Part 2
principal entry to the Palace, was erected by Cardinal Morton, about the year 1490, and is a very beautiful and magnificent structure. It consists of two lofty towers, from the summits of which is one of the finest views in the neighbourhood of the metropolis. In front of this gate the ancient archiepiscopal _dole_, or alms, is still distributed every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, to thirty poor parishioners of Lambeth. Ten are served each day, among whom are divided three stone of beef, ten pitchers of broth, thickened with oatmeal, five quartern loaves, and twenty-pence in copper.
One of the most interesting portions of Lambeth Palace is the stone building called the Lollard’s Tower. It was erected by Archbishop Chicheley, in the early part of the fifteenth century, as a place of confinement for the unhappy heretics from whom it derives its name. Under the tower is an apartment of somewhat singular appearance, called the _post room_, from a large post in the middle of it by which its flat roof is partly supported. The prison in which the poor Lollards were confined is at the top of the tower, and is reached by a very narrow winding staircase. Its single doorway, which is so narrow as only to admit one person at a time, is strongly barricaded by both an outer and an inner door of oak, each three inches and a half thick, and thickly studded with iron. The dimensions of the apartment within are 12 feet in length, by 9 in width, and 8 in height; and it is lighted by two windows, which are only 28 inches high, by 14 inches wide on the inside, and about half as high and half as wide on the outside. Both the walls and roof of the chamber are lined with oaken planks an inch and a half thick; and eight large iron rings still remain fastened to the wood, the melancholy memorials of the barbarous tyranny whose victims formerly pined in this dismal prison-house. Many names, and fragments of sentences, are rudely cut out on various parts of the walls.
Among the other principal apartments are the Library, containing a very extensive and valuable collection of books and manuscripts, founded by Archbishop Bancroft in 1610: and the Long Gallery, generally supposed to have been the work of Cardinal Pole, who possessed the see from the death of Archbishop Cranmer in 1556 till 1558. This noble room contains many portraits, of which several are in the highest degree interesting as works of art, or on account of the individuals whom they represent.
Besides these apartments, the palace contains many others well deserving of notice, but which we cannot here attempt to describe. We may merely mention the Guardroom, an ancient and venerable chamber, 56 feet in length, and adorned by a splendid timber roof; the Presence Chamber, also of considerable antiquity: the great Dining-room, which contains a series of portraits of all the Archbishops, from Laud to Cornwallis inclusive; the old and new Drawing-rooms, the latter a fine room measuring 33 feet by 22, built by Archbishop Cornwallis; and the Steward’s Parlour, probably built by Archbishop Cranmer. In a future number we shall describe the extensive additions to Lambeth Palace which have been made by his Grace the present Archbishop. The palace is surrounded by a park and gardens, very tastefully laid out, and occupying in all about eighteen acres. Among the ornaments of the grounds are particularly deserving of notice two Marseilles fig-trees, of great size, and still bearing an abundance of delicious fruit, which tradition asserts to have been planted by Cardinal Pole.
[Illustration: Doorway in Lollard’s Tower.]
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EMIGRATION.
[Hints on Emigration to Upper Canada, &c., by Martin Doyle. Price One Shilling. Second Edition, 1832.]
The name of Martin Doyle is no doubt familiar to many of our readers, and if it is not, we hope to make it so by directing their attention to a sensible little book on Emigration to Upper Canada. It is chiefly addressed, as its title tells us, to “the middle and lower classes of Great Britain and Ireland,” who being blessed with health, strength, and the laudable desire of improving their condition, meditate a trip across the Atlantic. Whether the causes which annually induce so many thousands to quit their native shores are likely to increase or diminish, we can yet hardly form a judgment, but this we do know, that while the industrious emigrant, who is hard pressed at home, will undoubtedly be a gainer by the change, and while the province of Upper Canada is daily receiving a vigorous and healthy population into her bosom, we of the old country cannot at present consider ourselves otherwise than as losers by the change. It may be urged that a new market will be created in the Canadas for the products of British industry, and that thus emigration may ultimately, and indeed in no short period, prove beneficial to the mother-country. Such advantages we may reasonably expect, if the produce of Upper Canada is at all times freely allowed to enter our markets; but in the mean time we lose the honest and industrious labourer, we lose the small capitalist who has been struggling against difficulties at home, while the lazy, the vicious, and the good-for-nothings are left behind.
But as people _will_ emigrate with the hope of improving their condition, it is not fair to grumble at them for trying to mend their fortune. Let us rather give them every reasonable facility for doing so, and above all let us encourage every attempt to show them what is really the state of an emigrant to our American provinces, and what qualifications are essential to ensure his success. This our friend Martin, we think, has successfully accomplished in a little shilling book, in which he treats of the soil, climate, animal and vegetable productions, of Upper Canada, mingling with his remarks on these subjects sound sense and good advice. His picture of the fertility of these countries must make a hungry labourer’s mouth water,--to think of the plenty of Indian corn, of wheat, oats, barley, &c., all raised on a virgin soil, with no labour but the sowing, after the necessary preliminaries of cutting down the trees or barking them are finished. We do not think that the products of Upper Canada are at all overrated by our author, save perhaps in the article of fruits, when he tells us (p. 42) that “pine-apples are raised without trouble, and melons and grapes grow wild in the woods:” it is of very little importance whether pine-apples can be easily raised or not, as we are persuaded turnips will prove a more profitable crop,--but we doubt the fact. As to the wild melons and the grapes, there is no danger of a man eating them in a country where bread, meat, and potatoes abound; otherwise we might put in a word of caution against them.
Though Martin Doyle has perhaps not been at all inclined to underrate the advantages open to an emigrant into Upper Canada, he has at the same time carefully avoided all such false views as might seduce the man who is comfortable at home to try the discomforts inseparable from settling in a new land. We fully agree with him in advising those who are well off at home to stay there, and to weigh all matters carefully before they think of leaving it. The industrious labourer who struggles hard against poverty, the skilful carpenter or shoe-maker, and others of the same class, may, by industry and perseverance, provide for their families in Canada, and find a refuge from the threatening evils of poverty. The single man who is disposed to the same adventure may lay the foundation of wealth and respectability by a few years of steady labour in the new world, But there is _one_ condition on which we are glad to see that Martin Doyle has most strongly insisted--_sobriety_; which everywhere is an essential, but in North America it is all in all. In a country where the cheapness of ardent spirits, the very general want of some comfortable beverage such as beer, and the contagion of bad example, are all combined, it is indispensable that the emigrant arm himself with every possible precaution against the assaults of the beastly and degrading vice of drunkenness. Dram-drinking spreads disease, poverty, vice, and misery, from the fertile banks of the North American lakes to the warm and tropical shores of the Mexican gulf: it is destroying more than war and famine cut off in older and less favoured parts of the world. Let then the drunkard stay at home to finish his short and filthy course: he will not improve his condition or his health by a settlement in the Canadas. We sincerely hope that the efforts of many excellent and enlightened men, both in North America and elsewhere, are even now doing something towards eradicating the vice of drunkenness.
We believe Martin Doyle’s little book contains as much information as a man can require who thinks of going to the Canadas, and we strongly recommend its perusal to them as well as to others who are interested in the subject of emigration. As far as we are able to judge, the facts are in general correct, and have been collected with all proper diligence and discrimination. The advice is sound and wholesome; and a spirit of benevolence breathes through the whole. Not having space for any extracts, we must limit ourselves to noticing a mode of preparing milk for sea use, which is recommended to those who take provisions for the voyage. “Milk, after having been boiled should be carefully sealed up in jars, and if loaf sugar be added to it, there is no danger of its not keeping fresh during the voyage.”
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THE STEAM ENGINE.
[Lectures on the Steam-Engine, by the Rev. Dionysius Lardner, LL. D. 4th Edit. 12mo. London, 1832. Taylor. Price 7_s._ 6_d._]
This is decidedly the best popular account which we have of the Steam-Engine,--the most accurate and complete and at the same time the most intelligible and interesting. The book is intended for the use of unscientific readers, or of the public generally; but it has the unusual advantage, for a work of this description, of being written by a person of the highest scientific acquirements. The utmost dependence, therefore, may be placed on the correctness of the various descriptions and explanations it presents; they are stripped indeed of those technicalities which would have rendered them both repulsive and obscure to ordinary readers,--but the substance of the statement which remains, although thus transformed from a full and precise detail to a general outline, is still, in so far as it goes, perfectly clear and satisfactory. The volume contains all that most persons, with the exception of engineers and mathematicians, can be supposed desirous of knowing about the exceedingly curious and important subject of which it treats. It both describes the steam-engine as it now exists, and it relates its origin and past history. After a preliminary lecture on the natural forces on which the action of the contrivance depends, the author proceeds to recount and describe the successive inventions and improvements of the Marquis of Worcester--of Captain Savery--of Newcomen and Cawdley--of Humphrey Potter (the boy who first hit upon the plan of making the engine work its own valves),--and finally of the illustrious Watt. The various parts of Watt’s single and double-acting engines are explained with the fulness which their importance deserves in the fifth and the three following lectures, the modifications which since his time have been introduced in the valves, the boiler, the furnace, &c., being also noticed. The ninth lecture is occupied with an account of the double-cylinder engines of Hornblower and Woolf, and also of a very ingenious and elegant machine, possessing certain peculiar and valuable recommendations, suggested by the late Reverend Mr. Cartwright, the well-known inventor of the power-loom. These expositions are in general distinguished by very remarkable clearness--and, illustrated as they are by abundance of excellent woodcuts and copper-plates, they can hardly fail to be perfectly and easily understood even by those who have been but little accustomed to such investigations.
The part of the book, however, on account of which we principally notice it at present, is the new matter which appears for the first time in this edition, and which relates to the two latest among the various extraordinary applications of the power of steam;--the wonders that have been performed by it on the Liverpool and Manchester railway, and the still more recent experimental achievements of the several projectors who have for some time past been endeavouring to introduce steam-coaches upon our common roads. The two long chapters which are devoted to these subjects, the first especially, contain a number of facts which had not previously been laid before the public, and some of which are of considerable interest.
The locomotive (or travelling) engines which are employed on the Liverpool railway are all what are called high-pressure engines. One of Watt’s most ingenious contrivances was his condensing apparatus, by which, previous to every stroke of the piston, he created a vacuum in the part of the cylinder through which it had to be driven, and thereby enabled it to be sent forward through that space with a much inferior pressure of steam to what would otherwise have been required. But in the steam-engines affixed to coaches it is found convenient to dispense with this apparatus, on account of its complexity, its weight, the room which it would occupy, and above all the constant supply of cold water which would be requisite to keep it in action. The consequence is that in these engines and others similarly constructed, a much greater force of steam is necessary to make the piston do its work; and they are on that account denominated high-pressure engines. It is only within the last thirty years that they have been introduced, and the most remarkable proofs of their power have been afforded on the Liverpool railway, which was opened only about two years ago.
Some time before it was opened a contest took place on this railway between three different steam-coaches. The Rocket, constructed by Mr. Stevenson; the Sans-pareil, by Mr. Hackworth; and the Novelty, by Messrs. Braithwait and Ericson, for a prize of £500, offered by the Directors to that which should accomplish the greatest distance in the shortest time. On this occasion the Rocket, which gained the prize, went over the space of 30 miles in 2 hours 6 minutes and 49 seconds, being at the average rate of 14⅕ miles per hour. But in the course of the journey it sometimes proceeded at the rate of above 29 miles an hour, and its slowest motion was about 11½ miles in that time[1]. In May last, Dr. Lardner saw the engine called the Victory draw on the same rail-road the weight of 92 tons 19 cwt. 1 quarter, in twenty waggons, together with its tender containing fuel and water, from Liverpool to Manchester, a distance of 30 miles, in 1 hour 34 minutes and 45 seconds, besides 10 minutes spent in taking in water. The speed on this occasion was in some places 25½ miles an hour, and on level ground, where there was no wind, it was generally 20 miles an hour. On another day, the engine called the Samson drew fifty waggons laden with merchandise, and, with itself, making a gross weight of above 233 tons, the same distance in 2 hours and 40 minutes, exclusive of delays upon the road for watering, &c., the rate of motion having varied from 9 to 16 miles an hour, and being on an average nearly 12 miles an hour. The coke consumed in this journey was 1762 lbs., or a quarter of a pound per ton per mile. The attendance required is only an engine-man and a fire-boy, the former of whom is paid 1_s._ 6_d._ for each trip, and the later 1_s_. The expense of the original construction of the engines, however, and of their wear and tear is very great, though not nearly so great on the latter account, Dr. Lardner assures us, as has been sometimes stated. The price of one of the most improved engines at first is about £800, and it will travel from 25,000 to 30,000 miles without costing as much more for repairs. Notwithstanding many extra expenses which this undertaking, as the first of the kind, has had to bear, and from the experience purchased by which future speculators will profit, it has been perfectly successful in a commercial point of view. The profits on the capital invested have been from the first above 6 per cent. per annum; and during the latter six months of 1831, it was at the rate of above 8 per cent. per annum; and it has since probably exceeded that amount. The original £100 shares already sell for above £200. On the other hand the advantages to the public have been as great as to the proprietors. Fully 600,000 passengers now pass by the rail-road in the course of the year between Liverpool and Manchester, or four times as many as used formerly to make the journey. The transference of merchandise is also effected both with infinitely greater speed, and at a vast reduction of expense.
Some time ago a work was published by Mr. Gordon, the engineer, on the application of steam as a moving power for coaches on common turnpike roads, the facts contained in which were principally derived from the report on this subject of the Committee of the House of Commons, which was ordered to be printed on the 12th of October last. Dr. Lardner has here availed himself of the information supplied by the same most interesting and important parliamentary paper; some of the curious details given in which we may possibly take another opportunity of laying before our readers. In the meanwhile we can only afford room for the general conclusions to which the Committee came on the evidence brought before them. They are as follows:--
“1. That carriages can be propelled by steam on common roads at an average rate of ten miles per hour.
“2. That at this rate they have conveyed upwards of fourteen passengers.
“3. That their weight, including engine, fuel, water, and attendants, may be under three tons.
“4. That they can ascend and descend hills of considerable inclination with facility and safety.
“5. That they are perfectly safe for passengers.
“6. That they are not (or need not be, if properly constructed) nuisances to the public.
“7. That they will become a speedier and cheaper mode of conveyance than carriages drawn by horses.
“8. That, as they admit of greater breadth of tire than other carriages, and as the roads are not acted on so injuriously as by the feet of horses in common draught, such carriages will cause less wear of roads than coaches drawn by horses.
“9. That rates of toll have been imposed on steam-carriages, which would prohibit their being used on several lines of road, were such charges permitted to remain unaltered.”
The toll-bills complained of have since been repealed. “At the moment that I write,” says Dr. Lardner, “several steam-carriages are in process of construction for regular work upon the public roads of England. Some are about to be established between Paddington and the Bank, upon the New Road; others between London and Greenwich, and other places in the vicinity of the metropolis. Another it is stated, is to run between London and Birmingham. The first impulse once received, the progress will be rapid, and the effect of proportionate importance.”
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Footnote 1:
In another place Dr. Lardner states that “the engine which conveyed Mr. Huskisson to Manchester, after the unhappy occurrence which took place at the great trial, moved at the rate of 35 miles an hour.” (p. 206.)
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THE HALL OF ELTHAM PALACE.
Near the village of Eltham in Kent, about eight miles south east from London, stood anciently one of the most magnificent of the English royal palaces. The property is ascertained to have belonged to the Crown in the time of the Saxons. The Conqueror granted it to one of his Norman followers; but having again been forfeited to the Crown, it was given by Edward I. to one of the most powerful barons of those times--John de Vesci. Soon after this it came into the possession of Anthony Bec, the famous military Bishop of Durham, who is accused, however, of having made the acquisition by the most shameless violation of his trust, as guardian of the legal heir. Bec is the earliest proprietor of the manor who is recorded to have erected any buildings on the site of the palace--although there can be little doubt that there was a house there before his time. He built a large and splendid mansion, which appears to have been completed soon after the middle of the thirteenth century, King Henry III., accompanied by his queen and all the principal nobility, having kept his Christmas here in 1269. This was probably the warming of the house. On the death of the Bishop, which took place here in 1310, the manor of Eltham fell again to the crown, in the possession of which it has ever since remained. For the next two centuries the place was a favourite residence of our monarchs. Edward II.’s son John was born here in 1315, and was thence called John of Eltham. In the reign of Edward III. the Parliament was on several occasions assembled at Eltham; and here that prince, in 1365, entertained his captive, John, King of France, with sumptuous hospitality. The palace was almost entirely rebuilt by Edward IV., who, on the conclusion of the work in 1482 is recorded to have kept his Christmas in the Hall with great state and splendour. Large additions were afterwards made to the building by Henry VII., who, like his predecessors, generally lived here, and was wont to dine every day in the hall, surrounded by his barons. At this time the royal palace of Eltham consisted of four quadrangles enclosed within a high wall, beyond which was a moat of great width: the whole formed an irregular area, approaching to a square in shape, to which the principal entry was over a bridge and through a gateway in the north wall. There was also another bridge and gate at the opposite side of the inclosure. Of the buildings the most important part consisted of a high range which crossed the court from east to west, and included the hall, the chapel, and the state apartments. To the palace were attached a garden and three parks, comprehending together above 1300 acres, besides the demesne lands of 400 acres more. These parks were stocked with deer, and many fine old trees that still remain testify how richly wooded the place must have formerly been.