one another when the mould is closed; so that, when closed, a complete spherical cavity is formed, to which a small opening conducts from without. When the mould is closed, a perforated plate is placed above the small openings, so that when melted lead is poured into the perforations of the plate, it flows through the small openings into the spherical cavities within the mould; and by a subsequent adjustment of the mould, the little pieces of lead attached to the shot are cut off, and the shot removed from the mould in a spherical form. But this process is necessarily a slow one; and where large quantities of shot are required, it would obviously be desirable to have a quicker mode of proceeding. This has been accomplished in the method of manufacture now generally employed; a method which is remarkable not only for the details of which it consists, but for some circumstances connected with the invention and the inventor::-we allude to the method of granulation. A plumber of the name of Watts, residing in Bristol in the year 1782, obtained a patent for the manufacture of shot by a mode which is said to have been suggested to his mind in a dream; this mode was to pour melted lead from a considerable height, so that, in falling, it should cool into separate globules or shot. He made an experiment from the tower of the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, which was satisfactory. He afterwards succeeded in disposing of his patent to the firm of Walker, Maltby, and Co., for 10,000., and with this sum he projected the formation of a crescent on so grand a scale, at Clifton, that he spent the whole of the money in making excavations and foundation-walls, which afterwards obtained the expressive name of "Watts's Folly." The mode of making shot invented by Watts has been acted on with some variation to our own day, and there are, on the southern banks of the Thames, several shot manufactories of a great height. The process of making the shot we may now describe. The substance employed is not pure lead, as every ton of it contains forty pounds of arsenic, the latter metal being employed to give hardness to the lead; but since there is an objection to poisoned shot, mercury is sometimes substituted for arsenic, and is said to answer tolerably well. These materials are cast into pigs, each weighing about one hundred weight and a half. Ten of these pigs are carried up to the top of the shot tower, or manufactory, into the meltingroom. They are then put into a caldron, which is heated from beneath by a furnace. When the metal is melted, it is ladled out of the caldron, and poured into an iron vessel, somewhat resembling the common kitchen colander, the bottom being pierced with small holes, the same size as the shot which are to be made. The metal is not poured directly on the bottom of the vessel, but a little scoria or dross is first poured in, by which the liquid metal is somewhat cooled, before it reaches the holes. The metal passes through the holes in separate portions, hangs for a moment at the lower surface, and then drops; and this constantly going on from all the holes, an appearance like a shower of silver rain is produced. After the drops have passed through the colander, they fall perpendicularly through about one hundred and thirty feet of space, into a receptacle filled with water, by which time they become solid, and soon afterwards cold. The engraving represents a section of a patent shot tower: the melting-room at the top of this building is reached by a substantial stair-case of cast-iron. When the shot are removed from the water, they are scattered over a large heated, iron plate, which has a furnace beneath: they are stirred about until well dried, and then removed. They then present a dead white silvery appearance; and the next process which they undergo is to be placed in sifters, to remove the imperfect ones. The sifters or sieves are set in motion by machinery connected with a steam-engine. The shot are first thrown into one sieve, the meshes of which admit all beneath a certain size to pass through. Those remaining are then turned out into a second sieve, the meshes of which will receive all those which are properly made, and will only reject those of a large or irregular form: these last mentioned are of no use, and are taken back again to be re-melted: while those which have passed through the two sieves are retained. But although they may all be within the proper dimensions, yet it may happen that some of them are irregular and misshapen; they have therefore to undergo another kind of separation; and the plan adopted is a very remarkable one. There are a number of shallow trays wider at one end than the other; these are suspended by strings at the wide end, and rest upon shot bins at the other. "Thus arranged, a boy, who manages two of these trays, throws upon each at the widest end, (that nearest to him,) a small measure-full of shot; he then takes hold of the trays, and giving them a gentle vibrating motion laterally, and at the same time raising the ends a little, to give them a slight inclination, the shot roll about, tending from side to side, those that are perfectly spherical making their way quickly off the board into the bin at their extremity; while those which are imperfect are detained by their comparatively sluggish movements, and being thus separated from the good, the trays are pushed forward about a foot, and their contents emptied into other bins, placed beyond those containing the good shot, as before mentioned. This operation is so effectual that it is difficult to pick an imperfect shot out of those that come to market. Four or five boys thus employed, with two trays to each, suffice for a manufactory of the kind above described, which makes about five tons per day. The smallest shot require the utmost care and gentlest management of the inclined plane; therefore the eldest or steadiest hands are selected to operate on them." After this selection is made, the shot are polished. To effect this, a cast-iron barrel, holding perhaps half a ton weight, is nearly filled with shot, and a rotatory motion is communicated to it by a steam-engine: this causes all the shot to rub against and round one another, by which their surfaces acquire a blackish lustre, very different from the whitish appearance before observed. Finally the shot are placed in bags, ready for sale. The diameters of shot vary from a quarter to about one thirtieth of an inch, by twelve regular gradations; the largest, or No. 1, being called swan-shot, and the smallest, or No. 12, dust-shot. CARTHUSIAN MONKS.-SCENERY OF THE GRAND CHARTREUSE. 2 THE MONASTERY OF THE GRAND CHARTREUSE. THE practice of retiring from the world, abjuring | domestic ties, and devoting a man's whole life to a series of formal austerities, is of pagan origin, and is still followed by the heathens of Asia, more severely than by any monks professing Christianity. The most superficial reader of the New Testament must perceive, that neither our Lord nor his Apostles had any respect for the selfishness which shuns society, because of its demands on our sympathies and services, or that will-worship which makes religion to consist, not in simply doing the will of God, but in putting on a complex yoke of human ordinances. Although of heathen origin, this peculiar mode of life easily glided into the Christian church, partly from its accordance with the unwillingness of human nature to weary itself out in struggles with the temptations and molestations of social life; partly because many of the early Christians, on being driven into deserts by persecution, acquired a taste for solitude, and thought that such retirement was sanctioned by the examples of Elijah and John the Baptist. According to Philo-Judæus, it began with certain persons of his own nation, settled in the see of St. Mark in Egypt. These Jews abandoned their proVOL. XVI. perty, and formed a society of recluses for engaging in prayers ard psalmody. This seems to have been the first faint image of the monasteries which were afterwards so multiplied, both in the eastern and western churches, but which the eminently social character of pure Christianity, when it was restored to us at the Reformation, disowned and dispersed. The truth is, the Jewish proselytes of whom Philo speaks had acquired a taste for the ascetic life from the nations further east, and this they introduced, with other corruptions, into their new profession, on becoming Christians. St. Anthony was one of the earliest and most strenuous patrons of this kind of seclusion; he had many followers, and at length the religious life, as that of those who bound themselves by peculiar vows was called, was considered to flow in two great streams; the one consisting of bishops and priests, or the secular clergy, and the other of abbots, monks, and friars, or the regular clergy. Absolute solitude being found too severe for many even of the most devout solitaries, some, on withdrawing from the common haunts of mankind, formed themselves into communities, renouncing the society of all persons not bound by the same vows and subject 507 the wearing of hair cloth next the skin, entire abstinence from animal food, except fish, and that only when given them; to prepare their own victuals, and take their refections alone; to observe an almost continual silence; on no pretence to leave the monastery; to give themselves, up to prayer, manual work, reading, and the transcription of books. Although they were never reformed, pretending that they never needed being so, like the other religious orders, St. Bernard complained in his day of the magnificence of their buildings; and in the seventeenth century they had accumulated immense wealth, and monas to the same rules,-a kind of life opposed alike to the letter and the spirit of the Gospel, yet by which they vainly imagined they might earn the peculiar favour of Heaven. As this milder seclusion was much more endurable, so it became much more fashionable than the former; men liked better to be friars than hermits. St. Jerome, writing to Rusticus, when desirous to embrace a solitary life, says, "the first point to be determined is whether you should live alone, or along with others in a monastery. For myself I hold it better for a man to be with companions than to undertake the teaching of himself." While St. Anthony lived as a hermit in Upper Egypt, St. Hilary was following histeries, on the model of the great Chartreuse, appeared example in Syria and in Palestine; and touched with the great reputation of the Egyptian saint, he paid him a visit, and returned, in his own opinion, much edified. In his ardour to extend this kind of devotion, he introduced into it certain changes, by which it became so popular in Palestine, that that country, from having nothing of the sort, soon was covered with innumerable monasteries. These he visited at certain times, followed by great numbers of monks, as was afterwards the practice with the generals and superiors of the religious orders. These two fanciful men had ample time for perfecting a system for the cultivation of personal holiness, which they seemed to think far superior to anything dreamed of by our Lord and his Apostles. St. Anthony lived to his ninetieth, and St. Hilary to his eightieth year. | Since their days the religious orders have multiplied, and been modified and altered, in proportion to the innumerable whims and fancies of men of ardent minds and heated imaginations, who have striven to outrun each other in the severity of the rules they have recommended, or, imputing the corruption of monasteries not to the want of true religion, but to some defect in their constitution, have endeavoured by new rules to attack evils as ancient and as deeply rooted as human nature itself. Not the least remarkable of the monastic orders is that of the Carthusians, or Chartreux, whose extraordinary head-quarters in the mountains of Dauphiny we are about to describe. "It was instituted," says Gabriel d' Emillianne, "in the year 1080, according to some, and in 1086 according to other authors, on the occasion, it is said, of the following strange occurrence. A professor in the university of Paris, commendable alike for soundness of doctrine and moral conduct, died, and at his burial sat upright on the bier, and cried with a lamentable voice, 'I am accused by the just judgment of God.' This so frightened the persons present that the interment was put off for a day, when the dead again exclaimed, I am judged by the just judgment of God.' on which the interment was put off yet another day. At last, the third day being come, in the presence of a great multitude of people, the dead again cried with a terrible voice, 'By the just judgment of God I am condemned.' One Bruno being present, and taking advantage of this to address the assembly, he concluded that they could not possibly be saved unless they renounced the world and retired into deserts; and this he immediately did, along with six companions. They went to a frightful place, called the Chartreuse, among the mountains in the diocese of Grenoble, where the bishop first assisted and afterwards joined them. In that horrid desert, inhabited till then only by wild beasts, they built little cells apart from each other, and there they lived in silence and with great severity. They proposed to follow the rule of St. Benedict, only with additional severities." Hospinian relates their ancient observances, in nineteen articles, which prescribe, among other things, in Italy, Germany, Spain, and all other countries subject to the Papacy. It has been observed that neither they, nor the pictures and relics of their pretended martyrs, pretend to work miracles, alleging that their saints in heaven are still such lovers of silence and retirement that, to avoid attracting notice, they avoid doing miracles. A gentleman from the north of France visited the great Chartreuse in 1827, and on his return gave his friends the following striking description of the scene he had witnessed. "On leaving Grenoble you turn the point of St. Eynard, and ascend a long slope, interrupted by ravines, and leading up to Mount Sapey. On looking around you, the gray mountain-tops and irregular peaks of Dauphiny come gradually into view. But before plunging into the savage scene before you, give one look behind. Stretched out in all its loveliness at your feet, lies the vale-the rich and majestic vale of Graisivaudan, with its vine-bowers, its forests of hemp and maize, its bright-leaved mulberry trees, and that whole Italian landscape which, were it not that the frozen summits of the Alps meet the eye at every turn, might lead you to suppose that it was one of the plains of Lombardy. The Isère glides with countless windings through this verdant plain, and as it rolls along its ample bed of gravel, it laves, as it passes, the walls of many an ancient castle, and among others that of Bayard, and then slowly advances to Grenoble. On your right, another river, the Drac, seems to leap at one bound from the mountains, and hurrying straight towards the city, throws the Isère against it, where the two streams meet; thus suggesting an ancient prophecy of the country, that the serpent and the dragon are one day to destroy Grenoble. "Having passed the lesser heights of Mount Sapey, at last, after a toilsome walk of seven miles, we reached the margin of a large and regular dale, lying between two mountain ranges which close it in, by uniting together. In the hollow stood the village of Chartreuse, overlooked by its little church and spire, reflecting the light from its covering of tin. As yet you neither can see the monastery, nor can guess at what point of the valley, which seems enclosed on every side, there can be an outlet for a road. You hear the roar of a mountain-torrent hard by, but as little can you guess how it makes its escape. The road now makes a sudden turn, and right before you stands the portal of St. Bruno. Two huge mountains, rising parallel to each other, leave a narrow interval between. Through the chasm thus formed rushes into hidden depths the torrent whose roar had struck your ear, and which is called the Guiers. or by some the Guiers of death, of which it is supposed to be an image. You cross this dismal gorge by a bridge thrown from rock to rock, and catch a glimpse in passing of the frightful abyss, into which the Guiers descends with a stunning roar, and rebounds in sheets of foam. Above, the mountains seem to lean over you, leaving only a narrow band of blue sky visible. Impatient, however, of being kept from the scene you are approaching by so strange a vestibule, you push on, and forthwith two ranges of mountains open at a right angle, rising on either side, gray and bolt upright, clothed only with a few sombre pines, which look as if sustained miraculously on the invisible projections from which they spring. "In the space before you you find the mountain-yew, the festooned foliage of the evergreen oak, the Scotch fir, and the larch, mingle and blend their various green hues, forming a leafy amphitheatre of a thousand galleries, whose rounded outlines cross and are lost in each other, as if several huge forests had been thrown confusedly together; while here and there you can see from under the foliage, far and high, the hoary heads of the everlasting mountains, crowned neither with herbage nor with snow, but dry and bony looking, yet enlivened by the delicate rosy tint with which the sun continues to adorn them, long after night has thrown her sombre shadows over the vale below. On the left, the Guiers, escaped from the chasm, rushes forwards with irregular impetuosity, carrying with it from the mountains stones and trees, which it knocks about or sweeps along with a dashing and crashing vehemence. Sometimes it advances from cascade to cascade, in successive leaps of thirty, forty, and fifty feet; at other times, meeting some apparently impassable barrier thrown across its bed, in the shape of an enormous rock, it rushes furiously against it, and flies up in foaming jets, but is forced at length to glide round the obstacle it cannot remove. For a certain distance your eye can follow the fantastic whirl of its waters, and even after you have lost sight of them, you can distinguish their hollow roar resounding amid the solitude, until it meets the mountain barrier, which, after forming a three-sided enclosure of about three leagues' extent, opens again to give it a passage. That passage forms the other portal to this wilderness. "Yet, wild and distant as this scene appears, a well trodden and well kept pathway informs you, as if you were traversing a nobleman's park, that you have not yet left the inhabited world, and that you are doubtless approaching the monastery. The ground opens in front, and a broad meadow gradually spreads itself out into a beautiful slope, interrupted by horizontal intervals, and covered with a bright but slightly yellowish verdure, doubly contrasting with the dark hues of the woods you have been skirting, and the gray rocks that seem to follow you. And now, right in front, you behold the Grand Chartreuse. There it is, with its hundred slated roofs, surmounted by an equal number of iron crosses. Amid this vast circle of mountains, where every object may be expected to look little, the monastery rises from a plain of turf, like a city conjured up by magic in a desert. But on a nearer approach you listen in vain for the confused hum of a city, usually borne so far on the evening air; nor do you hear any of those cries of domestic animals which commonly announce the vicinity of the habitations of man, even in the most lonely rural districts. Nothing breaks in upon the stillness of the scene-a stillness like that which freezes the heart of the traveller when he views the beautiful but forsaken ruins of Palmyra, as they rise before him on the sands of Arabia." Ir a spring be fouled on its way down the brae, it will soon brighten up again, for the clear water behind will wash away all impurities; but when the fountain-head has the foul stain in it, there is naething can purify that away,naething else but mixing it with the ocean of eternity, and then rising again to the heavens purified to dew.—HOGG. THE COUNTRY MAID AND THE PIMPERNEL FLOWER. "I'LL go and peep at the Pimpernel, And see if she thinks the clouds look well, And 'tis like to be fine, I shall go to the fair, For my sweetheart is there, So, Pimpernel, what bode the clouds and the sky? The Pimpernel flower had folded up Thus her warning said,- O'er the chequered blue of the clouded sky The maid first looked sad, and then looked cross, "Say you so, indeed, For the blue sky is bright; To more credulous people your warnings tell, I'll a 'kerchief wear, White, chequered with pink, And then, let me think, I'll consider my gown, for I'd fain look well," So saying, she stepped o'er the Pimpernel. Now the wise little flower, wrapped safe from harm, Her red robe so bright, Though broidered with purple and starred with gold, The fair maiden then donned her best array, "Oh! would I had minded yon boding flower, Ir is not to be inquired how excellent anything is, but how proper. Those things which are helps to some, may be encumbrances to others. An unmeet good may be as inconvenient as an unaccustomed evil. If we could wish another man's honour, when we feel the weight of his cares we should be glad to be in our own coat.-BISHOP HALL. WHAT is this body? fragile, frail, And as the flashing meteor brief. Unlimited as thought's vast range, By grovelling matter unconfined; The same, while states and empires change. When long this miserable frame Has vanished from life's busy scene, This earth shall roll, that sun shall flame, As though this dust had never been. When suns have waned, and worlds sublime Their final revolutions told, This soul shall triumph over Time, As though such orbs had never rolled.507-2 -OSBORN. ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS IN WAX. IN the Saturday Magazine, Vol. XVI., p. 23, we have given our readers some account of the method of making wax figures: we now offer them a few directions for imitating the beautiful products of the flower garden, in the same material. The art of forming artificial flowers of wax is a delicate and interesting process, well suited to form an amusement for ladies in their leisure hours, and also to aid them in their botanical pursuits; for, by the exact imitation of rare and fragile flowers in wax, they have the representation of all the parts of the flower before them, in a much more perfect manner than can be supplied by painting, or even by the flower itself in a dried form. There is little difficulty connected with the operation; the materials are such as ladies will find it pleasant to handle, and the expense of the articles is trifling. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that this elegant art is becoming fashionable among persons of taste, who have sufficient leisure to devote to such pursuits. The following articles should be laid on the table, before the operation commences: i.e., a pen-knife, a pair of scissors, a piece of wire about three inches long, pointed at one end, and having a round knob of sealing-wax at the other, three or four smooth and slender rods of wood, a few sheets of wax of different colours, some wire of different sizes, covered with green tissuepaper for steins, and some very thin tin, or brass, to cut up into patterns. Some green wax should also be at hand in a melted state. A flower must be chosen for the first attempt, whose parts are very simple and easily imitated: the common primrose of the hedges, for instance, whose petals, or flower-leaves, are five in number, having in the centre five stamens, and being supported by a green calyx, or flower-cup. Take the blossom carefully to pieces, without injuring any of its parts: make the petals and calyx perfectly smooth by flattening them between the leaves of a book, or by placing them under a warm flat-iron, and then cut out patterns of the calyx, and of one of the petals the thin tin. These patterns must correspond precisely with the originals, for the least inaccuracy here would spoil the work. The tin patterns must next be laid upon the wax, in the direction of the length of the sheets, and the five petals and the calyx cut from them. Take one of the pieces of wire, being careful that it shall resemble in size the stalk of the primrose; dip it in green melted wax, and when cool, fix on the top of it, by the pressure of the thumb and finger, fine thread-like strips of dark yellow wax, to represent the stamens. These being firmly fixed, fasten on one of the petals in the same manner by pressure; then a second petal, a third, fourth, and fifth, putting them regularly round, and bending each petal outward, so that when completed the flower shall be flat, as it is in nature. The petals being all fixed, put the calyx in the palm of the hand for a short time, that it may become pliant; then form it to its natural shape round one of the little wooden rods, and thus prepare it to be slipped on at the lower end of the stalk of the flower. When it is properly placed, press it tightly against the stem, and the whole will firmly adhere together, and form the complete flower, except that a few touches of darker yellow will be required near the centre of the petals, and these may be given in oil-colours, or in water-colours mixed with ox-gall. Instead of the patterns in tin or brass, described above, some persons use shapes or moulds, formed exactly after the pattern of the petals, &c., so that by merely pressing them on the wax, they get the part cut out much more expeditiously and also more correctly than by using the knife or scissors, This is the whole of the process as it respects the primrose, for the root-leaves are generally made of cambric, and are supplied by the artificial flower maker; being afterwards only dipped in warm wax to improve their appearance. Several other flowers are made with nearly the same facility, such as the snowdrop, the violet, the heartsease, the hyacinth, pink, &c. Where the petals are hollow, as in the tulip, crocus, or ranunculus, the wax is warmed in the hand till it is quite pliable, and the central part of it is gently rolled with the sealing-wax end of the wire pin. This expands the wax, and forms it in the hollow of the hand to the required shape. Sometimes the petals of a flower are wrinkled and rough, as in the gum-cistus, the red poppy, &c., and in order to imitate this appearance the wax is well rolled, so as to make it thin and warm, and then crumpled up by the hand. If this is cleverly done, the wax petal on being opened will very nearly and beautifully resemble the peculiar appearance of the part it is intended to represent. Where the central part of a flower is formed of a little cup, as in the narcissus, it must be imitated by means of the head of the wire pin, as before, and the size of the wax required may be ascertained by cutting open and measuring one of these cups. Quilled flowers, such as the dahlia and chrysanthemum, must have their petals rolled up with the fingers to the proper shape, after having been previously warmed and distended by the application of the head of the pin, as before. Flowers whose tints are delicately blended with each other can only be imitated by forming the petals of white wax, and then tinting them with powder colours, put on with a short-haired brush. In this way all kinds of striped or variegated | flowers may be copied, and some of our most rare and beautiful plants may be accurately represented. It is evident that many of our monopetalous flowers would be much more difficult to copy than such as we have described above, which have several petals. Our campanulas and convolvuluses, from their peculiar shape, seem to offer considerable difficulty, and in fact their representation in wax requires a greater share of patience and attention than most other flowers. The best way of making a convolvulus is to pour some plaster of Paris carefully into a natural flower, and thus get an exact mould on which to form the waxen copy. A piece of wax is then cut out, the size and shape of a convolvulus (which has been cut open on one side and flattened), and formed carefully round the mould, uniting the edges very carefully at a part of the blossom where the join will be hidden by one of the coloured rays which adorn the inside of that lovely flower. In this way bell-shaped flowers may be imitated to admiration. It is very important in copying single flowers to get the number of stamens and pistils correct, and to give them as much the appearance of nature as possible. An error in this respect is immediately detected by those who have given botany a share in their studies, and in their opinion destroys the effect of the most finely formed blossom. If the stamens are very short, they may be made of wax of the proper colour, but if they are long, they must be formed separately on fine wires, moulding the wax around the wire by means of the finger and thumb. The ends may then be dipped in gum-water and immediately after in powder, of the colour required to represent the anthers and stigma. A close observation of the natural flower, whatever it may be, will soon teach the best means of imitation in these respects, and may likewise suggest other ideas, in addition to these which we have thrown out for the benefit of beginners in this pleasing art. |