shawls, to the manufacture of which all the females of the capital give great encouragement. The long-celebrated skill of the Germans, as workers in wood, is beautifully displayed in the household furniture of Vienna, which, for perfection of finish, and the skilful adaptation of the different species of indigenous wood, may vie with the cabinet-wares of any metropolis in Europe. Where the manufactures are thus extensive there must necessarily be a considerable trade. The exports of Vienna furnish cargoes to 6000 boats, and merchandise for nearly 2,000,000 of wagons. The Danube, which is navigable both above and below the city, forms the great outlet. ESTABLISHMENTS FOR EDUCATION. THE University of Vienna was founded in 1437; it was for a considerable time under the superintendence of the Jesuits, but in 1756 was taken from them, and reorganized by the celebrated Von Swieten, the body-physician to the Empress Maria Theresa. It possesses an anatomical Theatre, an Observatory, a Library, with other establishments, and is provided with forty-five professors, besides extra teachers. There are also in this city three Gymnasia, in which the studies prescribed by law are Religion, Composition, Classics, Natural History, Arithmetic, Geography, History, and the Elements of Mathematics. As preparatory to the gymnasium, there is a normal school, whose object is instruction in Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, at the yearly charge of ten florins; and for the poor, there are sixty schools, where the same advantages may be obtained at a much smaller cost. In 1821, a Protestant institution was established for the education of young Protestants, who, as subjects of Austria, were prohibited from studying in foreign universities; but it is said to be of a low character. There is, likewise, the Theresian Academy for the education of the sons of the Catholic nobility, to the benefits of which foreigners are also admitted; it is under the superintendence of a director, and has twenty-one professors, ten masters of the modern languages, and several tutors. Independent of all these establishments, there are Imperial Medical Academies, Imperial Military Academies, and an Imperial Academy of Oriental Languages, which has produced several distinguished scholars; and finally, what is styled the Imperial Polytechnic Institute, designed to instruct tradesmen, and to teach, by means only of professors and their lectures, all trades and manufactures. CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. TRAVELLERS speak with applause of the freedom from beggars which the streets of Vienna exhibit. This is to be attributed at once, to the strictness of the police, and the effect of the charitable establishments. The General Hospital is a magnificent institution, calculated to accommodate 2000 patients. But its efficiency is not well kept up, nor are its advantages bestowed with the same liberality as in our own country. The patients are divided into four classes, of which, the last only are admitted gratis; the others pay according to a certain scale, proportioned to the accommodations which they receive. The building forms six or seven open squares, and the patients are lodged in long wards and private chambers. Four physicians, and four surgeons, reside in the hospital, and give lectures as well as attend to the patients. There is, also, a Foundling Hospital, and an Asylum for the insane, which contains 300 patients, whose condition, Dr. Bright* says, is far from being as comfortable, as in many similar establishments which he has visited; and besides these, are institutions for the education of the Deaf and Dumb, as well as of the Blind, which, however, are not very extensive. POLICE. THE police of Vienna, has long been celebrated as one of the most perfect in existence. But its functions are very different from those assigned to the body which bears the same name in our own metropolis. They are far more extensive; for they comprise not only the ordinary duties of repressing crime, and watching over the public health and convenience, but, also, others of a political kind, such as taking care that no one presumes to discuss too freely affairs of state, or to canvass the measures of the government, in a spirit at all opposed to the wishes of the government. Foreigners, and especially those who come from countries where liberal opinions are in any degree prevalent, In his Tour in Lower Hungary, are, therefore, kept under a vigilant inspection, and any offensive conduct on their part, is instantly followed by an order to quit the city. Our countrymen, from the licence of speech which they enjoy in England, are especially apt to indulge in the imprudence of expressing themselves on what they see and hear, in a manner not at all pleasant to the ruling authorities, and thus they frequently are compelled to pay the penalty, which rightly attaches to so unwise an act. But there is one abominable part of this police system, and that the one contributing most to its efficiency, which all honourable minds must execrate; we mean, the employment of spies, whose scope of office is not confined to coffee-houses, and other places of public resort, but extends even to the retirement of domestic life. The Viennese themselves assert, that not only men, but women, too, and men and women of rank, are in the pay of the secret police. These informers are quick to denounce, and the consequences of a denunciation, (to a native,) "are" says Mr. Russell, "secret arrest, secret imprisonment, and unknown punishment." Many are the stories told in illustration of the working of this system, and of the mysterious power which it gives the police. PUBLIC WALKS. an To so pleasure-loving a people as that of Vienna, a plentiful fund of recreation and amusement is indispensable. We have already observed that the ramparts of the city are solely applied to the purpose of promenading; they are a place of much resort, especially on Sundays and holidays, when, immediately after the last mass, they are crowded to suffocation with people of all ranks. The glacis is also partly planted and laid out into alleys; but the most celebrated spot is the Prater, which is said to be the finest public park in Europe. It occupies the eastern part of the Leopoldstadt, and is thus surrounded on three sides by water. From the entrance, the principal drive extends about half a mile in length; it is divided by rows of trees into five alleys, the two outer of which are appropriated to pedestrians, the two next to horsemen, and the inner one to carriages. Beyond its termination is the more rural part of the Prater; there the wood becomes thicker, the alleys are no longer straight and formal, but wind their way irregularly along, till they stop at the shady banks of the Danube itself. On either side of the drive stretches a verdant lawn, which is plentifully strewn with coffee-houses, and, therefore, much frequented by the listless pedestrians, who seat themselves under shady awnings, or on the green herbage beneath a clump of trees, enjoying in idle gaiety their ices, coffee, and cigars. ENVIRONS. THERE are few European capitals, whose environs present a more smiling and varied picture than Vienna. On the north of the city are the islands of the Danube, on the west, rises the lofty summit of the Calemberg, from which, Sobieski rushed down upon the Turks in 1683; to the south, are seen the mountains of Styria, covered with forests and vineyards; while on the east, towards Hungary, stretch boundless plains, along which the eye ranges, unobstructed, to the very horizon. At the distance of a few miles from the capital, stands the Imperial Palace of Schönbrunn, which was occupied by Napoleon, as his head-quarters, in 1805 and 1809. It was built by Maria Theresa, who used it as her favourite residence; for it is delightfully situated, commanding on one side a view of the suburbs, and on the other, of the hills of Hungary. The building is extensive; and the gardens are very beautiful and well laid out. They contain a menagerie, and a rich collection of exotic plants. It was in this palace that the young Napoleon used generally to reside; and it was here that he died, on the 22nd of July, in the year 1832. Laxembourg, or Larendorf, as it was formerly called, is another place of imperial resort in the neighbourhood of Vienna. The Emperor has there two residences. The one is an ordinary palace with a theatre, and other appendages; the other is a sort of model of an ancient baronial castle, furnished with moat, drawbridge, portcullis, arched gateway, court, hall, chapel, chambers, dungeons, walls, passages, galleries, communications, turrets, and every other proper accompaniment, for a fortress of the olden time. The interior is fitted in a similar style; and at a little distance, there is a regular tilting-ground, where, occasionally, mock tournaments have been held for the emperor's amusement. About fifteen miles to the south of Vienna, stands the small town of Baden, so famed for its mineral waters, and the efficacy of their medicinal properties, in the cure of certain diseases. Its inhabitants amount in number to only 3000; but during the summer and autumn, the season of resort to the baths, it has frequently more than 5000 visiters. The mode of bathing is curious. "I visited the baths," says the author' of the Ramble in Germany, "and to my astonishment, saw persons of both sexes in the bath together, and moving about up to their necks in the steaming water. A lady with the unwetted curls of a handsome head, carefully dressed, was of the party, and a fat old gentleman, who, his face alone appearing above the water, looked like a red and rising moon. This practice seems, and is indecent; although custom has so apparently reconciled visiters to it, that they walk about in the water as grave, as calm, as unconcerned, as if they were promenading in a garden. The bathing-dresses are large, long, and fastened high up on the neck." THE PILGRIMAGE TO MARIAZELL. AMONG the many observances which are practised by the Roman Catholics of Vienna, none is more worthy of notice than their annual pilgrimage to the celebrated shrine of Mariazell, in Upper Styria. Thither, thousands of superstitious people repair from the capital and other cities in the empire, eagerly hoping to secure the blessings of heaven, by paying their devotions to a picture of the Madonna, one similar to those modern Greek paintings, which are so common in Italy, and which are there ascribed, by the believing multitude, to the pencil of the evangelist Luke. Tradition asserts, that it once adorned the rude church of a Styrian priest, who fleeing before the incursion of a Tartar horde, bore it piously away through the mountains in search of a refuge, till his wanderings were arrested by a vision of the Virgin herself, who commanded him to deposit his precious charge upon a neighbouring tree, and proclaim aloud to all the world, her never-ceasing readiness, through it, to receive the prayers of the faithful. On the spot thus sanctified, arose in an after-age, the church now standing. It is in the hot season of the year, in the month of July or August, that this long and laborious journey of fifty miles is undertaken, as though by that means, it might be rendered more meritorious and acceptable. The day is fixed by an imperial proclamation attached to the great gate of St. Stephen's, and early on the appointed morning, the intended pilgrims are there assembled, clad in befitting garb, with long staves, and bare feet. They first hear mass, and then they proceed upon their way. The road through which they pass is thickly bestrewn with chapels and images of saints and virgins, and, if travellers tell truth, with an equal profusion of brandy-booths. These things become more numerous the nearer the pilgrims approach to the place of their destination; and the small mean town of Mariazell itself is scarcely more than a collection of inns and ale-houses, not of the very best kind. To the church the zealous devotees repair, as the sacred depository of the rude, ugly picture, to which they fondly ascribe such holy virtue. In the centre of this building stands a small chapel, faintly illumined by one lamp, and glistening with gold, and silver, and precious stones, guarded from the profane touch by a fence of silver railing. Round this the pilgrims kneel and pray, and then they range themselves about a pillar, bearing on its top a stone image of the virgin, the women kneeling in an inner circle, and the men standing in one without, and all calmly await in silent patience till the sun shall have gone down behind the mountains; and when he has at last sunk from view, they begin, with rich musical voices, to sing their evening chant to the Blessed Virgin, the women moving slowly on their knees round the pillar, while the men stand motionless, bending only at intervals to the sacred image. But whatever may be the beauty or the interest belonging to such scenes, it is lamentable to see such superstitious practices usurping the place of true religion. LONDON: Published by JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND; and sold by all Booksellers. PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. at this illustrious assembly, the name of the place PETERBOROUGH, an ancient, but small city, seated was changed from Medeshamstead to Burgh; and on the river Nen, in Northamptonshire, received its on account of the beauty and wealth of the establishname from an abbey founded in early times, and ment, as well as its pleasant situation, it was called dedicated to St. Peter. We are told, that in the Nen Gildenburgh; but, owing to its dedication to St. Peter, was a gulf of measureless depth, called Medes well, it obtained the title of PETERBOROUGH. It is said near which, was the town of Medeshamstead, so called, that, in those days, the abbey was so renowned and probably, from its having been the homestead belong-honoured, that whoever went thither to pray, whether ing to a very extensive mead, or meadow, in the King, lord, bishop, or abbot, put off his shoes at the neighbourhood. gate, and entered barefoot. The beauty of the spot, then abounding in rich woods and water, was so attractive to Peada, King of the Mercians, (the county of Northampton being in the dominion of Mercia during the Heptarchy,) that he resolved to found an abbey there. In the commencement of this work, in the year 655, he is said to have laid stones of such enormous size, that eight yoke of oxen could scarcely draw one of them: but on his death, his brothers, Wolfere and Etheldred, and his sisters, Kyneburga and Kyneswitha, continued it. The part, however, which King Wolfere took in this matter, appears to have been instigated by a motive similar to that, which led Offa, another Mercian King, to erect the abbey of St. Alban's; namely, as a penance, and to assuage the horrors of a guilty conscience. The story is curious as a specimen of early English superstition, and may be shortly told. Wolfere, was a wicked heathen monarch: he had two sons, Wolfade and Rufine. The former was fond of hunting; and one day, when engaged in his favourite sport, he pursued a deer which sought refuge at a fountain, near the cell of the famous St. Chad. The saint observing the poor creature weary and worn, covered her with leaves, thinking from her appearance, that some extraordinary event would presently occur, as arising from the adventure. Presently came Prince Wolfade, inquiring for the deer. But St. Chad replied, that he was a keeper not of beasts, but of the souls of men; and that Wolfade was as a hart at the water-brooks, providentially sent to the fountain of living water.' Further conversation ensued, which ended in the baptism of the Prince, and soon afterwards of his brother, at the fountain. These Christian brothers became, through the artful representations of their father's steward, objects of hatred to the king, who cruelly murdered them while at prayer. Having subsequently confessed his crime to to St. Chad, Wolfere was ordered by him, to repair the ruined temples of God, and to found new ones. In the west cloister of the monastery, was formerly to be seen this story represented in painted glass, and near the place was a well, where, as tradition said, St. Chad hid the deer:-a subject of considerable interest for a picture. Thus Wolfere and his family having finished and richly endowed the abbey, dedicated it to St. Peter in 664. The tenth abbot, Elsine, is only celebrated for being "inquisitive after relics, with which he was very industrious, to enrich his monastery." We have before us a list of these precious morsels, but are not inclined to offend or weary our reader with detailing them; But," it is added, "whilst Elsine was careful abroad for relics, his abbey at home sustained loss in more real endowments, for Hoveden, in Yorkshire, was wrested from it." It appears, too, that about 1070, during the government of a careless and unpopular abbot, who had been placed there by William the First, the Danes, under Sweyn, burnt down the city, entered the abbey, and carried away all the treasures:-" precious things, such as there were not the like in all England!" To prevent the recurrence of such an invasion, the abbot erected a fort on the north side of the abbey, called Tout-hill. We now come to the period in which the present Cathedral was begun. John de Sais, one of the monks of Sais, in Normandy, was elected abbot, and, in 1118, he laid the foundation of a new church, which was sufficiently finished in 1143, under Abbot Martin de Vecti, for the relics to be removed, and the monks introduced. At the ceremony were present, not only many of the clergy, but several barons and knights; and then they exhibited the arm of St. Oswald, and other treasures. King Stephen went to see this wonder-working arm, and presented it with a ring. By the "new church" just mentioned, we are not to understand the whole of the present structure, but so much of it as forms the present choir and altar, as it appears that William de Watervile, who succeeded in 1155, added two cross aisles; and Benedict, prior of the Holy Trinity, Canterbury, built the nave, from the lantern to the west end of the church; but not the grand west front, of which we shall speak presently. "Our Norman architects," says Bentham in his History of Ely Cathedral, "laid out their whole design at first: they usually began at the east end, or choir part: when that was finished and covered in, the church was consecrated : they then carried on the remainder of their plan themselves, as far as they were able, leaving the rest to be completed by their successors.' In 1200, the abbey being in a state of poverty, King John appointed Acharius, prior of St. Alban's, as abbot, by whose care it began again to flourish, and in 1238 it contained one hundred and ten monks. It is supposed, that soon after this, the beautiful west front of the Cathedral was erected. By the west front must be understood, the two square towers, with lofty pinnacles, at the north-west and southwest corners; the three noble Gothic arches which stand between these towers; and the portico between the arches and the west-wall of the church. Within After flourishing for above 200 years, it shared the fate of the rest of the town, and fell a victim to the fury of the Danish invaders in 870. This devastation was accompanied by an act of savage violence, in accordance with the spirit of the times. The monks, together with those of Croyland*, in Lincolnshire, who had fled to Medeshamstead after the destruction of their own monastery, defended the abbey for some time, but the Danes, bursting in, slaughtered them all. The abbey then lay in ruins for nearly a century, when it was restored by King Edgar, at the earnest entreaty of his queen, and of Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester. On the occasion A Christian king of Northumberland, famous for his charity to of its renewal with all its former privileges, in the pre-bishop, who was present, is alleged to have taken him by the right the poor; in the performance of one of his charitable acts, a Scotch sence of Edgar, Archbishop Dunstan, Bishop Oswald, hand, and exclaimed, May this hand never grow old." And &c., large offerings of land and money were made; and though Oswald was afterwards defeated by Penda, King of Mercia, and torn in pieces, the arm (so says the legend) was preserved and brought to Peterborough * See Saturday Magazine Vol. III., p. 148. 1834.] THE SATURDAY MAGAZINE. each of the two towers is a winding staircase, leading up to the roof of the portico. That portion of the Cathedral, called the new building, which is at the east end, is considered the most modern portion of the whole, the date of it being about A.D. 1500. From this brief sketch of the history of the building, we proceed to describe the dimensions of the principal parts Length of the whole Cathedral, measured on the Length of the Transept from north to south Height of the Lantern . Height of each Gothic arch at the west front . Feet 479 156 150 82 We may imagine the Cathedral now completed, when Cardinal Wolsey kept his Easter at Peterborough. On Palm-Sunday he carried his palm, the monks attending him in solemn procession. On the Thursday following he kept his Maundy*, washing and kissing the feet of fifty-nine poor and people, to each of whom he gave twelve-pence, canvass for a shirt each, shoes, and red herrings; on Easter-day, he went in state, sung the high mass himself, and concluded with a benediction on the audience. Peter In 1534, Chambers, the then abbot, together with the prior and thirty-seven monks, professed, under their hands and seals, fidelity and obedience to King Henry the Eighth, and acknowledged him to be supreme head of the church of England. borough then became a bishopric, and its abbey a Cathedral. In the following year, Catherine, the first wife of the cruel and capricious Henry, died at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, and was buried on the north side of the choir, nearly opposite to the In the same Cathedral, in July bishop's throne. 1587, by torch-light, the remains of the unhappy Mary Queen of Scots were consigned to their narrow She had been bed, on the south side of the choir. executed at Fotheringay Castle, about ten miles from Peterborough, in the February preceding. After the body had remained in its tomb for about twenty-five years, her son, James the First, removed it to Westminster Abbey; but the superb monument raised to her memory continued entire. In the year of the happy restoration, 1660, the Dean, who had been for a long period exiled in France, was reinstated in his office, and the prebendal established Church. The sums that have been occastalls were again occupied by the clergy of the sionally expended since that time, by the Dean and Chapter, upon this noble edifice, are large and liberal, and they appear to have been judiciously applied. It is now in excellent repair; and, with the exception of the painted windows demolished by the Oliverian rabble, it may be said to be looking as splendid as ever. THE COW-TREE OF SOUTH AMERICA. a wholesome aliment. apple*. Its oblong and pointed leaves, tough and From this time, until 1643, nothing remarkable happened relative to Peterborough Cathedral: but then it experienced the mischiefs arising from the desolating principle, or rather, want of all principle, who turned faith into faction, and religion of men, This juice, exposed to the air, presents at its surinto rebellion." The town of Croyland, about ten miles off, declared for King Charles the First, and face, perhaps in consequence of the absorption of was garrisoned. The parliamentary army, in passing the atmospheric oxygen, membranes of a strongly through Peterborough, about the middle of April, animalized substance, yellowish, stringy, and resem broke into the church, pulled down the organ, and bling a cheesy substance; these membranes, separated trampled upon its fragments; they quickly entered from the rest of the more aqueous liquid, are elastic, Then almost like caoutchouc; but they undergo, in time, the choir, and tore up the Prayer-books. the same phenomena of putrefaction as gelatine. fell the seats, the stalls, and the wainscot, and a noble The soldiers, after firing The people call the coagulum that separates by the contact of the air, cheese; this coagulum grows sour screen exquisitely carved. at every thing that was beautiful, defaced the monuments and grave-stones; and having forced their in the space of five or six days, as I observed in the small portions which I carried to Nueva Valencia. way into the Chapter-house, tore the ancient manuscripts in pieces, particularly those that had seals appended to them, ignorantly mistaking deeds and Thus," says an eyecharters for popish bulls. witness, was a fair and stately building, in the course of about a fortnight, stripped of its ornamental beauty, and made a ruthful spectacle, a very chaos of desolation and confusion; scarcely any thing remaining but bare walls, broken seats, and 66 shattered windows." - Maundy from Maund, a basket, containing the gifts. For an account of the ceremonies on Maundy Thursday, see Saturday Magazine, Vol. II., p. 115. This extraordinary tree appears to be peculiar to the Cordillera of the coast, particularly from Barbula to the lake of Maracaybo. Some stocks of it exist At near the village of San Mateo, and in the valley of Caucagua, three days' journey east of Caraccas. Caucagua, the natives call the tree that furnishes this nourishing juice the Milk-Tree, (arbol de leche.) They profess to recognise, from the thickness and colour of the foliage, the trunks that yield the most * Chrysophyllum cainite. juice, as the herdsman distinguishes, from external 113-2 |
