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Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 10, September 5, 1840

Author: Various

Release date: February 12, 2017 [eBook #54156]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Brownfox and the Online Distributed Proofreading
        Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, VOL. 1 NO. 10, SEPTEMBER 5, 1840 ***




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                        THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

       NUMBER 10.      SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1840.      VOLUME I.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF RINN-DUIN, OR RANDOWN, COUNTY OF ROSCOMMON.]

The mighty Shannon--the monarch of island rivers--in all its mazy
wanderings almost from one extremity of Ireland to the other, presents
upon its green and diversified banks but few features of greater natural
beauty or historic interest than the point called Rinn-duin--a peninsula
which stretches into that great expansion of its waters called Lough
Ree, between the counties of Roscommon, Westmeath, and Longford. This
peninsula, which is situated upon the Roscommon shore of the lake, about
eight miles to the north of Athlone, is nearly a mile in length, and, at
its widest part, a quarter of a mile in breadth; but it narrows gradually
towards its extremity, and the lake nearly insulates a moiety of it at
its centre. Its direction being southerly, the eastern side faces the
expanse of the lake, and commands an extensive prospect of its islands
and the opposite shores, while its western side, facing the land, forms a
beautiful bay, fringed with green sloping declivities.

A spot so circumstanced must have struck the early inhabitants of the
country as a sort of natural fortress, which could be easily strengthened
by art; and that it was so strengthened and used as a fortress in the
remotest historic times, may be inferred from its most ancient Celtic
name--Rinn-duin, the point of the Dun or Fort, by which it is still
known in the Irish language, though commonly anglicised Randown, and
more generally called St John’s. It is mentioned by this name in the
following record in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 1156:--

“There occurred a great fall of snow and a frost in the winter of this
year, so that the lakes and rivers of Ireland were frozen over. The frost
was so great that Roderick O’Conor was enabled to have his ships and
boats carried on the ice from _Blein Gaille_ on the Shannon (at Lough
Ree) to RINN-DUIN.”

Of the earlier history of this fort, however, which was doubtless but
an earthen one, no accounts are preserved, though it may be safely
conjectured that it was seized on and used as a stronghold by the Danish
King Turgesius in the ninth century, as it appears certain from our
annals that he had a strong fastness and harbour for his ships upon
Lough Ree. But, be this as it may, we learn from another record in the
Annals above quoted, that Rinn-duin was used as a fastness by the first
Anglo-Norman invaders of Ireland as early as the close of the twelfth
century, when they were forced to seek safety in it after a defeat which
they had sustained in a battle with Cathal Carrach O’Conor, the son of
Roderick and King of Connaught. The passage is as follows:--

“A. D. 1199. John de Courcy, at the head of the English of the North, and
the son of Hugh de Lacy, at the head of the English of Meath, marched
to Kilmacduach to aid Cathal the Red-handed O’Conor. Cathal Carrach, at
the head of the Connacians, gave them battle. The English of Ulidia and
Meath were defeated with such slaughter, that of their five battalions
only two survived, and these were pursued from the field of battle to
RINN-DUIN on Lough Ree, in which place John was hemmed in. Many of his
English were killed and others drowned, for they had no mode of effecting
their escape but by crossing the lake in boats.”

It was not, however, long after this event till the English, taking
advantage of the civil wars which raged in Connaught between the sons
of Roderick and the sons of Cathal the Red-handed, got the peninsula of
Rinn-duin into their own hands, and, fortifying it in their own more
skilful manner, erected the noble castle, the ruins of which still
remain, and form the subject of our prefixed illustration. The erection
of this castle is thus recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters:--

“A.D. 1227. Hugh, the son of Roderick O’Conor, and William de Burgo,
marched with a great army to the north of Connaught, burned _Inis
Meadhoin_, plundered the country as they passed along, and took hostages.
Geoffry Mares (or de Marisco), and Turlogh, the son of Roderick O’Conor,
marched with an army into _Magh Aoi_ (county of Roscommon), erected a
castle at RINN-DUIN, and took the hostages of Siol-Muireadhaigh.”

It was at this period also that the lower portion of the peninsula was
artificially insulated as an additional protection to the castle, by a
broad ditch, still to be seen, though no longer filled with water, and
which is connected with a beautiful little harbour for boats, called Safe
Harbour, immediately beneath the castle.

But though, as we have shown, the peninsula of Rinn-duin was thus
fortified by the English, it was not till the power of the O’Conors was
still more broken by their own divisions, that the former were able
to keep permanent possession of it. From a subsequent record in the
Annals of the Four Masters, we find it shortly after in the possession
of Turlogh O’Conor, the son of Roderick, who had been set up by the
English in opposition to his cousin and rival Felim, the son of Cathal
the Red-handed, and by whom he was ultimately slain. This record gives
a curious picture of the mode of warfare of the time, and is worth
presenting to our readers in full:--

“A.D. 1236. Felim, the son of Cathal the Red-handed, returned to
Connaught after his banishment, being invited thither by some of the
Connacians, namely, by O’Kelly, O’Flynn, the son of Hugh, who was son
of Cathal the Red-handed O’Conor, and the son of Art O’Melaghlin, all
forming four equally strong battalions. They marched to RINN-DUIN, where
Brian, the son of Turlogh (O’Conor), Owen O’Heyne, Conor Boy, the son
of Turlogh, and Mac Costelloe, had all the cows of the country; and
Felim’s people got over the enclosures of the _Island_; and the leaders
and subleaders of the army drove off each a proportionate number of the
cows, as they found them on the way before them; and they then dispersed,
carrying off their booty in different directions, and leaving only, of
the four battalions, four horsemen with Felim. As Brian, the son of
Turlogh, Owen O’Heyne, and their troops, perceived that Felim’s army
was scattered, they set out quickly and vigorously with a small party
of horse, and many foot soldiers, to attack Felim and his few horsemen.
Conor Boy, the son of Turlogh, came up with the son of Hugh, who was the
son of Cathal the Red-handed, and with his party; and mistaking them for
his own people, he fell by Roderick, the son of Hugh, who was the son of
Cathal the Red-handed. Felim (the king) strained his voice calling loudly
after his army, and ordering them to return to oppose their enemies.
Many of the host were killed by Felim upon the island; and outside the
island were slain many _bad subjects_, and perpetrators of evil, as they
all were, excepting only Teige, son of Cormac, who was son of Tomaltagh
M’Dermott.”

Our records are too scanty to enable us to trace the history of this
castle and its various possessors with any clearness or consecutive
order. It may, however, be inferred from the subsequent annals that it
fell into the hands of Felim O’Conor after the attack above stated,
and also that he kept possession of it till his death in 1264. During
this period, though harassed by the De Burgos or Burkes, and still more
by factious rivals of his own race, he usually preserved at least the
semblance of peace with the English monarch, and had more than once his
hereditary patrimony of five cantreds of land in Roscommon secured to him
by royal charters. Upon one of those occasions the scene of conference
between the representatives of the British monarch and the Connaught king
was the Castle of Rinn-duin, as thus stated in the Annals of the Four
Masters:--

“A. D. 1256. A lord justice arrived in Ireland from England, and he and
Hugh O’Conor (the son of Felim) held a conference at RINN-DUIN, when a
peace was established between them, on condition that while the lord
justice should retain his office, no part of the province of Connaught
should be taken from O’Conor.”

By the death of Felim, however, the house of O’Conor received a blow
which it never thoroughly recovered; for, though his son Hugh, who
succeeded him in the government, inherited to the full extent his
father’s energy and valour, if not his prudence, he was less successful
in his enterprises, and his death in 1274 gave additional strength to the
English interest in Connaught. From a record in the Annals of the Four
Masters it appears that the Castle of Rinn-duin was in the possession of
the English settlers some years before his death, for it is stated at the
year 1270 that

“The castle of Ath-Angaile, the castle of Sliabh-Lugha, and the castle
of Cill Calman, were demolished by O’Conor; Roscommon, RINN-DUIN, and
Uillin-Uanach, wore also burned by him.”

From this period forward the Castle of Rinn-duin appears to have been
permanently garrisoned by the English, and its history can be traced
only in the English records. In the great roll of the pipe, 1 Edward I.
(1273), among the disbursements of John de Saundford of the escheats and
wards of the Lord the King, it is stated that £12 18s was paid to Geoffry
de Geneville, chief justice of Ireland, for the re-edification and
repairs of the Castle of Rendon; and also that 45 shillings were paid to
Master Rico le Charpentier (or the carpenter) for 40 stone and 5 pounds
of steel for the construction of a certain mill at the same place. Again,
in the account of the expenses of the same Geoffry de Geneville, from
Wednesday next after the Assumption of the Virgin, anno 1 Edward I., to
Michaelmas, 2 Edward I. (1273 to 1274), the following item occurs:--

    “For the Castle of Rendon, to pay for the garrison
         and other necessaries                           £439   0   3¼”

So in the account of Robert de Ufford, chief justice of Ireland, of
all receipts, expenses, &c., delivered by Adam de Wettenhall into the
Exchequer, from Christmas to Michaelmas, 4 Edward I. (1276), among
the items are allowances for supplies of victuals for the garrison
of Ren-duin, the construction of a mill, and other works of a new
construction, the repairing of a fosse there, &c. Again, in the accounts
for the following year, 1277, the following item occurs:--

    “To Richard de Marisco, for works in the fosse and
        castle of Rendon                                 £7    10   0”

And in the pipe roll of the 8th Edward I. there are similar accounts of
disbursements for repairs to this fortress.

These notices are perhaps of little general interest, but they afford
conclusive evidences of the ancient importance of this fastness, and the
value set upon its possession as necessary to the support of the English
interests in Connaught. The same records preserve the names of three of
its constables, viz:--

Walter le Enfant was constable in 1285-87.

Richard Fitz-Simon Fitz-Richar was constable, with the annual fee of £40,
in 1326.

John de Funtayns was constable, with the same fee, in 1334.

It appears that during the reigns of the first three Edwards, Rinn-duin
became the seat of a town of some importance; and it was also the seat
of a parish church and two monastic establishments, of which one was a
priory for Knights Hospitallers, or for Cross-bearers, which, according
to Ware, was said to have been founded in the reign of King John, and, as
some writers say, by his express command. Be this, however, as it may,
Philip de Angulo, or Costelloe, was a great benefactor to it in the reign
of Henry III., if not actually, as it is probable, its founder.

From the Annals of the Four Masters we learn that the celebrated Irish
historian and topographer John More O’Dugan died, “among the monks of
John the Baptist,” in this monastery in 1372. He was the hereditary
antiquary of Hy Maine, or O’Kelly’s country, and author of the
topographical and historical poem reciting the names of the principal
tribes and districts in Meath, Ulster, and Connaught, with the names of
the chiefs who presided over them at the close of the twelfth century, as
well as of several other works of great value which have descended to our
times.

In 1305, the Prior of this abbey sued Odo, the Prior of Athlone, for the
advowson of the vicarage of the church of Randowne.--_Rol. P. B. T. No.
52._

The other abbey is said to have been founded under the invocation of the
Holy Trinity for Præmonstre Canons, by Clarus Mac Moylin O’Maolchonry,
Archdeacon of Elphin, about the year 1215.

Of all these structures, as well military as religious and domestic,
there only remain at present deserted and time-worn ruins, but these
ruins are of great interest, and speak most eloquently of the past. The
most important feature amongst them is the castle, which occupies a
rocky eminence, rising abruptly from the water on the shore of the small
inlet called Safe Harbour, in which it may be presumed that the armed
vessels employed upon Lough Ree found security under the walls of the
fortress. This castle is well described by Mr Weld, in his excellent
Survey of Roscommon, as being built nearly in the form of the letter
P, the tail of the letter being short in proportion, and occupied by
a spacious apartment for banqueting or assembly. In the head of the
letter, next the upright stem, is placed the keep, a lofty, massive,
and before the use of artillery, impregnable structure: it has a court
before it to the east, which was defended along the curve by a strong
wall, with banquette and parapet, and ditches of great depth, on the
outer side. The line represented by the stem of the letter, stretching in
a direction across the point, is in length above two hundred and forty
feet, and is protected at its base by that great artificial fosse which
insulated this lower portion of the peninsula and the castle as already
stated, but which is now nearly dry, the level having been altered by the
rubbish which has fallen into it from the ruins. Nearly in the centre of
this line appear the remains of abutments, both on the castle and outer
side of the fosse, marking the site of the draw-bridge, and opposite to
a small gateway in the castle wall. “The keep,” Mr Weld observes, “as
beheld both on the land side and from the lake, presents a very imposing
mass, its outer walls being entire, and its great tower rising to a very
considerable elevation: but the edifice on the land side appears almost
shapeless, owing to the extraordinary luxuriance of the ivy with which it
is overrun, originating from two vast flatted stems which spring up over
the base of the walls, just over the long fosse. I had the curiosity to
measure them, and found the one to be four feet six inches, and the other
seven feet five inches broad, presenting, though with many sinuosities,
an undivided face of bark, from side to side, and still growing with
great vigour. I cannot call to recollection having seen a more vast and
uninterrupted mass of ivy foliage.

The great tower is about fifty feet broad next the fosse: in the
upper story, traces of windows appear through the ivy, and of small
watch-towers at the angles. Like the other great castles of the country,
it was evidently destroyed by violence; and nothing short of the powerful
effects of gunpowder could have cast down the prodigious fragments of
masonry which stand insulated in the inner court. The view of the castle
is extremely pleasing from the water, and more particularly so, when
the sheltered harbour beneath its walls receives a little fleet of the
beautiful sailing pleasure-boats which are used upon this lake, the
gaiety of whose ensigns and painted sides forms a remarkable contrast to
the sombre tints of the ancient ivied walls, and the grey rocks on which
they repose.”

A short distance to the east of the castle, the remains of a round
watch-tower, as it would appear to be, crown the summit of a promontory
which is the highest point of the peninsula. Its diameter within is about
fourteen feet, and the walls are four feet thick. The entrance and the
window opposite to it face the water, and command most pleasing views up
and down the lake. The window, surmounted by a flat rounded arch, about
seven feet in height, is more spacious than such as are usually seen in a
building of this kind, and affords ample light to the chamber. Tho ground
between this promontory and the eminence occupied by the castle is low
and marshy, and water probably once flowed over it.

In addition to the fosse already described, the castle, and indeed the
whole peninsula, was further protected by a great wall which crossed
from one side to the other. According to Mr Weld’s measurements, this
wall is 564 yards in length from water to water, its distance from the
castle-fosse being 700 yards. “Nearly in the middle of it is an arched
gateway, with its defences still tolerably entire, twenty-four feet deep,
and presenting a front of twenty-one feet: between this gate and the
water at either side there are square towers, at unequal intervals of
from sixty to ninety yards, advanced about thirteen feet beyond the line
of the walls, and being in breadth about fifteen feet: in the interior
the dimensions are about eight feet six inches. These towers doubtless
afforded stations for the archers, and also facilitated the access to the
parapet and banquette of the wall. Whether there ever had been a fosse
on the outer side, I am unable to say; the probability is, that there
was; but if so, the ground has been levelled, and the rank luxuriance of
vegetation has obliterated its lines. The building of the wall, however,
appears in many parts to have been hastily executed, and cement to have
been sparingly used, yet it still remains a most interesting monument of
the military works of past ages.”

Of the ecclesiastical edifices of Rinn-duin, but small remains exist, and
as their names are lost to tradition, it is difficult now to identify
them with certainty. The principal ruin, which is situated near the
draw-bridge over the great fosse, on the land side, is most probably
the church erected in the commencement of the thirteenth century, and
dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Neither windows nor doorways exist to
give any idea of its style, but its walls are in sufficient preservation
to show the form and dimensions of the building. Like most important
Irish churches it consists of a nave and choir; the nave is sixty feet
long and twenty-four feet wide, the choir thirty-three feet long and
eighteen wide. This church, it may be presumed, stood in a conspicuous
part of the town; but not a vestige now remains of any other edifice,
either ecclesiastical or domestic, between the castle and the fortified
wall across the isthmus. The rude remains of the other ecclesiastical
buildings are situated on the outer side of the fortified wall, and are
connected with a burial-ground still much used; but there is nothing in
these remains worthy of particular notice.

A desire to supply, as far as in our power, a chasm in our local
histories, has induced us to extend our notice of the remains of
Rinn-duin to a greater length than that usually allotted to our
topographical papers, the history of these remains having been hitherto
involved in great darkness. Dr Ledwich, in his account of the castle,
written for Grose’s Antiquities of Ireland, briefly states that there are
no memorials of its structure! And even Mr Weld, the latest writer who
has described this locality, remarks, that “as to its past history, it
is involved in a mysterious and perhaps now impenetrable obscurity.” By
the publication, for the first time, of much matter hitherto locked-up
in manuscript records, we have, as we trust, thrown no small additional
light on the history of these interesting remains; and we have only to
add, that for the documents which we have used, we are in part indebted
to the kindness of Sir W. Betham, and still more to that of our friend
Mr O’Donovan, who has allowed us the use of his translation of the
unpublished Annals of the Four Masters.

                                                                       P.




A VENETIAN DIDDLER.


When in Venice, I had but two zecchinos left wherewith to fight my way
through this wicked world. My spirits for the first time deserted me: I
never passed so miserable a night in my life, and in shame of my “doublet
and hose,” I felt very much inclined to “cry like a child.” While tossing
on my pillow, however, I chanced to recollect a letter which my landlord
of Bologna, Signor Passerini, had given me to a friend of his, a Signor
Andrioli; for, as he told me, he thought the introduction might be of use
to me.

In the morning I went to the Rialto coffee-house, to which I was directed
by the address of the letter. Here I found the gentleman who was the
object of my search. After reading my credentials very graciously, he
smiled, and requested me to take a turn with him in the Piazza St Marc.
He was a fine-looking man, of about sixty years of age. I remarked there
was an aristocratic manner about him, and he wore a very large tie-wig,
well powdered, with an immensely long tail. He addressed me with a
benevolent and patronizing air, and told me that he should be delighted
to be of service to me, and bade me from that moment consider myself
under his protection. “A little business,” said he, “calls me away at
this moment, but if you will meet me here at two o’clock, we will adjourn
to my cassino, where, if you can dine on one dish, you will perhaps do me
the favour to partake of a boiled capon and rice. I can only offer you
that; perhaps a rice soup, for which my cook is famous; and it may be
just one or two little things not worth mentioning.”

A boiled capon--rice soup--other little things, thought I--manna in
the wilderness! I strolled about, not to get an appetite, for that was
ready, but to kill time. My excellent, hospitable, long-tailed friend was
punctual to the moment; I joined him, and proceeded towards his residence.

As we were bending our steps thither, we happened to pass a luganigera’s
(a ham-shop), in which there was some ham ready dressed in the window.
My powdered patron paused,--it was an awful pause; he reconnoitred,
examined, and at last said, “Do you know, Signor, I was thinking that
some of that ham would eat deliciously with our capon:--I am known in
this neighbourhood, and it would not do for me to be seen buying ham. But
do you go in, my child, and get two or three pounds of it, and I will
walk on and wait for you.”

I went in of course, and purchased three pounds of the ham, to pay for
which I was obliged to change one of my two zecchinos. I carefully folded
up the precious viand, and rejoined my excellent patron, who eyed the
relishing slices with the air of a _gourmand_; indeed, he was somewhat
diffuse in his own dispraise for not having recollected to order his
servant to get some before he left home. During this peripatetic lecture
on gastronomy, we happened to pass a cantina, in plain English, a
wine-cellar. At the door he made another full stop.

“In that house,” said he, “they sell the best Cyprus wine in
Venice--peculiar wine--a sort of wine not to be had any where else; I
should like you to taste it; but I do not like to be seen buying wine by
retail to carry home; go in yourself; buy a couple of flasks, and bring
them to _my cassino_; nobody hereabouts knows you, and it won’t signify
in the least.”

This last request was quite appalling; my pocket groaned to its very
centre; however, recollecting that I was on the high road to preferment,
and that a patron, cost what he might, was still a patron, I made the
plunge, and, issuing from the cantina, set forward for my venerable
friend’s cassino, with three pounds of ham in my pocket, and a flask of
wine under each arm.

I continued walking with my excellent long-tailed patron, expecting
every moment to see an elegant, agreeable residence, smiling in all the
beauties of nature and art; when, at last, in a dirty miserable lane, at
the door of a tall dingy-looking house, my Mæcenas stopped, indicated
that we had reached our journey’s end, and, marshalling me the way that
I should go, began to mount three flights of sickening stairs, at the
top of which I found his cassino: it was a little Cas, and a deuce of a
place to boot; in plain English, it was a garret. The door was opened by
a wretched old miscreant, who acted as cook, and whose drapery, to use a
gastronomic simile, was “done to rags.”

Upon a ricketty apology for a table were placed a tattered cloth, which
once had been white, and two plates; and presently in came a large bowl
of boiled rice.

“Where’s the capon?” said my patron to his man.

“Capon!” echoed the ghost of a servant; “the----”

“Has not the rascal sent it?” cried the master.

“Rascal!” repeated the man, apparently terrified.

“I knew he would not,” exclaimed my patron, with an air of exultation,
for which I saw no cause. “Well, well, never mind, put down the ham and
the wine; with those and the rice, I dare say, young gentleman, you will
be able to make it out. I ought to apologise, but in fact it is all your
own fault that there is not more; if I had fallen in with you earlier, we
should have had a better dinner.”

I confess I was surprised, disappointed, and amused; but as matters
stood, there was no use in complaining, and accordingly we fell to,
neither of us wanting the best of all sauces--appetite.

I soon perceived that my promised patron had baited his trap with a
fowl to catch a fool; but as we ate and drank, all care vanished, and,
rogue as I suspected him to be, my long-tailed friend was a clever witty
fellow, and, besides telling me a number of anecdotes, gave me some
very good advice; amongst other things to be avoided, he cautioned me
against numbers of people who in Venice lived only by duping the unwary.
I thought this counsel came very ill _from him_. “Above all,” said he,
“keep up your spirits, and recollect the Venetian proverb, ‘A hundred
years of melancholy will not pay one farthing of debt.’”--_Reminiscences
of Michael Kelly._

       *       *       *       *       *

Poets often compare life to the sea; and the truth is, that, however
bright the surface may be, they are both of them, whenever analysis is
used, _salt water_.




APOLOGUES AND FABLES, IN PROSE AND VERSE, FROM THE GERMAN AND OTHER
LANGUAGES.

(_Translated for the Irish Penny Journal._)


No. III.--THE STORY OF THE OLD WOLF.


I.

Sir Isegrim, the Wolf, was grown old. The years that had passed over his
head, too, had brought with them changes hardly to be expected in a wolf
at any season of life. All his fierceness and ferocity were gone; he was
no longer the slayer of sheep and terror of shepherds: no; he had lost
his teeth, and was now a philosopher. To superficial observers, perhaps,
the alteration in his character might not have been very obvious; but
he himself knew that he was no more what he had been--that his lupuline
prowess had departed from him. He resolved accordingly on showing
mankind what a reformation had overtaken him. “One of my brethren,”
said he, “once assumed the garb of a lamb, but he was still a wolf at
heart. I reverse the fable; I seem outwardly a wolf, but at heart I am
a lamb. Appearances are deceptive; whatever prejudices may be excited
against me by my exterior, with which I was born, and for which I am not
accountable, I have that within which passeth show. I trust that I feel
an exemplary horror for the blood-thirstiness of my juvenile instincts,
and the savage revellings of my maturer years. I am determined,
therefore, to accommodate my way of life in future to the usages of
society--to march with the spirit of the age--to cut no more throats--to
become in short quite civilized--and set an example which may have the
effect of eventually bringing all the wolves of the forest into the same
reputable position as my own.”

Full of these thoughts, and possibly some others, which he kept to
himself, he set out upon a journey to the hut of the nearest shepherd,
which he soon reached.

“Shepherd,” said he, “I have come to talk over a little matter with
you, personal to myself. You have been long the object of my esteem; I
entertain a special regard for you; but you requite my esteem and regard
with suspicion and hatred. You think me a lawless and sanguinary robber.
My friend, you labour under a deplorable prejudice. What have I done,
at least for many years back, worse than others? The head and front of
my offending is that I eat sheep. Suppose so: must not every animal
eat some other animal? I have the misfortune to be subject, like all
quadrupeds (as well as bipeds), to hunger. Only guarantee me from the
attacks of hunger; and upon my honour, Shepherd, I will never even dream
of pillaging your fold. Give me enough to eat, and you may turn your dogs
loose, and sleep in security. Ah! Shepherd, believe me, you do not know
what a gentle, meek, sleek-tempered animal I can become when I have got
what I think enough.”

“When you have got what you think enough!” retorted the Shepherd, who
had listened to this harangue with visible impatience; “ay, but when did
you ever get what you thought enough? Did Avarice ever think it had got
enough? No: you would cram your maw as the miser would his chest, and
when both were gorged to repletion, the cry would still be, More! More!
Go your way; you are getting into years; but I am even older than you;
and your cajolery is wasted. Try somebody else, old Isegrim!”


II.

I see that I must, thought the Wolf; and prosecuting his journey farther,
he came to the habitation of a second shepherd.

“Come, Shepherd!” he began stoutly, “I have a proposal to make to you.
You know me, who I am, and how I live. You know that if I choose to exert
my energies, I can dine and sup upon the heart’s blood of every sheep and
lamb under your care. Very well: now mark me; if you bestow on me half a
dozen sheep every twelvemonth, I pledge you my word that I will look for
no more. And only think what a fine thing it will be for you to purchase
the safety of your entire flock at the beggarly price of half a dozen
sheep!”

“Half a dozen sheep!” cried the Shepherd, bursting into a derisive laugh;
“why, that’s equal to a whole flock!”

“Well, well, I am reasonable,” said the Wolf; “give me five.”

“Surely you are joking,” said the Shepherd. “Why, if I were in the habit
of sacrificing to Pan, I don’t think I should offer him more than five
sheep the whole year round.”

“Four, then, my dear friend,” urged the Wolf, coaxingly; “you won’t think
four too many?”

“Ah,” returned the Shepherd, with a sly glance from the corner of his
eye, “don’t you wish you may get them?”

The selfish scoundrel, how he mocks me! thought the Wolf. “Will you
promise me three, or even two?”

“Not even one--not the ghost of one!” replied the Shepherd, emphatically.
“A pretty protector of my flock I should prove myself, truly, to
surrender it piecemeal into the claws of my inveterate enemy! Take
yourself off, my fine fellow, before you chance to vex me!”


III.

The third attempt generally creates or dissipates the charm, cogitated
Isegrim. May it be so in this present instance! As he mentally uttered
this ejaculation, he found himself in the presence of a third shepherd.

“Ah! my worthy, my excellent friend,” cried he, “I have been looking for
you the whole day. I want to communicate a piece of news to you. You must
know that I have been struggling desperately of late to regenerate my
character. The enormity of my past career, haunted as it is with phantoms
of blood and massacre, is for ever before my eyes, and humbles me--oh,
dear! how much nobody can guess. I have grown very penitent, and very,
very soft-hearted altogether, Shepherd.” Here Isegrim hung his head,
overcome for a moment by his emotions. “Still, Shepherd, still--and this
is what I want you to understand--I find I can make after all but slight
progress by myself. I go on smack smooth enough for a while, and then my
zeal flags. I require encouragement and sympathy, and the companionship
of the good and the gentle, who could give me advice, and point out to me
the path of rectitude continually. In short, you see, if--if you would be
but generous enough to allow a sheep or two of enlightened principles to
take a walk out with me occasionally, in the cool of the evening, along
some sequestered valley, sacred to philosophic musings, I feel that it
would prove of the greatest advantage to me, in a moral and intellectual
point of view. But ah! I perceive you are laughing at me: may I ask
whether there is any thing in my request that strikes you as ridiculous?”

“Permit me to answer your question by another,” said the Shepherd, with a
sneer. “Pray, Master Wolf, how old are you?”

“Old enough to be fierce enough,” exclaimed Isegrim, with something of
the ferocity of old days in his tone and eye; “let me tell you that,
Master Shepherd.”

“And, like all the rest you have been telling me, it is a lie,” was the
Shepherd’s response. “You would be fierce if you could; but, to your
mortification, you are grown imbecile--you have the will, but want the
power. Your mouth betrays you, if your tongue don’t, old deceiver! Yet,
though you can bite no longer, you are still, I dare say, able to mumble;
and on the whole, I shouldn’t fancy being a sheep’s head and shoulders
in your way just now. What’s bred in the bone will never come out of the
flesh, says the proverb; and I believe you are one of the last animals
one could expect to falsify it. I’ll take right good care to keep you at
crook’s length, my crafty neighbour; make yourself certain of that!”


IV.

The wrath of the Wolf was excessive, but after some time it began to
subside. Mankind, it was evident, at least the pastoral portion of them,
did not appreciate as they ought the dawn of intelligence among the
lupuline race--the first faint efforts of the brute intellect to attain
emancipation from ignorance and savageism. However, he would try again.
Perseverance might conquer destiny. The Great, thought he, are not always
thus unfortunate. Certainly it should not be so in my case. Ha! here we
are at the door of another shepherd, and methinks a man of a thoughtful
and benevolent aspect. Let us see how we shall get along with his new
crookship.

So he began: “How is this, my dear friend?” he asked; “you seem rather
depressed in spirits. Nothing unpleasant, I hope?--no domestic fracas, or
thing of that sort--eh?”

“No,” returned the Shepherd, sighing, “but I have lost my faithful
dog--an animal I have had for years--and I shall never be able to supply
his place. I have been just thinking what a noble creature he was.”

“Gadso! that’s good news!” cried the Wolf--“I mean for myself--ay, and
on second thoughts, let me add for you too, Shepherd. You have me exactly
in the nick of time. It’s just the nicest thing that could have happened!”

“What do you mean?” cried the shepherd. “Nicest thing that could have
happened! I don’t understand you.”

“I’ll enlighten you, my worthy,” cried Isegrim in high spirits. “What
would you think? I have just had the bloodiest battle you can imagine
with my brethren in the forest; they and I quarrelled upon a point of
etiquette; so I tore a dozen and a half of them to pieces, and made awful
examples of all the rest. The consequence is, that the whole of the brute
world is up in arms against me; I can no longer herd with my kind; for
safety sake I must make my dwelling among the children of men. Now, as
you have lost your dog, what can you do better than hire me to fill his
place? Depend upon it, I shall have such a constant eye to your sheep!
And, as to expense, I shall cost you nothing; for as employment, and not
emolument, is my object, I shall manage to live on a mere idea--in fact,
I don’t care whether I eat or drink; I’ll feed upon air, if you only take
me into your service!”

“Do you mean to say,” demanded the Shepherd, “that you would protect my
flock against the invasions of your own brethren, the wolves?”

“Mean to say it! I’ll swear it,” cried Isegrim. “I’ll keep them at such
a distance that no eye in the village shall see them; that their very
existence shall become at length matter of tradition only; so that people
shall think there is only one Wolf--that’s myself--in the world!”

“And pray,” asked the Shepherd, “while you protect my sheep against other
wolves, who will protect them against you? Am I to suppose that though
you hold the place of a dog, you can ever forget that you inherit the
nature of a wolf? And if I cannot suppose so, should I not be a madman to
employ you? What! introduce a thief into my house that he may forestall
by his own individual industry the assaults of other thieves on my
property? Upon my word, that’s not so bad! I wonder in what school you
learned such precious logic, Master Isegrim?”

“You be hanged!” cried the Wolf in a rage, as he took his departure; “a
pretty fellow you are to talk to me of schools, you who were never even
at a hedge-school!”


V.

“What a bore it is to be superannuated!” soliloquized the Wolf. “I
should get on famously, but for these unfurnished jaws of mine;” and he
gnashed his gums together with as much apparent fervour as if he had
got a mouthful of collops between them. “However, I must cut my coat
according to my cloth. ‘’Tis not in mortals to command success.’” With
which quotation from an English poet, Sir Isegrim made a halt before the
cottage of a fifth shepherd.

“Good morrow, Corydon,” was his courteous greeting.

The accosted party cast his eyes upon Isegrim, but made no reply.

“Do you know me, Shepherd?” asked the Wolf.

“Perhaps not you, as an individual,” said the Shepherd, “but at least I
know the like of you.”

“I should think not, though,” suggested Isegrim. “I should think you
cannot. I should think you never saw the like of _me_, Corydon.”

“Indeed!” cried Corydon, opening his eyes; “and why not, pray?”

“Because, Corydon,” answered Isegrim, “I am a singular sort of wolf
altogether--marvellous, unique, like to myself alone. I am one of those
rare specimens of brute intellectuality that visit the earth once perhaps
in three thousand years. My sensibilities, physical and moral, are of a
most exquisite order. To give you an illustration--I never could bear to
kill a sheep; the sight of the blood would be too much for my nerves;
and hence, if I ever partake of animal food, it can only be where life
has been for some time extinct in the natural way. I wait until a sheep
expires at a venerable old age, and then I cook him in a civilized
manner. But why do I mention all this to you? I’ll tell you frankly, my
admirable friend. My refined susceptibilities have totally disqualified
me for living in the forest, and I want a home under your hospitable
roof. I know that after what I have said you cannot refuse me one, for
even you yourself eat dead sheep; and I protest most solemnly that I will
dine at your table.”

“And I protest most solemnly that you shall do no such thing,” returned
the Shepherd. “You eat dead sheep, do you? Let me tell you that a wolf
whose appetite is partial to dead sheep, may be now and then persuaded
by hunger to mistake sick sheep for dead, and healthy sheep for sick.
Trot off with your susceptibilities elsewhere, if you please. There’s a
hatchet in the next room.”


VI.

Have I left a single stone unturned to carry my point? demanded the Wolf
of himself. Yes, there is a chance for me yet. I have it! And full of
hope he came to the cottage of the sixth shepherd.

“Look at me, Shepherd!” he cried. “Am I not a splendid quadruped for my
years? What’s your opinion of my skin?”

“Very handsome and glossy indeed,” said the Shepherd. “You don’t seem to
have been much worried by the dogs.”

“No, Shepherd, no,” replied Isegrim, “I have not been much worried by
dogs, but I have been and am worried, awfully worried, Shepherd, by
hunger. Now, the case being so, as you admire my skin, you and I shall
strike a bargain. I am grown old, and cannot live many days longer: feed
me then to death, cram me to the gullet, Shepherd, and I’ll bequeath you
my beautiful skin!”

“Upon my word!” exclaimed the Shepherd. “You come to the person of all
on earth most interested in compassing your death, and you demand of
him the means to enable you to live. How modest of you! No, no, my good
fellow, your skin would cost me in the end seven times its worth. If
you really wish to make me a present of it, give it to me now. Here’s a
knife, and I’ll warrant you I’ll disembarrass you of it before you can
say Trapstick.”

But the Wolf had already scampered off.


VII.

“Oh, the bloody-minded wretches!” he exclaimed, “give them fair words or
foul, their sole retort to you is still, the hatchet! the cleaver! the
tomahawk! Shall I endure this treatment? Never! I’ll return on my trail
this moment, and be revenged on the whole of the iniquitous generation.”

So saying, he furiously dashed back the way he had come, rushed into the
shepherds’ huts, sprang upon and tore the eyes out of several of their
children, and was only finally subdued and killed after a hard struggle,
during which he managed to inflict a number of rather ugly wounds upon
his captors.

It was then that a venerable shepherd of five score years and ten, the
patriarch of the village, spoke to them as follows:--“How much better,
my friends, would it have been for us if we had acceded at first to the
terms proposed by this reckless destroyer! Whether he was sincere or not,
we could have easily established so vigilant a system of discipline with
respect to him that he should not have had it in his power to injure
us. Now, too late, we may deplore the evil that we cannot remedy. Ah,
believe me, my friends, it is an unwise policy to drive the vicious to
desperation: the hand of the outcast from society becomes at last armed
against all mankind; he ceases after a season to distinguish between
friends and enemies. Few, perhaps none, are so bad as to be utterly
irreclaimable; and he who discourages the first voluntary efforts of
the guilty towards reforming themselves, on the pretence that they are
hypocritical, arrogates to himself that discrimination into motives which
belongs alone to the Supreme Judge of all hearts, and becomes in a degree
responsible for the ruinous consequences that are almost certain to
result from his conduct.”

                                                                       M.




TO KATHARINE.

BY J. U. U.


    Believe not I forget thee: not for one
    Dark moment, have I been thus self-divided
    From that deep consciousness which is for ever
    The light of all my thoughts; it were to lose
    My own existence--a chill blank in life:
    For all is colourless when love deserts
    The heart--sole centre of all joy and woe;
    Whose light or gloom all nature wears. Believe
    My breast still weary till it turns to thee,
    The load-star of its constant faith--unchanged
    By distance or by time. For thee it cares:
    For thee its joys are treasured up untasted,
    As scattered sweets which the home-loving bee
    Hoards for its mossy dwelling far away.




THE JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE.


The Jerusalem artichoke affords a plentiful supply of winter food for
sheep and cattle, and is highly serviceable in situations where, owing to
the unfitness of the soil, or a deficiency of manure, turnips, carrots,
mangold wortzel, or potatoes, can be cultivated only to a small extent.
Mr Morewood, in the “History of Inebriating Liquors,” p. 399, thus treats
of the advantages attending its cultivation:--“In some parts of the north
of France the root of the Jerusalem artichoke (_Helianthus tuberosus_)
has been introduced for the purpose of distillation. The wash from this
vegetable is found to yield a very pure strong spirit, which resembles
that obtained from the grape more than any substitute that has hitherto
been tried. As the root grows readily in Great Britain, and might be
cultivated abundantly, it would be well to try the experiment here, as we
have no medium spirit between genuine French brandy and the fiery produce
of grain sold under the denominations of gin and whisky. In Ireland
the cultivation of this plant would be attended with great advantage,
since it thrives well in a boggy soil; and in a country like it, where
there are so many unreclaimed and waste lands, its culture would be a
profitable speculation, for while the roots would afford a fine material
for distillation, the tops would yield more fodder than the same space of
ground, if sown with ordinary grain.”

In Scotland this plant is only to be found in the gardens, the
agriculturists of that country being, it would seem, as yet unacquainted
with its value as a fodder. According to Mr Tighe, in the “Survey of
Kilkenny,” p. 342, it has been partially introduced into that county. He
says, “The Jerusalem artichoke has been tried as a food for sheep by the
Rev. Dr Butler; he found them very fond of the roots, which agreed well
with them; the quantity produced in ground without manure was calculated
to be at the rate of one hundred barrels per acre (a barrel is five
bushels or twenty stones). Being very hardy plants, they will thrive in a
poor soil without any manure, and are extremely productive: pigs may be
fed with them as well as sheep; and as horses are said to be fond of the
tops, it is surprising that their use in agriculture has not been more
general. One advantage attends their cultivation--they are not liable to
be stolen like turnips, cabbage, young rape, and similar plants; they are
not with more difficulty extirpated from ground than potatoes, though
this had been objected to them, and will perish soon when the field is
laid down with grass.”




EARLY STRUGGLES OF MEN OF GENIUS.

ANECDOTE OF ROOKE, THE COMPOSER.


We do not know if it be stated in the Life of Sir Walter Scott that
several years previous to his death he had proposed to write a work
on the early difficulties to which the most illustrious men of genius
in the British islands had been subjected, but it is within our own
knowledge that during his visit to Ireland he avowed this intention, and
for this purpose collected facts relative to our own most distinguished
countrymen, some of which were obtained from ourselves. Such a work, as
that great man would have written it, would be of inestimable value;
and it is deeply to be lamented that the difficulties in which his own
latter years were involved should have prevented him from undertaking
it. We have been reminded of this interesting fact by the following
anecdote, which has been communicated to us by a friend, illustrative of
the early difficulties with which one of our most eminent countrymen had
to contend, and from which he succeeded in extricating himself, no less
by persevering energy of mind, independence of spirit, and propriety of
conduct, than by the possession and cultivation of talents of the highest
order--we allude to the author of the opera of “Amilie, or the Love
Token.” We give the anecdote in our friend’s own words:--

    “William M. Rooke, the composer of the delightful music of
    ‘Amilie,’ an opera which has spread his musical fame far and
    wide, had in early life to contend for years, in his native
    city, Dublin, against difficulties which would have broken
    the spirit of any one, save a man endowed with the strongest
    mental powers: indeed, many men of great talents have sunk
    under trials which the genius and perseverance of Rooke have at
    length overcome, placing him at his present height of celebrity
    as a British composer. None can so truly estimate his merits as
    those who are aware of the hard fortune of his early days, and
    what he had to struggle against previous to his visiting London
    in 1821.

    In reference to these struggles, the following singular fact
    may not prove uninteresting to those fond of the marvellous;
    and had not the circumstance occurred in my presence, I should
    have doubted its truth:--One morning during the summer of 1818,
    I called at Rooke’s lodgings, and on entering the room found
    him in a state of great dejection. ‘How are you, Billy?’ said
    I (my usual salute). ‘As well as a man can be,’ he replied,
    ‘who has not yet had his breakfast, and who has not a farthing
    in his pocket to procure one.’ This was at eleven o’clock. At
    the very moment that this reply was uttered, our eyes were
    attracted by a light piece of paper, which for a short time
    floating over our heads, finally settled upon the floor; and
    our astonishment may be imagined on discovering it to be a
    bank note! It would not be easy to describe my feelings. I
    gazed on the object intently, scarcely believing it a reality,
    although I could plainly see the prominent features of its
    value--Thirty Shillings! We both remained for some minutes
    motionless, except that our eyes were cast alternately from
    the object of our wonder to the various parts of the room,
    seeking a cause for so unexpected but welcome a visitor. This
    apparent mystery, however, was soon explained. Some months
    previous, Rooke had missed a thirty-shilling note, and supposed
    it to have been stolen from him. On the morning of my call he
    had been seeking some manuscript music stowed away in a press
    near the window, the upper sash of which was down; and in his
    search the long-lost note had thus been exposed to a strong
    current of air, which ultimately dislodging it from its place
    of concealment, restored it to its owner at a moment when it
    was so much wanted.

    When last in London, during an evening’s chat with my friend,
    casting our thoughts back upon old times and circumstances,
    I brought to his recollection the fact here related, the
    singularity of which principally rests upon the strange chance
    of the mislaid note re-appearing at such a time and in such
    a manner; and I question whether, in all its rambles before
    or since, the said thirty-shilling note ever came to hand so
    opportunely.”

                                                                    B. W.




THE NATURE OF WATER.


We concluded a previous notice of some of the uses to which water is
subservient in nature, by mentioning that modern science had fully proved
the incorrectness of the ancient idea of the elementary nature of water;
and that by the processes which chemistry places at our disposal, we are
now able to resolve water into its elements, or, having obtained these
elements from other sources, to cause them to unite, and to produce water
in combining. In the present article we shall point out the manner in
which this may be accomplished, and describe some properties and uses of
water which the space at our disposal did not allow us to notice before.

Water consists in great part of the substance to which is due the power
the atmosphere possesses of supporting life and combustion, and of which
we have formerly spoken under the name of oxygen. Every nine ounces of
water contain eight ounces of oxygen, the remainder being made up of
another and very peculiar substance, termed hydrogen. Hydrogen is a gas,
invisible, colourless, and transparent, and consequently in all external
characters precisely like the air we breathe. But it differs from it very
much in other respects. If a lighted candle be placed in hydrogen gas,
the candle is extinguished, for hydrogen does not support combustion, but
the gas itself takes fire, where it mixes with the air, and burns with a
pale yellowish flame, scarcely visible in broad day-light. Hence hydrogen
is in its properties the very reverse of oxygen: it burns, which oxygen
does not; oxygen supports combustion, which hydrogen cannot do. When
hydrogen burns with oxygen, water is always formed.

Now, to decompose water it is only necessary to act upon the principle of
hydrogen being a combustible substance. All substances are not equally
combustible; that is to say, they do not burn or combine with oxygen with
equal facility or quickness. Thus charcoal is more combustible than iron,
iron is more combustible than copper, and copper than gold or silver,
whilst phosphorus is still more combustible than charcoal. Now, oxygen
will combine with any of these combustible substances; but if it have a
choice, it will take that which is most combustible--that which it likes
best. And even if the oxygen be already united with one body, and that
another more combustible be brought into action on it, it will leave
the former, and attach itself altogether to the latter substance. The
combustibility of hydrogen is about equal to that of iron. It is inferior
to carbon and to many other bodies; but it is superior to that of copper,
silver, gold, and others. If, therefore, we take water in the state of
steam, and bring it into contact with red-hot charcoal or coke, the
oxygen of the water goes to the most combustible body, and the hydrogen
is set free. In this way charcoal may be made to burn brilliantly without
air, but not without oxygen. A red-hot bit of charcoal burns in steam,
because it decomposes the water; it takes the oxygen, and turns the
hydrogen out, which assuming the form of gas, may be collected by means
of peculiar chemical apparatus.

Iron and hydrogen are, as mentioned above, about equally combustible: in
fact it depends upon the degree of heat, which is the more combustible.
If the iron be bright red, it decomposes water, taking away the oxygen;
but if it be only dull red, then hydrogen is the more combustible; and
if there be a compound of oxygen and iron ready formed (oxide of iron,
rust), the hydrogen will decompose it, and water being formed, the iron
will be set free. If, therefore, a gun barrel be laid across a fire, and
heated to bright redness, and a little water be poured into it at one end
by means of a tun-dish with a stop-cock soldered to it, hydrogen gas will
issue from the other end, and may be burned, or collected for various
purposes.

Hydrogen gas may be prepared more easily by other processes, which do
not show, however, so clearly the fact of its being derived from the
decomposition of the water. The property which iron acquires at a bright
red heat may be given to it without any heat, by means of some oil of
vitriol (called in the language of chemists, sulphuric acid). Iron quite
cold will decompose water, if the water be previously mixed with some
sulphuric acid. The oxygen goes to the iron, which dissolves, and the
liquor contains green copperas. The metal zinc, which is now so very much
used in the arts, may also be employed with sulphuric acid and water to
decompose water, and it gives a purer hydrogen gas than iron, the latter
metal containing always a little charcoal, which mixes with the hydrogen
and contaminates it.

In all of these processes, although the water is decomposed, yet we
obtain only one of its elements; the other, the oxygen, remaining
combined with the iron, the charcoal, or the zinc. We may, however,
produce the separation of water into its elements, so as to exhibit both.
This is done by passing a current of electricity from the apparatus
termed the galvanic battery, through the water. One of the grandest and
most fruitful discoveries ever made in chemistry was that by Sir Humphry
Davy, who proved that electricity possesses the power of separating
compound substances into their elements; and by that means he succeeded
in decomposing numerous bodies which had resisted all processes known
before that time, and obtained new substances of a simple nature, and of
most curious and important properties. To decompose water by means of
electricity, the wires from the galvanic battery are made to dip into
a little cup of water, and over each wire there is hung a bell-shaped
vessel, inverted, full of water. When the current passes, pure oxygen gas
is disengaged from one wire, and pure hydrogen gas is liberated at the
other, and being received as the bubbles rise in the bell-glasses, the
gases are collected for use.

So much for the separation of water into its elements; the production of
water by the union of its elements is still easier. The simplest way to
show this is to take a little bottle, and put into it the zinc, water,
and sulphuric acid, by which the hydrogen is to be obtained, to fit to
the mouth of the bottle a cork, through which passes a little glass or
metal tube, ending in a fine jet. The gas may be set on fire as it issues
from the jet, and by holding a cold plate or a tumbler over the flame,
and at a little distance, a copious dew of water will be deposited upon
it, which after a few moments will increase so much as to run into large
drops. This water is formed by the hydrogen gas combining as it burns
with the oxygen of the air.

Hydrogen gas in burning produces very little light: one cause of this
is, that the product of combustion-formed water being in a state of
steam, there is no solid substance in the flame; and it appears to be
always true that no bright light can exist without a solid material.
In order to produce a great light with the flame of hydrogen gas, it
is only necessary to place a wire or a bit of flint, or any solid
substance, in the flame. The solid immediately becomes intensely bright,
and by using lime or magnesia, which are peculiarly fitted for the
purpose, a light so intense as to be only surpassed by the noon-day
summer sun, may be obtained. This lime light has been introduced for
experiment into lighthouses, and has been particularly serviceable in the
trigonometrical surveys of those kingdoms, in consequence of which it is
generally known as the Drummond light, from the eminent philosopher whose
recent melancholy loss every Irishman must deplore. The heat produced
by the flame of hydrogen is thus most intense; substances which are
inattackable by the strongest furnaces melt like wax in the jet of oxygen
and hydrogen, and in the Drummond light the lime appears gradually to
evaporate.

A mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, or of hydrogen and air, may be thus
set fire to by a candle; and when previously mixed, a terrific explosion
is produced. Persons should therefore be very cautious how they perform
experiments with hydrogen, as even skilful chemists have occasionally
suffered severely from accidents of this kind. When a young person makes
hydrogen for the first time, he is naturally curious, and hastens to
satisfy himself by seeing that it burns: he applies the candle before
all the common air has been expelled from the apparatus, and the mixture
inside being still explosive, the flame passes back, and the whole is
shattered into pieces with the noise and violence of a bombshell. At the
same time, therefore, that we would be happy if this article induced
many of our young readers to satisfy themselves of the composition and
decomposition of water by actual experiment, yet we trust they will do so
prudently, and with the guidance of some older person who has previously
seen how chemical apparatus are employed.

If a wide tube of glass be held over the jet of burning hydrogen gas,
a very curious result is produced: a powerful musical sound is heard,
which changes according as the jet is moved up and down in the tube. The
nearer the jet is to the orifice, the graver, the higher up in the tube
it is, the more acute, is the sound heard. The cause of this is, that the
flame, which to the eye appears uniform and continuous, is in reality a
number of very small explosions of mixed air and gas. These succeed one
another so rapidly that the intervals of darkness which intervene are not
perceived, and the quantity of gas which explodes is too small to produce
any audible noise; but on bringing a tube, the air in which is capable of
vibrating with the same quickness as the little explosions are produced,
the air is thrown into vibrations which reach the ear, and produce the
peculiar musical tone. With a selection of gas jets and tubes a variety
of notes may be produced, so great that a musical instrument has been
constructed by their means.

Hydrogen gas is the lightest substance in nature, and it is consequently
used to fill balloons, by which men have been carried to a height in
the air much exceeding that of the loftiest mountains. When balloons
were first made use of, they were of the kind which are now termed
fire-balloons: the bag of the balloon was open at the bottom, and in the
car was a furnace, the chimney of which terminated at the aperture of the
balloon. The hot air and gases generated by the burning of the fuel in
the furnace ascending into the bag, expelled the heavier cold air, and a
sufficient power of rising was thus obtained, by the difference between
the weight of the heated and of the cold air, to enable the balloon to
take up a very considerable weight. Hydrogen gas being, however, at
least ten times as light as the hot air, was much more convenient, as
it required only a much smaller balloon; and the unfortunate death of
the most remarkable experimenter of the fire-balloon, Pilatre de Roxier,
contributed also very much to show their great danger, and prevent their
being used.

Although many persons had proposed from time to time to ascend by means
of balloons filled with heated or rarified air, or with hydrogen gas,
it was reserved for the brothers Montgolfier of Lyons to realize this
bold and singular idea. These brothers had originally been destined to
science, but on the death of an elder brother who had been an extensive
paper maker at Lyons, they abandoned their former pursuits to continue
the manufacture. They made large paper balloons, which, whether filled
with hydrogen gas or heated air, ascended, and one brother ascended to a
small height at Lyons. On introducing their invention to the notice of
the public and the royal family at Paris, the greatest enthusiasm was
excited, and personages of the highest rank accompanied the adventurous
brothers in their aërial voyages. Pilatre de Roxier, then director of
the king’s museum, devoted himself completely to the improvement of the
new art of the navigation of the air; and after having ascended from
Versailles frequently, and gained a considerably greater height than any
of his predecessors, he resolved to cross the British Channel, and pass
from France to England in a fire-balloon. He ascended from a village
about half way between Calais and Boulogne, on September the 16th,
1784, with a gentleman of the town as a companion; and having attained
a considerable height, was carried by the favourable wind over the sea
in his proper course. The balloon however continuing to rise, got into a
current of air in an opposite direction, and was brought again over the
land; at this moment the spectators on shore were horrified to observe
that the balloon, half lost in the clouds, was on fire, and after a
moment the car was observed to fall. The remains of the car and of the
unfortunate aëronauts, in whom scarcely a vestige of human form could
be traced, were found in a field on the road to Abbeville; and a stone
bearing the simple inscription of the fate of Pilatre de Roxier and his
companion marks to the present day the place, close by the road-side,
where the bodies were inhumed.

The substitution of hydrogen or of coal gas for the fire-balloon, has
deprived aërial navigation of its greatest dangers. No good means of
steering or tacking a balloon having been discovered, the art has not yet
fulfilled the expectations that were at first formed of it: the balloon
is at the mercy of the winds; and although the voyagers travel in ease
and safety, and often with rail-road speed, yet as it cannot be foretold
in what direction the balloon must go, voyages in the air have been as
yet only an exciting and not very dangerous amusement.

                                                                       K.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE THEATRE.--I approach a subject, on which a great variety of opinion
exists, and that is the theatre. In its present state the theatre
deserves no encouragement. It is an accumulation of immoral influences.
It has nourished intemperance and all vice. In saying this, I do not
say that the amusement is radically, essentially evil. I can conceive
of a theatre which would be the noblest of all amusements, and would
take a high rank among the means of refining the taste and elevating the
character of a people. The deep woes, the mighty and terrible passions,
and the sublime emotions of genuine tragedy, are fitted to thrill us
with human sympathies, with profound interest in our nature, with a
consciousness of what man can do, and dare, and suffer, with an awed
feeling of the fearful mysteries of life. The soul of the spectator
is stirred from its depths, and the lethargy in which so many live
is roused, at least for a time, to some intenseness of thought and
sensibility. The drama answers a high purpose when it places us in the
presence of the most solemn and striking events of human history, and
lays bare to us the human heart in its most powerful, appalling, glorious
workings. But how little does the theatre accomplish its end! How often
is it disgraced by monstrous distortions of human nature, and still more
disgraced by profaneness, coarseness, indelicacy, low wit, such as no
woman, worthy of the name, can hear without a blush, and no man can take
pleasure in without self-degradation!--_Dr Channing on Temperance._

       *       *       *       *       *

CONSECRATED IRISH BELLS.--Consecrated bells were formerly held in great
reverence in Ireland, particularly before the tenth century. Cambrensis,
in his Welsh Itinerary, says, “Both the laity and clergy in Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, held in such great veneration portable bells, and
staves crook’t at the top, and covered with gold, silver, and brass,
and similar relics of the saints, that they were much more afraid of
swearing falsely by them than by the gospels, because from some hidden
and miraculous power with which they were gifted, and the vengeance of
the saint, to whom they were particularly pleasing, their despisers and
transgressors are severely punished.” Miraculous portable bells were very
common; Giraldus speaks of the _Campana fugitiva_ of O’Toole, chieftain
of Wicklow; and Colgan relates, that whenever St Patrick’s portable bell
tolled, as a preservative against evil spirits and magicians, it was
heard from the Giants’ Causeway to Cape Clear, from the Hill of Howth to
the Western shores of Connemara.--_Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy._

    Printed and Published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at
    the Office or the General Advertiser, No. 6. Church Lane,
    College Green, Dublin.--Agents--R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley,
    Paternoster Row, London. SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street,
    Manchester. C. DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool. J. DRAKE,
    Birmingham. M. BINGHAM, Broad Street, Bristol. FRASER and
    CRAWFORD, George Street, Edinburgh. DAVID ROBERTSON, Trongate,
    Glasgow.







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, VOL. 1 NO. 10, SEPTEMBER 5, 1840 ***


    

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