A silent trout-stream glides slowly past the churchyard, with its mementos of mortality, and then it dances on its way through hanging and dipping boughs, and over opposing stones, as if its waters laughingly rejoiced at being freed from such associations. This is but a faint sketch of the original scene, which must be beheld to be appreciated. It was here that Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and De Quincey too, so loved to roam, "wrapt in poetic dreams." It is here that those enamoured of silence and retreat can find calm refuge from busy cares and anxious toil; can seek that effervescing health which "gives life to the soul," and is not to be found in less bracing climes or less agreeable scenes. At the foot of Silverbow may be seen a large white mansion, or rather two of them, one peaked and pointed somewhat in the Elizabethan style; the other long and plain, with two rows of windows, in close array. The ground is laid out in lawns and walks, and shaded over by an immense lime-tree. This had formerly been an old farm-house, with a capacious barn, but a retired son of Neptune cast his eyes on it, and changed the "spirit of its dream." We were there during its transformation, and were among its inmates when, from its chrysalis, it appeared as a hydropathic establishment. We had a pretty good experience of its soakings in wet sheets and blankets, sitz baths, shower baths, douche baths, and plunge baths. In the village, if it may be so called, there lived in our time a curious character, "in the vale of years." He was called Sir Isaac Newton, but was by no means a rival of his famous namesake. He carried a gun continually, and being an excellent shot, he caused all the unfortunate young rooks he could get within range (and there were plenty of them), to fall under the influence of that gravity, the invention of which is an act of the genius of the great philosopher. Calling to his aid the culinary art, he consumed his prize. Thus his experiments, though of the most simple kind, were sufficiently interesting in their nature to induce him to devote to them his whole attention, which he most enthusiastically did. Being a favourite in the valley, square holes were left at regular intervals, in any walls erected for his especial accommodation, so that he might, without having to climb to the top, make his observations and steal a march upon his prey. On the left of the high road leading to the vale of Derwentwater, the tourist may observe a huge pile of stones, moss-bound and covered through lapse of time, said to have been raised on the spot where the last king of Cumberland was slain, no doubt in one of his marauding expeditions against his more southern neighbours. It has been an act of love to ourselves to go again in thonght to the scene of our pedestrian expedition; and as an act of love to others, we have thrown these remarks together, to guide in a small way those who may be inclined to pay a visit to the spot. THE MANAGING WOMAN. THE managing woman is a personage deserving of some descriptive celebration. There is a wide difference between her and the managing partner" described in a popular contemporary, whose leading characteristic was a total negligence of her own affairs, as the consequence of an over-intimate participation in the affairs of others. The managing woman is remarkable for an exclusive devotion to her personal concerns, and is never known to overlook them in any imaginable circumstances. Not that she is utterly selfish; for, on the contrary, the greater portion of her management has reference to other people's welfare; but then these other people are closely connected with her in the bonds of consanguinity, and partake, as one may say, of her own individuality. Her thoughts do not travel out of the circle of her family, unless it be on foraging expeditions, to bring in something to sustain or magnify the establishment. She is notable for concentrating her energies, so as to render them severally available for her purposes. Her foresight is of the keenest order, and is constantly directed towards objects that are likely to yield a benefit. There is hardly an occasion or an event which she cannot seize upon and turn to some advantage. Her thrift is most commendable, and her resources in every situation inexhaustible and astonishing. Hers is the barrel of meal that wasteth not, and the cruise of oil that never fails. Her ingenuity and invention are magnificent; her patience and persistency sublime; and there is nothing that she takes in hand which she does not, one way or another, triumphantly accomplish. She is the personation of success, and has no knowledge or conception of a failure. Yet there is always one visible drawback in her situation: the managing woman is invariably unlucky in her helpmate. Indeed, she never has a help-mate, but only a matrimonial impediment, hanging remorselessly at her skirts, to damage the brilliancy of her achievements. It was her misfortune to marry before she was a managing woman, and, in fact, it is this circumstance which has contributed, more than anything else, to raise her to that dignified position. The order of nature is in her case reversed; and, instead of "Woman and her Master," we behold Man and his Mistress." The necessity which has imposed on her the post of leading and command has tended rather to impair the sweetness of her temper, and to give her the aspect as of one that is contemptuously self-reliant, and averse to the interposition of suggestion or advice on the part of male humanity; but this is a habit which has grown out of her experiences, and is to be attributed to her frequent proof of the futility of the domestic intermeddling with which it has been her fate to be conversant. From long familiarity with the shallowness of her weaker vessel, she prefers to rely on her own judgment. Thus she is apt to be imperative and self-sustained, and to be fond of carrying things by the strength of her own head. She is the product partly of her circumstances, and partly of her constitutional sense and energy; and, in any case, she is every way entitled to be considered a notability. We shall best represent the managing woman by describing some individual member of the class. I therefore propose to introduce you to one whom I remember, and who was formerly my landlady when I was a bachelor in lodgings. Among managing women I know no one better fitted to be the representative of her order than the sagacious and comprehensive-minded Mrs. Brocksopp. But first, perhaps, it will be well to describe what sort of yoke-fellow she had to drag with in the matrimonial traces. I think I have heard that his full and proper name was Samuel Josephus Brocksopp; but the worthy woman, ont of impatience for long names and useless circumlocutions, had re-baptised him "Sam;" and under this convenient abbreviation he was almost invariably referred to and addressed. In the presence of perfect strangers she might sometimes call him Mr. Brocksopp, but for all ordinary purposes "Sam' was his standing style and title. He did not much mind what you called him, unless, as he said, you called him too late for dinner, in which case he would rather you had called him a little earlier. He was fond of joking, in his good-natured way, and this was one of his favourite jocularities. He held a situation as clerk or book-keeper in certain metropolitan gasworks, which it will not be necessary distinctly to particularise. Most of his time was accordingly spent from home, and when he was in the house he took only a secondary place, and was of no more account in the domestic calculations than a cipher. In the early years of their married life his wife had, indeed, left him to manage such of their joint concerns as properly belonged to him as master of the household and father of a family; but somehow he contrived to involve whatsoever he meddled with in a state of incompleteness and confusion. The family accounts got into inextricable disorder, and he seemed to have no remedy for anything but to propose that it should "stand over till next week." Having no method or prudence in regard to his disbursements, he was for ever getting everything behind-hand. One of the consequences was, that he was continually subject to the importunities of persons anxious to know "when it would be convenient to settle that little bill;" and he was every now and then perplexed by the visits of lawyers' clerks, who presented him with certain strips of paper commanding him to "enter an appearance" in certain courts at Westminster. As he never took the trouble to appear, he was frequently undergoing the inconvenience of "judgment by default;" and, what was worse than all, none of his experiences of this sort had any effect in teaching him to take precautions against similar perplexities. He was one of the men on whom experience was entirely thrown away. When one difficulty was over he went on just as heretofore; and he met a new adversity in its turn with an apathy and an unconcern which were perfectly surprising. He seemed to hold with the Lotuseaters : Let what is broken so remain : The gods are hard to reconcile. He looked on all events as casualties, and had no conception of antecedents, nor how effects could be developed out of causes. All life was to him a mere bewilderment; a toss-up, as it were, of luck or no-luck. If things went smoothly, why all well and good; if otherwise, it was not quite so well and good; but then they must somehow be put up with, as there was evidently no help for them. If Mr. Brocksopp had any virtue, it was that of blandly "putting up with things." In a host of unaccountable ways, he lived, like Childe Harold, through that which would have been the death of other men. Inconveniences which no ordinary person would have suffered for an instant, he uncomplainingly endured from year to year, and never conceived it possible to be delivered from them. The circle of his faculties did not include the perception of the inconvenient. When Nature, or one of her bungling journeymen, made him, there must have been a crack in the mould, and that particular perception dropped through. In all circumstances he was the same man-easy, uncalculating, and stolidly indifferent to vexations. Though he was nowise an unhappy man, he seemed rather to endure existence than to participate consciously and actively in its conditions. He was a personified inertia, or a sort of verb passive consolidated into a masculine noun singular. Could he have lived through a thousand generations, he would have been the same man at the end as he was at the beginning; no conceivable longevity could have modified his constitution, or made him other than what he was-a specimen of inveterate imbecility. Nature is very wonderful in all her proceedings, and in none more than in her institution of affinities. As in chemistry, bodies the most opposite in their properties have a tendency to rush into combination, so also in human intimacies it is observable that tempers and characteristics of the most diametrical diversity are apt to unite themselves in insoluble relations. Thus it was that Mr. and Mrs. Brocksopp came to be linked in wedlock. He was a sort of alkali, and she a decided acid. If Mr. Brocksopp had no ideas and no invention-as manifestly he had not-Mrs. Brocksopp was largely gifted with the qualities which he lacked. Her powerful individuality was enough to overbalance his supineness. Yet, of all the creatures to be found on land or in the sea, there could hardly be discovered two in which the contrast of peculiarities might seem more striking. Brocksopp was like an oyster, which, if undisturbed, would passively abide for ever in the quarters wherein accident had cast its lot, quietly reposing in seclusion, and taking neither thought nor care for extraneous concerns. Mrs. Brocksopp, on the other hand, had some of the characteristics of the crab-fish-that amphibious eccentricity, which is given to sidelong migrations, pirating alike by land and water, adventurously exploring the islets of a creek or the coves of a sandbank, and even cruising on the main on extemporaneous rafts of drift-wood, or in a frigate improvised out of an oyster-shell. Like the crab-fish, Mrs. Brocksopp had a talent for holding on, and never relinquished an advantage which had once fallen within her grasp. She was also a woman of the keenest observation, and kept her "north eye" open to note every turning of the tide in her affairs. When she deposed Brocksopp from the household throne, and resolved on being exchequerchancellor and prime minister of the establishment, she knew very well what she was doing. It was a grand necessity, like Jupiter's dethronement of his father Saturn, or like the changing of a cabinet when the government of a nation can no longer be carried on. She did it for the best, as she used to say, and Sam Brocksopp was there to testify that the new arrangement had been a blessing to him and all the family. The family was very numerous, but, under Mrs. Brocksopp's management, they were all pretty well provided for. As the boys grew up, they were successively got out into useful situations; often in a manner that seemed miraculous to observers, who were unacquainted with her systematic habit of solicitation, her comprehensive study of chances, her resolute canvassing of "influential parties." The secret of it was, that she was always "on the look out," and never grudged the trouble of making applications. Her commonest connections were selected with an eye to their availableness in possible emergencies: she never made an acquaintance without a covert calculation as to what might be the worth of the intimacy in this respect. With next to no resources but Brocksopp's salary, the show of respectability which she kept up was something wonderful. The family wardrobe, though scanty, was unexceptionable in point of service; and every garment, as it began to fade, was ingeniously converted into something that looked nearly as good as new. The press of industry in that house was enormous and unrelaxing. The elder girls were trained in every description of domestic labour, and were even drilled into some elegant accomplishments. As they grew up, and became too much of a burden on the home resources, Mrs. Brocksopp sought out for them befitting engagements as governesses, or companions to superannuated ladies, and instructed them in serviceable secrets as to the way in which they might prosecute their interests, and realise an independence. By virtue of her teaching and example, they generally got on, and she was left the more at liberty to discipline and manage such of the household as remained. Poor Brocksopp was often astonished at her successes, notwithstanding his habitual indifference, and his total inability to appreciate the consummate genius and perseverance which produced them. The good lady, on her part, understood them perfectly, and did not hesitate to affirm confidently that they were solely attributable to her "management." If she had only had a sufficient partner" in Mr. Brocksopp, it was her opinion that they, working and contriving diligently together, must certainly have realized enormous riches, and raised them was, selves to a position of stupendous consideration. As it she was constrained to be content with being "just properly respectable;" and it was everybody's admission that her respectability was extremely well sustained. It must be candidly conceded that Mrs. Brocksopp, as a managing woman, was not without her failings. She had some peculiarities which people not particularly attached to her were wont to regard uncharitably. She had even some which we, who were her resolute admirers, could never contemplate with perfect satisfaction. It was not pleasant to see or hear her violently presenting Mr. Brocksopp with the poker and tongs when he had no necessity for fire-irons; nor could it have been very agreeable to that gentleman to be so frequently reminded of his defects of character,-defects which he was perfectly aware of, and never hesitated to admit, only, as he said, he desired a quiet life; nor was it possible to approve of some of the highly expressive epithets which she occasionally applied to Brocksopp's head and understanding. In all this you could not help perceiving that, managing woman as she was, Mrs. B. was not exactly embodied perfection. But, then, as she would declare, the man absolutely "drove her to it ;" and it was her conviction that the "very cherubims," if they were in her situation, would be constrained to act much in the like manner. The managing woman is not usually very religious. Her hands are too full with the concerns of this world to leave her any time to think much about another. She does not sceptically question another world, but she inclines to think the present state of knowledge about it rather shadowy and imperfect; and therefore she objects to any dogmatism or over-confidence respecting its locality or arrangements. She considers it "a mystery," and would rather not be pressed for an opinion in regard to it. She prefers to restrict herself to the substantial world of every day, where she knows what she is about, and can experience a sense of undeniable reality. She goes to church on Sundays, because from early habit and training she has come to reckon that a duty; and it used to be Mrs. Brocksopp's practice to put the newspaper out of the way, lest "Sam" should inadvertently forget the day, and profane it by studying the police reports. The children were not much troubled with texts or catechism, but they were bound, under severe penalties, to be decorous in their deportment, and scrupulously heedful of their dresses. In regard to her secular affairs, however, the managing woman cannot be said to be without a certain seriousness of character. She moves about with the consciousness of many cares, and her whole life is overshadowed by a throng of plans and objects. From morning until midnight her hands are always full, and her busy brains considering what is needful to be done next. Her habitual aspect is therefore one of gravity and steadfastness, of diligent and untiring persistency in the pursuits which have been assigned to her by destiny. Mrs. Brocksopp was decidedly an earnest personage, and always gave you the impression of being immeasurably overburdened. She had so much to do, and so many things to look after, that she could not afford herself any time for rest or recrcation. To be continually occupied and useful, seemed to be her sole conception and ideal of "woman's mission." She was the utilitarian philosophy incarnate, and sought the happiness of the greatest number by sacrificing her personality to circumstances. She was great in selfdenial-with one particular exception: she must always have the pride of "managing," and enjoy the reputation incident thereto : that was her ambition, the single and peculiar reward which she demanded for all that she accomplished and underwent for others. She imitated, without knowing it, the despotism of the French monarch; she centred the domestic state in her own person. She was, and gloried to be acknowledged, a family autocrat. Lording it over "Sam," and the whole establishment with unlimited imperiousness, she carried out the dogma of Confucius :-"Heaven has not two suns; earth has not two kings; a family has not two_superiors." All superiority was concentrated in Mrs. Brocksopp; and in that, as in other respects, she was eminently the representative of every "managing woman." STREET SCENES IN LONDON. A chimney-sweep with his boys trots past; a joiner with a table on his head; butcher and baker boys on horseback; countless is the number of advertising agents in every possible shape and form; Lascars, Chinese, negroes, and so on, all to attract attention. Any one walking along the Strand or Regent Street, can obtain a good stock of paper, for bills are handed him from shoemakers, tailors, hatters, and corn-cutters, down to the magnetiser, the universal doctor, and the dispenser of every sort of remedy; and he may be sure, among the soap and razor bills, to have a few German tracts, printed in Hamburg, thrust into his hand, which black-attired Tartuffe physiognomies dispense. Portable ginger-beer sellers, oyster-men press on, or stand at the corners of the street, but do not offer their wares noisily, like the street merchants of Paris; then thousands of persons may be seen dealing in all sorts of articles, from buttons and spectacles to the most elegant umbrellas. The razor sellers, who make a special set on foreigners, besieged our hotel from morning till night, and did an excellent trade. Here groaned the bagpipes of theatrically-attired Scotchmen, like the Styrian and Swiss Alpine singers at home; there an Italian hurdy-gurdy grinds, "O casta Diva." In a side street athletes display themselves, whose faces we recognize as familiar to us from some fair in Germany. A couple of pretty Arab boys dance in the mud and beg with their sparkling eyes; while on the other side a muscular Moor, with his sharp profile, strikes his drum monotonously with his fingers and moves his body in the strangest contortions. There a fellow displays some white mice, another is playing with cups and knives, but all without the noise, the deafening shouts of the Parisian street performers, whose chief occupation appears to be bawling. A group of Blackamoors, with woollen perukes, are performing their negro dances and songs: you listen and feel astonished that the sons of Congo are talking to each other very comfortably in Jewish German. The national puppet-show has erected its Thespian stage in a lane, and Master Punch fights, to the intense delight and edification of a dozen idlers, with the devil and an unhappy dog. In his witticisms, somewhat coarse, and more than incomprehensible for the non-Englishman, even if he has learned English by means of Jacobi's Berlin correspondence, he keeps the risible muscles of his audience in constant movement * The most extraordinary scenes present themselves in incalculable variety, and among them by day a drunkard is the greatest rarity. I could write volumes if I tried to detail the experiences of each single member of the society.-Colburn's New Monthly Magazine. * RICE-WATER. The plan of writing with rice-water, to be rendered visible by the application of iodine, was practised with great success in the correspondence during the late war in India. The first letter of this kind was received from Jellalabad, concealed in a quill. On opening it, a small paper was unfolded, on which appeared only a single word, "iodine." The magic liquid was applied, and an important despatch from Sir Robert Sale stood forth. THE SPECTRE OF THE "GOLDEN BOY." [THOSE who have read Sir Walter Scott's Demonology, will understand to what supposed incident the following rather grewsome and wild lines allude, and by what superstition they have been suggested. There is, doubtless, if all were known, as much truth in the assumed "facts" as fiction requires.] You have heard of the Thing at whose whispered name- But not here shall you see him. Go sleep alone, O'er the turretted roof and the giant trees, Or, perhaps, they were muttering, each to each, For a Something has passed them, whose sight appals- On the hearthstone the embers are burning low, On the lily-white hand and the cheek's young bloom But a sudden effulgence of flame has rolled, And, behold, on the hearth-stone a golden child, But his throat is deep-gashed with a blood-red ring, Ah! did he who beheld the unearthly flash If he did, 'twas the mind that was sicklied o'er MAHOMMEDAN TIPPLING. The believers in the Koran here certainly abstain from wine, and thus obey the Prophet's precept; but then they indulge freely in lagmi, or the juice of the palm-tree, which, when fermented, is as pernicious in its effect, when taken in excess, as the wine possibly can be. This juice is easily obtained, and more easily still prepared. An incision is made in the tree, just beneath the branches, and a jar so fastened that it receives every drop of liquid flowing out. During a night they procure from a tree "in a producing condition" (in which it is not always) from a quart to three pints of lagmi. When drunk immediately it tastes like genuine rich milk, and is perfectly harmless; but when allowed to stand one night, or, at most, twenty-four hours, it partakes (with the exception of the colour, which is whitish) of the quality and flavour of champagne, and that of a far superior sort than is usually offered in the British markets. This date-tree wine (for so it may be called), procured at so little trouble and expense, is to be found in every house, and has its victims reeling through the streets of Tozar just as the stupifying porter has in the streets of English cities. But the curious part in connection with this is, that "the faithful" persist in their justification that they do not transgress their prophet's precept! Lagmi is not wine," they say, and the Prophet's prohibition refers to wine." This strange evasion of a positive precept reminds me forcibly of something very similar I remarked at Malta. The milk-sellers usually parade the streets of Valetta, announcing their merchandise, by calling out haleeb, which is in plain English milk. But in Lent, the adherents of the Roman Church are prohibited, among a host of other things, the drinking of milk, and consequently the sale thereof. But the dairyman does sell milk, and the people purchase and drink it, and yet the injunction of the Church is not transgressed! The uninitiated reader may ask, How can this be? Why, simply in this manner. The milkman does not sell haleeb, milk, but hadja baida, “something white,” which the people purchase, and use in their tea, coffee, &c.—— Evenings in my Tent. At the present period, the number of fox-hunting establishments kept up in England and Wales amounts to ninety-six; there may be a few more, but they are unimportant ones. To show the increase in 1830, sixtyeight packs of hounds were compounded for; in 1850, eighty-four, according to the returns of assessed taxes. Some of these are maintained with princely magnificence at an expense not under 3,5007. or 4,0007. per annum. The average may be estimated at 1,4007. a-year, which makes a total of 126,000/. circulated through the medium of hounds and horses. To Correspondents. The writer of "May Musings" has both talent and sensibility;but the days of free spelling are past. Let him not take his orthography from Spenser or even from Herrick, while imbibing their ideas and their spirit. NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS.-It is out of our power to add to multiplied and increasing duties that of sending back to the writers articles unsuited to our pages. Contributions which we cannot use, but which the authors expressly request us not to destroy, will be found at the office of this Journal if claimed within a reasonable time. Printed by Cox (Brothers) & WYMAN, 74-75, Great Queen Street, London; and published by CHARLES COOK, at the Office of the Journal, 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street. the hands of the artisan; to illustrate history, literature, and music, by pictorial views and popular lectures; to test the value of machinery, inventions, &c. by actual experiment, and to provide technical instruction to all who desire it in the manifold arts and scientific appliances of life. THAT ours is a progressive age is a trite saying enough; and, indeed, when we consider the vast number of educational establishments which either exist or have been projected-crystal palaces, picture-galleries, scientific associations, museums, public libraries, and literary institutions,--a fear suggests itself that we are cultivating the mental health rather than the physical development of our youths and maidens. But then, on the other hand, have we not excursion-trains in a constant state of excitement during the summer months, parks and gardens in possession or in prospect, and a weekly half-holiday almost promised to, and yet to be obtained by, the working men of England? So, putting this and that together, we may conclude that we are progressing, both physically and mentally, in spite of cholera and the Czar. Of the many exhibitions which seek to provide amusement and relaxation for the million, there are none which so well deserve patronage as those which, under the guise of novelty, convey information and elicit truth. Remembering the claims of the Polytechnic, Dr. Kahn's Anatomical Museum, Albert Smith's Mont Blanc, and the Gallery of Illustration-a tithe only of kindred exhibitions, it would appear that London at least was sufficiently well provided in this respect. But another "scientific and instructive institution" has lately opened its doors to the public, with the hope and determination of providing "such recreations as are calculated to assist, by moral and intellectual agencies, the best interests of society." Having said thus much of the intentions of the founders of this new institution, we will now endeavour to see how far they have carried them into practice, and so test their claims to public patronage. The But first, of the building. On the east side of Leicester Square-the Leicester Fields of our ancestors, and in which, nearly a hundred years ago, lived Hogarth, Reynolds, Newton, and John Hunter-a building has gradually and silently arisen which, in its style of architecture, is the most remarkable in London. In fact, it is a representation or reproduction of one of the halls of the Alhambra, that beautiful palace raised by the Saracens in Granada, which, after surviving the conquest of Spain by the northern Goths, remains to this day the most splendid and interesting ruin in Christendom. adoption of this style of building for an institution devoted to the illustration of modern art and invention would seem at first sight rather anomalous, for certainly the Moors in Spain had no idea of mechanics or scientific institutions: but when we consider that they were not only the teachers, but the sole depositories of the learning and art of their time; and further, when we look upon the beautiful edifice, glittering in gold and colours, and decorated from portcullis to minaret, with all that variety of arabesque ornamentation which is the characteristic of Saracenic art, we are willing to overlook the seeming anachronism for the sake of the real beauty of building. This and the Hall of the Alhambra in the Sydenham Palace are the only illustrations of Moorish architecture which exist in England. We have not, it is true, the glories of a southern sunshine to set off and enliven the gilded trellise-work and fantastic tracery with which the genius of the Moors delighted to cover the walls of their houses and palaces; but we have in these buildings at least the bright colours, the artistic convolutions and endless varieties of their arabesques, and the peculiar horse-shoe arch, pierced dome, and airy, uppointing minaret, which rendered their palaces so original in conception and so complete in effect. This last is a large and full-sounding phrase, but a visit to the institution in question-the Panopticon of Science and Art, in Leicester Square-will fully justify to the mind of the public its most extended application. The scope of the Panopticon is, in many respects, similar to that of the Polytechnic Institution, and the late Adelaide Gallery-namely, the exhibition and illustration, in the most popular form, of discoveries in science and art, inventions and improvements in mechanics, and the demonstration, by means of lectures and experiments, of their various phenomena and peculiarities. Thus it is the intention of the council of the Panopticon to exhibit, in the form of instruments and apparatus, the several branches of science, and the fine and useful arts, mechanics, manufactures, and handicrafts, from their rude and simple beginnings to their final completion in In the Panopticon the Saracenic order of architecture is preserved in its minutest details, though adapted of |