Part 48

It prevailed over the adjoining continent, and produced much fear that the end of all things was at hand. It appeared first at Copenhagen on the 29th of May, reached Dijon on the 14th June, and was perceived in Italy on the 16th. It was noticed at Spydberg, in Norway, on the 22nd, and at Stockholm two days later; the following day it reached Moscow. On the 23rd it was felt on the St. Gothard, and at Buda. By the close of that month it entered Syria; and on the 18th of July, reached the Altai Mountains. Before its appearance at these places the condition of the atmosphere was not similar; for in this country it followed continued rains; in Denmark it succeeded fine weather of some continuance; and in other places it was preceded by high winds. The sun at noon looked rusty-red, reminding one of the lines of Milton. The heat was intense during its continuance, and the atmosphere was highly electric. Lightnings were awfully vivid and destructive. In England many deaths arose from this cause, and a great amount of property was lost. In Germany public edifices were thrown down or consumed by it; and in Hungary one of the chief northern towns was destroyed by fires, caused by the electric fluid, which struck it in nine different places. In France there were hailstones and violent winds. In Silesia there were great inundations. The dry fogs of 1782-83 were accompanied by influenza; at St. Petersburgh 40,000 persons were immediately attacked by it, after the thermometer had suddenly risen 30 degrees. Calabria and Sicily were convulsed by earthquakes; in Iceland a volcano was active, and about the same time one sprung out of the sea off Norway. The co-existence of dry fogs with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions had been previously observed--_e.g._, in the years 526, 1348, 1721; and since then, in 1822 and 1834.

A somewhat similar fog overspread London before the cholera of 1831, and the influenza of 1847. Hecker ("Epidemics of the Middle Ages") has collected notices of various phenomena of this kind, which have preceded the great continental plagues, and have often been characterised by offensive odours.

MONKEYS DEMANDING THEIR DEAD.

Mr. Forbes tells a story of a female monkey (the Semnopithecus Entellus) who was shot by a friend of his, and carried to his tent. Forty or fifty of her tribe advanced with menacing gestures, but stood still when the gentleman presented his gun at them. One, however, who appeared to be the chief of the tribe, came forward, chattering and threatening in a furious manner. Nothing short of firing at him seemed likely to drive him away; but at length he approached the tent door with every sign of grief and supplication, as if he were begging for the body. It was given to him, he took it in his arms, carried it away, with actions expressive of affection, to his companions, and with them disappeared. It was not to be wondered at that the sportsman vowed never to shoot another monkey.

BARA.

Mr. Howel, in his descriptive travels through Sicily, gives a particular account of the magnificent manner in which the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin is kept by the Sicilians under the title of Bara, which, although expressive of the machine he describes, is also, it appears, generally applied as a name of the feast itself. An immense machine of about 50 feet high is constructed, designing to represent Heaven; and in the midst is placed a young female personating the Virgin, with an image of Jesus on her right hand; round the Virgin 12 little children turn vertically, representing so many Seraphim, and below them 12 more children turn horizontally, as Cherubim; lower down in the machine a sun turns vertically, with a child at the extremity of each of the four principal radii of his circle, who ascend and descend with his rotation, yet always in an erect posture; and still lower, reaching within about 7 feet of the ground, are placed 12 boys, who turn horizontally without intermission around the principal figure, designing thereby to exhibit the 12 apostles, who were collected from all corners of the earth, to be present at the decease of the Virgin, and witness her miraculous assumption. This huge machine is drawn about the principal streets by sturdy monks; and it is regarded as a particular favour to any family to admit their children in this divine exhibition.

CRADLE OF HENRY V.

Most of our readers have probably seen, in the illustrated newspapers of the day, sketches of the magnificently artistic cradles which have been made for the children of our good Queen, or for the Prince Imperial of France. It will be not a little curious to contrast with those elaborately beautiful articles the cradle of a Prince of Wales in the fourteenth century. We here give a sketch of it.

It was made for the use of Henry Prince of Wales, afterwards King Henry V, generally called Henry of Monmouth, because he was born in the castle there in the year 1388. He was the son of Henry IV of Bolingbroke, by his first wife Mary de Bohun. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, under the superintendence of his half uncle, the great Cardinal Henry Beaufort. On the accession of his father to the throne, he was created Prince of Wales, and, at the early age of sixteen, was present at the battle of Shrewsbury, where he was badly wounded in the face. After having greatly distinguished himself in the war against Owen Glendour, he spent some years idleness and dissipation, but on his coming to the throne, by the death of his father, April 20, 1413, he threw off his former habits and associates, chose his ministers from among those of tried integrity and wisdom in his father's cause, and seemed everywhere intent on justice, on victory over himself, and on the good of his subjects. After a short but glorious reign of ten years, in which the victory of Agincourt was the principal event, he expired at the Bois de Vincennes, near Paris, on the last day of August, 1422, in the thirty-fourth year of his age. He was engaged at the time in a war with the Dauphin of France. His heart was warm as his head was cool, and his courage equal to his wisdom, which emboldened him to encounter the greatest dangers, and surmount the greatest difficulties His virtues were not inferior to his abilities, being a dutiful son, a fond parent, an affectionate brother, a steady and generous friend, and an indulgent master. In a word, Henry V., though not without his failings, merits the character of an amiable and accomplished man, and a great and good king. Such was the sovereign, for whose infant years the plain, but still not tasteless, cradle was made, which we have here engraved, as it is preserved in the castle of Monmouth, his birthplace.

THE FONT AT KILCARN.

The venerable old church at Kilcarn, near Navan, in the county of Meath, contains a font of great rarity, and we have selected it as a fitting object for our work, inasmuch as it is a striking instance of the union of the beautiful with the curious.

Placed upon its shaft, as represented in the cut, it measures in height about three feet six inches; the basin is two feet ten inches in diameter, and thirteen inches deep. The heads of the niches, twelve in number, with which its sides are carved, are enriched with foliage of a graceful but uniform character, and the miniature buttresses which separate the niches are decorated with crockets, the bases resting upon heads, grotesque animals, or human figures, carved as brackets. The figures within the niches are executed with a wonderful degree of care, the drapery being represented with each minute crease or fold well expressed. They are evidently intended to represent Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the twelve apostles. All the figures are seated. Our Saviour, crowned as a King, and holding in his hand the globe and cross, is in the act of blessing the Virgin, who also is crowned, the "Queen of Heaven." The figures of most of the apostles can easily be identified: Saint Peter by his key; Saint Andrew by his cross of peculiar shape; and so on. They are represented barefooted, and each holds a book in one hand.

THE BLOOD-SUCKING VAMPIRE.

Captain Stedman, who travelled in Guiana, from 1772 to 1777, published an account of his adventures, and for several years afterwards it was the fashion to doubt the truth of his statements. In fact, it was a general feeling, up to a much later period than the above, that travellers were not to be believed. As our knowledge, however, has increased, and the works of God have been made more manifest, the reputation of many a calumniated traveller has been restored, and, among others, that of Captain Stedman. We shall, therefore, unhesitatingly quote his account of the bite of the vampire:--"On waking, about four o'clock this morning, in my hammock, I was extremely alarmed at finding myself weltering in congealed blood, and without feeling any pain whatever. Having started up and run to the surgeon, with a firebrand in one hand, and all over besmeared with gore, the mystery was found to be, that I had been bitten by the vampire or spectre of Guiana, which is also called the flying dog of New Spain. This is no other than a bat of monstrous size, that sucks the blood from men and cattle, sometimes even till they die; knowing, by instinct, that the person they intend to attack is in a sound slumber, they generally alight near the feet, where, while the creature continues fanning with his enormous wings, which keeps one cool, he bites a piece out of the tip of the great toe, so very small indeed, that the head, of a pin could scarcely be received into the wound, which is consequently not painful; yet, through this orifice he contrives to suck the blood until he is obliged to disgorge. He then begins again, and thus continues mucking and disgorging till he is scarcely able to fly, and the sufferer has often been known to sleep from time into eternity. Cattle they generally bite in the ear, but always in those places where the blood flows spontaneously. Having applied tobacco-ashes as the best remedy, and washed the gore from myself and my hammock, I observed several small heaps of congealed blood all around the place where I had lain upon the ground; upon examining which, the surgeon judged that I had lost at least twelve or fourteen ounces during the night. Having measured this creature (one of the bats), I found it to be, between the tips of the wings, thirty-two inches and a-half; the colour was a dark brown, nearly black, but lighter underneath."

LUXURY IN 1562.

The luxury of the present times does not equal, in one article at least, that of the sixteenth century. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the Queen's ambassador at Paris, in a letter to Sir Thomas Chaloner, the ambassador at Madrid, in June, 1562, says,

"I pray you good my Lord Ambassador sende me two paire of parfumed gloves, parfumed with orrange flowers and jacemin, th'one for my wives hand, the other for mine owne; and wherin soever I can pleasure you with any thing in this countrey, you shall have it in recompence thereof, or els so moche money as they shall coste you; provided alwaies that they be of the best choise, wherein your judgment is inferior to none."

SINGULAR PHENOMENON--PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA.

The sea has sometimes a luminous appearance, a phenomenon that has been observed by all sailors, who consider it the forerunner of windy weather. It is said to occur most frequently in the summer and autumn months, and varies so much in its character, as to induce a doubt whether it can always be attributed to the same cause. Sometimes the luminous appearance is seen over the whole surface of the water, and the vessel seems as though floating upon an ocean of light. At other times, the phosphorescence is only seen immediately around the ship. A portion of water taken from the sea does not necessarily retain its luminous appearance, but its brilliance will generally continue as long as the water is kept in a state of agitation. Some naturalists imagine the phosphorescence of the sea to arise from the diffusion of an immense number of animalculae through the medium, and others attribute it to electricity. Dr. Buchanan has given an account of a very remarkable appearance of the sea, observed by him during a voyage from Johanna to Bombay. About eight o'clock in the evening of the 31st of July, 1785, the sea had a milk-white colour, and upon it were floating a multitude of luminous bodies greatly resembling that combination of stars known as the milky way, the brightest of them representing the larger stars of a constellation. The whiteness, he says, was such as to prevent those on board from seeing either the break or swell of the sea, although, from the motion of the ship and the noise, they knew them to be violent, and the light was sufficiently intense to illuminate the ropes and rigging. This singular phenomenon continued till daylight appeared. Several buckets of water were drawn, and in them were found a great number of luminous bodies, from a quarter of an inch to an inch and a half in length, and these were seen to move about as worms in the water. There might be, he said to Dr. Buchanan, four hundred of these animals in a gallon of water. A similar appearance had been observed before in the same sea by several of the officers, and the gunner had seen it off Java Head, in a voyage to China.

MARRIAGE VOW.

The matrimonial ceremony, like many others, has undergone some variation in the progress of time. Upwards of three centuries ago, the husband, on taking his wife, as now, by the right hand, thus addressed her:--"I. N. _undersygne_ the N. for my wedded wyfe, for better, for worse, for richer, for porer, yn sickness, and in helthe, tyl dethe us departe, (not "do part," as we have erroneously rendered it, the ancient meaning of "departe," even in Wickliffe's time, being "separate") as holy churche hath ordeyned, and thereto I plygth the my trowthe." The wife replies in the same form, with an additional clause, "to be buxom to the, tyl dethe us departe." So it appears in the first edition of the "Missals for the use of the famous and celebrated Church of Hereford, 1502," fol. In what is called the "Salisbury Missal," the lady pronounced a more general obedience: "to be bonere and buxom in bedde and at the borde."

LOVE OF GARDENS.

Louis XVIII., on his restoration to France, made, in the park in Versailles, the _facsimile_ of the garden at Hartwell; and there was no more amiable trait in the life of that accomplished prince. Napoleon used to say that he should know his father's garden in Corsica blindfolded, by the smell of the earth! And the hanging-gardens of Babylon are said to have been raised by the Median Queen of Nebuchadnezzar on the flat and naked plains of her adopted country, to remind her of the hills and woods of her childhood. We need not speak of the plane-trees of Plato--Shakspeare's mulberry-tree--Pope's willow--Byron's elm? Why describe Cicero at his Tusculum--Evelyn at Wotton--Pitt at Ham Common--Walpole at Houghton--Grenville at Dropmere? Why dwell on Bacon's "little tufts of thyme," or Fox's geraniums? There is a spirit in the garden as well as in the wood, and the "lilies of the field" supply food for the imagination as well as materials for sermons.

ANCIENT DANISH SHIELD.

In Asia, from whence the greater number, probably all, of the European nations have migrated, numerous implements and weapons of copper have been discovered in a particular class of graves; nay, in some of the old and long-abandoned mines in that country workmen's tools have been discovered, made of copper, and of very remote antiquity. We see, moreover, how at a later period attempts were made to harden copper, and to make it better suited for cutting implements by a slight intermixture, and principally of tin. Hence arose that mixed metal to which the name of "bronze" has been given. Of this metal, then, the Northmen of "the bronze period" formed their armour, and among numerous other articles, three shields have been discovered which are made wholly of bronze; and we here give a sketch of the smallest of them, which is about nineteen inches in diameter, the other two being twenty-four. These shields are formed of somewhat thin plates of bronze, the edge being turned over a thick wire metal to prevent the sword penetrating too deeply. The handle is formed of a cross-bar, placed at the reverse side of the centre boss, which is hollowed out for the purpose of admitting the hand.

SACRED GARDENS.

The origin of sacred gardens among the heathen nations may be traced up to the garden of Eden. The gardens of the Hesperides, of Adonis, of Flora, were famous among the Greeks and Romans. "The garden of Flora," says Mr. Spence (Polymetis, p. 251), "I take to have been the Paradise in the Roman mythology. The traditions and traces of Paradise among the ancients must be expected to have grown fainter and fainter in every transfusion from one people to another. The Romans probably derived their notions of it from the Greeks, among whom this idea seems to have been shadowed out under the stories of the gardens of Alcinous. In Africa they had the gardens of the Hesperides, and in the East those of Adonis, or the _Horti Adonis_, as Pliny calls them. The term _Horti Adonides_ was used by the ancients to signify gardens of pleasure, which answers to the very name of Paradise, or the garden of Eden, as _Horti Adonis_ does to the garden of the Lord."

ANCIENT CHAIR OF DAGOBERT.

The chair which we here engrave claims to be regarded as a great curiosity, on two separate grounds: it is the work of an artist who was afterwards canonized, and it was used by Napoleon I. on a most important occasion. Towards the close of the sixth century the artists of France were highly successful in goldsmith's work, and Limoges appears to have been the principal centre of this industry. It was at this time that Abbon flourished--a goldsmith and mint-master, with whom was placed the young Eloy, who rose from a simple artizan to be the most remarkable man of his century, and whose virtues were rewarded by canonization. The apprentice soon excelled his master, and his fame caused him to be summoned to the throne of Clotaire II., for whom he made two thrones of gold, enriched with precious stones, from a model made by the king himself, who had not been able to find workmen sufficiently skilful to execute it. The talents and probity of St. Eloy also gained him the affection of Dagobert I., who entrusted him with many important works, and among them, with the construction of the throne, or chair of state which is the subject of this article. It is made of bronze, carved and gilded, and is a beautiful specimen of workmanship. The occupant of the chair would sit upon a cloth of gold suspended from the two side bars. For a long time it was preserved in the sacristy of the royal church of St. Denis, at Paris; but it was subsequently removed to the Great Library, where it now is. It was upon this chair that Napoleon I., in August, 1804, distributed the crosses of the Legion of Honour to the soldiers of the army assembled at Boulogne for the invasion of England. Napoleon caused the chair to be brought from Paris for the express purpose.

ST GEORGE'S CAVERN.

Near the town of Moldavia, on the Danube, is shown the cavern where St. George slew the Dragon, from which, at certain periods, issue myriads of small flies, which tradition reports to proceed from the carcass of the dragon. They respect neither man nor beast, and are so destructive that oxen and horses have been killed by them. They are called the Golubacz's fly. It is thought when the Danube rises, as it does in the early part of the summer, the caverns are flooded, and the water remaining in them, and becoming putrid, produces this noxious fly. But this supposition appears to be worthless, because, some years ago, the natives closed up the caverns, and still they were annoyed with the flies. They nearly resemble mosquitoes. In summer they appear in such swarms as to look like a volume of smoke; and they sometimes cover a space of six or seven miles. Covered with these insects, horses not unfrequently gallop about until death puts an end to their sufferings. Shepherds anoint their hands with a decoction of wormwood, and keep large fires burning to protect themselves from them. Upon any material change in the weather the whole swarm is destroyed thereby.

ENGLISH LETTER BY VOLTAIRE.

The subjoined letter is copied literally from the autograph of Voltaire, formerly in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Sim, the editor of Mickle's Poems:--

"Sir,

"j wish you good health, a quick sale of y{r} burgundy, much latin, and greeke to one of y{r} Children, much Law, much of cooke, and littleton, to the other. quiet and joy to mistress brinsden, money to all. when you'll drink y{r} burgundy with m{r} furneze pray tell him j'll never forget his favours.

But dear john be so kind as to let me know how does my lady Bollingbroke. as to my lord j left him so well j dont doubt he is so still. but j am very uneasie about my lady. if she might have as much health as she has Spirit and witt, sure She would be the strongest body in england. pray dear s{r} write me Something of her, of my lord, and of you. direct y{r} letter by the penny post at m{r} Cavalier, Belitery Square by the R. exchange. j am sincerely and heartily y{r} most humble most obedient rambling friend

"VOLTAIRE.

"to "john Brinsden, esq. "durham's yard "by charing cross."

THE GOLDEN CHALICE OF IONA.

A chalice, as used in sacred ceremonies, is figured on various early Scottish ecclesiastical seals, as well as on sepulchral slabs and other medieval sculptures. But an original Scottish chalice, a relic of the venerable abbey of St. Columba, presented, till a very few years since, an older example of the sacred vessels of the altar than is indicated in any existing memorial of the medieval Church. The later history of this venerable relic is replete with interest. It was of fine gold, of a very simple form, and ornamented in a style that gave evidence of its belonging to a very early period. It was transferred from the possession of Sir Lauchlan MacLean to the Glengarry family, in the time of AEneas, afterwards created by Charles II. Lord Macdonell and Arross, under the circumstances narrated in the following letter from a cousin of the celebrated Marshal Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, and communicated by a clergyman (Rev. AEneas M'Donell Dawson), who obtained it from the family of the gentleman to whom it was originally addressed:--

"The following anecdote I heard from the late bishop, John Chisholm, and from Mr. John M'Eachan, uncle to the Duke of Tarentum, who died at my house at Irin Moidart, aged upwards of one hundred years:--