312 POINTS OF ARCHITECTURAL SUBLIMITY IN LONDON. dome, that upheaves its vastness" "buried in air." The two come together in magical combination:-in consequence, first, of their relative positions ; and, secondly, of the gorgeous perfection of their proportion to each other in their enormous dimensions. Lord Byron says in "Childe Harold," and there never was any thing more true: "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods; There is a rapture on the lonely shore; There is society where none intrudes By the deep sea, and MUSIC IN ITS ROAR." About St. Paul's there is a two-fold sublimity-as an object of vision-and it is doubly sublime as a musical instrument. I do not call it so in quaintness, for with Lord Byron's authority, which I have just quoted, I think the form of expression a good one. In the Tempest of Shakspeare, too, the thunder is called "that deep and dreadful organ-pipe;" another precedent in my favour, and peculiarly apposite to my purpose: "Methought, the billows spoke and told me of it, The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder, THAT DEEP AND DREADFUL ORGAN-PIPE, pronounced The name of Who that has a perception of the sublime in the works of art or of nature, has been ever in the great circular gallery in St. Paul's" the whispering gallery"—and while he gazed above to the summit of the dome, and across the enormous diameter of the yawning abyss beneath the gallery, and viewed the sepulchres and monuments of "the mighty dead" in the gulf beneath him, and after listening to the solemn preludizing of the mystic sounds that swept around him-like the voices of spirits of another world-then looked down the chasm, and, while doing so, heard the awful sounds produced by such simple means put in action at the opposite side of the gallery-the repercussive roar, like the reverberation of a thunder's peal-who that has seen and heard all this, unless he is prepared to deny that there is music in the roar of ocean, can deny that the church of St. Paul's is a deep and solemn instrument of music, the most sublime! Such sounds were never heard within any other building in the world. The view from the gallery of the Vatican is superior to the view from the gallery of the metropolitan church of London; but in this case the sight alone is astounded, but in St. Paul's the soul is taken by an irresistible spell that overwhelms it, and makes it captive by the sentiment of sublimity through two senses together-the hearing and the vision. Go alone, in the gloom of a winter's evening, into the gallery of St. Peter's, and the effect is no more to be forgotten than the view down the crater of Vesuvius, as I have seen it from the verge, when looking down from amidst sul, phureous smoke, into the lava flood that was boiling in its abyss-breast of flame: the deep silence of St. Peter's at such a moment as I have described, is sublime to the very last extremity; but St. Paul's, like Vesuvius, can give awful sounds as well as awful scenery. I have for some time intended to embody these conceptions in an article for publication; and something very lately suggested itself to me, which induces me to add it, as it perhaps may not be entirely uninteresting to artists, particularly to those who devote themselves to architecture. It occurred to me that I could, in the following manner, get something like the general effect of such a building as that which I have proposed for a national monument to Newton in my letters to the Editor of the Times. I cut out from one of my pictures the view of the proposed building, but preserved the outline with the utmost accuracy. Then going in the gloom of the evening, in what in Scotland would be called "the gloaming," that the angular parts might not obtrude themselves too strongly, and so to a certain extent cause a failure of my purpose, if too distinctly defined, I held up the paper before me from which I had cut out the picture, in such a manner, that, standing in Cheapside, the base of my design appeared to coincide with the base of St. Paul's (a sort of crude coincidence of course, in consequence of the angle at the transept), and that the highest point of my designed building should, at the same time, appear to coincide with a point of the great tower of the cathedral, about 200 feet high-the height of the building which I propose to have erected. 2 LANG'S HISTORY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 3) Thus you will perceive that I made use of the mighty pile already in existence, in a manner somewhat analogous to that in which a sculptor uses a block of marble in order to hew out his form; for, by the process I have described, I not only perfectly, as it were, hewed out from the church the form I wanted to view, but also got before me the dimensions of my proposed building, delineated perfectly to my vision, when I looked through the paper from which (as I have said before, accurately preserving the outline) I had cut out my design. Perhaps these few observations may not be entirely uninteresting to those who take an interest in architectural combinations, and the general harmonies of nature. In a description I wrote of Cadiz, that magically beautiful city, where, after the fall of Paphos, Lord Byron says Venus deigned to fix her shrine, there is the following passage: "Some years ago, when I was in Rome, I frequently passed whole hours together in roaming round the Colliseum, and through its arena and arches and galleries, by which I formed to myself a series, to infinity, of beautiful combinations. When I spoke of this amusement to my friend Gabrielli, who is a musician as well as painter, I, laughingly, called it playing a melody on the Colliseum, — and a number of such melodies might be well played in Cadiz." Yes, there are melodies of this kind in Cadiz of magic fascination; and I have quoted the passage about melody as bearading something of analogy to part of what I have been writing now, viz., harmonies of nature. "The Lady," in Milton's Comus invokes Echo 313 himself sanctified with his presence the Ark of the Covenant within the Tabernacle, sitting on the Mercy-seat between the Cherubim; in Horeb, or Horonaim, or by the Brook of Cedron, or Siloa, or in Zoar, or on Mount Hermon, or on Sion-Hill; was there ever a place consecrated to his worship, so awfully solemn and sublime, as that thunderpealing temple, the vast Cathedral of St. Paul! Could any thing increase the sublimity I have vainly made an attempt to describe? Yes-if those sounds were to be produced in the dreary depth of winter midnight; while the only illunation for a person in the gallery should be from the flashing of lurid lightnings in the firmament, from time to time showing the interior for a moment, and then again as suddenly leaving it in darkness. I have the honour to be, Ever most sincerely yours, A Member of the Senate of this University, [We heartily congratulate our worthy friend, Mr. Steele, on his return to academic bowers, from the stormy paths of Irish agitation. It is not for us to estimate the value of his services to his country, as an agitator of political grievances; but we may be permitted to doubt whether all the good he ever did in that capacity, will stand a comparison with the great and enduring benefits he has conferred on Ireland, by his scientific and persevering efforts for the improvement of the Shannon and Fergus navigation, In a book which he wrote a few years ago on the subject, he pointed out most forcibly to public attention the immense capabilities of this line of inland communication, and at the same time the very considerable drawbacks to which it was subject, from the want of lights in suitable situations, and the existence of some dangerous shoals and rocks, which admitted of being easily removed. Since then, Mr. Steele has had the satisfaction of seeing most of his suggestions either carried into effect, or in the progress of being so. A lighthouse has been erected on the Tarbert rock in the lower Shannon, and Tarbert has now become an asylum harbour for all ships entering the Shannon; and a Select Committee of the House of Commons is now engaged in considering the expediency of promoting, by legislative authority and assistance, the execution of other equally important improvements. Mr. Steele was examined at great length by this Committee before he left town. As regards the matter of his present communication, we would just add, that should be succeed in his other long-cherished and favourite project, of erecting a national monument to the illustrious Newton, over the house in which he resided, near Liecestersquare, he will add one point of architectural sublimity to our metropolis, quite equal to any of those which he has here so eloquently described.ED. M. M. 314 LANG'S HISTORY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. LANG'S HISTORY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. Notwithstanding the promise of Dr. Lang's very comprehensive title-page,* we are afraid that a standard history of Australia is yet to seek. The historical portion of the doctor's work is, in fact, principally a running commentary of a very gossipping description, on some of the sayings and doings of the past and present governors; while the "Statistical Account" is wanting altogether. We presume that the mention of such a thing in the title must have been a simple error of the press; but it is a pity that it was not corrected before the work was issued to a censorious public. This said title is, in truth, a misnomer altogether: since the staple of the work consists, instead of a history of the colony, of a history of the Rev. Dr. Lang's various attempts, with various success, to obtain from the Government, both abroad and at home, a proper sum per annum for behoof of himself, and the rest of the Presbyterian clergy of New South Wales. This is evidently the object nearest to the doctor's heart, and accordingly he by no means stints himself to space in dilating upon it, in season or out of season, and whether his readers may like it or no-to such a degree, indeed, that the veritable searcher for information on the history and statistics of our Australian colonies, may well be tempted to consider him as an "obtainer of his attention under false pretences," and to grumble not a little at his allowing the cloth to peep out so often and so largely. The second volume, especially, is almost entirely devoted to the author's crotchet, and the record of his squabblings with "all sorts and conditions of people," both in his " adopted country and his "father-land;" and, when he has got away to other subjects, he cannot refrain, every now and then, from having a jaunt on the old hobby, whenever an opportunity occurs; nay, even when it does not, for the doctor is by no means particular on that score. * An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales, both as a Penal Settlement and as a British Colony. By John Dunmore Lang, D.D., Senior Minister of the Scots' Church, and Principal of the Australian College, Sydney, New South Wales. "We have seen the land, and, behold, it is very good." London: 1834. Cochrane and M'Crone. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 401, 443. The book, nevertheless, commences secundem artem, with a chapter on the "Progressive Discovery of the Coast of New Holland;" in which the exploded error is fallen into of transforming the Dutch vessel "Zeehaen" into a 66 Сарtain Zeachen: a compositor's blunder (originally), which bids fair to be immortal. It is not, however, on the accuracy of his information that our author relies, in his commencing chapters, but rather on the raciness that must necessarily be given to them by the fact of their having been written on board ship, in "a high southern latitude:" a fact which is continually being thrust on the notice of the reader, as if it were considered a perfectly valid excuse for "all faults and errors of description." So confident is the doctor of its proving such, that he has no hesitation in telling his readers, that "the only authorities to which he was able to refer in the earlier part of the work, were Captain Phillip's and Captain Hunter's Voyages to New South Wales, with the printed report of a trial that took place in the colony in the year 1808. Rich and rare materials these for a standard "Historical Account"! But then the chapters that have burgeoned out from this slender stock, were penned in the midst of a floating mass of the largest icebergs the doctor ever saw! Let us be thankful, then, for what we have got: even as no one grudges a penny for a piece of frostfair typography, not intrinsically worth the fourth part of a farthing. It is needless, after this, to observe, that the second and third chapters, which relate to the first establishment of the colony, and its state under the three first governors, are full of errors and (to speak Hibernically) of omissions. Dr. Lang appears not only to have been unable to refer to Collins's work on the subject (which contains a considerable fund of valuable information on the early circumstances of the settlement), but never to have seen the book. The system of book-making is now so well understood, that few "authors" take the trouble of pouring out of many small bottles into one large, but very coolly make their mixture at once out of the two or three biggish jars which happen to be near at had: to speak less metaphorically, few of the fraternity now-adays blush to own that they have drawn LANG'S HISTORY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. their matter only from a few of the most accessible works on the subject, and most of them have not even the sailorlike excuse of Dr. Lang to offer in extenuation. The succeeding chapters are devoted to the governorships of Bligh, Macquarie, Brisbane (in whose administration Dr. Lang first arrived in Australia), Darling, and Bourke (the present governor) :-the most stirring incident in which is the rebellion in which Capt. Bligh, the well-known commander of the Bounty, was deposed from his authority by the officers of the New South Wales corps, and Mr. Macarthur, who, strange to relate, is now one of the greatest landed proprietors in the colony! From the chapter on Governor Darling we shall extract, as a favourable specimen of our author's facetious veinthe vein in which he most frequently indulges, and is most at home, although, withal, rather too prolix even in that— his account of the raging of what he justly calls"the sheep and cattle mania," during the era of bubbles of all sorts, both abroad and at home: "No sooner had the existence of the Agricultural Company been duly announced, and its operations commenced in right earnest, than the sheep and cattle mania- a species of madness undescribed by Cullen, and formerly unknown even in the colony-instantly seized on all ranks and classes of its inhabitants. We are told by Thucydides, that, during the prevalence of the plague in Athens, the wretched victims of that hopeless disease were impelled by their intolerable thirst to the fountains and streams of water, around which they died in great numbers. The colonial mania I have just mentioned evinced itself in like manner, in impelling whomsoever it seized to the cattle-market; and as my own residence in Sydney, for about three years after my return to the colony in the month of January, 1826, was in the immediate vicinity of that busy scene, I had frequent opportunities of observing the congre gated patients, and abundant reason to wonder how the matter would end. For barristers and attorneys, military officers of every rank, and civilians of every department; clergymen and medical men; merchants, settlers, and dealers in general, were there seen promiscuously mingled together every Thursday, and outbidding each other in the most determined manner, either in their own persons, or by proxies of certified agricultural character, for the purchase of every scab 315 bed sheep, or scare-crew horse, or buffalo cow, that was offered for sale in the colony. In short, it was universally allowed that the calculations of the projectors of the Agricultural Company could not possibly be inaccurate. Their statements and reasonings were supported by arithmetical-which every person allowed were the best of all arguments; and it was made as clear as the daylight to the comprehension of stupidity itself, that the owner of a certain number of sheep or cattle in New South Wales must, in a certain number of years, infallibly make an independent fortune. It was consequently determined on all hands, and by all sorts of persons, that the Agricultural Company should not be the only reaper of this golden harvest. * * * * * The reader may perhaps imagine that I must have been a dealer in sheep and cattle myself, to have acquired all this unclerical knowledge; I have never, however, had the honour to be the owner of a single head of either in the colony. But it was impossible to live in New South Wales, at the time I allude to, without acquiring much more knowledge of this kind than was at all desirable. Their talk,' as Dr. Johnson remarks of some of his friends in the country, was all of runts' or heifers. If an advice was given in company, it was by all means to to get into a good stock, for there was nothing like it. If a difference of opinion arose, it was either whether Saxon or Merino, fine or coarse woolled, sheep were the most profitable, or whether it was advantageous to attend exclusively to the wool, or to combine, with all due attention to that matter of universally acknowledged interest, a proper regard to the carcase. and again, I have had specimens of wool submitted to my own inspection by Saxon or Merino enthusiasts, who were in the habit of carrying them about with them in their pockets; and if the excuse of imperfect vision and entire unacquaintance with the subject was insufficient to relieve me from the very invidious task of deciding in a matter so much above my capacity, I was generally unfortunate in selecting a different specimen from the one which had been previously determined to be the finest. In short, if there ever was a place in the world where a whole community seemed for a considerable period to have only one idea, it was New South Wales; and this exclusive and universally predominant idea was, that of rapidly acquiring an independent fortune by the rearing of sheep and cattle."-Vol. i, p. 195. Again, This folly, of course, in due time cured itself, but not without bringing ruin on 316 LANG'S HISTORY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. hundreds of victims. New South Wales seems destined to become a favourite theatre for speculation. At the present moment even, so long after the jointstock furor is supposed to have evaporated, a new "concern" has just commenced operations, having for its object the colonisation of "South Australia," on the novel principle of "keeping up the due proportion between land and labour," by constantly pouring a fresh influx of labourers into the colony, and (by means of arbitrary regulations as to the purchase of land) preventing the labouring classes as much as possible from bettering their condition by becoming land-owners! And this scheme is specially patronised by our self-styled liberal members of Parliament, and, above all, by the very economistis who hold that the distress of England is owing to its superabundant labouring population! Sagacious scheme! to ensure the prosperity of the new settlement by artificially producing the very same state of things which we are told, with a woful countenance, must be submitted to, from absolute necessity, in England! To add to the chances of success, these ardent declaimers against the "dead weight" propose to relieve themselves of the disagreeable task of advancing any cash of their own, to carry their project into effect, by raising forthwith a considerable loan (on the security of lands at present in the sole possession of the kangaroos), and starting the nascent colony "all fair" with a nice little national debt of two hundred thousand pounds on its back! The sheep and cattle mania was sense itself to this. It requires little foresight to perceive that, should the monstrous scheme be persisted in, on the principles now laid down for its conduct, it will end in the labourers making their escape to Van Diemen's Land, or any other land where they will be allowed fair play, or, should that be forcibly prevented, by their "taking affairs into their own hands," and, before the Commissioners, who are to manage the affairs in London, can hear of it, actually effecting a complete revolution in the important state of South Australia. It is ten to one, however, that all those grand principles," on which alone we assured a colony can possibly flourish, will, one by one, be thrown overboard 66 are very soon after the attempt to put them in practice has been made. We shall see. A To return to Australia as it is: Dr. Lang gives a somewhat interesting account of the whale fishery of the colony: "The most prominent, if not the most important, branch of the trade of New South Wales at the present moment, is the sperm and black whale fishery, in which no fewer than from forty-five to fifty square. rigged vessels, of various tonnage, are now employed out of the port of Sydney. These vessels are all furnished with provisions for their voyage of the produce of the colony; their whaling-gear is chiefly manufactured of New Zealand flax by the rope-spinners of Sydney; and the large sums of money distributed among their officers and crews, on their return to port after a successful voyage, are all expended in the colony. The black or right whale is of the species that is caught exclusively in the Greenland seas. The sperm-whale fishery, however, is by far the most important of the two; and the whaling-ground, chiefly traversed by vessels from Sydney, extends all over the Western Pacific, from the heads of Port Jackson to the sea of Japan. The length of the voyage, in these hunting expeditions, depends entirely on the success of the vessel; and the latter depends, in great measure, on the experience and ability of the officers and crews. The last arrival from the sperm-whale fishery, before I left the colony, was that of The Cape Packet, a vessel of 220 tons, belonging chiefly to Prosper de Mestre, Esq., a highly respectable merchant, of American origin, who has been long settled in Sydney. She had been out thirteen months, and brought in a cargo of 171 tons, or 1,382 barrels of oil. She had thirty-three mariners, including the captain and officers, on board, and the voyage was considered both expeditious and successful. "The colonial sperm-whale fishery is, comparatively, but of very recent origin. I do not think there were more than two vessels in the trade, out of Sydney, when I arrived in the colony for the first time in the year 1823. In the beginning of the year 1826 there were five or six, but in August, 1830, there were twenty-six. The number has been gradually increasing ever since, and it is supposed there will shortly be a hundred. The value of the oil and whalebone exported to London from the port of Sydney, in the year 1832, was 146,018/." Vol. i. pp. 299-307. |