Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 581, December 15, 1832», страница 5

It is time to speak of the Panorama as a work of art; for hitherto we have rather considered its intellectual interest. The Castle and Palace we take to be finely painted, with admirable picturesque effect: the huge gateway, flanked with two towers, the battlemented walls, and battery, are in fine bold relief, as is the clinging vegetation about the building; nor must we omit the grotesque figures or corbelled pedestals, and the identical window bars, the work of the wily Scot of Craig Forth; the latter especially, are clever. A portion of the esplanade otherwise devoid of interest, is peopled with a meeting of the Highland Society celebrating the feats of the ancient Caledonians, the object of the Society being to preserve their language, costume, music, gymnastic sports, and martial games. This introduction happily fills up what would otherwise have been the only void in the scene, so thickly is it studed and storied with objects and recollections. Altogether, we have rarely seen a topographical panorama of such diversified character: it has reminiscences of history and poetry to lead us through the retrospect of chivalrous ages, princely contests for crowns that rarely sat lightly on their wearers, and the last flickering hopes of defeated ambition and ill-starred fortune. Yet, how powerfully, not to say painfully, are these pages in the chronicles of human actions, when contrasted with the broad volume of nature, as spread before us in this picture. Alas! what is the majesty of the mightiest of the kings that dwelt in its palace in comparison with the sublimities of Tinto, Ben Lomond, Venue, or Ledy; or what the peace of their halls amidst the smiling expanse of the Carse of Stirling in all its quiet luxuriance. They and their houses have become dust or crumbling ruin, and death has with a little pin bored through their castle walls—while Nature has been flourishing from year to year, and reading man an epitome of existence in the succession of her changes.

It has been stated that Mr. Burford, the successful painter of Stirling, is engaged on a Panorama of the Falls of Niagara. All admirers of this style of painting must be anxious for his success.

SIR WALTER SCOTT

Mr. Parker has issued in addition to the Medal already noticed in our pages, a Medallion of the lamented Poet and Novelist, from Chantrey's bust. It is, we think, the obverse of the Medal, with bronzed circular frame work bearing the motto suggested by Sir Walter. Though handsome, it is an economical memorial of one whose amiable talents must endear him to every fireside in the kingdom.

NEW BOOKS

POMPEII

[The second and concluding volume of the descriptive history of Pompeii, in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, is still more attractive than its predecessor. It contains the very domestic economy of the ancient inhabitants—chapters on domestic architecture, paintings and mosaics, streets and fountains, private houses, villas, and tombs; and, moreover, on the art of baking, and the forms of domestic utensils. We are, therefore, led through hall, parlour, bath, kitchen, and shop, with amusing minuteness; and, in the account of furniture and domestic implements, it is curious to observe, how far we are indebted to the ancients for the forms of similar contrivances now in use. One of the best passages in this portion of the work is the following, on the]

Lamps and Candelabra

No articles of ancient manufacture are more common than lamps. They are found in every variety of form and size, in clay and in metal, from the most cheap to the most costly description. We have the testimony of the celebrated antiquary Winkelmann to the interest of this subject: "I place among the most curious utensils, found at Herculaneum, the lamps, in which the ancients sought to display elegance, and even magnificence. Lamps of every sort will be found in the museum at Portici, both in clay and bronze, but especially the latter; and as the ornaments of the ancients have generally some reference to some particular things, we often meet with rather remarkable subjects." A considerable number of these articles will be found in the British Museum, but they are chiefly of the commoner sort. All the works, however, descriptive of Herculaneum and Pompeii, present us with specimens of the richer and more remarkable class, which attract admiration both by the beauty of the workmanship, and the whimsical variety of their designs. We may enumerate a few which occur in a work now before us, "Antiquités d'Herculanum," in which we find a Silenus, with the usual peculiarities of figure ascribed to the jolly god rather exaggerated, and an owl sitting upon his head between two huge horns, which support stands for lamps. Another represents a flower-stalk, growing out of a circular plinth, with snail-shells hanging from it by small chains, which held the oil and wick. The trunk of a tree, with lamps suspended between the branches. Another, a naked boy, beautifully wrought, with a lamp hanging from one hand, and an instrument for trimming it from the other, the lamp itself representing a theatrical mask. Beside him is a twisted column, surmounted by the head of a Faun, or Bacchanal, which has a lid in its crown, and seems intended as a reservoir of oil. The boy and pillar are both placed on a square plateau, raised upon lions' claws. But, beautiful as those lamps are, the light which they gave must have been weak and unsteady, and little superior to that of common street-lamps, with which indeed they are identical in principle. The wick was merely a few twisted threads, drawn through a hole in the upper surface of the oil-vessel; and there was no glass to steady the light, and prevent its varying with every breeze that blew.

Still, though the Romans had not advanced so far in art as to apply glass-chimneys and hollow circular wicks to their lamps, they had experienced the inconvenience of going home at night through a city ill-paved, ill-watched, and ill-lighted, and, accordingly, soon invented lanterns to meet the want. These we learn from Martial, who has several epigrams upon this subject, were made of horn or bladder;—no mention, we believe, occurs, of glass being thus employed. The rich were preceded by a slave bearing their lantern. This, Cicero mentions, as being the habit of Catiline upon his midnight expeditions; and when M. Antony was accused of a disgraceful intrigue, his lantern-bearer was tortured, to extort a confession whither he had conducted his master.⁴ One of these machines, of considerable ingenuity and beauty of workmanship, was found in Herculaneum in 1760, and another, almost exactly the same, at Pompeii, a few years after.

One of the most elegant articles of furniture in ancient use was the candelabrum, by which we mean those tall and slender stands which served to support a lamp, but were independent of and unconnected with it. These, in their original and simple form, were probably mere reeds, or straight sticks, fixed upon a foot by peasants, to raise their light to a convenient height; at least, such a theory of their origin is agreeable to what we are told of the rustic manners of the early Romans, and it is in some degree countenanced by the fashion in which many of the ancient candelabra are made. Sometimes the stem is represented as throwing out buds; sometimes it is a stick, the side branches of which have been roughly lopped, leaving projections where they grew; sometimes it is in the likeness of a reed or cane, the stalk being divided into joints. Most of those which have been found in the buried cities are of bronze; some few of iron. In their general plan and appearance there is a great resemblance, though the details of the ornaments admit of infinite variety. All stand on three feet, usually griffins', or lions' claws, which support a light shaft, plain or fluted according to the fancy of the maker. The whole supports either a plinth large enough for a lamp to stand on, or a socket to receive a wax-candle, which the Romans used sometimes instead of oil in lighting their rooms. Some of them have a sliding shaft, like that of a music-stand, by which the light might be raised or lowered at pleasure.

We may here say a few words on the art of inlaying one metal with another, in which, as in all ornamental branches of the working of metals, the ancient Italians possessed great skill. In the time of Seneca, ornaments of silver were seldom seen, unless their price was enhanced by being inlaid with solid gold. The art of uniting one metal to another was called by the general term ferruminare. Inlaid work was of two sorts; in the one, the inlaid work projected above the surface, and was called emblemata, as the art itself was called, from the Greek, embletice. It is inferred, from the inspection of numerous embossed vases in the Neapolitan Museum, that this embossed work was formed, either by plating with a thin leaf of metal figures already raised upon the surface of the article, or by letting the solid figures into the substance of the vessel, and finishing them with delicate tools after they were attached. In the second sort, the inlaid work was even with the surface, and was called crusta, and the art was called, from the Greek, empaestice. This is the same as the damask work so fashionable in the armour of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which is often seen beautifully inlaid with gold. It was executed by engraving the pattern upon the surface of the metal, and filling up the lines with fine plates of a different metal; the two were then united with the assistance of heat, and the whole burnished. Pliny has preserved a receipt for solder, which probably was used in these works. It is called santerna; and the principal ingredients are borax, nitre, and copperas, pounded, with a small quantity of gold and silver, in a copper mortar.

[The volume is enriched with four steel-plate engravings, and 154 cuts, of clever execution.]