenes of discord. Ladies of the highest rank
entered with enthusiasm into the strife; and while some flourished
their fans aloft on the side of Faustina, whom Handel had introduced
in order to supersede Cuzzoni, another party, headed by the Countess
of Pembroke, espoused the cause of the depressed songstress, and made
her take an oath on the Holy Gospels, that she would never submit to
accept a lower salary than her rival. The humorous poets of the day
took up the theme, Pope introduced it into his _Dunciad_, and
Arbuthnot published two witty brochures, entitled _Harmony in an
Uproar_, and _The Devil to Pay at St James's_. The result of these and
other contests, in which Handel gradually lost ground, was the
establishment of a rival Opera at Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was
patronised by the Prince of Wales and most of the nobles; and not even
the presence of the king and queen, who continued the steady friends
of Handel, could attract for him an audience at the Haymarket. It
became quite fashionable to decry his compositions as beneath the
notice of musical connoisseurs. Politics, it is said, came to mingle
in the controversy; and those who held by the king's Opera were as
certainly Tories, as those who went to the nobility's were Whigs. Of
course all this was very foolish, and very wrong; yet in our days of
stately conventionality, when perfect impassibility is deemed the
highest style of breeding, there is something refreshing in reading of
such animated scenes in high life. The crowning act of hostility to
Handel, was when the Earl of Middlesex himself assumed the profession
of manager of Italian operas, and engaged the king's theatre, with a
new composer, and a new company.

Handel had, for some time, been meditating a withdrawal from the
Opera, in order to devote himself exclusively to the composition of
sacred music, of which he had already produced several fine specimens.
He was wont to say, that this was an occupation 'better suited to the
circumstances of a man advancing in years, than that of adapting music
to such vain and trivial words as the musical drama generally consists
of.' The truth was, he had discovered his forte. But the tide of
fashionable feeling ran so strongly against him, that even the
performance of the oratorios of _Saul_ and _Israel in Egypt_ scarcely
paid expenses. Unwilling to submit his forthcoming _Messiah_ also to
the caprices of fashion, and the malignity of party, he wisely
embraced an opportunity which was opened to him of bringing out this
great work in Dublin, under singularly favourable auspices, and
crossed the Channel in November 1741.

Those who are acquainted with the Irish metropolis--not merely with
the handsome streets and squares eastward, which are now the abodes of
gentility, but with the dirty thoroughfares about the cathedrals--have
observed the large houses which some of them contain, now let in
single rooms to a wretched population, and need scarcely be told that
they were once the abodes of wealth and luxury. Fishamble Street, in
this quarter of the town, is one of the oldest streets in Dublin.
'Under the eastern gable of the ancient cathedral of Christ's Church,
separated and hidden from it by a row of houses, it winds its crooked
course down the hill from Castle Street to the Liffey, as forlorn and
neglected as other old streets in its vicinity. A number of
trunkmakers' shops give it an aspect somewhat peculiar; miserable
alleys open from it on the right and left; a barber's pole or two
overhang the footway; and huxters' shops are frequent, with their
wonted array of articles more useful than ornamental. One would never
guess, looking at this old street, that it was once the festive resort
of the wealthy and refined. It needs an effort of imagination to
conceive of it as having witnessed the gay throng of fashion and
aristocracy; the vice-regal _cortège_; ladies, in hoops and feathers;
and "white-gloved beaux," in bag, and sword, and chapeau; with scores
of liveried footmen and pages; and the press of coaches, and chariots,
and sedan-chairs. Yet such was the scene often presented here in the
eighteenth century.' For see, in an oblique angle of the street, and
somewhat retired from the other houses, is a mean, neglected old
building, with a wooden porch, still known by name as the Fishamble
Street Theatre. This is the remaining part of what was originally 'the
great music-hall,' built by a charitable musical society, 'finished in
the most elegant manner, under the direction of Captain Castell,' and
opened to the public on the 2d October 1741. It was within these walls
that the notes of the _Messiah_ first sounded in the ears of an
enraptured audience, and here that its author entered on a new career
of fame.

To prepare for the reception of this, his master-work, Handel first
gave a series of musical entertainments, consisting of some of his
earlier oratorios, and other kindred compositions. They commanded a
most distinguished auditory, including the Lord-Lieutenant and his
family, and were crowned with success in a pecuniary point of view,
answering, and indeed exceeding, the composer's highest expectations.
In a letter written at this time to Mr C. Jennens, who had selected
the words of the _Messiah_, and composed those of a cantata which had
been much admired, he describes, in glowing colours, his happy
position, and informs him that he had set the _Messiah_ to music
before he left England--thus inferentially affording additional
evidence that it had not been performed there. Moreover, the
advertisements call it Handel's _new_ oratorio, and boast that it was
composed expressly for the charitable purpose to which the proceeds of
its first performance were consecrated. This is confirmed by reference
to the minutes of one at least of these institutions, in which it
appears that Handel was in correspondence with them before he had
completed his composition.

The people of Dublin are passionately fond of music, and charitable
musical societies form a peculiar and interesting feature of its
society during the last century. These were academies or clubs, each
of which was attached in the way of patronage to some particular
charity, to which its revenues were consecrated. Whitelaw, in his
_History of Dublin_ (1758), mentions a very aristocratic musical
academy, which held its meetings in the Fishamble Street Hall, under
the presidency of the Earl of Mornington--the Duke of Wellington's
father. His lordship was himself the leader of the band; among the
violoncellos were Lord Bellamont, Sir John Dillon, and Dean Burke;
among the flutes, Lord Lucan; at the harpsichord, Lady Freke; and so
on. Their meetings, we are told, were private, except once a year,
when they performed in public for a charitable purpose, and admitted
all who chose to buy tickets. It does not appear, however, that this
academy was identical with the association that built the hall, and
whose concerts seem to have been much more frequent, as well as its
benevolent designs more extensive. It was called, _par eminence_, The
Charitable Musical Society; the others having distinctive designations
besides. The objects of its benevolence were the prisoners of the
Marshalseas, who were in circumstances similar to those which, many
years afterwards, elicited the benevolent labours of John Howard:
confined often for trifling debts, pining in hopeless misery, and
without food, save that received from the casual hand of charity. This
society made a daily distribution of bread among some of these, while
others were released through their humane exertions. On the 17th of
March 1741, they report, that 'the Committee of the Charitable Musical
Society appointed for this year to visit the Marshalseas in this city,
and release the prisoners confined therein for debt, have already
released 188 miserable persons of both sexes. They offered a
reasonable composition to the creditors, and many of the creditors
being in circumstances almost equally miserable with their debtors,
due regard was paid by the committee to this circumstance.' Their
funds must have improved considerably after the erection of their
Music Hall, which seems to have been the largest room of the kind in
Dublin, and in frequent requisition for public concerts, balls, and
other reunions where it was desirable to assemble a numerous company,
or employ a large orchestra. The hire of the hall on such occasions
would form a handsome addition to the proceeds of their own concerts.

It was to these funds that the proceeds of the first performance of
the _Messiah_ were devoted, in connection with those of Mercer's
Hospital, an old and still eminent school of surgery--and the Royal
Infirmary, which still exists in Jervis Street as a place for the
immediate reception of persons meeting with sudden accidents. The
performance was duly advertised in _Faulkner's Journal_, with the
additional announcement, that 'many ladies and gentlemen who are
well-wishers to this noble and grand charity, for which this oratorio
was composed, request it as a favour that the ladies who honour this
performance with their presence would be pleased to come without
hoops, as it will greatly increase the charity by making room for more
company.' In another advertisement it is added, that 'the gentlemen
are desired to come without their swords.'

On the ensuing Saturday, the following account was given of this
memorable festival: 'On Tuesday last (April 13, 1742), Mr Handel's
sacred grand oratorio, the _Messiah_, was performed in the New Musick
Hall in Fishamble Street; the best judges allowed it to be the most
finished piece of musick. Words are wanting to express the exquisite
delight it afforded to the admiring, crowded audience. The sublime,
the grand, and the tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestick,
and moving words, conspired to transport and charm the ravished heart
and ear. It is but just to Mr Handel, that the world should know he
generously gave the money arising from this grand performance to be
equally shared by the Society for Relieving Prisoners, the Charitable
Infirmary, and Mercer's Hospital, for which they will ever gratefully
remember his name; and that the gentlemen of the two choirs, Mr
Dubourg, Mrs Avolio, and Mrs Cibber, who all performed their parts to
admiration, acted also on the same disinterested principle, satisfied
with the deserved applause of the publick, and the conscious pleasure
of promoting such useful and extensive charity. There were above 700
people in the room, and the sum collected for that noble and pious
charity amounted to about L.400, out of which L.127 goes to each of
the three great and pious charities.'

Handel remained five months longer in the Irish metropolis, during
which period it is recorded that 'he diverted the thoughts of the
people from every other pursuit.' On his return to London in August
1742, he was warmly received by his former friends; his enemies, too,
were greatly conciliated. His having relinquished all concern with
operatic affairs, and opened for himself a new and undisputed sphere,
removed the old grounds of hostility; while the enthusiastic reception
which he had met in Dublin, had served as an effectual reproach to
those whose malignity had forced him to seek for justice there.
Notwithstanding some difficulties at the outset of his new career at
home, he lived to realise an income of above L.2000 a year, and never
found it necessary or convenient to revisit Ireland; but the custom of
performing his oratorios and cantatas for the benefit of medical
charities was maintained for many years; and it is believed that the
works of no other composer have so largely contributed to the relief
of human suffering.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _An Account of the Visit of Handel to Dublin._ By Horatio
Townsend, Esq. London: Orr & Co.




ROYAL GARDENING.


Gardening has frequently been one of the most exhilarating recreations
of royalty. When Lysander, the Lacedemonian general, brought
magnificent presents to Cyrus, the younger son of Darius, who piqued
himself more on his integrity and politeness than on his rank and
birth, the prince conducted his illustrious guest through his gardens,
and pointed out to him their varied beauties. Lysander, struck with so
fine a prospect, praised the manner in which the grounds were laid
out, the neatness of the walks, the abundance of fruits planted with
an art which knew how to combine the useful with the agreeable; the
beauty of the parterres, and the glowing variety of flowers exhaling
odours universally throughout the delightful scene. 'Everything charms
and transports me in this place,' said Lysander to Cyrus; 'but what
strikes me most is the exquisite taste and elegant industry of the
person who drew the plan of these gardens, and gave it the fine order,
wonderful disposition, and happiness of arrangement which I cannot
sufficiently admire.' Cyrus replied: 'It was I that drew the plan, and
entirely marked it out; and many of the trees which you see were
planted by my own hands.' 'What!' exclaimed Lysander with surprise,
and viewing Cyrus from head to foot--'is it possible, that with those
purple robes and splendid vestments, those strings of jewels and
bracelets of gold, those buskins so richly embroidered; is it possible
that you could play the gardener, and employ your royal hands in
planting trees?' 'Does that surprise you?' said Cyrus. 'I assure you,
that when my health permits, I never sit down to table without having
fatigued myself, either in military exercise, rural labour, or some
other toilsome employment, to which I apply myself with pleasure.'
Lysander, still more amazed, pressed Cyrus by the hand, and said: 'You
are truly happy, and deserve your high fortune, since you unite it
with virtue.'




UNDER THE PALMS.

BY CALDER CAMPBELL.


    Under the palm-trees on India's shore
    Ne'er shall I wander at morning or eve;
    Hearts there have withered, but still in the core
    Of mine springs the memory of feelings that give
    Green thoughts in sunshine and bright hopes in gloom;
    Friendship, which love's loud emotions becalms:
    Oh, happy was I, in those bowers of perfume,
          Under the palms!

    Go forth, little children; the wood's insect-hum
    Invites ye; expand there, like buds in the sun;
    Leave schools and their studies for days that _will_ come,
    And let thy first lessons from nature be won!
    Teachings hath nature most sage and most sweet--
    The music that swells in the tree-linnet's psalms;
    So taught, my young heart learned to prize that retreat
          Under the palms!

    The odour of jasmines afloat on the breeze,
    That woke in the dawning the birds on each bough;
    The frolicsome squirrels, that scampered at case
    'Mid lithe leaves and soft moss that smiled down below:
    Heaps piled up of mangoes, all fragrant and rich;
    Guavas pink-cored, such a wealth of sweet alms
    Presented by bright maids, whose sweet songs bewitch
          Under the palms!

    Pale, yellow bananas, with satiny pulp
    That tastes like some dainty of sugar and cream;
    Blithe-kernelled pomegranates, just gathered to help
    A feast fit to serve in the bowers of a dream!
    Milk, foaming and snowy; rice, swelling and sweet;
    Iced sherbet that cools, and spiced ginger that warms:
    Oh, simple our banquet in that dear retreat
          Under the palms!

    A tinkling of lutes and a toning of voices--
    Of young maiden voices just fresh from the bath;
    A sprinkling of rosewater cool, that rejoices
    The scented grass screening our bower from the path;
    Trim baskets of melons, new gathered, beside
    Fair bunches of blossoms that heal all sick qualms;
    And books, when to reading our fancies subside,
          Under the palms!

    Or silence at eve when the sun hath gone down,
    Or the sound of _one_ cithern makes melody near;
    While a beautiful boy, that hath ne'er known a frown,
    Softly murmurs a tale of the East in the ear;
    Of peris, that cluster round flower-stalks like fruit--
    Of genii, that breathe amid blossoms and balms--
    Of gazelle-eyed houris, that play on sweet lutes
          Under the palms!

    Of roses, that nightly unfold their flower-leaves
    To welcome the lays of the loved nightingale--
    Of spirits, that home in an Eden of Eves
    Where the sun never scorches, the strength never fails!
    So singing, so playing, Sleep steals on us all,
    Enclasping us gently within her soft arms;--
    Let me dream that the moonbeams still over me fall
          Under the palms!

       *       *       *       *       *

Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh.
Also sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D. N. CHAMBERS, 55 West
Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street,
Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to
MAXWELL & CO., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all
applications respecting their insertion must be made.





End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455, by Various