[Pg 193]

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

THE MONUMENT TO THE MEMORY OF DR DOYLE, BY HOGAN.

In presenting our readers with a drawing, made expressly for the purpose, of the Monumental Sculpture intended to memorise the mortal form of an illustrious Irishman, who was beloved and honoured by the great mass of his countrymen, and respected for his talents by all, we have done that which we trust will give as much pleasure to most of our readers, as it has afforded gratification to ourselves.

This monument is indeed a truly interesting one, whether considered in reference to its subject—the character of the distinguished individual whose memory it is designed to honour—the circumstances which have given it existence—or, lastly, as a work of high art, the production of an Irishman whose talents reflect lustre on his country. It is, however, in this last point of view only, that, consistently with the plan originally laid down for the conduct of our little periodical, we can venture to treat of it; and considered in this way, we cannot conceive a subject more worthy of attracting public attention or more legitimately within the scope of one of the primary objects our Journal was designed to effect—namely, to make our country, and its people, without reference to sect or party, more intimately known than they had been previously, not only to strangers, but even to Irishmen themselves.

In our present object, therefore, of lending our influence, such as it is, to make the merits of a great Irish artist more thoroughly known and justly appreciated, by our countrymen in particular, than they have hitherto been, we are only discharging a duty necessarily imposed upon us; and the pleasure which we feel in doing so would be great indeed, if it were not diminished by the saddening reflection that it should be so necessary in the case of an artist of his eminence. But, alas! the scriptural adage, that no man is a prophet in his own country, is unfortunately nowhere so strikingly illustrated [Pg 194] as in Ireland, and of this fact Mr Hogan is a remarkable example. Holding, as he unquestionably does, a high place among the most eminent sculptors of Europe, he is as yet unpatronized by the aristocracy of his native country—is indeed perhaps scarcely known to them.

Mr Hogan is not, as generally supposed, a native of Cork: he was born at Tallow, in the county of Waterford, in 1800, where his father carried on the business of a builder. He is of good family, both by the paternal and maternal sides; his father being of the old Dalcassian tribe of the O’Hogans, the chiefs of whom were located in the seventeenth century at Ardcrony, in the county of Tipperary, four miles and a half to the north of Nenagh, where the remains of their castle and church are still to be seen. By the mother’s side he is descended from the celebrated Sir Richard Cox, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in the reign of William and Mary, and Lord Chancellor in that of Queen Anne, his mother, Frances Cox, being the great-granddaughter of that eminent individual.

Having received the ordinary school education, he was placed by his father, in the year 1812, under an attorney in Cork, named Michael Footte, with a view to his ultimately embracing the legal profession, and in this situation he remained for two years. This was the most unhappy period of his existence; for, like Chantrey, the greatest of British sculptors, who was also articled to an attorney, being endowed by nature expressly to become an artist, the original bias of his mind to drawing and carving had by this time become a passion; and despite of the frequent chastisements his master bestowed on him, in the exuberance of his zeal to curb what he considered his idle propensities, his whole soul was given, not to law, but to the Fine Arts, and an artist he became accordingly. His father and his master seeing the utter uselessness of any further attempts to divert his mind from its apparently destined course, he was released from his irksome employment, and at the age of fourteen entered the office of Mr Deane, now Sir Thomas Deane, of Cork, as an apprentice, where he was soon employed as a draughtsman and carver of models, with a view to his becoming ultimately an architect. In Mr Deane he found a master who had the intellect to enable him to appreciate his talents, and the good feeling to induce him to encourage them; and the first use he made of the chisels with which his patron supplied him, was to produce a carving in wood of a female skeleton the size of life, on which Dr Woodroffe for a season was able to lecture his pupils, as if it were, what it actually seems, a real skeleton in form and colour. Under the instruction of this gentleman Mr Hogan studied anatomy for several years, during which period he made for his improvement many carvings in wood of hands and feet, and also essayed his talents on a figure of Minerva the size of life, which still remains over the entrance of the Life and Fire Insurance Office in the South Mall.

But though Mr Hogan was thus employed in pursuits congenial to his tastes, and to a great degree conducive to his future eminence as a sculptor, the idea of embracing sculpture as a profession did not occur to him for several years after, nor were the requisite means of study for that profession provided for the student in Cork at this time. There was as yet in that city no Academy of Arts or other institution like those in Dublin, provided, for the use of students, with those objects which are so essential to the formation of a correct taste in the higher departments of the Fine Arts, namely, a selection of casts from the antique statues: and until such subjects for study were acquired, the efforts of genius, however ardent, in the pursuit of beauty and excellence, were necessarily blind and fortuitous. Happily, however, this desideratum was at length supplied in Cork, where a Society for Promoting the Fine Arts was formed in February 1816; and to this Society the Prince Regent, in 1818, through the intercession of the late Marquis of Conyngham and other Irish noblemen who had influence with him, was induced to present a selection of the finest casts from the antique statues, which had been sent him as a gift by the Roman Pontiff, and the value of which the Prince but little appreciated. The result was not only beyond anything that the most sanguine could have anticipated in the rapid creation of artists of first-rate excellence, but also in establishing the fact that among our own countrymen the finest genius for art abundantly exists, and that it only requires the requisite objects for study, with encouragement, to develope it. The presence of these newly acquired treasures of ancient art, which consisted of one hundred and fifteen subjects selected by Canova, and cast under his direction, kindled a flame in Mr Hogan’s mind never to be extinguished but with life, and he immediately applied himself to their study with his whole heart and soul. Thus occupied he remained till 1823, surrounded and excited to emulation by the kindred spirits of Mac Clise, Scottowe, Ford—the glorious Ford!—Buckley the architect, equally glorious—Keller, his own brother Richard, and many other of lesser names—many of whom, alas for their own and their country’s fame! paid the price of their early distinction with their lives. Well may the people of Cork feel proud of this constellation of youthful genius—a brighter one was never assembled together in recent times.

The period, however, had now arrived when the eagle wing of Hogan was to try its strength; and most fortunately for him, an accident at this time brought to Cork a man more than ordinarily gifted with the power to assist him in its flight. The person we allude to was the late William Paulett Carey, an Irishman no less distinguished for his abilities as a critical writer on works of art, than for his ardent zeal in aiding the struggles of genius, by making their merit known to the world. In August 1823, this gentleman, on the occasion of paying a visit to the gallery of the Cork Society, “accidentally saw a small figure of a Torso, carved in pine timber, which had fallen down under one of the benches. On taking it up,” to continue Mr Carey’s own interesting narrative, “he was struck by the correctness and good taste of the design, and the newness of the execution. He was surprised to find a piece of so much excellence, apparently fresh from the tool, in a place where the arts had been so recently introduced, and where he did not expect to meet anything but the crude essays of uninstructed beginners. On inquiry he was informed it was the work of a young native of Cork, named Hogan, who had been apprenticed to the trade of a carpenter under Mr Deane, an eminent builder, and had at his leisure hours studied from the Papal casts, and practised carving and modelling with intense application. Hogan was then at work above stairs, in a small apartment in the Academy. The stranger immediately paid him a visit, and was astonished at the rich composition of a Triumph of Silenus , consisting of fifteen figures, about fourteen inches high, designed in an antique style, by this self-taught artist, and cut in bas-relief, in pine timber. He also saw various studies of hands and feet; a grand head of an Apostle, of a small size; a copy of Michael Angelo’s mask; some groups in bas-relief after designs by Barry; and a female skeleton, the full size, after nature; all cut with delicacy and beauty, in the same material. A copy of the antique Silenus and Satyrs , in stone, was chiselled with great spirit; and the model of a Roman soldier, about two feet high, would have done credit to a veteran sculptor. A number of his drawings in black and white chalks, from the Papal casts, marked his progressive improvement and sense of ideal excellence. The defects in his performances were such as are inseparable from an early stage of untaught study, and were far overbalanced by their merits. When his work for his master was over for the day, he usually employed his hours in the evening in these performances. The female skeleton had been all executed during the long winter nights.”

Becoming thus acquainted with Mr Hogan’s abilities, Mr Carey, with that surprising prophetic judgment with which he was so eminently gifted, at once predicted the young sculptor’s future fame, and proclaimed his genius in every quarter in which he hoped it might prove serviceable to him. He commenced by writing a series of letters, which were inserted in the Cork Advertiser, “addressed to the nobility, gentry, and opulent merchants, entreating them to raise a fund by subscription, to defray the expense of sending Hogan to Italy, and supporting him there for three or four years, to afford him the advantages of studying at Rome.” But for some time these letters proved ineffectual, and would probably have failed totally in their object but for Mr Carey’s untiring zeal. Acting under his direction, Mr Hogan was induced to address a letter to that noble patron of British genius, the late Lord de Tabley, then Sir John Fleming Leicester, and to send him at the same time two specimens of his carvings, “as the humble offering of a young self-taught artist.” This letter, which was backed by one from Mr Carey himself, was responded to at once in a letter written in the kindest spirit, and which contained an enclosure of twenty-five pounds as Sir John’s subscription to the proposed fund. This was the first money actually paid in, and subscriptions soon followed from others. Through Mr Carey’s enthusiastic representations, the Royal Irish Institution was induced to contribute the sum of one hundred pounds, and the Royal Dublin Society to vote twenty-five [Pg 195] pounds for some specimens of his carvings which Mr Hogan submitted to their notice. These acts of liberality were honourable to those public bodies; yet, as Mr Carey well observed, it was to Lord de Tabley’s generosity that Mr Hogan’s gratitude was most due. Here, as he said, “was a young man of genius in obscurity, and wholly unknown to his lordship, rescued from adversity in the unpromising morning of life—a self-taught artist built up to fame and fortune by his munificence—a torch lighted, which I hope will burn bright for ages, to the honour of the empire. Hogan may receive thousands of pounds from future patrons, but it is to Lord de Tabley’s timely encouragement that he will be indebted for every thing.”

The subscriptions collected for Mr Hogan amounted in all to the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds; and thus provided, he set out for Italy, visiting London on his way, for the purpose of presenting letters to Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sir Francis Chantrey, which Lord de Tabley had given him, in the hope that they would procure him recommendatory letters from those great artists that would be serviceable to him in Rome. But these introductions proved of little value to him. Chantrey expressed regret that he knew no one in the “Eternal City” to whom he could give him a letter; and though Lawrence kindly gave him an introduction to the Duchess of Devonshire, that distinguished lady had died a few days before Mr Hogan reached Rome; “so that,” as Mr Carey remarks, “he found himself an entire stranger, with little knowledge of the world, without acquaintance or patron, and incapable of speaking the language, at the moment of commencing his studies in Italy.”

But the young sculptor, on leaving his native country, was provided by Lord de Tabley with something more valuable than these letters to British artists—namely, a commission to execute a statue in marble for him, as soon as he should think himself qualified by his preparatory studies for the undertaking.

The statue, which was to launch the young sculptor into professional life in Italy, was commenced soon after, but was not completed before his noble patron had paid the debt of nature. Its subject, which is taken from Gessner’s Death of Abel, is Eve , who shortly after her expulsion from Paradise picks up a dead bird, which being the first inanimate creature that she has seen, fills her with emotions of surprise, terror, and pity. This statue, which is the size of life, and which is of exquisite beauty, is now at Lord de Tabley’s seat in Cheshire.

While this statue was in progress, Mr Hogan conceived the subject and completed the model of his second great work—one in which the peculiar powers of his genius were more fully developed, and on the execution of which, from peculiar circumstances, he entered with the most excited enthusiasm. During the first year of his residence at Rome, Mr Hogan happening to be present at an evening meeting of artists of eminence, the conversation turned on the difficulty of producing any thing in sculpture perfectly original; and to Mr Hogan’s astonishment, the celebrated British sculptor Gibson stated as his opinion that it was impossible now to imagine an attitude or expression in the human figure which had not been already appropriated by the great sculptors of antiquity. This opinion, though coming from one to whom our countryman then looked up, appeared to him a strange and unsound one, and with the diffidence of an artist whose powers were as yet untried, he ventured to express his dissent from it; when Gibson, astonished at his presumption, somewhat pettishly replied, “Then let us see if you are able to produce such an original work!” The challenge thus publicly offered could not be refused by one of Hogan’s temperament; and the young sculptor, stung with the taunt, lost no time in entering upon a work which was to test his abilities as an artist, and to rescue his character from the imputation of vanity and rashness. Under such feelings Mr Hogan toiled day and night at his work, till he submitted to the artists in whose presence the challenge had been offered, the result of his labours—his statue of the Drunken Faun—a work which the great Thorwaldsen pronounced a miracle of art, and which, if Hogan had never produced another, would have been alone sufficient to immortalize his name. It is to be regretted that this figure, which has all the beauty and truth of the antique sculpture, combined with the most perfect originality, and which Mr Hogan himself has recently expressed his conviction that it is beyond his power to excel, should never have been executed in marble; but a cast of it, presented by Lord de Tabley to the Royal Irish Institution (though intended by Mr Hogan for the Dublin Society), may still be seen in their deserted hall.

We have given these, as we trust, not uninteresting details of Mr Hogan’s early life, at greater length than the limits assigned to our article can well allow, and we must notice his subsequent career in briefer terms. Though enrolled now among the resident sculptors in Rome, his difficulties were not yet over; and in spite of the most enthusiastic efforts on his part, they might and probably would have been ineffectual in sustaining him, if no friendly aid had come to his assistance. In two years after his arrival in Rome, or at the end of the year 1825, Hogan found himself again in a state of embarrassment, without a commission, his funds exhausted, or at least reduced to a state inadequate to the necessary outlay of a sculptor in the purchase of marble, the rent of a studio, and the payment of living models. For his extrication from these difficulties he was again indebted to the liberality of Lord de Tabley and the zeal of his advocate Mr Carey, by whom a second subscription was collected, chiefly in England, amounting to one hundred and fifty pounds; of which sum twenty-five pounds was contributed by Lord de Tabley in the first instance, and twenty-five pounds by the Royal Irish Institution. Trifling as this amount was, it proved sufficient for its object, and Mr Hogan was never again necessitated to receive pecuniary assistance from the public.

He applied himself forthwith to the production of a marble figure intended for his friend and former master Sir Thomas Deane, but which when finished his necessities obliged him to dispose of to the present Lord Powerscourt, and for which he received one hundred pounds, being barely the cost of the marble and roughing out or boasting. This statue, which is about half the size of life, is now preserved in Powerscourt House; and we may remark, that it is the only work of our countryman in the possession of an Irish nobleman. His next important work was the exquisite statue of the Dead Christ, now placed beneath the altar of the Roman Catholic church in Clarendon Street. This work was originally ordered for a chapel in Cork by the Rev. Mr O’Keeffe; but that gentleman, on its arrival in Dublin, not being able to raise the funds required for its payment, permitted Mr Hogan to dispose of it to the clergymen of Clarendon Street, who paid for it the sum originally stipulated, namely, four hundred and fifty pounds; and we need scarcely add, that this statue is one of the most interesting objects of art adorning our metropolitan city. Mr Hogan subsequently executed a duplicate of this statue, but with some changes in the design, for the city of Cork; but we regret to have to add that he has been as yet but very inadequately rewarded for his labours on that work, a sum of two hundred and thirty-seven pounds being still due him, and the amount which he has actually received (two hundred pounds) being barely the cost of the marble and rough workmanship.

The execution of this statue was followed by that of a large sepulchral monument in basso relievo to the memory of the late Dr Collins, Roman Catholic Bishop of Cloyne—a figure of Religion holding in her lap a medallion portrait of the bishop. For this work Mr Hogan was to have received two hundred pounds, but there is still a balance of thirty pounds due to him.

We next find Mr Hogan engaged on a second work for our city—the Pieta , or figures of the Virgin and the Redeemer, of colossal size, executed in plaster for the Rev. Dr Flanagan, Roman Catholic Rector of the chapel in Francis Street, which it now adorns. Of this work, an engraving, with a masterly description and eulogium from the pen of the Marchese Melchiori, a great authority in matters of critical taste in the fine arts, has been published in the Ape Italiana —a work of the highest authority, published monthly in Rome; and we should state for the honour of our country, that our own Hogan and the sculptor Gibson are the only British artists whose works have as yet found a place in it.

Mr Hogan’s subsequent works, exclusive of a number of busts, may now be briefly enumerated. First, a marble figure of the late Archbishop of Paris, about two and a half feet high, executed for the Lord de Clifford; second, the Judgment of Paris—two figures in marble about the same height as the last—for General Sir James Riall, an Irish baronet resident in Bath; third, a monumental alto relievo to the memory of Miss Farrell of Dublin, executed for her mother, and considered by Gibson as the best of all our sculptor’s works; fourth, a Genio on a sarcophagus, a monument for the family of the late Mr Murphy of Cork; and, lastly, the Monument to Dr Doyle, on which we have now to utter a few remarks.

Of the general design of this noble monument our prefixed illustration will afford a tolerably correct idea; but it would [Pg 196] require more than one illustration of this kind to convey an adequate notion of its various beauties and merits, for there is scarcely a point in which it can be viewed in which it is not equally effective and striking. The subject, as a sculptural one should be, is of the most extreme simplicity, and yet of the most impressive interest—a Christian prelate in the act of offering up a last appeal to heaven for the regeneration of his country, which is personified by a beautiful female figure, who is represented in an attitude of dejection at his side. In this combination of the real and the allegorical there is nothing obscure or unintelligible even to the most illiterate mind. In the figure of the prostrate female we recognise at a glance the attributes of our country, and there existed no necessity for the name “Erin,” inserted in very questionable taste upon her zone, to determine her character. She is represented as resting on one knee, her body bent and humbled, yet in her majestic form retaining a fullness of beauty and dignity of character; her turret-crowned head resting on one arm, while the other, with an expression of melancholy abandonment, reclines on and sustains her ancient harp. In the male figure which stands beside her in an attitude of the most unaffected grace and dignity, we see a personification of the sublime in the Episcopal character. He stands erect, his enthusiastic and deeply intellectual countenance directed upwards imploringly, while with one hand he touches with delicate affection his earthly mistress, and with the other, stretched forth with passionate devotion, he appeals to heaven for her protection. This is true and enduring poetry; and, as expressive of the sentiment of religious patriotism unalloyed by any selfish consideration, is far superior to the thought which Moore has so exquisitely expressed in the well-known lines—

Such is the touching poetical sentiment embodied in this work, which, considered merely as a work of art, has merits above all praise. In the beauty of its forms, its classical purity of design, its simplicity and freedom from affectation or mannerism, its exquisite finish and characteristic execution, and its pervading grace, truth, and naturalness, it is beyond question the finest production of art in monumental sculpture that Irish genius has hitherto achieved; and, taken all and all, is, as we honestly believe, without a rival in any work of the same class in the British empire.

We regret to have to state that Mr Hogan is, as we are informed, as yet unpaid for this great national work, or that at least there is more than a moiety of the sum agreed for, which was one thousand pounds, remaining due to him. But surely his country, which has the deepest interest in sustaining him in his career of glory, will not suffer him to depart from her shores without fulfilling her part of a compact with one who has so nobly completed his. We cannot believe it.

It will be seen by a retrospective glance at the details which we have given of Mr Hogan’s labours during the past seventeen years in which he has been toiling as a professional artist, that those labours have been any thing but commensurately rewarded; they have indeed been barely sufficient to enable him to sustain existence. But brighter prospects are opening upon him for the future. His character as a sculptor is now established beyond the possibility of controversy. His merits have been recently recognised and honoured by the highest tribunal in the City of the Arts with a tribute of approbation never before bestowed on a native of the British Isles: he has been elected unanimously, and without any solicitation or anticipation on his part, a member of the oldest Academy of the Fine Arts in Europe—that which enrolled amongst its members the divine Raphael, and all the other illustrious artists of the age of Leo, and which holds its meetings upon their graves—the Academy of the Virtuosi del Pantheon. His fellow-countrymen are also beginning to have a just appreciation of his merits, and are coming forward nobly to supply him with employment for future years; and when he returns to his Roman studio, it will be to labour on works worthy of his country’s liberality, and calculated to raise her fame amongst the civilized nations of the world. Need we add, that he has our most ardent wishes for his future success and happiness!

P.

ON ANIMAL TAMING.

FIRST ARTICLE.

That all animals, however fierce and ungovernable may be their natural dispositions, have nevertheless implanted by a wise Providence within their breasts a certain awe, a vague, indefinable dread of man, which, although meeting with him for the first time, will induce them to fly his presence, or at all events shun encounter, is, we think, a fact which no observer of nature will deny. This instinct of submission to human beings exists among all creatures, and the greater the intelligence they possess, the more powerful is its operation. When we meet with instances of a nature calculated to overturn this theory—such as wild animals attacking and destroying travellers, or preying upon the shepherd as he guards his flock, with others of a similar description—instead of hastily presuming upon the falsity of the above position, we should rather seek for some explanation of the reasons which in these cases checked for the time the workings of the animal’s natural instinct. These will be for the most part easily enough discovered, if sought for in a spirit of impartial inquiry. The lion and the tiger are prompted by natural instinct to shun the haunts and the presence of man—they choose for their lairs dark and impenetrable forests—they select for their habitation a situation whither man has not as yet approached—and according as the work of settlement and cultivation advances, they retreat before it into their dark and gloomy fastnesses.

Does the traveller encounter a lion or a tiger? The animal is prompted by nature to give place to him, and usually slinks off, growling with the thirst for blood, but still fearing to attack MAN . The shouts of women and children suffice to scare the fierce and rapacious wolves, as they descend in troops from the mountains to appease their hunger with victims from the flocks of the shepherds. The bear meets with the bold hunter or woodcutter in the American backwoods, but is never known to attack him, unless the instinct of submission to man is overruled by other instincts for the time more imperative in their demands. True, if the lion be hungry when the traveller shall cross his path, he will sometimes, though such instances are of rare occurrence, attack and devour him. True, if the wolves are unable to satisfy their appetite by other means, they will attack and devour human beings; and if the bear be likewise rendered furious by the calls of hunger, she will treat the woodsman with little ceremony. Still these instances only show that hunger overcomes fear—an explanation which no one can refuse to admit. What indeed will not the gnawings of hunger effect? Has it not caused fathers to butcher their sons, mothers to devour the infant at their breast? When capable, then, of overcoming the most powerful of instincts, maternal affection, and that too in the teeth of reason, how can we wonder at its overcoming an inferior instinct, and that in a brute animal where there existed nothing to be overcome beyond that instinct? I might write a vast deal upon this subject; but my object is merely to show, at starting, that an instinctive awe of man, and a disposition to yield to his authority, is inherent in the lower animals. This, then, being the case, it will readily be perceived that the domestication of any animal by man only requires that he should carefully remove all obstacles to the operation of this instinctive principle; and on the other hand, employ suitable means to strengthen and establish it. There are, doubtless, but few of my readers who have not witnessed the performances of Van Amburgh, and likewise those of Van Buren with Batty’s collection. They have, I am sure, been greatly astonished at the degree of subjection to which these wild animals were reduced, and they are doubtless curious to learn how this end was attained. As I happened to make myself acquainted with the mode in which the subjection of these fierce brutes was effected, I am happy to be able to render them some information. The treatment was simple enough. It consisted mainly of two ingredients—1st, ample feeding, in order that the instinct of appetite should not present itself in opposition to that of dread [Pg 197] of man; and, 2d, liberal chastisement and severe blows on the slightest appearance of rebellion, in order to strengthen and firmly establish their awe of him.

I myself have devoted a good deal of time to the domestication of animals, and by following out the two principles just laid down, I found myself invariably successful. The polecat, although of inconsiderable size, is an animal of infinitely greater fierceness than the tiger; yet I had one so thoroughly domesticated that it was permitted to enjoy perfect liberty. I succeeded equally with the fox, the badger, and the otter , as a paper which recently appeared in the Penny Journal was designed to show. In fact, I should say that mere fierceness is but a very slight obstacle to domestication— timidity is much harder to be overcome. The timid races of animals require a mode of treatment directly opposed to the above. They require to have their dread of man diminished, and their boldness encouraged. If you wish to tame a very timid animal, instead of supplying it with food you must let it fast, in order to render it so bold with hunger that it will eat in your presence and from your hand. If you can get its confidence raised to such a degree that it will bite you or attempt to do so, so much the better—those little vices will afterwards be easily eradicated. I have succeeded in familiarizing the most timid creatures—the rat and the mouse, for instance. The public has already had an account of how I succeeded with the former of these animals in the pages of the “Medical Press” and “Naturalist.” Some of these days I shall give a paper on the latter in the Penny Journal.

Van Amburgh has done much with his animals; but in consequence of exhibiting with specimens not as yet perfectly subdued, he has met with some severe accidents. More caution and less haste would have prevented these. One of the principal ingredients that should enter into the composition of an animal tamer, is COURAGE . If the animal you are endeavouring to domesticate perceive that you fear it—and animals are instinctively sharp-sighted—from that instant all chance of control ceases. You must be prepared to endure bites, scratches, &c. with, at all events apparent, recklessness, and should never suffer any thing to delay your chastisement: the severer it is, the less frequently will you have to repeat it. Van Amburgh possesses this ingredient in an eminent degree. I once saw him exhibiting with his superb Barbary lion, since dead; as he left the cage, the animal rushed at him, and succeeded in inflicting a sharp scratch upon his hand. Now, had Van Amburgh displayed fear, or in short acted otherwise than he did, his reign had been over, and the lion would in all probability have renewed his attack the next opportunity, and have killed him. But what did he do? He returned into the cage, and advancing sternly and undauntedly towards the lion, saluted him with a shower of blows over the head and face, with the small iron rod which he always carried with him. And mark the result. The brute at once yielded, quailed before his master, who, planting a foot upon the prostrate body of his late assailant, coolly wiped the blood from his hand, amidst the deafening plaudits of the spectators, who had witnessed the appalling scene with feelings more easily imagined than described.

There is another description of animal taming, which I must not omit to mention, viz, by charms or drugs. There were, and are indeed still to be met with, although more rarely than formerly, persons who profess to be able, by some secret spell or charm, to tame the fiercest horse, or calm the fury of the most ferocious watch-dog. There are also persons who follow the trade of rat-catching, and pretend that by means of certain drugs they can entice away all the rats from the premises to which they are called in to exercise their skill. There are also a set of men in India and Persia who profess to charm serpents, and draw them from their holes. Of these last it is not at present my design to speak. I may, however, return to them in a future paper.

The first of these, or those who pretend to possess the power of quelling the spirit of the horse, or appeasing the vigilant fury of the dog, are now but few in number, and very seldom to be met with. They abounded more in Ireland than they did in the sister kingdom, and were called “whisperers.” Perhaps the best mode in which I can bring them and their practices before my readers, is by giving them an account of the last and most celebrated whisperer that we recollect. His name was James Sullivan, and he possessed the power of taming the most furious horse, if left alone with him for about half an hour. The name of this singular man is recorded by Townsend in his “Survey of the County of Cork,” and we shall quote his account of Sullivan’s performances, to which he states himself to have been an eye-witness:—

“James Sullivan was a native of the county of Cork, and an awkward ignorant rustic of the lowest class, generally known by the appellation of ‘the Whisperer;’ and his profession was horse-breaking. The credulity of the vulgar bestowed that epithet upon him from an opinion that he communicated his wishes to the animal by means of a whisper, and the singularity of his method gave some colour to the superstitious belief. As far as the sphere of his control extended, the boast of veni, vidi, vici , was more justly claimed by James Sullivan than by Cæsar, or even Bonaparte himself. How his art was acquired, or in what it consisted, is likely to remain for ever unknown, as he has lately left the world without divulging it. His son, who follows the same occupation, possesses but a small portion of the art, having either never learned its true secret, or being incapable of putting it in practice. The wonder of his skill consisted in the short time requisite to accomplish his design, which was performed in private, and without any apparent means of coercion. Every description of horse, or even mule, whether previously broke, or unhandled, whatever their peculiar vices or ill habits might have been, submitted without show of resistance to the magical influence of his art, and in the short space of half an hour became gentle and tractable. The effect, though instantaneously produced, was generally durable; though more submissive to him than to others, yet they seemed to have acquired a docility unknown before. When sent for to tame a vicious horse, he directed the stable in which he and the object of his experiment were placed, to be shut, with orders not to open the door until a signal was given. After a tete-a-tete between him and the horse for about half an hour, during which little or no bustle was heard, the signal was made; and on opening the door, the horse was seen lying down, and the man by his side, playing familiarly with him, like a child with a puppy dog. From that time he was found perfectly willing to submit to discipline, however repugnant to his nature before. Some saw his skill tried on a horse which could never before be brought to stand for a smith to shoe him. The day after Sullivan’s half-hour lecture, I went, not without some incredulity, to the smith’s shop, with many other curious spectators, where we were eye-witnesses of the complete success of his art. This, too, had been a troop horse, and it was supposed, not without reason, that after regimental discipline had failed, no other would be found availing. I observed that the animal seemed afraid whenever Sullivan either spoke or looked at him. How that extraordinary ascendancy could have been obtained, it is difficult to conjecture. In common cases this mysterious preparation was unnecessary. He seemed to possess an instinctive power of inspiring awe, the result perhaps of natural intrepidity, in which I believe a great part of his art consisted; though the circumstance of the tete-a-tete shows that upon particular occasions something more must have been added to it. A faculty like this would in other hands have made a fortune, and great offers have been made to him for the exercise of his art abroad; but hunting, and attachment to his native soil, were his ruling passions. He lived at home in the style most agreeable to his disposition, and nothing could induce him to quit Dunhallow and the foxhounds.” Other whisperers have lived since Sullivan, but none of them have attained an equal degree of fame. I met with one some years ago of the name of O’Hara, and I can truly affirm that his performances were indeed wonderful, and precisely similar to those of Sullivan. How O’Hara discovered the secret, I know not; neither am I sure that it was identical with that possessed by Sullivan. On one occasion, while under the influence of liquor, O’Hara was heard to declare that the secret lay in rocking the horse; but on another, when equally tipsy, he mentioned biting the animal’s ear. It is already I believe known to those acquainted with horses, that by grasping the shoulder with one hand just where the mane begins, and laying the other with firmness upon the crupper, and then swaying the animal backwards and forwards, beginning with a very gentle motion and gradually increasing it, you will in a few minutes be able to throw the horse on his side with a comparatively trifling degree of exertion; and it is certain that this treatment is frequently resorted to by knowing jockeys to break the spirit of a stubborn horse; for after having been thrown twice, or at most thrice, the spirit of the animal seems wholly subdued, and he appears possessed with the most unqualified respect and dread of the person who threw him. This was in all probability what O’Hara meant [Pg 198] by rocking , and I have little doubt but that this was one of the component parts, at all events, of the treatment resorted to by the whisperers. As to biting the ear , I have seen this tried, and that successfully. If you succeed in getting the ear of the most vicious horse between your teeth, and bite it with all your force, you will find the rage of the animal suddenly subside, his spirit will appear to have forsaken him, and a word or a look from you will cause him to start and tremble with excess of terror. Once the ferocity of an animal is removed, it is an easy matter to conciliate his affections. May not these two modes of treatment combined, or one or the other, as the occasion seemed to require, have constituted the secret of the wonder-working whisperers? The suggestion is at least plausible, and the experiment should be fully tried ere it be rejected.

In an article which appeared lately on the subject of animal taming in the Times newspaper, mention is made of Mr King, owner of the “learned horse” at present exhibiting in London. This person states that his secret depends upon pressing a certain nerve in the horse’s mouth, which he calls the “nerve of susceptibility.” May not the set of whispering have likewise depended upon compressing with the teeth some similar nerve in the ear?

H. D. R.

RELICS.
BY J. U. U.

“Raphael was buried in the Pantheon (Sta. Maria della Rotunda), in a chapel which he had himself endowed, and near the place where his betrothed bride had been laid. The immediate neighbourhood was afterwards selected by other painters as their place of rest. Baldassane Peruzzi, Giovanni da Udine, Pierino del Vaga, Taddeo Zuccaro, and others, are buried near. No question had ever existed as to the precise spot where the remains of the master lay; but a few years since the Roman antiquaries began to raise doubts even respecting the church in which Raphael was buried. In the end, permission was obtained to make actual search; and Vasari’s account was in this instance verified. The tomb was found as he describes it, behind the altar itself of the chapel above mentioned. Four views of the tomb and its contents were engraved from drawings by Cammucini, and thus preserve the appearance that presented itself. The shroud had been fastened with a number of metal rings and points; some of these were kept by the sculptor Fabrio of Rome, who is also in possession of casts from the skull and right hand. Passavant remarks, judging from the cast, that the skull was of a singularly fine form. The bones of the hand were all perfect, but they crumbled into dust after the mould was taken. The skeleton measured about five feet seven inches. The coffin was extremely narrow, indicating a very slender frame. The precious relics were ultimately restored to the same spot, after being placed in a magnificent sarcophagus, presented by the present Pope.”— Quarterly Review.

ON THE POWER OF FLUIDS.

That weight is a property of liquids, has been acknowledged by the earliest observers; but the amount of that weight, its mode of acting, and application to practice, have been left for recent times to discover. A pint of water weighs somewhat more than a pound avoirdupois; and one unacquainted with the facts in hydrostatics might deem it of little consequence what shape the vessel that contained it might be, or what the disposition and length of the column of water—for, after all, what is it but a pound of water? No idea can be more erroneous. Under most circumstances, it is not so much the quantity of the fluid as the manner in which its particles are disposed, that determines its weight; and what may appear still more extraordinary, a small quantity of fluid may be made to balance, that is, to be of the same apparent weight as, a very large quantity. This may be proved by taking a pair of scales, putting a tumbler full of water into one dish, and balancing it by weights in the other, then inverting a smaller glass and immersing it in the tumbler, having the glass perfectly supported in the hand to prevent it touching the sides or bottom; a portion of the water will now flow over the sides of the tumbler—say one-half—yet the scales are still balanced; one-half of the water is of the same weight apparently as the whole. A piece of wood may be used instead of the glass with the same result, and it may be of a size nearly to fill the cavity of the tumbler; yet if the remaining water, which may amount to no more than a couple of spoonfuls, rise to the same level as it did when full, it will exactly balance the weights. This cannot be accounted for by saying that the wood or the glass was equal to the water displaced, for if we use lead, which is much heavier, or cork, and even card, which are much lighter, we shall meet with no difference. This property belongs to the water; and as the only constant fact was the same height of the fluid, to it must the explanation be referred; and we thus arrive at a first principle, a law in hydrostatics—that the pressure, or weight considered as a power, of any fluid, is not in proportion to its quantity, but to its depth.

Aware of this principle, if we wish to use water as a power, we can economize it wonderfully, exerting a great pressure with a small quantity. If we take a small wooden box, water-tight, bore a hole in it, and fill it with water, adapt a long narrow tube to the hole, and fill it up with water, the box will now be burst, and that by the very small quantity contained in the tube. This tube may be a yard long, and very narrow in diameter, not holding more than two ounces of fluid, yet the pressure, being always in proportion to its depth, is the same as if it had been as broad as the box. This pressure amounts to nearly one pound on the square inch for every two feet of water. In the deepest parts of the ocean the pressure must be exceedingly great, so much so that it is probable they are uninhabitable, the pressure being too great for the existence of fishes. This pressure, together with the total absence of light at great depths, renders the existence of vegetable life also a doubtful matter. There is a certain depth beyond which divers cannot go, owing to the pressure of water on the surface of their chests being greater than the resistance of air inside, respiration being thereby impeded.

A pipe a yard long, and acting on a yard square of fluid, will give a pressure equal to the weight of fifteen cwt. if we use water. Should we use quicksilver, the power of a ton weight may be obtained within the space of a square foot in breadth, by a tube somewhat less than three feet long, and not larger than a common goose quill—the pressure per square inch in these cases depending on the height of the column of fluid.

We can now understand what extensive and sometimes irremediable injury may arise from the collection of a small but lofty column of water, opening into a wide but confined space below. This sometimes occurs when water gets into a narrow chink between buildings, and, finding its way down, opens finally into some cavity under the floor. The pressure exerted here is immense, and there are few bodies able to resist it. It is owing to this that the pipes for conveying water are burst, on account of the pressure exerted on the insides of the pipes; and this occurs the more frequently, the higher the source from which they are filled. In practice, every vessel containing liquid should increase in strength in proportion to its depth. We have no doubt that a process similar to this takes place on the large scale in nature, which is capable of uprooting trees, rending rocks, producing earthquakes; for if we suppose that some collections of water on the surface of a hill have found their way down through crevices into a cavity in the body of the mountain which has no external opening, as long as this cavity remains unfilled no evil arises, but when it and the crevices also are completely filled, the pressure exercised here is so immense, that even the sides of the hill cannot withstand it. Perhaps this occurrence has not been sufficiently noticed in explaining natural phenomena. It is usual to consider earthquakes and volcanoes as solely the result of chemical action, excluding entirely physical agency.

The pressure of water may be rendered visible by blowing through a tube under water into a tall glass jar. The bubble of air, small at the bottom, as it rises, gradually enlarges from the diminution of the pressure.

The hydrostatic bellows, formed upon this principle, consists of nothing more than a water-tight bellows, with a long pipe fixed into the valve aperture. If this pipe be three feet long, and hold a quarter of a pint of fluid, it will exert a pressure sufficient to raise three cwt. laid upon a bellows, the area of the upper side of which is equal to about a square foot and a half. Many are the uses to which this principle might be applied in the several arts.

Bramah’s Press is almost the only machine which has been extensively used. By its means solid bars of iron can be cut through with ease. Hay and cotton have been compressed by its means into a very small compass. In the East Indies, where water-power is used, bales of cotton are compressed into one-half the size of those from the West Indies. By its means power may be multiplied, or rather concentrated, a thousand-fold. As commonly made, a man working it may, by using the same force that would raise half a cwt., apply a force amounting to twenty tons to the work in hand; and by varying the proportions of the machine, pressure might be brought to bear upon any body which would be perfectly irresistible.

There is, however, in reality, be it distinctly understood, no power absolutely gained; but the man’s force is concentrated , as for instance in compressing the bale of cotton, to an extent which, if the ordinary mechanical powers of the lever or screw were employed, would require the aid of ponderous machinery.

Mr Bramah was therefore greatly mistaken when he published it as the discovery of a new mechanical power: but he invented a beautiful and most effective means of simply accumulating a prodigious force by the very simple means of the hydrostatic pressure of fluids.

Hydraulic or Bramah presses are applied in New York and other American ports for the purpose of raising large vessels on strong wooden platforms out of the water, for effecting repairs, &c. They are also employed in removing houses—some of them brick, and three stories high—from one part of a street to another. In this case strong wooden beams, like the ways used in ship-launching, are placed under the house, and in the direction of the intended site, and hydraulic presses are then employed for pushing the house along, with prodigious force, and so gradually and gently as [Pg 200] not even to crack the plaster of a room ceiling. By the same means the roof of a large cotton factory near Aberdeen was raised entire , and an additional story added to the building, without displacing a single slate! In this instance the roof was lifted gradually about four inches at a time, progressing from end to end of the building, the height of the walls being increased by a single row of bricks at a time.

Such are a few of the results of a single principle, a rule to which there is no exception, which holds equally good in the organic as in the inorganic world. Even the blood-vessels of the body are subject to this law—the sides of all vessels below the level of the heart enduring an additional outward pressure of half an ounce for every inch in height, which at the toes would amount to somewhere about two pounds. When a person stands erect in a bath, the pressure on all parts of the body is not equal; it is greater upon the legs than upon the trunk; the former are pressed upward, and hence in part the difficulty experienced in standing upon the bottom in deep water.

T. A.

Disagreeable People. —Some persons are of so teazing and fidgetty a turn of mind, that they do not give you a moment’s rest. Everything goes wrong with them. They complain of a headache or the weather. They take up a book, and lay it down again—venture an opinion, and retract it before they have half done—offer to serve you, and prevent some one else from doing it. If you dine with them at a tavern, in order to be more at your ease, the fish is too little done—the sauce is not the right one; they ask for a sort of wine which they think is not to be had, or if it is, after some trouble, procured, do not touch it; they give the waiter fifty contradictory orders, and are restless and sit on thorns the whole of dinner time. All this is owing to a want of robust health, and of a strong spirit of enjoyment; it is a fastidious habit of mind, produced by a valetudinary habit of body: they are out of sorts with everything, and of course their ill-humour and captiousness communicates itself to you, who are as little delighted with them as they are with other things. Another sort of people, equally objectionable with this helpless class, who are disconcerted by a shower of heaven’s rain, or stopped by an insect’s wing, are those who, in the opposite spirit, will have every thing their own way, and carry all before them—who cannot brook the slightest shadow of opposition—who are always in the heat of an argument, unless where they disdain your understanding so much as not to condescend to argue with you—who knit their brows and roll their eyes and clench their teeth in some speculative discussion, as if they were engaged in a personal quarrel—and who, though successful over almost every competitor, seem still to resent the very offer of resistance to their supposed authority, and are as angry as if they had sustained some premeditated injury. There is an impatience of temper and an intolerance of opinion in this that conciliates neither our affection nor esteem. To such persons nothing appears of any moment but the indulgence of a domineering intellectual superiority, to the disregard and discomfiture of their own and everybody else’s comfort. Mounted on an abstract proposition, they trample on every courtesy and decency of behaviour; and though, perhaps, they do not intend the gross personalities they are guilty of, yet they cannot be acquitted of a want of due consideration for others, and of an intolerable egotism in the support of truth and justice. You may hear one of these impetuous declaimers pleading the cause of humanity in a voice of thunder, or expatiating on the beauty of a Guido, with features distorted with rage and scorn. This is not a very amiable or edifying spectacle.— Hazlitt’s Table-Talk.

Necessity of a Thorough Education. —Good education being a preparation for social life, necessarily embraces the whole man—body, head, and heart—for in social life the whole man is necessarily called into exertion in one way or another almost every hour. But this is not sufficient. There must be no preponderance, as well as no exclusion; a limited or biassed education produces monsters. Some are satisfied with the cultivation of a single faculty—some with the partial cultivation of each. A child is trained up to working; he is hammered into a hardy laborer—a stout material for the physical bone and muscle of the state. This is good, so far as it goes; but it is bad, because it goes no farther. He is not taught reading; he is not taught religion; above all, he is not taught thinking. He never looks into his other self; he soon forgets its existence; the man becomes all body; his intellectual and moral being lies fallow. The growth of such a system will be a sturdy race of machines—delvers and soldiers, but not men: so much brute physical energy swinging loosely through society at the discretion of those more spiritual natures to whom their education, neglected or perverted in another way, gives wickedness with power, and teaches the secrets of mind only as instruments to crush or bend men for their own selfish purposes. Others educate the intellectual and moral being only; the physical, once the building is raised, like an idle scaffolding, is cast by. But the omission is injurious—often fatal: malady is laid up, in all its thousand forms, in the infant and the child. It spreads out upon the man. When his spirit is in the flush of its strength, and his moral rivals his intellectual nature in compass and power, then it is that the despised portion of his being rises up and avenges itself for this contempt. The studious man feels, as he walks down life, a thousand minute retaliations for the prodigal waste of his youthful vigour. The body bows down beneath the burden of the mind; it wears gradually away into weakness and incompetency; clouds of sickness, pangs of pain, obscure, distort, weigh it to the earth. Health is not a thing of organization only, but of training; it is to be laid up bit by bit. We are to be made healthy—tutored and practised into health. Omit health in favour of the intellectual and moral faculties, and you provide instruments, it is true, for mind, but instruments which, when wanted, cannot be used. Intellectual and moral education may rank before physical, but they are not more essential; the physical powers are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water for the spiritual. The base of the column is in the earth; but, without it, neither could the shaft stand firm above it, nor the capital ascend to the sky.— Wyse on Education.

Home. —The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendour cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate. Those soft intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises which he feels in privacy to be useless incumbrances, and to lose all effect when they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution. It is indeed at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honour and fictitious benevolence.— Johnson.

If it were enacted that only persons of high rank should dine upon three dishes, the lower sort would desire to have three; but if commoners were permitted to have as many dishes as they pleased, whilst the nobility were limited to two, the inferior sort would not exceed that number. An order to abolish the wearing of jewels has set a whole country in an uproar; but if the order had only prohibited earrings to ladies of the first quality, other women would not have desired to wear them.— The Reflector.

The very consciousness of being beloved by the object of our attachment, will disarm of its terrors even death itself.— D’Israeli.

The petty sovereign of an insignificant tribe of North America every morning stalks out of his hovel, bids the sun good morrow, and points out to him with his finger the course he is to take for the day.

Love labour; if you do not want it for food, you may for physic.

Industry often prevents what lazy folly thinks inevitable. Industry argues an ingenuous, great, and generous disposition of soul, by unweariedly pursuing things in the fairest light, and disdains to enjoy the fruit of other men’s labours without deserving it.

He who lies under the dominion of any one vice must expect the common effects of it. If lazy, to be poor; if intemperate, to be diseased; if luxurious, to die betimes, &c.

With discretion the vicious preserve their honour, and without it the virtuous lose it.

A good conscience is the finest opiate.— Knox.