PAINTERS' MONOGRAMS.

'To spoil the spoiler as we may,And from the robber rend his prey.'

Return to Table of Contents

One of the most curious among the studies of a professed connoisseur, is that of the signatures or marks, technically called 'monograms,' by which painters, sculptors, engravers, and other artists, are accustomed to distinguish their works. The dishonesty of the modern picture-market, however, has made it now little more than a curious study. As a practical guide in determining the genuineness of a work, the monogram, from the skill and precision with which fraudulent dealers have learned to counterfeit it in almost all its varieties, has long been far worse than equivocal, and the authorship of a picture must, now-a-days, often be decided on entirely independent grounds. But the history of the subject is, in many respects, extremely curious and interesting, although few have ever thought of bestowing attention upon it, except those whose actual experience as amateurs or collectors has brought it directly under their notice.

The practice of artists signing their works with their name appears to be as old as art itself. The odium excited against Phidias for his alleged impiety in inscribing his name upon the shield of his celebrated statue of Minerva, is a familiar example, which will occur to every reader; and there can be no doubt that the usage was also known to the painters of the classic times. But if we may judge from the Grecian and Roman remains, whether of sculpture, of fresco, of cameo, or of mosaic, which have come down to our times, the precaution of affixing the name was by no means universally, or even commonly adopted; and the monogram, properly so called, appears to have been entirely unknown among them.

It was so also at the first revival of art in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The practice of using a single letter, or a single combination of letters or arbitrary characters, seems to have originated with the mediæval architects and other artists in stone. Neither the painters, nor the engravers, nor the metal-founders, nor the medalists of those ages, availed themselves of this device, nor do we find it at all general among such artists, till the very close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. But, once introduced, it became universal. Every artist of thesixteenth, and of the greater part of the seventeenth century, has his monogram, more or less simple according to the taste or caprice of the designer; and to such a length was the practice carried, that the very excess produced a reaction, and led, for a time, to the abandonment of monograms altogether. With the painters of the eighteenth century, they fell into complete disfavour; and although, in the present century, the revival of ancient forms has led to their re-adoption in the German school, and among the cultivators of Christian art generally, yet many of the first painters of the present day seem to eschew the use of monograms, as savouring of transcendentalism, or of some other of the various affectations, by which modern art is accused of having been disfigured.

Independently altogether of its bearing upon art, the study of monograms has a certain amount of interest. There is a class of adventurers at the present day who make a livelihood from the curiosity or credulity of the public, by professing to decipher the peculiarities of an individual's character, and to read his probable destiny, in any specimen of his handwriting which may be submitted for their inspection. Without carrying the theory to these absurd lengths, it is impossible not to feel some interest about the autograph of any celebrated individual, and some tendency to compare its leading characteristics with our preconceived notions regarding him. A still wider field for speculation than that which grows out of the handwriting, is afforded by a device like the monogram, which, being in a great measure arbitrary, may naturally be expected to exhibit more decidedly the workings of the judgment, the fancy, or perhaps the caprice, of the artist.

The monogram, as we have seen, is a substitute for the full-length signature of the artist—the mode of marking their works originally adopted by the ancients. It is found in an almost infinite number of varieties.

The earliest, as well as the most natural and easy substitute, was a simple contraction of the name—as, 'augsca.,' for Augustinus Caraccius; or JVL. ROM., for Julius Romanus. This contraction, however, cannot properly be called a monogram at all; and the same is to be said of the form of signature adopted by many of the most eminent painters—the simple, unconnected initials of the name. The idea of a monogram supposes that the characters, whatever may be their number considered separately, shall be all connected so as to form one single device.

The first such form which will occur to one's mind is the mere combination of the initial letters of the name—as, for example, AB, or AK, which are the actual monograms of Andrew Both, the celebrated Flemish landscape painter, and of Antony Kölbel, a distinguished Austrian artist of more modern times. In some instances, the monogram is found appended to the full signature of the artist, as in Albert Dürer's beautiful engraving of Adam and Eve, and in other less celebrated works, especially those of the early engravers. It is to be observed, however, that some artists were by no means uniform in the style of monogram which they employed. The device of the same artist often varies, not only in the size and figure of the letters which form it, but sometimes even in the letters themselves. Many artists have employed two, three, four, and even a greater number of devices; and of the celebrated engraver just named, Albert Dürer, we ourselves have seen not less than thirty different modifications of the letters A D, the initials of his name.

[Transcriber's Note: In the first sentence of the previous paragraph, the letters AB and AK are joined together, with the letter A tilted slightly to the right.]

These combinations are seldom so simple and intelligible as in the signature of Andrew Both, referred to above. In most of the earlier monograms, the initial of the family name is smaller than that of the Christian name. It is so in that of Albert Dürer; and it is remarkable that, through all the modifications of his signature which we have been able to discover, this characteristic is maintained—the D being invariably the smaller, and, as it were, the subordinate letter. Very often, one of the letters—generally the initial of the surname—is enclosed within the lines of the other. This peculiarity is also observable in Albert Dürer's signature; and we only know one single instance, among the numberless ones that occur, in which he has not maintained it.

In progress of time, it became fashionable to combine, not the initials merely of the name, but sometimes the most important letters, sometimes even all the letters, of the full name. Many of the monograms thus constructed would prove a puzzle even to the most accomplished decipherer, especially those in which the whole of the letters are not given, but only the most striking of them, and these, as very frequently occurs, not in their natural order. Sometimes the artist combined with the initials of his name that also of his place of birth or residence. It need scarcely be said that, especially in the earlier period, when the place of birth formed almost an invariable adjunct of the name, this practice also existed, even when the signature was given at full length.

A difficulty is sometimes created by the discovery of the letter V—very frequently smaller than the other letters of the monogram—between the initials of the artist's name. It occurs in the signatures of Flemish or German artists, and represents thevanorvon, which, in the usage of these countries, was the characteristic of nobility. It is seen in the monogram of Esaias van de Velde, and is introduced rather curiously in that of Adrian van der Venne, who lived through the greater part of the seventeenth century. In this interesting monogram, the small v is inserted in the head of the large one, so as to form a figure not unlike one of the masonic emblems.

Sometimes the identity of the initial letter of the surname with that of the Christian name gives rise to a curious device in their combination. Thus, the signature of Francis Floris, a German engraver, who died about the middle of the seventeenth century, reverses the former of the two FFs, placing them back to back, with the down stroke common to both letters; while that of Francis Frederic Frank, in which the same letter is three times repeated, drove the ingenuity of the artist to a still more curious combination—the three letters being kept perfectly independent, yet interlaced, or rather overlapped, so that their lines exhibit a figure which has the curious property, like the cabalistic Abracadabra, of presenting the same appearance from whatever point it may be viewed.

Another, and often more puzzling uncertainty, may arise out of the practice of adding to the ordinary letters of the name, the initials F, P, D, or I—representingfecit,pinxit,delineavit, orinvenit. Without adverting to this circumstance, few would recognise the distinguished name of Anthony van Dyck, in the monogram which he habitually employed, and of which the F seems to form a principal part; or that of our dear old friend, Hans Hemling, in the still more perplexing symbol by which his very best works may be distinguished. But besides the variations of which theletters are susceptible when grouped in this manner, many of the artists have indulged in a variety of strange and puzzling accompaniments.

A more interesting class of monograms are those which employ symbols instead of letters; or, what is not uncommon, use both letters and symbols in combination. Many of these resemble the illustrated enigmas which have become fashionable in the pictorial journals both of England and of foreign countries, and of which Mr Knight, in the last issue of hisPenny Magazine, set so beautiful an example in the poetical enigmas of Mr Mackworth Praed. The general character of this class will be sufficiently indicated by the example of the Italian painter, Palma, whose name is translatedpalm, and who used the emblem of apalmas well as the initial of his family name; or the still more characteristic one of a painter of Tübingen, JacobZüberlein(little tub), who appended to his literal monogram the simple and striking, though not very graceful, emblem ofa tub.

The several classes which are here slightly indicated, contain under them many subordinate varieties, which it would be tedious to enumerate, and which, indeed, it would be almost impossible to classify. It is a remarkable circumstance, however, in the history of art, that the signatures of the most distinguished painters are precisely those which, for themselves, and for their forms, possess the least interest. With few exceptions, it may be said of the great painters, that they appear to have avoided the affectation of the use of monograms; and certainly that those who did employ them, selected the very simplest and least fantastic forms. The greatest masters of the art—Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, Guido, Domenichino, Paul Veronese, Rubens, Guercino, Agostino Caracci, and many hardly less distinguished artists—either omitted to sign their pictures at all, or signed their name at full length, sometimes with the addition of their local surname, or employed the initial syllables or letters of their name in the ordinary Roman form, without any attempt at grouping them into a monogram. Even Salvator Rosa, with all the wildness and extravagance of his manner, used an exceedingly simple combination of the initials of his name. The monogram of the great Spanish painter, Bartholomew Esteban [Stephen] Murillo, consists simply of the three initial letters of the name, signed in the common Roman character, and combined with perfect simplicity, except that there is a curious inversion of their order. That of his countryman, Joseph Ribera—better known asEspagnoletto—is merely the combination of the same letters, written in a cursive hand; and his signature is even occasionally found at full length, or very slightly abridged.

There is one curious exception to this general preference for simplicity among the masters of the first class—that of the celebrated Anthony Allegri, more commonly known under his surname, Correggio. This eminent painter did not think a pun beneath the dignity of his art, and, accordingly, the device by which he distinguishes his pictures consists of a punning symbol, representing his name. We need hardly explain to our readers thatCorreggiomay be readCor(cuore)Reggio(Royal Heart.) The painter has expressed this pun in two different ways: by the figure of a heart, with the wordReggioinscribed upon it in Roman letters; and again by the still more punning emblem of a heart surmounted by a crown, or, it should rather be said, of a crowned, and therefore royal, heart. In confirmation, however, of the general tendency to simplicity which we have observed as prevailing among his great contemporaries, we should add that some of Correggio's pictures are signed with the initial syllables of his name, printed in the ordinary Roman character.

It is perhaps more remarkable, that even among the humorists the same simplicity should have prevailed. Our own Hogarth, both the Tenierses, Hans Holbein, Ostade, even Callot himself, with all his extravagant and capricious fantasies, fall into the general rule; and the lady artists, Diana Chisi, Angelica Kaufmann, and Anna Maria Schurman, may be cited as equally exhibiting the same simplicity. There are some, indeed, in whom this affectation of simplicity goes almost to the length of rudeness. A charming cabinet picture, in the possession of the writer of these pages, by the celebrated Philip Wouvermans, well known for the familiar 'gray horse' which characterises all his pictures, is scratched with a P. W. which would disgrace the lowest form in a charity school. And, with every allowance for haste and indifference, it is impossible not to suspect something like affectation in the rude and sprawling signatures which we sometimes find, not only in ancient, but even in comparatively modern artists.

It would carry us far beyond our allotted limits to pursue further the examination of individual monograms. But there are some in the class of symbolical monograms, already referred to, which we must notice more in detail. Most of the monograms of this class, like that of Correggio, given above, involve a pun, sometimes, indeed, not a very recondite one. Thus the French artist, JacobStella, who died in 1647, invariably signs his pictures witha star—a device which the modern artist, FredericMorgenstern, has applied to himself, representing his own name by the letter M, prefixed to the same symbol.

In the same way, an ancient artist, Lauber (leaf-gatherer), adopted a leaf (in German,Laub), as his symbol. Haus Weiner, in allusion to the genial beverage from which his name is derived, marked his works with the sign of a bunch of grapes. David Vinkenbooms (Anglice, tree-finch), a Dutch painter of the sixteenth century, took a 'finch perched upon a branch of a tree' as his pictorial emblem. Birnbaum (pear-tree) employed a similar emblem; while the monogram of Bernard Graat, a Dutch painter, who lived in the end of the seventeenth century, though utterly without significance to an English eye, would at once suggest the name of the painter to his own countrymen: Graat, in Dutch, signifying the spine of a fish, represented in this curious monogram.

The history of another emblem is perhaps still more remarkable. By a singular and perhaps humorously intended coincidence, three German painters, George Hufnagel, Sebastian Scharnagel, and John Nothnagel, have all employed the same homely emblem—a nail; the German name of which,Nagel, enters into the composition of all three surnames. Hufnagel (hoof-nail) has signed his pictures with a horse-shoe nail, sometimes crossed, sometimes curiously intertwined with the letters of his Christian name. Scharnagel has combined with a nail the figure of a spade or shovel (schar); while Nothnagel distinguishes himself from both by prefixing the letter N to their common emblem.

There is more of delicacy and ingenuity in the device employed by a female wood-engraver in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Isabella Quatrepomme (four-apple.) She was accustomed to sign her works with a neat and spirited sketch of an apple, marked with the numeral IV. This mark is found upon some old French woodcuts still in existence. There was some similar allusion, we have no doubt, concealed in the device of John Maria Pomedello, an Italian engraver of the time of Leo X. and Clement VII.; it has occasioned much speculation to the learned in these matters, but we must confess our inability to decipher all its significance. Nor was the use of these punning emblems confined to masters of the fine arts. Printers, too, frequently introduced them. The symbols of the olive, the sword, the dolphin, &c. so familiar to all bibliographers, had their origin in thisfanciful taste; and a more direct example than any—the leading feature of which is a rude image of a spur—is to be found in the imprint of the curious old German books published by Hans Sporer (spur-maker) during the very first years after the introduction of printing into Germany. Editions of books, with this characteristic imprint, still reckon among the choicest gems in a German book-collector's library, of what the amateurs in this department have chosen to callIncunabeln.

To those who have given any attention to the deciphering of illustrated enigmas, many of the early monograms might furnish considerable amusement. That of the rather obscure artist, Colioloro, is a perfect counterpart of the most elaborate and fanciful of the modern enigmas. The curious combination, not alone of words, but of single letters, with the pictorial emblems, is fully as fanciful as any which we remember to have seen, even among those of the LeipsicIllustrirte Zeitung, which seems to bestow more attention on the subject than any of its contemporaries.

It must be remembered, that the artist's full name is Artigli Coscia Colioloro. The device begins with a confused heap of birds' claws, paws of animals, &c.; next appears a thigh, cut short above the knee; this is followed by the letter C. Next in order is seen a flask pouring out a stream of oil; the letter l, with a comma above the line, comes next; and the whole is closed by a goodly heap of gold pieces. To an Italian scholar, it is hardly necessary to offer an explanation. The group of emblems at the left hand represents Artigli (limbs); the rude image which succeeds it stands for Coscia (a thigh); the C, followed by the little flask of oil (olio), forms Colio; and the l, with the comma, or rather the mark of apostrophe, followed by the heap of gold pieces (oro)—making together l'oro, completes the characters of the name—Artigli Coscia Colioloro.

It will not, however, be a matter of surprise, that the key to many of these emblems has, in the course of time, been lost; and that at present a considerable number of this class of monograms are a mystery even to the most learned in the art. Notwithstanding every appliance, the monogrammatists have occasionally been forced to confess themselves in doubt, and sometimes altogether at fault, as to the identification, or even the interpretation, of some of the emblems.

During the latter part of the seventeenth century, and the whole of the eighteenth, the monogram went almost entirely out of fashion. In England, even still, its use is far from being general; and engravings, especially, are now-a-days almost invariably signed with the full name. But foreign artists, and particularly those of therenaissance, have revived the old usage. Frederic Overbeck, the great father of the Christian school of art: Cornelius, to whose magnificent conceptions Munich and Berlin owe their most glorious works, both historical and imaginative—as the fresco illustrations of theNibelungen Lied, in the Royal Palace; the 'Last Judgment,' in the Ludwig-Kirche; and the 'History of St Boniface,' in the Bonifaz-Kloster—Storr, the great Austrian master, whose conception of 'Faust,' in the Royal Gallery at Vienna, is in itself a great poem; and the whole Düsseldorf school—have conformed to the ancient type. Even the humorists have made it, in some instances, a vehicle of their humour. Few of those who were wont to enjoy Richard Doyle's inimitable sketches inPunch, whose guiding-spirit he used to be, can forget the funny little figure, surmounted by his well-known initials; and the lovers of political caricature must often have smiled over the quizzical-looking gentleman who used to figure at the right-hand corner of HH.'s admirable sketches. But we doubt whether the fashion is destined to be ever fully restored, or whether the monogram is not rather doomed to remain a thing of the past—a subject of speculation for that laborious, though not very practical class,

'Who delve 'mid nooks and sinuosities,For literary curiosities.'

Return to Table of Contents

'Wine and Walnuts' was a good title for a gossipping book; 'Claret and Olives' is a better. It has a more decided flavour, a more elegant bouquet, a more gem-like colour. The other might refer to any denomination of that multitudinous stuff the English drink under the name of wine; or, if it has individuality at all, it relishes curiously of the coarse and heavy produce of Portugal, so beloved of Dr Johnson, and many other grave doctors, down to the last generation. This breathes all over of the sweet South; it babbles of green fields; it is full of gaiety and frolic, of song and laughter, and the sparkle of wit and crystal. The title, we say, is a good title; and the book has an unmistakable claret flavour—the best English claret, that is to say—which unites the strength of Burgundy with the bouquet of Château Margaux. Mr Reach despises a weak thin wine, and, by an idiosyncratical necessity, he has produced a sparkling, racy book. He traces the falling-off in our literature to a change in wine. 'The Elizabethans quaffed sack, or "Gascoyne, or Rochel wyn,"' quoth he; 'and we had the giants of those days. The Charles II. comedy writers worked on claret. Port came into fashion—port sapped our brains—and, instead of Wycherly'sCountry Wife, and Vanbrugh'sRelapse, we had Mr Morton'sWild Oats, and Mr Cherry'sSoldier's Daughter. It is really much to the credit of Scotland, that she stood stanchly by her old ally, France, and would have nothing to do with that dirty little slice of the worst part of Spain—Portugal, or her brandified potations. In the old Scotch houses, a cask of claret stood in the cellar, on the tap. In the humblest Scotch country tavern, the pewtertappit hen, holding some three quarts, "reamed,"Anglicé, mantled, with claret just drawn from the cask. At length, in an evil hour, Scotland fell—

"Bold and erect the Caledonian stood,Firm was his mutton, and his claret good;'Let him drink port!' the English statesman cried;He drank the poison, and his spirit died!"

This will look like treason to a good many of our readers; but we beg them to reflect, that in preferring claret to port, Mr Reach is, after all, an advocate of temperance; and they may therefore hope, that by degrees his potations will become thinner and thinner, till they at last come down—like Mike Lambourne's intentions—to water, 'nothing save fair water.' Our belief, indeed, is, that the excessive duty placed on French wines is a main cause of intemperance in its modern forms; for the dearth of the article drives people to spirits, and other intoxicating agents. Let the light claret (vin ordinaire) of France become a cheap and accessible drink, and we say advisedly that there would soon be a marked improvement in the matter of general sobriety.

As our author proceeds towards the claret district—for the book is in the form of a tour—he chats away very agreeably about everything he sees on the road. We shall not meddle, however, with this part of the volume, otherwise than to notice a peculiarity we have ourselves been frequently struck with—the countryness of small towns in France. There is no aristocracy to be met with there, no higher classes to set the fashion, no professional functionaries to look up to. 'You hardly see an individual who does not appear to have been born and bred upon the spot, and to have no ideas andno desires beyond it. Left entirely to themselves, the people have vegetated in these dull streets from generation to generation, and, though clustered together in a quasi town—perhaps with octroi and mairie, a withered tree of liberty, and billiard-tables by the half-dozen—the population is as essentially rural as though scattered in lone farms, unvisited, except on rent-day, by either landlord or agent.'

After reaching Bordeaux, the tourist proceeded to the village of Margaux, in the true claret country—a general idea of which he gives by describing it as a debatable ground, stretching between the sterile Landes and the fat, black loam of the banks of the Garonne. The soil is sand, gravel, and shingle, scorched by the sun, and would be incapable of yielding as much nourishment to a patch of oats as is found on 'the bare hillside of some cold, bleak, Highland croft.' On this unpromising ground, grow those grapes which produce the finest wine in the world. As for the vines themselves, they have about as much of the picturesque as our drills of potatoes at home. 'Fancy open and unfenced expanses of stunted-looking, scrubby bushes, seldom rising two feet above the surface, planted in rows upon the summit of deep furrow-ridges, and fastened with great care to low, fence-like lines of espaliers, which run in unbroken ranks from one end of the huge fields to the other. These espaliers or lathes are cuttings of the walnut-trees around; and the tendrils of the vine are attached to the horizontally running stakes with withes, or thongs of bark. It is curious to observe the vigilant pains and attention with which every twig has been supported without being strained, and how things are arranged so as to give every cluster as fair a chance as possible of a goodly allowance of sun.' There are some exceptions to this; but the low regular dwarfs are the great wine-givers. 'Walk and gaze, until you come to the most shabby, stunted, weazened, scrubby, dwarfish, expanse of snobbish bushes, ignominiously bound neck and crop to the espaliers like a man on the rack—these utterly poor, starved, and meagre-looking growths, allowing as they do the gravelly soil to shew in bald patches of gray shingle through the straggling branches—these contemptible-looking shrubs, like paralysed and withered raspberries, it is which produce the most priceless, and the most inimitably flavoured wines.' The grapes are such mean and pitiful grapes as you would look at with contempt in Covent-Garden Market; and the very value of the soil contributes to its appearance of destitution—a rudely-carved stake marking the division of properties where a hedge or ditch would take up too much of the precious ground. The vineyards extend to the roadside, without any protection; and yet every living creature, whether man or animal, eats grapes habitually, morning, noon, and night, and to an excess that is perfectly wonderful.

When the fruit is ripe, the fact is announced to the community 'by authority;' and until the proclamation appears, no man must gather his grapes if they should be dropping from the bushes. The signal, however, is at length given, and the work begins. 'The scene is at once full of beauty, and of tender and even sacred associations. The songs of the vintagers, frequently chorussed from one part of the field to the other, ring blithely into the bright summer air, pealing out above the rough jokes and hearty peals of laughter shouted hither and thither. All the green jungle is alive with the moving figures of men and women, stooping among the vines, or bearing pails and basketfuls of grapes out to the grass-grown cross-roads, along which the labouring oxen drag the rough vintage-carts, groaning and cracking as they stagger along beneath their weight of purple tubs, heaped high with the tumbling masses of luscious fruit. The congregation of every age and both sexes, and the careless variety of costume, add additional features of picturesqueness to the scene. The white-haired old man labours with shaking hands to fill the basket which his black-eyed imp of a grandchild carries rejoicingly away. Quaint, broad-brimmed straw and felt hats; handkerchiefs twisted like turbans over straggling elf-locks; swarthy skins tanned to an olive-brown; black flashing eyes; and hands and feet stained in the abounding juices of the precious fruit—all these southern peculiarities of costume and appearance supply the vintage with its pleasant characteristics. The clatter of tongues is incessant. A fire of jokes and jeers, of saucy questions and more saucy retorts—of what, in fact, in the humble and unpoetic, but expressive vernacular, is called "chaff"—is kept up with a vigour which seldom flags, except now and then, when the but-end of a song, or the twanging close of a chorus, strikes the general fancy, and procures for themorceaua lustyencore. Meantime, the master wine-grower moves observingly from rank to rank. No neglected bunch of fruit escapes his watchful eye; no careless vintager shakes the precious berries rudely upon the soil, but he is promptly reminded of his slovenly work. Sometimes the tubs attract the careful superintendent: he turns up the clusters, to ascertain that no leaves nor useless length of tendril are entombed in the juicy masses, and anon directs his steps to the pressing-trough, anxious to find that the lusty treaders are persevering manfully in their long-continued dance.'

The pressure of the grapes is a curious part of the process in an age of mechanical improvement like the present. It is performed by men treading among the fruit with their naked feet. 'The wine-press, orcuvier de pressoir, consists, in the majority of cases, of a massive shallow tub, varying in size from four square feet to as many square yards. It is placed either upon wooden trestles, or on a regularly built platform of mason-work, under the huge rafters of a substantial outhouse. Close to it stands a range of great butts, their number more or less, according to the size of the vineyard. The grapes are flung by tub and caskfuls into the cuvier. The treaders stamp diligently amid the masses, and the expressed juice pours plentifully out of a hole level with the bottom of the trough into a sieve of iron or wicker-work, which stops the passage of the skins, and from thence drains into tubs below. Suppose, at the moment of our arrival, the cuvier for a brief space empty. The treaders—big, perspiring men, in shirts and tucked-up trousers—spattered to the eyes with splatches of purple juice, lean upon their wooden spades, and wipe their foreheads. But their respite is short. The creak of another cart-load of tubs is heard, and immediately the wagon is backed up to the broad open window, or rather hole in the wall, above the trough. A minute suffices to wrench out tub after tub, and to tilt their already half-mashed clusters splash into the reekingpressoir. Then to work again. Jumping with a sort of spiteful eagerness into the mountain of yielding, quivering fruit, the treaders sink almost to the knees, stamping, and jumping, and rioting in the masses of grapes, as fountains of juice spurt about their feet, and rush bubbling and gurgling away. Presently, having, as it were, drawn the first sweet blood of the new cargo, the eager trampling subsides into a sort of quiet, measured dance, which the treaders continue, while, with their wooden spades, they turn the pulpy remnants of the fruit hither and thither, so as to expose the half-squeezed berries in every possible way to the muscular action of the incessantly moving feet. All this time, the juice is flowing in a continuous stream into the tubs beneath. When the jet begins to slacken, the heap is well tumbled with the wooden spades, and, as though a new force had been applied, the juice-jet immediately breaks out afresh. It takes, perhaps, half or three quarters of an hour thoroughly to squeeze the contents of a good-sized cuvier, sufficiently manned.'In defence of this primitive process, it is alleged that no mechanical wine-press could perform the work with the same perfection as the human foot; and as for the impurities the juice may acquire from any want of cleanliness in the operations, these, and every other atom of foreign matter, are thrown to the surface in the act of fermentation.

The expressed juice is now carried away in tubs, and flung into the fermenting vats. Our author saw the vats in the Château Margaux cellars the day after they had been filled, and heard, deep down, 'perhaps eight feet down in the juice, a seething, gushing sound, as if currents and eddies were beginning to flow, in obedience to the influence of the working spirit; and now and then a hiss and a low bubbling throb, as though of a pot about to boil.' In a little while, it would have been impossible to breathe an atmosphere thus saturated with carbonic acid gas; and the superintendents can only watch the process of nature by listening outside the door to 'the inarticulate accents and indistinct rumblings' which proclaim a great metempsychosis. 'Is there not something fanciful and poetic in the notion of this change taking place mysteriously in the darkness, when all the doors are locked and barred—for the atmosphere about the vats is death—as if nature would suffer no idle prying into her mystic operations, and as if the grand transmutation and projection from juice to wine had in it something of a secret and solemn and awful nature—fenced round, as it were, and protected from vulgar curiosity by the invisible halo of stifling gas?'

The vintagers naturally claim our attention next. A portion of them are, of course, the peasantry of the village and neighbourhood; but a country like France, swarming with poor who are not mendicants, has of course a floating population, that surges almost instinctively upon every spot where there is pleasant work to do. The vintage not merely affords this work, but being attended with all sorts of jollity, the crowds it collects have a peculiarly vagabond character. You see at a glance that they are there upon a spree, and submit to the labour, not as anything they like, or are accustomed to, but as a mere passport to the fun. They are in France what the Irish harvesters and the Kent hop-pickers are in England, although always preserving the peculiarities, that distinguish the former country, giving even her vagabondage a melodramatic look, just as if they were 'made up' for the occasion. 'The gendarmerie,' says our author, 'have a busy time of it when these gentry are collected in numbers in the district. Poultry disappear with the most miraculous promptitude; small linen articles hung out to dry have no more chance than if Falstaff's regiment were marching by; and garden fruit and vegetables, of course, share the results produced by a rigid application of the maxim, thatla propriété c'est la vol. Where these people come from is a puzzle. There will be vagrants and strollers among them from all parts of France—from the Pyrenees and the Alps—from the pine-woods of the Landes and the moors of Brittany. They unite in bands of a dozen or a score men and women, appointing a chief, who bargains with the vine-proprietor for the services of the company, and keeps up some degree of order and subordination, principally by means of the unconstitutional application of a good thick stick. I frequently encountered these bands, making their way from one district to another; and better samples of 'the dangerous classes' were never collected. They looked vicious and abandoned, as well as miserably poor. The women, in particular, were as brazen-faced a set of slatterns as could be conceived; and the majority of the men—tattered, strapping-looking fellows, with torn slouched hats and tremendous cudgels—were exactly the sort of persons a nervous gentleman would have scruples about meeting at dusk in a long lane. It is when thus on the tramp that the petty pilfering, and picking and stealing, to which I have alluded to, goes on. When actually at work, they have no time for picking up unconsidered trifles. Sometimes these people pass the night—all together, of course—in outhouses or barns, when thechefcan strike a good bargain; at other times, they bivouac on the lee-side of a wood or wall, in genuine gipsy fashion. You may often see their watchfires glimmering in the night; and be sure that where you do, there are twisted necks and vacant nests in many a neighbouring henroost.' Mr Reach witnessed an altercation, respecting passage-money, between a party of these wanderers and a ferryman of the Garonne; and it ended in the vintagers refusing to cross the river, rather than submit to the overcharge, as they contended it was, of a sou. 'A bivouac was soon formed. Creeping under the lee of a row of casks, on the shingle of the bare beach, the women were placed leaning against the somewhat hard and large pillows in question; the children were nestled at their feet and in their laps; and the men formed the outermost ranks. A supply of loaves was sent for and obtained. The chief tore the bread up into huge hunks, which he distributed to his dependents; and upon this supper the whole party went coolly to sleep—more coolly, indeed, than agreeably—for a keen north wind was whistling along the sedgy banks of the river, and the red blaze of high-piled fagots was streaming from the houses across the black, cold, turbid waters.'

If our author's picture of the vine is notcouleur de rose, he is still less complimentary to the olive. Languedoc is the country of the latter luxury; and Languedoc is in the south of France—aptly termed 'the austere south.' 'Itisaustere, grim, sombre. It never smiles: it is scathed and parched. There is no freshness or rurality in it. It does not seem the country, but a vast yard—shadeless, glaring, drear, and dry. Let us glance from our elevated perch over the district we are traversing. A vast, rolling wilderness of clodded earth, browned and baked by the sun; here and there masses of red rock heaving themselves above the soil like protruding ribs of the earth, and a vast coating of drowthy dust, lying like snow upon the ground. To the left, a long ridge of iron-like mountains—on all sides rolling hills, stern and kneaded, looking as though frozen. On the slopes and in the plains, endless rows of scrubby, ugly trees, powdered with the universal dust, and looking exactly like mop-sticks. Sprawling and straggling over the soil beneath them, jungles of burnt-up, leafless bushes, tangled, and apparently neglected. The trees are olives and mulberries—the bushes, vines.' This is a picture that will not impress an Englishman with the due sensation of dreariness, unless he recollects that in France there are no enclosures—that the country lies spread out before him, in some parts and seasons, like a richly variegated carpet; in others, like an Arabian desert. The romantic, Eastern, Biblical olive!—what is it? 'The trunk, a weazened, sapless-looking piece of timber, the branches spreading out from it like the top of a mushroom; and the colour, when you can see it for dust, a cold, sombre, grayish green. One olive is as like another as one mop-stick is like another. The tree has no picturesqueness, no variety. It is not high enough to be grand, and not irregular enough to be graceful. Put it beside the birch, the beech, the elm, or the oak, and you will see the poetry of the forest, and its poorest and most meagre prose.'

The mop-stick appearance of the olive is an artificial beauty; to make it look like an umbrella is thene plus ultraof arboriculture. But the present race of olives, twist and torment them as we will, are inferior to those of the times of our grandfather. 'Towards the close of the last century, there was a winter night of intense frost; and when the morning broke, the trees were nearly smitten to the core. That year, there was not an olive gathered in Provence or Languedoc. Thenext season, some of the stronger and younger trees partially revived, and slips were planted from those to which the axe had been applied; but the entire species of the tree had fallen off—had dwindled, and pined, and become stunted; and the profits of olive cultivation had faded with it.' Olive-gathering, it will be felt, is a slow affair. The getting in this harvest is 'as business-like and unexciting as weeding onions, or digging potatoes. A set of ragged peasants—the country people hereabouts are poorly dressed—were clambering barefoot in the trees, each man with a basket tied before him, and lazily plucking the dull oily fruit. Occasionally, the olive-gatherers had spread a white cloth beneath the tree, and were shaking the very ripe fruit down; but there was neither jollity nor romance about the process. The olive is a tree of association, but that is all. Its culture, its manuring and clipping, and trimming and grafting—the gathering of its fruits, and their squeezing in the mill, when the ponderous stone goes round and round in the glutinous trough, crushing the very essence out of the oily pulps, while the fat oleaginous stream pours lazily into the greasy vessels set to receive it; all this is as prosaic and uninteresting, as if the whole Royal Agricultural Society were presiding in spirit over the operations.'

Our readers will now see that this is a racy, vigorous book, full of new remark and clever painting; and we recommend them to test the correctness of our opinions, therefore, by having recourse to the volume itself, which is neither large nor expensive.

FOOTNOTES:[1]Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone; or, Notes, Social, Picturesque, and Legendary, by the Way.By Angus B. Reach. London: David Bogue. 1852.

[1]Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone; or, Notes, Social, Picturesque, and Legendary, by the Way.By Angus B. Reach. London: David Bogue. 1852.

Return to Table of Contents

April 1852.

A good many comments and congratulations have passed of late touching the change of system introduced into one of our official strongholds, which dates from the days of the Plantagenets, perhaps earlier; for Sir J. Herschel, as Master of the Mint, has made his first Report to the Lords of the Treasury concerning the money-coining establishment over which he presides, with little ostentation, but much benefit. According to the Order in Council, issued in March of last year, the Mint-Board, the contract with the melter, and the moneyers' privileges, were all abolished, and a new system of business introduced. The melter's arguments in favour of retaining his portion of the establishment were not successful, as it has been found that the melting and refining can be done much cheaper at private works; and the melting department is now separated from the Mint, and leased, it is said, to one of the Rothschilds. Of course, the dispossessed functionaries get compensation and pensions, as also the moneyers' apprentices, who had paid L.1000 to learn the 'art and mystery,' with the prospect of one day becoming members of the fraternity. The coining is still to be carried on on the premises, as the contracts offered for doing the work out of doors were too high or too incompetent; the 'engraver or die-sinker' is no longer to be permitted to work on his own private account; and, what is still better, when a new medal or new model is wanted, the best artists of the country are to have the opportunity of shewing their skill in the requisite designs; and, last, dealers in bullion will no longer be allowed to refine their gold at the public cost, for all the metal sent in in future 'must not exceed the standard weight.' Thus, a most important reform is accomplished—one that will give general satisfaction, stimulate talent, and save L.11,000 a year to the country, when the L.8000 now paid as pensions reverts to the Treasury.

The Post-office is helping on the work of intercommunication with praiseworthy diligence. Think of now being able to send a pound of 'books, maps, or prints, and any quantity of paper, vellum, or parchment, either printed, written, or plain, or any mixture of the three'—for sixpence, to any part of the United Kingdom! There are many branches of business that will be materially improved by this regulation; and we may hope to see it followed by others not less in accordance with the advancing requirements of the age.

The Nineveh sculptures are now being arranged in the British Museum; one of them weighs fifteen tons, and is an extraordinary specimen of Assyrian art. When in their places, they will be much studied; and, fortunately, more time is to be allowed for this purpose, for the authorities of the Museum have announced, that they will open the doors at nine in the morning, and keep them open till six in the evening, during the best part of the summer. The fate of the Crystal Palace is for the moment a pressing subject of talk. Perhaps the French would buy it, if it be really condemned, for they are already talking of a Great Exposition to be held in 1854, and have come to the conclusion, that twenty-seven months will not be too long to make the preparations: it is expected that all nations will be invited to join. There is to be an exhibition this year also at Breslau, in a building composed in good part of glass, at which Prussia will make a display of her handiwork, and try to get customers for the articles carried home unsold from our spectacle. In more ways than one, the beneficial consequences of the Exhibition of 1851 are shewing themselves. To take but one particular—it has produced a vast amount of literature, and will yet produce more.

Before this appears in print, the new arctic expedition will probably have sailed, to make what we must consider as the final search for Sir John Franklin. This time, Sir Edward Belcher is commander, who, though a rigid disciplinarian, and something beyond, is well known as a most energetic and persevering officer. He is to explore that portion of Wellington Channel discovered by Captain Penny, and to get as far to the north-west as possible—to Behring's Strait, if he can. Whatever else may happen, there are few who will not hope that the mystery respecting the missing explorers, who sailed on their fatal voyage in 1845, may now be cleared up. In order to facilitate Captain Beatson's operations, the Emperor Nicholas has sent instructions to the governors of the Russian trading-ports on the arctic coast, to lend such aid as may be in their power. Thus, good-will is not lacking; indeed, if that could have found the lost adventurers, they would have been discovered long ago.

Some of our engineers and naval men are greatly interested in a subject which has, from time to time, during many years, met with a passing notice—namely, the gradual growth of the banks and shoals in the North Sea from the solid matters carried into it by the rivers of England and Holland. Although slow, the increase is said to be such as to lead to the inference, that this sea will be filled up at some future day. A large chart has just been published, with contour lines of the various banks, to illustrate a treatise on the subject. If these be correct, we have at once valuable data by which to test the question of increase of magnitude. The matter will shortly be discussed by one of our scientific societies. Meantime, the reclamation of a new county from the sea is going on on the Lincolnshire coast; and there appears to be a prospect of a similar work being undertaken on the western shore—at Liverpool. Mr G. Rennie has prepared a plan for a breakwater five miles long, to be constructed at the mouth of the Mersey, stretching out from Black Rock Point. If carried into execution, it will reclaim a vast extent of sandbanks lying within it, and greatly improve the navigable channel of the river. A proposal has been made to apply sewage manure to the reclaimed land, in such ways as will constitute a satisfactory trial of this means of fertilisation; and also to reserve suitable portions as sites for building societies. Sucha project as this would be worthy of the enterprise of Liverpool; but it would be well for the promoters to bear in mind a fact which has lately been urged, that by encroaching on the space of an estuary, you prevent the inflow of the tide, and consequently diminish or weaken the outflow, whereby the whole harbour becomes shallower, and the bar at the mouth augments in bulk.

Although there is nothing extraordinary to talk about in the way of scientific discovery at present, workers in science are not idle, and are steadily pursuing their investigations. Faraday has added another chapter to his 'Experimental Researches in Electricity;' Mr Grove has contributed somewhat to our knowledge of the 'Polarity of Gases;' a paper by Mr Wharton Jones, entitled 'Discovery that the Veins of the Bat's Wing (which are furnished with Valves) are endowed with Rythmical Contractility, and that the Onward Flow of Blood is accelerated by each Contraction,' is considered to be decisive of a question of some importance in physiology—namely, that the circulation of the blood in the wings is independent of the motion of the heart. Mr Huxley's paper in the Philosophical Transactions is also a remarkable one—one of those which really constitute progress. Although it is not easy to give a popular exposition of it, I may tell you that it discusses the subject of 'alternate generation;' a favourite one, as you will remember, with several naturalists, according to whom, certain of theMedusæare of one sex at one period of their lives, and of the other sex at another. But Mr Huxley shews, by observation and experiment onSalpaandPyrosoma, that each has independent powers of reproduction, and his facts are conclusive against the theory of 'alternation of generations.' The two generations, as now appears, are not of distinct individuals, but are both required to make a complete individual. This paper will be sure to provoke criticism, and perhaps excite further research. Mr Hopkins has been enlightening the Geological Society 'On the Causes of the Changes of Climate at Different Geological Periods;' and assigns as one of the causes, the flowing of the gulf-stream in a different direction formerly to that which it follows at present, whereby the northern ice was brought down in great masses to form our glacial period.

Some of oursavansare interested in Professor Simpson's communication to your Edinburgh Botanical Society, concerning his experiments on Alpine plants kept covered with snow by artificial means in an ice-house for several months. He finds that plants and seeds so treated sprout and germinate rapidly when exposed to the warm air of spring and summer. It appears also that chrysales similarly treated become moths in about one-tenth of the time required under ordinary circumstances; from which facts, and the celerity of vegetation in Canada and the arctic regions, Professor Simpson infers that, if we in this country were to keep our grain in ice-houses during the winter, we should get quicker and better crops, and avoid the ill consequences which sometimes attend sowing in autumn, or too early in spring. The subject is novel as well as interesting, to say nothing of its bearing on agriculture, and we shall be glad to see the promised results of further inquiry.

There are one or two other Scottish matters which may be mentioned. One is the discovery by Dr Penny of Glasgow, of potash salts in considerable quantity in the soot from blast-furnaces. In our iron districts, and among our iron merchants, it is undergoing that sort of discussion which savours of profit. Potash salts are so valuable, that if the discovery can be reduced to economical practice, there is no doubt that the hitherto wasted and unrecognised substance will be turned to good account. The other is the 'Platometer,' invented by Mr Sang of Kirkcaldy, described as a 'self-acting calculator of surface;' in other words, by using this contrivance, you may get the 'square measure included within any boundary-line around which a pen attached to the instrument may be carried'—in the plan of an estate, or a map, for example, where the plots of ground are often extremely irregular in form, and difficult to measure, without much complicated calculation. When Arthur Young wished to ascertain the relative proportions of cultivated and uncultivated land in France, he cut up a map of the country, and weighed them one against the other; but the platometer would have helped him to a more satisfactory conclusion. The mode by which it effects its purpose is very simple, 'the essential parts being merely two axles, one of them carrying a cone, by which the computations are silently performed as the pen proceeds on its journey; and the other a small wheel, having numbers on it which tell the result in square measure.' The contents are given with considerable rapidity, and, it is said, with more exactitude than by any other process: the instrument, therefore, is practically useful as well as curious.

Among matters connected with the Académie, Prince Demidoff has asked for instructions as to how he may best serve the cause of science during a journey which he proposes to undertake into Siberia, accompanied by a scientific staff. The prince, who is proprietor of the richest malachite mines in Russia, has already made similar explorations in other parts of Europe, and published the results at his own cost, superbly illustrated, and has presented copies of the works to most of the scientific societies. He could not have better advisers for the purpose contemplated, than he will find among those to whom he has applied. Then a M. Rochas informs the Académie, that a photographic image on a metal-plate, transferred immediately to albumenised glass, may be reproduced and multiplied on paper in any number. Daguerreotypes of waves beating on the sea-shore have been exhibited, which were taken on glass thus prepared in a very minute fraction of a second. Add to this, a plan for a double line of submarine railway from Calais to Dover; a statement from M. Gaietta, that the aurora borealis is nothing more than spontaneously inflamed carburet of hydrogen; and a report from a learned anatomist, on the use, instead of the knife in amputation, of a platinum wire heated red-hot by a battery—and you may form a notion of the variety of communications that comes before the Frenchsavans. M. Peligot furnishes some details respecting silk-worms. He shews that in every 100 parts of mulberry leaves, as supplied, the result is from 8 to 9 of worms, 36 to 40 of egested matters, and 45 to 46 of dry litter and waste. That the sixth part only of what the worms consume tends to their nourishment, the remainder goes in respiration and dejection; and that, with the data now obtained, it is possible to calculate the maximum weight of cocoons from a given weight of leaves—it being from 60 to 70 in 1000. He shews further, that in years when leaves are scarce, the loss to the proprietors need not be total, for it is possible to keep the worms on short allowance, and collect their produce, though not so largely as when no privation exists. And what is singular, that the weight of silk is not in proportion to the weight of the worm or moth; heavy and light cocoons contain the same quantity of silk, the difference arises only from the different weight of the worms. Hence M. Peligot considers, that it would be well to destroy the females when first hatched—of course with a reserve for breeding—and keep only the males, which eat less, and give an equal quantity of silk. But as yet the sexes cannot be distinguished, while in the worm state.

You are aware that one of the most interesting geological problems of our day is, that of the rise and fall of the land in Sweden: a good deal has been said on both sides. The Academy of Sciences at Stockholm has, however, taken measures to settle the question. It has chosen sixteen stations, chiefly between Haparanda and Strömstad, where daily observationsare made and recorded on the height of the sea. This is the great point to be determined; hitherto, it has been left too much to chance, or to the attention of casual travellers. In connection with it, the rate of elevation would be ascertained, whether it is everywhere the same, and continuous or intermittent. It has been stated, that at Stockholm the rise was four feet in 100 years, and greater still in the Gulf of Bothnia; but Mr Erdmann of Stockholm, in a memoir on the subject, shews reason to doubt the fact. The house in which he resides, standing near the port, was built at the beginning of the seventeenth century; when the water of the adjacent sea is raised two feet above the ordinary level, which happens but rarely, his cellar is always flooded. Therefore, assuming the rise of the land at four feet in the century, it follows, with only half that height, that when the house was built, the floor of the cellar was constantly under water, which is hardly likely to have been the case. He mentions also the observations made at the sluices of the Mælar Lake, from which a rise of one foot in a century had been inferred, but states that a defect in the measuring-scale completely invalidates the results. In addition to what the Academy are doing, he has had a reference-mark cut on the face of the steep rock of the citadel, so that, in the course of a few years, we shall be in a position to judge in how far the theory of elevation and subsidence of land in Sweden is borne out by the facts.

This reminds one that coral-reefs have been much talked about of late: the opinion is, that they grow in height about an inch and a quarter yearly. Means have also been taken to decide this question. When the American Exploring Expedition lay at Tahiti, Captain Wilkes had a stone-slab fixed on Point Venus, and the distance from it to the Dolphin Shoal below carefully ascertained, so that future measurements will test the theory.

Mr Wells, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, shews that there are causes, besides those usually assigned, which will produce stratification, or those interruptions which occur in deposits. He was engaged in examination of soils; and washed earth through a filter, at times so slowly as to occupy fourteen days in the process, and dried the sediment at a temperature of 250 degrees. This, when dry, he found to be perfectly stratified in divisional planes; sometimes accordant, at others irregular, and shewing difference of material—namely, silica and alumina:

'The strata so produced,' he says, 'were in some instances exceedingly perfect and beautiful, not altogether horizontal, but slightly curved, and in some degree conforming to the shape of the funnel. The production of laminæ was also noticed, especially by the cleavage of the strata produced into thin, delicate, parallel plates, when moistened with water. These arrangements, it is evident, were not caused by any interruption or renewal of the matter deposited, or by any change in the quality of the particles deposited, but from two other causes entirely distinct, and which I conceive to be these—first, from a tendency in earthy matter, subjected to the filtering, soaking, and washing of water for a considerable period, to arrange itself according to its degree of fineness, or, perhaps, according to the specific gravity of the particles, and thus form strata; and, secondly, from a tendency in earthy matter, consolidated both by water and subsequent exsiccation, to divide, independently of the fineness or quality of its component particles, into strata or laminæ.'

Whether Mr Wells be right in his conclusions, remains to be proved; geologists will not fail to examine into his proofs. They may, however, remember, that Agassiz has remarked, that saw-dust through which water has been filtered, will 'assume a regular stratified appearance;' and that, in beds of clay and clay-slate, the deposits are such as to justify these conclusions.

TheFelix MeritisSociety at Amsterdam propose to give their gold medal, or twenty gold ducats (L.10), for the best answer to the questions—'What are the re-agents the most proper to demonstrate, in a sure and easy way, the presence of ozone, and to determine its quantity? Does ozone always exist in the atmosphere, and under what circumstances, regard being had to the seasons and hour of the day, is it found to increase or diminish? From what properties can it be inferred that ozone is favourable or hurtful to the animal economy, and what has experiment made known in this respect, particularly in the appearance or disappearance of epidemic diseases?'

The treatises are to be distinguished by a device, not by the author's signature: they may be written in English, French, Dutch, or German, and are to be sent addressed—Felix Meritis, Amsterdam, before May 1, 1853. The Society reserve to themselves the right of publishing the successful paper at their own cost.

Return to Table of Contents

on overhearing a little child (a visitor) saying'mamma' in the next room.

Back to Index Next