Anne Boleyn was marvellously dainty about her gloves. She had a nail which turned up at the side, and it was the delight of Queen Catharine to make her play at cards, without her gloves, in order that the deformity might disgust King Hal. The good Queen Bess was extravagant, fastidious, and capricious in the extreme, about her gloves. She used to display them to advantage in playing the virginal, and gloves at that time were expensive articles.
DELLA ROBBIA WARE.
Luca della Robbia, born in 1388, was an eminent sculptor in marble and bronze, and worked both at Florence and at Rimini. Having abandoned his original employment for that of modelling in terra cotta, he succeeded, after many experiments, in making a white enamel, with which he coated his works, and thus rendered them durable. Vasari writes of him, "che faceva l'opere di terra quasi eterne." His chief productions are Madonnas, Scripture subjects, figures, and architectural ornaments: they are by far the finest works ever executed in pottery. He adorned the Italian churches with tiles, as well as with altar-pieces, in terra cotta enamelled; and he is the founder of a school which produced works not much inferior to his own. The "Petit Château de Madrid," in the Bois de Boulogne, near Paris, received the appellation of "Château de Fayence," from having been ornamented with enamelled tiles, the work of an Italian artist, named Girolamo della Robbia, a grand nephew of Luca, whom Francis I. brought from Italy. This château is now wholly destroyed. The tiles seem to have been introduced into portions of the architectural composition, rather as accessory ornaments than as a "lining" or revêtement of the walls. Analogous ornaments, the work of Luca de Maiano, 1521, were to be seen in the old gate, Whitehall, and at Hampton Court.
Luca della Robbia sometimes, though rarely, used a coloured instead of white enamel in his compositions. The above cut represents the altar-piece of San Miniato, near Florence, by him. The ground is blue, the figures white, the fruits, &c., gold colour, and the garlands green.
VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN JAPAN.
The peninsula of Wountsendake, and the greater part of Kewsew, bristle with volcanic mountains, some extinct, others still acting as safety-valves to the incomprehensible excitements of mother Earth; but of all the manifestations of her internal throes and torment, and their consequent desolation inflicted on the habitations of her children, that of 1792 was the most terrible for ages before.
"On the eighteenth day of the first month of that year," says the Annals of Japan, "the summit of the mountain was seen to crumble suddenly, and a thick smoke rose in the air. On the sixth of the following month there was an eruption in a spur on the eastern slope of the mountain. On the second of the third month an earthquake shook the whole island. At Simabara, the nearest town to the mountain, all the houses were thrown down, amidst a general terror and consternation, the shocks following each other with frightful rapidity. Wountsendake incessantly sent forth a hail-storm of stones, showers of ashes, and streams of lava, which devastated the country for many leagues round. At length, on the first day of the fourth month, there was a new commotion, which increased in intensity from moment to moment.