and even if we suppose him able to control the | force of these, his yet unsubjugated ministers, this could only be done by studying their characters, by learning more thoroughly the laws of air, and heat, and moisture. He cannot give the minutest portion of the atmosphere new relations, a new course of expansion, new laws of motion. But the Divine operations, on the other hand, include something much higher. They take in the establishment of the laws of the elements, as well as the combinations of these laws, and the determination of the distribution and quantity of the materials on which they shall produce their effect. We must conceive that the Supreme Power has ordained that air shall be rarefied, and water turned into vapour by heat; no less than that he has combined air and water, so as to sprinkle the earth with showers, and determined the quantity of heat, and air, and water, so that the showers shall be as beneficial as they are. We may and must, therefore, in our conceptions of the Divine purpose and agency, go beyond the analogy of human contrivances. We must conceive the Deity, not only as constructing the most refined and vast machinery with which the universe is filled; but we must also imagine him as establishing those properties by which such machinery is possible: as giving to the materials of his structure the qualities by which the material is fitted to its use. There is much to be found, in natural objects, of the same kind of contrivance which is common to these and to human inventions there are mechanical devices, operations of the atmospheric elements, chemical processes. Many such have been pointed out; many more exist. But besides these cases of the combination of means, which we seem able to understand without much difficulty, we are led to consider the Divine Being as the author of the laws of chemical, of physical, and of mechanical action, and of such other laws as make matter what it is; and this is a view which no analogy of human inventions, no knowledge of human powers, at all assists us to embody or understand. Science, therefore, while it discloses to us the mode of instrumentality employed by the Deity, convinces us, more effectually than ever, of the impossibility of conceiving God's actions by assimilating MUSIC, though now a very complete and difficult art, is, in truth, a gift of the Author of Nature to the whole human race. Its existence and influence are to be traced in the records of every people from the earliest ages, and are perceptible, at the present time, in every quarter of the globe. It is a part of the benevolent order of Providence, that we are capable of receiving from the objects around us, pleasures independent of the immediate purposes for which they have been created. Our eyes do not merely enable us to see external things, so as to avail ourselves of their useful properties; they enable us also to enjoy the delight produced by the sensation of beauty, a perception which (upon whatever principle it may be explained), is something distinct from any consideration of the mere utility of an object. We could have had the most accurate perceptions of the form and position of everything that constitutes the most beautiful landscape, without receiving any idea of its beauty. We could have beheld the sun setting amid the glowing tints of a summer evening, without thinking of anything beyond the advantage of serene weather; we might have contemplated the glossy expanse of the ocean, reflecting the tranquil beams of the moon, without any other feeling than the comfort of a safe and easy navigation; and the varieties of hill and dale, of shady woods and luxuriant verdure, might have been pleasant only in the eyes of farmers and graziers. We could, too, have listened to sounds with equal indifference to everything beyond the mere information they conveyed to us; and the sighing of the breeze, or the murmuring of the ocean, while we learned nothing from them of which we could avail ourselves, might have been heard without pleasure. It is evident that the perception of external things, for the mere purpose of making use of them, has no connexion with the feeling of their beauty; and that our Creator, therefore, has bestowed on us this additional feeling, for the purpose of augmenting our happiness. Had he not had this design, he might have left us without the sense of beauty or deformity. "If God," says Paley, "had wished our misery, He might have made sure of his purpose, by forming our senses to be as many sores and pains to us, as they are now instruments of our gratification and enjoyment; or by placing us among objects so illsuited to our perceptions, as to have continually offended us, instead of ministering to our refreshment and delight. He might have made, for instance, everything we saw loathsome, everything we touched a sting, and every sound a discord." In place of every sound being a discord, the greatest part of the sounds which we hear are more or less agreeable to us. The infinite variety of sounds produced by the wind and waters, the cries of animals, the notes of birds, and above all, the tones of the human voice, all affect us with various kinds and degrees of pleasure; and, in general, it may be said, that it is such sounds as indicate something to be feared and avoided, such as the howling of wild beasts, or the hissing of serpents, that are positively painful to our ears. In this sense all nature may be said to be full of music, the disagreeable and discordant sounds being (as in artificial music), in such proportion only as to heighten the pleasure derived from those which are agreeable. The human voice is that which pleases us chiefly, and affects us most powerfully. Its natural tones and accents are calculated to penetrate the heart of the listener, and the union of these to articulate speech, in every language, not only produces a melody which pleases the ear, but an effect on the feelings, of which the mere words would be incapable. These natural tones of the voice, either by themselves, or joined to articulate language, constitute music in its simplest state; and the pleasures and feelings derived from such music must necessarily have existed in every form of society. HOGARTH's Musical History. THE USEFUL ARTS. No. XXXVI. THE CARPENTER. 2. WHEN a timber-tree is cut down, the branches, arms, and boughs, are cut off and the bark stripped, this being valuable for many purposes. The trunk is then sawed square, and again cut into planks, deals, battens, &c., as the different sized boards into which it is reduced are called. logs, distinguished from the long beams known technically Teak and mahogany is imported into this country in as timber, by their width and thickness, being considerable, in proportion to their length. Timber is sawed in countries producing, or using it, in great quantities in saw mills, in which the tools are worked by water or steam. From four to six long saws are set parallel to each other in a frame, and at the distance apart of the thickness of the planks into which the timber is to be cut. These frames of saws are moved vertically up and down by the machinery, the timber lying horizontally on a frame-work, and being pushed gradually along by the ma chinery, to keep the saws in action as they cut through it, the saws always remaining in one place. Wood is also sawed into battens, laths, &c., by circular saws, turned by machinery, like a lathe. When timber is sawed by hand, it is done by two men acting in concert in the following manner. A pit is generally chosen, round the margin of which a stout frame is laid. The beam to be sawed is laid lengthwise to the pit on this frame, in the centre, and one man stands on the beam while another is in the pit below him, each alternately raising or pulling down a large vertical saw, with which they saw the beam lengthwise into planks. Wedges of wood are placed by them in the fissure as they proceed, to keep the cut open, and thus allow the saw to play freely. This is excessively hard labour, especially to the upper man, who has not only to raise the weight of the saw in the up-stroke, but to guide it correctly along the chalked line on the beam. This man gets higher wages, and is called the Top-sawyer, a term technically given in jest to any one who is, or fancies himself, of importance. When timber is wanted in lengths exceeding those that can be procured from the tree in one piece, it must be joined by what is called scarfing; that is, the ends of the two lengths that are to be united into one, are cut so that a portion of the one may lap over and fit into a portion of the other which is cut so as to receive it, the timber, when united, being of the same uniform size. The joined ends are secured together by bolts or spikes. The annexed are figures of the more usual modes of scarfing timber for different purposes. the girder is completed, there is a slit all along it, through which the truss is seen lying in its place between the tw sides. Iron trusses are often used instead of oak, and beams are frequently strengthened by screwing a thin flat iron truss on one or both sides, let into the beam for about hal the thickness of the metal. This mode of strengthening a beam by trussing, is only adopted in floors, where it is necessary to limit the depth of the truss to that of the beam, to obtain a level surface by means of joists laid across, and supported by, the beam. But it is obvious that much greater strength may be imparted to a long beam by making it the base of a triangular frame, as is done in roofs, in various manners, when the slanting sides of the triangular frame carry the battens or laths for supporting the tiles or other covering. The annexed is the simplest form of a roof, and will help to explain the subject of carpentry in other respects. The beam A, called the Tie-beam, is of such a length as to rest on the side walls of the house at each of its ends, and is supposed to be of such dimensions in depth and thickness as would render it inadequate to support much more than its own weight. The two sloping rafters BB, are called Principals; they are mortised into the tie-beam at their ends by a joint, shown in the annexed figure, by which they are provided with a firm abutment to prevent the ends from slipping outwards, and in order to prevent the principal from starting upwards out of the mortise, it is strapped down to the tie-beam by an iron strap, bolted or screwed to both timbers. The last is a mode of scarfing invented by Mr. Roberts, of the Royal Dock Yards. When a beam of timber is long in proportion to its breadth and thickness, it will bend by its own and will be incapable of supporting much additional weight; it may be strengthened by trussing, in different modes, of which we will only describe that usually adopted for girders, intended for floors. The beam is sawed longitudinally into two equal beams, each, of course, half the thickness of the original, these halves are reversed, end for end, so that if there were any weak part in the original beam, this may be divided equally between the ends of the compound beam made up of the two halves when bolted together. A flat truss, usually of oak, with iron king-bolts and abutting plates, resembling in form and principle, a timber roof or bridge, is placed between the two half beams, and let into a shallow groove cut in each half to receive it; the compound beam, with this truss in the middle, is then bolted together again by means of iron bolts with washers and nuts, and consequently becomes rigid by the construction of the truss. The truss is not entirely let into the double beam, as the full effect of strength may be obtained without the necessity for cutting the groove in each half beam, of half the thickness of the oak truss; consequently, when P is termed a King-post, and is cut out with a head and foot, the former to receive the upper ends of the principals, face of the head. The sloping principals hold up the kingwhich, being cut square, abut firmly against the sloping stirrup-shaped strap, that goes under the beam and is post, and the tie-beam is supported from the latter by a bolted, or screwed, to the post on each side. To prevent the principals from bending by the strain, or by the weight against the beveled part of the foot of the king-post, and are of the roof-covering, the struts c c, are placed, abutting strapped to the principals, or mortised into them. The number of tie-beams with their trusses, &c., of course depends on the length of the roof, or the material with which it is to be covered. A longitudinal scantling, or thin beam, called a purline, E, is laid lengthwise, resting on the principals over the ends of the struts, and is secured to the former by a spike, or else by being notched down rafters R, which abut at their feet against a longitudinal on to the principal. These purlines support the common scantling s, lying on, and halved down on, the tie-beams; at their upper ends, the rafters R rest against a ridge-piece, The rafters are placed about a foot apart, and on to them or thin plank, let edgeways into the head of the king-post. are nailed the laths or battens to carry the tiles or slates. timber, the various beams are framed, or fastened together In constructing roofs, floors, and other structures of by certain processes calculated to insure strength and per manence in the framing, which ought to be understood, and their names remembered. The Mortise and Tenon is used when one beam is to be attached to, and supported by, another, without resting on it, but so that the beams may be in the same plane. The mortise is a hole cut into, or through, the side of the one beam, into which hole the end of the other, cut down to fit the form of the hole, is inserted and fastened. It is obviously necessary to consider two things in determining the size and form of the mortise and tenon. First, that by the former the one beam may not be too much weakened, and yet that it should be large enough to give the tenon that fits into it, sufficient strength to enable the beam to carry the weight intended. If the one beam is horizontal, and the other to stand perpendicularly upon it, the tenon need only be large enough to retain the upright beam in its place. The annexed are the most usual forms of mortises and tenons, and will explain their use and principle. The smaller and better kind of work executed by the Carpenter is called Joiner's work, such as the making of doors, windows, stairs, wainscotting, boxes, tables, &c., &c., which are usually formed of yellow or Norway deals, wainscot, or else mahogany. When a large surface is to be of wood, it is not formed of planks fixed together side by side till the requisite width is attained, but it is formed of framing and pannelling. A frame-work, of the area required to be covered, is formed of narrow planks, with cross-bars between to strengthen the frame; these are called stiles and rails, according to the directions in which they run, the former name being given to the upright planks of the frame, while the horizontal ones are called rails. The rails are mortised into the stiles, and the tenons, since they must be comparitively thin, are made proportionably wide, nearly as wide as the rail. The tenons are always pinned into the mortise holes by one or two wooden pins driven quite through the stiles and through the inclosed tenon. The edges of the stiles and rails are ploughed, that is, a rectangular furrow is cut in the edge by means of a plane, to receive the ends and sides of the panels. These panels are formed of thinner deals than the stiles and rails, and are made by glueing the edges of two or more boards together to make the proper width of the panel, the ends and edges of the panel are thinned off to fit into the groove or furrow in the stiles and rails, or else the ends and sides of the panel are rebated, that is, worked by a plane into the form shown in the annexed figure, the projecting part being received into the furrow. It is obvious that two mortises never should come opposite each other on the two sides of the same beam. When the tenon comes through the beam, it is secured from drawing by a pin or peg put through it. The Dovetail is used to secure one beam into another, when they have to resist any strain acting to draw them asunder, rather than to carry any weight; it is consequently employed to frame wall-plates, or the timber laid in walls to carry the ends of beams of floors, roofs, and so on, which plates tend to bind the walls together as well as receive the ends of the beams. The term is derived from the end of one beam being cut into a shape resembling the spreading tail of a bird which is pinned down in a corresponding wedge-shaped recess cut in the other beam to receive it. It is clear from this construction that no force, acting in the direction of its length, could pull the first beam out of the second without breaking off the dovetail, which the tenacity of wood-fibre renders nearly impracticable in one of any size. The dovetail is extensively used in all cabinetmaking, and may be seen in any mahogany or deal-box better made than a common packing-case. constitute so many recesses, at least on one side of the As the panels are thinner than the frame, the former framing; and a small moulding is glued round the edge of the panel to form a finish to the work. Or else the same object is attained by working the edge of the stiles and rails with such a moulding, so that when the panel is put in, the moulding may finish against it. Sometimes the face of the panel is made to lie in the same plane with the face of the stiles and rails, and the panel is then said to be When two beams of equal thickness are required to cross one another and to lie in the same plane, they are halved together; that is, a notch is cut in each of half the thick-flush, and the edges of the stiles, &c., are finished with a σ ness of the other, then the uncut part of each lies in the notch of the other respectively, and the two are pinned together small bead, also flush with the panel when finished. In joiner's-work the whole surface of the work is made perfectly smooth by planing the material, and allowance must be made for the reduction in thickness and width of the wood, produced by this planing, in the choice of the rough material. All mouldings in wood are worked out by planes made of the proper form, to leave the moulding in the wood when the plane has been passed over the part. The carpenter and joiner consequently require a vast variety of planes for these purposes, which constitute the most expensive part of the expensive tools used by these workmen. These planes receive their names from the form they are intended to produce in the wood, such as rebating planes, O G planes, ovolo-planes, beading-planes, and so on. NATURE has perfections in order to show that she is the image of God, and defects in order to show that she is only his image.-PASCAL. THE ANCIENT OFFICE OF PURVEYOR TO THE KING. name. THE office of Purveyor to the royal household, at the present day, is very different in its character from that which was formerly exercised under the same The Purveyor of modern times is nothing more than a tradesman who serves the king precisely as he would serve any other customer, and generally at as cheap a rate; the Purveyor of ancient days was an officer employed to enforce a very obnoxious prerogative, and for that purpose armed with a large share of power, which he generally contrived to abuse to his own profit and the great oppression of his fellow-subjects. The "profitable prerogative of purveyance and pre-emption," as Blackstone calls it, was a right enjoyed by the crown of buying up provisions and other necessaries by the intervention of the king's Purveyors for the use of the royal household, at an appraised valuation, in preference to all others, and even without consent of the owner; and also of forcibly impressing the carriages and horses of the subject to do the king's business on the public roads in the conveyance of timber, baggage, and the like, however inconvenient to the proprietor, upon paying him a settled price. This prerogative prevailed pretty generally throughout Europe during the scarcity of gold and silver. In those early times the king's household was supported by specific venders of corn and other victuals, from the tenants of the respective demesnes Many lands were from time to time granted to individuals, on condition of their yielding to the king certain supplies of provisions; the reservations, however, were often small, and many of them only to be rendered when the king travelled into the country where the lands lay. In some cases special care was taken that he should not make the service burdensome by paying his visits too often; as in the case of William, son of William Alesbury, who held lands in Alesbury, upon the tenure of finding amongst other things, three eels for the king when he should come to Alesbury in the winter, and two green geese in the summer; the number of visits, however, not to exceed three in the year. There was also a continual market kept at the palace-gate to furnish viands for the royal use. This was superintended by an officer called "Clerk of the Market of the King's House," who was to burn all false weights and measures, to precede the king in his progresses, and warn the people to bake and brew and make provision against his coming, and by the oaths of twelve men to set the prices of provisions, beyond which no persons attending the court were to pay. These arrangements answered all necessary purposes in those times, so long as the king's court continued in any certain place. But when it removed from one part of the kingdom to another, (as was formerly very frequently done,) it was found necessary to send Purveyors beforehand, to get together a sufficient quantity of provisions and other necessaries for the household and lest the unusual demand should raise them to an exorbitant price, the powers above mentioned were vested in these Purveyors, "who in process of time greatly abused their authority, and became a great oppression to the subject, though of little advantage to the crown." : The king's butler had a right to choose for the king two hogsheads of wine out of every merchant's ship laden with wine, one in the prow, the other in the poop, paying to the merchants only twenty shil lings each; he might take more if he would at a price to be fixed by the king's appraisers. Purveyance, however, was to be made between sun and sun, and nothing was to be taken in the highway. Hides, leather, and other necessaries were taken for making the king's saddles; beans and pease for his horses. Lord Coke says, that meat and drink could be taken by the king, only when in his progress, and that in his standing-house he could not take beer, ale, or bread, being manufactured; but malt, having the substance of barley remaining, might be taken. In the reign of John, the abuses of purveyance had risen to such a height that they were made the subject of three articles of Magna Charta, which the barons obtained from that monarch at Runnymede. By the first, the constable or bailiff of a castle was restrained from taking corn or other chattels of any man not of the town where the castle was, without making immediate payment, unless the seller agreed to wait; but if the seller was of the town, three weeks were allowed for payment by the first confirmation of this charter in the beginning of the reign of Henry the Third. By the 30th article of John's charter, no sheriff or bailiff of the king, or any other, was to take any man's horses or carriages but by his consent; the subsequent charters add, "but at the old prices limited, namely, a carriage with two horses tenpence a day, with three horses fourteenpence a day." The 31st chapter of John's charter prohibited the taking of any man's wood for the king's castles or other necessaries, without the owner's consent; and this was confirmed by the subsequent charters. It appears, nevertheless, that the practice of taking the wood continued, and that money was extorted from the owners by demanding such as grew about the mansion-house and could ill be spared. It appears by the statute of Westminster, passed in the third year of Edward the First, that Purveyors used to enter houses under colour of buying for the king, break the doors, locks, and windows, and thrash out and carry away the corn, and that they paid no more regard to the houses of prelates than to those of the laity. Edward the Second, in his sixteenth year, sent his writ to the justices of the King's Bench, commanding them to punish the infringers of the statutes upon this subject; but the steward of his household continued to exercise his power of purveyance with a high hand even in the city of London, notwithstanding the great privileges of that place; for in the eighteenth year of Edward's reign, he commanded that no fishmonger, on pain of imprisonment, should go out of the city to forestall any sea or fresh fish, or send them to any great lord or religious house, until the king's Purveyors should have made their purveyance for the king. In the fourth of Edward the Third, an act reciting that the king, queen, and their children, oppressed the people by not paying for corn, hay, and cattle, and other" vittailes" which they took, and by taking twenty-five quarters of corn for twenty, measuring by heap, and taking hay and litter at less than the value; directs accordingly that nothing be taken without consent of the owner, that corn be taken "by the strike as men use throughout the kingdom," and that the things be taken at their true value by constables and other good men of the vill who should not be enforced by menace or duress to assess any other price than their oath would allow. No severity of law, however, could restrain the rapacity of these plunderers; and in the twentieth year of Edward the Third, several Purveyors were attainted and hanged for offending against the statutes. Yet in spite of this example, it was found necessary five years afterwards to pass another act; from which we learn that one of the frauds practised by these "harpies," as Queen Elizabeth called them, "was the taking of sheep between Easter and St. John with their fleeces on, keeping them till shearing time and then taking the fleeces to their own use, A petition of the Commons in the 28th of Edward the Third, sets forth that the Purveyors of the king, those of the queen, and those of the prince, would come successively to the same house, which they complain of as too grievous. This petition, and an act of the same year, explains another oppression. Purveyors were ordered to pay by tallies; these they gave payable at such distant places, that, as the act says, people spent their value and double in going after the money. In the 36th of Edward the Third, some very important regulations were made for correcting the abuses of purveyance. According to Sir Edward Coke, this act was passed in consequence of a Latin work addressed to the king, by Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, sharply inveighing against the intolerable abuses of Purveyors and purveyances, and earnestly pressing and advising him to make remedies for those insufferable oppressions and wrongs offered to his subjects. It, however, was doubtless in a great measure the effect of a very strong petition of the Commons. the Vice-Chancellor and his assistants, he boldly commanded a justice of the peace of the university to go and provide him his horse for his carriage, although he knew the mayor's officers to be always ready to satisfy his wants in that respect. The next manœuvre of this unscrupulous rogue was to cease sending up his provisions for a whole day, in order to bring the officers of the university into displeasure by causing it to be supposed that they had stopped him, when in fact he was all the day bragging at taverns and alehouses in the town, and threatening that he would shortly cause some officers and justices of the university to be set in the marshalsea. After this example of the treatment which so powerful and privileged as the university experienced at the hands of a royal Purveyor, under such a monarch as Edward the Sixth, the reader may form some estimate of the hardships which the "kinges pore subjects" in general must have endured from the same quarter. In the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, some of the counties, to avoid the trouble which they had in procuring their money for goods taken by the Purveyors, and which arose, in a great measure, from the many offices, cheques, entries, and comptrolments through which the accounts were to pass, petitioned her to accept the value in money to be yearly paid by the counties. Philips says that she would not hearken to this, but did afterwards come to an A very curious illustration of the abuses of pur- agreement, fixing the proportions which several veyance, and the unblushing impudence of Purveyors counties should yearly afford in oxen, calves, muttons, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, is afforded to us poultry, corn, &c.; and that this agreement continues in an account of the behaviour of one William Pallet, in force during her reign and that of her successor, deputed Purveyor for the King's Majesty's provision James the First. In regulating these proportions, of poultry, &c., in the town of Cambridge. It the principal burden was imposed on the counties appears that Mr. Pallet exercised his powers so harshly adjacent to the metropolis, they deriving the most as to excite a disturbance among the people of the benefit from the royal residence; and Philips says town, and to render necessary the Vice-Chancellor's that they could well afford to bear it, as their rents interference to pacify them. Instead of taking the in the time of Charles the First were improved to provisions at prices fixed in the manner required by twenty times more than they were in the reign of the statutes, he took everything at his own price; Henry the Seventh, and ten times more than they and what was worse, he took the liberty of purveying were in the eighteenth year of Elizabeth's reign. for his friends as well as for the King's Majesty, very candidly confessing that if he could not do the one he would not do the other. The bold air of effrontery which this man put on, when detected, shows pretty clearly how secure he must have felt of being supported by the court, which in those days was seldom disposed to permit any interference with the prerogative even when abused. When it was proved before his face that he had taken a pheasant and other birds in the king's name, and then sold them to different persons, he answered that he had done so to gratify some friends, and openly affirmed with an oath, that unless he might do his friend's pleasure in the execution of his office, he would not serve the king in it. The Vice-Chancellor's reasonable request, that he would use his commission discreetly, and that when he had full passage in all the surrounding country, he would spare the market of the town, except he saw a pheasant or anything else fit for the king's table, was treated by Mr. Pallet in the most unceremonious manner; for he contemptuously cast his commission to the Vice-Chancellor and commanded him to go and serve it himself. He then sent up a false certificate to his master, accusing the ViceChancellor of having said that he should be sued before the king and not suffered within the market. When his master's son was sent down purposely from the court to inquire into this alleged ill-treatment of a royal Purveyor by the officers of the university, Pallet was unable to substantiate his charge; but his effrontery did not desert him, for while he was before But though Elizabeth would not grant the request of the counties that she would accept money instead of provisions, she hanged one of her Purveyors in her thirty-second year for forcibly taking provisions without paying for them. Prosecutions were also carried on in the star-chamber against some of her Purveyors; but she ordered Sir Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper, to stop the proceedings, as being an encroachment on the prerogative royal in her household, and commanded that the matter should be heard before the Lord Buckhurst, Lord Treasurer; the Earl of Nottingham, Lord High Admiral; Sir John Fortescue, Chancellor of the Exchequer, (being the commissioners for household causes,) Sir William Knollys, Comptroller of the Household, and the rest of the officers of the Board of Green Cloth, in the Compting-house; and the cause was heard there accordingly. In Elizabeth's time, too, great complaints were made by the city of London, that the Purveyors took the first carts they could find, and frightened away those persons from the country that used to bring provisions; whereupon, a regulation was made that the carts in London and resorting to it should serve the Queen four times in a year, and the management of the matter was entrusted to the governors of Christ's Hospital. When Elizabeth was at Nonsuch, in Surrey, her Purveyor of coals used to make out a warrant to the high constables of some Rape in Sussex, to warn carts for the carriage of coals to Nonsuch, appointing a meeting with them to receive the returns on |