Most of these lamps appear to have been made between the age of Augustus and that of Constantine. The style, of course best at the earlier period of the empire, degenerates under the later emperors, such as Philip and Maximus, and becomes at last Byzantine and bad.
Most lamps had only one wick, but the light they afforded must have been feeble, and consequently some have two wicks, the nozzle for which project beyond the body of the lamp. In the same manner were fabricated lamps of three, five, and seven wicks. If more were required the nozzles did not project far beyond the body of the lamp, which was then moulded in a shape adapted for the purpose, and especially the favourite one of a galley. Sometimes a conglomeration of small lamps was manufactured in a row, or in a serrated shape, which enabled the purchaser to obtain what light he required; still the amount of illumination must have been feeble. As many as twenty wicks have been found in some lamps.
The greater number average from three to four inches long, and one inch high; the walls are about one-eighth of an inch thick, and the circular handles not more than one inch in diameter. Some of the larger lamps, however, are about nine inches or a foot long, with handles eight or nine inches high.
AN ECCENTRIC ENGLISHMAN.
Mr. Henry Hastings, a most singular character, and genuine sportsman lived in the time of James and Charles I. Mr. Hastings was second son to the Earl of Huntingdon; and inherited a good estate in Dorsetshire from his mother. He was one of the keepers of New Forest, Hampshire; and resided in the lodge there during a part of every summer season. But his principal residence was at Woodlands, in Dorsetshire, where he had a capital mansion. One of his nearest neighbours, was the Lord Chancellor Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury. Two men could not be more opposite in their disposition and pursuits. They had little communication therefore; and their occasional meetings were rendered more disagreeable to both from their opposite sentiments in politics. Lord Shaftesbury, who was the younger man, was the survivor; and the following account of Mr. Hastings is said to have been the production of his pen. "Mr. Hastings was low of stature, but very strong, and very active; of a ruddy complexion, with flaxen hair. His clothes were always of green cloth. His house was of the old fashion; in the midst of a large park, well stocked with deer, rabbits, and fish-ponds. He had a long narrow bowling-green in it; and used to play with round sand-bowls. Here, too, he had a banqueting-room built, like a stand in a large tree. He kept all sorts of hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and had hawks of all kinds, both long and short-winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow-bones; and full of hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. The upper end of it was hung with fox-skins of this and the last year's killing. Here and there a pole-cat was intermixed; and hunter's poles in great abundance. The parlour was a large room, completely furnished in the same style. On a broad hearth, paved with bricks, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels. One or two of the great chairs had litters of cats in them, which were not to be disturbed. Of these, three or four always attended him at dinner; and a little white wand lay by his trencher, to defend it, if they were too troublesome. In the windows, which were very large, lay his arrows, cross-bows, and other accoutrements. The corners of the room were filled with his best hunting and hawking poles. His oyster-table stood at the lower end of the room, which was in constant use twice a day, all the year round; for he never failed to eat oysters both at dinner and supper; with which the neighbouring town of Poole supplied him. At the upper end of the room stood a small table with a double desk; one side of which held a church Bible; the other, the Book of Martyrs. On different tables of the room lay hawks' hoods; bells, old hats with their crowns thrust in, full of pheasants' eggs, tables, dice, cards, and a store of tobacco pipes. At one end of this room was a door, which opened into a closet, where stood bottles of strong beer and wine, which never came out but in single glasses, which was the rule of the house; for he never exceeded himself, nor permitted others to exceed. Answering to this closet was a door into an old chapel, which had been long disused for devotion; but, in the pulpit, as the safest place, was always to be found a cold chine of beef, a venison pasty, a gammon of bacon, or a great apple-pie with thick crust, well baked. His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at. His sports supplied all but beef and mutton, except on Fridays, when he had the best of fish. He never wanted a London pudding; and he always sang it in with, "My part lies therein-a." He drank a glass or two of wine at meals; put syrup of gilly-flowers into his sack; and had always a tun-glass of small-beer standing by him, which he often stirred about with rosemary. He lived to be an hundred; and never lost his eyesight, nor used spectacles. He got on horseback without help; and rode to the death of the stag, till he was past fourscore."
PERFUMED BANQUETS OF THE ANCIENTS.
A very remarkable peculiarity in the banquets of the ancients was, their not confining the resources of the table to the gratification of one sense alone. Having exhausted their invention in the confection of stimulants for the palate, they broke new ground, and called in another sense to their aid; and by the delicate application of odours and richly-distilled perfumes, these refined voluptuaries aroused the fainting appetite, and added a more exquisite and ethereal enjoyment to the grosser pleasures of the board. The gratification of the sense of smelling (a sense held by us in very undeserved neglect, probably on account of its delicacy) was a subject of no little importance to the Romans. However this may be, it is certain that the Romans considered flowers as forming a very essential article in their festal preparations; and it is the opinion of Bassius, that at their desserts the number of flowers far exceeded that of fruits. When Nero supped in his Golden House, a mingled shower of flowers and odorous essences fell upon him; and one of Heliogabalus' recreations was to smother his courtiers with flowers, of whom it may be said, they "died of a rose in aromatic pain." Nor was it entirely as an object of luxury that the ancients made use of flowers; they were considered to possess sanative and medicinal qualities. According to Pliny, Athenæus, and Plutarch, certain herbs and flowers were of sovereign power to prevent the approaches of ebriety, or, as Bassius less clearly expresses it, clarify the functions of the brain.
CHINESE BRIDGES.
Of Chinese bridges, some have been very much exaggerated in the accounts by Du Halde and the missionaries, as it appears from the later reports concerning the bridge at Foo-chow-foo, visited during the unsuccessful commercial voyage of the ship "Amherst," in 1832, and since the war become familiar to our countrymen. This same bridge, which proved a very poor structure after all, had been extolled by the Jesuits as something quite extraordinary. A bridge of ninety-one arches, being in fact a very long causeway, was passed by Lord Macartney between Soo-chow and Hang-chow, and near the Lake called Tae-hoo. The highest arch, however, was supposed to be between twenty and thirty feet in height, and the whole length of the causeway half a mile. It was thrown across an arm of the lake, on the eastern side of the canal. The late Sir George Staunton observed a bridge between Peking and Tartary, built across a river which was subject to being swelled by mountain floods. This was erected upon caissons of wattles filled with stones. It appeared to have been built with expedition, and at small cost, where the most solid bridge would be endangered by inundations. The caissons were fixed by large perpendicular spars, and over the whole were laid planks, hurdles, and gravel. It was only in Keâng-nan that solid bridges were observed to be thrown over the canal, being constructed of coarse grey marble, or of a reddish granite. Some of the arches were semicircular, others the transverse section of an ellipse, and others again approached the shape of a horseshoe, or Greek Ω, the space being widest at top. In the ornamental bridges that adorn gardens and pleasure-grounds, the arch is often of height sufficient to admit a boat under sail, and the bridge is ascended by steps.