character, Ripperda, after escaping from a Spanish prison, resided for some time in England and Holland; at length he became a Mohammedan, and entered the service of the emperor of Morocco. He died at Tetrean, in 1737, after some extraordinary changes in that country. The preliminaries of a general peace were signed in May; and Walpole had thus successfully extricated the country from war; but Bolingbroke gained the aid of the duchess of Kendal, and was intriguing to displace the minister who had allowed him to return to his native land. For a time, at least, Walpole defeated this project, and it was finally closed by the sudden death of George 1. The king was travelling to Hanover, on June 10th, 1727, when he was seized with a fit of apoplexy. The attendants proposed to stop, and obtain medical aid, but as the king said “Osnabruck," a place a few miles distant, they endeavoured to reach that town. On arriving there, he was insensible, and soon expired. His wife, who appears to have been an injured woman, died some months before: it is reported, that when on this journey, he was much agitated by receiving a solemn letter, addressed to him by her, a short time before her death. It is said, that after George I. came to the throne of England, proposals for a re-union were made to her, by some influential persons, which were refused, with the indignant reply, “If I am guilty, I am not worthy to be your queen: if I am innocent, your king is not worthy to be my husband." Few monarchs on the throne of England have been personally less influential than George 1.; yet his reign, on the whole, was beneficial to the country. Succeeding to the crown at an advanced age dull, inactive, and of retiring habits, which were derived, like his attachments, from Germany and Germans he was not likely to be an able ruler: he proved such as was to be expected; but, happily, he was goodnatured and quiet. His vices were not splendid enough to draw much attention, though they are quite sufficient to prevent his being recorded in favourable terms among the list of monarchs. The nation prospered during this reign, commerce and wealth increased, notwithstanding the vicissitudes of the South Sea scheme. Public charitable institutions increased, more attention was given to the state of the poor, and the student of the history of this reign sees much to show a gradual advance favourable to the national prosperity. A darker part of the picture remains to be described. From the period of the restoration, in 1660, to that now under consideration, the state of morals and religion in England had much declined. The vices introduced by Charles II. and his profligate court were influential, and from the higher ranks they had infected the great mass of the nation. There is, indeed, always much wickedness amongst a numerous population; but when it prevails in "high places," the increase is rapid. Nor was the state of the ministers of religion such as to meet the evil. Many of the best and most pious of the clergy having been driven out and silenced by the Bartholomew act, with the persecutions that followed, their places were filled and succeeded to, for the most part, by worldly-minded men, who cared for the possessions and pleasures of the world rather than the concerns of the soul, or the solemn duties of their office. Many were inclined to Popery; while those who refused the soul-enthralling errors of Rome, with others, who were chiefly anxious to avoid the evils resulting from the abuse of religion, and the too often nominal profession which had abounded, sunk into apathy, or held latitudinarian doctrines of various gradations. Some placed the chief reliance on works, while others embraced the dark errors that denied the Holy Trinity, and utterly opposed the atonement. While this was the state of the Established Church, there was also much lethargy among those who saw these evils, and dissented from the Establishment. Even among them a large portion of the Presbyterians had become infected with Arianism. But there were others who saw the evil and called on their brethren to declare their adherence to a scriptural standard. A few, indeed, both in and out of its pale, still held the doctrines of the Reformation; but even in the writings of Watts and Doddridge there is a declension from the fulness and clear views of the reformers and puritans. In a word, the nation was rapidly falling into that state described in prophetic language, when darkness covers a land, and gross darkness the people, and the judgments of the Most High are rapidly approaching. A few there were who attempted to stem the rushing torrent of evil: their proceedings are on record in the History of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, already mentioned; but has not helped the keeper to carry to the house the black, feathery bunch of young rooks thus shot, for the cook to convert into the most savoury of country pies; or to be despatched in different directions as presents to friends? Who has not, on bright summer days, when the young have got abroad, seen them in almost every green oak, or on the turf of every green meadow, when the country was all flowers and sweetness, with fluttering wings, demanding food from their busy it is obvious that they rather sought to suppress sin by legal measures, and encouraging a system of forms, than by going to the root of all-showing the evil state of the heart, and fully and plainly pointing to Christ, as the only remedy. They began to diffuse instruction; but that always is, and must be slow in its results, exhibiting what has been done in the preceding generation, rather than the effect of measures actually in progress. The state of morals was bad. The news-parents?-and in the still, broad, quiet papers and historic records of the day exhibit drunkenness, violence, and profaneness, as prevailing in an open and unblushing manner, and to a fearful extent; increased by the spirit of gambling, already alluded to, so prevalent at this period. Much is said of the frequency of robberies and acts of violence; but it is probable that they were brought more prominently into notice than formerly. God had purposes of mercy towards England; it was yet to be spared, and even made an instrument of diffusing gospel light and truth. The commencement was small and despised, with much imperfection in those employed in the work still it went forward, for they were evidently under Divine direction: it was of God; when he wills, who shall stop it? The history of the revival of religion in England, however, belongs to the following reign. At the time of the death of George 1. the ministers of the gospel of Christ, of all denominations in the land, were few and widely separated; their flocks were small and scattered, nor had their doctrines attracted public attention. THE ROOKERY. THE following description of the rookery, by William Howitt, author of "The Rural and Domestic Life of Germany," will find its way to the heart of every reader, and revive his recollections of the past. "Who that has been brought up in the country has not been accustomed from his infancy to hear the cawing of the rookery; to witness the active labour, and cares, and schemes of these birds in spring? Has not stood by his father or other old friend, while the young have been fetched down from the lofty elm by the cross-bow?-has not run to fetch it as it fell?-has not clambered into the green tree in which it has, perhaps, lodged in falling, and hooked it down?— sunshine of summer evenings, as he has sat in garden arbour, or at open window, with the dear old friends of his youth, has not often seen them come soberly homewards from their day's wanderings, in a rustling and jetty array, from whose wings the light of the setting sun glanced, seeking those ancient and towering trees, which had overspread the hall for ages? Who, in the days of warm feeling and expanding affections, when life was a long summer of happiness and gaiety-when, perhaps, the attachment of a life was growing, as he has ridden home in the sweet dusk of a June midnight, has not heard them in their lofty nest, half roused by the horse's tread, give a rustle, a caw, and then all quiet again? Or when he has looked out in the profound quiet of such a midnight from his chamber window, and felt, as it were, the unseen odours of mingled flowers floating up to him from the garden below, from beds made beautiful by the fair hands of sisters; and now perhaps dead or dispersed into wide countries, or pulled down, and all their loveliness gone, like a dream of such a night, with heartless husbands and luckless children, and has not heard from the tree-top some faint mutter, some drowsy cry, as if the sideby-side nestled rooks were talking in their sleep, or were complaining of being crowded by some heavy old fellow on their bough? Sounds which provoked laughter at the moment, but are preserved in the memory for long years. In short, what Englishman recalls the dear old home of his birth and his youth, with all its affections, and delights, and transactions; who recalls its garden nooks, its bee-hives by the sunny wall, its fields, its woods, its friends, its favourite animals, its sorrows and its merriments, its gay meetings and its partings to meet there no more, everything which makes that spot what no other spot on earth besides ever can be by any magic, even the most powerful magic of love, and does not find | submitted for "the sake of Christ and the English rook a part of his retrospect, his gospel, and for refusing to comply uttering his joyous, rough, John-Bullish with Popish doctrines and superstitions, caw, or his laughable midnight mutter- should be instrumental in exciting and ing, insignificant as he is in himself, an maintaining in the minds of the people indispensable dweller in the paradise of "a horror and hatred of that religion the past? Nay, the very blue air of a which had shed so much innocent summer's afternoon does not seem right blood." to me without the high-soaring, solemn wing of the rook; the fairer landscape is not complete without the rook; the flowery, deep grassy full fields of most glad spring would be melancholy without the rook. The rook, with all his attendants of pert jackdaws and circling starlings, who love his sedate and judge-like company, is dearer to an Englishman than he is aware of. But in Germany, the rook-the grave, the sober, the knowing and social rook, is so little known, that he has no other name than "Krahe mit dem weissen schnabel," the crow with the white bill. He is neither loved, known, nor wanted there; for he would grub up the springing corn in quest of his prey, and would find none of the grand old pastoral meadows he finds in England to supply his demand for slugs and worms. THE BOX TREE. No. II. After the discovery of engraving on copper, wood engraving fell comparatively into disuse, till revived and improved in the last century by Bewick. His spirited, graphic, and accurate delineations of the simplest scenes of nature seemed to re-create the art, and by calling the attention of the public to it, showed the remarkable manner in which it was applicable to cheap and rapid printing, and led the way to further discoveries and improvements in the art. Prior to his time the trunks of the box trees were sawn into planks, and the engraving cut upon the side of the grain with a knife, or similar instrument; but now the blocks are cut about an inch thick across the grain, which presents a much finer and harder surface for the tools to work on. The process is very simple. The design being carefully drawn upon the smooth surface of the block, the graver removes the untouched parts, thus leaving the fine pencil lines in alto relievo, that is, standing above the surface of the block. This being arranged AFTER printing was discovered, wood- with the letter-press, the raised lines cuts were employed, often profusely, to receive the ink in the same way, and at explain or render books attractive. These the same time, as the metal types, and were carried to great perfection by Albert transfer it in like manner by pressure to Durer and other artists; for in those days the paper placed above the block. The the designer and engraver seem to have tools used are very simple, intended in been one and the same. Cranmer's various ways to remove the part of the "Catechism," published in 1548, con- block intended to be left light. Thus tains twenty-nine wood engravings, some the process of wood engraving is the of which are attributed to Holbein, a direct reverse of copper-plate engraving: favourite painter at the court of Henry in the one the dark lines are left standing VIII., and his son; so is also an orna- above the surface, in the other they are mented title page of Coverdale's English hollowed or cut below it. The part to translation of the Bible, round which are remain white is untouched in the copperten separate pictures, representing sub-plate, but carefully removed from the jects of Scripture history. The title page wood-cut. The manner in which the to Cranmer's, or "the great Bible," is plates are worked, too, is widely different; another good specimen of the art. The the ink being put into the incised lines engravings in the early editions of Foxe's of the copper-plate, and upon the raised "Book of Martyrs are in a very su- parts of the block. Hence, as the woodperior and spirited style; the impressions cut can be used with the types as a part are especially good in the edition printed of the same page, the great difference in in 1596. Many of them give undoubted the labour and consequent expense of the likenesses of the individuals they re- two methods, and the peculiar adaptation present; nor need we wonder that these of the latter to the cheap periodicals striking illustrations of the sufferings to which so distinguish our day, and are the which our Protestant martyrs willingly means of diffusing pleasure, information, and instruction, to every class, and through every country of the civilized world. Many of the illustrated works of the day exhibit admirable specimens of the perfection to which the art has already attained, and the progress it is still making; and the publications of the Religious Tract Society, in proportion to the extent of its operations, are in no degree inferior, either in the number, style, or execution of the cuts which adorn them. This society was the first to introduce these embellishments to a considerable extent, in works widely circulated, more than twenty-five years ago; and it has been admitted by artists themselves, that this circulation mainly contributed to induce the general use of wood-cuts by other publishers, executed in a far superior style to those which had previously appeared. We state this, as the revival of the art has been restricted to the last twenty years by a quarterly journal; but the publications of the Tract Society some years earlier, show that increased attention had then been given to the subject, and a wide application of it already commenced. The continued extensive circulation of these publications, has enabled the society to expend large sums on these embellishments, and to take advantage of every improvement which has successively been made. During the last twenty years, from the day when their "halfpenny story books" exhibited specimens far superior in design and execution to those which any work, even of larger size or higher price, could then boast, they have acted as pioneers in thus gratifying the popular taste; and their present list of publications will bear comparison with any other in the style and beauty of their illustrations.* From the frontispiece to the little hand-books, one hundred of which are sold for eightpence! and the cuts which are so liberally supplied in the juvenile and Sunday-school publications, to those * Among these we would especially commend to notice, many of the 18mo series bound in cloth, as "The Missionary Book for the Young," "Uncle William's Kind Words," etc., and more especially the "Footprints of Popery," in which, for the trifling sum of a shilling, we have upwards of thirty cuts, all exquisite in execution, and many of them copied from the best and most interesting illustrations of Foxe's Acts and Martyrs, of which we have already spoken. We might also name Richmond's "Annals of the Poor," "The Pilgrim's Progress," and the sixpenny edition of "Watts' Divine Songs," as far superior in the number and style of their embellishments to those of any former period, even at a much higher price; but to particularize were impossible. which are so abundantly spread through the pages of their works on natural history; the larger and more elaborate ones which adorn newly published series of square books, and the annals of English history; and those in a yet superior style intended correctly to illustrate the Scripture history, all are alike superior for the taste and conception which designed, and the skill, and delicate, yet spirited firmness which executed them, and prove them to be among the productions of some of the ablest artists of the day. On account of the large demand thus created for box-wood, much is annually imported from Turkey and Odessa; the latter supply is obtained from Circassia and Georgia, where the tree, though of the same species, is more abundant, and attains to a much larger size than with us. Yet, for delicate and valuable engravings, the smallest wood is invariably preferred, as being of a closer and firmer texture than that of a larger size, and less liable to shrink or absorb damp. British box is admitted to be "superior to all other; for, though small, it is generally so clear and firm in the grain that it never crumbles under the graver; it resists evenly to the edge of the tool, and gives. not a particle beyond what is actually cut out." Much care is required in seasoning the block before working on it, and also in preserving it afterwards from damp, as the wood easily absorbs moisture, though it may under some cases be restored by care to its original dimensions. Some of the blocks engraved for the "Penny Magazine," after undergoing the process of stereotyping and subsequent washing, increased two inches in exterior dimensions. Much box-wood is used in France for a similar purpose, nor are our continental neighbours very far behind our English artists. It is also much used by them in turnery work. The town of St. Claude, in the neighbourhood of the Forest de Ligny, one of the largest natural box woods yet remaining in Europe, is principally inhabited by manufacturers of, and dealers in, snuffboxes, spoons, forks, buttons, and similar trifles made of box-wood. Rosary beads are also made from it; and some have conjectured that the pyx, or box used as a receptacle for the holy wafer, as the Roman Catholics denominate the consecrated bread which they believe to be transformed, by a priest pronouncing over it four Latin words, into the actual body and blood of our blessed Saviour, was originally of box, and hence derived its name. The branches and leaves of this tree are recommended by a French author as the best manure for the vine, as no plant deposits, in decomposing, more vegetable mould. A decoction of them possesses powerful medicinal qualities, and the oil which they yield is said to cure, or at least assuage, the toothache. The spray, though it burns slowly, gives out a great and long continued heat, and is much esteemed in France as fuel for kilns, ovens, etc. The smell which proceeds from the leaves and fresh clippings of this tree is considered by many as offensive, though, as Evelyn remarks, this is easily removed by "casting water on it." It may be on this account, that cattle rarely, if ever, attack the box; some authors, indeed, have asserted that its leaves are highly poisonous, and that the honey of Corsica possesses deleterious properties from being collected from its blossoms. To this cause also may be attributed the fact, that the wood is rarely, if ever, attacked by worms which frequently pierce through other timbers which are much harder and tougher. It is mentioned that a young artist who acquired the habit of chewing the particles of wood which he cut out with his graver, suffered from sickness, but on relinquishing the practice soon recovered his health. The same writer mentions the case of a rabbit, compelled by hunger to attack a box shrub, and dying in consequence. Like the ivy and holly, our other evergreens, the box bears a part in the Christmas garland, and with them forms a bright and cheerful ornament for the church or dwelling-house. In the north of England, Wordsworth tells us, that it is yet customary at funerals to place a basin full of sprigs of box at the door of the house from which the procession starts, and that every mourner carries one of these with him, to throw into the Here may be grave upon the coffin. traced a remnant of the feeling which, in some degree, prompted our forefathers to associate the yew with the spot where they deposited the bodies of their friends. These evergreen sprigs would seem to be used as simple testimonies of a belief in immortality, that the body though dead shall yet live again for ever, by and through our "Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." And blessed even amidst his tears is the sorrowing mourner who, not merely as a customary observance, but with faith and hope, can cast such a sprig upon the mouldering remains of some cherished lost one, if enabled thus to realize that "he is not dead but sleepeth, and shall rise again" for an endless re-union in the bliss of heaven. "When Christ victorious from the grave He gave to all his saints a pledge Though for a time they sleep in death, Soon the archangel's trump shall sound, If we are Christ's, and persevere, By true and living faith ;- Help us then, Lord, to live to thee, Our Prophet, Priest, and King, We know that our Redeemer lives It has been noticed that the box is found growing wild in the districts of Asia, and attains there to a much larger size than with us. Hence, probably, the allusion made to it by the prophet Isaiah, who includes it with other evergreens of lofty and noble size, when he would typify the total and wondrous change wrought in the moral wilderness by the life-giving and refreshing influences of the Holy Spirit. See Isaiah xli. 18-20. Again, we find the box-tree, with us so small and diminutive a shrub, blended with "the glory of Lebanon" (the stately cedar), and other forest trees, in describing the latter-day glory of the church, Isaiah Ix. 13. |