ber, and the time required for the drying of the currants is from a fortnight to three weeks, according to the state of the weather. If a heavy shower or a thunder-storm should occur during this interval, (which is not unfrequently the case,) the drying is not only retarded, but is often superseded by fermentation; in which case the fruit is fit only to be given to animals. When the currants are deposited in the seraglio or warehouse, a paper is given to the grower by the seragliente or warehousekeeper, acknowledging the receipt of the quantity delivered; this paper passes currently in exchange from hand to hand till the time of export.

Mr. Macculloch gives many details, which tend to show how oppressive have been the enactments relating to the currant trade, in the Ionian Islands, both when they were under Venetian government, and since they have been placed under British protection. Under the control of the Venetian authorities, five persons, chosen out of the council of nobles, assembled in presence of the proveditore, or governor, regulated the price at which currants should be sold; and those who wished to purchase were under the necessity of declaring to the Government the quantity which they were desirous of purchasing. This system was called the collegetto. The export duties consisted of an original duty of nine per cent. ad valorem, that is, nine per cent. on the value of the currants; a dazio fisso, or fixed duty of about four shillings and four-pence per hundredweight; and afterwards of a novissimo, or more recent duty, of two shillings and two-pence per hundredweight. This latter portion This latter portion of duty was remitted in favour of vessels bringing saltfish, &c., from the northern ports, (chiefly English, Danes, and Dutch;) and it was afterwards relaxed in favour of Russian vessels from Odessa, and ultimately abandoned altogether as being vexatious and unproductive. The proveditore received in addition two per cent., and each of his two Venetian councillors one per cent.; so that the fruit, the original cost of which was about nine shillings the hundredweight, cost the exporter very little less than eighteen or nineteen shillings.

But these duties are small, compared with those which the consumers of currants in England have paid since the Ionian Islands came under British rule. The fruit, which at one time brought as much as thirty or thirtytwo shillings the hundredweight, had declined in 1832 to eight shillings; but it remained still subject to the Zantiote dazio fisso, or fixed duty, of four shillings and four-pence, besides an ad valorem duty of six per cent., being together equivalent to a duty of nearly sixty per cent. at that time. Thus much for the Zantiote duties. Meanwhile the British parliament raised the import duties, payable when the currants arrived in England, to the enormous amount of forty-four shillings and fourpence per hundredweight, being five times as much as the real value of the currants at that time. The consequences of this most unreasonable duty were soon found to be most disastrous to the currant growers of the Ionian Islands. A decline took place in the culture of the plant, as well as in the circumstances of the proprietors, whose staple export and means of existence were almost annihilated. As the prices fell, and the distress became greater, the necessitous grower was obliged to borrow money at a ruinous interest from foreign merchants, or from the Jews, who were consequently able to dictate the price at which they would take his produce. Still, however, notwithstanding the largeness of the duties, the entries of currants for home consumption amounted, at an average of the years 1829, 1830, and 1831, to nearly a hundred and thirty thousand hundredweight per year, producing a revenue which amounted to nearly three hundred thousand pounds sterling, a fact which has often been adduced to show that the taste for this kind of fruit is both deeply rooted and widely diffused in England.

The British parliament, finding, from the complaints

of the merchants and growers, how injurious the high duties were to this branch of culture, adopted a legislative enactment in the year 1833, by which the whole of the duties upon currants were commuted for an ad valorem tax of nineteen and a half per cent., being the same as that laid upon olive-oil, another important product of the Ionian Islands. The good effects of this enactment were manifested by an almost instantaneous rise in the price of the fruit which had remained on hand of the crop of 1832. It has been calculated that the average quantity of currants produced during the four years ending with 1832, was 19,686,800 lbs. per annum; of which 17,885,300 lbs. were exported from the Ionian Islands, and the remainder consumed by the islanders themselves.

The origin of the name currants, as applied to these diminutive grapes, may be pretty clearly seen by comparing the appellations given to them on the Continent. In Latin, they are Uva Corinthiacæ, or Passulæ Corinthiacæ; in French, Raisins de Corinthe; in Italian, Uve passe di Corinto; in Spanish, Pasas de Corinto; in German, Korinthen; in Russian, Korinka, Opoek. "Corinth" is evidently the source whence these appellations were derived.

or

HAD I not more confidence in the truth of my Saviour, than in the traditions of men, poverty might stagger my faith, and bring my thoughts into a perplexed purgatory. Wherein are the poor blessed, if pardon shall be purchased only by expense? Or how is it hard for a rich man to enter into future sins of himself, his deceased and succeeding progeny? Heaven, if money may buy out the past, present, and If Heaven be thus sold, what benefit has my poverty, by the price already paid? I find no happiness in room on earth. It is happiness for me to have room in Heaven. THERE is no estate of life so happy in this world, as to yield a Christian the perfection of content; and yet there is-no state of life so wretched in this world, but a Christian must be content with it. Though I can have nothing here that may give me true content, yet I will learn to be truly contented here with what I have. What care I though I have not much; I have as much as I desire, if I have as much as I want; I have as much as the most, if I have as much as I desire.

Ir is the greatest of all sins always to continue in sin. For where the custom of sinning waxeth greater, the conscience fire; I had rather break the cockatrice's egg, than kill the for sin grows the less: it is easier to quench a spark than a

serpent.

NATURE bids me love myself and hate all that hurt me, reason bids me love my friends and hate those that envy me, religion bids me love all and hate none. Nature sheweth care, reason wit, religion love. Nature may induce me, reason persuade me, but religion shall rule me. I will hearken to nature in much, to reason in more, to religion in all. Nature shall make me careful of myself, but hateful to none; reason shall make me wise for myself, but harmless to all; religion shall make me loving to all, but not careless of myself. I may hear the former, I will hearken only to the latter. I subscribe to some things in all, to all things in religion.

ABUNDANCE is a trouble, want a misery, honour a burthen baseness a scorn, advancements dangerous, disgrace odious. Only a competent estate yields the quiet of content. I will not climb, lest I fall, nor lie on the ground, lest I am trod is most healthful for my body, I would desire neither to I am safest while my legs bear me. A competent heat freeze nor to burn.

on.

[ARTHUR WARWICK. 1637.1

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ment would confer on art, but lamented that he could not find a head in Rome mechanical enough to comprehend the drawings.

Chantrey possessed a very choice cabinet of sculpture, antiques, medallions, &c. It was an appropriate and affecting, though unpremeditated circumstance, that his dead body lay, at the coroner's inquest, amidst many of the finest forms of the ancient sculptors, of which he had collected the best casts that could be procured.

The mortal remains of this celebrated sculptor were consigned to their resting place at Norton, on the 6th of December last. The funeral was numerously attended

by the gentry of Sheffield and its vicinity, as also by deputations from some of the public bodies of that town. The property of Sir Francis, with the exception of a few legacies, is settled upon Lady Chantrey for her life with a reversionary interest to the Royal Academy, in perpetuity, under trusteeship. Thus an annual sum (stated at about £2,500,) will be at the disposal of the president and council, not the full body of the Academy. This sum is to be expended in improving and enlarging the present mode of studying the arts, and for the purchase of the most valuable works of sculpture and painting, executed entirely within the shores of Great Britain. The council are allowed to purchase the works of deceased artists, such for example as the productions of Roubiliac, who had his studio in London, but they are Frohibited from purchasing the works of an English sculptor residing abroad, and, like Gibson, sending his works to this country for exhibition. Chantrey's love for native art and for the Royal Academy is further shown by the provision in his will from which it appears that should the time ever come when the Academy is deprived of royal patronage, and driven from its present building, or reduced in the number of its members, the president and council are, notwithstanding, still to have control of the Chantrey Fund, and to continue to purchase pictures and statues so long as the academicians are true to themselves, or while a limb of the original body is left. Should a self-overthrow occur, the power of nominating judges to rest with her Majesty's Ministers. It further appears that the trustees are prohibited from spending any part of the fund in the erection of any building beyond a temporary one for the reception of the works of art already purchased, and this prohibition is made in the hope, as Sir Francis expresses it, that the government of his country will erect a building worthy of the works which his money has procured and is every year procuring. The president to have a casting vote, and no recommendation but that of merit to prompt or control their decision.

To Mr. Allan Cunningham, who has for many years officiated as Sir Francis' secretary and manager of the financial department, he has bequeathed the sum of 2000/. with a proviso that Mr. Cunningham shall remain in the exercise of his duties until the close of the establishment. To Mr. Henry Weekes, who has long been his chief assistant, he has left 1000l. on condition that he will complete the works in progress at the time of the testator's decease. To the parish of Norton he has bequeathed, after the death of Lady Chantrey, 2007. yearly for so long as his tomb remains, to be applied in the following manner under the direction of the vicar or resident clergyman:-50l. a year to be paid to a schoolmaster, to instruct ten poor boys of the parish without expense to their parents; 107. a year to each of five poor men and five poor women either widows or single women; and the remaining 50l. a year to the vicar or resident clergyman to preserve his tomb. We cannot more appropriately conclude this notice than by quoting from the Quarterly Review for 1826, the eloquent elogium on Sir Francis Chantrey and his works, said to be from the pen of Mr. Allan Cunningham. England may justly be proud of Chantrey: his works reflect back her image as a mirror; he has formed his taste

on no style but that of nature, and no works of any age or country but his own can claim back any inspiration which they have lent him. He calls up no shapes from antiquity; he breathes in, is his; the beauty and the manliness which he gives us no established visions of the past; the moment live and move around him are his materials, and he embodies them for the gratification of posterity. He seems to work as if he were unconscious of any other rival but nature-the antique is before him, but he prefers flesh and blood, and it would certainly cost him far more labour to imitate the work of another school, than to create an image from the impulse of his own feeling. Robert Burns said, that the muse of his country found him as Elijah did Elisha, at the plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over him, and the same may be said of Chantrey :—it was in a secluded place, a nameless spot, into which art had never penetrated, that the inspiration of sculpture fell upon him: the desire of the art came over him before he knew to what toil he was tasking his spirit. Nature had taken possession of his heart and filled it with forms of English loveliness before he knew that the works of Greece existed; and to this we attribute his success and his fame. An air of freedom and ease-of vigour which comes not from the muscle but from the mind-of sentiment making action her auxiliary, and a look of life and reality are stamped on all his statues, busts and groups. He courts repose, he seems not averse to gentle action, but has never yet sought in violent motion for elements either of sadness or solemnity. We call this not only the true charmed the whole earth by working exactly in his spirit. but the classic sculpture of our country. The Greeks But the liberties which the Greeks took with their Olympus gave them advantage over modern sculptors. A Christian artist allows not his fancy to invade the sanctities of heaven; he presumes not to embody its shapes, he dares not define the presence of God. Our best sculpture is therefore of a grosser nature, less ethereal in form and less godlike in sentiment.

cal kind; he has kept the preserve of pure poetry for the The works of Chantrey are all of a domestic or historitime when his hand may have uninterrupted leisure, and the cares of providing for existence shall no longer have any right to interfere with fancy. His statues are numerous, and we like his sitting ones the best. Meditation and thought are at their freedom when the body is at rest; and though some of our poets have conceived and composed in the act of walking, we hold that a man who thinks seated who stands, let him think ever so stoutly. James Watt will always look more like a man in grave thought than one is still living as far as sculpture can prolong life; his perfect image meditating on the extraordinary power which man wields so easily and profitably is preserved to the world. The statue of Chief Baron Dundas is graceful and unaffected; that of Dr. Anderson is the literal and perfect image of the happy and benevolent old man; and that of Dr. Cyril Jackson must please all who knew the dean, or love flowing draperies and the memory of Christ Church walk. Of his erect figures Washington is our favourite; the hero of American independence seems the very personification of one wrapt up in thought,--a man of few words, of prompt deeds, with a mind and fortitude for all emergencies. Grattan is a being of another class, earnest, voluble, in motion more than any other of the artist's works, and yet with something both of dignity and serenity beyond what the orator possessed. Horner is anxious, apprehensive and mildly grave; you look, expecting him to speak. General Gillespie is a fine manly martial figure.

In all these works we admire a subordinate beautya decorous and prudent use of modern dress. All its characteristic vulgarities are softened down or concealed. There is no aggravation of tassels, no projection of buttons. Though we are conscious that there is no art used in hiding these deformities, the skill of the sculptor has contrived to conceal it in nature.

Our frontispiece will convey an idea of the beautiful statue of Lady Louisa Russell, the present Marchioness of Abercorn, already described in our previous notice, p. 67 of this volume.

A LARGE promise without performance is like a false fire to a great piece, which dischargeth a good expectation with a bad report. I will forethink what I will promise, that I may promise but what I will do. Thus whilst my words are led by my thoughts, and followed by my actions, I shall be careful in my promises, and just in their performance. I had rather do and not promise, than promise and not do.

SKETCHES OF IRISH MANNERS

AND CUSTOMS.

V.

THE people here have a curious notion that the seller obliges the buyer, and impress it upon their dealers. A man told the master, that "If he did not consider it a compliment, letting him have his hay, he should not have it," and many ridiculous instances of the same feeling, both to us and amongst themselves, are daily occurring.

Some women were in a shop busily weighing a small quantity of butter, less than a pound, with a young girl behind the counter; eightpence was asked, refused, then sevenpence-halfpenny; sevenpence was offered as the value of the weight: "D'ye think," said the girl, “I am "Oh going to make you a present of a halfpenny ?" well," replied the woman, "if you don't think it a compliment to get it I won't give it you at all;" and away she went in a great huff, with her modicum of butter, which was evidently brought because needles, or thread, or some small thing was wanting at home, and could only be got by the sale of the butter.

They never speak of selling their goods, but of giving them for so much, as if they had scarcely outgrown a system of barter. They have some strange notions about regularly selling their produce, which perhaps I hardly yet understand; but they appear to think it degrading. They either will not sell, or ask a price which no one will give, of course to their own loss and the general inconvenience; but when the rent-day arrives, or any sudden emergency occurs, they are obliged to turn their produce into money as fast as possible, and to bribe a purchaser by offering their things below the price they would readily have obtained at a regular free sale. We have frequently had a message to ask our honors to take so many perches of potatoes, "if we would be plazed to pay before they were dug up, as there was a sum of money to make out next day." The same man had hardly been persuaded to sell us a large quantity of potatoes a few weeks before.

The same feeling, of doing their customers a favour, makes them extremely indignant if any fault is found. I dare not go to my dairy woman, and represent the uneatable nastiness of her butter of late, because, I am very sure, that instead of the civil apology one would receive in England, I should be told that I need not have any more of it if I did not like it and the vicinity of the farm is a convenience which I do not wish to lose. There is a very tolerable shoemaker in the Glens, who might get on extremely well if he chose; but he keeps a very small job three or four weeks, and will not take the trouble of coming down the fifty yards of our drive though told at the gate that he is wanted, and in every possible way plagues his customers, and injures himself. As feathers show how the wind blow, so do these little instances show the character of the people, and give an idea of the extreme difficulty of doing any thing for them. They require a great deal of exciting on some points, and a great deal of soothing on others.

It appears to me that the class that would be day labourers all their lives in England, will here toil, starve, till they can get a morsel of land, with which they sit down in a semi-contented state, with very mistaken notions of their property and independence, having just enough for rags and potatoes, and no chance of more but by continued exertions, which are utterly distasteful to them. I am inclined to think that the surprising uselessness of the children is often owing to the strange pride of the parents not liking they should be hired out. I have seen many nice-looking girls dawdling away their days, who might earn their livelihood in service, and would probably soon become handy and valuable; and the demand for servants, and the lamentations over the extreme difficulty of getting any, and the badness of

such as are to be had, exceed even the English complaints on the same subject.

I think we have an exaggerated idea of Irish dirtiness: take class and class, I should say they are full as clean as our people. The faces and hands at church are infinitely cleaner than I ever saw in a rural or a free church congregation in England, and the whiteness of the caps, with their formidable chevaux de frize of double bordering, cannot be surpassed. The girls' hair is generally perfectly clean and neat, and the most beautiful pair of plaited nursery tails I have even seen hung from the head of a neat little snip of a girl at church a short time ago. I suppose she was somewhat vain of her luxuriant tresses, as the girls are generally ambitious of bonnets for Sunday wear. The housewives are as fond of a dresser well plenished with delf and jugs as in England, and seem pleased and proud when their store is admired. In their little beds, hangings, and bed linen, as far as I have been able to observe, they are extremely neat, marvellously so, when the smoky atmosphere of their cottages is considered.

One of their pet phrases is, "I am sure of it," said in a most oracular tone of voice, and often on matters on which one is certain they do not agree with the speaker, or on which they can know nothing. One instance gave me the benefit of a good laugh. We were horse or pony hunting, and having heard of a promising young animal, we set off to visit him. We were passed from town to town, like two vagrants, till at last we reached the place, and were told the horse was up the brae, but should be sent for: accordingly a man and horse started in quest of him, and after a long delay reappeared, driving the wild horse before them. Truly he was a promising fellow for saddle or harness, and resented every attempt at putting a saddle on his free back, by rearing, plunging, springing, kicking, launching out with all four feet at once-in short, playing the extraordinary pranks in which an Irish horse does so particularly excel. As his first caper quite satisfied me as to his merits, and I saw that the length and breadth of his chasées and enavants were not to be calculated, I thought it both prudent and agreeable to retreat into the door-way of a stone cottage adjacent. The good woman came forward, and invited me in so cordially that I could not decline, though longing to see the rest of the horse's antics. I found a wall, run up nearly the height of the side wall across the doorway, making a little entrancepassage, and completely screening the inside from weather and from curiosity. A small turf fire was burning lazily on one side of the room upon the stones of the floor, with nothing like a chimney for five or six feet: at about that height began a sort of a piece or fragment of a chimney, or like a large stone clock caseabout the same height, above which the smoke was left free to expatiate around the beams and rafters of the unceiled roof, till it suited its pleasure to issue from the chimney. A spinning wheel was in one corner; a sleek black cat with two kittens slumbered on a wooden chair in another corner: there was the griddle, and the keg, and the crock, and the great pot, and plates and cups,— another chair, on which I was entreated to rest,—a bench or settle, and in the corner of the next side from the house door was a door half open, through which I espied two very clean little beds, with large blue and white checked curtains; they were placed, in the fashion of the country, just across the tiny slip of a room, the length of the bed being the exact breadth of the apart