Acis and Galatea.—This charming serenata by Handel, the poetry by Gay, was performed somewhat more than a century since, (in 1732,) at the Italian Opera-house, in English, by the Italian performers, who appeared in a kind of gallery. The public were to expect "no action on the stage; but the scene to represent, in a picturesque manner, a rural prospect, with rocks, groves, fountains, and grottoes; amongst which, to be disposed a chorus of nymphs and shepherds-habits and every other decoration suited to the subject." The serenata was repeated six nights to very full houses; and no person admitted without tickets, at 10s. 6d. each. Of the excellence of this performance we cannot speak in detail; but, in completeness, it could scarcely vie with the elaborate revival, by Mr. Macready, at Drury-lane Theatre. We believe it to be generally acknowledged, that by no singers in Europe is the music of Handel so well sung as by English vocalists; so that we have perfection in this department: the orchestral appointments are acknowledged to be alike perfect, and the choruses, for precision and poetic expression, have never been transcended on the British stage: the scenery, by Stanfield, the royal academician, has never been equalled, each scene combining the highest pictorial excellence with the perfection of scene-painting, in itself a distinct branch of the art; whereof the mechanical aids, and especially that of gas-lighting, contribute to complete the illu. sions. Nor must we forget the minute attention to the costume, mythological and mortal; its classicality and chasteness of colour materially aiding the tout ensemble. In short, never have we witnessed a piece so poetically produced upon our stage-so intellectually festal, and completely characteristic-as Macready's revival of Acis and Galatea.

Poetical Bequest.-Ducrow has left £600 to decorate his tomb at Kensal Green; and the interest of £200 to decorate the bordure of the tomb with flowers.

The Oldest Man in England.-In the parish register of St. Leonard Shoreditch, is entered, among the "Burialles, Thomas Cam, ye 22nd inst. of Januarye, 1588, Aged 207 years. Holywell Street, George Garrow, parish clerk." Surely, there must be a mistake here-as 2 for 1, in the number of years. However, thus it stands in the register; from which it appears that Cam was born in the year 1381, in the fourth of Richard II., living through the reign of that monarch; and throughout those of Henry IV., V., and VI., Edward IV. and V., Richard III., Henry VII. and VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and to the 30th of Elizabeth!

Water will cure all diseases which medicine can cure, and this when they are in a much more advanced stage than that at which drugs can act.-Belgian Physician; Claridge on Hydropathy; or, the Cold Water Cure.

The Drama.-The fact of two managers of minor theatres, recently deceased, leaving, one £60,000, and the other £27,000, proves that theatres, in proper hands, are not the worst speculations of the day.

Bathing. No art has been so much vitiated in Europe, by theories, as the art of preserving health. Its professors, however, are beginning to recur to first principles; and, when the value of bathing shall be properly appreciated, three-fourths of the druggists will be obliged to close their shops.

Let no lady who desires to stand well with the gentlemen of England, and her own conscience, appear this season in attire which is not of home manufacture. Let every gentleman mark his sense of so righteous a taste, by paying his devoirs only to such of the fair sex as patronise the starving operatives of Great Britain.-John Bull.

The New Comedy of Marriage, performing at the Haymarket Theatre, is very properly shown up in the Athenæum as a so-so production, resembling "a masquerade. Each of the numerous dramatis persone puts forth some pretensions to character, however slender-one utters a catch phrase, another is peevish, a third has a big nose, a fourth a lisp, a fifth wears a pig-tail, and so on-and the business of all seems to be to display mere peculiarities, and utter smart say. ings, or unintelligible things, intended to be profound and pathetic. But nothing comes of all this: no new traits of human nature, no fresh phasis of society, nor scarcely any true portraits of men and manners, are exhibited. The old stage conventions are reproduced, as with another turn of the theatrical kaleidoscope-here, a reminiscence of The

Absorbed in Grief.-The following passage from the novel, A School for Wives, powerfully describes a state of mind which not unfrequently accompanies the most acute degree of suffering the heroine, we must explain, is sitting by the coffin of an only and beloved brother, who has fallen in a duel on her account:" It was strange, and she often thought of it in after years, when she recollected, with a shuddering and fearful distinctness, the sensations of that dreadful night-the indelible impression that had been made on her mind by the most trivial outward circumstances, which she had hardly seemed to notice at the time. The pattern of the carpet-School for Scandal; there, a glimpse of Money-but without she never forgot the peculiar shape of the rings within rings that composed it-nor something resembling the profile of a countenance in one of the corners-nor the position of every separate piece of the fringe around the rug-some straight, like erect human figures tied round the middle-some bending forwards, some leaning towards each other-they were all as clearly pictured to her mind's eye, years afterwards, as though she saw them still. She remembered, too, tracing in fancy some faint marks on the wall, over and over again, and fixing her eyes upon a dark spot upon the cornice, and wondering how it came there, and what it was; and measuring internally the different sizes of the panels on the mahogany doors. All this she remembered distinctly afterwards; but, at the time, she was conscious of none of-she felt nothing but her grief."

Error in Persons.-Morat, in Switzerland, is celebrated as the scene of the defeat of Charles the Bold, in 1476; and a little chapel, filled with the bones of those that fell, bears this pithy inscription: "The army of Charles the Bold, besieging Morat, left this monument of its passage ;" on seeing which, a Connemara gentleman observed, that "they might call him 'bold' here; but he was too timid in London, or he never would have popped his head out of Lord Melbourne's middle window, to lay it on the block. Many a time he had looked at it, (the window,) while knocking his heels at the Horse Guards." It is useless to explain: Mac confounded the Martyr of England with the daring Duke of Burgundy.— School for Wives.

Emigration.-The New Zealand Company have already dispatched 6,372 emigrants, of whom 5,725 were steerage passengers of the labouring class.

the dexterity of a practised hand. Such collocations of scenes and dialogue may amuse play-going folks-though the moral sentiment of Marriage is of a somewhat debased kind; but they scarcely deserve to be classed as dramas; being not so much emanations of mind, as efforts of ingenious craftsmen to vary an established formula of entertainment." This is somewhat severe, but just of the screen scene from The School for Scandal, by the way, there is a palpable copy. Yet, this drama has been lauded to the skies, (or rather flies,) by most of the newspapers. Thus turns the see-saw of criticism: laudatur ab newspapers; culpatur ab Athenæum.

Wine.-An Irishman observed of Alsace, where excellent vin ordinaire cost only twenty sous the bottle-that "it was just the place where a prudent man could drink himself rich."

Antiquities.-A Connemara gentleman, (in the School for Wives,) being pressed to visit the ruins of a Roman village, in Alsace, declined, observing:-"What novelty was a Roman village to him? Within twenty miles of his father's there was but one Protestant, and that was the parson; and his assistant was a Catholic, and, like the clerk of Ballyhain, when he finished at church, he served mass afterwards. Roman villages! he would be glad to know where there were any else, from one end of Connemara to the other."

LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETORS BY W. BRITTAIN, PATERNOSTER ROW. Edinburgh: JOHN MENZIES. Glasgow: D. BRYCE.

Printed by J. Rijer, 14, Bartholomew Close.

LONDON SATURDAY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY JOHN TIMBS, THIRTEEN YEARS EDITOR OF "THE MIRROR," AND "LITERARY WORLD."

INTERIOR OF THE DIVING-BELL, AT THE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION,

VOL. III.

REGENT STREET.

L

A PEAL OF DIVING-BELLS.

"In the deep, deep sea."-Song. THAT 'charming poet, and very pleasant prose-writer, Thomas Miller, in a lively piece of banter upon the scientific colour of the age, facetely says: "Ariel need no longer sing

66

'Full fathom five thy father lies ;'

that had been breathed; and two barrels fitted with hose alternately let down and drawn up, supplied the bell with fresh air so promptly, that the Doctor naïvely tells us he might have remained in the bell in nine or ten fathoms water as long as he pleased, " for any thing that appeared to the contrary;" but he took care to be let down only gradually at first, at about twelve feet a time, and then to take in three or four barrels of fresh air before he descended further. He tells us too that he could, "for a space as wide as the circuit of the bell, lay the bottom of the sea so far dry, as not to be over shoes on it. And, by the glass window, so much light was transmitted, that when the sea was clear, and especially when the sun shone, the Doctor could see perfectly to read or write, much more to fasten or lay hold on any thing beneath to be taken up. And by the return of the air-barrels, he often sent up orders, written with an iron pen upon small plates of lead, directing how the bell was to be moved from place to water was troubled and thick, it would be as dark as night below; but, then, the Doctor kept a candle burning in the bell as long as he pleased, notwithstanding the great expense of air requisite to maintain the flame. This mention of the candle reminds us of a very simple illustration of the principle of the Diving-bell, which can be shown in the parlour or play-room. Nearly fill a basin with water, and put upon its surface a floating lighted wick, or taper; over this place a glass goblet, mouth downwards, and push it into the water, which will be kept out, whilst the wick will continue to float and burn under the goblet: thus, imitating the living inmate of a Diving-bell, which is merely a larger kind of goblet, with a man instead of a candle in it. Not long since, there was exhibited at the Adelaide Gallery a mouse in a glass Diving-bell immersed in water, when the mouse pumped air into the bell by revolving its cage; or as a wag said one day, by taking steps for its own safety.

for the Diving-bell would speedily reach him, and all the sooner if his bones were made of coral." Probably, Shakspeare knew nothing of the Diving-bell, though used in Europe before his time, viz. in the year 1508; and it is mentioned, but obscurely, by Aristotle, a.c. 325. The first-named instance of its use is stated to have been at Cadiz, in the presence of Charles V., when two Greeks descended in it to a considerable depth; and it is described as "a very large kettle, suspended by ropes, with the mouth downwards, and planks to sit on fixed in the middle of its concavity." The next recorded use of the Diving-place, as occasion required. At other times, when the bell is that in 1642, when it appears by the journal of Governor Winthrop, that one Edward Bedell, of Boston, used the bell to weigh a vessel called the Mary Rose, which had sunk the previous year. Bedell employed two tubs, upon which were hanged so many weights (six hundred pounds) as would sink them to the ground." The experiment succeeded perfectly, and the guns, ballast, goods, hull, &c., were all transported into shoal-water, and recovered. The credit of almost every great invention is disputed, so that we are not surprised to find that of the Diving-bell in the mist of error. In the United States of America there is a popular notion that the Diving-bell was invented by Sir William Phipps; whereas he was merely one of the persons who employed it early; and the invention, if not of the age of Aristotle, is of nearly a century before Phipps' birth. This may be a harmless hoax in America; but, it has been exploded by an American writer, Cooper, in his History of the Navy of the United States. The next mention of the Diving-bell is, we believe, in 1669, when it is said to have been used on the coast of Mull, in searching for the wreck of part of the Armada.

If Dr. Halley was delighted with his life and light under water, what would he have said to a submarine accident of our day; when, on several occasions, in clear weather, Mr. Mackintosh witnessed the sun's rays so conDr. Halley, when Secretary to the Royal Society, centrated by the convex glasses, or windows, in a Divingdrew up a very interesting account of his improvement of bell, used at Stonehouse Point, Devon,-as to burn the the Diving-bell, or "the Art of Living under Water." labourers' clothes, when opposed to the focal point, and It is too long for quotation here; but we will glance at this when the bell was twenty-five feet under the surface the facts. He first tells us that the divers for sponges in of the water! The small wit who suggested the jeu-dethe Archipelago helped themselves by carrying down mot about the mouse, also hints that such accidents as the sponges dipped in oil in their mouths-a very small sup-above, point to the possibility of setting the Thames on fire; ply," since by experiment it is found that a gallon of air, included in a bladder, and by a pipe reciprocally inspired and expired by the lungs of a man, will become unfit for any further respiration in little more than one minute of time. Next were contrived double flexible pipes, to circulate the air down into a cavity enclosing the diver as with armour, to bear off the pressure of the water, and to allow his breast to dilate on inspiration; the fresh air being forced down by one of the pipes with bellows or otherwise, and returning by the other; not unlike an artery and vein: but this method was only found sufficient for small depths." The Doctor tells us that "the Diving-bell was next thought of, in which the diver is safely conveyed to any reasonable depth, and may stay more or less time under water, according as the bell is of greater or less capacity;" and it is added that" if the cavity of the vessel will contain a tun of water, a single man may remain in it at least an hour, without much inconvenience, at five or six fathoms deep." Dr. Halley next described his improvement of this common bell, by coating it with lead so heavy that it would sink empty; fixing a "window" to let in the light from above; a cock to let out the hot air

though he does not appear just the person to effect this phenomenon of incendiarism. The lenses of the bell too, remind one of the sun's rays and a bottle of water, which have set on fire so many wash-hand stands and dressing tables, as Messrs. Gillow and other tapissiers can attest. Again, Dr. Halley conveys his satisfaction in prose; whereas, some twenty years since, Mrs. Major Morris descended in a Diving-bell at Plymouth, on which occasion she penned some very appropriate stanzas, whilst seated in the bell; an instance of poetic inspiration that puts to flight the countless legions of dramatic fable, and the "fairy homes" of song.

But thanks to the "scientific colour" of our metropo

litan amusements, you need now only step out of the street, into the Polytechnic Institution, to enjoy this subaqueous inspiration. From the opening of this very popular resort, in 1838, to the present hour, the "lion" has been the huge Diving-bell, suspended beneath the west end gallery of the Great Hall. It was constructed by Messrs. Cottam and Hallen, at a cost of upwards of £400; and it has all the improvements which contemporary science has suggested. Halley's bell was of wood,

of the former commodity for her money. Her fright was extreme, when the huge monster that contained us first swung off its perch; and, when its mouth touched the water, she gave way to the wildest despair, even to attempt breaking the windows with her parasol. The only moment of security she experienced was when she reached the bottom. Here she fairly jumped down off her seat, on which it had required great exertion to retain her, and begged to be left where she was, now she had once reached the ground again, observing, we might go back in the bell if we chose, but, for her part, she preferred substantial footing to again trusting herself in such a crack-me-crazy vehicle."

The Armourer of Paris.

A ROMANCE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

even should the reader not have the advantage of proximity to the Polytechnic Institution. In Sir George Head's Home Tour, (a shrewdly humorous book, by the way,) we find a very amusing picture of a pair of operative divers, whom the tourist saw in the Hull docks. Sir George was passing as the workmen were raising the Diving-bell, when he stepped into the lighter, to observe the state of the labourers on their return from below. He had a remarkably good view of their features, at a time when they had no reason to expect any one was looking at them; for, as the Bell was raised very slowly, he had an opportunity of seeing within it by stooping, the moment its side was above the gunwale of the lighter. But, Sir George shall himself relate what he saw: "a pair of easy-going, careless fellows, each with a red night-cap on his head, sat opposite one another, by no means overheated or exhausted, and apparently with no other want in the world, than that of summut to drink;' they had been under water exactly two hours. I asked them what were their sensations on going down. They said, that before a man was used to it, it produced a feeling as if the ears were bursting; that on the Bell first dipping, they were in the habit of holding their noses, at the same time of breathing as gently as possible, and that thus they prevented any disagreeable effect: they added, the air below was hot, and made a man thirsty;-the latter observation, though, as in duty bound, I received as a hint, I believe to be true; nevertheless, the service cannot be formidable, as the extra pay is only one shilling a day. Had there been anything extraordinary to see below, I should have asked permission to go down; but the water was by no means clear, and the muddy bottom of the docks not a sufficient recompense for the disagreeable sensation. Two men descend at a time, and four pump the air into the bell through the leathern hose; the bell is nearly a square, or rather an oblong vessel, of cast-iron, with ten bull's-eye lights at the top, which lights are fortified within by a lattice covering of strong iron wire, sufficient to resist an accidental blowjected from the wall a little above his head, and, placing of a crow-bar, or other casualty." Sir George's reluctance to go down had probably, something to do with his fears of an accident to the air-pump," or a loose stitch in the hose; or, perhaps, he thought as one of the Sheridans did, of the questionable prudence of descending into a coalmine-tell your friends you have been down, and which of them can upon self-experience contradict you?

Returning to "the Polytechnic," we must not forget George Cruikshank's very droll etching of the terrified lady in the Diving-bell, in his never-enough-to-be-commended Comic Almanack for the present year; and the following equally droll pendant by a young writer, who delights in the sunshine of humour and eccentricity, and at the same time, dips his pen in the milk of human kindness: "The Diving-bell at the Polytechnic Institution affords matter of gratification to every body. The scientific man goes down to measure the pressure of the atmosphere upon the drums of his ears, and see the displacement of water by air; the sight-seer and curiosity-hunter, to experience a novel sensation; the hair-brained lounger, fresh from Regentstreet, with his little stick and blotting-paper-coloured Chesterfield, to "put up a lark," although the bottom of a tank of water is certainly rather an unlikely place to find such a creation; and the lover of display, to gratify a trifle of ambition in becoming the pro-tempore lion of the place, as he emerges from the bell on its emersion from the water, in the bright eyes of the pretty girls who are looking down on his sub-aqueous venture from the galleries above.

"We need not add, it will take some time to bring the public mind to an idea of the security of these abodes. The shilling's-worth of flurry and ear-ache, which the adventurers purchase so readily, still, however, finds a rapid sale. We descended, the other day, with a lady who had a great deal

CHAP. II.-How Bourdon was arrested by D'Armagnac. THE alarm given by Perinet Leclerc, as he reached the bottom of the fosse with his companion, was not without foundation. An instant afterwards, the glare of the cressets carried by the patrol, was visible on the walls and ramparts of the castle, and even extended its illumination to the trees in the park around. As they came on, reflecting the red light at an hundred points from their bright armour, and throwing their huge shadows against the highest towers in flitting and confused outline, the two adventurers crouched down in silence against the lower supports of the drawbridge; and, somewhat concealed by its massy platform, which was raised high in air above them, awaited, with almost breathless anxiety, the passing of the guard.

Now, Perinet," muttered Bourdon, as the sound and lights of the men-at-arms gradually died away, "follow me with caution; and should we alarm the sentinel in crossing the rampart, which Our Lady avert, turn quickly to your right-that angle of the tower will screen us." As he spoke, he grasped a small piece of iron that prothe point of his foot upon a broken piece of masonry commenced ascending the inner side of the ditch. Perinet followed him in silence, and by various holds and resting places, with which Bourdon seemed well acquainted, they arrived at the summit in a few minutes. But they were not yet safe. The chevalier crossed the top of the wall, and stood on the ramparts; and Perinet was about to do the same, when a piece of the coping yielded beneath the spring of his foot, and fell heavily into the fosse below, with a noise that echoed through every corner of the building. Seizing the armourer by the collar, Bourdon dragged him, with a powerful effort, on to the rampart, and they both darted behind the projecting turret, as the challenge of a sentinel proved the disturbance had not passed unnoticed; whilst the slow but gradual approach of day-break rendered them almost visible to the guards who were posted at different commanding stations about the castle.

Qui vive?" cried the chief of the patrouille, from the other end of the ramparts.

There was no answer. "You cry out at every bush, sergeant,” said one of the guard.

"I am not yet quite so blind, Olivier," returned the other, as to be unable to distinguish a man at fifty paces, whether it be in the dark or not. I repeat I saw something move upon the rampart."

"Bah!" retorted the soldier addressed as Olivier, "and so did I. A cat, sergeant, a cat-nothing else. Who in the devil's name would try to get this way into the château, when they might walk through the gates in another half hour?"