Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 5, November 1852

Cedi Mohammed Ibn Amar rushed, at great peril of his life, among the chambers of the burning castle seeking his Lindora. In the uppermost apartment of the western tower, still spared from the flames, he found her stretched upon a low divan, pale and disheveled, almost senseless. Her lover carried her among the ruins to a resting-place upon the trampled, blood-stained grass, and there under the fresh breeze of early morning she revived: “I am indeed saved by thy hand; O, my beloved, Allah hath heard my prayers, and great is my reward. To-morrow I sleep with my fathers and see thee no more.” The light of the dawn was on her face. “Lindora!” the youth cried, with a sudden fear; “Lindora, speak to me again!” He looked at the opal in his dagger, which for an instant shot forth rays, and then its light departed: it became a dull, dead stone. The soul of Lindora, light of the dawn, had left that couch of trampled grass and blood, and floated forth into the morning sky.

“And what became of her lover?” I inquired of the old hunter, who appeared disposed to make an end at this part of the tale, whereas I desire always to know distinctly what becomes of every one. We were told in reply, that some said he died at the storming of the castle, some said that he went to Granada and fought in a reckless way, became a great man, and never smiled and never married; but the old hunter himself inclined to think that he abandoned war, and being a caliph married largely, and escaped the observation of the world by being overmuch secluded in his harem.

We requested the old huntsman not to kill Lindora when he told the story next. He listened gravely, and replied, with more reproof in his looks than in his voice, that Lindora had become possessed – that is to say, mentally deranged – and in that state, according to his faith, she was regarded as a saint, and sacred to every good Moslem. It was, therefore, good that she should in that state be compensated for her troubles by a certain passage into heaven.

LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES

Were I to discuss, to describe, or even cursorily to touch on the social characteristics of any one of the numerous classes of Continental coffee-houses, I should require a book rather than a column. The subject is one so cosmopolitan, so intimately bound up with the progress of civilization, that, while ostensibly penning a paper on coffee-shops, I should be in reality writing a history of the manners, customs and social peculiarities of the peoples who were coffee-drinkers. So, seductive as are the temptations of Continental coffee-shops, I will not venture to touch upon them now. I will reserve for a more convenient opportunity the brilliant Parisian cafés, and the consideration of the influence they have had upon the progress of the decorative arts in France; I will reserve the coffee-houses of Germany where pipes and dominoes are the rule, and clean coffee-cups and clean waiters the exception; the cafés of Venice and Milan; the cafés and cafejis of Stamboul and Smyrna; the coffee-houses where there are concerts; where there are dramatic performances; where there are orchestras recruited by blind men; where there are dances and orgies, and feasts of cucumbers and hard eggs, as on the Port at Antwerp; where circulate massive white tureens of coffee considerably modified, or aggravated by schnaps, as at the great pilots’ coffee-house, the “Kœning Leopold” at Ostend.

Of the present state and position of coffee-shops in one country, I feel myself called upon, however, briefly to treat. The coffee-houses of London have, within the last thirty years, done, to my mind, so much good; have worked such important results, and offer so many curious questions for solution, both social and commercial, that I should be unjust were I to pass them over. I mean the genuine, orthodox, London coffee-houses – coffee-shops, if you will; where coffee is dispensed to the million at varying rates of one penny, three half-pence, and two-pence per cup; where eggs, bread and butter, bacon, and similar refreshments are provided at moderate rates; but where no ardent spirits or fermented liquors of any kind are either demanded by the customers or conceded by the proprietors; where – in lieu of the glasses that were wont to circle round the board, and the good company that was wont to fall underneath it in the old-fashioned coffee-houses – there is provided for the serious, well-conducted frequenters, a feast of newspapers and a flow of cheap periodicals. You and I can remember when such coffee-houses were not. If, in the old time, we wanted a cup, a dish or a bowl of coffee, we were compelled to go to the coffee-room of an hotel for it; provided always that we did not care to consume it at home. And coffee at home, even, was in those days, not by any means a faultless compound. Our aunts and mothers and sisters were blindly attached to certain prejudices and superstitions respecting the fining or clearing of coffee. Noxious compositions, such as dried fish-skins, egg-shells, what ought to have been isinglass (but was fish-bones boiled to a jelly,) together with red-hot coals, were thrown into the unresisting coffee-pot to faciliate the fining operation. Certain strange and fetish rites were also performed with the same view, by knocking the coffee-pot a cabalistic number of times on the hob, and chucking it up in mid air till the hot liquid within became a confused mass of grouts and conflicting flavors. Coffee-houses have effected a great reform in this respect, and have driven away many baneful, though time-honored superstitions.

There is scarcely a street in London – certainly it would be difficult to find three together, unprovided with a coffee-shop. The types do not vary much. Where men go simply for amusement or dissipation, they will naturally congregate in classes: the beggar will go to the beggar’s public-house, and the thief to the thieves’ theatre. But a coffee-house is neutral ground. There are in every coffee-shop whig, and tory, and radical publications, and whigs, tories and radicals assembled harmoniously to read them; for the readers are as mute as the papers.

Something like uniformity, almost amounting to monotony, prevails in the majority of London coffee-shops. The ornamental is generally sacrificed to the useful. A plain room, divided into plain stalls by varnished partitions, and fitted with plain Pembroke tables, papers, periodicals, and magazines, not quite guiltless of coffee stains and bread-and-butter spots, a neat waitress, economical of speech, and who is forever ringing the changes between two refrains of “coffee and slice,” and “tea and an hegg” – are common to all coffee-houses. There is more deal in some, more mahogany in others; there are aristocratic coffee-houses, where they serve you silver salt-castors with your muffins, and silver cream-jugs with your coffee; there are low – very low – coffee-shops, where there is sand on the floor, and an ill odor pervading the place “generally all over.” Yet, in all these coffee-houses, high or low, aristocratic or humble, clean or dirty, deal or mahogany furnished, night or day; I can sit for hours and wonder. I ponder on the evidence of Mr. Pamphilon before the coffee-committee of the House of Commons, not twenty years ago; and, reading that, and reading the excise returns, how I wonder! I wonder when I see these strong bands of honest working-men; of swart artisans; of burly coal-heavers and grimy ballast-porters; who are content to come straight from the factory, the anvil, or the wharf to the coffee-shop; who can bid the shining river of beer flow on unheeded, and content themselves with the moderate evening’s amusement to be found in cheap periodicals. And, forced as I am sometimes to admit the presence in my coffee-cup of some other ingredients besides coffee, such as chicory, burnt beans, pounded bones, calcined clover, or such trifling little strangers – I wonder still at the immense good the penny cup of coffee (as it should be,) but still the cup, coffee or not coffee, has worked in this huge London. Whatever it be, they drink it, and it does not make them drunk; and drinking, they read; and reading, they learn to think, and to wash, and to teach their little children to read, and to think, and to wash, too. I doubt if a murder were ever planned in a coffee-shop.

Charles Dickens.

JAMES LOGAN OF PENNSYLVANIA

—FROM THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE—

James Logan was descended from the Scottish family of Logan of Restalrig, known in history for little else save its connection with the celebrated Gowrie conspiracy. Driven from Scotland by the legal proceedings consequent upon the singular discovery of their father’s letters to Gowrie in 1608, the two sons of the last Logan of Restalrig migrated to Ireland and established themselves at Lurgan. Robert, the younger son, subsequently returned to Scotland, where he married, and had a son Patrick, who removed to Ireland, taking with him a well-connected Scottish bride, and an affection for the religious opinions of George Fox. Out of a considerable family, only two children of Patrick Logan grew up to manhood, William, who was a physician at Bristol, and James, the subject of the present biography. The latter was born at Lurgan “in 1674 or 1675.” He seems to have had an aptitude for the acquisition of languages, and daring a youth passed in various places in the three kingdoms – for his parents removed from Ireland back to Scotland and thence to England – James Logan picked up considerable knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish.

How or when he became acquainted with William Penn does not appear. Probably it was through Penn’s second wife, with whose father Logan was acquainted. However begun, community of religious opinions and some superiority in manners and education to the Quakers in general, riveted the bond of union between the proprietor of Pennsylvania and the young disciple, and induced Penn, in 1699, to propose to James Logan, to relinquish his intention of engaging in trade at Bristol, and accompany him to Pennsylvania in the character of his secretary. They sailed in September 1699, and after a three months’ voyage the proprietor and his secretary touched the shore of the new land of promise, in which it was Penn’s intention to pass the remainder of his life. After two years Penn found it necessary to return to England, but he left his secretary in America as his agent and representative. In that arrangement Penn was particularly fortunate. Every body else in authority in Pennsylvania looked upon Penn with jealousy, and strove to attain some selfish ends by infringing his acknowledged rights, or by taking advantage of his necessities. Logan alone acted fairly by him, and exhibited in his correspondence and in his conduct a due regard to his patron’s interest, and a calm consideration of the practical possibilities of the position in which both of them stood. A more unquiet, litigious, hard-dealing set of men than Penn’s colonists can scarcely be conceived. If all is true that is told of them, they certainly used Penn himself very ill, and oppressed every one who was inclined to treat him with more justice or liberality than themselves. Logan did not escape. In 1710 he was obliged to visit England in order to vindicate his conduct before the home authorities. He did so fully, and then returned to pursue his duties and his fortune in the new world. During the six years of paralytic helplessness which preceded the death of William Penn, a correspondence passed between Penn’s wife and Logan, in which we have on the one side interesting but melancholy glimpses of the condition of the great Quaker philanthropist, and on the other valuable information respecting the growing colony. Penn sent his scapegrace eldest son to Pennsylvania, consigning him to the care of Logan and his other sober friends, but other companions were better suited to his taste, and the silly youth brought discredit upon his father and himself. In vain Logan addressed to him letters of sensible but cold advice – too wise by half to have had any weight with a youth so far gone in dissipation. Sage, sentimental aphorisms fall dead upon a wanderer whose own heart and conscience can supply him with better teaching than any mere moral lessons, if he can but be persuaded to listen to its still small voice. This melancholy episode in the life of Penn will be best read in Mr. Dixon’s recent volume.

Logan had ere this time married, and settled himself in Pennsylvania. He prudently continued to devote his attention to commerce, as well as to the public affairs of the colony, and attained to eminent wealth as well as to the highest station. As his years and infirmities increased he partially withdrew from public affairs, and in a residence in the suburbs of Philadelphia devoted his declining years to literature and science. The last office he continued to hold was that of “Chief Justice of the Province of Pennsylvania,” at a salary of 100l. per annum. In 1736 he speaks of having already been obliged for five years past to mount the bench on crutches. He desired to retire, but the government could not find a satisfactory successor to his office. During his period of retirement Logan corresponded with his friends in Europe upon metaphysical subjects, and made communications on natural phenomena to the Royal Society, in letters addressed to Sir Hans Sloane, Peter Collinson, and others. He also employed himself in collecting a library – then not an easy task in that part of the world – and having built a room for its preservation, and endowed it with £35 per annum for a librarian, he left the whole to the city of Philadelphia. The Loganian library still exists, but in combination with two other public libraries. The founder is also perpetuated in one of the public squares of Philadelphia, which bears his name. He died on 31st October, 1751.

Among the founders of Pennsylvania, Logan ought to be had in honorable remembrance. Firm in his friendship to William Penn, and in his adherence to his personal religious opinions, a zealous and useful citizen, honorable and upright in every relation of life, he has also the still further credit of having been the first to tincture the rising colony with literature and all those amenities which learning brings in its train.

USEFUL ARTS OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS

—BY CHARLES WILLIAMS—

In an age when the useful arts have attained so high a development, we are, perhaps, prone to treat with neglect, or even unmerited contempt, the efforts of the nations of antiquity in the same sphere. It is not here as in the province of thought and genius. The poet, sculptor, painter, or philosopher, at the very outset of his labors, is accustomed to contemplate and mould himself to those perfect models spared for his use by the hand of Time. But the artificer, whose nearer concern is with the material and its uses, not with the form, is apt to fix a less ample scope; and while intent on supplying a want, often forgets that the same necessity indicated a similar effort thousands of years ago – an effort often crowned with the same results.

“The world grows old and again grows young,”

says a German poet; and it may be added, that the sturdy development of new youth often causes men to forget the results attained, before the previous old age had issued in second childhood. Let us, then, consider some of these results, which meet the eye in far too great number and variety to be even succinctly detailed, as they appear in those records which remain of the useful arts of the Greeks and Romans.

Many such results are evidenced by tangible monuments; others can only be sought for in history. The marble, bronzes, temples, aqueducts, theatres, roads, and baths, with numerous similar remains, are with us still – imperishable witnesses to attest the high development of the arts by which they were created. The wines, clothing, tapestries, and suchlike perishable materials, must be sought out and described from the written records of the past.

Any attempt at detail is precluded by the limits of the present article, but we will sketch in outline what we cannot minutely represent. Our object is, to regard the every-day life of the Greeks and Romans as it has been so often pictured – to view their houses and furniture – to cast a hasty glance at their fields and gardens – to survey their roads and their edifices, with the various remains indicative of their industrial condition; and we shall then turn with feelings of less astonishment to the wonderful scenes which the world, now two thousand years older, exhibits to our view in the nineteenth century.

One word more before commencing our task. The useful arts of these nations necessarily followed, in their rise and progress, those fundamental laws which have their seat in the inmost nature of man the inventor. To instance one: with them, as with us, there was seen the unity of end effected by necessity and luxury. We see the mother of invention originate, and luxury or fashion improve, till the first and simpler product has been rendered cheaper and more common – till the art of making something better has rendered easy the production of a necessary, and the artificial wants of the wealthy in the end minister to the convenience and necessities of the poor.

But the identity of these laws we need only suggest to the reader; his own mind will gather them from the scenes of daily life, and more especially from the great collection of the results of industry, open to his view. The influence and connection of religious feeling with the arts of the old world must, however, receive a word of notice. The vast variety of forms into which the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans expanded – forms often beautiful, sometimes grotesque, but always powerful – did not fail to include, in one mode or another, every province of art. Sometimes this influence might retard, sometimes accelerate progress; but, whether to aid or to hinder, it was ever present. Not only in their pillared temples – not only in the gorgeous and elaborate products of their high art, but by the household hearth, in the simple labors of the field, and in the operations of the artificer, religion was a companion and guide. The plough and the loom, no less than the sacred shrine, were under Divine protection; the workers in metal and the potters would look to the god of fire as their patron; rustics to the mighty Pan; the gatherer of the grape to Bacchus; indeed, to such a point was the feeling carried, that the very sewers in Rome were supposed to be under the guardian care of a goddess.

I. Agriculture – Bread and Wine

Taking a natural arrangement of our subject, into food, clothing, dwellings, traveling, and so forth, we must first glance at those arts which supply the merely animal wants of man. Agriculture was highly valued and skillfully pursued among both nations, though the Romans appear to have estimated the art even more highly than the Greeks. In both countries the soil was fertile, and the productions very similar. Wheat, barley, the olive, the vine, flax, and the fig-tree, with a great variety of garden products, may be enumerated. With regard to the live-stock, horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, and swine were reared for the ends of labor or for consumption; but the first-mentioned appear to have been scarce in Greece. The flesh of the kid and pork were the meats in most general use; but animal food, especially among the Greeks, was not so generally consumed as in our own day. Details of production and consumption cannot here be gone into; and we will therefore take the two main productions of both countries – their bread and wine – as examples in this respect.

The plough in use among the ancients differs very little from that still employed in modern times; in all important points, a close similarity is visible. The fashion and combination of these parts varied with them as with us, in order to fit the instrument for different soils. The Greeks and Romans usually ploughed their land three times before sowing; namely, in the spring, summer, and autumn of the year. But in some soils of great tenacity there were nine different ploughings, as mentioned by the younger Pliny in the description of his villa and lands in Tuscany. The harrows, rakes, hoes, spades, and agricultural implements, scarcely demand more than to be mentioned. We need only say, that the general processes of agriculture, including systems of manuring and irrigation, furnished materials for copious dissertations, and were not in Rome considered beneath the notice of the highest citizens.

Grain, when trodden out, shaken, or beaten by the flail from the straw, was, in very early times, pounded in mortars. But a simple form of mill, generally worked by hand, soon superseded the first rough contrivance. In its best form, this consisted of a cone of rough stone, on which was applied a hollow cone of the same material, which revolved in contact with the first. The upper mill-stone was furnished with levers, and turned either by slaves, by mules, or asses. It was hollowed out above into a cup-like shape, to receive the corn, which fell in a stream into a space between the two surfaces, and was reduced to flour before its escape below. Each country family had one or more mills, to grind for its own consumption; and thus the want of public machine mills was supplied. Water-mills were an invention of comparatively late date. They were of simple construction, consisting merely of a cogged wheel, which turned a second connected with the upper mill-stone.

In Rome, the bread continued for a long period to be made by the women of the household, and the trade of baker was unknown; but in Athens bread was mostly bought in the market, and eventually in both nations the art of baking became highly elaborate. Indeed, the variety of breads in use among the Greeks and Romans very much exceeded our own; and in the sumptuous private establishments of later periods, there were many slaves educated professedly for the care of the baking department. The many kinds of bread enumerated by Athenæus may be divided into two sorts, the leavened and the unleavened; many, doubtless, answered to our pastry and confectionary, but there was also a particular class of medicated breads expressly for use in physic. Indeed, so far was this carried, that a certain baker is mentioned by Plato quite in the light of an accomplished physician. The chief article of consumption in Greece was a kind of soft cake, made of barley-meal and sometimes mixed with honey or wine.

The Pelasgians appear to have introduced the culture of the vine into Greece, and subsequently into Italy. The art of making wine was known from the earliest ages, and its origin is lost in fable. To the careful selection of the site for a vineyard, the pruning of the vine, the props, training, manure, and careful cleaning of the soil, we can only allude. The solemn or festal character of the vintage-time, the religious aspect of the customs then observed, their near connection with the origin of the Greek drama, the general joy, and often riotous excess, which marked the gathering-in of the grape, will all recur to mind in connection with this part of our subject. But our more immediate object is, to give a short sketch of the methods by which the juice of the grape was prepared for use.

When gathered, the grapes were first placed in the vat and trodden by men, who often moved in time to the sound of some vintage strain, or enlivened their labors with the song. When the juice thus collected had been drained off, the remaining mass was still further subjected to the action of wooden screw-presses. The first yield of juice was most prized, as producing the best-flavored and richest wine; the second was only used for inferior purposes. One exquisitely rich kind of wine was formed from the juice exuding from over-ripe clusters before they were gathered. The sweet juice, or “must,” before fermentation, was frequently drunk, after undergoing a clarifying process. This “must,” too, was often preserved sweet and unfermented, by inclosing it in air-tight vessels; while grape-jellies were formed by boiling it down to the required consistency, and the addition of honey. This essence of the grape was used for “doctoring” poor wines.

To form the “must” into wine, it was placed in long, bell-mouthed vessels of earthenware, to undergo fermentation. These were sunk in the ground, and exposed to a moderate, equable temperature. When the “must” had become wine, these large vessels were carefully closed, and only opened at intervals to purify their contents, or to subject them to any mixing process. Similar arts to those of modern wine-makers were in use among the ancients, in order to produce the desired qualities. But further, the lids of these vessels were rubbed with an aromatic compound of saffron, pitch, grape-jelly, mastic, and fir-cones; which process was supposed to communicate an agreeable flavor.