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wind, and, glad to retreat, he left the bearward master of the field. Hairun immediately arose, and bowed to the Queen, and, excepting a few scratches in the arms, and a gash in the cheek, from which the blood trickled down his beard, appeared none the worse for the contest. So little, indeed, did he care for it, that, without tarrying to recover breath, he opened another cage, and brought out a large hyæna, over whom he obtained an easy conquest.

[A terrific encounter ensues between Gog and Xit, and the imperial bear, having escaped from which, Xit is arrested for treason. The burning of Underhill follows, the site of the atrocity being thus described:]

Tower Green.

The place appointed as the scene of his last earthly suffering was a square patch of

ground, marked by a border of white flint stones, then, and even now, totally destitute of herbage, in front of St. Peter's Chapel, on the Green, where the scaffold for those executed within the Tower was ordinarily erected, and where Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were beheaded. On this spot a strong stake was driven deeply into the ground, and at a little distance from it was piled a large stack of fagots. An iron ring was fixed to the centre of the stake, and to the ring was attached a broad iron girdle, destined to encircle the body of the victim.

[The subjects of the plates are the Burning; the Bear Encounter in the Menagerie; and Courtenay's Escape; all of which are very effective. Indeed, as regards text and illustrations, this work has been vigorously conducted from its commencement, and enjoys correspondent success.]

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Spirit of Discovery.

NEW ZEALAND.

PAPERS have been printed, by order of the House of Commons, containing the Reports of Captain Hobson, R.N., of his proceedings on arriving at New Zealand. The most interesting portion of these papers, however, is a letter addressed by the Lieutenant-Governor to Sir George Gipps, from the Bay of Islands, describing the proceedings at a meeting which he had called, of the native chiefs of the confederation, and of the high

chiefs who had not signed the declaration of independence, for the purpose of explaining to them the command which he had received from Her Majesty, and of laying before them the copy of a treaty which he had to propose for their consideration. A vast number of chiefs, with a multitude of followers, crowded in from every quarter, and assembled under spacious tents decorated with flags. His Excellency proceeded to the tent, supported by his officers, Mr. Busby, the late resident, the members of the Church Missionary Society, the French bishop, the officers of the Government, and all the principal

European inhabitants in procession, and took his seat on a raised platform. In the centre of the area, within the tents, the chiefs seated themselves upon the ground, leaving a space around them for the Europeans. His Excellency opened the business by explaining, in the fullest manner, the object of his mission, and the reasons that had induced Her Majesty to appoint him. He then read the treaty, and dwelt on each article, offering a few remarks explanatory of such passages as they might be supposed not to understand. Mr. H. Williams, of the Church Missionary Society, interpreted and repeated in the native tongue, sentence by sentence, all that his Excellency addressed to them. When his Excellency had finished, he invited the chiefs to ask explanations on any point they did not comprehend; twenty or thirty chiefs, in consequence, addressed the meeting, five or six of whom spoke with so much violence and effect that his Excellency was apprehensive that they had fairly turned the tables on him; but at this crisis the Hokianga chiefs, "under Neni and Patawoni, made their appearance," and nothing, says Captain Hobson, "could have been more seasonable." His Excellency insinuates that underhand influence had been at work, and two chiefs, whom he names as being followers of the Catholic bishop, were the principal opposers. One of these orators,

Revewah," said, "Send the men away : do not sign the paper: if you do, you will be reduced to the condition of slaves, and be obliged to break stones for the roads. Your lands will be taken from you, and your dignity, as chiefs, destroyed." In this dilemma, and when things appeared to be looking very black for his Excellency, at the first pause "Neni" came forward and eclipsed all rivals. He spoke with so much "natural eloquence" as surprised all the Europeans, and turned aside the temporary feeling that had been created by the arguments of the other orators. No wonder, then, that Captain Hobson should speak favourably of his talents. He was to him a friend in need, and seems to have done his part of the business effectually. He pointed out to the New Zealanders how impossible it was for them to govern themselves, and concluded his harangue by strenuously advising the chiefs to place confidence in the promises of the British. He was followed by two other favourable chiefs, and, after an adjournment of one day, it having been announced that the chiefs had become impatient to sign the treaty that they might return to their homes, his Excellency gratified their wishes; and having accordingly proceeded to the tents, the treaty was signed in due

form by forty-six head chiefs, in presence of at least 500 of inferior degree; which, being held to be a full and clear recognition of the sovereign rights of Her Majesty over the northern parts of the island, was announced on the 7th of February last, by a salute of twenty-one guns from Her Majesty's ship Herald. By the first article of the treaty, the chiefs of the confederation of the united tribes of New Zealand, and the separate and independent chiefs, expressly cede the powers and rights of sovereignity to Her Majesty over their respective territories; and by the second, Her Majesty confirms and guarantees them in the possessions of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties, so long as they wish to retain the same; but they yield, at the same time, to Her Majesty the exclusive right of preemption over such lands as they may be disposed to alienate; and the third grants to the natives of New Zealand all the rights and privileges of British subjects. The acceptance by the chiefs is as follows: -"We, the chiefs of the confederation of the united tribes of New Zealand, being assembled in congress, at Waitangi, and we, the separate and independent chiefs of New Zealand, claiming authority over the tribes and territories which are specified after our respective names, having been made fully to understand the provisions of the foregoing treaty, accept and enter into the same in the full spirit and meaning thereof. In witness whereof we have attached our signatures, or marks, at the places and dates respectively specified. Done at Waitangi this 6th day of February, in the year of our Lord, 1840."

New Books.

ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. BY FREDERIC VON RAUMER.

[A GERMAN is not the man to travel from "Dan to Bathsheba," and say " all is barren." His characteristic mental energy, zeal, and patience, his comprehensive views of the various phases of the social system, his painstaking investigation of antiquities, his accurate appreciation of art, his aptitude for the studies of literature, and his industry and success in inquiring into the phenomena of nature— are all qualities which pre-eminently fit the German for travelling, and remind one of Johnson's neat amplification of the Spanish proverb:-" He, who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him ;"-" so it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge." The English have

been called " a nation of travellers," and the phrase may be true as regards their locomotive propensities; but, for the experiences of travel, and its utmost beneficial results, commend us to a German, with the mental activity of Von Raumer, the rival of Heeren, the greatest historian of our times.

The work before us, in two convenient volumes, is richly stored with remarkable and authentic facts, contained in some 120 letters, addressed by the Author, while on his tour, to friends at home. It abounds with valuable statistics, which we have omitted to record among the characteristics of German industry; for a greater number of German authors than any others have written on this important department of political knowledge. The discursive plan of Von Raumer's work renders it peculiarly adapted for quotation, so that the selection of a few gems will be both pleasant and profitable. It should be observed, that the first letter is dated "Vienna, March 13, 1839," and the concluding one, Munich, September 16"-the interval being a six months' tour through some of the most attractive countries of Europe.]

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Vienna and Berlin compared.

I have not had leisure this time to see the curiosities and the collections of art, but Vienna itself has made upon me the same impression as formerly. Berlin, in comparison, appears as a mere upstart, that has built himself a smart house, and has fitted it up showily. Here everything seems to rest on a sounder foundation; the state is larger, the land more productive, the wealth far surpasses that of Prussia, and stands second only to that of England. We brag a great deal about one thing, our wit, because we feel that without it we should be nothing. There are those, however, who presume to question whether this article really abounds more in Berlin than in Vienna. Besides, have not many of those who announce themselves as guardians of the Prussian Zion done much, of late years, to check, cripple, clip, intimidate, and neutralize it?

View of Venice.

On Tuesday the 26th March, at eleven in the evening, the steamer started with favourable weather from Trieste. After a sound sleep, undisturbed by sickness, I was on deck at daybreak, and saw the sun rising from the sea, and making Venice glorious with his beams.

Three times already, and now for the fourth time, Venice has made a mighty, an irresistible impression upon me; one that baffles comparison. The objects that present themselves, and the thoughts and

feelings that they excite, are different here to what they are in any other place in the world. Heaven and earth, life and death, the tasteful and the tasteless, the past, the present, and the future, meet here in a way peculiar to the place. Much is out of all rule, much contrary to all rule, but then there is so much that is beyond all rule. When the stranger coming from the Lido sees the Palace of the Doge, the columns, the Piazzetta, the Campanile, the Orologio, and St. Mark's, with the many other marvels rising from the sea; who is there, that, in such a moment of joy, surprise, and enthusiasm, can descend to critisise columns and the position of windows? For my own part, at least, thank Heaven! I am no such stockfish; as little now, as twenty-two years ago.

The sun had sunk in purple magnificence behind Santa Maria della Salute, and the Canale Grande reflected more darkly and soberly the picture presented by the sky. In the east, the moon with her pale coronet of beams was just rising above Lido, while, by her side, Jupiter was glowing in all his brightness, and immediately over the Campanile, Venus was moving along at a measured pace. When

I turned from this glorious spectacle above me, to look upon the ragged, screaming, wrangling crowd that moved around, a feeling of humiliation came over me.

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In the evening, having wrapped myself well up in furs, I went in a gondola to the Giudeca, and returned by the Canale Grande. Some of the buildings along the latter have been cleaned up, and wear a habitable look; but what are these compared with the many, for the maintenance of which the means are wanting! There was a time when palaces rose from the sea as if by magic; when they were adorned by countless works of art, and made brilliant by costly entertainments; and now, it is matter to be noticed, if a few broken windows are mended, or if an invalid door be replaced upon its hinges. A thousand causes are assigned for this; the chief, according to many, is the laziness of the population; and is not idleness the origin of every vice, and thus the first cause of poverty?

Game of Lotto, at Venice.

About 900 ladies and gentlemen were assembled at the game of Lotto, around the tombola. Of this game, 1 hear, they are passionately fond. Each person buys a tablet, marked with fifteen numbers, between one and ninety. The player, whose fifteen numbers are first drawn, receives a sum of money as a prize,

(yesterday, about forty florins ;) and the two following prizes consist of articles likely to be serviceable to ladies. At half past ten the drawing began, and by far the greater part of the ninety numbers had been drawn before any one of the players had covered the fifteen squares. In about an hour the last prize had been won and lost; for, of course, all lost, with the exception of three, and the emotions excited by the game developed themselves, when many covered twelve, thirteen, or even fourteen of their numbers, and yet in the end went empty-handed away.

[The following is

Acute Criticism.]

The progress of the arts, as of science and state-policy, is evident, and yet it is a mystery. How is it that the human mind, or how is it that a community of many human minds, after having attained, with much labour, to beauty, perfection, and taste, in the best sense of those words, can gradually wean themselves from it, and find delight in ugliness, distortion, the nauseous, and the insipid? Thus, for instance, I am at a loss to account for the series of Venetian churches, descending, during a succession of centuries, from the rich and fanciful St. Mark's to the craziest tawdriness of embellishment, or to a naked bareness, that makes them fit for little else than stables and barns. Do we not, in our own age, behold the same, if not in painting and architecture, at least in poetry and music?

[Von Raumer is one of the intellectual writers upon what the French call La Physiologie du Gout: here is a specimen :] Good and Bad Cookery.

Our friend H- shall explain to us, one of these days, why, after good wine and a good dinner, even though composed of a variety of dishes, I feel well and in good spirits, whereas a single plate of bad food puts me out of tune. He will, probably, assign a multitude of physiological causes; but I look at the matter from a refined and moral point of view. Good taste is in itself meritorious, and meets with its reward; but bad food reduces a man nearer to the level of a beast, and is punished accordingly.

[A letter on Trieste contains many valuable statistical details, as does also another on Venice, viewed in its relation to Austria, and more particularly to Trieste. We pass on to the

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ant period; here, on the contrary, the present is full of life, and all that belongs to antiquity, not excepting even the glorious cathedral, is thrown into the back-ground. The last-named building stands more detached than the Venetian St. Mark's, and appears to belong to the present, quite as much as to a bygone period. Besides, everything reminds one here that Milan is a great central point of wealth and activity. No signs of decay, no unoccupied people, unless in the upper classes, where the possession of fortune invites to the far niente, which, in Venice, goes hand-in-hand with wretchedness and want. In Venice, and also in Verona, each house, each palace, is built according to individual fancy or convenience; the greatest variety of architecture, and the most wanton deviations from all law, order, or harmony. Large windows by the side of small ones, and seldom one window immediately over another. In Milan, on the contrary, every building is perfectly symmetrical, scrupulously kept in repair, nowhere is the least sympton to be seen of a poor or declining population. The question, so difficult of solution in Venice, how the decay is to be arrested, and whether it has reached its term? is here

quite superfluous, so evident is everywhere the progress of improvement.

The pavement in the streets deserves to be mentioned. Not only are there side pavements of granite for the pedestrians, but in the middle, also, there are granite rails for the carriage-wheels to run along as easily as upon an iron railway, and with far less noise. (To be continued.)

Scientific Facts.

WRECK OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.

[THE following statement is from the Times :]

"By far the most magnificent exhibition which has yet been witnessed of the enormous force of gunpowder, when exploded under water, took place on Wednesday, August 5, at Spithead. It is obvious that no extent of description could convey a just conception of so vast and novel an operation, but it may interest your readers to know, that, under circumstances apparently similar such very different effects should be produced. On the former occasions, when Colonel Pasley exploded his huge cylinders at the bottom of the sea, the water rose to the height of thirty or forty feet, and, generally, in a solid mass, in form like that of a haycock. But, on Wednesday it was forced to the amazing

height of at least eighty feet, in a sort of pyramid, or set of pyramids and jets, which not only dispersed the water far in the air above, but carried it to the distance of more than 100 yards on every side.

The charge, which consisted of twentyfive barrels, or 2,250 fb, was placed at the depth of eleven fathoms and a half, or about seventy feet under the surface, nearly over the original position of the fore-hatchway of the old ship. That expert diver, Mr. John Fullagar, of Chatham, having first carefully examined the spot, and made his report, redescended in company with the monstrous cylinder, which he placed in such a way, that, when the powder should be ignited, the mass of mud which obstructed the workmen might be driven away, or so loosened as to allow the tide to carry it off.

"Colonel Pasley's operations have been carried on, of late, with so much activity by Lieutenant Symonds and his party at Spithead, that almost all the wreck not quite buried, has been dislocated by small charges of powder, and drawn up to the surface. One day last week, a huge mass of the kelson, which lies just above the keel, was recovered. This evidence of the operations, having reached very nearly to the lowest part of the wreck, gave great spirits to all concerned; but such were the quantity and the tenacity of the mud, that the labour of extracting the fragments became excessive, and this prodigious explosion was resolved upon, less with a view of tearing asunder the remaining beams, timbers, and planking, than of sweeping out the mud in which they lay imbedded. It may be further remarked, that while, as a mere engineering operation, it would be very disgraceful not to remove every particle of the wreck, that part of the anchorage would be now almost as inconvenient or useless as it formerly was if the dislocated and dispersed fragments were allowed to lie in the way of ships' anchors. All this expense and trouble, therefore, have become absolutely necessary, if we wish to have the finest anchorage in the kingdom, we had almost said in the world, rendered in all its parts fit for Her Majesty's ships to ride in, in all

weathers.

"The day was fine, and the collection of yachts and pleasure vessels, of every size and rig, exceeded all that had been drawn together before, so that Spithead, for a circuit of half a mile round the Royal George, was one dense mass of shipping, row-boats, cutters, yawls, schooners; and last, not least, immense steam-boats, crowded halfway up their funnels with strangers from a distance.

"When Colonel Pasley's preparative

trumpet sounded, the hubbub was instantaneously stilled, and all eyes were turned to the launch in which Lieutenant Symonds stood, with the ends of the connecting wires of the voltaic battery in his hands. Scarcely had the word been given to "Fire" and the trumpet sounded, when the whole area was shaken as if by an earthquake, the surface became ruffled like the top of a glacier, and in the next instant, literally in less than two seconds, the water bulged up and rose to the height of about twenty feet, after which a sort of second burst, or bulge, occurred, which projected the sea in huge masses, as already said, high into the air.

"Such was the violence of this effort, that the spray was thrown completely over all the adjacent vessels in a drenching shower, accompanied by a violent gust of wind radiating from the centre. Immediately such a shout was raised as I never heard before; and when this first involuntary expression of satisfation was over, three deliberate joyful cheers from the vast crowd saluted the gallant officer whose successful perseverance has afforded them so extraordinary a treat.

"Various estimates were formed as to the height of the column or columns of water. Some went as far as 100 feet, and some as low as fifty; but I feel sure that the mass of water could not have been projected less than eighty feet into the air. The commotion in the water, and the ocean of mud, dead fish, and other symptoms of violence, which spread far and near, gave every promise that the operation will answer the purpose which Colonel Pasley has in view."

Fine Arts.

ART-UNION OF LONDON.

THIS Society has now been established about four years; and has unquestionably extended, to a very considerable degree, the love of the arts of design within the United Kingdom, and given "encouragement to artists beyond that afforded by the patronage of individuals." The plan of the Society is briefly this: every member, for each guinea subscribed, is entitled to one chance of obtaining some work of art at the annual distribution. The drawers of the prizes are entitled to select, each for himself, works of art of equivalent value, from any of the following public exhibitions in London, of the current year; viz., the Royal Academy; the British Institution; the Society of British Artists; the Society of Painters in Water Colours; or the New Society of Painters in Water Colours. The chosen

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