Chapter III: Part 3

This was in compliment to Caroline, and when she passed under it, they all joined in chorus, singing these lines of their own composition:--

We’ll welcome Miss Caroline with flowers so gay,
To the school where she teaches us goodness and truth;
Oh! may she be happy on ev’ry May-day,
And most graciously pardon the follies of youth.

My uncle says it has been always the custom to celebrate May-day in this county,--and that to have a pretty May-bush is still considered quite important.

In Huntingdonshire, Miss Maude told us that the children hang every place with garlands, and sometimes they make very pretty triumphal arches. To a horizontal hoop, two semi-hoops are fixed, so as to form a sort of crown, which is ornamented with flowers, ribbons, necklaces, spoons, and all kinds of finery. This is suspended across the road by a flowery rope, extending from house to house, while the children sing, dance, toss their balls over it, and ask money from the passengers: Miss Maude repeated to us their usual song.

_The May-day Garland._

“To the lilac, laburnum, and iris, which cheer,
The hawthorn, the cowslip, and king-cob so gay,
Each beauty which gladdens the spring of the year,
And the kerchiefs and ribbons our friends have supplied
In bows and in streamers are tastefully tied,
And form our sweet garland, our garland of May.

“Beneath it we’ll dance, and we’ll throw up the ball,
And all shall be gladness, good humour, and play,
We’ll sing, and in chorus we’ll join one and all,
And glad as the season, we’ll lift up our voice,
And all, within measure and reason, rejoice
Beneath the gay garland, the garland of May.”

My uncle observed, that in Cornwall, where customs have been less changed than in most parts of England, the May-day ceremonies are kept up with great care. He learned from a friend, who lived in a remote town in that county, that all the houses were thrown open; lively music was everywhere heard, and the young maidens, decked with wreaths and festoons of flowers, danced along the streets, or formed dancing parties in every house they chose to select.

“The annual celebration of this day,” he continued, “may be traced up to a very high antiquity. The Romans had their Floralia, or games in honour of Flora, during the calends of May; and in Asia, when the sun entered the constellation of Taurus, which corresponded to that period, the same kind of festivities took place, accompanied by a similar display of flowers. Some antiquaries have shown that May-day was celebrated in this country long before the Roman invasion, and they ascribe the introduction of the custom to an Asiatic colony that settled here, and who of course brought with them their national habits. In the East, customs have undergone but little change; and many of the sports which are prevalent on May-day in some parts of England and Ireland, and which, at first sight, appear to proceed from unmeaning caprice, may be proved to be fragments of ancient Eastern ceremonies, by their similarity to those still practised there on that day.”

My aunt said, that she had seen a May-bush very prettily hung with flowers at Chamouni, in Switzerland; and she added, “in the old-fashioned custom too of making fools on the first of April, there is probably a vestige of the Eastern celebration of the season when the sun enters Aries; that is, when the year commences. In Persia, medals of gold were struck with the head of the Ram, on the festival of the Nauruz or new year’s-day; and the frolic of making fools still distinguishes the Nauruz festival, and is practised, I believe, from one end of India to the other.”

I asked my uncle when that Eastern colony to which he had alluded came to England, as I did not recollect seeing it mentioned in the History of England.

“The ancient Britons,” said my uncle, “had a tradition of their being descended from an Eastern tribe called Sacca; and undoubtedly there are many points of resemblance between their modes of worship, and those practised in some of the Indian provinces. It would probably be tiresome to a young person like you, Bertha, to read all the arguments on this disputed point; but hereafter you may find it a subject of curious inquiry to examine the coincidences said to exist in the manners of such remote nations of the East and the West.”

_3rd._--I have such a severe cold, that, fine as the weather is, I am not allowed to go out; so I can write without interruption to my dear mamma. I must confess my own foolish imprudence was the cause of this cold: on the evening of May-day, my aunt allowed the school children to have a dance on the green, and we all joined in it round their pretty May-bush. I exerted myself so much, that I was soon over-heated; and, then stood in the wind to cool myself. My aunt warned me of the consequence, but I was too much diverted to attend immediately to her advice, and the next morning I had a violent head-ache, and all the symptoms of a heavy cold. However, as my uncle had arranged every thing for showing a cloth manufactory, several miles from this, to the Maudes and Miss Perceval, I could not bear to give up what I might not have another opportunity of seeing. Besides, we were to cross the river at the ferry, where horses had been ordered to meet us; and I hoped to see a great deal of new country. My friends, indeed, advised me to remain in bed, but I would not acknowledge how ill I was; and persisted in accompanying them. Of course my head grew very painful, and my cold oppressed and stupified me so much, as to prevent my remembering distinctly the half of what I saw.

I recollect, however, being shewn how the wool was washed and beaten in order to clean it. When well dried and picked, it was _carded_ on large cylindrical brushes, made of wire instead of hair, which laid all the fibres in one direction; the wool was then oiled, and again combed or brushed with finer cards on the knee, and at last spun into yarn--that intended for the _warp_ being always smaller and more twisted than that of the _woof_. The yarn for the woof was then wound on little _bobbins_ or tubes; and in weaving, one of these is placed in the middle of the _shuttle_, on a pin, round which it easily turns, so as to let the thread run off through a hole called the _eye_ of the shuttle, as it travels from side to side of the loom.

I will not tease you with the manner of warping the yarn from one _beam_ to the other; nor with a description of the _heddles_, or looped strings, which raise and depress the alternate threads of the warp for the shuttle to pass between them, and which the weaver works by his feet; nor of the _batten_ and _reed_ for driving the woof home every time the shuttle carries it across; all these appeared very simple, while looking at the operation, but I am afraid that I should give but a very lame account of them. Still less can I attempt to describe a power-loom which has been just set up; it seems to do every thing without the interference of the weaver--the heddles rise and fall, the batten strikes in regular time and with equal force, and the shuttle flies to and fro from selvage to selvage as if it was alive.

At another loom they were taking off the cloth from the beam on which it had been rolled in the process of weaving, and many hands were immediately employed with iron nippers in trimming and cutting off the knots and threads. The obliging proprietor of the manufactory partly described and partly shewed us the subsequent operations of scouring the cloth with potter’s clay, steeping and _fulling_ it, and then stretching it lengthwise to take out the wrinkles. This is repeated several times, then it is washed in clear water, and given wet to other workmen to raise the nap, by means of a flower called _teasel_, which somewhat resembles a thistle. When the nap is well raised on the right side, it is given to the shearers, and then to the dyer; and when dyed it is again washed in plain water, and spread on a table, where the nap is laid properly with a brush. It is then hung up to dry, and stretched in every direction; after which it is folded and laid under a press.

It seemed very curious to see a homely wild plant like the teasel, fresh from the field, used along with so much complex machinery: many imitations of it have been tried, but nothing answers so well as the beautiful little hooks contrived by nature. In the west of England, therefore, wherever the soil is dry and gravelly, teasels are cultivated on a large scale for the cloth manufactories.

I remember little more of what I saw or heard yesterday, except that my uncle remarked as we passed a sheep-walk in our drive home, what an astonishing number of people combine their labours to produce any one manufacture, and how necessary the different trades are to each other. From the grazier, for instance, who rears the sheep and sells the wool, and the various artificers employed in preparing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, and pressing it, up to the retail shopkeeper who keeps the cloth ready for our use. “But in fact,” said he, “these are only a few links of the chain; we must recollect the numerous hands employed in making the machinery, the miner who raises the iron ore, the smelter who converts it into metal, the smith who works it, and the collier who supplies them with coals; the carpenter who constructs the frame-work, and the engineer who contrives the whole. Then come the merchants, and shipwrights, and sailors who bring home from distant countries the articles requisite to colour the cloth, and the dyer, who, by the aid of chemistry, compounds them; and lastly, the farmer who cultivates the humble teasels. See, Bertha, what a prodigious number of heads and hands are thus toiling for the accomplishment of a single object, and, though all impelled by individual interest, yet all co-operating for the general good.”

_4th._--As I am still paying for my imprudence, and confined to my room, kind Mary has been entertaining me with the conversation she had heard below stairs, and particularly with Mr. Maude’s account of Venice. Nothing in Italy so much struck his imagination, as the view of that city, with all her towers and pinnacles rising from the sea, where, the poet said,

“Venice sits in state, throned on her hundred isles!”

But now it has a most melancholy appearance: the port, which in times of prosperity was crowded with shipping, is now almost empty; and the muddy canals which intersect the town in every direction, are no longer enlivened by multitudes of gondolas gliding swiftly through the water. The showy palaces which rise from the sides of these watery streets, were once adorned with all that painting and sculpture could perform; but they are now neglected, moss-grown, the habitations of owls and bats, and fast sinking to decay: and many of the great families who had inherited their wealth and honours in direct succession for a thousand years, are now obliged to part with their splendid mansions, or to see them gradually crumbling into ruins, from the want of means to repair them.

Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Maude says that Venice is still a magnificent looking place; and amongst its many beautiful buildings, he describes the cathedral as being most venerable and interesting. It was built so long ago as the ninth century, and enriched with the spoils of Greece and of Constantinople. He once went through the city at night, to see the effect of moonlight on its superb buildings; but the few of them which were still dazzling with lamps, as if enjoying their former glory, made such a contrast with the pale light and dark shade of the moon, and with the general stillness, that the whole scene had even a more deserted appearance than in the day-time. Now and then the gloomy silence was interrupted by the sounds of the harp or guitar, or by the wild and plaintive airs of a few gondoliers, as they kept time to the gentle splashing of their oars.

Mr. Maude, she says, added a great deal about the present government, the state of society, and the remaining commerce of Venice; and my uncle, who was much pleased with his observations, remarked that few of the changes recorded in history, offered a subject of deeper interest, than the long-continued grandeur and present fall of Venice. “It rose,” he said, “as it were, from the waves, when, on the invasion of Italy by the Huns, numbers of people took refuge in that cluster of islands where the city now stands. So early as the year 421, they formed a little state, strong enough to oppose the invaders, or at least to secure themselves from molestation. Commerce soon followed security; and from this small beginning arose that wealth and power which continued for many centuries, and which extended the influence of Venice over all the states with which she was connected. Her foundations were laid in the darkest ages of Italian misery; but she soon became the spectator of the dissolution of the Roman Empire. She witnessed the ravages of many continental wars, and the rise and fall of many nations; till at length she fell in her turn also. Somebody has well remarked, that she was the last surviving witness of antiquity, the common link between the two periods of civilization.

“Her whole history,” continued my uncle, “has a paradoxical and peculiar character. Her romantic achievements in the East; the noble lead she took in the struggles of Christendom with the empire of the Turks; and the heroic defence she made against the attacks of numerous enemies, place her resources and power in singular contrast with the smallness of her territory. On the other hand, her selfish policy; her imperious conduct wherever her influence extended; and her deadly jealousy of the neighbouring republic of Genoa, rendered her the object of universal envy and hatred. While at home the rigorous despotism of her government, which was ill concealed under the mask of republican freedom, and the inquisitorial tyranny of the senate, which silently pervaded every house, and controlled almost the thoughts of every individual, could tend only to alienate her subjects. These are points of deep moral and historical interest; but it may be safely said that her government outlived the age to which it was suited; no timely reform adapted it to the growing changes in the public mind--no concessions to the people united them in common cause with their haughty masters--and the fall of Venice may be ascribed more to her internal vices, than to the overpowering armies of France.”

_5th._--I have been so much better all day that I was allowed to go down to tea; and had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Maude describe the _fruitiéres_ in Switzerland. I quite misunderstood that word at first; for I find that it means a kind of dairy, something like that described to us by our Savoyard friends last winter. The person by whom the fruitiére is managed receives their milk daily from all the neighbouring peasants; he sells the cream, and butter, and makes the cheese; and at the end of the season pays the contributors either in cheeses or money. He keeps an exact account, not only of the quantity of milk brought in, but to prevent fraud, such as mixing it with water, he ascertains its quality by a kind of hydrometer, or floating gauge. Persons detected in cheating are struck out of the book, and lose what they had already contributed. The fruitiére man who manages the business and keeps the accounts, is paid by a small per centage on each cheese.

This plan is chiefly adopted in those parts of the country where the cattle are taken in summer to pasture in the mountains; the farmers confide their cows to a man who lives in a chalet, such as Madeleine mentioned, and spends night and day in milking the cows, and in making and turning the cheeses.

The same practice has been introduced into Piedmont and Lombardy. All the dairies in which the Parmesan cheeses are made, are supplied in this manner. The meadows of Lombardy, in the vicinity of the Po, are the most fertile in the world: being constantly watered, they produce three or four crops of hay in the season; but as they are occupied by a great number of individuals, there are few who can support a dairy, because the making cheeses requires a large quantity of milk, the produce of at least fifty cows. To effect this the Lombards have formed societies in order to make their cheese in common; and twice a-day the milk is sent to the principal house, where the dairy-man keeps an account of each person’s share.

This subject reminds me that my aunt has had a satisfactory letter from Bertram and Madeleine. He is much improved in strength. She appears to be very happy, and the little girl is going on well.

_7th, Sunday._--Wentworth has been so much interested by the character of Moses, and by the explanations my uncle has occasionally given of his prophecies, that during the last week he prepared a long string of questions for this morning. His father was pleased by this eagerness to obtain information, and answered them all most kindly and fully. I need not repeat the questions, I shall only tell you the general substance of the answers; and you, dear mamma, who are so well acquainted with the subject will easily trace my omissions.

The prophecies of Moses may be considered in some measure as supplemental to those of Jacob and Balaam. He enters into many details of the perverseness and the corruptions of the Israelites, and the consequent calamities of famine, pestilence, and war, which should afflict them under the government of their kings. He states them almost with the simplicity of an historical narrative; while all other prophecies, except those of our Lord, are expressed in more poetical, and in far more obscure language.

The 28th chapter of Deuteronomy contains several passages which are plainly indicative of the captivity of the ten tribes by the Assyrians, and of the two remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin, by the Babylonians. In examining the books of Kings and Chronicles, we find that most part of those predicted judgments were fulfilled in the order he foretold; as in the dearths that took place, the plagues that carried off numbers of the people, and the repeated invasions of the country by the Moabites and Philistines, and afterwards by the Ammonites, Chaldees, and Syrians. The captivity of Jehoiachin by the Babylonians was a striking accomplishment of the prophetic threat in the 36th verse. “The Lord shall bring thee and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known:” for it was delivered long anterior to the establishment of any king. The conclusion of that verse, “and there thou shalt serve other gods, wood and stone,” was also precisely fulfilled, as the people were compelled by their cruel conqueror to worship his idols.

The circumstantial prophecy contained in the last twenty verses of that chapter, was fulfilled most literally by the invasion of the Romans, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the complete dispersion of the Jews. The Romans were described in it with characteristic precision eight hundred years before they existed as a nation. It is said that they were to come “from far, from the end of the earth:” now the western parts of Europe were at that time the limits of the known world; and it is remarkable that the armies of Titus and Adrian were principally composed of Gauls and Spaniards. The rapidity of the Roman marches is compared by the prophet to the flight of the “eagle,” and it is not too much to suppose, that in that expression he alludes also to the eagles which were the Roman ensigns. Their language was not to be understood by the Jews; and the “fierce countenance,” for which the Romans were distinguished from the earliest periods of the republic, is noticed, as well as the merciless ferocity of their conduct.

The horrors of the siege of Jerusalem are next foretold with dreadful exactness; as well as the miseries the people were to endure in their subsequent dispersion. “The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; ... and among these nations thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest.” “Observe now,” said my uncle, “the fulfilment of that prophecy. Since their calamitous expulsion, the Jews have wandered over the face of the globe for one thousand seven hundred years, without national possessions, government, or laws. Their riches have exposed them to plunder, and their poverty to contempt. Driven from place to place, they have been persecuted even in Christian countries with unrelenting cruelty; they seem to have lost their rank in the creation, and have been made to feel the ‘trembling heart,’ ‘the sorrow of mind,’ and the uncertainty of their lives, of which their great prophet so emphatically warned them.

“Yet, notwithstanding their sufferings, they have been preserved a distinct people through all the changes of nations; for the same prophet said, they should ‘only be oppressed and crushed;’ not exterminated and rooted out like the Canaanites. They have adhered to their religion and retained the sacred language of the Scriptures; they appear to have been preserved for ‘a sign,’ and for ‘a wonder;’ and they may be said to be the depositaries of the prophecies, the continued accomplishment of which is really a standing miracle of the most extraordinary and convincing nature.”

I am ashamed, dear mamma, of the slight sketch I have given of what my uncle said at great length in answer to Wentworth; but, though I have done him very little justice, it has all made a deep impression on my mind, and I am going to read a book he has lent me on the comparison of the prophecies with profane history.

_8th._--At last I have escaped from confinement, and am enjoying the delight of fresh air. Everything looks gay; the sweet flowers, the bright green shrubs, the butterflies flitting about in the sun-beams, and, above all, the unceasing singing of the birds. Oh, mamma, how can you bear to live where you hear so few warbling birds?

The change that one short week has produced in my garden is quite magical; it is really a sheet of flowers; and I found there a new proof of the goodnature of my cousins, for they had pulled up every weed that disfigured it while I was confined to the house.

In my aunt’s garden there is a tree of the Yulan Magnolia just opening its large tulip-shaped blossoms, which are so fragrant, and of so pure a white. It is nearly twenty feet high, and it is so hardy, that she wonders this beautiful shrub is not more common in all gardens.

What a peculiar character the hawthorn gives the hedges in this country! It is called _May_, and indeed it is so pretty, that I think it deserves that honour.

“For thee, sweet month, the groves green liveries wear,
If not the first, the fairest of the year.
For thee the Graces lead the dancing Hours,
And Nature’s ready pencil paints the flowers.”

I have been examining with my aunt the tendrils of the sweet pea; they are so generally found just in the right places for attaching themselves to some convenient support, that one would almost imagine they knew exactly where to put out; but she pointed out some that were idle and useless. She then shewed me the beautiful arrangement of nature by which the honeysuckle supports itself: when a straight shoot becomes long and weak, it curls into a spiral figure which gives it great additional strength, even if alone, and enables it to take a firm grasp of any twig that it meets. But if two or more shoots should touch, they immediately twine or screw themselves round each other, like the strands of a rope, for mutual support.

Another fact my aunt told me on this subject is, that the claspers of briony always shoot forward in a spiral, in search of support; but if they meet with nothing, after completing a spiral of about three turns, they alter their course, and proceed in some other direction.

_9th._--Caroline and I had a nice walk this morning with my uncle, and I hasten to write down the additional facts that we learned from him on the subject of fossil remains.

Shells, he told us, are generally found entire, and the skeletons of fishes are frequently discovered in such a perfect state, that both their families and species can be easily ascertained. But the fossil remains of quadrupeds are very rarely complete; some of the parts are wanting; the bones are either scattered at a distance from each other, or else lying confused together, and generally broken. Yet these misplaced fragments are the only means left for naturalists to determine the species of the animal to which they had belonged; and in frequent cases a single bone has been sufficient for that purpose. This is effected by the science of _Comparative Anatomy_, or, in other words, a comparison of the construction and the functions of the corresponding parts of the inferior animals, with those which belong to the human body; and perhaps no science furnishes more instances of ingenious observation and beautiful reasoning.

Every organized being forms an entire system of its own; all its parts have a mutual relation to each other; and each of them, taken separately, will, therefore, clearly point out the other parts to which it must have belonged. Suppose a ploughman turns up in a field a few bones, the only conclusion he can draw is, that some unknown animal had died near that spot; but the comparative anatomist can tell the size of the whole animal, its general form, the structure of its jaws and teeth, and, consequently, whether it belonged to the herbivorous or carnivorous tribes. None of these separate parts can vary their forms without a corresponding variation in the other parts of the animal; and, consequently, each of those parts, taken separately, indicates all the others to which it had belonged.

If the stomach of an animal is organized so as to digest only flesh, then the jaws and the incisive teeth must be constructed for devouring flesh; the claws for seizing the prey; and the entire system of the limbs for pursuing and catching it. Every one of those organs is indispensable in the structure of carnivorous animals; so that by the bones of the paw, or the arm, or the shoulder-blade, or the leg, the construction and disposition of all the rest may be determined; and, consequently, the whole form, species, genus, and class of animal must necessarily be discovered by the examination of a single bone.

The hoofed animals, it is plain, must be herbivorous, because they are possessed of no means of seizing their prey; it is also evident that their fore-legs, being only necessary to support their bodies and to assist their progressive movement, they have no occasion for any rotary motion in that joint that corresponds to the human wrist; and their food being herbaceous, their teeth must have flat surfaces; but at the same time, in order to bruise seeds and tough plants, the teeth are composed of alternate layers of hard enamel and soft bone; and a horizontal or grinding motion is given to the lower jaw, which for that purpose has a peculiar conformation of its joint. Again, we know that ruminating animals alone are provided with cloven hoofs, so that, from a simple foot-mark we can be perfectly certain that the animal possessed such and such teeth, jaws, legs, shoulders and horns; and that it fed on herbage.

The same laws and the same modes of reasoning, of course, equally apply to petrified bones; and in this manner seventy-eight different fossil quadrupeds have been ascertained and classed, of which forty-nine are of extinct species. It is remarkable, that oviparous quadrupeds are generally found in more ancient strata than the viviparous tribes. A few bones of marine animals, such as seals, are found in the shell limestone which immediately covers the chalk strata, but no bones of land quadrupeds have been discovered in that formation; they generally occupy the ancient alluvial beds composed of sand and pebbles which lie over the limestone.

Some species, which though now extinct, belonged to families that still exist, have been found among the remains of the more ancient and unknown genera; but none of the animals which at present inhabit the earth are ever found, except on the sides of rivers, or at the bottom of marshes, or in the superficial formations; and though their deposition has been comparatively recent, their remains are always the worst preserved.

_10th._--The plants which I placed in baskets in the pond have flourished so greatly, that I want to try the same plan with other plants of the same nature: my uncle laughs at me, and says I would put the whole contents of the conservatory into my pond; but indeed I only want to try a crinum, a pancratium, and one or two others. However, I shall confine my wishes now to an agapanthus, or African lily, because my aunt thinks that we shall be in Ireland at the flowering time of the others, and that I should not witness the success of my experiment. I have re-potted the agapanthus in a rich sandy compost, but I have only put the fibrous part into the earth: the whole of the tuber remains above ground. This is to be plunged to the rim in the pond, and the gardener has directions to watch its progress, if I should not be here.

Mary has had some plants of the lobelia fulgens in the conservatory for some time; they were planted in good strong loam, and the pots stand in saucers continually supplied with water; they have already grown amazingly, and will, I am sure, be five feet high before the flowers are out. But alas! we shall be away from this dear place when they blossom.

_11th._--I had some confused idea that the great fossil animal, which is called the mastodon, was the same as the mammoth; but my uncle told me to-day, that though the remains of the mastodon have some general resemblance to the elephant, yet there is no doubt that they were quite distinct animals. The bones of the mastodon have been found in great numbers both in North and South America, but no complete skeletons have yet been put together. A small species of this animal has been discovered in Saxony, as well as in some other parts of Europe; and naturalists now divide the whole family into five species. The principal points of difference are not only the disposition and shape of the grinding-teeth, but the bulk of the animal; for the great mastodons that have been found on the banks of the Ohio must have stood twelve feet high.

My uncle had before told me that the term mammoth came from Russia; it is said to be of Tartar origin, derived from _mama_, which signifies the earth; for the Siberians believe that elephants of that description still live under ground. He says that their tusks are found in such abundance in Eastern Siberia and in the Arctic marshes, that almost the whole of the ivory-turner’s work in Russia is made from Siberian fossil ivory, and that it is not at all inferior in quality to the living ivory of Africa and Asia. Although for a long series of years thousands have been annually procured from the banks of the rivers and from the shores of the Frozen Sea, yet they are still collected in abundance. The best fossil ivory is found in the countries within the arctic circle, where the ground is thawed at the surface only during their very short summer.

The remains of two other huge animals have also been discovered in America, the megatherium, about the size of the rhinoceros; and the megalonix, which was something smaller. From the construction of their teeth they were both herbivorous, and M. Cuvier supposes their prodigious claws to have been employed in digging up roots. They appear to be different species of the same family; and, though related to the sloth genus, they are, like the mammoth and mastodon, entirely extinct. I asked him how he knew that they were extinct, and he told me it was quite impossible that they could still inhabit the interior of America without its being known to the European settlers on the sea coasts; some of them, in the course of time, must have strayed out of the forests, and have been observed by travellers; or, in our constant intercourse with the natives, who have traversed the country in all directions, some accounts of such large animals must have reached us. In South America the Indians point out these large fossil bones as the remains of gigantic monsters, which would have destroyed the whole human race if they had not been themselves destroyed by the interference of the Great Spirit. Nor is it likely, continued my uncle, that any of the other animals, which we know to be extinct now, should have existed since the deluge: no great catastrophe since that time has happened, which could have been equal to the sweeping away of a whole species; and almost all those that at present inhabit the three continents of the old world are mentioned in the writings of Aristotle, or of other ancient authors. The Romans had such a passion for collecting wild beasts, that in the time of Commodus twenty lions, twenty African hyenas, and ten tygers, were killed in one day’s sport at Rome; and thirty-two elephants, a hippopotamus, and ten camelopards were exhibited there at the same time. To such industrious hunters and showmen there could have been few species unknown.

My uncle mentioned a curious circumstance, which, he says, has not been much noticed: that none of the extraordinary animals which inhabit “New Holland’s continental isle” have ever been found among the fossil remains in any other part of the globe; and of the fossil strata there, very little is yet known.

I asked him if there was any foundation for the chimæra, and the other imaginary monsters of the ancients. “Those ideal creatures,” he replied, “may be partly referred to the marvellous traditions that accompany the early records of all nations; and partly to the habit, which was so prevalent in those times, of describing real objects as well as passions and events by means of metaphor and allegory. It would be childish to expect that we should now find in any part of the globe remains of such animals as the flying pegasus, or as the sphynx of Thebes; but we must not reject as altogether fabulous those which appear in the hieroglyphics of Egypt and Persepolis. The rude sculpture of those ages has perhaps been the common source of many mistakes; for the most simple and natural method of drawing any animal is by its profile; and in this way, the oryx and the unicorn may appear to have had but a single horn--although the bas relief or outline might have been intended to represent the antelope or some other creature with two horns.”

_12th._--There were so many changes from brightness to cloudiness this morning, that as my uncle rose from the breakfast-table, he repeated these lines so descriptive of those rapid alternations.

“With every shifting gleam of morning light
The colours shifted of her rainbow vest.”

I asked him where those lines were to be found.

“Is it possible,” said he, “that you have never read the ‘Tears of old May-day!’ Well then, Caroline will, I am sure, be so kind as to shew it to you; and I think you had better celebrate this famous day, by writing an explanation of this beautiful poem, now so little read.

“You may explain it if you can, in the style of ‘Readings on Poetry;’ a very favourite book, you know, in this house. If any of the mythological allusions are not quite obvious, I will endeavour to explain them; and I will now only premise that the poem proceeds on the Eastern idea, that the year begins in May:

‘For ever then I led the constant year’

is therefore quite in character for

‘The flow’ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.’”

This was a terrific task, and occupied me great part of the morning. At last, when it was finished, I came to the hall to refresh myself with my cousins at a new play, called _La Grace_, or the _Flying Circle_, which we have lately imported, and the description of which will probably divert Marianne more than any learned dissertation of mine on the “Tears of old May-day.”

Two people stand at opposite ends of the room, as in playing shuttlecock; each hold two nicely turned sticks, one end of which is pointed; and by a dextrous movement of these pointers, a light, elastic hoop, about eight inches diameter, is sent flying forward towards the person opposite, who catches it on her pointers, and immediately lets it fly back again. When played with two hoops it is still prettier, and requires much more expertness than shuttlecock.

Mary and I had played at it successfully for some time, when we were interrupted by poor little Grace, who, looking very sad, ran into the hall, put her pencil-case into Mary’s hand and vanished, brushing away a large tear from her cheek.

Mary followed her, and afterwards told me that she had given Grace a silver pencil-case some months since, on condition that she never would again scribble in books; a habit which she had unaccountably acquired. Grace delighted to have her long-wished for pencil-case, agreed to the compact, and punctually kept it till this unfortunate day. The moment that she recollected herself, she came to return the pencil to Mary, with true honesty indeed, for she had only scribbled in one of her own little books, which might never have been observed. Though sorry that she should thoughtlessly have broken her engagement, yet all were pleased at finding that she had that fine principle of honour which disdains deceit. My aunt has certainly contrived to fix steady good principles in the hearts of my cousins, which really influence their conduct. Instead of having to watch them, she places the most perfect reliance on their integrity; and most justly, for I, who see them at all times, know that they have not mere show-sentiments or show-manners; but that they are just the same when not observed by their mother as when in her presence.

_13th._--I believe I noted in my journal that I had been practising the art of _budding_. As soon as I had acquired a little expertness, I tried my hand on various roses just as the leaf-buds began to swell, having seen, in the “Transactions of the Horticultural Society,” that period recommended as the best for roses. The April showers were of great use, and most of my buds have now become nice flourishing shoots. Yellow roses are said to thrive particularly well when budded on the China rose, and I hope mine may not be attacked by those troublesome little green caterpillars that ate away the heart of the buds on Mary’s yellow rose last year. She kept one of them, which changed into a small brown chrysalis, and this morning it has become a very pretty buff moth, marked all over in brown patten work: it is small, but the antennæ are as long as the whole moth, circular, and bowed towards its nose like cow’s horns.

I have also several young rose _grafts_ of different species growing on the wild rose--

“Of simpler bloom, but kindred race,
The pensive Eglantine----.”

Mr. Biggs asserted that this process would improve their colours. I thought it rather extraordinary that the “simpler bloom” of the wild rose should have that effect; but my uncle said, “Try the experiment first, and reason about it afterwards.”

When I showed these budded roses to Miss Perceval, I expressed my surprise that amongst the numerous South American plants which have been collected in this country, I had not heard of any new species of rose.

“Are there any native roses in South America?” she asked.

“Oh! of course,” said I, “in such a flowery country. You know there is an island in the Rio de la Plata called the Isle of Flores, which I suppose is covered with flowers.”

“Can you describe any of your indigenous Brazilian roses?” said she, laughing.

After considering some time I was obliged to acknowledge that I could not recollect any one that I knew to be a native of Brazil.

“This is one of the numerous instances of _taking for granted_ which we meet every day,” said she. “You imagined that the rose must be wild in all parts of the world because it is everywhere cultivated:--you will therefore learn with surprise, that it is generally believed that all the roses yet known have been found between the 19th and 70th degrees of North latitude; none, therefore, belong to South America, though the profusion of China roses, cultivated in Brazil, might very naturally have given you the idea of their being natives. It is possible, however, that hereafter new species may be discovered south of the line, which will come under the head Rosaceæ, for the industry of botanists has wonderfully increased this family in a few years. In Wildenow’s book, published in 1800, he enumerates only thirty-nine species, yet there are upwards of one hundred now known and cultivated in this country; and a foreign professor has given a list of even two hundred and forty species. He proposes to divide them into twenty-four series, each of which is to bear the name of some botanist who has distinguished himself by a knowledge of that beautiful genus. For instance, Rosa Candolliana,--Wildenowiana,--Pallasiana, and so on.”

She told me also that all the apple and pear tribes are placed in the natural order of Rosaceæ; in the rose, the calyx, which is pitcher-shaped, encloses the germ; and in the former the germ is beneath the calyx. She mentioned, too, as a curious circumstance of the dog-rose or eglantine, that the farther North it is found, the more woolly are the styles, while to the Southward, as in Madeira, they have no hairs whatever.

The rose seems to be prized particularly in Persia, where it is the chief ornament of the garden. In that very entertaining book “Sketches of Persia,” the author mentions a breakfast which was given to him at a beautiful spot in the vicinity of Shiraz:--

“We were surprised and delighted to find that we were to enjoy this meal on a stack of roses! On this a carpet was laid, and we sat cross-legged like the natives. The stack, which was as large as a common one of hay in England, had been formed without much trouble, from the heaps or cocks of rose leaves, collected before they were sent into the city to be distilled.”

In Foster’s travels, too, Mary shewed me a description of the city of Kashmire, where the houses though slightly built, have flat roofs of sufficient strength to support a covering of earth; this is planted with roses and other flowers, and gives the town a very beautiful appearance. The earth also preserves the houses from being chilled by the quantity of snow that lies on them in winter; and in summer it gives them a refreshing coolness. Every creature he met had roses in their hands; and you may recollect, mamma, that the same thing is said of the city of Bisnagar in the Arabian Night’s tales. The province of Kashmire, Foster says, has been always famous for roses, particularly for one extremely fragrant species, of which the best attar of rose is made; but it will not grow in a more southerly climate.

He mentions a lake, near the city, in which there were several islands covered with rose-trees; they were all in brilliant blossom when he was there, and looked like large baskets of roses. How pretty the floating Chinampas of Mexico would be if they were planted with the Kashmire rose; or, what would suit them better, with the little rose of Jericho. Miss P. says this is one of the most singular plants in the world, and is found no where but in the deserts of Arabia. It is only six inches high, root and all; and its tiny branches curve inward, so as to enclose its numerous flowers in a sort of hollow globe. I think this may be truly called a Lilliputian tree.

_14th, Sunday._--The thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, or the song of Moses, was the subject of our conversation this morning. My uncle told us that it consists of six parts.

“It opens in the first five verses with a summons to the whole universe to listen to the inspired voice of the prophet; and contrasts the power, truth, and justice of God with the iniquities of the ‘perverse generation’ whom he was addressing. In the next nine verses he expatiates on God’s continued indulgence and more than fatherly affection towards the Israelites; he makes an affecting appeal to their gratitude; and he dwells on the unceasing protection they had experienced from their first helpless origin, up to their entrance into the rich land of promise, in a manner which shows that Moses spoke from a full recollection of the scenes he had witnessed, and that he deeply felt the extent of the almighty power and goodness.

“In the expression ‘When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance,’ we are to understand the tribes of Israel; each of which, from their extraordinary increase of population, might be considered as a nation in itself, while the whole composed ‘His people,’ the most highly favoured of all the nations of the earth.”

I begged of my uncle to explain what was meant in the 13th verse by “He made them ride on the high places of the earth;” and afterwards by “sucking honey and oil out of the flinty rock?” He answered, “The former phrase applies to the victories which the Israelites had already achieved through the divine assistance, as well as to the final conquest of the land of Canaan by the same means. The honey and oil are allusions to the fruitfulness of the country, which abounds with wild bees, who build their honeycombs in the rocks; and with the finest olive trees, which it is well known strike their roots into the rocky crevices.

“The third part of the song,” he continued, “begins with the fifteenth verse, and describes the usual effect of prosperity upon a thoughtless and ungrateful people. ‘But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.’ This figure of speech is probably taken from a pampered horse, who becomes unmanageable and vicious; and you will find it repeated in Hosea[4]. ‘According to their pasture they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore they have forgotten me.’ Jeshurun is derived from a word signifying upright, and is put here, as well as in Isaiah, for Israel. It would not be very difficult to apply the whole of this passage to more modern nations, who have far less excuse than even the Israelites for ‘forsaking God, and lightly esteeming the rock of their salvation;’ but, as individuals, at least, we may take a useful lesson from it; let us beware of the seductions of prosperity, lest our hearts become too much engrossed by the happiness that we enjoy, or too much depressed by the salutary disappointments that we sometimes undergo.

“The fourth part, from the nineteenth verse to the end of the twenty-fifth, expresses the indignation of the Lord, and his threats of rejecting apostate Israel, and of adopting in their room the believing Gentiles. It is quoted by St. Paul, as having that interpretation; and I will only further remark, that it is written with the most awful strength that language can supply; and that all its denunciations have been literally accomplished.

“The fifth division, to the end of verse 35, states the wise and gracious reasons of the dispersion of the Jews into all lands, both for their ultimate preservation, and to prevent their enemies from vainly ascribing to themselves their destruction. It was not indeed from any merit of their own that those enemies were allowed to triumph, they were only employed as the instruments of punishment; and God declares in the sequel that they will have to answer for their own corruptions and idolatries in the day of vengeance.

“‘For their rock is not as our Rock; even our enemies themselves being judges.’ This remarkable passage was evidently introduced by Moses in a parenthesis. He prophetically knew that their conquerors would often have to confess the superiority of the God of Israel over their own deities; and accordingly many examples of it may be collected in Scripture. I need scarcely remind you of Nebuchadnezzar’s decree, when he perceived the three faithful Jews escaping unhurt from his fiery furnace[5]; nor of his touching acknowledgment of the one true God when he regained his reason[6]; and in profane history you no doubt recollect the declaration of the Roman emperor Titus, after the conquest of Jerusalem,--That he was only an instrument in the hand of God, whose wrath had been so signally manifested against the Jews.

“The last part of this celebrated song is called the consolation of Israel: it holds out a gracious promise of future reconciliation when they should have repented of their obstinacy, and abjured the vain idols in whom they had trusted for protection; it gives an awful warning to their oppressors, that the day of account and of vengeance for them also will come; and the words in the concluding verse, ‘Rejoice, O ye nations with his people,’ seem to have been cited by St. Paul,[7] to prove the future conversion of both Jews and Gentiles to Christ, and their mutual exultation in his then undivided kingdom.”

_15th._--I seized an opportunity of asking my uncle some questions about the beds of coal in the forest of Dean, and I learned that the coal formation there, is an irregular elliptical basin, occupying nearly the whole of the forest tract. It is ten miles long, and six broad; and all the strata dip uniformly to the centre of the basin. He shewed me the extent of it on a geological map, which he has made of this county; and which marks in the prettiest manner all the principal strata. Each kind of rock has a particular colour, so that its extent is seen at a glance; and by a section at the bottom of the map, the dip or inclination of the strata, and the manner in which they lie on each other, are very distinctly shewn. He made Caroline and me observe that we could trace on it the mountain-lime and old red-sandstone (which enclose the coal-field) across the river Wye into South-Wales: there, he says, they contain another coal district, of much greater extent; and he showed it to us in Mr. Greenough’s beautiful geological map of all England. I should never have been tired of looking at these maps, if Caroline, who knew how little time my uncle could spare, had not asked him something about the origin of coal.