VOL. 4.] Journal of a Tour in England, by the Austrian Archdukes. 31 ed in England on this day, and not some have supposed; for in all ancient from any lambs being offered on that Saxon books it is called hlaf-mass; day by tenants to their landlords, as that is, loaf-mass. Cole, xxiii. 12. JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN ENGLAND. EXTRACTED FROM THE MS. NOTES OF THEIR IMPERIAL HIGHNESSES THE ARCHDUKES JOHN AND LEWIS, OF AUSTRIA. HA From the New Monthly Magazine, August, 1818. AVING received a third series of the pieces of wood which are to form the remarks of these illustrious the head are first put together, and the Travellers on England from Vienna, we resume our extracts. whole put into the cutting machine, by which it is seized and quickly turned round in a circle, in the middle of which is the machine. By means of a cutting iron the rim is cut circularly: two other The workman can at pleasure draw these irons farther away or nearer to him, and the bottom of the cask is thus finished in a few moments. They bore holes in these bottoms, that they may be fastened together with wooden nails. As these casks are designed for rum, the aroma is extracted by a particular process. When the staves are placed in order, they put the cask into an iron cylinder of the same form and size. The cask rests on a moveable cross over an axis, the cylinder stands perpendicular, the staves project a little over its edge, and an instrument consisting of three cutting knives is now put on this rim; one of the irons makes a cut in which the head is to be fastened, the second cuts off the top rim, and the third planes it. When this is done, the iron hoops are put round, and the cask is finished. These casks form a principal export article to the American islands. The manufactory in which casks are made by machinery, which we saw in Glasgow, is very remarkable. The possessor of it gets the birch wood from the. slanting pieces of iron smooth the rim. Scotch mountains, and the oak from North America. All the wood is cut by circular saws, which are put in motion by a steam engine. By the first cut the wood receives the proper length for the pipe staves. We saw wood eight inches thick cut in a moment. The workman lays the piece across two iron bars, and presses it against a second saw, which cuts the block lengthwise into as many staves as its thickness allows. In the space of one minute, from twelve to fourteen staves were cut in our presence, from two and a half to five feet in length; the sides of the staves are also fashioned by saws. Thus prepared, they put them into the machine by which they are to be bent. Every size of casks has a machine of its own, A table bears a double bar of iron circularly bent, according to the curve which the stave is to receive; on this table is a contrivance, like the cutting-blade of the saw mills, upon which the stave is laid; it is brought to the saw by a handle: a second presses it together: the saw is narrow, and the stave, pressed in the direction of the arc of a circle, receives the necessary curvature. This stave also receives from the saw such a bending, that by means of the connection between the two iron bars and the cutting blade, it takes the second form. The circular saws and the hoops are made in the same manufactory: the tormer, of steel bands, from Sheffield, which they cut and file; the hoops are of wood, and are bent without the aid of fire. The saw-dust and the chips are distilled in a great retort, from which they obtain vinegar as well as tar. We also viewed the great Clyde Canal, the navigation of which is of the The staves of birch wood are then utmost importance to the trade of made up into bundles for sale. Those Glasgow, Liverpool, Dublin, Belfast, of oak wood they make into casks in the Londonderry; and also Leeds, Newcasmanufactory itself. For this purpose tle, and Hull. It may be said that all the 32 Journal of a Tour in England, by the Austrian Archdukes. [VOL. 4 coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, in From Glasgow you may visit the their trade with Russia, Sweden, Nor- Highlands of Scotland; but the bad way, Denmark, and all the north part season, and constant fogs, hindered us of Germany, derive essential benefit from taking this journey. The country from it, as it shortens the distance from is fine: handsome villas surround the about eight hundred to one thousand city, and on the north the mountains miles. This canal is particularly of great rise in au amphitheatre. Ben-Lomond, importance in winter, during the season one of the highest mountains of Scotland, when ships cannot sail round Scotland. as well as those which surround LochIn that season three ships are employed Lomond, are visible. in the canal in breaking up the ice. On the 2d of December, we left The construction of this great work Glasgow, and took the road to Edin. was begun in the year 1768, and finish- burgh, only turning a little aside to see ed in the year 1790: it reaches the the Carron Works. The road leads river Clyde near Bowlingbay, and both over the hills and the Monkland canal. seas thus have a communication. The So much as we could distinguish through Company who undertook the construc- the thick fog, the country lies high, and tion of it by consent of Parliament, is is well cultivated. Beginning at Kilsyth, called the Society for the Navigation of fourteen miles from Glasgow, where the Forth and Clyde. The expenses horses are changed, you leave the valley, amounted in the year 1799 to 421,525. in which the canal flows, to your right; sterling; which sum was by an act of at which place a marsh has been formed. Parliament recognised as the Company's The digging of the canal was here the capital. The number of share-holders most difficult, on account of the thick is at present one hundred and twentyeight; and the income it was said amounted in the year 1815 to 50,000l. sterling. The canal of Monkland, which belongs to another Company, is united with the Clyde canal. slime, which in some places is fifty feet deep, at the bottom of which loam and sand are first met with. The canal was obliged to be dug in a turf-ground. An iron rail-way goes from one coalinine to the canal, and crosses the road. The city of Glasgow becomes more The country between Edinburgh and extensive and beautiful every day; al- Glasgow, as we were assured, is the most in every street old houses are seen richest in coals of any in the whole to vanish to make room for beautiful country. All the hills of the southern buildings; only last year about four chain of the Pentland range, to the hundred new houses were built. The Northerly granite and basalt mountain, many manufactories, the navigation on the Clyde and in the canal, the neighbourhood of the sea,-all these greatly contribute to enliven the city and its environs. But the poverty of the people seems however to be greater than in other British cities. are supposed to be full of coals, and would, it is calculated on these data, be enough to supply the consumption of Great Britain for a thousand years to come. Where the marsh ends, the water declines to the East, and here the sluices The defection of the American Colo- begin. You then reach Falkirk, a little nies was a severe blow to the trade of town, in which there is a great coal Glasgow, from which it has, however, magazine for the Carron works. Two perfectly recovered, through the new roads lead to it. The Carron works sources which have been opened to it in the West Indian markets, and the European continent; and these have been greatly facilitated by the navigation of the canal and the Clyde. In the year 1768, a bridge was built over the river Clyde, which has 7 piers, built in a curve against the stream, in order to break the force of the current. lie in a beautiful valley, two miles to the north of Falkirk, and the great number of the ever-smoking chimnies announces them already at a distance. Nobody is adinitted without the permission of the owners. The building is immensely large, and regularly built along the Carron, which is navigable to the canal. The ore is purchased in VOL. 4.] Observations, Anecdotes, &c. 33 the neighbouring mines, and two hun- hundred tons melted annually, and two dred tons are used every week. The thousand labourers are employed. The coals are, according to the old custom, river Carron puts the machines in mopiled up in heaps of four feet high, tion, and for the dry season a reservoir from six to eight feet broad, and from of thirty acres in extent is kept up. twenty to thirty feet in length. There This undertaking belongs to a society. are in every heap six flues to promote Besides this establishment, Scotland the current of air; the carbonization is possesses many foundries and meltingcompleted in fifty, sixty, or seventy houses, which furnish every year thirtyhours. The coals do not lose much of two thousand seven hundred and sixty their mass. The raw iron is melted in tons, the ton at 71. sterling, which six reverberatory furnaces, and here amounts to 229,3271. sterling; and they make cannon, and a great seven thousand six hundred and twenty many other articles of the coarsest as persons gain their livelihood by this well as of the finest quality. In the institution. Eleven foundries in Glassix furnaces twenty tons are melted at gow alone employ above a thousand a time. We saw a great variety of persons, and the value of their produce manufactured goods, from the largest is above 500,000l. sterling. cannon and carronades for the royal We returned from Carron to Falnavy, to the most elegant chimney or- kirk. From this place the road leads along a well-cultivated chain of hills naments. There is also in this foundry a great covered with country seats and parks, machine to bore the cannon; the gun to Linlithgow, a small place consisting is placed in a horizontal position; the of ill-built houses. Here we saw begborer lies on a carriage, which is ad- gars for the first time. The country vanced towards the cannon; the latter beyond it is high and well cultivated. turns round its axis without advancing. Night overtook us eight miles from This mechanism is put in motion by Edinburgh, and we were only apprized a fall of water. of our entrance into the city by the There are nearly six thousand five bright illumination in the streets. MINUTIE LITERARIÆ. OBSERVATIONS, ANECDOTES, &c. ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE HISTORY OF LITERATUBE. From the New Monthly Magazine, August, 1818. NOT KING JAMES THE FIRST. mitted the manuscript of his Novum. TOTWITHSTANDING the prai- Organum to the perusal of his cousin. ses which were lavished upon this Sir Thomas Bodley, who in returning British Solomon, as his flatterers called it, gave him this advice: "One kind of him, it appears that the booksellers were boldness doth draw on another, insofar from being fond of engaging in his much that methinks I should offend works. The learned Thomas Lydyat, not to signify, that before the transcript in a letter to Mr., afterwards Archbish- of your book be fitted for the press, it op, Usher (written August 22, 1611) will be requisite for you to cast a censays, "I have sent you the King's book sor's eye upon the stile and elocution, in Latin against Vorstius, yet scant dry which in the frame of your periods, and from the press: which Mr. Norton, in divers words and phrases, will hardly who hath the matter wholly in his own go for current, if the copy brought to bands, swore to me, he would not print, me be just the same that you would unless he might have money to print it." publish." WOTTON AND GRAY. Sir Henry Wotton whose bistory has been so well related by honest Izaack Walton, spent the close of his very busy life in Eton College, when he entered into deacon's orders, and he became provost. The year before his death he said on returning to the College from an excursion to Winchester: " How useful was that advice of a holy monk, who persuaded his friend to perform his customary devotions in a constant place, because in that place, we usually meet with those very thoughts which possessed us at our last being there: and (added Sir Henry) I find it thus far experimentally true, that my now being in that school, and seeing that very place where I sat when I was a boy, occasioned me to remember those very thoughts of my youth which then possessed me; sweet thoughts indeed, that promised my growing years numerous pleasures without mixtures of cares; and these to be enjoyed when time (which I therefore thought slow paced) had changed my youth into manhood; but age and experience have taught me, that these were but empty hopes; for I have always found it true as my Saviour did foretel, sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Nevertheless I saw there a succession of boys using the same recreations, and questionless possessed with the same thoughts that then possessed me. "Thus one generation succeeds another, both in their lives, recreations, hopes, fears and death." I Let the whole of this beautiful sentiment be compared with Gray's Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College, and am much mistaken if the reader will not at once see the original germ of that pathetic composition. Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade, Where once my careless childhood stray'd, I feel the gales that from ye blow As waving fresh their gladsome wing, To breathe a second spring. But it is in the description of the sportive joys of the youthful train that the sage instructs the poet. Gay hope is theirs, by faney led Less pleasing when possest The tear forgot as soon as shed, The sunshine of the breast; Their's buxom health of rosy hue, And lively cheer of vigour born; That fly th' approach of morn. The little victims play; No care beyond to day: Yet see how all around them wait [VOL. 4 And black misfortune's baleful train! SHAKSPEARe and spencer. dramatist have dwelt with rapture upon All the critics upon our immortal his creative genius in bodying the offspring of his imagination, or in other words giving powers to airy nothings exactly adapted to the character and office for which he had occasion. Among those beings by far the most extraor dinary is Caliban, the monstrous production of a dæmon and a witch, inheriting all the qualities of each parent, and uniting to the most hideous outward form a diabolical malignity and acuteness, with simplicity and ignorance. Yet credit of originality when the reader this uncouth representation loses the ification of lust in the Faery Queen : compares the picture with the person It was to weet, a wild and savage man, All over-grown with hair, that could awhape An hardy heart, and his wide mouth did gape Of men and beasts, and fed on fleshly gore, His nether lip was not like man nor beast, In the play Caliban shews the contracted limits of his knowledge and his attempt at grateful feeling, by the following very natural expressions: I prithee let me bring thee where crabs grow, To snare the nimble marmozet. I'll bring thee VOL. 4.] Origin of Signs, &c.-The Castle. 35 On turning to the third book of the conception and magical influence over Faery Queen, we meet with this descrip- the passions must ever command the tion of an Incubus, or at least the son of admiration of mankind, even should the a witch, and his awkward courtship of a language in which he wrote ever cease young damsel in distress who had put to be a living tongue. herself under the beldam's protection. Oft from the forest wildings he did bring MILTON AND THOMSON. In the year 1738 the patriotic bookseller Andrew Millar printed a new edition of Milton's Areopagitica with an admirable preface written in a style of animation equal to the unanswerable performance which it recommends. The In pointing out these coincidences of author of this preface was James Thomapparent imitation, it is not intended to son, the poet; and any publisher, who cast the slightest reflection upon the should undertake to reprint the book at genius of the mighty master of the this time would render an acceptable human heart, whose original powers of service to the public. TH ORIGIN OF SIGNS OF INNS, &c. From the Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1818. THE CASTLE. HE greater part of the castles built by the Saxons were in ruins at the time of the Norman invasion, which was one reason why William made himself master of the country with so much facility. The Conqueror, to overawe his newly-acquired subjects, began to repair and augment the old castles, and to erect new fortresses in the principal cities; and, as he parcelled out the lands of the English among his followers, they, to protect themselves against the resentment of those whom they had despoiled, built castles for their own residence on their estates. These haronial edifices multiplied so fast, that in the turbulent reign of Stephen there were no less than 1,115 castles in this kingdom. Numerous venerable remains of feudal strength and grandeur still exist; and it is therefore not to be wondered at that "the Castle" should be a favorite sign. Among the houses thus distinguished, I would particularize for their excellence the splendid hotel at Marlborough, built on the site of the antient fortress, and that most comfortable house, the principal inn at Tamworth, situated near the venerable casthe which proudly overlooks that antient CONTINUED. town, once the residence of the Mercian monarchs, the scene of many events of historic interest, and where the heroic Ethelfleda, who followed her father Alfred with hardy unequal steps, and who rebuilt the castle and the town after their destruction by the Danes, breathed her last, July 19, 919. Tamworth Castle, with the adjacent property, I am grieved to say, was alienated about a year or two ago, for the first time since the Conquest; it having descended in a direct line from Robert Marmion, Lord of Fontenoy, in Normandy, to whom the Conqueror originally granted it, thro' the families of Freville and Ferrers, to its late noble possessor, the Marquess Townshend, Earl of Leicester, and President of the Antiquarian Society, who was much attached to the venerable fabrick. The Marmions exercised the office of King's Champion on the day of coronation; but it appears that they enjoyed this privilege in right of their manor of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire. The poetical Lord Marmion of Walter Scott is de scribed as of this family; and, on his arrival at Norham Castle, "They hail'd him Lord of Fontenay, Of Tamworth tower and town." |