Two cows, or one cow and ten sheep Cultivation and seed, first year

Advances in provisions

Advances of other kinds

.

33 68 4 34 4 3 4 16 13 4 8 6 8 Total establishment £141 13 4

Flax and wool to be spun
Seven acres uncultivated land, net

This estimate is between 221. and 231. for each individual, and they are expected to repay it to the society in rent, and labour, besides maintaining themselves, in about sixteen years. Each allotment of seven acres is laid out in a rectangle, having the house toward the road with one end, and the other reaching fifty feet into the allotment. The dwelling occupies the part next the road, then comes the barn, after that the stalls for the cattle, and behind these the reservoir for manure, in which every particle of vegetable and animal refuse is carefully made up into compost, with the heath and moss of the land; the preparation of this compost being one of the most essential of their labours While under the society they are subjected to a kind of military regulation, all their work being done by the piece; they assemble at six in the morning in summer, and seven in winter, and those who do not answer to their names at the roll-call, get no wages for the day. When the labour of the day is over, each receives a ticket, stating the amount of wages; and for that he may procure food from the store at fixed rates. Those who are at first unable to support themselves get credit, but they must pay afterwards. The women spin, weave, and knit, at first from purchased wool and flax, but as soon as possible from the produce of their own flocks and fields. A day and a halt's work every week is allowed for the support of the sick, the infirm, and those who are not fit for labour; and for this those who work are allowed one shilling per day in summer, and eightpence in the winter. The whole of the necessaries and appointments are regularly inspected with military care. and such as have been wasteful are obliged to make good what they have destroyed. It will be borne in mind that the whole stock out of which each family of seven or eight persons is to find support, and if they can, effect some savings, is the stock of 1417. 138. 4d., and the seven acres of waste land-not only waste land, but land which is of a description not the most susceptible of cultivation. The careful preparation of manure, the most remarkable feature in Chinese husbandry, is the grand resource; and the result is far from discouraging. We shall not give the details; but the following are the sums of produce and expenditure for one year:VOL. I. I

Surplus each year

£8 34

The desire of gain and the approbation of the superintendents are, in general, found to be sufficient stimuli both to industry and good conduct. When these are not enough, forfeiture of privileges, confinement, and hard labour, are resorted to. There are also badges of honour-medals of copper, silver, and gold. Those who have the copper medal may leave the colony on Sundays without asking leave; the silver is given to those who have made some savings, and they are allowed to go beyond the colony in the intervals of labour on working days; and when they are entitled to the gold medal, by having shown that they clear 201. 16s. 8d. a-year by their own labour, they are free tenants, and released from all the regulations of the colony. These privileges may, however, be suspended for offences.

In the course of seven years, from its first establishment, the colony of Frederick's Oord, contained a population of 6778, including that of Omme Schanze, under a more rigid control, and among the number were 2174 orphans and foundlings. The total number forming all the colonies in Holland were stated to Mr. Jacob at 20,000, but he thinks it exaggerated: there were, however, 8000 in North Holland. Every attention is paid to the education of the young; and, in a country which has been always remarkable for its good sense in matters of religious opinion, and which, like Ireland, is, now that Flanders has been added to Holland, made up of Catholics and Protestants, it has, as Mr. Jacob remarks, "been deemed wise to keep education apart from spiritual tuition,”— -a wisdom which, if ever Ireland shall be blessed by the establishment of similar colonies, could not be too implicitly followed.

And there are five millions of acres in Ireland, each of which is just as capable of supporting its human beings, and in sixteen years repaying the expense of putting them there, as those upon the wilderness of sand, peat, and heather, at Frederick's Oord in Holland. Indeed they are a great deal more so; for very many of the Irish acres are of a quality capable of yielding a good crop without any previous manure; and few or none of them need be devoted to so poor a grain-crop as rye-the only one which the Dutch colonists appear yet to have cultivated to advantage. Ireland, too, has greatly the superiority in climate-in every natural advantage. And there can be no doubt that the labouring Irish would work hard enough if they were once put under proper regulations.

Here then are means of relief at hand, suf

ficiently ample to employ the whole of what is very improperly called the surplus population of Ireland (there can be no surplus population where there are five million acres, out of about twenty that might be cultivated, but are not); and this is a relief which does not rest upon theory, but of which we have as clear a practical demonstration as can be obtained on any subject.

Nor need the advantage be confined to Ireland. There are, according to the statement already quoted, four millions of acres in England and Wales that might be cultivated to advantage, and six millions of the same description in Scotland; so that, in the whole island of Britain, there are ten millions of available acres, and fifteen millions in the entire kingdom. With this fact on the one hand, and the successful experiment of the Dutch on the other, we speak, and write, and legislate about an excessive population, and send the people all over the world, at double the expense which, in colonies similar to those of Holland, would make them independent at home.

The people of Scotland might be, perhaps, left to manage matters as they please, because there, so far as we know, the ablebodied have not yet sent in a formal claim for charity. But really, if there were such colonies in England, the advantages would be immense, both in saving to the public, and in preserving the habits of the working classes. The amount of the poor-rate might then be diminished by more than one-half; and all the advantages of it might be secured without any of the evils. If those who were able to work and could not find employment were sent to the colony, the parish would be relieved of the burden of all save the really necessitous; and the probability is that the number who cannot now find work would thereby be greatly diminished; the large sums now annually spent in litigation, or in wheeling and countermarching paupers over the country, would be entirely saved, as the parties who are passed to their parishes are generally able to work, and could be sent to the colony without any expense.

Even culprits might be employed at a profit to the public, as the delinquents are in many of the Dutch establishments, instead of idly treading the winds as they are now made to do at our tread-mills. On the subject of labour, some of our countrymen appear to have the most singular notions that ever entered into human heads. If we do not actually believe that men live upon labour and not upon food, we act as if that were our belief-which comes nearly to the same thing. That we may not injure the honest labourer, we direct that the labour of those whom we sentence to it as a punishment shall be of no profit; and we take the price of their maintenance and of the machinery that they waste in their idle drudgery

out of the pockets of those who do labour; whereas, if we made the culprits do any thing useful, the whole that they did would be, as compared with our system, a clear gain.

If we had such colonies as a resource to meet the contingencies of those who were able to work, and our poor-rate freed from the customary litigation and jobbing, our system of provision for the helpless and the unfortunate would be very nearly perfect; and if we could bring about both for Ireland, we should do more for her than if we were to spend a thousand years in political legislation. We hope that the society, to which we have alluded, will go on vigorously; they who would in any way thwart or retard their progress are not the friends either of Ireland or of England.

BARBADOES.

(From the West of England Magazine.)

THE island of Barbadoes presents many curiosities, among which I was particularly struck with the Animal Flower Cave. The Animal Flower, is a substance partaking of the joint natures of a fish and vegetable, adhering to the rocks in a cave washed by the sea. Some of the trees are of the rarest kind, and tenanted by a great number of monkies in their wild state. There is also to be seen a great variety of flowering shrubs. One of the finest species of trees is the Palmeta or Cabbage tree; the trunk is quite straight, gradually tapering to the top, where a green part grows which is called the cabbage, and is sometimes boiled and eaten, though not very frequently, as the tree thus decapitated invariably dies. The leaves which grow at the top of the cabbage depend very gracefully from it, and very much resemble green fea ́thers.

With regard to the entomology of the place, this and most of the islands are tolerably free from venomous insects. One of the principal of these is the Centipede, and this is certainly a horrible creature ;-it is of the same kind as that which in England is called the hundred legs, only four times as large, and is a smaller species of that which in Demerara, and in India, is called the tantapied, and is in those places considered very venomous. To its legs are affixed black and sharp hooks, which are formidable weapons, though not so much so as the fangs placed under its mouth, with which it inflicts wounds which are frequently fatal. Each of these fangs has a small aperture at its extremity, from whence, through a tube, the insect probably infuses the poison into the wound it has inflicted. It is supposed by

some naturalists that the feet are also venomous, but of this I am by no means convinced.

The wild bee, as it is called, very much resembles our wasps; its sting is dreadful; and I have known an instance of a person being confined for three weeks with illness produced by its attack.

The insects here are all of very large dimensions, some of the cock-roaches are about the size of a small mouse, and I have seen spiders as large as a half-crown piece. The ants also are of a great size and very numerous, and I have seen them fall upon one of these cock-roaches in a body, and carry him off alive.

The following is the process of preparing sugar in this island. The cane is a very fine plant; when ripe, it is from five to six feet in height; the canes are collected and put into a mill, from whence there is a duct to convey the juice, after it has gone through the necessary process, to a boiling house adjacent. It is there boiled in four or five copper vessels, and well skimmed in each, in order to cleanse it as much as possible. After this, it is placed in large vessels to cool, and when sufficiently cold, removed into casks whence the treacle runs off, and leaves the sugar beautifully white and fine. Every part of the cane is applied to some use; it is dried after the juice has been extracted, and serves for fuel in the boiling houses; the green part is eaten by the cattle. The smell of the sugar while under the process of boiling is remarkably rich. The negroes are fond of smoking the cane, which is considered very wholesome, and they are observed to be in better health during the season in which the sugar is prepared, than in any other, owing to their eating a great quantity of it.

PAINTING IN FRESCO.

seen oil-paintings varnished, and, as it were, greasy; which can only be looked at in one point of view, and not perfectly in any; who have beheld only some small object confined in a frame; who have not gazed on a spacious edifice, entirely and delicately coloured, in an agreeable and natural tone, which may be looked at with advantage from all points, and which, however seen, is beautiful. "Of the three kinds of painting," these are the words of Baldinucci, "in oil, distemper, and fresco, the first is well known; the second is not to the present purpose; the last is making pictures upon a wall, or ceiling, or so forth, where the surface has been covered with lime, which we call plaster, and it is called fresco, that is, fresh, because, in order to produce a good work, that the painting may not be spotted, and to avoid other inconveniencies, and to ensure the permanence of the work, it is necessary that it should be completed whilst the plaster is fresh. No other colours are commonly used except earths, or those which are natural products; those which have been made by art, and especially those which are changed by heat, require to be laid upon perfectly dry substances, and will not agree with lime, or bear the dews of night, or damp weather, they are therefore never used. The white is lime, especially that which is made from burnt travertine." The whole surface of the wall is not covered at one time; a small piece only is laid, as much as the artist can complete whilst it is moist; some more plaster is then added, either adjoining the former, or on any part of the wall that is more convenient, and thus by degrees the whole is covered. The joinings of the different portions are distinctly visible, running in wavy lines, like coasts and rivers on a map; but the painter generally contrives that they should fall in shaded parts, and wherever they will be least visible, and interfere least with the effect of the picture.

The design, a drawing upon strong paper,

IN reading the Latin classics, we find continually, that the epithet, painted, is used on various occasions to denote the most agreeable kind of beauty; it is unnecessary to quote authorities, for many will immediately occur to the scholar. It is impossible to form an idea of the force and justness of the epithet here; but in travelling in Italy, and after having remained a short time in that country, and visited a few of the public buildings, it strikes every one forcibly; and he says to himself, or to his companion-"Now I understand the ancient authors-now it is intelligible to me, why they insist so strongly on the beauty of every thing that is painted." The word painting conveys an inferior idea of beauty to those, who have only I 2

placed against the wall, and the outlines are traced through it with the leg of a pair of compasses, or some such instrument, which, pressing hard upon the paper, marks the soft plaster behind it. On nearly inspecting a fresco, the outlines may always be found thus engraved on the wall. The manipulation of the ancient frescos that have been rescued from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, is said to be very admirable, and in many respects superior to that of more modern artists. The colours have already been subjected to chemical analysis; and a skilful artist, well acquainted with the modern mode, in accurately copying some of these ancient works in the same manner, would doubtless discover many, if not all, of the peculiarities of execution. Much may depend upon the due preparation of the wall,

on laying the plaster properly, on the nature of the lime and sand which are used-the latter, it is said, ought to be very coarse, and of a large grain; and there may be much of traditional lore in these matters: but whatever men have done, men may do again; and no other country in the world can surpass the admirable skill of our workmen.

It has been confidently asserted, that painting in fresco is one of the lost arts; and we are referred in proof of the assertion to the works of the modern artists who have lately attempted it in Italy. It cannot be denied that their productions are failures; but they are not worse in proportion than the works in oil of the modern Italians, who are certainly worthy to be classed amongst the least successful of the painters of the present day. The colours when mixed with lime are more clear, transparent, and agreeable than when tempered with oil. The modern artists, however, have missed this great beauty; there is no purity, no clearness in their colouring; it is dark, dusky, and dingy, and of a muddy and dirty hue; some of them, in order to give that relief which they were unable to produce by the colours alone, have hatched over the whole of the performance with black lines, an expedient not less unhappy than barbarous. Many books contain directions for painting in fresco. It is difficult to learn an art from books alone, but they are powerful auxiliaries; and even if we must believe that it is one of the lost arts, we cannot doubt that, through the persevering industry of ingenious men, it may yet be found again.

All true friends to the arts must earnestly desire and would heartily rejoice in the revival of this most noble and masterly manner of painting, which was so great a favourite with the ancients, which demands and creates a sound and solid judgment, and needs very extensive practice, and is manifestly the most manly, secure, firm, and lasting means of fixing the splendid creations of genius. As we have begun to build houses upon a handsome scale in London, the lovers of art may venture to hope, that instead of spending enormous sums solely on the upholsterer for his fading ornaments, something may now be spared to the artist, for conferring on the walls unfading decorations of a far more delightful and intellectual kind. If the work be well executed, it will not suffer injury from being washed with clean and cold water; the soot may therefore easily be removed, which in the smoky metropolis of Great Britain, would gradually accumulate and obscure the painted plaster. We may even imagine small foundations, the creations perhaps of the bounty of individuals, like the fellowships at our Universities. The fellow, a young artist of promise, might spend two or three years in painting the interior of a church, or other public building, maintain

ing himself meanwhile on his fellowship, on two or three hundred pounds a-year. If his work was successful it would introduce him to business, and another young artist might then succeed him on the foundation. A tribunal of artists, of a popular form, somewhat in the nature of a jury, to secure our edifices from being disfigured by slovenly and unseemly productions, might decide publicly upon the merit of the work, with one appeal to another similar court; and, if the ultimate decision was still unfavourable, the whole of the condemned work, or the offensive portions of it, might be sentenced to receive, after the manner of the reformers, a coat of plaster, or of whitewash; and thus fear, as well as hope, would stimulate the artist, who worked for the public, to do his best. The progress of the painting needs not to interrupt the ordinary use of the edifice; the public services might be performed on the Sunday, and the decoration of the church might proceed during the rest of the week. Persons who have seen the machinery now used for cleaning the windows of our cathedrals, and for similar purposes, will at once understand how the operations may be carried on without great trouble or expense, and with the perfect safety of the artist.

It has been justly remarked, that, if all the walls of a good aspect were covered with fruit-trees, the benefit would be great, and the cost small; we may make a similar remark touching the inside of the same walls. In every building there are of necessity walls, and there is a ceiling, whether it be flat or covered. The ceiling is not only the part of the interior which is least liable to injury, or to be soiled by dust, or dirt, but it is also the best adapted to display the wonders of art; it has been called the painter's heaven, as being the seat of the famous "di sotto in su," of which it is said, “E certo in questo genere si riunò in quella difficoltà una somma grazia, e molta bellezza, e mostrași una terribilissima arte.”

The supreme grace, great beauty, and very terrible art, the devós itself of painting, have been carried by the great masters to a considerable height, but not to the utmost perfection. The ceiling has been painted as a sky, as a heaven inhabited by divinities, heathen or Christian, by heroes or saints; but it would admit many other subjects; it is the region of birds; the vegeλoxoxnuyla of Aristophanes might be represented; various delineations of architecture, or perspective of rooms above, of the most beautiful and fantastical structure and decorations, might be displayed; the whole art of projection might be exhausted, and if beams and suitable supports were introduced, human figures might be shown employed in different manners, and in every posture.

The inside of our churches is usually painted of one colour, a muddy yellow, a

dingy red, or a dirty blue; or they are whitewashed, and look like prisons or hospitals. The heathen mythology is an inexhaustible source of beautiful and admirable themes for the ingenuity of the painter; and they are, in all respects, the best adapted to afford full scope for his utmost and highest powers; but, in a Christian church, such topics would be, to say the least, incongruous; in all other public buildings, however, they might be adopted freely and without restraint. A few subjects may be selected from Scripture, that are not unsuited for such a purpose; some persons would approve of these representations, being of opinion, that, if it be good to read of these acts, it is edifying also to view them, when painted: others might possibly condemn them, and hold that all exhibitions of human action would be inconsistent. In addition to the never-ending miracles of nature, animals, birds, trees, flowers, and fruit, foreign and strange, or such as are familiar, there are the triumphs of architecture, parts of cities, ancient ruins, restoration of temples, which might be frequently of the full size of the original; there are arabesques, grotesques, and every fanciful ornament. Wherever the magic of colours might be deemed too bright and glowing, there might be introduced the more sober, but hardly less attractive, chiaroscuro; such delineations in fresco, where the shadows are grays and browns, have a striking and very powerful effect.

If, however, the objections to painting our churches be deemed insuperable, we have buildings designed for civil purposes in abundance, which are well adapted for this species of decoration. In the enumeration of subjects suited for fresco, painted landscapes must on no account be omitted; some of the back grounds of the oldest masters are truly admirable in this way; they represent scenes, like those we see in Italy, where the sun finishes highly, pencils all objects carefully, and colours them brightly. The opinion has been taken up, that the climate of Great Britain would not permit our artists to adopt fresco painting, by reason of the cold and humidity. And it is true that our small country churches, with their little narrow windows, are, for the most part, horribly damp at all seasons: the walls are stained and disfigured with moisture, and frequently even overgrown with a green substance. But their dampness may be attributed to the small size, to the floor being generally lower than the adjoining ground, on account of the accumulation of earth from continual interments, but chiefly to the very defective ventilation. In a large building, where the air circulates freely, there is not the same quantity of moisture on the walls. Our cathedrals, although they are shut up closely, the doors being seldom opened, the windows never, are cold, but not damp. Westminster-hall, a great thoroughfare, and a place of public

resort by day and night, especially in the season when the air is most humid; and of which the situation is unfavourable, being near the river, and on ground so low, that the floor has sometimes been flooded-yet, because it is of a large magnitude, and constantly open, the walls, as the inhabitants of London well know, are not damp. If they were covered with fresco, it seems highly probable that the colours would last as long as in any other situation. It is not asserted that the mere coldness of the air, that frost alone, if the wall be kept perfectly dry, will destroy a fresco. In many of the German cities, and in the towns in the German cantons of Switzerland, we find houses of the same style of architecture as many in York lately were, and as many in Chester now are, but upon a larger and handsomer scale, the floors projecting above one another and over the street as they ascend. The outsides of these houses are painted with scriptural and historical subjects, of which the general effect is not disagreeable, and the execution frequently not without merit. The climate is more humid than even that of Great Britain, the frosts far more severe, and the changes of temperature much greater and more sudden; yet many of these paintings, which are entirely exposed to the air, and are only defended from the rain and snow by the projecting roofs and the narrowness of the streets, are of great antiquity. They are frequently of a fresh appearance, and are interesting, if it be only to preserve old manners and customs; to show us what was formerly supposed in that region to constitute all the glory of Solomon, and the magnificence of the Queen of Sheba; how Joshua armed himself and all his host, and how the prodigal sons were used to feast.

THE PENENDEN HEATH MEETING.

(From the New Monthly Magazine for November.)

ANXIOUS to witness the great assembly of "the Men of Kent," of which the High Sheriff had called a meeting, (having appointed twelve o'clock upon Friday, the 24th, for the immense gathering), 1 proceeded from Rochester to Maidstone at an early hour. Upon my way, I saw the evidences of prodigious exertion to call the yeomanry together, and from the summit of a hill that surmounts a beautiful valley near Maidstone, I beheld a long array of waggons moving slowly towards the spot which had been fixed by the High Sheriff for the meeting. The morning was peculiarly fine and bright, and had a remnant of "summer's lingering bloom;" and the eye, through the pure air, and from the elevated spot on which I paused