able, but it did not take the shape I expected. He grew graver and graver; his face became a bluish purple, and his eyes slowly pushed themselves out of his head. Then suddenly it flashed across me that the hero of this very funny, but not complimentary narrative, was his own father, "Well," he said in an awful voice, as I stopped short; "what then?”

My brow was bedewed with horror, and I seemed to see sparks. "My very dear sir," I said, "I am ashamed to say that I have drunk a little too much wine. I have clean forgotten how the story ended!" But I have not forgotten how near I was to telling it, nor shall I ever forget it.

recollection cost the major 5,000l., his as sistant, my informant, his fee, and the musical gentleman his baronetcy.

Judging from my own case, since some unlooked-for return of this departing attribute always delights my soul, the king himself must have been pleased. I can imagine him saying, "By jingo! I remembered that, though; " and reflecting that he was not so very old after all. Unhappily there is little comfort to be drawn from such occasional resuscitations. It is only that "the shadow feared of man "has had his attention withdrawn from us for the moment (probably to some more advanced case), and forgets to beckon with that inexorable finger. It is no use to fight against the ebbing wave; yet how some people do fight!

to his account, had been imported from Cornwall to London solely for his conversational qualities. "His stories," he said, "are simply inimitable."

"I suppose they are Cornish stories," observed our host, who, as a denizen of Pall Mall, did not much believe, perhaps, in provincial celebrities.

Not at all," replied B. indignantly; "they are English stories." This statement, which suggested that we had thought the stories were in old Cornish -an extinct dialect- tickled me immensely; but, being a very well-behaved individual, I devoted myself to the biscuits and kept my eyes on the table.

That was an example of memory coming to the rescue indeed; but sometimes it arrives inopportunely. An old ac quaintance of mine who lived in the days I was once dining with a friend who had when George the Third was king, and had one other guest, whom I will call B. This not a little to do with him, told me the fol- gentleman, after dinner, became extraorlowing story. In those good old days a dinarily eloquent upon the agreeable qualtitle of nobility was really worth some-ities of a certain Mr. C., who, according thing, and fetched a good round sum. My friend was the youthful assistant of a wellknown gentleman, Major D., who dealt in such things; and an excellent living he made by them. He was "attached to the person of his Majesty" (not without reason), and took advantage of his position to recommend his friends (and clients) to "the fountain of honor," who was far from being in good condition. He had still his wits about him, but not, like his lords," in waiting." Sometimes he would sign any thing in the most obliging manner, and sometimes refuse to stir a finger, and make the most embarrassing inquiries. The major's business, therefore, though very lucrative when all things went right, was a speculative one, and exposed to considerable risks. One day there was a baronetcy "on," for which a celebrated maker of musical instruments had undertaken to pay handsomely, and the necessary parchment, duly drawn out, was laid before the king. His royal eye, wandering aimlessly down the page, suddenly lit upon the name of the candidate for greatness- some Erard or Broadwood of that time and it evoked a flash of memory. "You're sure there's no piano in it?" he exclaimed suddenly. His Majesty, who was a great stickler for birth, and had a corresponding contempt for those who made their money by trade, was not to be trifled with in such a matter; and as there were a great many pianos in it, the two confederates had to hurriedly murmur, "We will make inquiries, sire," and roll up the patent. That little gleam of royal

"And have you heard any of these admirable narratives?" inquired our host.

66

Yes; lots." It struck me that the word "lots" sounded suspiciously like "lotsh; " but yet it was impossible to imagine B. intoxicated: he not only looked as sober as a judge, but he was a judge (though, it is true, only a colonial one), and, though of heavy build and dignified movement, he seemed the last sort of person to be overtaken by liquor.

I think our host noticed that something was amiss, for he said, "Won't you take any more wine?" and half rose from his chair as if to adjourn to the smoking. room. "Let me drink this first," said B. with judicial gravity, "before we think of any more. That was a speech," he added with a confidential smile, "that was made by the old dean of something or another to his host when he wanted to get him away to the ladies." Our host

hastened to explain that he had no such | any other person ever evoked such rap. end in view; nor indeed was it possible, turous delight in his hearers as that story since we were dining at a club, which twice begun and never finished. does not admit the other sex; and, since he found himself in for it, returned, rather wickedly, as I thought, to the Cornishman and his stories.

cance.*

could never retain any conception of words | formation respecting Grecian wealth and beginning with the letter d (such as his civilization. The digging out of Grecian debts for instance); while with another terra cotta has most assuredly thrown the figure 5 had utterly lost its signifi- light upon the history of that country. This latter catastrophe would be Homer, in his Iliad, sings of the pottery serious to a whist player, since he would shown during the Trojan war, ending never know when he had won a game; with the final destruction of Troy; and but otherwise the blank seems endura. Dr. Schliemann, in his wonderful narra. ble. What would be much more curious tive, testifies to the fact that the terra would be the losing sight of number one, cotta ornaments found upon the Hill of which, however, up to our last moments Hissarlik must have formed some part of (and indeed in those especially) is never the pottery collection of King Priam, so forgotten. that we have every reason to believe that terra cotta flourished fully three thousand years ago. In fact, the history of terra cotta is lost in remote antiquity. In Egypt we find an old legend that Hun, the Great Spirit, formed the heavens and the earth, and then, with his pottery wheel, brought into shape a man. Numerous legends and antiquarian discoveries prove that the origin of the art is prehistoric. Mr. Leonard Horner discovered fragments of terra cotta in good preservation in his excavations at Memphis, so deep below the deposits of the Nile that he gives them an age of thirteen thousand years. Such dates of course are open to objection; but we have in the British Museum various relics of Egyptian art of the third or fourth dynasties, two and three thousand years before Christ- vases and tablets inscribed with records of the age. These were introduced into the graves as historic links between the dead and future generations. The early Egyptian potters were slaves, and their skill was rude; but the clay was very good, dark red or yellow in color, and must have been well prepared and fired, as its nature remains unchanged to the present day. The most interesting remnants of these remote periods come, as stated before, from Greece; but Assyria also contributes most interesting examples, where terra cotta tablets were used for all the purposes for which we should use paper, cards, and books. Some twenty thousand of these tablets exist in the museums of Europe, inscribed with the annals of passing events, titledeeds, almanacs, letters, inedical recipes, and admission tickets to the play and other public exhibitions. These are made of the finest clay, and mark the Assyrian pottery as superior to the Egyptian. The dates are often indistinct, but probably they belong to periods anterior to the fall of Nineveh. We have also many fine samples of early Babylonish terra cotta, principally coffins and sarcophagi, with figures in bas relief, always of a pale straw color. Biblical history and mythology furnish

Of course there are exceptions as regards this first hint of mental decay. It is even stoutly asserted by some persons that the loss of memory arises merely from disuse. It is only, they argue, in youth, in most cases, that we attempt to learn things "by heart" at all, while, when we grow old, we delegate the duty of remembrance to others. If we kept it up, the faculty would not desert us. A corroboration of this pleasant theory is found in Mr. Samuel Brandram, who, though not apparently in his première jeunesse, exhibits a stupendousness of recollection infinitely more marvellous, because accompanied by the acutest perception, than that of the most Calculating Boy. One of my favorite Dightmares I have a whole stud of them -is to dream that I am standing before a distinguished audience, including her Majesty and the royal family, who are awaiting a reading from Shakespeare without book; the indispensable glass of water is on the table with which I just moisten my lips, and then when I attempt to open them I find it has been a draught of Lethe. Every word of what I came to say has fled from my mind. I gasp and tremble; everybody becomes excited and impatient in vain I attempt to conciliate them by offering to state accurately and offhand the date of the Battle of Hastings. There is a sort of O. P. riot, the distinguished audience rise en masse, tear up the benches, and make for me in the order of precedence; I wake in a paroxysm of terror, and instantly forget all about it.

Hence, perhaps, the origin of the term "spoilt fives," the meaning of which I could never understand.

From The Novelty Magazine.
TERRA COTTA.

TERRA COTTA has been the means, and singularly the only means, of giving us in

repeated records of the antiquity of this works of Naples, Nuremburg, Dresden, art, and prove that the mode of production Sèvres, Chelsea, and Worcester, present at its origin has been handed down and is to us clay in its new combinations, having still preserved in our own days. The pot lost all its natural characteristics and its tery of China is a striking evidence of original type. These are all beautiful, this. There factories are now at work very useful; all have their page in hiswhich date back two thousand years, and tory, their place in art, their own especial where the present appliances are but little value and merit-only let us understand, altered from those illustrated in their early they are no longer "burnt earth." They rude sketches. The art and its simple are not terra cotta, and should not, thereappliances have been taught by the never fore, be classed with samples of our mandying voice of tradition. Time will not ufactory. The two should not be compermit us to dwell on the various develop- pared, to the detriment or advantage of ments of the ceramic art made by the either. Each has had, and has still, its Greeks, the Romans, and the Etruscans, use and its beauties. Terra cotta has all of whom have left us vast and valued played an important part in the world's samples for our instruction and admira- history. By its help we learn much of tion, showing a great improvement in ages that are gone, and of dynasties that artistic skill over the earlier nations, but have been swept away. On tablets of maintaining the previous modes of work- terra cotta we find inscribed details that ing. One important step is claimed by happened thousands of years ago, and the Corinthians, viz., the art of modelling these tablets have withstood, without figures. Greeks and Romans lay claim change, the wear and tear of ages, and to the invention, but the evidence is not being of small intrinsic value, have esclear. Figures have mostly been de- caped the destructive hands of war. The stroyed by the barbaric races, and so we more we know of this simple substance, cannot trace their origin as we can with the more we dwell on its hidden merits vases and tablets. The life-sized figure and its unfolding secrets of the past, the of Mercury in the Vatican Museum and more we must admit its claim on our adsome large statues in the museum at Na- miration. Dr. Gillow, in his admirable ples are all of terra cotta, and are prob- address delivered some years since at ably Grecian. Also the famous torso in Torquay, describes terra cotta as a comthe British Museum is a fine sample of pound Italian word meaning literally earth early modelling in terra cotta. The burnt or baked. The writer, however, Greeks had no red clay, and most of their ventures to think that the word is derived works are colored. The ancient statues from the Spanish, for this reason — that used by the Romans to adorn their tem- the ancient Spanish writers use the word ples were made of terra cotta; but it is exactly as spelt in describing the magnifisaid that many of these were purchased cent spoils of pottery captured from the from the Greeks and Etruscans. Proba- Moors when driven out of Spain. Howbly this is true in the days of the repub- ever, in its generic sense it might be lic, as art then fell to a low ebb. The translated into the English term "earthenRomans kept up, however, a very large ware." Clay is certainly the one condition manufactory of terra cotta at Samos until of earth able to hear hard firing. Clay is the fall of the republic. We may con- one of the results of the disintegration clude this part of our subject by giving to and attrition of the various primary rocks. Egypt and Assyria the credit of ceramic Chemically it is a hydrated silicate of birthright, and to Greece, Etruria, and alumina, containing in its purest form Rome the credit of educating and culti- nearly fifty per cent. of silica, forty of vating the art. Greece seems to have alumina, and the rest of water. Natural made the greatest developments in mod- clay is plastic from the combined water, elling in statues and in bas reliefs. The but produces no change chemically. This Etruscans stand the highest in beauty of brings us to the true definition and expla shape and form. With the fall of these nation of our subject. Terra cotta comnations, terra cotta degenerated rapidly, prises all clay productions, whether for and during the Middle Ages was every useful, artistic, or decorative purposes, where at its lowest ebb. From the four where the original nature of the clay is teenth century various new industries preserved - consolidated, but not intrin sprang up and came into fashion, taking sically altered, by fire, save in the loss of the place of the older production. The its combined water. Here rests its speDella Robbia ware of Italy, the Faïence cial characteristic, its correct definition, of Palissy, and the subsequent porcelain its essential difference, from the many

From The Builder.

forms of stoneware and from porcelain, | but can still supply, all mankind with all of which have clay for their basis, but what is useful and also beautiful. But in which, from various chemical combina- the vase, the urn, or the tablet, once called tions, the natural condition is lost at a into life by the potter's wheel, and stamped high temperature, and the result is a with its own parentage, can live to tell its vitrified body. The clay becomes more own story until the end of time. Since or less converted into glass. These in- the days of our great Wedgwood there troductory remarks will remove several has been a revival in this country and popular errors. Two points, however, through all Europe of terra cotta art; still require special comment. Many people the results have not been thoroughly satask, In what does terra cotta differ from isfactory. The reason probably is that, common flower-pots, bricks, or tiles? The clay being found everywhere, inferior difference is rather imaginary than real- clays are used, and so the productions are one of degree only. The finest clay, inferior. Only very pure, fine, and perwhere the silica is in perfect combination fectly plastic clay is suited for this art, with the alumina, and where the combined and such is still, and ever will be rare, water secures a complete plastic mass, is and only found in local deposits. most suited for terra cotta productions, whereas coarser clay, with free silica in the form of sand, does better for brickworks. The purest clay is absolutely necessary for the former, whereas the impurity of lime, etc., does not injure the latter productions. Many people suppose that terra cotta must be more or less red in color. They call a vase, a jug, etc., terra cotta, because it is red, and any work of art not of this tint they would hesitate to designate. This is a fallacy. The color is an accident, and not a condition of terra cotta clay. It depends only on a stain caused by the presence of oxide of iron, which in some localities, as in Devonshire, gives a charm and character not only to the clay, but to the earth generally. The largest terra cotta and brick works are found in the coal districts, notably in the County of Durham, where extensive clay deposits exist between the coal measures. Here the color varies from every shade of gray, buff, green, blue, to brown and black. The purest clay known is the white china clay of Cornwall and some parts of Devonshire. In most countries of Europe the clay used for terra cotta manufactures is buffcolored; but this is often stained by artificial means to some tinge of red, to meet popular prejudice. In no part of the world is natural clay found with the delicate red shade of our Devonshire deposits. Marble (to quote Dr. Gillow again) is one of the choicest efforts of nature's power; but marble is scarce, is only suited for few purposes, is beyond the reach of the many, and can only be worked by the exceptional artist. Durable as marble is, still it crumbles and decays with the lapse of ages, and the fragments that remain to us of the past are mute, or at best indistinct, in the history of their origin; whereas terra cotta not only has supplied,

NORWEGIAN BUILDING. HAVING seen other countries of a more advanced culture than their own, the taste for the beautiful was comparatively early awakened, resulting in a desire to give shape and form to their thoughts and ideas, which was most successfully carried out in the well-known and characteristic art of Norwegian wood-carving. Owing to the imperfect implements and tools of that age, the granite was too hard and difficult a material for building and ornamental purposes, and the large forests had to render the necessary material instead. In the time of the vikings, Norway could scarcely boast of any architecture. Their dwellings were plain, generally consisting of but one large room with an earthen floor, in the middle of which they built a rude fireplace, and made a hole in the roof to allow the smoke to escape. It was their ships that they first attempted to beautify with ornaments, and here their fancy had free scope. After the introduction of Christianity, about the year 1000, a more developed state of society was established. The first church was built in A.D. 996 of timber, on the same spot where now stands the cele brated Trondhjems Cathedral. During the long struggle between Christianity and heathenism, no progress was made in the building of churches, and the second church was not finished until 1050. This church was, however, built of stone. About this time Norwegian wood-carving made considerable progress, and many of the timber churches were decorated with ornaments of this kind. In these early wooden churches the walls were con