The female child is taken at a very early age, and has its stomach compressed by a machine called Sta Iz, which is ribbed with steel and whalebone, (whence the South Sea fishery for whales,) and is corded tightly up the back. The Sta Iz is never, up to the time of womanhood, taken off; as is plain from the specimen here presented. The barbarians have a laughble notion of the use of this custom: they think that, by making the waist no thicker than the it is equally dear, and to be obtained only at the greatest peril of the adventurer. The law lord is called, particularly by himself, the Mi Tee Broom, and is accounted the best juggler in the kingdom. He can turn himself inside out, like an old glove, and is often employed by the House of Lords to tumble and throw summersets to keep the noblemen wide awake. He can write a book with his toes, and even after dinner can spell every speech he has made backwards. With all this, he is singularly in-arm, it gives beauty to the female-a melandependent, and "cannot fawn or glose" upon anybody higher than a duke and a field marshal. He is a man of universal doings. There is, perhaps, no man in England who can better balance a straw upon his nose, or blow a new statute out of soap and water. When he would make a law to make a new place, he does it as carefully as a bird builds its nest; and for the like reason, it being for his own especial comfort and advantage. choly bigotry. They also believe that it keeps the blood in the face, and thereby improves the complexion. The women have also another strange custom. They wear, what, in their secret language, is called a Buss El. We have inquired of many of them the meaning of the word, but have always received a pouting, resentful evasion. We have, however, searched the dictionaries, and found a word somewhat like it-the word bustle, which means swagger, importance, fuss-and in one dictionary it has no other interpretation than cheat. CASE IX.-A Shopkeeper. The shopkeepers -especially those who deal in silks, hosiery, and linens—are a race of extraordinary people. CASE XI. A Bishop and a Beggar. The Many of them write up over their shop-doors, English bishop-unlike the priests of the "FROM FLINT'S" but this is only a pleasant "flowery country"-is a man chosen from the contradiction to show the extreme softness of priesthood for the strength of his mind, and the their hearts, and the benevolence of their excelling beauty of his life. Nothing is more natures. They are all of them oracles of common than to find the humble curate of totruth; and when you see it written up in their day the bishop of to-morrow. Officers, apwindows that they are "selling off at a great pointed by the government, travel in secret sacrifice," you may be sure that the shopkeep-through every part of the kingdom, to discover, touched by the misery of his fellow-crea-er hidden virtue in the church; and when tures, has resolved to almost give his goods they find it, it is straightway exalted. To away, that he may retire to "Bricks Town," or "Eye Gate," or some other suburb famous for hermits. Their shops, like those of the flowery country, are written over with moral sentences, such as "No abatement allowed," "For ready money only," and other choice maxims dear to the barbarian philosophers. The condition of the shopmen is also of the happiest kind; more than sufficient time being allowed them for the cultivation of their souls and the benefit of their health. Most of the masters keep libraries, and even billiard tables, for the improvement and recreation of their young men. And whereas, in the "flowery country," we say as "happy as a bird," the English exclaim, "as happy as a linendraper's shopman." every bishop a large salary is paid, which it is his religion to lay out to the last penny among the poor and suffering. Remark the extreme simplicity of his dwelling-place. He has just returned from visiting a hospital, and his hat, cloak, and staff, are laid only a little way from him. Wherefore? Alas! although it is a cold wet night, he must out again to comfort a dying widow. He has a hundred orphans at school at his own charge, and often bestows dowries upon poor maidens. He has by right, a seat in the House of Lords, where he may be seen engaged in silent prayer that the law-makers may do the thing that is holy. When he speaks, it is to condemn war and injustice, and to turn the hearts of his hearers to peace and brotherly love. The English have CASE X.-A Lady of Fashion. This is the a proverb which says "The words of a bishop wife of a nobleman, in full dress. It will be are honey; they feed the poor." They have seen that the barbarian English have no no- this other beautiful saying "The bishop cartion whatever of "the golden lilies"* which ries the poor man's purse;" and this is the adorn the "flowery country." The poor wo-only beggar that, during the long sojourn of men of England are, almost from their cradles, made the victims of a horrible custom. It is supposed that thousands and thousands die yearly from a disease called Tite Lace In. by the Chinese. The nests are chiefly obtained in the caves of Java. They are generally taken by torch light from recesses of the rock, where "the slightest slip would plunge the nest-seeker". into the boiling surf below. * The "golden lilies" are, poetically, the little distorted feet of the Chinese women. the writer in England, was ever seen by him. Therefore, he can give no description of the class from a solitary individual. In fact, after a minute inquiry, it was discovered that the above was not a beggar from necessity; but was really a nobleman begging for a wager. Thus, in England, there are no beggars! 2. Illuminated Ornaments, drawn from Ancient Manuscripts. By Henry Shaw; with Descriptions by Sir Frederick Madden. London, 1833. Quarto. 3. Catalogue of the Arundel Manuscripts in the British Museum, (with plates engraved and colored by Henry Shaw.) London, 1834. Folio. 4. Carteggio inedito d'Artisti dei Secoli XIV., XV., XVI., Publicato ed illustrato con documenti pure inediti dal D. Gio. Gaye. Firenze, 1839. 8vo. 3 vols. 5. The Pictorial Bible; being the Old and New Testaments .. Illustrated with many hundred Woodcuts. London, 1839. Quarto. 4 vols. trated' or 'Pictorial' editions of books. Be the books what they may, sacred or profane, old or new; good, bad, or indifferent -destined to remain as monuments to their authors, more durable than brass, or to pass away and be forgotten like the last year's Annuals-still all must be adorned with whatever the arts of engraving and fine printing can supply, to form what our Gallic neighbors call Editions de luxe '—or else, for the most part, be condemned to small type, and, perhaps double columns, as Editions for the people.' Nearly forty years since, when Illustrated' books were of comparatively rare occurrence, Professor Christian querulously remarked, we do not grow wiser than our forefathers; the fury for prints proves the frivolty of the times, and our books, I fear, will shrink from a comparison with those of the age of Queen Anne, which were not adorned with such superfluous and meretricious decorations.' 'How would the professor lament over the Illustrations' of the present day! The skill of the engraver has indeed been 6, Paléographie Universelle: Collection de singularly assisted by modern discoveries in fac-similes d'Ecritures de tous les peu- science and in art: the Formschneiders ples et de tous les temps, tirés des plus au- and the Intagliatori of the fifteenth and thentiques documents de l'art graphique, sixteenth centuries would start with surchartes, et manuscrits publiée prise at the stereotyped woodcuts and elecd'après les modèles écrits, dessinés et trotyped engravings of the present day. peints sur les lieux mêmes, par M. Sil- Maso Finiguerra and Albert Durer, Melvestre, et accompagnés d'explications his- chior, Pfintzing and Raimondi (Marc Antoriques et descriptives par MM. Cham-tonio) would, perhaps, be less astonished at pollion-Figeac et Aimé Champollion fils. the steam-engine and its wonders, than at Paris, 1840-1842. Folio. 4 vols. the reproduction ad infinitum of their most 7. The Abbotsford Edition of the Waver-labored and most finished efforts; their own ley Novels. Edinburgh and London, handiwork remaining the while unsoiled 1842-1844. Royal 8vo. Nos. 1-56. by ink, uninjured by the press, and serving 8. Dresses and Decorations of the Middle only to produce metallic copies for the Ages from the Seventh to the Seventeenth printers' use. Centuries. By Henry Shaw, F. S. A. London, 1842-3. Imperial 8vo. Parts 1-16. Five lustres since, and a few hundreds only of impressions could be taken from a copper-plate engraving without its delicacy being materially injured; a 'retouching 'Folio. almost amounting to a re-engraving—was necessary to produce some few copies of the Art Union' can supply its twelve inferior beauty and debased value. Now thousand subscribers with impressions from an engraving, of which the last shall be scarcely, if at all, inferior to the first, and could do the same were its numbers tenfold what they are. Five lustres since, and 1843. 11. The Pictorial Times. Folio. 12. London: by Charles Knight. Royal 8vo. London, 1843. AMONGST the characteristics of the literature of the present age there is one which, if neither the most striking from its novelty nor the most important in its tendency, is certainly the most familiar to us all, and silently exercises no little influence upon * Vindication of the Right of the Universities society; we allude to the rage for orna- of Great Britain to a copy of every New Pubmented, or as they are now termed, 'Illus-lication.' a few small wood-cuts, mostly of very ques- fringed as in the case of the kaleidoscope tionable design and execution-the works invented about the same time by Sir David of Bewick and two or three others being Brewster' Sic vos non vobis.' It is a the alone exceptions-were with difficulty very singular but well attested fact that, ininked' with balls' and worked' by calculable as have been the effects prohand the price of any book being materi- duced by the invention of printing (for who ally enhanced by the pains and labor ne- can estimate them?) no improvement was cessarily incurred in the printing of its made in the mechanical means employed woodcut embellishments'-for such was by the early printers, neither by the Manuzj then the term. In Johnson's Typo- or Giuntas, nor the Estiennes, Plantins, or graphia,' published in 1824, is a detailed Elzebirs, until the late Earl Stanhope inaccount of the difficulties experienced in vented the press which bears his name, and finding either a printing-press of sufficient Mr. Cowper the rollers which do not bear power, or proper ink, or the requisite skill his. Can we wonder that the Mazarine to print a few copies of the very elaborate Bible, the first complete book printed (cerand most extraordinary engraving on wood, tainly before 1455), has not been excelled, executed by Mr. William Harvey, of the if even it has been equalled, in all that conAssassination of L. S. Dentatus, from a stitutes beauty in a printer's eyes, by any celebrated painting by Mr. B. R. Haydon.' printed production of a later date? But to This engraving was composed of eleven return to our subject. pieces of wood,' through which passed four Five lustres since, and, with the excepstrong iron bolts with nuts at each end,' tion of Bewick's works, scarcely twenty and measured fifteen inches by eleven and books of modern date could be named hava half inches. We may now smile at this ing woodcut embellishments with any predifficulty, but the worthy typographer might tensions to merit. Amongst the few were then boast of his success in achieving such a small Shakspeare in seven volumes, with a task with the means at his command. A designs by Thurston; an edition of Fairfew months ago the 'Illustrated London fax's translation of Tasso; and especially News' circulated to its twenty or thirty or Rogers's Pleasures of Memory, with deforty thousand subscribers a well-executed signs of exquisite beauty by Stothard.* and well-printed view of London, measur- The number of works with cuts steadily ing four feet by two feet, having a super-increased; but without doubt the greatest fices about six and a half times that of the Haydonian Dentatus; and, more lately, the 'Pictorial Times' put forth a wood-cut of Wilkie's 'Blind Fiddler,' of the same size' with Burnet's line-engraving! impulse was given by the publication of the Penny Magazine' of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge-followed, haud passibus æquis,' it must be confessed, by the Saturday Magazine' of the SoTo produce great numbers of large en-ciety for Promoting Christian Knowledge. gravings in cameo, whether in wood or The first still continues, we believe, in its metal, steam-power is of course employed; original course; the second has been long for smaller editions of works of less magni- since cast off by the Society which origintude the Stanhope or Columbian (Clymer's) ated it, although it still bears a stamp represses worked by hand are still used, and sembling, in outward appearance, that Soalthough balls' also are even now employ-ciety's distinctive mark. There is no doubt ed by some printers for 'fine work' and for delicate engravings of small size, yet the greater beauty of impression of the numerous 'illustrated' books of the present day, as compared with those printed at the beginning of the present century, is mainly due to the almost universal substitution of Mr. Cowper's inking rollers for the balls' which, until the year 1816, had remained unimproved from the time of Fust and Schoeffer; from the middle of the fifteenth century to the time of Bulmer and Bensley. This simple but most important invention served some of these in the recent more elaborate* Mr. Rogers, as it might be expected, has prewas, we believe, patented, but the patent ly ornamented editions of his Poems. We, howwas as generally and as unblushingly in-ever, prefer the wood to the copper. that these two publications, each with many woodcuts weekly, have been the pioneers in the present march of woodcut illustration. The improvements in the art of woodcutting, or of embellishment in relief, have been followed by their natural consequence a great increase in the demand, greater means of supply, a lower price for the article,' and a corresponding increase in the factories,' some masters employing from twenty to thirty, or even more hands. If real artists, and to their grotesque fertility the present taste continues to exist, and this most diverting paper owes at all events shall spread, as is not by any means improb- half of its attraction. able, we may well anticipate that mechan Five lustres since, and Illustration' had ical means will be found necessary, and a quite different meaning from that which something like a Brunel's block-machinery now obtains. A book was then called 'Ilin miniature be adapted to the xylographic lustrated' which was crammed, like a canprocess, to aid the engraver in his suburban didate for honors, with all that related to garret, as the larger machinery does the all that the book contained. To this end, rigger in Portsmouth-yard. every portrait, in every state, etching, proof before letters,' finished proof, and reverses,-of every person, every view of every place, was if possible procured; and where engravings did not exist, drawings were made, until the artist's skill and the collector's purse were alike exhausted. The germ of this system of illustration existed as early as the time of Charles I. The pious but ascetic Nicholas Ferrar had bought, says Dr. Peckard, during his travels on the Continent, A natural effect of all this is, that those means, which at first were called in to aid, now bid fair to supersede much of descriptive writing certainly they render the text of many books subsidiary to their socalled illustrations. In this partial return to baby literature-to a second childhood of learning-the eye is often appealed to instead of the understanding, not so much on the ground that "Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ Ipse sibi tradit spectator,' A very great number of prints engraved by the best masters of that time, all relative to ments: indeed he let nothing of this sort that historical passages of the Old and New Testawas valuable escape him.' These prints Ferrar employed in ornamenting various compilations from the Scriptures; amongst others, 'He composed a full harmony, or concordance, of the four Evangelists, adorned with many beautiful pictures, which required more than a year for the composition, and was divided into 150 heads or chapters.' The history of this illustrated' book, the first we believe of its kind, is curious: nor from an acute and accurate perception of beauty of design, as from a low utilitarian wish to give and receive the greatest possible amount of knowledge at the least possible expense of time, trouble, money, and, we may add, of intellect. Verily it is a superficial knowledge which now pervades the country from Berwick to the Land's-End-from Maidenkirk to John O'Groats-wherever the English language is known, and where it is not known: we have seen the 'Penny Magazine' in Polish. One publisher has put forth a 'Pictorial Bible,' a' Pictorial Shakspeare,' and a 'Pictorial' History of England. The Napoleon Museum is advertised as an Illustrated' 'In May, 1633, his Majesty set out upon his History of Europe. The boards in the stepped a little out of his road to view Little journey to Scotland, and in his progress he streets are placarded with puffs of some Gidding in Huntingdonshire, which by the refuse of American literature (?) called common people was called the Protestant Peter Parley's Illustrated' Histories, writ- Nunnery. The family having notice, met his ten, we suppose, by drab-colored' Phila- Majesty at the extremity of the parish, at a delphians, and savoring of democracy and place called from this event the King's Close, repudiation of honest debts. We have a conducted him to their church, which he viewand in the form of their solemn processions, Weekly Illustrated News,' and a 'Picto-ed with great pleasure. He inquired into, and rial Times;' besides scores and scores of baser newspapers 'illustrated' but unstampIn all these cases it will be seen that the adjective is more prominent than the substantive. We do not know that it would be fair to say the same of 'Punch.' Mr. Punch has pens of no common mark at his orders, as well as pencils-very clever writers (we are sorry to see not so good-humored as they were at the start); yet George Cruikshank and his fellows are ed. was informed of the particulars of their public and domestic economy; but it does not appear that at this time he made any considerable stay. The following summer his Majesty and the Queen passed two nights at Apthorpe in Northamptonshire, the seat of Mildmay Fane, Earl of Westmoreland. From thence he sent one of his gentlemen to intreat (his Majesty's own word) a sight of The Concordance, * In Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, ed. 1839, vol. iv. p. 189. out, piecemeal, to Hugh Peters and his brother fanatics. This good service was mainly owing to Bulstrode Whitelocke.* When the British Museum was founded, King George II. presented to it the whole of the royal library; and Ferrar's Concordance, with another similarly illustrated compilation by him, is there preserved in safety. The Reverend Thomas Bowdler of Sydenham, the representative of the last baronet of the Cotton family, the founders of the Ferrar volumes. Of those which of the Cottonian Library, possesses another were presented by Ferrar to George Herbert and Dr. Jackson no record remains. which, he had heard, was sometime since done King Charles's statues, pictures, jewels, at Gidding, with assurance that in a few days, and curiosities were sold and dispersed by when he had perused it, he would send it back the regicide powers: from this fate, happi again. Mr. N. Ferrar was then in London, ly, the royal collection of manuscripts and and the family made some little demur, not thinking it worthy to be put into his Majesty's books was preserved; neither was it, like hands, but at length they delivered it to the the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth, doled messenger. But it was not returned in a few days, or weeks: some months were elapsed when the gentleman brought it back from the king, who was then at London. He said he had many things to deliver to the family from his master:-first, to yield the king's hearty thanks to them all for the sight of the book, which passed the report he had heard of it; then to signify his approbation of it in all respects; next, to excuse him in two points, the first for not returning it so soon as he had promised, the other, for that he had in many places of the margin written notes in it with his own hand; and "(which I know will please you), said the gentleman, you will find an instance of my master's humility in one of the margins. The place I mean is where he had written something with his own hand, and then put it out again, acknowledging that he was mistaken in that particular." Certainly this was an act of great humility in the king, and worthy to be noted; and the book itself is much graced by it. The gentleman further told them that the king took such delight in it, that he passed some part of every day in perusing it. And lastly, he said, "to show you how true this is, and that what I have declared is no court compliment, I am expressly commanded by my master earnestly to request of you, Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, and of the young ladies, that you would make him one of these books for his own use; and if you will please to undertake it, his Majesty says you will do him a most acceptable service." The system of which we now speak was not fully developed until the publication of Granger's Biographical History of England. Something may be said in favor of those who, with gentle dullness and patient industry, haunted the printsellers' shops to collect all the engraved portraits which Granger had enumerated. There is a charm in the human face divine, although it must needs be powerful to call forth-as it does-twenty, or thirty, or fifty guineas from a collector's pocket for a coarsely executed cut of some Meg Merrilies, some Tom of Bedlam, or some condemned criminal, of which the only value is being 'men. 'Mr. Ferrar and the young ladies returned tioned by Granger.' However, the dross their most humble duty, and immediately set is always the dearest portion of a collector's about what the king desired. In about a year's time it was finished, and it was sent to treasure, be it in books or prints. Strutt's London to be presented to his Majesty by Dr. Dictionary of Engravers,' to be completely Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Co-illustrated' in a collector's eyes, should sins, one of the king's chaplains. This book contain every work of every engraver menwas bound entirely by Mary Collet (one of tioned in it (Hollar alone would cost Mr. Ferrar's nieces), all wrought in gold, in £10,000, could a set of his works be proa new and most elegant fashion. The king, cured): yet this has been attempted, and after long and serious looking it over, said, The copy of "This is indeed a most valuable work, and in so has Rees' Cyclopædia !' many respects worthy to be presented to the Pennant's History of London' which was greatest prince upon earth, for the matter it bequeathed to the British Museum by Mr. contains is the richest of all treasures. The Crowle cost that gentleman £7000; and laborious composure of it into this excellent the Illustrated' Clarendon and Burnet, form of an harmony, the judicious contrivance formed by the late Mr. Sutherland, of of the method, the curious workmanship in so Gower-street, and continued by his widow, neatly cutting out and disposing the text, the nice laying of these costly pictures, and the exquisite art expressed in the binding, are, I really think, not to be equalled. I must acknowledge myself to be greatly indebted to the family for this jewel, and whatever is in my power, I shall at any time be ready to do for any of them." * Jan. 18, 1647. The manuscripts and books in Whitehall, because of soldiers being there, were ordered to be removed to St. James's house, and placed there, which I furthered in order to the preservation of those rare monuments of learning and antiquity which were in that library.-Memorials, p. 288, ed. 1732. |