the glue made in England, a very large portion is produced at Bermondsey, in the vicinity of the great leather-dressing establishments of that district. In some cases the glue-manufacturer contracts for the purchase of all the scraps and offal resulting from the dressing of leather in one or more establishments; and these contracts exemplify the value which attaches to apparently worthless things, when once they can be brought to rank among the materials of manufactures. Rough and ragged edges of skins, scrapings from skins, and scrapings from parchment, constitute the chief sources whence glue is prepared; and in some cases these refuse fragments-not only useless to the leather-dresser, but a great nuisance if he had to keep them are worth more than a thousand pounds a year to the owner of one establishment, for sale to the gluemanufacturers. The extraction of the gelatinous matter from the fragments is effected principally by boiling. The fragments are freed from dirt, blood, and other impurities, by being steeped in lime and water, and then rinsed in a clear stream. In the large glue manufactories there are covered sheds containing stages one above another, each stage containing rails or racks in which the fragments of hide are hung for several months in the year, to dry. The boiling is effected in shallow vessels, each provided with a false bottom a few inches above the true one, and pierced with holes. Into this boiler the fragments are placed, the false bottom preventing them from being burned by the heat of the fire. Soft water is employed, and the boiling is continued until the water becomes thickened by the gelatine extracted from the fragments. The tenacity of the extract is tested from time to time, by taking out small portions, and allowing them to cool in the open air. When completed, the gelatinous liquid is drawn off into a second vessel, where it is kept in a liquid state for some time by being surrounded with hot water; during which time any sedimentary impurities are deposited; and these impurities, by a further boiling, are made to yield up any gelatine that they may yet retain. The liquid gelatine is transferred from the settling vessels into cooling boxes, where it assumes the solid form. These boxes, which are made of deal, have a square form, but are somewhat narrower at the bottom than at the top. The liquid is filtered through cloths while passing into the boxes, as a means of cleansing it; and the process is conducted in a dry and cool apartment. In a greater or shorter space of time, varying from twelve to twenty hours, according to the season, the glue solidifies, or at least assumes the consistence of a stiff jelly. The boxes are then taken to a cool and airy apartment, where they are inverted, and the mass of jelly deposited on a moistened table or board. Each of these masses is too thick to harden while in this form, and is therefore cut up into thinner cakes, as a means of letting the air act more readily upon it. This is done somewhat in the way that large masses of soap are cut up in the soap-factories, viz., by means of a wire; the wire is stretched in a frame, and is guided by rollers, so as to cut the masses into parallel slices or cakes, all of equal thickness. The thickness of these cakes may be judged pretty nearly from that of the pieces sold in the shops. The glue-maker then avails himself of a large number of nets spread over frames, and in these frames the cakes of glue are carefully laid. All the frames, as they are filled, are placed in successive stages in the open air, an interval of an inch or two being left between the successive frames in the pile. Any one who has passed along the Greenwich Railway may have seen, at a distance of about a mile from the London Bridge terminus, one or more fields occupied almost wholly by small erections of framework three or four feet in height. These fields are attached to glue-manufactories, and the small erections are piles of drying-frames, each frame filled with slices or cakes of glue exposed to the action of the air, and a roof being over each group to shelter them from the rain. The cakes of glue are turned over two or three times a day, in order that the two sides may be dried equally. Cold, heat, damp, fog, wind, a thunderstorm, indeed any sudden change in the weather, has a very visible effect in the quality of the glue; and the drying becomes therefore one of the most important parts of the manufacture. Such is the general nature of the production of common glue; and the degree of tenacity which it possesses as a cement for wood is pretty well known. There has, however, within a year or two past, been a kind of cement invented, which although resembling glue in so far as it is a cement for wood, yet differs from it considerably in the mode of formation and the degree of tenacity. The cement of which we here speak was patented by Mr. Jeffery in 1842. The object of the patent was stated to be "for a new method of preparing masts, spars, and other wood, for ship-building, and other purposes;" the "new method" having relation to the cement with which various pieces of wood are joined together. In the specification of his patent, Mr. Jeffery describes his new cement to be made in the following manner. When a very elastic glue is desired, the patentee dissolves one pound of caoutchouc, or india-rubber, in four gallons of crude naphtha, frequently stirring the solution, until the caoutchouc is well dissolved, which will be in about ten or twelve days. To this mixture is added gum or shell-lac, in the proportion of two parts to one of the naphtha. The composition is then put into an iron vessel, to which heat is applied, the ingredients being well stirred until they have become thoroughly amalgamated. It is then drawn off by means of a tap, on to slabs, where it is allowed to cool; after which it is cut into pieces ready for use. When a less elastic glue is required, it is composed of one part of naphtha to two parts of gum or shell-lac. Previous to using, the glue or cement is heated in an iron pot to the temperature of about two hundred and fifty degrees. One great object proposed in this invention was to produce a glue which should be at the same time elastic and insoluble in water. To test the strength of the glue, various experiments were made at Woolwich, under the direction of the Board of Ordnance; accounts of which were published in the public journals at the time. One of the experiments instituted was the following:-Two pieces of African teak, a species of wood difficult to be joined together by glue on account of its oily nature, had a coating of the composition applied to them in a boiling state. In a short time afterwards bolts and screws were attached to each end, the joined wood was placed in the testingframe, and the power of Bramah's hydraulic engine applied. No result was obtained till a pressure of nineteen tons was applied, when the chain broke without the slightest strain being susceptible where the joining took place. A larger chain, of an inch and a half in diameter, was then applied, and was broken with a strain of twenty-one tons, the joint in the wood remaining apparently as firm as at first. Thus showing in both cases that the cement joint was actually more coherent than the iron of the chain. In another experiment, four pieces of hard wood were joined together, weighing in one piece forty-four hundredweight, and carried to the top of the shears in the dock-yard, a height of seventy-six feet. From this elevation the mass of wood was precipitated on the hard granite wharf wall below, without any of the joints yielding in the smallest degree. These two experiments tested the new cement in respect to strain and concussion; and it was next resolved, by the authorities of the Admiralty and the Ordnance, to try its efficacy against the power of cannon balls. A number of planks of oak eight inches thick, and others of fir sixteen inches square, were joined together with the cement, so as to represent a portion of the side of a first-rate ship of war, about eight feet in height, and eight in breadth; without anything else in the shape of bolt or security to assist the composition. This mass of wood was set up as a target in Woolwich marshes; and opposite to it were placed three new thirty-two pounder guns, at a distance of four hundred yards. Three shots were fired; upon which it was found that although the wood' was much rent, yet in only one joint had the cement given way, the other joints having resisted this extraordinary amount of force. In other experiments the cement was exposed to the action of an internal force, tending to burst or explode it, in order that there might be as great a variety of tests as possible. A hole six inches and a quarter in diameter was bored in the centre of the mass of wood used as a target in the last-named experiment; and in this hole was placed a thirty-two pounder shell. The shell being exploded by a match, the wood became torn to splinters, and yet many of the joints remained uninjured. On another occasion, in the autumn of 1842, while the Ordnance officers were making experiments on some new concussion shells, Mr. Jeffery's cement underwent a further trial. A massive block of wood, about five feet long by two feet six inches broad, was formed by joining together pieces about fifteen inches square each, the new cement being the only means of junction. This block of wood was then bored to the centre, exactly in the middle of the joining, and a five and a half inch shell inserted, for the purpose of tearing the wood to pieces. On a port-fire being ignited, the shell soon exploded, tearing the solid wood in all directions into numerous fragments, but in no part separating the pieces where the joining with the cement was made. It appears from the nature of the above experiments that the elasticity of the cement is one of its most remarkable properties, for mere strength would not enable it to resist a fall of seventy or eighty feet if there were not elasticity to accommodate it to the flexure or yielding of the wood. The inventor, in the specification of his patent, states his cement to have the advantage of being insoluble in water; but we do not know whether any extensive experiments have been introduced to illustrate this property, nor whether any practical application in ship-building or engineering has resulted from the Woolwich experiments. Description of Paris in 1579, by a Venetian Ambassador.From the salubrity of the climate, the natives would live long, if they did not ruin their stomachs with over-eating, spending on food and habiliments without rule or measure. Male dress so various in form, that to describe it were impossible. A hat whose broad brim falls on the shoulders, or a "beret" which hardly covers the top of the head; a cloak which descends to the ankle, or barely reaches the loins; the manner of wearing these habits not less curious than the habits themselves. One sleeve buttoned, the other open, and the cloak pendant from one shoulder; and the change of costume usual among men, necessitating an extraordinary expense in woollen stuff and cloths of silk and gold; since no man is esteemed rich if he has not twenty or thirty suits of different kinds, so that he may change daily. The women have a mode of dress more modest and less variable. The noble lady wears a hood of black velvet, or a coiffe, wrought in ribbons of silk or gold, or in jewels, and has a mask on her face. The citizen's wife wears a cloth hood, the mask and silken head-gear Men wear | being denied to her rank. All wear gowns and cotillons as they please. Noblewomen distinguished by the size of the sleeves and variety of colours, while other females wear black only? Widows have veils, and the clothing high to the throat, and over all a spenser. In mourning for parent or husband, they have also robes trimmed with hair or swan's down. mourning only on the day of burial. It is easy to recognise unfootsteps, and the domestics male or female again come after. married women in the street; they follow closely their mothers' Frenchwomen have generally the waist slightly formed, and using as they do hoops and other artifices to increase the circumference below, their appearance becomes more elegant still. The cotillon is of great value. As to the gown which is worn over all, it is usually of coarse serge or ordinary stuff, since the women at church kneel down anywhere and sit upon the ground. The bosom and shoulders are slightly veiled with gauze. The head, neck, and arms, are ornamented with jewels; the head-dress differs widely from that of Italy, as on the top of the head are breadth of the forehead. They commonly wear black hair, since ornaments and tufts of hair which apparently increase the it sets off the paleness of the cheeks, and this paleness when not occasioned by malady is looked on as a charm. The French females are seemingly full of devotion, but in fact very free. Each chooses to be treated as worthy esteem, and there is none, whatever her conduct, who does, not find something to say against that of her neighbours. They are very insolent, and the cause is their husbands' over confidence, and allowing them to govern not only their households but themselves. They converse publicly with those they meet in the streets, and also go alone to church and market, remaining absent three or four hours without their husbands asking whither they are gone. Very avarice; it is said that gold is omnipotent with all the women in agreeable in their manners, they have perhaps but one fault, the world, but with Frenchwomen silver suffices.-From the Foreign Quarterly Review. Christmas on the Frontiers of Lapland.-How cold, how gloomy it is! twilight extends its hand to the evening twilight, and the dark The window-panes are covered with ice; the morning has a few bright moments; the sun sheds still a few feeble beams, night entombs the day. In Nordland, however, the mid-day then he quickly disappears, and it becomes dark. Farther up in the country, people know nothing more of day—the night endures for months. They say in the north, that "nature sleeps," but this sleep resembles death; like death, it is cold and ghastly, and would obscure the heart of man, did not another light descend at the same time, if it did not open to the heart a warmer bosom and animate it with its life. In Sweden they know this very well, and whilst everything sleeps and dies in nature, all is set in motion in all hearts and homes for the celebration of a festival. Ye know it well, ye industrious daughters of home, ye who strain your hands and eyes by lamplight quite late into the night to prepare presents. You know it well, you sons of the house, you who bite your nails in order to puzzle out "what in all the world" you shall choose for Christmas presents. Thou knowest it well, thou fair child, who hast no other anxiety than lest the Christman should lose his way and pass by the door. You know it well, you fathers and mothers, with empty purses and full hearts; ye aunts and cousins of the great and immortal race of needlewomen and workers in wool-ye welcome and unwelcome uncles and male cousins, ye know it well, this time of mysterious countenances and treacherous laughter! In the houses of the rich, fat roasts are prepared and dried fish; sausages pour forth their fat, and tarts puff themselves up; nor is there any hut so poor as not to have at this time a sucking pig squeaking in it, which must endeavour, for the greater part, to grow fat with its own good humour. It is quite otherwise with the elements at this season. The cold reigns despotically; it holds all life fettered in nature; restrains the heaving of the sea's bosom; destroys every sprouting grass-blade; forbids the birds to sing and the gnats to sport; and only its minister, the powerful north wind, rolls freely forth into grey space, and takes heed that everything keeps itself immoveable and silent. The sparrows only-those optimists of the air-remain merry, and appear by their twittering to announce better times. At length comes the darkest moment of the year, the midnight hour of nature, and suddenly light streams forth from all habitations, and emulates the stars of heaven. The church opens its bosom full of brightness and thanksgiving, and the children shout full of gladness, "It is Christmas! It is Christmas!" Eart a sends her hallelujah on high!-Frederika Bremer, HUDIBRA S.-No. I. [Hudibras and Ralph.] ABOUT twenty years ago, two barristers of the "The moon pulls off her veil of light With shining horns hangs out her light." "Hey-day!" said one, "you quote Hudibras! Pray do you know any more of it?" "Yes, sir," replied the man; "I have but few books, and Hudibras is the one I most admire. I know it all by heart." His No. 756. assertion was tested in repeated recitations of passages not the most familiar. He was the man of one book. Such a knowledge of Hudibras, however, indeed any real knowledge, is extremely rare. There is probably no author who is so popular and so little understood. His couplets form apophthegms which are in every one's mouth, yet not one in a thousand has attempted to read his great poem, nor probably one in five hundred, even of those, who have gone through and attained a comprehension of the purpose of the whole. By the many it is considered a coarse though powerful satire, a low invective against the author's political opponents, written in a burlesque doggrel style. A reader takes up the poem for the first time: he finds the style quaint; the rhymes droll and ingenious, though irregular; the rhythm faulty, with the occasional use of a word or an image not now to be mentioned" to ears polite;" that there is little or no story, the adventures Judicrous, the characters grotesque and apparently incongruous; that the wit is so profuse as to dazzle, and so allusive as to require more previous study of the most discursive kind than men usually possess for its due comprehension; and that the dialogues are long VOL. XIII.-C winded, and so involved as to require great attention | afford opportunities of mutually elucidating passages to follow. The book is laid down, not again to be of the poem and the history of the times, while they taken up, except again by accident, and this is called will be further adorned with pictorial illustrations from having read Hudibras. Even the taking it up for a the pencil of Harvey and the graver of Jackson. We first time is done generally rather in deference to the shall thus, we trust, though our extracts must necesgreat arbiters of literary fame, not only of our own, sarily be concise, awaken attention to a proper apprebut of foreign nations, than from a liking for the task: ciation of the true beauties of this extraordinary poem. a man of any education must not be entirely ignorant Butler opens his poem with a rapid sketch of the of Hudibras. By the great vulgar and the small, from state of societyPepys, who bought the work because he was told it was witty, though he could not find it out, to the devourers of the outpourings of the Minerva Press, Hudibras is quoted and praised, in utter ignorance of its true worth. But it has not been only by superficial readers that Hudibras has been misconstrued, as at least we humbly presume to think. By his critics and his industrious editor Dr. Zachary Grey it has been unhesitatingly assumed to be a mere attack and bitter satire on the Puritan party, and its author has been blamed or defended for embodying the character of one of his early patrons, Sir Samuel Luke, or Sir Henry Rosewell, in that of Hudibras; and Ralph, and Talgol, and Crowdero, and Trulla, are all traced to supposed individual originals. We believe all the Jabour thus employed to have been wholly thrown away. Butler's mind was far too large and creative to reduce him to the necessity of borrowing or copying any particular person, nor do any of his characters bear such marks of individuality as to induce us to suppose them drawn from living originals. Any wooden-legged fiddler might have sat for Crowdero, as any sporting butcher,' as we should now say, might have stood for Talgol; and even in Sidrophel, who is certainly the best identified as Lilly, there is no personality, nothing unfitting for a conjuror of even the present day nothing but the words or acts that might characterise a class. Butler was no doubt a royalist and a Church-of-England man; in Hudibras and Ralph he has no doubt embodied the Presbyterian and Independent parties; but though his subject was thus rendered local and transitory, the wide grasp of his intellect, the justness and impartiality of his general views, have rendered the satire he applied to them applicable to folly, meanness, selfishness, hypocrisy, conceitedness, scholastic pedantry-to, in fact, all the worst rank growth of the human mind, through all time and in all situations. It is this that has made him so proverbial. His couplets, with the terseness and sting of epigrams, are found to fit now as well as they did then; but he heaps them one over the other in boundless profusion, while we, his borrowers, find one sufficient for most of our purposes. Nor is it to be taken for granted that Butler was the indiscriminating satirist of what was then called the Puritan party. It is true that, passing from one extreme to the other, from the pomp and imposing ceremony of the old Roman Catholic church, the Puritans had been gradually approximating to the coldest, barest, and most unimaginative utilitarianism; and Butler felt, like Göthe, that "it is the beautiful which needs encouragement, for all require it, and but few can create it ;" and he therefore attacked unsparingly these defects of their general character: but he has shown himself by no means unaware of the follies of their opponents, and has dwelt chiefly on those matters of dissent or dispute depending on form or mere metaphysical abstraction, rather than on any of those more material subjects of discussion on which he knew there was abundant room to differ conscientiously. In a few papers on this great poem we shall endeavour to establish some of these points; whilst the vast variety of allusions to and descriptions of the manners, tastes, customs, and doctrines of the day will "When civil dudgeon first grew high, Aud men fell out they knew not why, And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, Was beat with fist instead of a stick;" teristics far too multifarious to suit any individual, but Nor put up blow, but that which laid sternness and spiritual pride of the party, are here disThe adoption of aristocratic distinctions, and the tinctly depicted. Of his mental qualifications, the details occupy one hundred and seventy lines, attributing to him all the pedantic learning, together with its ostentatious display, which characterise the writings of many of the polemical disputants of the time, and which will be noticed on future occasions. Of his personal appearance we must give nearly the whole, in order to introduce him thoroughly to our readers. Having, with the assistance of our engraving, once made an acquaintance with him and his redoubted squire, we tellectual qualities while pursuing their adventures or can with the greater ease remark upon their inconsidering their debates: "His tawny beard was th' equal grace To poise this equally, he bore A paunch of the same bulk before; "His doublet was of sturdy buff, "His puissant sword unto his side, The peaceful scabbard, where it dwelt, And pris'ners too, or made them run. These would inveigle rats with th' scent, From two-legg'd and from four-legg'd foes. It doth behove us to say something "A squire he had whose name was Ralph, That in th' adventure went his half, Though writers, for more stately toue, Do call him Kalpho, 'tis all one: And when we can with metre safe, We'll call him so; if not, plain Ralph; (For rhyme the rudder is of verses, With which, like ships, they steer their courses). An equal stock of wit and valour He had laid in; by birth a tailor. The mighty Tyrian queen, that gain'd Did leave it with a castle fair To his great ancestor, her heir: From him descended cross-legged knights, Fam'd for their faith, and warlike fights Whom they destroy'd, both great and small. This sturdy squire, he had, as well As the bold Trojan knight, seen hell, Not with a counterfeited pass Of golden bough, but true gold lace. His knowledge was not far behind Practical Philosophy in a small way.-Many persons may have noticed the great rapidity with which the sacks of malt are raised to the tops of the lofty London brewhouses, and may, without knowing wherefore, have observed that they shoot upwards like an arrow, notwithstanding that being drawn from various parts of the waggon, they must often start with a tendency to swing about. This, and all other causes of irregular movement or vibration, are counteracted by the man in the cart, who gives the sack a slight twirl as it leaves his hand, which rifles it as effectually as if it were discharged from a twisted barrel. This is, perhaps, as pretty an example of science applied to humble matters as will casily be met with.-Gardener's Chronicle. C 2 |