The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 333, September 27, 1828

The Baths are situated about one mile from the village of Matlock, and are a collection of lodging-houses, which, during the summer season, are usually occupied. The baths are filled by springs, which issue in great abundance from limestone rocks; the water is exceedingly clear, and bears a temperature of 68° Fahrenheit. Here are the wells which produce the petrifactions; any substance placed in them being, in the course of a few months, covered with stone. Visiters are in the habit of leaving various articles, which, by the ensuing season, thus become incrusted. Birds' nests with eggs in them, baskets, shoes, &c. &c. are among the articles which may be seen here.

Matlock abounds with subterraneous caverns, which excite the surprise and admiration of strangers. These are entered by a passage, formed with immense labour through the solid rock. In the interior you are surrounded by brilliant crystallizations, various kinds of metallic ores, spars, &c., with petrifactions hanging from the roof, pendent as icicles. The roofs of the numerous caves are of different descriptions; some have the appearance of arches formed by the hand of man, others appear to be immense masses of rock, which have fallen into their present situation by chance, or through some violent convulsion of the earth, by which they have been disjointed and separated. In several of them there are fine springs of limpid water. Here are likewise several productive lead mines.

At the Museum the most interesting productions of the Peak are to be seen. Many of the specimens are manufactured into vases, copied from the antique. Besides the natural productions of the place, there are a great variety of fine alabaster vases from Florence, with statues of various kinds of Italian marble. Immediately facing the museum are the gardens, called the Museum Gardens, in which are several grottoes, curiously ornamented. Perched upon a rock, just at the entrance, is a fine venerable hawk, of the bustard species, which was winged about four years ago, and took its station there, from which spot it rarely moves.

The Botanical Gardens, belonging to Mr. Bownes, are much visited, and contain nearly seven hundred indigenous plants. They are situated along the rise of the hill, known by the name of the Heights of Abraham, from the summit of which can be enjoyed the most extensive views of the scenery round Matlock.

About half a mile from Matlock Baths is situated Willersley Castle, the seat of R. Arkwright, Esq., built by his father, the late Sir R. Arkwright. No spot could be more happily chosen for the site of a mansion than than of Willersley. By the liberality of Mr. A. strangers are admitted to the grounds, gardens, &c.; after passing through which, you reach the summit of the hills, which immediately face the Old and New Baths. This range of rocks is variously named; one, called the Lover's Leap, is a most terrific height. After winding by a circuitous route, you are led to the Lover's Walk, which is a shady path immediately at the base. Here lovers may in

"Sweet retirement court the shade."

In passing through one of the caverns, our guide, after describing to us the various places, in general had a comment to make; one I well remember. The solemnity of the situation, and stupendous grandeur of the cave, struck me with mournful awe. At one part of the cave there was a large hole or well, surrounded by a wooden railing, which our guide informed us was fathomless. A party passing through the cavern, in the full buoyancy of youth, after having expressed their surprise and admiration at the wonders of the place, were preparing to retire, when this spot was mentioned to them. Anxious to see all the curiosities, they returned to this, when one of the party, in a playful mood, placed his hands upon the shoulders of a young lady, and gently pushed her forward. Somewhat terrified, she uttered a scream, but finding herself unhurt, she endeavoured to turn round, when, horrible to relate, the railing gave way, and she was precipitated into the abyss. Picture to yourselves, if possible, the consternation caused by this dreadful occurrence. The alarm was given, ropes, &c. provided, a man immediately lowered, but all their efforts were ineffectual, for the body was never discovered.

M.S.P

STEAKS

People who want to enjoy a steak should eat it with shalots and tarragon. Mr. Cobbett says, an orthodox clergyman once told him that he and six others once ate some beef-steaks with shalots and tarragon, and that they "voted unanimously, that beef-steaks never were so eaten before."

FINE ARTS

THE CAT RAPHAEL

Gottfried Mind was born at Bern, in the year 1768. His father, but a short time before, had come in the capacity of joiner and form-cutter into Switzerland from Lipsich, in Upper Hungary, and had fixed his abode at Warblaufen, a village near Bern, where he was chiefly employed for the paper-manufactory of one Herr Gruner, and soon after his arrival purchased the freedom of Pizif, in the Waadtland. Young Mind, on account of his weak constitution of body, was in great measure left to himself, perhaps in the hope of making him healthier and stronger by the cheap and easy means of idle running about. Herr Gruner was a lover of art; during summer he had a German artist, named Legel, in his house, a talented and active man, who often, in country excursions, drew buildings and cattle from nature. This excited the attention of young Mind in some of his idle rambles: he followed Legel every where, and watched him while he worked. Legel, touched with compassion for the poor boy, showed him what he was engaged with, or what he had already finished; and, in the end, would take him along with him in his walks, or amuse him in his own apartment with exhibitions of prints. In particular, he allowed the boy, as often as he liked, to turn over Ridinger's Animals, of which Herr Gruner had a collection; and some of these Mind was not long in trying to imitate with the lead pencil, preferring above all lions, which continued long his favourite animals. These attempts Legel from time to time corrected, and, from less to more, the youngster at length ventured to copy from nature, like his master, and to draw some sheep, goats, and cats.

His father, the joiner, however, thought that to draw on paper was nothing, and wood was the only material on which it was worth one's pains to work. Accordingly, whenever the boy asked paper for drawing, he threw him a bit of wood; so that Gottfried was fain to try also cutting animals in wood, an art in which he speedily attained such dexterity, that, by degrees, his wooden sheep and goats came to ornament all the presses and mantel-pieces in the village. Occasionally, too, he tried drawing likenesses of some peasant boys of Worblaufen, or carving them in wood; and these attempts were not unsuccessful.

It is unknown on whose recommendation Mind, in his eighth year, was placed at the academy for poor children, which Pestalozzi had previously instituted at Neuenhof, near Bern, Aargau; but, in the year 1778, we find, in the authentic account of that institution, published by the Economic Society of Bern, the following short and somewhat clumsily expressed notice:—"Friedly Mynth of Bossi (Mind of Pizy), of the bailliwick of Aubonne, resident in Worblaufen, very weak, incapable of hard work, full of talent for drawing, a strange creature, full of artist-caprices, along with a certain roguishness: drawing is his whole employment: a year and a half here: ten years old." Neither do we know how long he remained at this academy; somewhere between the years 1780 and 1785, he came to the painter, Sigmund Hendenberger, at Bern, a man who had formed himself mostly at Paris in the Boucher school, but afterwards rather inclined to Greuze's style, and who, by his painting of Swiss family pieces, had acquired a considerable sum of money, and a reputation not undeserved. With this person Mind learnt his art of drawing, and colouring with water-colours, &c. but nothing more; in all the other branches of human knowledge he remained at the lowest grade; for he could with difficulty be made to write his name, and he had not the slightest idea of arithmetic. Thus, for example:—once, when he had to pay the postman six kreuzers for a letter, and Madame Freudenberger gave him the money in two silver pieces, he positively refused to take them and carry them down, affirming that two pieces were not enough; and, though his mistress assured him that these were equal in value to six kreuzers, still he persisted in his refusal, and went on grumbling until the six kreuzers, one by one, were counted into his hand. This ignorance and helplessness his master was not slow to take advantage of, so that poor Mind never once thought of looking about him for a better place. From his entrance into Freudenberger's house up to the time of his death, there is nothing to tell of him except that he spent his whole life on the selfsame stool, busied in colouring Freudenberger's sheets so long as he was alive, and, after his death, in drawing and painting, after his own fancy, bears, cats, and children at play, for the benefit of the widow, with the same pitiful day's wages which he had formerly received from his master. Many artists, after Freudenberger's death, would gladly have taken poor Mind into their service, but, like his beloved cats, he was so attached to the house, to his corner and its appurtenances, that he constantly turned a deaf ear to such proposals; and, at last, when Madame Freudenberger began to notice that the people wished to buy away her Friedli from her, she would not let them come near him; and only at rare times, and by way of special favour, allowed a few acquaintances, whom she could depend on, to visit him in her presence. She used, for the most part, to sit beside him herself, with her knitting implements, spurring him on to work. When he had to copy any of his drawings, he usually sketched the outline of them against the glass of the window; and if, on these occasions, it chanced that some boy, cat, dog, or other street passenger he might think worth looking at, withdrew his eye for a moment from the work, his taskmistress failed not to squall forth—"Gaping out again! Not a bit of work done all day! Sit down with thee! Mind thy paper, and give over spying!" How meanly he was kept in regard to clothing—how he had to sleep, for his life long, in a child's bed, far too short for him, for want of a straw mattress—and how, under such continual toil and miserable constraint, he at last sank, and died of water in the chest, it is now needless to say or to lament. We turn, rather, to the more pleasing contemplation of what Mind, in this most unfavourable situation, nevertheless succeeded in performing, and rendering himself as an artist.

Mind's special talent for representing cats was discovered and awakened by chance.4 It was not till after Freudenberger's death that Mind fully developed his peculiar talent for the objects to which, subsequently, through his whole life, he applied himself with such special affection, and which, accordingly, he succeeded in representing with such fidelity and truth. The condition of peasant children, their sorrows and joys, their sports and bickerings—the coarse insolence of the richer, the timid dispiritment of the needy, all stood in lively remembrance before his fancy, which liked to go back into that first and only period of his freedom, though, perhaps, also of his beggarhood. In Freudenberger's school he had learned a natural, easy, and comprehensible arrangement of little groups, and a neat, dainty manner, in which wise it was no difficult task for him to represent such scenes with truth and grace. Thus we find these pictures of his, which, for the most part, are painted on small sheets, his sports, banterings, quarrellings, sledge-parties of children, with their half-frozen but still merry faces, in their puffy yet not unpicturesque costume; his beggar-boys, with their rag-ware on their backs, are almost always genial and pleasing. In the course of his narrow, in-doors life, he had worked himself into a friendly, nay, as it were, almost paternal relation with domestic and fire-side animals, especially with cats. While he sat painting, a cat might generally be seen sitting on his back or on his shoulder; and many times he kept, for hours, the most awkward postures, that he might not disturb it. Frequently there was a second cat sitting by him on the table, watching how the work went on; sometimes a kitten or two lay in his lap under the table. Frogs (in bottle) floated beside his easel; and with all these creatures he kept up a most playful, loving style of conversation; though, often enough, any human beings about him, or such even as came to see him, were growled or grunted at in no social fashion. His countenance, especially in latter years, was a mixture of the bear's, the lion's, and the human, for most part of a dull brick-colour; so that many people, particularly children, were afraid to look at him. In figure he was very small, and bent; but, at the same time, had hands and fingers of extraordinary size and coarseness, with which, nevertheless, he produced the cleanest and prettiest drawings. His chief diligence and most careful elegance he brought to work in the painting of his beloved cats. In right delineation of their forms he had the art to seize the general nature of this animal, and, in the portrait-like indication of their various physiognomies, to reflect the specific character of each. The sycophantic look full of falseness, the dainty movements of the kittens, several of which are sometimes painted sporting round their dam—all this, in the most multifarious postures, turns, groups, sports, and quarrels, is depicted with a true observance to nature,—nay, one might say with genius and fidelity.

On Sundays and winter nights, Mind, by way of pastime, used, out of dried, wild chestnuts, to carve little cats, bears, and other beasts, and this with so much art that these little dainty toys were shortly in no less request than his drawings. It is a pity that insects, such as frequently exist in the interior of chestnuts, have already destroyed so many of these carvings.

At the Barengraben (bear-yard) in Bern, where a few live bears are always to be seen, Mind passed many a happy hour; and, between the beasts and him there seemed to prevail a singularly confidential feeling. The moment Friedli—such was the name Mind was best known by in Bern—made his appearance, the bears hastened towards him with friendly grumbling, stationed themselves on their hind feet, and received, impartially, each a piece of bread or an apple out of his pocket. For this reason, bears, next to cats, were a favourite subject of his art; and he reckoned himself, not unjustly, better able to delineate these animals than even celebrated painters have been. Moreover, next to his intercourse with living cats and bears, Mind's greatest joy was in looking at objects of art, especially copper-plates, in which, too, animal figures gave him most satisfaction.

Herr Sigmund Wagner, of Bern, who possesses a choice collection of copper-plates, frequently invited Mind, on winter Sunday evenings, to his house, and would then show him his volumes. While Herr Wagner might be writing, reading, or drawing, Mind, grumbled to himself half-aloud, made his remarks on each sheet, and frequently gave a true, stubborn, rugged judgment even on the most celebrated masters, especially on pictures of animals; for, among these, nothing pleased him but the lions of Rubens, of Rembrandt, and Potter, and the stags of Kidinger; the other animals of the latter he declared to be falsely drawn. Even the most applauded cats of Cornelius Vischer and Wenzel Hollar could not obtain his approbation. After such picture-reviewing he used to drink tea with Herr Wagner; and it seemed as if the baked ware presented therewith was somewhat to his taste. Such evenings were, to a certain extent, his heaven upon earth; nevertheless, he sometimes replied to Herr Wagner's invitation with a "could not come—his Busi (puss) was sick—he must stay with her." Another time he signified "that Busi was like to have kittens to-day, and so it was impossible to leave her."

Mind seldom drew from Nature; at most he did it with a few strokes. His conception was so strong, that whatever he had once strictly observed, stamped itself so firmly in his memory that, on his return home, and often a considerable time afterwards, he could represent it with entire fidelity. On such occasions he would look now and then, as it were, into himself; and when at these moments, he lifted his head, his eyes had something dreamy in them.

An increasing disorder in the breast had put him past all exertion for the space of a year; and, on the 17th of November, 1814, a paroxysm of his malady carried him off, in the 46th year of his age.

Foreign Review

THE COLISEUM, REGENT'S PARK,

Will be opened in about four months. Our readers are aware that it will present a Panoramic View of London, taken from the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, and imitated in a bungling manner in a recent pantomime at Covent Garden Theatre. The picture covers 40,000 square feet, or nearly an acre of canvass; the dome of the building on which the sky is painted, is 30 feet more in diameter than the cupola of St. Paul's; and the circumference of the horizon visible from the point of view, is nearly 130 miles. "The Coliseum" is evidently a misnomer, since the building is very similar to the Pantheon at Rome; but we perceive by a letter from the proprietor, that its proper designation is the "Colosseum."

MR. HAYDON

Has just finished a companion to his admirable picture of the Mock Election in the King's Bench, viz. the Chairing of the Members. The first-mentioned is now in the king's collection at Windsor.

NOTES OF A READER

THE JEWS

The undeviating and uniform identity of the features and general character of countenance, which accompany the Jews, wherever they settle, is one of the most curious phenomena in nature; climate and all those physical circumstances belonging to localities, which work such wonderful changes in the physical character of man, appear to have no influence upon the tribe of Israel. The circumcised of Monmouth-street is as like that of Judea-Gape, in Frankfort, as two individuals of the same nation can be; let them be by birth and residence German, English, Russian, Portuguese, or Polish, still the one and only set of features belonging to the race will be seen equally in all.—Granville's, Tour.

FRENCH MUSIC

About the year 1760, Piccini, who was the Rossini of his day, was called to Paris to reform the grand opera. The French, roused by the elegant tirades of Rousseau, and the piquant witticisms of all the foreigners who visited Paris, began to conceive it possible that their music was not the finest in the world. The reform which Piccini introduced, was however, but partial, and the French insisted on having Italian music adapted to French words. They have still an opera of their own; but nothing can be more noisy, or less harmonious than the music at the Académie Royale—all tumult, glitter, and show. There is no ballet, except that incidental to the opera; but in scenery and machinery they surprise the English visiter. The French military bands too are equally discordant; so fond are they of drums, that they seem to have converted the tympana of their ears into parchment.

MATHEMATICS

We consider it quite possible to bring down to ordinary capacities even the truths of pure mathematics, by the substitution of a less general and precise species of evidence. We have ourselves made the attempt, and hence we are satisfied of its entire practicability. Into what a small space would the useful and practical truths of geometry be reduced, were we to dispense with the auxiliary propositions which are required merely to complete the rigid process of demonstration. How simple, for example, would be the doctrine of parallel lines!—Foreign Review.

THE SOUTH SEAS

The government of the United States are fitting out a commercial expedition to explore the South Seas. The vessels are to stay long enough to complete the necessary inquiries, to ensure the safety of the traders, and to give time for the establishment and consolidation of relations of reciprocal utility. The advantages which it is evident America must derive from this undertaking will, it is supposed, not cost more than 50,000 dollars—Lit. Gaz.

THE OPERA

Rousseau defines the opera to be a dramatic, lyrical, and scenic representation, in which agreeable sensations are conveyed by the combined effect of all the fine arts, the poetry and action being addressed to the mind, the music to the ear, and the scenic decorations to the eye of the spectator.

PICTURESQUE DRESSES IN SPANISH MARKETS

On entering Madrid by the gate of Toledo, or the Place de la Cenada, where the market is held, nothing is more striking than the confused mass of people from the country and provinces. There a Castilian draws around him with dignity the folds of his ample cloak, like a Roman senator in his toga. Here a cowherd from La Mancha, with his long goad in his hand, clad in a kilt of ox-skin, whose antique shape bears some resemblance to the tunic worn by the Roman and Gothic warriors. Farther on may be seen men with their hair confined in long nets of silk. Others wearing a kind of short brown vest, striped with blue and red, conveying the idea of Moorish garb. The men who wear this dress come from Andalusia.

HYMN

I praised the earth, in beauty seen,With garlands gay of various green;I praised the sea, whose ample fieldShone glorious as a silver shield,And earth and ocean seemed to say,"Our beauties are but for a day."I praised the sun, whose chariot roll'dOn wheels of amber and of gold;I praised the moon, whose softer eyeGleamed sweetly through the summer sky;And moon and sun in answer said,"Our days of light are numbered."Oh God, oh good beyond compare!If thus thy meaner works are fair!If thus thy bounties gild the spanOf ruined earth, and sinful man;How glorious must the mansion beWhere thy redeem'd shall dwell with thee!

MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS

To those interested in the mechanical sciences, and their application to manufactures and the arts, England offers larger scope of observation than any other country in the world. Throughout the vast establishments of our cotton, woollen, linen, silk, and hardware manufactures, there is even less to create astonishment in the multitude and variety of the products, than in the exquisite perfection of the machinery employed—machinery, such in kind, that it seems almost to usurp the functions of human intelligence. No one can conceive its completeness, who has not witnessed the workings of the power-loom, or seen the mechanism by which the brute power of steam is made to effect the most minute and delicate processes of tambouring. Nor can any one adequately comprehend the mighty agency of the steam-engine, who has not viewed the machinery of some of our mining districts, where it is employed on a scale of magnitude and power unequalled elsewhere. In Cornwall,5 especially, steam-engines may be seen working with a thousand horse power, and capable (according to a usual mode of estimating their perfection as machinery) of raising nearly 50,000,000 pounds of water through the space of a foot, by the combustion of a single bushel of coals. No Englishman, especially if destined to public life, can fitly be ignorant of these great works and operations of art which are going on around him; and if time can be afforded in general education for Paris, Rome, and Florence, time is also fairly due to Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield.—Q. Rev.

LEARNING FRENCH

Fashion dominates in this, as in other things. Of late its dictation has been to cradle children in French; often, even to prohibit English in the nursery and school-room; and, frequently, at a later time, to detach our youth from their own country, for the sake of forwarding the same object in foreign pensions, or schools. We have seen this fashion extending itself to more mature life; and serious and discreet men, senators and judges, toiling painfully through elements, vocabularies, and rules of pronunciation, to acquire an amount of speech sufficient to attract ridicule, and produce inconvenience, but very inadequate to any useful or ornamental purpose.—Ibid.