logna; and for his exclusive use, for a term of years, he obtained a patent from the Pope and the Senate of Venice. It was said to be in imitation of the hand-writing of Petrarch. The first book printed in this letter was an edition of the works of Virgil (Virgilius; Venet: apud Aldum) in octavo, in 1501. A copy of this performance was sold at Mr. Dent's sale for the sum of 231. 2s. Objections, however, have been urged against this type, in its original form, as too stiff and angular, and faulty in a technical view on account of the number of letters connected together. Of Aldus had no fewer than nine descriptions of Greek types; speaking of which, Mattaire says: his characters were large, round, beautiful, and elegant, adorned with frequent ligatures, which added great beauty to his editions." No one before Aldus printed so much, and so beautifully, in the Greek language. the Latin character he procured fourteen kinds, most of which were eminently beautiful. In some of his editions of the classics, he gave the Greek text, and then the Latin translation; and his was the invention of so "imposing" a work, that the purchasers might, at pleasure, bind up the respective versions either singly or together, one language interleaving the other. The mode of printing two languages in opposite columns was not adopted till the year 1590. Of Hebrew types, Aldus had three sorts. In the year 1501 he wrote and printed an Introduction to the Hebrew tongue; and about the same time, or probably two or three years earlier, he printed the first leaf, in folio, of a proposed edition of the Bible in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages. Thus, it was Aldus who had the honour of first suggesting the plan of a Polyglott Bible. The only known copy of the exquisitely precious fragment of typography here alluded to is in the Royal Library at Paris. Here, as particularly tending to illustrate the title of THE ALDINE MAGAZINE, we pause to remark, that, as insignia of distinction, and probably also for the prevention of frauds, the earlier printers were accustomed to adopt peculiar marks-monograms, rebusses, or other devices-in the title-pages of their works. The device of Aldus was the Anchor and Dolphin, as displayed in the Prospectus, and on the wrapper, of THE ALDINE MAGAZINE. This was borrowed from a silver medal of the Emperor Titus, presented to Aldus Manutius by Cardinal Bembus. On one side of the medal was the head of the Emperor; on the reverse, a dolphin twisting itself round an anchor; and the emblem, or hieroglyphic, is supposed to correspond with an adage (σrevde ßpadewc) said to have been the favourite motto of Augustus. Erasmus, in his Adagia, under the head Festina lente, in explaining the device of his favourite printer, John Frobenius, of Basil*, ingeniously remarks :-" If princes on this side the Alps would encourage liberal studies with as much zeal as those of Italy, the serpents of Froben would not be so much less lucrative than the dolphin of Aldus. The latter lente festinans has deservedly gained for himself no less wealth than reputation. As to Frobenius, whilst he constantly carries his baculus or staff erect, with no other view than the public advantage; whilst he departs not from the simplicity of the dove; whilst he exemplifies the prudence of the serpent not more by his device than by his actions; he is rich rather in reputation than in an estate." Still more to our purpose, in the way of illustration, is the following Impromptu, by that venerable bibliographer, the late Sir Egerton Brydges "Let your emblems, or devices, be a dove, or a fish, or a musical lyre, or a naval anchor." WOULD you still be safely landed, On the ALDINE anchor ride; A bold and brideless steed is he; Of knowledge firm he fixt his tree; Whose name the bold DIGAMMA hallows, Nor time nor envy e'er shall canker The sign that is my lasting pride; To the dolphin, as we're drinking, Life, and health, and joy we send; And still he lives-the poet's friend. With this poetic and cordial greeting the humble historian of THE ALDINE TRIUMVIRATE makes his retiring bow till Saturday next. Frobenius was born at Hammelberg, in Franconia, in 1460. Erasmus, who was his intimate friend, lodged in his house at Basil, and had all his works printed by him. Frobenius died in 1527. MEN, WOMEN, AND EVENTS OF ter than solitary wanderers over the face of the earth! 66 Trembling before the fell usurper's throne, Science of the Stars.-Advent Sunday.-Heroes, Patriots, and their Opposites.-Buonaparte and his Dynasty.-Wellington and Waterloo.—Character of James II.-Belzoni, the Earl of Munster, and Sir John Soane's Alabaster Sarcophagus.-Car- of Heaven, Britain was the power by which the dinal Richelieu.-Patronage of Men of Letters. Westall, the Royal Academician.-St. Nicholas and his Miracles.-General Monk and his Marriage.-Women Barbers.-The Duke and Duchess of Albemarle.—Cicero and Bookbinding.-Glue versus Indian Rubber.—Algernon Sydney and the French Ambassador.-Marshal Ney and the Duke of Wellington.-Flaxman the Sculptor. ARE we lunatics or star-gazers? Perhaps both. At all events, we commence our lucubrations under the direct influence of the full moon; her Majesty, Queen Luna-or the "chaste Dian," for whom Endymion sighed-attaining, as those infallible oracles the almanacs assure us, her largest apparent size at thirty-four minutes past eleven, A.M., on this present Saturday, December the 1st, Anno Domini, MDCCCXXXVIII. That the moment is an auspicious one we cannot doubt, since our friend J. V., eminently skilled in the occult science, has most carefully "cast a figure of the heavens," and assured us that? and, and and m, and Y, 8, and R, and Van Amburgh and the beasts at Drury Lane Theatre, are all in blessed and happy conjunction. Further, let our astronomical friends bear in mind that Mercury, in the constellation Sagittarius, is an evening star throughout the month; and that Venus, in the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpio, is a morning star in the early part of the month, after which, until the end, it is invisible. To-morrow is Advent Sunday, on which no comment can here be requisite. Of heroes, and the reverse of heroes-of patriots, and of traitors-and of some who were unconnected with any of these classes-we have a few words to say. Napoleon Buonaparte, the greatest and the bloodiest of modern conquerors, obtained the imperial crown on the 2nd of December, 1804; and on the anniversary of that day in the succeeding year he gained the memorable battle of Austerlitz. Where now is the man who, for a brief period, held one half of the world in awe? Only thirty-four years have clapsed since the consummation of the first of the events here alluded to. Seventeen years afterwards the selfcrowned Emperor died, a prisoner and an exile; his bones were left to rot in obscurity in the distant Isle of St. Helena; and the surviving members of his mushroom dynasty, extinguished throughout Europe, are now little bet nations were set free. We laugh to scorn the The souls of British youth with martial fire; What a different sovereign was James II. of England, who abdicated his throne on the 3rd of December, 1688, exactly a century and a half ago. His character was most anomalous. James appears to have been, physically, a brave man; morally, acoward. "He was," observes old Granger, "what rarely happens, revengeful and valiant almost in the same degree, and displayed such courage in the first Dutch war, as rendered him more popular than all the other acts of his life." It should be remembered, to his credit, that he was the inventor of naval signals. According to Smollett, he "frequently visited the poor monks of La Trappe, who were much edified by his humble and pious deportment." James lived nearly thirteen years in exile. His body was deposited in the monastery of the Benedictines at Paris; his brain in the church of St. Andrew, belonging to the Scotch College in that city; and his heart in the nunnery of Chaillot. Moreover, several miracles were alleged to have been wrought at his tomb. Verily, we marvel that O'Connell should never have made a pilgrimage to that miraculous tomb. John Baptist Belzoni, the celebrated traveller in Egypt, whose feats of strength and agility at Astley's are well remembered, died at Gato, in Africa, on the 3rd of December, 1823. The late Colonel Denham justly styled him the Prince of Travellers. The Earl of Munster, at that time Colonel Fitzclarence, when on his return over land from India to England in March, 1818, met Belzoni at the residence of Mr. Salt, at Cairo; and it is due to the honour, humanity, and benevolence of his Lordship to state, that, finding the great explorer labouring under circumstances of gross injustice, he ex of Reepham, in Norfolk, was born about the year 1765. He was originally intended for the profession of the law; but, possessing an ele erted all his influence over the minds of the persons hostile to his efforts, and protected him from a threatened most cruel spoliation. Belzoni, observes Colonel Fitzclarence in his "Jour-gant and cultivated, though apparently not a nal," was the handsomest man I ever saw; powerful mind, poetry and the arts proved more was above six feet high, and his commanding congenial to his taste than the dry technicalities figure set off by a long beard." At the time of legal proceedings. Thirty years ago he pubhere referred to, both Belzoni and Mr. Salt lished a volume entitled A Day in Spring, were enraptured with the beautiful alabaster and other Poems," which did him great credit. sarcophagus which they had discovered, in what The name of Westall must be familiar to most Belzoni supposed to be the tomb of the god of our readers as that of an illustrator of popuApis. This exquisite gem of antiquity is now lar works without number. Westall, however, to be seen in the collection of the late Sir John was an artist of greater promise than performSoane, (presented to the nation,) in Lincoln's ance: many of his early productions were disInn Fields. Thus the ill-judged parsimony, or tinguished by considerable talent, if not genius ; whatever else it might be, of the British Mu- but, for the last thirty years of his life, he adseum, in declining its purchase, has been de- vanced not one hair's-breadth in the progress feated. Every resident in, and every visitor of of his art. He was, if we mistake not, the inthe metropolis, ought to inspect Sir John structor of her present Majesty; notwithSoane's collection, (gratuitously open,) were it standing which, and his long practice and exonly for the opportunity of viewing the alabaster tensive connexions, he failed in his endeavours sarcophagus. Nearly ever since Belzoni's de- to acquire a competence. A year or two becease, his estimable widow, who shared his pri- fore his death, (which occurred on the 4th of vations and sufferings in most of his travels, has December, 1836,) he was under the painful been residing in a state of poverty, and almost necessity of parting with a fine collection of destitution, on the Continent. A few months paintings, which had been more than a quarter ago, we believe, some pitiful pecuniary aid was of a century in accumulating. doled out to her by the British Government. St. Nicholas-we do not here indicate the ubiquitous personage derisively styled Old Nick, alias Old Harry, but the veritable Saint Nicholas of the Romish church, whose festival stands in the calendar for the 6th of December Cardinal Richelieu, happily designated the Talleyrand of his day, died on the 4th of December, 1642-nearly two hundred years ago -at the age of only fifty-seven. The character of this wily statesman, who certainly possessed-was a wonder-working genius in his way. brilliancy as well as versatility of talent, is admirably drawn in one of James's novels. He had, at least, the merit of patronising men of letters, and of causing the arts and sciences to flourish in his country. Mirabeau wisely said, that "kings and princes" (and he ought to have added ministers) "are inexcusable when they do not protect men of genius. Let them reflect on the characters of Augustus and Louis XIV. Could any thing but the encouragement of all ingenuity, of all genius, of all applicationcould any thing else have gained them such maturity of fame ? Their political actions were not only faulty-they were detestable; yet, notwithstanding the blackest traits of character, we find them handed down to us as the greatest of monarchs. This is the result of well rewarding those who alone can confer immortality. Surely therefore monarchs should, through self-interest, if from no other motive, award liberal encouragement to the arts, sciences, and literature, as an unerring road to that fame which is so flattering even to them." The anniversary of Richelieu's death is also that of the death of Westall, the royal academician. Richard Westall, a native, we believe, He is the patron saint of children, of virgins, of the Russian empire, of the Dominican monks, of the Muscovite Laplanders, of mariners, &c. The Laplanders deposit little images of this saint in the coffins of their deceased relations, as onè of the most able and strenuous advocates of the dead; and even in the more ancient sea-ports of England, it was usual to place churches under his protection, and to enrich them by offerings from mariners, fishermen, merchants, &c. Charles III. of Naples instituted an order of knighthood, called the Argonauts of St. Nicholas. In his youth, we may presume him to have been a man of gallantry. It is related of him, that he was in the pleasant habit of throwing stockings with marriage portions into young ladies' chambers; and in consequence it became customary in nunneries, on the eve of St. Nicholas, for each of the young nuns to place a silk stocking at the door of the apartment of the lady abbess, with a piece of paper enclosed, recommending themselves to "Great St. Nicholas of her chamber." Next day the damsels were called together to witness the saint's attentions, when the stockings were always found filled with sweetmeats, &c., with which a gene ral feast was made. Yet we know not how to reconcile a notion of the gallantry of the saint with a counter-statement, according to which, when an infant, he was so pious that, upon Wednesdays and Fridays, he could never be prevailed upon to receive the natural nutriment of the breast. One of the multitude of his miracles was the following:-Two children had been murdered, cut into pieces, salted, and put into a pickling tub with some pork. As “murder will out," the guilt was revealed to St. Nicholas in a vision. He prayed that the Almighty would at once pardon the murderer“ ever a plain homely dowdy," "a very illand restore the dead to life. Scarcely was the prayer at an end, when the mangled, detached, and pickled pieces of the two youths were, by divine power, reunited; and, perceiving that they were alive, they threw themselves at the feet of the holy man to kiss and embrace them. The saint gave them his blessing, and packed the lucky rogues off in great joy to prosecute their studies at Athens. George Monk, first Duke of Albemarle, the great promoter of the restoration of that reckless and profligate wight Charles II., was born on the festival of St. Nicholas in 1608, two hundred and thirty years ago. Respecting the marriage of this nobleman, and the origin and family connexions of his duchess, some extraordinary evidence was adduced, on a trial of an action of trespass, which took place in the Court of King's Bench, ninety-two years afterwards, between William Sherwin, plaintiff, and Sir Walter Clarges, Bart., and others, defendants. "The plaintiff, as heir and representative of Thomas Monk, Esq., elder brother of George, Duke of Albemarle, claimed the manor of Sutton, in the county of York, and other lands, as heir-at-law to the said Duke, against the defendant, devisee under the will of Duke Christopher, his only child, who died in 1688 without issue. It appeared that Anne, the wife of George, Duke of Albemarle, was daughter of John Clarges, a blacksmith and farrier in the Savoy, and farrier to Colonel Monk. In 1632, she was married at the church of St. Lawrence, Pountney, to Thomas Ratford, son of Thomas Ratford, late a farrier's servant to Prince Charles, and resident in the Mews. She had a daughter, born in 1634, who died in 1638. Her husband and she lived at the Three Spanish Gypsies, in the New Exchange, and sold washballs, powder, gloves, and such things, and she taught girls plain work. About 1647, she, being sempstress to Monk, used to carry him linen. In 1648, her father and mother died; in 1649, she and her husband fell out, and parted; but no certificate from any parish register appears, reciting his burial. In 1652, she was married in the church of St. George, Southwark, to General George Monk, and in the following year was delivered of a son, Christopher, who was suckled by Honour Mills, who sold apples, herbs, oysters, &c." mentioned, in 1688, the ducal honours of Albemarle in the family of Monk became extinct. The mother of the Duchess was a washerwoman; and Aubrey speaks of her as one of the five women barbers that lived in Drury Lane." Monk was a coarse-minded man; his wife had much influence over him; and she is said to have had a considerable hand in the Restoration. Thus, "petticoats always rule the roast." Pepys, in his Memoirs, has some curious and amusing notices respecting both the Duke and Duchess. The latter he describes as looked woman," &c. Of the Duke he says, in 1666, he "is grown a drunken sot, and drinks with nobody but Troutbecke, whom nobody else will keep company with." Once, "in his drink, taking notice, as of a wonder, that Nan Hide should ever come to be Duchess of York, Nay,' says Troutbecke, 'ne'er wonder at that, for if you will give me another bottle of wine, I will tell you a great, if not greater miracle.' And what was that, but that our dirty Besse (meaning his duchess) should come to be Duchess of Albemarle.” In April, 1667— "I find the Duke of Albemarle at dinner with sorry company, some of his officers of the army; dirty dishes and a nasty wife at table, and bad meat, of which I made but an ill dinner." The 7th of December, B.C. 43, now 1881 years ago, was memorable for the assassination of that great author, orator, and "book collector" of antiquity, Marcus Tullius Cicero. As a lover of books, it is not improbable that Cicero was somewhat luxurious in his taste for binding, since we find him instructing his friend Atticus "to send him some two of his librarians, who, among other things, might conglutinate his books." Phillatius, an Athenian, regarded as the "Father of Bookbinding," employed glue in the art more than two thousand years since; and, in honour of the invention, his countrymen actually erected a statue to his memory. the use of caoutchouc, or Indian rubber, just introduced with the most beautiful effect as a succedaneum for glue, last so long? We have heard it surmised that it will not bear a warm climate, or even an approach to our common fires. Will Algernon Sidney, one of the patriots of English history, was beheaded on Tower Hill, on the 7th of December, 1683, at the age of sixtysix. Implicated in what was termed the Ryehouse Plot, he was tried and condemned for conspiring the death of the King, by a packed jury and the infamous Judge Jeffries. Sidney was a zealous republican; yet one of the first On the death of the son Christopher, above-acts of the Revolution was to reverse his at tainder. His work, entitled "Discourses on Government," is well known. When ambassador at the court of Denmark, Mr. Sidney, availing himself of the privilege of all noble strangers, inscribed his celebrated motto, the motto also of the Earl of Carysfort and of Lord Riversdale "Manus hæc tyrannis," &c. in the "Book of Mottos" in the King's library. M. Terlon, the French ambassador regarding this as a libel upon his government, and upon the new order of things which France and her partisans were endeavouring to establish in Denmark, had the impudence to tear this motto from the book. We have not seen it recorded whether he was duly chastised for the act. Marshal Ney, another patriot in his way, and pronounced by Buonaparte "the bravest of the brave," was shot on the 7th of Decemher, 1815. Ney behaved nobly and kindly to the retreating English in the Peninsula: so far, we should have been glad could his life have been spared; but, great as were his deeds of arms, Ney was a traitor; and had the Duke of Wellington done more than he did towards his rescue, he would have been a traitor to his own honour, and to the cause for which he had fought. That the Duke was incapable of acting from the impulse of a little mind is sufficiently apparent from the following letter, addressed by him to Sir Charles Stuart, on the 28th of June, 1815, respecting the disposal of Buonaparte : "General has been here this day to negociate for Napoleon's passing to America, to which proposition I have answered that I have no authority. The Prussians think the Jacobins wish to give him over to me, believing that I will save his life. wishes to kill him; but I have told him that I shall remonstrate, and shall insist upon his being disposed of by common accord. I have likewise said that, as a private friend, I advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined that, if the sovereigns wished to put him to death, they should appoint an executioner which should not be me."* BOOK OF THE WEEK. BRITISH POSSESSIONS IN THE EAST.* INDIA, and every thing connected with the British Empire in the East, are daily acquiring a new and heightened interest-not only in England-not only in Europe-but throughout the civilised world. Never, therefore, could a work relating to an important part of our Indian possessions have made its appearance at a moment more auspicious than the present. Situated about five hundred miles from the Presidency of Bombay, the province of Cutch," is bounded, on the west, by the river Indus; on the east, by the Gulf of Cutch, and the salt desert of the Runn; on the north, by the Great Desert; and on the south, by the sea." Within the 68th and 70th degrees of east longitude, and the 22nd and 24th parallels of north latitude, it extends about 160 miles in length, from east to west, and 65 in breadth, from north to south, Thus, as the intelligent writer of the volume before us remarks, it is likely, from its geographical position, as well as from its maritine importance, to become connected with the favourite and apparently feasible plan of steam navigation on the Indus; and, in consequence, it is more deserving of attention, at this particular time, than other stations not equally liable to be effected by the progress of commercial civilization. Mrs. Postans is an unpretending, yet correct and elegant writer; with sound, liberal, and expansive views respecting the education and general improvement, religious, moral, and intellectual, of the native population of India, in its various castes. From her long residence in Cutch, she enjoyed unusual and peculiar opportunities of becoming acquainted with the domestic manners, habits, and character of the people; and the result of her observations is, on most points, full of interest-at once curious and valuable. Scarcely any subject has evaded her notice: history, ancient and modern-eastern costume, in all its rich varieties-religious worship, ceremonies, and superstitions of the On the 7th of December John Flaxman, the Hindus-suttees-infanticide-natural produce greatest sculptor of modern times, will have of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms been dead twelve years. If ever man were-manufactures-architecture-the fine, and blest with the god-like attribute of genius, mechanical arts-minstrelsy-bards, and bardic Flaxman was so blest. Had he never touched literature-juggling, snake-charming, magic, marble, his illustrations of Homer, Æschylus, &c.; these, and a thousand other points of atHesiod, and Dante would have been sufficient to insure him an immortality of fame. * Vide the 12th and last volume, just published, of The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, &c. *Cutch; or, Random Sketches, taken during a Residence in one of the Northern Provinces of Western India; interspersed with Legends and Traditions. By Mrs. Postans. Illustrated with Engravings from Original Drawings by the Author. 8vo. Smith, Elder and Co., 1839. |
