No. II.

MANUFACTURES AND PRODUCTS.-MILITARY STATION. TEMPLES.-SUPERSTITIONS.-BOATS.PAGODAS.

THE accompanying engraving gives us a sketch of the entrance of the river at Yang-Tseou, in the province Chě-Keang, which is situated on the eastern coast of China. The province of Che-Keang is one of the most flourishing in China, and is supposed to derive its name from the river Chě-Keang. The people are described as being very industrious, trading to all parts of the empire; that literature and the arts prevail very generally among them; that they produce silks of every kind, cotton, lead, and paper; and that the country abounds with salt, coals, iron, and even gold.

Yang-Tseou, which is situated at the mouth of the river, is a military station, and the original of our Engraving (which is copied from one of Mr. Alexander's illustrations of China) has been so faithfully drawn, in respect to what is peculiarly Chinese, that one seems to be actually on the spot. The two buildings, one on the left, whereon the national flag is flying, and the other with windows, immediately opposite, are military forts. The build ing within the wall is a military temple, divided off into several departments, in each of which are placed representations of one or more of the fabulous gods of the country; it also contains a public hall, wherein the priests dine together*, and probably, rooms for the use of the commander of the fort. Over the principal entrance is the inscription YUE-LING-JIH. Yuě-ling implies a certain period in the year, but having the word jih, day, following, its import is not very clear. The building in front of the wall is a small temple in which offerings are presented, probably to the attendant deity of the temple. The little building adjoining, is where paper-offerings are burnt, by those who sail from the port to any great distance, or on their return, or when a favourable wind is desired. These minor temples being on the outside of the enclosure of the larger temple, persons can at all hours invoke the deities, whether the chief temple be open or not. These burnt-offerings are supposed to be passed into the invisible state, for the use of the spirits of the departed. They chiefly consist of paper made up into the form of wearingapparel, houses, and furniture, but more frequently into those of boats and boatmen, and are offered for the purpose of exciting, or influencing, those spirits to be propitious to the party offering them. All boats on passing a temple salute it by sounding the gong, or by burning offerings of paper. If this ceremony be omitted, and any calamity befall the boat or its inmates, it is attributed to the anger of the gods on account of the omission.

The larger vessel is of that class called by Europeans chop-boats, chop signifying a permit; hence such boats should be called permit-boats, or vessels. They are so built as to form two or three rooms, and gentlemen go in them to and from Canton; on other occasions these boats carry goods between one port and another. The second sized vessel is a fishingsmack, in which whole families live together all the year round. The upper part is so constructed as to slide one part within the other, and thus, by the aid of a head-piece, they effectually keep out foul weather. The little boats are commonly called Tan-Keă, ‘egg

At a temple near Canton, upwards of 300 priests annually dine together in one hall.

unfrequently with infants at their backs. The figure with two baskets suspended from a bamboo, shows the manner in which pedlars, and retail dealers in general, as well as porters and others, carry articles of light burden.

On the top of the adjacent hill is erected a sixstory Tă, or 'pagoda,' with a house for the resident priest. The Budhists were the introducers of this kind of building. In each story they place the image of a god. On the days kept in honour of these gods, the Tă, or 'pagoda,' is illuminated, and hence becomes an object of notice and attraction wherever it can be seen. According to the notions of the Fung-shwuy, professors of a kind of geomancy, deduced from the climate and aspect of the country, &c., these buildings are said to be the cause of great prosperity to every place from whence they can be seen; hence they are generally built on an eminence like the one under notice, or near rapids, to prevent calamity, or at the commencement of a town which is rising into notice.

Dr. Morrison informs us, "that some Ta consist of three, five, seven, nine, and even thirteen stories; that they are very common in the interior of China; and are generally placed on some eminence, often on the tops of high hills. Withinside they are hollow, having windows in each story, and often a winding staircase leading to the top, contained in the wall of the building, like the Monument of London, which is, indeed, a kind of Tă. The pagoda, half-way to Kwang-poo, where European ships moor, is called Chih-kang-tă. The Second Bar pagoda, a spire known to all those who have visited China, is called Sze-szeyang-tă, The lions' foreign pagoda; or Shih-le-tă, The grinding-stone pagoda. Pa-chow-tă, is a famous pagoda in the province of Canton, built about a. d. 1600."

The writer of this article has in his possession a print, which he obtained at a temple at Canton; it measures several feet in length, and represents a pagoda, consisting of seven stories, in each story of which, except the fourth, is placed a representation of Budha. The whole building, with its ornaments, is formed from the contents of the Budhists' book of incantations, or prayers. The flight of steps, with its chequered pavement, window-supporters, and the front of the building, contains characters, kept separate or distinct by faint lines; the whole being very legible. On the basement is a representation of the goddess Kwan-she-yin, sitting cross-legged on the water-lily. On each side are representations of Budha priests, erect, in the act of repeating the King, or book of incantations. At the foot of the altar of Kwan-she-yin is a priest of Budha kneeling in his sacred dress, formed of small squares of deep red and white woollen cloth, alternately. Even the bells, which are suspended from each story, intended to be acted on by the wind, have also characters on them. The book of prayers, or incantations, when printed by itself, forms an ordinary sized Chinese volume. P. P. T.

THELWALL thought it very unfair to influence a child's mind, by inculcating any opinions before it should have come to years of discretion, and be able to choose for itself, I showed him my garden, and told him it was my botanical garden. "How so," said he, "it is covered with weeds?" "Oh," I replied, "that is only because it has not yet come to its age of discretion and choice. The weeds, you see, have taken the liberty to grow, and I thought it unfair in me to prejudice the soil towards roses and strawberries."COLERIDGE.

THE ABBEY OF GLASTONBURY,
SOMERSETSHIRE.
I.

Few and dilapidated as are now the remains of the once magnificent Abbey of Glastonbury, various circumstances tend to invest them with a high degree of interest, and to attract visiters to the spot which they occupy. As ruins, they are very picturesque, and independent of the instruction they convey to the architectural student, as specimens of our early English taste and art, it should be remembered that these fragments are the last reminiscences of an abbey, which, according to tradition, was the earliest of its kind in our island,-which, in different ages of the church, has afforded to some of the most learned and pious of their day a retreat and asylum whilst living, and a resting-place for their mortal remains when they were no more,—and which enjoying, with the exception of Westminster Abbey, the most splendid patronage and revenue of any similar establishment in Europe, for centuries held a distinguished place in the ecclesiastical annals of Britain. No doubt, these historical remembrances have their weight with some who visit the ruins; but I imagine the majority of those who now resort thither, are influenced rather by a desire, in many instances it is to be feared, not altogether free from superstition, to witness the extraordinary property of the long-famed Glastonbury Thorn. For my own part, I confess that, though by no means insensible to the other attractions of the place, the thought which would there chiefly occupy my mind, would be that I was then probably viewing the very spot on which stood the first Christian church erected in this country.

The early introduction of Christianity into Great Britain is one of those events in our history which "We see," are veiled in considerable obscurity.

"little

uncultivated, its inhabitants rude and inimical to strangers; yet withal its king Arviragus could foster a few itinerants, whom he knew not how to hate, nor wished to love. In consideration of their hard and laborious journey, he disposed their habitation in a small island then waste and untillaged, and surrounded by bogs and morasses; assignin to each of the twelve a certain portion of land called a hide, sufficient for one family to live upon, and composing in all a territory denominated to this day, THE TWELVE HIDES OF GLASTON

This spot was, at that early period, called by the natives YNISWYTRYN, or the Glassy island, either because its because it abounded with the herb called glast, or woad, surface represented a glasten or blue-green colour, or with which they were used to tinge their bodies.

Here, according to the monastic annals, St. Joseph erected to the honour of the blessed Virgin Mary, of wattles and wreathed twigs, the first Christian oratory in England.

It must immediately strike us how much there is mixed up in these statements, which, if not actually absurd in itself, is certainly the fabrication of aftertimes, so that it is scarcely possible to imagine that any portion of them can be true. In most of those points of history which have been blended and interwoven with fond and foolish fables, it is possible to trace at least some ground-work, on which cunning and superstition may have raised their ridiculous superstructures. But really, in the present instance, we cannot discover anything like a probability to commence with. What connexion there could possibly have been between Joseph of Arimathea and our island, and what could have given rise to the idea of his having been the first to preach the Gospel amongst us, it is difficult to conjecture. Nor, indeed, would it have been worthy of serious notice, if it had not been more than once made use of as a fact of some weight in the history of the English church. But it is curious that the English bishops, at the council of Basil, in the year 1434, claimed precedency before those of Castile in Spain, on the ground of "Britaine's conversion by Joseph of Arimathea §." And, what is infinitely more extraordinary, even our protestant Queen Elizabeth, and Archbishop Parker, ventured to claim Joseph as the first preacher of Christianity in England ||.

Be this, however, as it may, there is one point in the history which seems to bear on it something more of the stamp of truth than the rest, I mean the claim which is set up for Glastonbury, that the first Christian church was there erected. "This tradition," observes Mr. Southey, “may seem the more deserving of credit, because it is not contradicted in those ages when other churches would have found it profitable to advance a similar pretension ¶." There can, indeed, be no doubt that this tradition was one of the great causes of the high patronage and rich endowments which the abbey possessed from a very early period : and we may rest assured, that if in behalf of any other church in England an equal claim could have been advanced to the assumption of such titles as those conferred on Glastonbury, as "the first ground of God;" "the first ground of the saints in England," and "the rise and fountain of all religion in England**," such a manifest advantage never would have been conceded to this establishment without many a struggle. It may also be observed by the way, that the description here given of the character of the sacred edifice, being formed of wattles and wreathed

In after-times it received the fancied name of Avalon, or the Isle of Apples, or the land where Avalloc, a British chief, first pitched his residence. The Saxons finally called it Glasteinbyri. FULLER'S Church History, b. iv.

SHORT'S Sketch of the History of the English Church.
TSOUTHEY'S Book of the Church.

**See CAMDEN's Magna Britannia; GLASTONBURY.

twigs, agrees well with the general nature of the buildings in this country at that rude period.

The next event presented to us in the history of Glastonbury, is the erection of a more substantial structure in the place of this humble and primitive chapel, which had then fallen into decay. This is described as having taken place under the auspices of Phaganus and Diruvianus, two Christian missionaries, whom Eleutherius, the twelfth bishop of Rome, is represented as having sent over into this country at the request of King Lucius, to re-illumine the expiring embers of Christianity in the land. Lucius seems to have reigned, if, indeed, there were such a British king, about the year 180. These missionaries are also said to have built another oratory on the summit of the hill now called the Tor, and dedicated it to St. Michael the Archangel, "that he there might have honour on earth of men, who, at the command of GOD, should bring men to eternal honours in heaven."

In the year 439, we are told that St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, visited the holy spot, and that he repaired the two chapels before erected. It is added, also, that he disciplined the body of clergy into something of a monastic society, and became himself the first Abbot. St. Benignus, his successor in the see of Armagh, is represented as following his example, in returning to this place, then newly named Avalon, where he presided over a few religious till his death. About the year 530, St. David, Archbishop of Menevia, accompanied by seven of his suffragan bishops, took a journey to Avalon, and expended large sums of money in adding to the buildings of the church. St. David was uncle of the renowned king Arthur, who in his time, (A. D. 543,) having been mortally wounded in the rebellion of his cousin Mordred, at the battle of Camlan, was carried to this abbey, that he might prepare himself for his departure out of life in the society of the religious, and be interred amongst such a number of saints as had reposed there from the beginning of Christianity:

and accordingly, on his death, his body here found a grave*

In the year 605, this establishment was formed into a still more regular society, by the famous St. Augustine, who was sent into England by Pope Gregory the Great, to convert the heathen AngloSaxon inhabitants of Britain. Twenty-five years after this, St. Paulinus, Bishop of Rochester, resided in the monastery, and was a great benefactor to the abbey, which he considerably enlarged. He also built the old church with timber, and we are told covered it without, from the top to the bottom, with lead. About this period, also, the place adopted the name of Glasteinbyri, by which title, with little varition, it has been since known.

Celric, Ceolwulph, Kenwalch, Kentwine, Cedwalla, and other kings, were in their day liberal benefactors to the establishment, and enriched it with valuable lands and possessions. But when King Ina ascended the throne of the West Saxons, he excelled all his predecessors in his munificence. He, in the year 708, pulled down the old ruinous buildings of the monastery, rebuilt it in the most sumptuous and magnificent manner, and dedicated it to the honour of Christ, and of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul; "adorning the edifice with a costly chapel, garnished

The following account of the opening of the grave of Arthur, in the reign of Henry the Second, 640 years after he was buried, is taken from Camden's Britannia, as he gives it on the authority of Giraldus Cambrensis, "an eye witness." "When Henry the Second, King of England, had learned from the songs of the British bards, that Arthur, the most noble heroe of the Britains, whose courage had so often shatter'd the Saxons, was bury'd at Glassenbody: and they had scarce digged seven foot deep, but they light bury between two pyramids, he order'd search to be made for the upon a cross'd stone, (cippus,) or a stone in the back part whereof was fastened a rude leaden cross, something broad. This being pulled out, appeared to have an inscription upon it, and under it almost nine foot deep, they found a coffin made of hollow'd oak, wherein were deposited the bones of the famous Arthur. The letters have a sort of barbarous and Gothic appearance, and are a plain evidence of the barbarity of the age, which was so involved in a fatal sort of mist, that no one was found to celebrate the name of King Arthur. That strong bulwark of the British government may justly reckon this amongst his greatest misfortunes, that the age did not afford a panegyrist equal to his virtues."

and plated over with two thousand six hundred and forty pounds' weight of silver, and sixty-four pounds' weight of gold," beside many rich and valuable ornaments. He also bestowed on the abbey a large extent of territory, and a royal charter (dated 725), granting to it various immunities.

Succeeding monarchs withheld not their benefactions, but were zealous in ratifying, confirming, and adding to, the grants before made. In short, "Kings and queens, not only of the West Saxons, but of other kingdoms of the Heptarchy, several archbishops and bishops, many dukes, and the nobility of both sexes, thought themselves happy in increasing the revenues of this venerable house, to obtain them a place of sepulchre therein."

During the dreadful incursions of the Danes, it is known that their chief depredations fell on the monastic establishments, partly, perhaps, from their being the strong-holds of a religion which they hated, but more probably from the valuable plunder which there presented them an easy prey. Nor did the Abbey of Glastonbury escape the violence of these rapacious plunderers. It was deprived by them of no small portion of its splendour, and was soon doomed to exhibit a most melancholy picture of ruin and distress.

Happily, however, this sad state of things in England did not continue. The destructive course of the Danes was, by the bravery of King Alfred, effectually arrested: and on the elevation of Edmund to the throne, he was enabled to direct his efforts to restore this religious house, amongst others, to its ancient dignity. He appointed over it as abbot, the notorious, but talented, St. Dunstan, and permitted him to make free use of the royal treasury to rebuild the fabric. Born in the immediate neighbourhood, and educated from early years within the walls of the abbey, he entered, as might be expected, readily on the work. Under his auspices, a new foundation was laid, according to model brought from France: from the same country, also, a congregation of Benedictine monks was introduced into it, and by the liberality of Edmund, and of one of his successors, Edgar, Dunstan was enabled to leave the abbey at the close of the twenty-two years which he presided over it, possessed of privileges, power, and emoluments, at least equal to those which it had before enjoyed *.

:

At the period of the Norman Conquest, however, the abbey suffered a reverse of fortune. Its Abbot Egelnoth, being esteemed one of the principal men in the nation, was for this reason deposed from his office, and carried over into Normandy by King William, who was jealous of his newly-acquired subjects. The Abbey was also deprived by the rapacious conqueror, of a very considerable portion of its endowments. But even after this spoliation, the possessions of the establishment were still most magnificent, and by the good care of some of its abbots, and the liberal benefactions afterwards bestowed upon it, the wealth of the abbey became immensely great.

whole of the abbey being consumed by fire, that monarch sent Ralph Fitz-Stephen to take measures for rebuilding what the fire had destroyed. This work was completed with great expedition, and the new church of St. Mary was dedicated by Reginald, Bishop of Bath, on the Feast of St. Barnabas, in the year 1186. This appears to have been the very building, the remains of which now exist.

In the mean time, the abbots of this monastery advanced in influence in the kingdom. They were at length mitred, became lords of Parliament, and almost rivalled in their table and retinue, even their monarchs themselvest. We may form some idea, however, of the benefits derived to the country from such establishments, in the encouragement of learning and education, and in the work of hospitality and charity, when we learn the following particulars. The last Abbot Whiting's apartment was a kind of well-disciplined court, where the sons of noblemen and gentlemen were sent for their virtuous education, and returned thence excellently accomplished. After this manner he bred up nearly 300 pupils, beside others of a lower rank, whom he fitted for the universities at home. His table, attendants, and officers, were an honour to the nation; he is said to have entertained 500 persons of consideration at one time; and on Wednesdays and Fridays weekly, all the poor of the country around were relieved by his peculiar charity. D. I. E.

The Abbot of Glastonbury was always a member of the Upper House of Convocation, and a parliamentary Baron, being summoned by a particular writ to sit amongst the elders and barons of the realm. COLLINSON's Somersetshire.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF EXERCISE DIFFERENT kinds of exercise suit different constitutions. The object, of course, is to employ all the muscles of the body, and to strengthen those especially which are too weak; and hence, exercise ought to be often varied, and always adapted to the peculiarities of individuals. Speaking generally, walking agrees well with everybody, but as it exercises chiefly the lower limbs, and the muscles of the loins, and affords little scope for the play of the arms, and muscles of the chest, it is insufficient of itself to constitute adequate exercise, and hence the advantages of combining with it movements performed by the upper part of the body, as in rowing a boat, fencing, shuttlecock, and many other useful sports. Such exercises have the additional advantage of animating the mind, and, by increasing the nervous stimulus, making exertion easy, pleasant, and invigorating. Nature, indeed, has shown her intention that the upper part of the body should always partake in the exercise of the lower, by rendering it impossible for us even to walk gracefully, without the arms keeping time as it were with the movements of the legs.

conducted exercise is capable of yielding, and are much resorted to in the German seminaries, for the purpose of developing the mental and bodily powers: and on the Continent, in many institutions, a regular system of useful manual occupation is substituted for mere play, and with decided advantage. For not only is the physical organization thereby strengthened and developed, but the mental energy and dignity of character are increased, and the mind becomes better fitted for independent action.