From the frequent mention of vessels of glass and earthenware, the reader will naturally expect a notice of the arts to which they were due. In Greece and Etruria the fictile art was early developed, and there existed a guild of potters in Rome so early as the time of Numa. The instruments used in the manufacture of pottery—the horizontal revolving table, and the sticks used to vary the shape of the clay during its rotation, together with moulds and graving tools, are among the most ancient inventions. The pottery formed by the Greeks and Romans was of the soft variety, that is, the baked clay of which the vessels are composed may be easily scratched with the knife. The earth was commonly red in color, as we see in the ground of so many Etrurian vases. But other specimens are white, and an artificial black was frequently produced. Varnishes of asphalte, pitch, or tar, burned into the clay, were often employed, and the inner surface of the wine-jars was roughly coated in this manner. For their bright colors the ancients used earths and the ores of various metals. The art of painting vases employed a large number of artists in Greece. Curiously enough, it seems to have died a natural death before the times of the Roman empire; and in consequence, ancient painted vases became very costly, and were much sought for by the connoisseurs. The chief colors employed were black and yellow; the designing is frequently good, but the execution cannot compare with that of the middle-age Italian and other schools of vase painting.
Samos, Athens, end Etruria, were most famous for the exercise of the potter’s art, though many other places were seats of the manufacture. The kilns used for baking were circular in form—in general appearance something like a lime-kiln, but differing in the greater care with which they were built, and in their internal arrangement. They were covered with a dome-shaped roof, and the wares were baked on a circular floor, supported in the centre by a column, round which the fire was lighted.
One object of emulation among the Greek potters was to make vessels of perfect form and great tenuity. Such vessels when produced were highly valued, and some Athenians seem to have attained a high pitch of excellence in the production of these thin and light vases. Greece was the chief school of design in pottery, as in most other arts; and the less inventive Romans were content to borrow, imitate, or at most, modify the forms and patterns of their neighbors.
It was long thought that the ancients did not understand, or at most practiced in a very imperfect manner, the art of making glass; but the vast number of beautiful specimens which have at length been brought to light, have completely dispelled all doubts of their high proficiency in the manufacture of a great variety of vessels from this material. The blowing of glass is an art of high antiquity, and, together with that of casting the fused material into moulds, was probably derived from the East. Even in later times Alexandria was, perhaps, the chief mart from which Rome derived her supply, though manufactories were established in Italy. In the conception and execution of the more elegant designs, the Greek artists, doubtless, found a peculiar province for the display of their taste and ingenuity. Glass was most extensively employed, both for use and ornament: so common, indeed, did it become, that drinking-vessels were sold in Rome at a cheaper rate than they now are in our own country. The methods of working in glass were, probably, very similar to those now in use. “Some glass is fashioned by blowing, some ground on the lathe, and some chased like silver,” says Pliny; and we know that the diamond was used in this last process. One beautiful specimen yet remains to demonstrate the skill with which they worked the brittle material, in the shape of a cup of opaline hue, round which a blue net-work and a green inscription have been carved; the meshes of the net-work, and the letters of the inscription, being united to the body of the cup by slender supports left during the engraving process. The celebrated Portland vase, now in the British Museum, is composed of a rich, dark-blue glass, covered with designs beautifully executed in opaque white enamel, and afterward fined into union with the body of the vessel. This cup was long supposed to have been cut out of a real sardonyx. The Greeks and Romans were adepts in the art of imitating precious stones by colored glass. To use the words of Beckman—“In the Museum Victorium, for example, there are shown a chrysolite and an emerald, both of which are so well executed, that they are not only perfectly transparent and colored throughout, but neither externally nor internally have the smallest blemish.” The metallic oxides were employed to produce the various colors, and with such success, that frauds by palming false stones on the ignorant were as common then as in our own day. Glass was sometimes made in layers of different colors, and then cut cameo-fashion; or colored stems were united longitudinally in a column, so that the horizontal sections displayed a beautiful pattern. Slips of grass were used, as we have seen, in mosaic pavements; glass in panes was employed for windows, or inserted in walls and ceilings for ornament. A story, perhaps fabulous, is told of an invention by which glass was so far deprived of its brittle qualities, that, when thrown down, the vessel composed of it would not break, but merely bruise, like metal.
Other points yet remain for notice before we quit the subject of domestic life. And first, as in ourcatalogue of chambers we have mentioned the library, a few words on books and writing materials will not be out of place. The books of the Greeks and Romans were written on long rolls of parchment, or sheets of papyrus connected by glue. This long roll of paper or parchment was fitted at each end to a wooden roller. The reader wound that part of the roll which he had perused on to the left-hand roller, and unrolled the next page from the right-hand roller, proceeding thus until he reached the end of the volume. The writing was arranged in lines which ran lengthwise along the roll, and were divided into columns or pages of a convenient width. The back of the roll was stained, usually of a saffron color, and the volume provided with a yellow or purple parchment case. The ends of the rollers were often ornamented with carved bosses, and a label bearing the title was affixed to the roll. The ink for writing was similar to the Indian ink in use among ourselves; and was prepared either from lamp-black or the dye of the cuttle-fish. Red ink was also employed. The pen was formed from a reed, split and shaped much like our own quills. The booksellers in Rome were, of course, few when compared with the same class in a modern town; but their numbers were great, from the fact that they not only sold books, but also transcribed them. But nations had their public and private libraries, and the value of some collections was immense. The books in a library were arranged in cedar-wood presses round the walls.
The ordinary apparatus for writing consisted of thin wooden tablets, overlaid on one side with a coat of wax, on which the letters were traced by indentation with a pointed metal pencil, or style. The waxen side of each tablet was furnished with a rim, to prevent the characters from rubbing. Two tablets, commonly, and sometimes three, were bound together so as to form a small book; and when three were united, the centre leaf had a layer of wax on both sides. The frames were pierced with holes, and when the letter or memorandum was finished, the adjacent edges of the closed tablets were bound together by a thread passed through the holes, knotted and secured by a seal of simple wax. The signets used for impression were cut in various devices; and this engraving of gems is an art in which the Greeks and Romans excelled most highly. Some tablets have been discovered in which the writing ran from right to left. The custom of using wax tablets again appears in the middle ages.
In their contrivances for measuring time the ancients were strikingly deficient. The length of their hours depended on that of the day, inasmuch as they divided the space between sunrise and sunset into twelve equal portions. Even their sun-dials were but imperfect; and the clepsydræ or hour-glasses, in which the flow of water, not of sand, was the measure of time, were very inaccurate, in spite of all improvements effected in them. They were at first constructed of bronze or earthenware, but afterward of glass. Ctesibius, an Alexandrian mathematician, invented a kind of water-clock, B. C. 135, in which the dropping of water turned various wheels, and raised a small statue, which pointed to the hours. But the great element of inaccuracy, the unequal flow of the liquid, was manifestly present in this contrivance. Punctuality among the ancients must have been no more than a coincidence of guesses.
To describe the general type of Greek and Roman dress is a comparatively simple task. There was but little employment for the tailor or dressmaker in Greece or Italy, most of the fabrics of the loom being worn as scarfs or shawls, arranged in loose folds about the person. Fashion, therefore, had much more influence on the material than on the form.
By the Ionic race a long, loose under-garment, or tunic, was at first worn by the men; but afterward this was exchanged for the shorter woollen tunic, worn almost exclusively by the other tribes of Greece. Over this, a large square or oblong cloth, fastened above the right shoulder with a brooch, fell in those graceful folds which constitute the charm of ancient costume. In Rome the outer garment was semicircular in form, of more ample size, white in color, and familiar to us all under the celebrated name of toga. The mode of arranging the folds of the toga varied at different times, but the general idea of the garment was always the same. The color of the toga was either that of the undyed wool, or it was further whitened by the fuller’s art. In one form—the trabea—worn by kings, consuls or knights, purple and white alternated in stripes. The toga was long worn by women, until a loose robe—the stola—reaching to the feet, ornamented with a flounce, and generally furnished with sleeves, usurped its place among the fair sex. Various beautiful shawls, veils, and scarfs, of elaborate tissues, embroidered and richly dyed, were worn by ladies of rank in both nations.
In Greece and Rome those wonderful inventions by which a few towns have become the workshop of the world were as yet undreamt of, and the simpler operations of the loom were frequent beside every household hearth. Even the plan of the house among the Greeks was influenced by this circumstance, for we have seen that a distinct place was assigned for the domestic works of spinning and weaving.
The first operation to be noticed is the spinning of the flax, cotton, or wool into thread. The material to be spun was first rolled into a ball and supported on the distaff, a stick of wood or ivory, which passed through the centre of the ball and was held in the left hand of the person spinning. The fibres of the raw material were drawn out and twisted by the finger, and then fixed into the notch or cleft of the spindle. This was formed of a slender shaft of wood about a foot long, furnished at one end with a slit to catch the thread, and inserted at the other end into a circular piece of heavy wood, stone, or metal. The spindle was kept in constant revolution by the hand of the spinner, and by its weight drew the fibres out of the ball of raw material. These fibres were twistedinto thread, partly by the fingers and partly by the whirling of the spindle. When the spindle reached the ground the thread was wound on its shaft, again fixed in the cleft, and the same process repeated till the shaft was covered with as much spun thread as it could carry. The reel thus formed was fixed in a hollow case—the shuttle—so as to revolve freely within it, and the thread was drawn out through a small hole in the enclosing case.
The loom consisted of a simple frame-work, oblong in shape, and erected almost always in a perpendicular position, so that the weaver stood to perform her task. The warp was arranged in vertical threads between the upper and lower cross-bars of the frame; and the alternate threads were separated by a thin stick or cane, so as to form two sets or layers, between which the threads of the woof were introduced. This passing of the woof-thread was effected either with or without the shuttle; of course, always by hand. When the thread of the woof had been passed between the two layers of the warp, it is plain that these layers must change places in order firmly to inclose the introduced thread;i. e.the anterior layer must become posterior, andvice versa. This end was effected by inclosing each separate thread of the warp in a loop, and fastening all the loops of each layer to a separate stick, so that the person weaving could, by drawing one such stick toward her, cause all the corresponding threads of one layer to start from those of the other layer. By this means, after passing one thread of the woof, the posterior layer of the warp was drawn forward so as firmly to inclose it, and into the space between the layers a new thread of woof was again introduced. The layers of the warp were, of course, decussated in this manner on every successive introduction of a thread of the woof. The woof-thread, when passed, was firmly pressed between the layers of the warp, either by the comb or by the “spatha,” a large, flat wooden instrument, much like an enlarged paper-knife. In simple weaving, the repetition of the process described was all that was requisite to form the material; and striped patterns were easily produced, merely by alternately inserting bands of differently-colored woof. A check resulted when both warp and woof were thus alternately varied in hue. But to form more complicated patterns, an intricate arrangement of the leashes, or sets of loops above described, was necessary.
The warp-threads were always firmer and closer in substance than those of the woof—a necessary consequence of their having to bear the brunt of the whole operation without breaking, which, of course, was an inconvenient hindrance. A thick, soft woof was used to produce the nap required for warm blankets or winter shawls. Any rich material introduced, as Tyrian purple or golden thread, was always used as woof. The colors in Greek and Roman fabrics was always wool-dyed. Dimities, twills, and damasks were all woven by their looms. But the profusion of tapestries, carpets, shawls, and scarfs, of splendid hues and elaborate patterns, were all imported from the East—from Persia, Babylonia, Phœnicia, Egypt, Lydia, and Phrygia; nor were silken fabrics ever a domestic manufacture in Greece or Rome.
Much might be said, did our space permit, of the fulling and dressing of woollen cloths after manufacture. The processes employed were very similar to those in modern use: various kinds of fullers’ earth were used, and alkaline liquids were employed for cleansing; but soap was not known to the ancients.
The art of felting is said to be of greater antiquity even than that of weaving. It was employed among the Greeks and Romans chiefly in the production of coverings for the head, which were worn by people traveling. Among the Greeks caps were more common than among the Romans, who were used to supply their place by drawing a fold of the toga over their heads.
The coverings for the feet were very various in form: some mere sandals, in which the sole was fixed to the foot by bands; others resembled our modern shoes in shape, and covered the foot wholly; whilst a third kind reached up the leg. The tanning and dyeing of leather employed a great number of hands, and the colors chosen were often gay.
Quitting the in-door life of the Roman, let us turn our attention to other monuments of labor and art, which are no less remarkable. Foremost among these stand the sewers and aqueducts of Rome. So thoroughly was the drainage of the city provided for, that the ground was tunneled through and through with arched passages; and Pliny’s expression, “the hanging city,” is literally correct. The most important of the sewers was built under the rule of the elder Tarquin, and planned in a spirit prophetic of future greatness. It is composed of three concentric arches, forming a channel of fourteen feet in diameter, and proportional height. This was the main trunk, into which was discharged the drainage flowing through a multitude of subterranean channels, together with the vast surplus quantity of water from the aqueducts used to cleanse the net-work of drains. A cart loaded with hay could be driven down the main passages, and Agrippa is said to have performed a sanitary voyage in a boat through the main sewers, when superintending their repair.
More attractive, though not more useful, monuments of labor and care for the public health, remain in the aqueducts, by which a plentiful supply of water was always insured to the city of the seven hills—the mere dilapidated remains of which still suffice for her present use. A mere glance at the proportions of some of these noble works, which conveyed the purifying and health-giving element, through hills and across valleys, from sources varying in distance from sixty miles downward, may well raise a blush at the scant and meagre substitutes which we can show in the nineteenth century. Well may Frontinus, in an exulting tone, compare the useful splendor of the nine aqueducts, which in his time supplied the city, with the useless, slave-grownbulk of the pyramids, or the merely decorative works of Grecian towns.
The most remarkable of the nine aqueducts were the Anio Vetus, the Aqua Marcia, the Aqua Claudia, and the Anio Novus. The Anio Vetus brought a supply from the river Anio, a distance of forty miles. It was built B. C. 273, and consisted of a stone water-course, the channel of which was coated with cement. A still longer one was the Aqua Marcia, extending along a distance of fifty-four miles, six and a half miles being above ground, and chiefly supported on arches. So lofty was the level of the terminal reservoir, that the highest parts of the Capitoline Mount could be supplied from it. This aqueduct united toward its termination with two others, in the same pile of masonry, so as to form one range of building, in which the three water-courses occupied different levels, one above the other, and finally discharged their streams into the same reservoir. At the same period that this aqueduct was constructed, 700 wells, 150 springs, and 130 subordinate reservoirs, were added to the former sources of supply. The Marcian Aqueduct was remarkable for the vastness and solidity of its proportions and construction.
Augustus caused an aqueduct to be built specially for the purpose of supplying the vast basin in which he exhibited sham naval fights to the citizens: but the Anio Novus, one of two new aqueducts built by the Emperor Claudius, was the most striking of all in its architectural effect. For six miles before its entrance into the city the water flowed along a channel supported by arches, some of which reached the height of 109 feet, and constituted a range of great beauty.
When an aqueduct was to be constructed, the first step consisted in forming a large basin at the source of the supply. In this the liquid rested to deposit its impurities, and for a similar purpose the channel was expanded into other reservoirs at various intervals along its course. The channel in which the water flowed was formed of stone or brick, covered with a layer of cement. The slope of the water-course, according to Pliny, was only one quarter of an inch in every hundred feet, but Vitruvius makes it six inches in the same distance. It probably varied with circumstances. An arched covering excluded the sun, and vent-holes in the sides or top provided for a free circulation of air. From the castella or reservoirs lying along the course of the channel, adjacent lands were sometimes irrigated. From the terminal reservoir the water was conveyed to its various destinations through pipes of metal or earthenware. These terminal reservoirs were works of great size and solidity. One such at Cuma is 200 feet long by 130 wide, and is covered in by a vaulted roof resting on four rows of pillars. At Rome there were 247 subordinate basins, in which the water from the terminal reservoirs of the various aqueducts was collected, previously to passing to the baths and houses. A staff of officers and a body of laborers were specially provided to keep the aqueducts in repair.
In their mining operations and in the formation of some aqueducts, we have seen that the ancients were obliged to tunnel. But their most remarkable works of this kind are the subterranean passages, by which the Romans drained many large lakes. One such channel, through which the lake Fucino discharged its water, is still nearly perfect. It is more than three miles long, one mile of the distance being carried through the hardest rock, under a mountain 1000 feet in height. Perpendicular and lateral shafts were sunk into the tunnel for the convenience of working, and 30,000 men were employed on the spot at the same time. Where the tunnel passes through earth it in vaulted with brick.
After the aqueducts the baths follow in a natural order. The great fondness of the Greeks and Romans for ablution, which the warmth of their climate rendered a great luxury, early led to ample provision for bathing, both public and private. Both people were familiar with the use of the hot-air bath, which was especially employed by the Spartans; but the warm-water bath, succeeded often by the cold douche, or plunging bath, was most usual. All the appliances that could minister to comfort and luxury in this department were not only known but common; and to such a degree did the splendor of the public baths at Rome attain, that it was not unusual for emperors themselves to bathe amid a throng of meaner citizens. Lofty, vaulted rooms, lighted by glass, with temperatures artificially contrived to suit the different states of the bather; spacious basins, lined with marble, and fitted with marble, bronze, or even silver benches, were plentifully supplied with water, hot, cold, pure, or scented with the most precious perfumes and essences. Porticoes and vestibules adorned with finished works of art, where the bather took his exercise listening to the recitations of poets, the declamation of orators, or the subtle disputes of philosophy; or perhaps reclined in luxurious ease amid the pleasant murmur of adjacent fountains; cool avenues for the promenaders at mid-day, lawns, terraces, and all the best efforts of their ornamental gardening, were united in the Roman Thermæ, or great public establishments for bathing and recreation, planned and executed in the imperial city and provincial towns. One of these, the Thermæ of Caracalla, was more than a mile in circuit.
The water for the baths was heated in brick furnaces, consisting of two rows of cells arranged over the fire, with which the lower row was in contact, while the upper row received the water from the branch of the aqueduct furnishing the supply. Pipes from the lower cells led into the baths, and these pipes were surrounded by flues, in order that the water should not cool in its transit. The party-walls between the cells of the furnace were also traversed by flues, in order to economize fuel as much as possible. Private baths, on a smaller scale, were attached to every house of consequence; and were favorite places for the display of the owner’s wealth.
The theatres of both nations were constructed with great skill, and especial adaptation to the ends of sight and hearing. They were generally built onthe side of a hill, and sometimes, in Greece, literally hewn out of the solid rock. Some were of vast size; the ruins of one at Argos, semi-circular in form, inclose an area 450 feet in diameter. The seats for spectators were arranged in ascending stages, and the outer wall of the structure, behind the topmost row of spectators, was surmounted by a kind of portico, in order to throw back the sound of the actor’s voice. The semi-circular included space was the “orchestra,” where the chorus danced on a boarded floor. The stage, of course, closed the opening of the semi-circle, and was approached from the orchestra by steps. The back of the stage was bounded by a lofty screen, which in the theatre built of wood during the ædileship of M. Æmil. Scaurus was composed of three different substances—the bottom of white marble, the centre of glass, and the highest of gilt wood. The early theatres of Rome were built of wood, but after the time of Pompey stone was universally employed. The art of scene-painting was well understood, and various machines were employed on the stage for instantly changing the scene, or for introducing the actors flying in mid-air.
The amphitheatres of Rome, so called from being as it were double theatres, formed a complete circle, or rather an ellipse. They, too, like theatres, were built of wood, until the time of Augustus, from which period they gradually increased in size and splendor, until Vespasian and Titus caused the crowning work of the kind—the Colisæum—to be erected for the convenience of the immense crowds of sight-seers flocking to the public games. This most celebrated remain of Roman architectural art covers five acres of ground; the longer diameter being 615 feet, and the shorter 510. Four orders of columns, the first pure Doric, the second Ionic, the third Corinthian, and the fourth, Corinthian pilasters, rise one above the other till they attain the great elevation of 160 feet. These columns have one-fourth of their thickness buried in the face of the wall which they ornament. There are eighty columns in each tier, and from their summits spring arches supporting the tier above. There were, therefore, four tiers of seats for the accommodation of spectators, and this sufficiently explains how the building could contain the immense number of 87,000. The numbers contained by these buildings of antiquity were very large; the Attic theatre held 50,000, and the wooden theatre of Scaurus, before-mentioned, could accommodate 80,000.
We have mentioned that the perfect arch was not known to the Greeks; indeed, they have no word for it in their language. But the frequent use of the arch by the Romans, even in walls, where plain masonry would have sufficed, shows it to have been a favorite form of construction, and the triumphal arches built to commemorate victories are among their most splendid remains. Those erected by Drusus, Titus, Septimius Severus, Gallienus, and Constantine, still remain, and with the bas-reliefs commemorative of the events which they were designed to perpetuate still attest the great amount of Roman skill, and the extent of Roman conquests.
Another class of buildings—the basilicæ, exchanges or law courts, are highly interesting from the fact that they were afterward converted into Christian churches. One such edifice was always placed in the forum for the convenience of traders. It was generally of oblong shape, the length being from two to three times greater than the breadth. The earlier edifices of the kind were mere peristyles, or open spaces inclosed by columns, but subsequently the open space was defended by walls—the columns still remaining for ornament. Small private chambers were cut off from one end, for the use of the law officers and merchants; the main area was divided into a nave and two side-aisles. At one extremity of the central nave was placed the tribunal of the judge, which stood within the oblong area so long as the original use of the building merely as a law-court continued; but afterward, when the same edifice was used as an exchange, a semi-circular space was thrown out at one end, and the tribunal placed within this, in order that the seat of justice might not be disturbed by the noise of traffic. The advocates and jurors occupied the space within the semi-circle, while persons interested in the cause were accommodated with side-seats. The columns of the side-aisles supported a gallery, from which rose other columns sustaining a roof usually flat in the centre, and arched down to the supports so as to resemble the shell of the tortoise.
It may, perhaps, seem strange, that in our notice of so many ancient buildings we have not once alluded to temples. The reason for this course is, that no description could be given of such structures without necessitating an account of orders, styles, and proportion, into which our subject does not strictly enter. But the peculiar use of marble in constructing the roofs of temples may be well alluded to in this place. Slabs of this material were employed and fixed, much in the same manner as earthen tiles; descending in parallel rows from the ridge of the roof to the eaves. Bronze, afterward gilt, was also used for the same purpose.
The Greek and Roman towns were generally irregular in plan; their streets narrow and mean, even in Rome, till the great fire in Nero’s reign; after which the city was rebuilt with great regularity. The increasing value of land led to the erection of many-storied houses in the main streets; but the houses of the wealthy were always chiefly composed of ground-floor apartments, wherever space permitted. This subject, and thehouse-carpentry generally of the ancients, is involved in some obscurity.
It remains for us to say a few words regarding the facilities for traveling in those ancient times. The great enterprise displayed by the Romans in undertaking and constructing their road-ways, as well domestic as in foreign countries, is familiar to all of us. There are few who have not seen a long, straight, undeviating road, never turning aside to avoid natural obstacles, but pressing right on to its mark, still denotingby its traditional name the track along which the legions marched to victory. The more perfectly constructed of these ways, after the introduction of paving, were among the most durable monuments of Roman skill in art.
The road was first marked out, then the loose earth was excavated down to a solid foundation, on which the lowest course of stones, about six inches in diameter, was laid. On these was placed a mass of rough stones cemented by mortar, forming a kind of rubble work. Then followed a layer of bricks and pottery broken small, and analogous to the burnt earth frequently now employed in our own railways. This coat was also united into a mass by mortar, and upon it was laid the permanent roadway, consisting of large polygons of flinty pavement or basaltic lava, the edges of which were trimmed and fitted with the greatest care. We must certainly yield the palm to the Romans in the art of paving. They combined strength and finish to a degree that may well put our own efforts out of sight. Where the road lay over rocks, the two lower layers were dispensed with as unnecessary; and in carrying it across a swampy country they employed foundations of piles. A raised pathway laid with gravel, mounting blocks for equestrians, and mile-stones to mark the distances, completed the appurtenances of a Roman road. The general direction of road repairs and works was assigned to a class of officers and workmen. Numerous military roads intersected the Roman empire, and this facility of internal communication was a main cause of its duration. It would exceed our limits to give even the names of the principal.
In the construction of bridges, especially such as were of a temporary nature, the Romans were very skillful.Carpentry must have been well understood, in order to form such structures as the bridge thrown across the Rhine by Cæsar in the short space of ten days. Many stone bridges, some of them distinguished for elegance, connected the opposite banks of the Tiber; but the triumph of Roman art in this department, is seen in the bridge, partly of stone and partly of wood, built by Trajan across the Danube. The whole length of this structure was 3010 feet. There were twenty-two wooden arches supported on stone piers, each arch having a span of about 130 feet. Coffer-dams were used in constructing the foundations of piers.
The carriages used by Greeks and Romans were of various kinds, but though they expended large sums on the more splendid, yet in point of comfort their productions never approached the vehicles of modern coach-builders. The want of springs was an inconvenience, which they attempted to remedy by a luxurious array of feather cushions and down pillows. The carriages were either four-wheeled or two-wheeled; the former being mostly used in journeys. A pair of mules or horses were driven, and sometimes four. There is but little peculiarity in the manufacture of these carriages, but the shapes were elegant, and the poles or other parts were often elaborately carved, while the body of the car was perhaps tastefully inlaid. Traveling carriages in the later times were usually furnished with curtains to exclude the sun and air. Covered litters borne by slaves were also in common use among the wealthy for traveling short distances.
The early history of the inventions by which men came to plough the watery deep, and to convert the element of seeming separation into one vast pathway for the mutual intercourse of nations, belongs to another province. Our space will only permit a brief account of the vessels used by the Greeks and Romans in the times of their more perfect nautical skill. The main division of these was into ships of war and ships of commerce. The former were long and narrow, propelled by rowers, and furnished generally with three ranks of oars, rising obliquely one above the other. But the numbers of these ranks varied much, and in one leviathan galley, built by Ptolemus Philopator, there were even forty ranks of rowers. The average number of the crew engaged in a ship of war was two hundred; and these vessels usually performed their voyages in short times, as the propelling power was independent of the wind. They were furnished with a pointed beak, singly or doubly cleft, and usually situated below the water-level, in order more effectually to run down the adversary.
Ships of burden, on the contrary, were chiefly propelled by sails: their form was clumsy and heavy; of course they did not need the beak, and the number of their crews—the rowers especially—was small in comparison with the complements of men-of-war. With regard to the methods of propulsion, we may mention that sails and rigging were both very simple, as compared with the contrivances of our own days. There was usually only one sail—a large square-sail attached to the mainmast. But sometimes four were present, though even then all were not commonly employed together. The oars were of different lengths, in order to provide for the different heights of the rowers above the water-level. The ancient vessel was usually steered by two rudders or stern-oars, one being placed on either side of the stern. Swift, light galleys, with a large complement of rowers, were in use for performing expeditious voyages.
In the construction of their vessels considerable skill was displayed: the planks were united by iron or copper nails, and the seams stopped with rushes or tow. An outer coating of wax and rosin was commonly overlaid; in some cases black pitch, while in others sheet-lead was added, secured by copper nails.
Harbors were constructed, defended by artificial break-waters; with quays for unlading; porticoes and a temple for the votive offerings of the prosperous voyager; warehouses for goods; the usual apparatus of rings and posts for mooring vessels, and a sloping bank on which to haul them up, if a stay were contemplated. Colossal statues and lighthouses were erected at their entrance. Dry docks for building or repairing, rope-walks, magazines for stores, and other necessary conveniences, completed the portal arrangements.
We have thus passed in review many of the most striking results of the useful arts of Greece and Rome. We have seen these results often rivaling, sometimes even superior to those of our own industry.
And now let us pause for one moment, to regard the crowning development of the useful arts of the old world. We see the polished Roman dwelling amidst all the appliances for luxury, splendor, and utility which art, the minister of man, and the adapter of nature, could then gather around him. The marble palaces, the elaborate tissues of the loom, the polished masterpieces of the artificer, the paintings, the sculptures, the mouldings, and the rare devices of the engraver were one and all to him so perfect, that he doubted not they would remain forever the unsurpassed ornaments of the Queen of Nations. A few centuries, and how changed the scene! The iron bond that held together the civilized world in one vast whole has been torn asunder, and we see a rude barbarian spurning with his foot the delicate masterpieces of finished art. Or still later, perhaps, a half-naked savage wanders above the ruins of the buried cities, without a thought of the rich treasures of human industry hidden in the earth beneath him. The new birth of Freedom is for a time the death of Industry. But new life is following close on this death—a stronger, healthier vitality, more mighty in its development, and crowned by yet higher results. Amid the blackest night of anarchy and rapine, man—“the minister and interpreter of nature”—is busy kindling torches to scatter the darkness.
Some imperishable monuments of antiquity were powerful agents in preserving the useful arts to man. As the aqueducts of ancient Rome, conquering the attacks of Time, and the destroying hand of the barbarian, still continued to lead pure streams to the seven-hilled city, so did a knowledge of the useful arts flow in manifold channels from the old world to the new, and Italy became to the moderns what Greece had been to the ancients—the nursing-mother of the arts, and the refiner of nations.
It was long, doubtless, before the rude barbarians borrowed the refinements and arts of a conquered people, whose very civilization they regarded as a badge of slavery. “The ancient inhabitants of Italy,” says Muratori, “were so enervated, and were cast down to such a pitch of poverty, that no power or force of example remained by which to allure the conquerors to a more refined and elegant manner of living. For this reason the Lombards long retained their primitive ferocity and rudeness, and the barbaric style of look and dress, till the more genial sky of Italy, and the neighboring examples of the Greeks and Romans gradually led them, first to some cultivation of manners, and then to refinement.” And what this eminent antiquarian alleges in this particular case was, doubtless, true of all those barbarian hordes that overran the once fertile plains of the South. It was this fierce and savage independence that rendered the rude conqueror insensible, not only to the sight of his slave’s refinement, but even to the influence of the habitual view and contact of those innumerable and beautiful products of art which surrounded him on every side. Nothing less than the development of one strong passion—the passion for freedom—could have quelled those native instincts in the mind, which lead man so powerfully to embrace the inventions of others, and, in fault of these, to invent for himself. Doubtless, the constant succession of the waves of desolation was another main cause of their effacing power. Each succeeding invasion found a still decreasing civilization: the traces of arts and refinement grew ever fainter and fainter, till finally they were almost lost to view.
[2]
Boeckh, “Economy of Athens.”
[3]
Smith’s “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.”
———
BY MRS. ESTELLE ANNA LEWIS.
———
I.—THE OASIS.Think not that I am hapless, ye who readThe pensive numbers of my fervent lyre:That in the heart is sown some upas-seed,Is not to prove all healthful germs expire;That in a garden are some withered bowers,Crisped buds and yellow leaves bestrew the ground,Is not to prove it hath nor herbs nor flowers.Think not because I’ve stood on every roundOf Fortune’s ladder, that no oasisAmid the desert of my heart upglowsAbove the sands and sallow cypresses,Cheering the weary pilgrim as he goes;Not all the fires that rend volcanic wombsCan kill this one green spot that ’mid my heart-waste blooms.II.—JOYS OF INTELLECTUAL EMPLOYMENT.’Tis true, I’m poor in what the world calls bliss;’Tis true, I have known many wounds of pride,With which a weaker nature might have died.’Tis true, I’ve passed the fearful Charybdis,Yet ’mid the maelstrom thrilled with happiness.We should not murmur ’gainst an earthly trial—It throws a stronger sunlight on Life’s dial,Awakes the spirit in its chrysalis,And plumes it i’ to the broad, bright heavens to soar.And oh! if I could sing the bliss I’ve known,While sitting in this study-room alone,Listing the soul waves wash the eternal shore—If I could ring it out in one loud song,’Twould shake the throne of Grief and banish Wrong.
I.—THE OASIS.Think not that I am hapless, ye who readThe pensive numbers of my fervent lyre:That in the heart is sown some upas-seed,Is not to prove all healthful germs expire;That in a garden are some withered bowers,Crisped buds and yellow leaves bestrew the ground,Is not to prove it hath nor herbs nor flowers.Think not because I’ve stood on every roundOf Fortune’s ladder, that no oasisAmid the desert of my heart upglowsAbove the sands and sallow cypresses,Cheering the weary pilgrim as he goes;Not all the fires that rend volcanic wombsCan kill this one green spot that ’mid my heart-waste blooms.II.—JOYS OF INTELLECTUAL EMPLOYMENT.’Tis true, I’m poor in what the world calls bliss;’Tis true, I have known many wounds of pride,With which a weaker nature might have died.’Tis true, I’ve passed the fearful Charybdis,Yet ’mid the maelstrom thrilled with happiness.We should not murmur ’gainst an earthly trial—It throws a stronger sunlight on Life’s dial,Awakes the spirit in its chrysalis,And plumes it i’ to the broad, bright heavens to soar.And oh! if I could sing the bliss I’ve known,While sitting in this study-room alone,Listing the soul waves wash the eternal shore—If I could ring it out in one loud song,’Twould shake the throne of Grief and banish Wrong.
I.—THE OASIS.
Think not that I am hapless, ye who read
The pensive numbers of my fervent lyre:
That in the heart is sown some upas-seed,
Is not to prove all healthful germs expire;
That in a garden are some withered bowers,
Crisped buds and yellow leaves bestrew the ground,
Is not to prove it hath nor herbs nor flowers.
Think not because I’ve stood on every round
Of Fortune’s ladder, that no oasis
Amid the desert of my heart upglows
Above the sands and sallow cypresses,
Cheering the weary pilgrim as he goes;
Not all the fires that rend volcanic wombs
Can kill this one green spot that ’mid my heart-waste blooms.
II.—JOYS OF INTELLECTUAL EMPLOYMENT.
’Tis true, I’m poor in what the world calls bliss;
’Tis true, I have known many wounds of pride,
With which a weaker nature might have died.
’Tis true, I’ve passed the fearful Charybdis,
Yet ’mid the maelstrom thrilled with happiness.
We should not murmur ’gainst an earthly trial—
It throws a stronger sunlight on Life’s dial,
Awakes the spirit in its chrysalis,
And plumes it i’ to the broad, bright heavens to soar.
And oh! if I could sing the bliss I’ve known,
While sitting in this study-room alone,
Listing the soul waves wash the eternal shore—
If I could ring it out in one loud song,
’Twould shake the throne of Grief and banish Wrong.
THE LOVES OF AN APOTHECARY.
As John Godwin entered Christ’s Hospital so he left it, with no other friends than an uncle, who was a Kentish miller, and an understanding which,ifit was impermeable to much learning, retained and fostered whatever at any time it received. A stolid, quiet, precocious boy, with a generous and simple heart, in which strong self-will was seated at depths seldom disturbed, with an original imagination, of which he was always unconscious, with a new suit of clothes, a tall hat, and six shillings in a clothes-box, he was articled to an apothecary. This suit being worn out, another supplied its place; when this in its turn got threadbare, the process of renewal, not without ceremony, was repeated; and, with the best intentions to the contrary, that is as much as the most partial biographer could write of John Godwin’s life for some years. It is true that, in like manner, new notions and ideas, what may be called the provisional phases of manhood, were rapidly worn out and replaced; for every year between fifteen and twenty is itself a distinct era. It is also true, by the bye, that at seventeen he fell in love, desperately and sincerely, with a lady thirteen years his senior, whose great recommendation consisted not so much in an imposing, handsome person as in a baby.
This lady, neither married nor a widow, was somehow connected with the family of his master, and came often to the little parlor behind the shop, whence John, peeping over the muslin curtain, used to throw bashful glances on her as she sat silent and abstracted by the fire-side—silent, and with much sorrow in her great brown eyes. Indeed, she lived and moved in an atmosphere of sorrow; it seemed to encompass her in palpable clouds, so that one even felt her presence at the door before she entered in. A tearless Niobe, deserted and betrayed—a victim, so the little bird said, of a too intense devotion for a student in medicine—John wept for her, pitied her, loved her. When at church, it was thestoryof the Magdalen, that beautiful story, which kept his eyes on the Book all service-time. Putting the shutters up at night, he took long solitary walks, that, alone with Nature in suburban squares, he might dwell uponhisMagdalen; or hastily retiring to bed, there, on the extreme verge of the bedstead, his arms extended into vacancy and night, he would send forth his imagination to feed like a ghoul on the quivering carcases of Susan’s joys. “Now,” he would exclaim, and strike his head emphatically upon the pillow—“Now,” in her sleeping apartment, at 17 Jemima street, Pentonville,sheis tossing wildly on her bed, tearful, passionate, delirious, while Grief wrestles with Sleep!—“Now!” And looking through darkness and the intricacy of streets, he contemplated this picture of 17 Jemima street, until it faded into another, in which, having succeeded in reviving the confidence of Susan in the love and honor of man, he was represented as taking unto himself that crushed flower, fostering it into renewed radiance and fragrance, more lasting and more grateful, if more subdued.
John never told his love, for pecuniary reasons. Indeed, it lasted but six weeks, though, considering the instability of sentiment at seventeen, even that period was an age for such fervor to endure. As the lady’s melancholy, however, began visibly to subside, John’s fervor, subsided also; and collapsed altogether when, at the expiration of three months or so, she went on a pleasure excursion to Brighton with another student of medicine, and remained there with a distant and hitherto unknown relation.
The young apothecary soon learned to laugh supremely at this piece of extravagance, palliating his shame by repeating that, to the young, love and folly are constant companions; that a heart like his must always have some object of adoration, whether foolish or otherwise. His own experience entirely warranted the dictum at any rate; for he had had a sweetheart as soon as he was consummately breeched—a sweetheart who almost broke his heart by dividing an orange in his presence with a little boy who had the advantage over him in wearing large frilled collars. Again, in tenderest boyhood, he became possessed with an intense affection for the very tall daughter of a police-sergeant; but she despised him for his stockings. Rising thereat in indignant pride, he resolved at once to make himself renowned, that when Fame should so bruit his merits in the general ear that even the daughter of the policeman should hear the blast, she might learn painfully, and, alas! too late, that genius is not to be judged by its stockings. In pursuit of this end, he forthwith indited some affecting “Lines to E——n,” which were declined with thanks by the editor of the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” mainly in consequence of their being inscribed on paper with an ornamental border, and embellished with original designs, curiously colored. This failure disgusted him with the Muses, especially as he himself half suspected a lack of the poetical leaven. So he determined to turn the current of his ambition into channels better suited to it; and thus, begun out of desire to assuage the wounds his pride had received through the medium of his stockings, and continued afterward for its own sake and by natural bias, he managed to pursue the science of chemistry to very great lengths.
Boyhood, however, with all the follies and crudities of the outer boy, and much of the keen feeling, the trust, the ever misconstrued delicacies of the inner, has now gone by with the young apothecary. He puts all his youth behind him to-day, and advances into steady manhood; for to-morrow he is to be married. That fact fills his shop, and every nook of every chamber thereto pertaining; but particularly in the kitchen, where the fat fingers of the little maid are busy with the promising skeleton of a new cap and many yards of white and blue ribbon, andin the shop parlor, where John sits communing with his soul, the circumambient air is prophetic of it. This shop, it should be said, expensively furnished with such means as his careful mother beguiled her years of widowhood in accumulating for some such purpose, John had entered upon only a few months since. His customers, hitherto, were discouragingly few, perhaps in consequence of his having chosen Doctors’ Commons as the probable Tom Tidler’s ground of his future fortunes; not eligible ground for an apothecary. So he resolved on getting married. He had observed, he said, that “things frequently took a turn” upon such events; and this was the reason he assigned to himself for taking the step at this time. But there were many others.
John sits communing with his soul. It had surprised him, it had struck him more than once with a kind of superstitious suspicion, that even up to the very eve of his marriage some evil or perhaps good influence—he thought about it, but still doubted—seemed always to withdraw his mind from the subject. But bidding his boy—who, lost under a desk, his hands buried anxiously in his hair, had forgotten even the dignity due to his new livery in the perusal of a novel—bidding his boy attend carefully to the shop, and calling his handmaid from below to light the lamp and trim the fire, he now sat down to “have a good serious think.”
To think, and think hard on all things, was common to the bridegroom; and, seated in his easy chair, all quiet, he began to inquire within himself—how long it would be before the last button of his boy’s jacket would be gambled away with a leaden “nicker!” “Good heavens!” he exclaimed, suddenly arresting the panorama, alarmed at the puerility of the thing at such a moment; and, rising, he extinguished the light, drew his chair closer to the fire again, to try if the dusk would not soothe him to soberness. Half an hour later, when the buttoned Mercury emerged from beneath the shadow of the desk, breathing hard and looking stealthily into all dark corners where any cloaked bravo, such as he had just parted company with, might possibly be lurking, at length, reassured, peered through the window to discover what the governor was about, he found the governor thoughtfully posed indeed. His tall figure, clad in sad-colored raiment, disposed carelessly in the cushioned chair, his countenance, handsome but rough-cast, bent full upon the ruddy firelight, while he lazily balanced the burnished poker on his forefinger, he looked a very real if not a very conventional image of abstraction.
A well-regulated memory has been likened to the best-regulated household—a bee-hive. It is said to contain a myriad of little cells, in which are carefully stored away all our treasures, all the sweetness we have gathered in bright days and hours, to be drawn forth thence on drowsy evenings or wakeful nights—enjoyed, and restored. In the memory of our young bridegroom a hundred little chambers at once now gave up their precious things. From remotest and darkest nooks, from the very dungeons of the hive, where they had been stored because they were so precious as to be painful to look on, they now came pouring pell-mell in bountiful confusion: and in all a beautiful young face, lit up with gold-brown eyes, and shaded by gold-brown hair, came and went in a wonderful fragmentary way. For now a massy curl, drooping over his shoulder as together they bend to read from one book; and now her eyes, with a sudden illumination of love and mirth, railing at him; and now her lips closed to reproach him in silence, or half-parted and half-pouted to receive his greeting kiss—alone filled the entire picture. In vain he endeavored to bring steadily before his eyes the integrate sweetness of that face, where a morning radiance rested all day long. Once and again, indeed, he seemed almost to accomplish his desire; and he glanced shyly at the portrait looming dimly on his vision, lest by gazing too earnestly he should disperse it. And, in a moment, the features were all rubbed out: again only a curl drooped on his shoulder, or two eyes smiled up to him, with various and fitfully-remembered meaning, out of blank darkness.
In equal hurry and confusion, the remembrance of past scenes, and groupings, and events, where still the one fair face looked grave or gay, whirled through the dreamer’s mind. Meetings and partings, the last and the first—summer lanes and winter hearths—morning and evening, all rendered up their souvenirs in sad chronological order, regardless of the unities of the pastoral to which they belonged. An old gabled house in the northern suburbs, some ten miles from St. Paul’s was, however, the chief scene of his wedding-eve reminiscences. A snug old house, stuck full of little square dull-eyed casements, it was nursed and shaded in its declining age in shrubby lawns and flower-beds—in rows of elm and straggly sycamore, with fragrant lilac and the golden abundance of laburnum-trees. House and garden, it was a very place of leaves. Except a small paddock in the rear, where an old gray horse used to stand reflectively by the hour, as still as the horse of wood over the neighboring inn, every where were dusty leaves or spruce flowers. On the walls, peeping in at the windows—clinging round one chimney-pot and drooping from another—lying in wait at doors, overhanging paths, toppling the mossy garden-wall, and stealing under the great, shabby wooden carriage-gate, where carriage never deigned to enter—box and briar and creeping plants abounded. But it was beneath the parlor windows that, like well-fed Babes in the Wood, the flowering plants clustered and prospered: nowhere beyond, except in the windows of the chambers above. In one especially. It was at the west side of the house, high up (doesn’t John Godwin remember it?) and looked down the road leading from the city, smiling radiantly. Balsams and old-fashioned scarlet-flowered geraniums, a hot, martial-looking cactus, specimens of that perfect type of blooming English womanhood, the rose, and some novelty with a lengthy Latin name, were gathered there in bright companionship—all the brighter when fanned by the snowy curtain as it flapped pleasantly above in the early morning breeze.
And if this little window high up in the old house smiled radiantly upon all the dusty wanderers who came out of London so far in search of “a mouthful of air,” the elect bridegroom, still balancing the poker there, could tell you with what special radiance it looked all down the road on him. That part of the story is what he is now recalling. How in summer mornings, sunny and still, he used to rise with the lark; how, hours before he could display the advantages of those operations, he got himself starched and pomatumed one or two degrees beyond good taste, perhaps, as he doubts now; but then some anticipation was to be made for the damages of a two hour’s walk. How at the earliest moment, almost breakfastless—for his heart by this time had overrun his stomach—he started off to spend the blessed day of rest with Jessy, to take Jessy to church. Jessy owned the bright brown eyes and the locks of bright brown hair: a compact little goddess of eighteen—a laughing, blooming, deep-hearted and very sensible little goddess, whom to worship were honor; and she used sometimes to peep through the branches of the geraniums on such Sunday mornings, to see whether her “dear boy” were coming; for the little window was the window of her chamber. Jessy innocently imagined that her dear boy had never caught her peeping; she was mistaken; and the bridegroom smiles very grimly,fora bridegroom, as he remembers that fact. And how, having walked his last mile leisurely—for, from a foolish pride, he wished Jessy to believe that the coach had conveyed him to the end of the road, and therefore endeavored to make his appearance as cool as possible—how, having walked his last mile leisurely, and flaunted the dust from his clothes, he suddenly turned an angle, and coming at once in sight, distinguished at the distance of a quarter-mile whether she looked for his coming. If so, though pretending not to see her, all the graces of which he was master were at once put in requisition, up to the last opportunity in a graceful rat-tat-tat at the door.
There was not such a moment in any week as that which elapsed between this rapping at the door and the opening of it. A world of tumult, and impatience, and hesitation were compressed in that small instant: ’twas precisely such a hurly-burly of feeling as that which caused his fingers to tremble over the unbroken seal of the first letter he received from her: and loving-kindness always followed the opening of the door as it had followed the opening of the seal. Even dreaming these scenes into renewed life, Godwin hastened thus to arrive at the porch; for on the threshold he will meet, not the good old servant, she knows well enough how impertinent it would be to answer such a knock as that; but, listening, he hears light swift feet come pit-a-pat, pat-a-pat down the stairs, with just a little jump to finish, the door is flung wide open, and there stands the flower-goddess smiling and shaking her curls, her face irradiate with a positive glory of happiness, only softened by the faintest and least shame-faced of blushes. They say nothing at present; but while with one hand she closes the door, the other is placed upon his shoulder, and, a-tiptoe, she bestows a sharp, uncertain little kiss upon his cheek; whereupon they find themselves in the parlor.
When that sturdy old Viking, Jessy’s papa, makes his appearance, they all go to church; but this the sturdy old Viking does not till the latest moment, defeating his object therein by storming the room-door just, maybe, as Godwin insists upon tying the strings of Jessy’s bonnet, and while, laughing and blushing, she uplifts the white round chin in a naughty, ambiguous way, to assist (or confuse) the operation. For halfpay-captain Burton, a man of war when grog, bluster, and the cat were national bulwarks—brown, boisterous, and the most tarry of tars—was at the same time the most bashful person concerned in the love between his daughter and John Godwin, principally or remotely. When full twelve months had elapsed since the evening that, restlessly pondering the matter upon stepping into bed, he had confirmed his suspicions in a nervous conversation with his wife that John was a-wearing up to our Jess, that nervousness still continued. Not a word in reference to the subject had he ever uttered to his daughter, or to any one after that dreadful evening; for, with a vasty sigh, he then felt himself compelled to avow that he had no reason to say nay if Jess said yea, which her mother communicated to her by-and-by, when Jessy sought her confidence, and which the affectionate little flower-goddess revealed to her dear boy one anxious dusky evening with all her delicacy. And so the matter settled itself; but Captain Burton at once took to the thoughtful and uncongenial pursuit of angling, and so enthusiastically, that, though quite unsuccessful, he did not meet his daughter at breakfast for an entire fortnight. With the countenance of a cheerful martyr, he went up and down into all the chambers of the house, whistling or humming notes that had no pretence to cohesion, or harmony, or to any thing but doleful monotony, and in a thousand other ways displayed the wretchedness of his mind.
And long after the lovers—from frequent communion and from other causes well wotted of by old and young—had outgrown the restraints of bashfulness, and were become sister and brother in manner and wedded in heart, the old sea-captain still felt qualmish on the approach of John’s visits. So it was that on Sunday mornings he usually delayed his greeting to the last moment, when, his grisly hair brushed no way in particular, and tucked under the brim of a very rakish and curley-looking hat, he was prepared to accompany them to church. Along the dusty, pebbly footpath, with here a church-going worshiper from the cottage, and there a church-going worshiper from the hall, the school-children defiling irregularly and dustily in the road. Across the common—down the long lane shadowed, almost darkened, by trees that overhung from high and weedy banks on either side, where birds chattered and sung, and the church-bells rang with softened resonance; at the end the sunshine gloriously outspread, with the tumble-down old church and thetumble-down old gravestones drowsing in the midst: and all like a picture framed in the foliage of the lane. Pleasant enough in reality and destitute of association, that walk was beautiful indeed as remembered by the apothecary. Cool summer airs floated past his face, the freshness of morning moistened on his lips, in his eyes was light, in his heart all happiness, as the recollection rose in fullness before the dreaming bridegroom, and passed gently away. Again as they entered the porch together, in the shadow of a real and earnest thoughtfulness; again as together they knelt down; again as organ and children intoned an old meandering psalm, that ever found an easy path from earth to heaven—the memory came with a shock like electricity and left him confusedly trembling. And the loose afternoon rambles while papadozed, the botanical excursions into all the shady, shrubby nooks of the garden, where Jessy gathered her hair under that wonderful muslin scarf—pleasant converse or pleasanter silence by open windows, when rain-drops drummed among the leaves—cozy evenings when, determined to be happy (for at heart he was almost as proud of Godwin’s frank openheartedness and sound intelligence as his daughter,) the old captain brought forth a tobacco-pouch that might also have served for a carpet-bag, mixed a pint of grog in a half-gallon bowl, and sat down to talk morals and politics over the table with his guest, while at the same time, beneath the shadow of the table, the joined hands of Jessy and the happy guest talked love—and ceremonial suppers, for parting had to follow—parting itself, when Jessy and her father accompanied him into the porch, and her father wandered uneasily somewhere out of it, and Jessy shook hands with her dear boy where the shadow was deepest, returned his salute with modest fervor, and accompanied her final “God bless you” by a glance lingering and tremulous—and that was the end.
That was the end. The hollow fire broke down sullenly in ruins, and the bridegroom rose slowly to his feet much troubled. But meeting the reflection of his face full in the chimney-glass, he sat down again still more troubled; for the emotion he saw there spoke accusingly. Many months these recollections had lain nearly dormant in his mind: he had thrown them off uneasily from time to time; and to-night, when, more than all days and nights in the past year, he ought least to indulge them, least to be troubled by them or yearn to them, what right had they to swarm all the avenues of thought in this way? Jessy Burton was a dead name, the old house a mere haunted house, so far as he was now concerned. Had they not quarreled and parted long ago? And whose fault was that but Jessy’s? True, his part in the quarrel had been the most active, and she might, perhaps, accuse him of caprice, or something of that sort; but then she had been very passive, and seemed to care very little—he had never seen her cry, or look reproachful, even when matters had come to a crisis; she had very quietly received back all her notes (quite a little heap they were, square and three-cornered, scented and unscented, neatly-written notes and some with words sprawling all about the paper, still “in haste—Yours,” and one with some dead leaves in it)—and did not return his letters in reply. From which, of course, any one could only assume that they had mutually—got——
Well, suppose we think no more about it. Jessy could not work such a pair of slippers as that; and Godwin planted his feet, slippers and all, on each side of the fire-place. Nor could she embroider such chair-covers, or work such curtains, or cut such lamp-screens, or finger the piano so rapidly as Sybilla—nothing like it: he became acquainted with Sybilla two whole months before he parted with Jessy, and therefore he had opportunities of immediate comparison, and ought to know. Sybilla was a handsome, brilliant girl, with a fine high spirit, and excessively fond of him—no doubt of it. He was a pretty fellow to sit dreaming away in that sentimental style, when to-morrow he was to marry such a woman as that, and become the proudest husband to-morrow would shine on! Jessy was well enough in her way, a nice, amiable, pretty girl; but, dear me!—and John made up his mouth to whistle an air, and did not whistle it.
Well! John thought he had better go to bed. The fire was out—no wonder he felt so miserable!—and there was the boy peeping hard through the curtain again; for he was getting hungry and wanted to shut up. The fat fingers of the little maid below had ceased from their labors—the cap was finished, and looked beautiful; and she sat at the fire with her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees, brooding matrimony in an earnest and lively spirit. In half an hour the buttons ate himself to sleep, Polly found sleep in the realms of speculation, and John, become more comfortable over a renewed fire and a glass of weak toddy, went really whistling up to bed shortly after. “Good night, John,” said he, as he rolled himself up like a chrysalis; “good night, young man! Good night, Sybilla!” And a moment after, with tenderness and an ominous sort of resignation, “Good night, Jessy!”
An hour after dawn, the little bird whose cage hung in the chamber window, trilling, quavering, rattling out his earliest fantasia, roused the bridegroom from sleep. About an hour after dawn, rattling, quavering, trillinghismorning song, the little bird (brother to the above) whose cage hung in Jessy’s chamber window, roused her also from sleep. In morning toilette, and bright as any Diana from the bath, Jessy soon put her bloomy face in comparison with her flowers, as, admiring here, plucking a dead leaf there, she busied herself with her bow-pots. Presently she went with a serious air to a battered old trunk in a corner, and carefully took thence a small ivory box. It contained various minute packages of flower-seeds; and the serious expression of her face deepened into a sadness that seemed at home there, as she came to one carefully sealed paper at the bottom of the box. Jessy opened it, and half-a-dozen balsam-seeds fell into a slightly trembling hand: small, dusty, withered-looking seeds—smaller,more dusty and withered-looking than balsam-seeds usually are, and more precious.
Three summers agone, the plant from which they were derived was the best and most promising in Jessy’s little conservatory. Every body admired it—Godwin with an enthusiasm which might have been mistaken for playful sarcasm in any but a doubting lover. This, too, was when the plant was still in its youth, and its beauties mainly prospective; but John Godwin one day brought its mistress a small phial, containing a bright, volatile fluid, prepared at the expense of a night’s rest and as much money as would have bought almost an entire stand at a flower-show, which he said would cause her flower to grow like a banyan, and blow like a whole forest of acacias. The bottle was labeled in regular order—“Miss Burton’s patient: two drops to be taken night and morning in a gill of rain-water.”
The effect of its application to the roots of the flower proved almost marvelous. Large and high the balsam grew, with heavy branches round about it; and never were blossoms so huge, or so many, or so novel in color on balsam before. True, they fell off as soon as they were fully blown, but then they were reproduced elsewhere as constantly; and Jessy’s grief was great when, one morning, she found her pet altogether broken down and faded—suddenly as with blight, beyond hope of resuscitation. Seeds, however, had been preserved, and the following spring were committed to the earth, hopefully; but they woke to a by no means joyful resurrection. Wiry and puny, these poor step-children of Nature languished through the summer in sunniest corners, putting forth numerous pale little blossoms, and looking as miserably gay as a faded beauty in a faded ball-dress. The next generation was still more deplorable; but ere the latest lingerer had abandoned all effort to appear cheerful in cheerful companionship, Hope and Love had closed their outer doors against Jessy Burton, and she turned at once to that miserable lingerer, which seemed to have lingered on purpose to offer her the consolation of fellowship in affliction.
In the best hearts, the simplest and the strongest, a vein of romantic superstition will always be found—a hidden spring, surrounded by wholesome verdure: where it is not, there is sickness. And though it was very sentimental and very absurd, it really did Jessy good to compare her fortunes and the fortunes of her nurselings, with feelings that went beyond mere wonder at a coincidence. The hope and joy that erst-time put forth blossom all day long, she woke one morning to find altogether broken down and faded—suddenly, as with blight, beyond hope of resuscitation. She remembered what unwise abandonment to excess of a new happiness had rendered this blight so sudden and complete, and was self-reproved; but looking on her invalided balsam, she saw that it still grew in a humble, hopeful kind of way—still persevered in blooming with as little dreariness as possible, and always, to appearance, with a cheerful prospect of doing better next time; and she took the lesson to heart along with the reproof. Pondering much both lesson and reproof, Jessy gradually came to hold faith in more than was simply coincidental in so direct a coincidence. It preached to her, by application, most excellent doctrine; and she at last believed it to be one of those small things which (now that revelation, and miracle, and prophecy are no more) are disposed by averyextraordinary Chance, to work good in those who, having eyes, shut them not, and having ears, hear. Furthermore, the simple girl grown wise through grief, vaguely assumed a connection in the future between her floral oracles and herself. Again she sows them on this bridal morning. Perhaps they will recover lost strength and beauty, and bloom as in past time; and then—who knows? Or perhaps they will die right out, be sickly and sorrowful no more, and give place to healthier if less cherished ones. Well, either way—whether the foolish pride of that dear bad boy allow him to seek forgiveness of the caprice sheknowshe bitterly repents, or whether the anxious unquiet that still besets her go finally to rest—will be happiness.
How unconscious was Jessy, at the moment she closed the mould over her treasures, that that dear bad boy of hers was closing over his breast a waistcoat which, innocent as it looked, would as effectually keep her curls from ever tumbling themselves there as bars of triple steel! How unconscious of more than the existence of the handsome and really graceful woman who, an hour or two later, was arraying herself in garlands and much muslin, a more unemotional sacrifice than the most Roman beeve that ever went lowing to the altar.
Bride Sybilla’s countenance was beautiful and commanding beyond that of most women; her figure graceful and dignified as that of most queens. Tall, pale, yet with a paleness as bright and healthy as the paleness of May-blossom—her head set slightly but boldly forward from her throat—with brilliant teeth, dark brows of gracefulest curve, and dark eyes that could express every thing, but languishing and passion better than all—she would have been an indisputable belle of the season, some time or other, had she made her original and vulgardebutwithin the circle of courtly existence. In very fact, she was so obviously fitted by nature for vegetation in the conservatory of Fashion: she had so elegant a mind; her shawls draped her so elegantly; she looked so much at home in a carriage—especially an open one, as every body remarked on occasions of pic-nic excursions; she would have adorned an opera-box so thoroughly, and blazed with such magnificence in family jewels—that, at length, it became plain even to herself that she had been born into a false position. Not that she ever expressed such a consciousness, or allowed herself to brood over it; her personal superiority was justifiably regarded as a natural fact, and the fact was worn like an old robe.
But though, by some mistake, Sybilla wasted her radiance in the wrong firmament, it is only fair to say that she was, at any rate, highly respectable. Her father, Mr. Charles Frederick Lee, or as old letters, thrown carelessly on mantelpieces, or stuck indifferentlyin card-racks and the frame of the chimney-glass—suggested, Charles Frederick Lee, Esq., was, indeed, an eminent example of respectability. A Governmentemployée—clerk at the Custom-house, that is to say—his position was very respectable to start with; and this quality permeated all his relations in life, hovered benignantly about his hearth-rug, and saturated even his umbrella. This he carried with an air sufficient of itself to stamp his respectability; and it is highly probable that the appearance alone of Mr. Lee, as—quitting his residence at Grandison-place punctually to a minute—he walked into the City on fine mornings, with his umbrella at a peculiar angle under his arm, had a greater effect on the public than all the “Hints on Etiquette” that were ever published—price six-pence.
At his residence, Grandison-place, the principle so well exemplified in the person of Mr. Lee was adequately supported in the knocker, (brass,) in the carpetings and hangings, by a classic lamp in the passage, and two very respectable-looking canaries of a subdued color, that hung in burnished cages (done about, of course, with yellow gauze) in the parlor windows, by life-size portraits of the family, an amplitude of light-colored upholstery, and marmalade for breakfast. Much wholesome goodness, however, was diffused throughout the household—cool, serene content, subduing all things equably beneath its shadow—gentleness, affection, peace, and decorous plenty. But thus surrounded, and with such a father, Sybilla was certainly its leading member and brightest ornament. The school-teaching obtained for her by paternity, with two hundred and fifty pounds a-year of income, and a position to support, did not, of course, comprise all the elements of a polite education; but whatwastaught at the Clarendon-House Academy for Young Ladies, Sybilla made the most of. She danced well, played the piano-forte with considerable brilliancy, wrote with orthodox angularity, and spelt comparatively few words with twot’s that should be spelled with one; she painted fruit and flowers charmingly, as a rather bulky portfolio of such subjects as “Grapes, Roses and Peach,” “A Peach, Roses and bunch of Grapes,” “Roses, Peach, etc.,” evidenced; and as for French, not one of her compeers could pronounce heru’s with so unpuckered a lip, or mould herll’s with such Italian sweetness; and she really could do more than inquire how you did, Monsieur, and whether you had the bread or the butter.