he was swinging in his hammock at home. About an hour before dawn, which I could somehow feel was coming, apart from the warning-cries of nocturnal birds and beasts, I became thoroughly aroused, and awoke Barra just as the first streak of light cut like a knife into the forest gloom. He was more rigid than I, not having changed his position for some hours, but soon roused himself, throwing a wondering glance round our nest. A frugal dip into the bag was followed by renewed consultation as to how we should get down. We at length agreed that by the aid of Barra's knife, the string, and our cloths, we should try to make some kind of ladder, by which to release ourselves from our leafy prison. The prospect was not an inviting one, greenheart being one of the heaviest and hardest woods of the colony; and Barra's being the only knife, only one of us could be employed-unless, indeed, that one could tie what the other cut. This plan was again revised, and at length we commenced making a pole intended to reach the ground, down which we could slide without further damage than perhaps some slight laceration. It was agreed to join the pieces of which our pole must necessarily be composed by a peg and socket-the latter foreshadowing an uncomfortable amount of difficulty and enforced patience. We had not long commenced chopping off a branch, pretty high up, as the first length of our pole, when the three toucans, as I verily believe they were, which had the day before escaped, again settled on the topmost bough. Speedily hearing, however, the noise below them, they flew off, and we saw them no more. From morning to night, with the exception of a short visit to the bag, we worked away, and after all, had not been able to complete more than eighteen feet at most, in three lengths. The two joints, however, answered admirably, having been made sufficiently tight to require some force in screwing home the peg. We suffered much from the want of water, especially as the labour caused us freely to perspire; and we felt some faintness of heart creeping over us as we lay down to rest for the second night. ever, insisted on immediately returning, and lowering them at once to the ground by the string. In the meantime, I descended to the limb whence the liana hung, and saw at once that our troubles were at an end. Barra soon joined me, and first slid down. It would not break with him, he said, even if it did with me. On reaching the bottom, however, he told me to follow him, which I did as soon as the oscillation caused by his descent had ceased. Taking up our guns and baggage, which seemed twice as heavy as when we last carried them, we made the best of our way to the river, and never found water so delightful before. Barra was none the worse for his arboreal sojourn. I contracted a fever, not severe, which lasted for a week or ten days, and which I regretted chiefly because of its shortening the dry season by the term of its duration. We several times visited the tree afterwards, in our rambles through the forest, and on the very last occasion the space between the trees was still bridged by our peg-and-socket pole. It may be there yet, lianabound, to render it the more secure. PRINTING BY MAGIC. In a recent number of the Journal, was given an account of certain improvements in lithography, capable of affording a great impetus to the commercial spread of the art. It has occurred to us, that it might be well to group together a few short statements and descriptions, calculated to shew how numerous are now the varieties of printing, wholly distinct from the oldfashioned letter-press and copperplate processes. This we are further induced to do, on account of a remarkable and important novelty lately introduced in Austria, and from thence into England. Chromotype, or printing in colours, does not imply the use of any one printing-surface in particular; it simply denotes the fact, that coloured as well as black inks are employed. Albert Dürer practised a sort of colour-printing, or imitation of chiaro-oscuro, or light and shade, by the use of oil colours and surface-blocks. We slept, notwithstanding-deeply, heavily- and The late Mr Branston the engraver, and the late Mr awoke in the morning as before, to recommence a toil Vizetelly the printer, were mainly instrumental in that now seemed hopeless. The branches that an- introducing colour-printing into England; and it is a swered our purpose became scarce; our knife was curious fact, that the chief application of the art, soon blunted by the hard wood; and suddenly we at the after its introduction, was in printing lottery-tickets; same moment gave up work, and looked in each other's the lottery contractors vying with each other in making faces. Whatever he may have found in mine, I read their tickets and placards as attractive as possible. only despair in my companion's, and I turned away my After the abolition of lotteries, colour-printing fell eyes for relief. They made a discovery which caused comparatively into disuse for some years. It was my heart to leap. On the further side of the next tree revived in consequence of improvements in preparing to us-that, in fact, by which the monkey had escaped coloured inks for printing playing-cards in oil, about —was a huge liana, large even here, where they twist twenty years ago, and since that time the art has proamong the forest, and bind the trees together, like stout gressed rapidly. The very remarkable labels for Day ships' cables. It reached within about ten feet of the and Martin's blacking-bottles, were among the early ground, depending some twenty feet from a limb which specimens of colour-printing. There is a lace-work our weight would put into no sort of danger, if we ground pattern printed in red ink; waving lines in red could only reach it. And why should we not reach it, and black ink; white and black and red letters of by bridging the space between the two trees by means various sizes and shapes; a wood-cut picture of the of our pole? It was already long enough, and the idea factory; and the copied autograph of the manufacwas no sooner conceived than we set to work it out. turers. The mode of producing these labels will illusHaving decided on the most eligible point whence to trate colour-printing in many of its varieties. There is make the experiment, a careful hoist sent the further a small printing-machine with two cylinders, one for end of the pole neatly into a fork of the further tree. black, and the other for red ink, each large enough to The joints bore the jerk almost without a sound, and print eight labels at once. For each label, two stereoBarra was over in a trice, running catlike along the type plates are prepared, by a combined process of pole, at a height of perhaps seventy-five feet from the casting, stamping, and modelling; so accurately adground. Being a much heavier man, there was the justed, that every raised spot in one plate has a corremore reason why I should cross in the same way, as sponding sunken spot in the other. One plate contains, quickly as possible; but I confess I was afraid; and, in relief, the whole of the letters and devices which are on Barra's assurance that it would bear me, I crossed to be printed in black; while the other contains those astride, and without mishap-thanks to the exceeding for red; and both plates are bent to the exact curvatoughness of the wood. We had hardly congratulated ture of the two cylinders. Eight plates are accurately ourselves on our success so far, when it simultaneously adjusted to each cylinder; and the inking rollers are so occurred to us both that the gun, bags, &c., were all in placed that the inking of the black plates is completed our late nest, and very blank we looked. Barra, how-just as the paper is brought near; while the red plate is similarly brought in readiness to seize and impress the paper as soon as it is liberated from the swarthy plate. aquafortis; the etching-ground and the acid are removed; a coating of fusible metal is applied to the zinc plate by melting fusible filings; the fusible metal is scraped down to the level of the zinc; the plate is immersed in an acid solution, which eats away the zinc and leaves the fusible metal; and thus the latter is left in relief, so as to be printed from by the typographic press. There is a paneiconographic processa long name, which seems to imply a power of copying or reproducing any or all kinds of engraving; the design is drawn with lithographic ink, or is transpolished zinc; this thin layer of ink is thickened by passing an inking-roller over it, and by dusting it with finely powdered resin; the plate is immersed in acid; the acid eats away the zinc surface in the parts left unprotected, and the remaining portion serves as a raised plate whence impressions may be taken by the common printing-press. There is a stylographic process, whereby a copper plate may be engraved without the aid either of graver or of etching-acid: a black composition is poured upon a smooth metallic surface; a thin coat of silver is applied to the composition; the artist sketches his design with a sharp tool, cutting through the silver to the level of the black composition; he obtains an electrotype cast, on which the design is of course in relief; he obtains a second cast by the same means, with the design sunk or in intaglio; and from this second cast impressions are taken by the ordinary copperplate-printing process. Simple and humble as this blacking-bottle affair may seem to be, it really contains the pith of many varieties of colour-printing. Mr Baxter has devised a mode of producing beautiful pictures, by printing in oilcolours from wood blocks and steel plates conjointly. Some colour-printing is effected from wood blocks only; while other specimens are worked off by the wood-cut method, from mezzotinted metal plates, of which as many are used as there are tints in the picture. No-ferred from any kind of engraving, upon a plate of thing can be more varied and beautiful than the chromotypic productions of the present day: they may be obtained from engraved steel, or from mezzotinted softer metal, or from stone, or from wood, or from stereotype plates; they may be by Baxter or Hanhart, or Hulmandel or Day; they may be copies from the old masters, or from our own landscape painters, or book illustrations, or decorative ornaments, or architectural designs, or fruit and flower pieces; they may be as simple as the paper covers of our own Miscellany and Repository, or as elaborate as some of Mr Baxter's Gems from the Great Exhibition-they may be any of these; so widely has the art of colour-printing now become extended. There was a most interesting group in the Saxon section at the Great Exhibition, comprising a series of sheets, each exhibiting one stage in the chromotypic process, shewing how many times the print itself had to pass through the press before its final completion. Among the simply beautiful printing pro- There are doubtless other 'graphies' and 'typies,' cesses now adopted is the cameo-embossing, in which the names of which escape us at the present moment, the surface of the die is inked or coloured; an example but the above will give a familiar idea of the very inof this kind is furnished in the oval postage stamps genious modes in which chemical action and mechanical on the post-office envelopes. The patent-medicine pressure are now made available in printing. There is, labels, supplied by the Excise department, are printed however, one method, which made a great noise a few in two colours at one impression, by a very ingenious years ago, and of which a little description may be arrangement of the printing machinery. Printing in desirable. This is anastatic printing. Towards the gold is in some degree allied to chromotype. Sometimes close of the year 1841, the Athenæum startled its readers gold-leaf is applied, by means of a gum or size, to type by the announcement of a new discovery, which seemed or stereotype when made hot; sometimes bronze-powder at the time to promise very serious consequences. The or gold-powder is rubbed upon letters printed with gold-proprietors received from a correspondent at Berlin a size; while in other varieties of the process, gold-powder reprint of four pages of the number of that journal is mixed with oil to the consistence of an ink, which is which had been published in London only on 25th then used like printers' ink. September. The copy was a very perfect fac-simile, differing only from the original in the impression being somewhat lighter, and the body of ink less than usual. In 1845, it was announced that the inventor or introducer of the method was a M. Baldermus. The proprietors of the Art-union, as a means of shewing the nature and capabilities of the method, printed two pages of one of their numbers thereby. They proceeded as follows: The compositors set up in the usual way sufficient matter to fill two quarto pages of the work, leaving spaces for three wood-cuts, three drawings, and a few lines of writing in pen and ink, which were properly adjusted to the blanks left for them. The two pages were then copied or transferred to zinc plates, from which the printing was effected. The impressions were fainter than those from the original types, but in other respects were perfect fac-similes. Some of the productions briefly adverted to above are almost magical in effect; but we are inclined to think that printing by magic' is more remarkably shewn in other processes which have recently presented their claims to notice. Some of these depend mainly on intense pressure, some on chemical action, some on electrotypic action, and some on casting or moulding; while others comprise two or more of these varieties of action. Let us briefly glance at a few of them. There is a galvanoplastic process, in which a mould in gutta-percha is obtained from any raised or sunken device; a galvanotype or electrotype cast is obtained from this mould in copper, and impressions on paper are printed from the mould. There is a galvanographic process, in which an artist paints a picture or design, on a plate of silvered copper, with a paint or pigment varying in thickness; this plate is electrotyped, whereby is obtained a copy in intaglio of every line produced in relief on the plate by the lines or markings of paint; and impressions are printed from this electrotype as from an engraved copper plate. There is a galvanoglyphic process, in which a drawing is etched upon the varnished surface of a zinc plate: a coat of ink is applied to this varnished surface, to which it adheres everywhere but in the engraved lines; other coats of ink are applied by a roller; and from the plate thus prepared an electrotype is obtained, which can be printed from by the wood-cut method. There is a chemitype process, in which casts in relief are taken from an engraving; a design is etched on the etchingground of a polished zinc plate, and bitten in with Now, it is evident that the whole gist of the matter must depend upon the nature of the 'copy' or 'transfer' just adverted to; and Professor Faraday soon afterwards explained the rationale of the process with that felicity of manner which so distinguishes him. The process is, in fact, another example of that chemical printing which is now brought about in so many ways. We know that water attracts water; that oil attracts oil; that water and oil repel each other; that metals may be wetted with oil or with gum-water, but not so readily or completely with clean water. Now, these few facts are really the foundation of the whole affair. A sheet of printed paper, whether printed by the letterpress or by the plate-press, is first moistened with dilute acid, and then rolled forcibly on a clean zinc plate. The acid runs off the ink, but remains on the paper, and etches or eats into the zinc; while a very minute portion of the ink becomes transferred or 'setoff,' as the printers term it, from the paper to the zinc plate. That ink will thus set-off, is a fact necessary to be borne in mind; if a corner of a newspaper be fixed on a white sheet of paper, and be then pressed or rubbed with a paper-knife, the letters will be distinctly seen in reverse on the white paper. A similar effect is produced by the heavy pressure of the roller on the paper placed upon the zinc plate. The plate, with the faint transfer thus upon its surface, is washed with a weak gum solution; this solution freely wets the etched zinc surface, but is repelled by the ink of the transfer. An ink roller is then passed over the plate, with a converse effect; that is, the ink attaches itself to the already slightly inked portion, while it is repelled from the parts wetted with the solution. In this condition, impressions can be printed from the plate by the common lithographic press. When the printed page is too old to allow the ink to set-off by pressure, it is wetted with a peculiar salt solution, to bring about the required conditions. It is impossible to avoid seeing that this anastatic method has many points of resemblance to lithography, and zincography, and other of the modern 'graphies' and 'typies; and it is not a matter for much surprise if two or three persons may have claimed the discovery or invention. It has since been shewn that processes almost exactly identical with anastatic printing were practised in England some years before the German invention was announced. There have been attempts to ascertain how far the anastatic process might be made available as a substitute for lithography, by transferring or printing from drawings made on paper with lithographic chalk; but there have been obstacles, arising from the difficulty of producing a kind of paper which shall possess a surface similar to that of lithographic stone. At one period the anastatic process excited some uneasiness, under the idea that it might afford too great a facility for forgery or piratical publication; but we are not aware that the process has yet been applied to any considerable extent, either honestly or surreptitiously. The last few months have witnessed the introduction of another curious and remarkable invention in printing, chemical and mechanical, like many of those which we have already been considering, and applicable, as it would appear, to many novel and useful purposes. M. Louis Auer, of the Imperial Printing-office at Vienna, has brought forward a process which he designates the Naturselbstdrück, or natural process of selfprinting, or natural history printing. An extract from a pamphlet of his, translated in the Athenaeum a few weeks ago, gives the following account of the process: How can, in a few seconds, and almost without cost, a plate for printing be obtained from any original, bearing a striking resemblance to it in every particular, without the aid of an engraver or designer? If the original be a plant, a flower, or an insect, a texture, or, in short, any lifeless object whatever, it is pressed between a copper plate and a lead plate, through two rollers that are closely screwed together. The original, by means of the pressure, leaves its image impressed with all its peculiar delicacy, with its whole surface, as it were, on the lead plate. If colours, or inks, are applied to the stamped lead plate, as in printing a copper plate, a copy in the most varying colours, bearing a most striking resemblance to the original, is obtained by one single impression from such plate. If a great number of copies are required, which the lead plate, on account of its softness, is not capable of furnishing, it is stereotyped, if to be printed from a typographic press; or electrotyped, if to be worked at a copperplate press. This is done as many times as may be necessary; and the impressions are taken from the stereotyped or electrotyped plate instead of from the lead plate. When a copy of a unique object, which cannot be subjected to pressure, is to be made, the original must be covered with dissolved gutta-percha; and this gutta-percha, when removed, and washed with a solution of silver, becomes a matrix, whence an electrotype may be obtained.' The impressions of natural objects produced in this way are exceedingly beautiful. In agate, the various layers have different degrees of hardness. Now, if we take a section of agate, and expose it to the action of strong acid, some parts become corroded, and others not; and if ink be applied, very beautiful impressions may at once be obtained; but for printing any considerable number, electrotype copies are obtained, and printed from in the same manner as etchings. The process, in short, may be characterised as a mode of enabling fossils, agates, leaves, plants, mosses, sea-weeds, insects' wings, and other delicately constructed natural substances, to print copies of themselves without the aid of designer or engraver. The very next number of the Athenæum to that which announced this interesting discovery or invention, illustrated these two facts: that inventors in different countries are often ignorant of each other's doings; and that there is, at the present time, a large amount of steady attention and active exertion being applied to these curious novelties in printing. It appears that a Birmingham firm holds a patent for adorning metals, comprising the essential elements of the Naturselbstdrück, inasmuch as sheets of German silver and Britannia metal receive an adorned surface by having a piece of lace placed between two sheets or plates, and then rolling them with some considerable pressure. It has been found, also, that not only lace, but figured paper, perforated zinc, and other thin substances, can be made to stamp their mark upon the soft plates, and that these plates have been printed from in brown ink upon paper. Another fact which this correspondence brought out is, that an eminent London publishing firm holds a patent for a process analogous, in many respects, to the Austrian Naturselbstdrück, and contemplates the printing of a particular class of book illustrations by its means. There is so much that is beautiful and surprising in many of these novel processes, that we feel half disposed to group them all together as 'Printing by Magic.' It is a magic, however, destined speedily to have a commercial or £ s. d. value, which cannot be said of all magic. BROADSHEETS OF THE PESTILENCE. ON a recent occasion, when looking over some old pamphlets relating to the city of London, we happened to light upon three or four broadsheets, published at or about the time of the Great Plague. They are so curious, that we have thought a brief account of them may not be without interest to the reader. Of the Great Plague itself we need hardly speak, for Defoe's vivid description of it, the scattered articles respecting it in the Journal, and the romances which have been furnished by it with a basis and plot, have rendered it more or less familiar to most persons. It is rather in a literary point of view that we notice the matter: to shew what were the kinds of works produced by publishers at the time of, and in relation to, the great calamity. One of these productions is a sheet measuring about eighteen inches, by fourteen in width. It was printed at London by T. Mabb, for R. Burton and R. Gilberson,' in 1665, the year of the Great Plague. Round it is a wood-cut border, made of death's-heads, cross-bones, skeletons, hour-glasses, and old Father Time, with a scythe in his hand, and cloven hoofs instead of feet. The title of the sheet is long but expressive : 'London's Loud Cryes to the Lord by Prayer: Made by a Reverend Divine, and Approved of by many others: Most fit to be used by every Master of a Family, both in City and Country. With an Account of several Modern Plagues or Visitations in London, with the Number of those that then Died, as well of all Diseases as of the Plague: Continued down to this Present Day, August 8, 1665.' Under the title-page is a wood-cut representation of London, with an inscription in one corner-'Oh London, repent, repent!' an angel hovering over the city is darting arrows, daggers, and fiery tongues on the devoted metropolis; while in the foreground are coffins, hearses, people kneeling in-prayer, and Death digging a grave. The upper part of the sheet is chiefly occupied by a prayer, written in quaint, but mournful and earnest language; the purport of the prayer being, of course, that the great national affliction might be averted. The margin contains about forty references to texts of Scripture, on which certain passages in the prayer are founded. Underneath this, the religious portion of the sheet, comes a statistical table, containing, as we are told, 'An exact and true Relation of the number of those that were buried in London and the Liberties, of all Diseases, from the 17 of March 1591, to the 15 of December 1592.' This was the period of one of the greatest pestilences with which London had been previously afflicted. In one week during this period, 987 persons died of the plague; while in the whole period, the number was 11,503. By the side of this were similar tables for 1603, 1625, 1630, 1636, 1637, 1638, 1646, 1647, and 1648, for so often had the plague afflicted our metropolis in that half-century. The numbers stated to have died in certain weeks of the autumn of 1625 were 2471, 3659, 4115, 4463, 4218, 3344, and 2550, being nearly 25,000 in less than two short months. The sheet was published while the plague of 1665 was still going on. At that time, 8th August, there were said to be forty-four parishes clear of the plague, and eighty-six parishes affected. The number of deaths from the plague in that week were 2817. The compiler of the sheet finds room just at the bottom to put in a recipe 'against the plague.' We are directed to 'Take leaves of sage and wormwood, of each an ounce and a half; rue, six ounces and a half: wash them in spring water; cut and beat them; let the juice run from them, and put it in an earthen pot, with half a pint of strong white-wine vinegar; cover it close for 24 hours; strain it, and add an ounce of turbish finely powdered: cover all close 24 hours more; afterwards strain it, and then use it.' How or when it is to be used is not stated. Another of these sheets, about the size of the former, is called London's Lord have Mercy upon Us. Like it, too, it has a wood-cut border of skeletons and heads and grave-diggers' tools, and a picture of London under the visitation of 1665. The tables of deaths in the various plague-years are nearly identical in both, for the two sheets appear to have been published within a few weeks of each other. A few manuscript entries bring down the dates to September 5, from which we learn, that the dread affliction had by that time reached a height far surpassing that which any former plagueyear had exhibited: the deaths by plague had increased from 2817 in the week ending August 8, to 6978 in the week ending September 5. Instead of a prayer, this broadsheet contains a versified exhortation to the people, consisting of sixty-four lines. The writer, as an exhortation to repentance, reminds his readers of what had already befallen the country:— Seventeen years since, a little plague God sent; Grass was so short and small, that it was told, Hay for four pound a load was daily sold. Further on, he entreats : Let all infected houses be thy text, And make this use, that thine may be the next. The red-cross still is used, as it hath been, To shew they Christians are that are within. And Lord have mercy on us on the door, Puts thee in mind to pray for them therefore. The watchman that attends the house of sorrow, He may attend upon thy house to-morrow. This second broadsheet takes up the medical side of the subject to a greater extent than the other. It finds a corner for certain approved medicines for the plague, both to prevent that contagion, and to expel it after it be taken; as have been approved in anno 1625, as also in this present visitation, 1665.' There is a cheap medicine to keep from infection,' consisting of a drink of garlic and milk, to be taken in the morning fasting. There is a posset drink to remove the plague from the heart,' consisting of warm ale with pimpernel seethed in it. And there is an approved remedy against the plague,' by eating figs every morning fasting, with sprigs of rue shred and put into them. 6 A third broadsheet, published still later in the year than the other two, shews that the highest number of deaths by the plague in 1665, was in the week ending September 19, when it reached 7165; after this date, the numbers rapidly decreased. This broadsheet dispenses with the wood-cuts, but it gives a greater number of medicinal recipes. We are told how to correct the aire;' how to make and employ perfumes; how to prepare inward medicines for the prevention of the plague,' and others for its cure when prevention is impossible. If the means to 'correct the aire' be not efficient, the liberality of the doctor is certainly not at fault; for he gives his readers abundance of choice. He says: Thyme, mint, rosemary, bay-leaves, balm, pitch, tarre, rosen, turpentine, frankincense, myrrh, amber; one or more of these, as they are at hand, or may be readily procured, are to be cast on the coales, to purify the house.' The advice also is given that such as are to walk abroad, or talk with any, may do well to carry rue, wormwood, angelica, gentian, myrrh, scordium, valerian, Setwall root, or zedoary in their hands, to smell to, and of those they may hold or chew a little in their mouths as they go.' A fourth broadsheet, and the last which we shall notice here, is larger than the others, and has the title Lord have Mercy upon Us' set in a fine wood-cut framework, composed of foliage adorned with death'sheads. Up the two side-margins are little wood-cuts of the virtues, such as Constancy, Sobriety, Temperance, Repentance, Humility, Chastity, Perseverance, Prayer, Fasting, Faith, Hope, Charity, Patience, and two or three others; each is represented by a female figure, and most of them are kneeling in the attitude of prayer. The top and bottom margins are decked with spades, coffins, graves, and so forth. At the top of the sheet are a few prayerful exhortations. Then come wood-cuts of skulls, bones, and skeletons. Beneath these are three 'preservatives from infection-by smell, by drink, by food;' and three preservatives when infected-by sweating, by ripening the sore, by airing clothes.' The recipes for these purposes lead one to wonder how the herbalists of those days came to place reliance on such heterogeneous conglomerations of medicines. We are directed, in the preservative by smell, to hold to the nose a sponge soaked in herb-of-grace water-this liquid being formed of vinegar and rosewater in which rue and wormwood have been boiled. An aliter or alternative is to smell to cedar-wood contained in a little box of which the lid is full of holes. The drink for a preventative is a pint of beer, with sliced lemon, worin wood, and herb-of-grace, taken in the morning fasting; while the preservative by food is a roasted fig, containing walnut-kernel, salt, and herb-of-grace; observing, to 'fast one hour after, but use it daily;' and an aliter or alternative is a slice of toasted bread, spread over with butter, treacle, and herb-of-grace. The airing of rooms, and beds, and clothes, is directed to be done by means of cedar, juniper, lavender, bay-leaves, rosemary, rose-water, or vinegar, more or less heated. The mixture intended to produce the sweating, and the poultice to ripen the sore,' we will say nothing about, except that the variety of the ingredients is as remarkable as their number is considerable. There then follows a recipe so very curious in the tone of thought which it exhibits, that we cannot do better than transcribe a portion of it; it characterises a quaint conceit of those days, in mixing up Christian virtues as the ingredients, in a kind of posset or medicine. It is designated 'A Special Means to Preserve Health,' and runs thus:'First, fast and pray. Then take a quart of Repentance of Nineveh, and put in two handfuls of Faith in the Blood of Christ, with as much Hope and Charity as you can get, and put it into the vessel of a clean Conscience. Then boil it on the fire of Love, so long till you see by the eye of Faith, the black foam of the love of this world stink in your stomach; then scum it off clean with the spoon of faithful Prayers. When that is done, put in the powder of Patience, and take the cloth of Christ's Innocency, and strain all together in His Cup. Then drink it burning hot near thy heart, and cover thee warm with as many cloths of Amendment of Life as God shall strengthen thee to bear, that thou mayest sweat out all the poison of Covetousness, Pride, Idolatry, Usury, Swearing, Lying, and such like. And when thou feelest thyself altered from the forenamed vices, take the powder of Say-well, and put it upon thy tongue; but drink thrice as much Do-well daily. Then take the Oil of Good Works, and anoint therewith thine eyes, ears, heart, and hands, that they may be ready and nimble to minister unto the poor members of Christ' with a little more to the same effect. We may observe that the three broadsheets before noticed were published in the reign of Charles II., in 1665; but that this lastnamed example appeared twenty-nine years earlier, during the reign of Charles I. Not one word anywhere of the true preventatives of plague-cleanliness, ventilation, and healthful food! WEARYFOOT COMMON. CHAPTER V. IN WHICH THE SCENE CHANGES. TALK of the Great Exhibition as you will, it had little more than the merit of concentrating in one spot the common daily exhibitions of London. There are at least a score of streets in the metropolis, to which, if they were made exhibitions at a shilling a head, people would flock from the remotest corners of the country and the world. The shop-windows are full of the wonders of science and industry both home and foreign; and from them and the warehouses behind, a very correct idea may be obtained of the comparative status of the nation as regards the arts of civilisation. To such exhibitions the natives have been accustomed from childhood; and it is fortunate that it is so, or there would be no such thing as getting along the thoroughfares; but even among the natives, there are many determined window-starers, and it has often occurred to us, that these are the persons who really enjoy London, and benefit by its teachings. In general, however, you may set it down with tolerable certainty, that the spectators who are busy with such gratuitous shows, are strangers from the country or from foreign parts. There could be no mistake at least about one individual, who might have been seen for several successive days studying the shop-windows as if he had paid his shilling for the privilege, and was determined to make the most of it. The survey Robert made of the metropolis was of a practical nature, and although he may at the same time have gratified his taste and curiosity, he did not suffer this to interfere with his business purpose. Frequently he went into the shops, and asked permission to examine the object that had attracted him, and this was never refused: on the contrary, although he made no pretence of purchasing, the dealer usually seemed gratified with the questions of a polite, earnest, gentlemanly young man, and was not loath to enter into conversation. The exhibitions of the fine arts and of scientific apparatus, even those that actually cost a shilling, came next; and lastly, from the corner of the lofty gallery, where he sat buttoned up to the throat in an old coat, he was the critical yet delighted spectator of the doings on the stage in some of the popular theatres. Robert had no fear of being unable to obtain a living in London; but it was necessary to put himself properly in the way, so that no more time might be lost in experiments than was necessary. His survey, without daunting him in the main, had brought down a good deal the estimate he had formed of his own capabilities. There was a completeness, in its own way, about everything he saw, which shewed him that something more was wanting than the bent of genius. The rudest toy was obviously put together by accustomed hands, which did what they intended to do, and nothing more. The humblest actor, whose business perhaps was merely to deliver a letter, performed his part like a man who knew perfectly well what he was about. It struck Robert that the most gifted amateur imaginable could not construct a toy as well to answer the same purpose - that is, to sell for the same money-or deliver a letter as well, with the business-like propriety demanded, and the subordination required to the rest of the action. In the pictorial art, so far as he could judge from the depôts of the ordinary picture-dealers, the case was somewhat different. There the untaught, uncertain, inexperienced hand was often painfully obvious; and in periodical literature, likewise, there were specimens without number of jejune twaddle and feeble violence. These were not the rude completeness of the toy, the humble finish of the actor, but the floundering of weak and illogical minds in a pursuit for which they were naturally unfit. When a few days had passed in practical observation and mental debate, it was necessary to determine upon some trial; but before doing so, he thought it proper to deliver his only letter of introduction. This was not from Captain Semple, who, with the exception of his bankrupt agent, had not a single acquaintance in the world whose whereabouts he knew: it was from Mrs Margery the cook, and addressed to a cousin of her own, originally a sign-painter, but now, she thought, a little higher in the world. Even Robert smiled at the nature of the introduction, and at the square letter containing it, with its blotch of wax, that with a thimble. But it would be a comfort to one so seemed to have fallen by accident, and was stamped new to the scene, and so solitary in it, to be able to converse upon his prospects with any habitué whatever; and our adventurer, for a very obvious reason, was hardly entitled to look down upon any calling, however humble. He was surprised, however, to find and when he stopped at the private door of a respectable that the address led him towards the haunts of quality; shop in Jermyn Street, St James's, he would have thought he had made a mistake, but for the name on a small brass-plate at the side: 'Mr Driftwood.' He rang the bell, and after a moderate time the door was opened in a great hurry by Mr Driftwood in person, with a |