the father of his country, shed imperishable lustre over the city, where, greater than a king, he yet refused to accept of the sovereign dignity.

'Per Diana!' exclaimed Gino Tornabuoni, the eldest of the party, who had formed his taste under Lorenzo the Magnificent' per Diana! Genoa should be much beholden to the prince. The city is changed beyond recognition since I was here, scarcely twenty years ago.'

Say rather to our countryman, Pierino del Vaga, one of Raphael's most favoured pupils,' rejoined another of the party; for, if I have heard aright, it was his repairing hither after the sack of Rome by the constable of Bourbon, that first taught the wealthy Genoese to unlock their coffers for the embellishment of their city, and the honour of their name.'

'Your pardon, Messer Bardi,' said the senator Spinola, who was accompanying the travellers in their survey; 'but bethink you, though I gainsay not the merit of Pierino, much praise is nevertheless the admiral's due. He took the young stranger by the hand, and gave up his own palace for the first essay of his skill.'

'Where the matchless frescoes we have just been viewing led to a new era in Genoese art,' retorted Bardi, a perfect specimen of a conceited young Florentine, who sturdily maintained his national supremacy.

Even so, messere. Thus encouraged, Pierino prospered rapidly, and founded a school which already numbers many worthy disciples.'

'You are right, senator,' said Tornabuoni in a conciliatory tone: unless the prince himself had led the way, even the divine Raphael could have worked no change in the hard dry manner-if I may venture so to call it of your former schools; and no one under his station could have set the example of such magnificence as I see all are now trying to follow. Verily, the more I look around me, and note these goodly palaces, o'erlaid with tints that seem stolen from your golden sunlight and cerulean sea, the more I marvel and admire.' As he spoke, he paused before a large building in process of erection by a near relative of the all-powerful admiral, and scrutinised the paintings on the exterior.* The taste,' he continued, is not, I own, of that strict purity we of Florence would admit, yet it gladdens me to view such tokens of new-born love of art and liberality. In these streets, where painters and sculptors walk with firm tread and erect bearing; where we behold now a statue newly placed in its niche, now a scaffolding half screening some frescoed palace front, I seem restored to the days of my youth, and recall the glories I witnessed in Florence under our great Lorenzo.'

'Yes,' said Spinola, complacently adjusting his black robe, to which sombre hue the senators of the republic were restricted, it is a conceit of ours, no doubt; but we deem that these glowing paintings, those rich mouldings and fair sculptures you see so common on the outside of our palaces, are in keeping with the brilliancy for which our Genoese sky is so renowned, Where nature has been thus prodigal, we would not have art chary of her stores.'

The limner is doubtless of Pierino's teaching?' asked Bardi, as the group continued their observations on the frescoes, which depicted the principal feats of arms of the Doria family, and drew forth general expressions of approval.

Ay, surely; Lorenzo Calvi was one of his earliest pupils. But that you may not think we lavish all upon our outer walls, will it please you to view the

*This palace is still extant; it now belongs to the Spinola family,

and contains the office of the British consulate; so that many English travellers, going thither for their passports, little recking of its ancient fame, pass before these frescoes, which, after three centuries' exposure to the elements, retain sufficient traces of the original colouring and design to justify their former celebrity.

paintings of the interior, which another of Pierino's followers has undertaken?'

So saying, the senator led the way up a wide staircase, into a large saloon on the piano nobile, on the ceiling of which, in a space twenty feet wide by thirtysix long, was a large painting, yet unfinished, representing the massacre of Niobe's children. The gigantic proportions of this fresco, the boldness and originality of its conception, at once riveted the stranger's gaze, and called forth a chorus of admiration, in which even Bardi freely joined.

How admirably have the difficulties of that flattened arch been overcome !-how deftly are the masses disposed!' said the third Florentine, who had not yet spoken. What variety in the posture and expression of the figures! Look at that prostrate form; he is expiring without a struggle; the features are not convulsed, the pale lips wear a smile. The arrow stopped life's current in an instant! And that boy, quivering in every muscle, yet forgetting his own anguish in the endeavour to stanch his brother's wound!'

'Beautiful!-sublime!' cried the enraptured Tornabuoni. 'What purity of outline! what delicacy in every detail of the colossal anatomy! See, Bardi, far or near, the effect is equally good.'

'Yes, indeed,' assented the critic; 'save for slight evidences of a less experienced hand, I could almost believe Michael Angelo had furnished the cartoons. Pity the colouring is too dark; 'tis really the only blemish.'

While these nobles were thus discoursing, a slight delicate boy, meanly clad, and of a timid aspect, glided into the saloon. Without venturing a glance around him, he hastily mounted the ladder that led to the scaffolding, and seizing a brush, began working on the unfinished figure of Apollo. Horrified at the child's presumption in venturing to meddle with the principal person in the composition, the three Florentines raised loud cries of indignation.

'Off, off, thou unmannerly varlet!' shouted Tornabuoni. How darest thou lay a finger upon the master's painting? Down with thee at once, or thy back shall smart for it!'

'Let go, I say!' cried Bardi, springing upon the ladder with the intention of forcibly dragging down the offender, who spared him this trouble, however, by dropping his brushes with a terrified air, and commencing his descent; while the Florentine, still glowing with indignation, turned towards the senator, whose laughter he considered strangely out of place: 'Is it because ye are new to these things in Genoa, that works of such merit are so carelessly watched as to be free to any varlet from the streets to come and daub them at his pleasure? Ha! here thou com'st, young malapert! Thou art lucky the painter is not here, else thou wouldst not have escaped so easily."

The poor boy, thus rudely apostrophised, slunk to the side of Spinola, looking up imploringly in his face, but too much overawed to speak. The senator, totally unmindful of his dignity, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, then patting the lad encouragingly on the shoulder, said: Hold up thy head, and be a man, Luchino! They'll not eat thee, thou foolish child! Noble gentlemen all,' he added with mock gravity, taking him by the hand, and forcibly leading him forward, 'permit me to make known to you Master Luca Cambiaso, aged seventeen, though somewhat frail and stunted for his years, the author of this same painting.'

'Come, come, senator,' said Tornabuoni, 'you have shewn us marvels enough to-day, without playing off a jest upon us now! What! a stripling like this, whom I should hardly have guessed to be twelve years old, to conceive and execute aught so perfect? No, no; you have overshot the mark!'

'You hear him, Luchino?' said his patron. 'Climb up again, thou trembling imp, and shew what the boy-painter of Genoa can achieve.'

With great reluctance, so extreme was his natural timidity, Luca Cambiaso obeyed the injunction, and again took his place upon the platform. But once there, forgetting everything save the absorbing interest of his subject, he displayed such astonishing rapidity of execution and vigour of colouring, as captivated the spectators, who at last broke the silence with which they had been watching his proceedings by applause as vehement as their previous abuse.

Encouraged by their praises, a flush of triumph lit up the young artist's sallow cheek, his eye kindled, and holding a brush in each hand, using either right or left with equal facility, he painted with increasing enthusiasm; even the vicinity of the admiring Tornabuoni, who had silently mounted the ladder, and stationed himself behind him on the scaffolding, did not distract his attention, as he pursued his labours with a bold and vigorous touch that contrasted singularly with his shrinking demeanour.

'My son,' said the good old Florentine, 'I shall carry back with me to Florence a grateful recollection of this day; and esteem myself much indebted to thy noble countryman for having brought me hither to witness, with my own eyes, the first efforts of a hand which princes will one day grasp in fellowship and respect. Yet, ere I depart, I would fain see the cartoons thou hadst prepared to guide thee in this work. Young as thou art, long and careful studies of each figure in this composition were doubtless required of thee, ere so great an undertaking was committed to thy care.'

Blushing and confused, Luca hesitated a while, then pointing to a rough sheet of paper, scarcely more than a foot square, on which the subject of his colossal performance was delineated, said: "Noble signor, that is the whole preparatory study I have made.'

Then thou art even a greater prodigy than I deemed,' he exclaimed, embracing the boy in a transport of delight. Verily, Luchino, the saints have been very bountiful to thee: they sent thee Pierino del Vaga, fresh from the inspirations of Raphael and the Vatican, for thy master, and gave thee grace to profit by his teaching! Go on, and prosper, child; and when Italy shall hail thee as the worthy successor of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Titian, forget not thy friend Gino Tornabuoni, nor his early prediction of thy fame.'

Nearly forty years after the scene we have recorded, about noon, on a mild winter day, two men wearing the rich though grave costume of the Spanish court, the one past middle life, his companion hardly yet in its prime, were traversing with hasty steps the Patio de los Reyes, connecting the church of the Escurial with the remainder of the vast pile, half monastery, half palace, which, in pursuance of a vow, Philip II. had erected in honour of St Lawrence. Without pausing to admire the lofty Doric portico, they hurriedly entered the interior of the sacred edifice, on the decoration of which the king was still lavishing the wealth of the new hemisphere, and concentrating the talents of the old; and there, still heedless of the magnificence around them-the triple rows of richly hewn columns, the treasures gleaming from the sidechapels, the high-altar with its golden statues and jewelled pillars-their eager gaze was directed to the vaulted roof, where a number of workmen were busied in removing a scaffolding from one of the centre compartments.

The elder of the two, with a keen deep-sunk eye, and strongly marked features-of which, however, the fire and the severity were tempered by an expression of profound sadness on the brow, and a diffidence of

bearing that displayed itself at every gesture-after a hasty nervous glance upwards, drew a deep sigh of relief, and exclaimed: Our Lady be praised! They will yet be in time.'

And more than in time, dear master,' was the response. When we left them to don our courtly gear, I certified first that little remained to do. Every beam and plank will be out of sight ere his majesty can be here.'

་

And now, my Lazzaro,' said the painter confidingly, as he leaned on the arm of his pupil, and drew him to a spot whence the painting, from beneath which the last vestiges of scaffolding were fast disappearing, could be most favourably viewed-tell me frankly, as brother to brother, what think'st thou of it; how doth it strike thee as a whole?'

'As I have always thought of it: worthy of your best days, when your heart was light, and your brow smooth; nay, surpassing them, shewing what in happier times you would always have been. The old freedom of touch, the grace of fancy is here: your mind hath been itself.'

'I would it were thus, my son and trusty friend; I would fain be well assured that thy love to thy poor master doth not deceive thee. Truly Hcpe hath been whispering to me the while-fanning me with her soft wings when weary, lending me her brightest tints when my darkened soul would have reflected itself upon my subject. Paradise! Good sooth,' he continued gloomily, "'twas a strange conceit of the king's to assign that to me. Purgatory or hell would have suited my humour better.'

'Nay, dear master, but that this is a moment's cloud, I would avail myself of the licence your love hath given me, and chide you for thus doubting and despairing.'

'Ay, doubt, despair-for how many years have not I been their prey! How hath my life been worn away, how have my best faculties been wasted by wrestling against that, which my heart and my conscience condemn not-which the church hath permitted to others before now, yet denies to me!'

The young man was too much accustomed to these outpourings of bitterness to appear to notice them, otherwise than by some remark upon the approaching visit of the king and queen to inspect the fresco completed, which they had constantly watched in progress, and whose subject had been of Philip's own selection that, he fancied, would lead the unhappy painter's thoughts into another and brighter channel.

"Thou art right, my Lazzaro. Yes, to-day may furnish the occasion for which I have so often prayed; and yet the thought of all that hangs upon the next hour, is well-nigh overwhelming. What if the king should so express his satisfaction with this work, as to embolden me to crave his all-powerful influence with the pontiff?-and then, overcome by my natural timidity, my tongue refuse to frame the petition, my knees to second its humility; and, in my miserable confusion and weakness, the favourable moment will be lost, and I shall be undone!'

It was Luca Cambiaso, the former bashful stripling of Genoa, who thus spoke, pacing the long aisles of the church his pencil had been selected to embellish, and whose presence at his court the proudest prince in Christendom had deigned to solicit as a favour.

Classed amongst the first painters of the age, respected and honoured by his fellow-citizens, the adored chief of a school of which the reputation bade fair to compete with the most celebrated of Italy, it is from the details of his domestic history that we learn how an ill-starred attachment, for which he could not obtain the sanction of the church, imbittered the best years of his existence, and caused him, absorbed in the sufferings of the man, to forget the triumphs and the claims of his calling as an artist.

The biographers of Cambiaso, with more minuteness than is often found in Italian memoirs, relate that the early death of his wife, a virtuous and amiable woman, and thrifty housekeeper, leaving him with a large family of young children, for a time reduced him to despair. Accustomed to her skilful discharge of all household and family duties, his sensitive organisation was unequal to cope with the cares that had so unexpectedly devolved upon him; and throwing aside his pencil in utter discouragement, for some months all the efforts of his friends to rouse him proved ineffectual. At this juncture, it was proposed that a young sister of his wife's should come to take the management of the house and of the unruly children, who had defied all the poor painter's attempts at management; and erelong the results of the admirable Bianca's good sense, activity, and mild though firm sway, became apparent, and the disorganised establishment resumed its former orderly appearance. In addition to these characteristics, wherein she resembled her sister, Bianca was endowed with an innate love of art, a harmony of taste, a refinement of perception, that Cambiaso had never previously met with in any female companion, and on which, with the natural dependence of his nature, he soon learned to place implicit reliance. From this state of feeling it was an easy transition to the avowal of his affection, and his determination to proceed at once to Rome, to solicit from the pope, Gregory XIII., the necessary dispensation to authorise their union.

Though he sought to propitiate the pontiff by the present of two large paintings, which-composed under the stimulus of all he hoped to obtain from his favour -are said to be among the happiest efforts of his genius, his petition was unsuccessful. The pope was inflexible to his prayers, and sternly exacted from him the promise that, as soon as he returned to Genoa, he would send his sister-in-law away from his house, and avoid her society. Drooping and heart-broken, the unhappy man, over whom this passion seemed to obtain greater empire in proportion to the hopelessness in which it was involved, religiously kept his word, and banished from his home the gentle woman, whose face, repeated in every sacred subject he composed for several succeeding years, attests how unfailingly she was present to his thoughts. But all inspiration, all life had forsaken him; and the greater part of his compositions at this period are so inferior to his earlier performances, that it is unfair to take them as specimens of his skill.

This state of miserable depression had lasted wellnigh five years, when an envoy from Philip II. arrived at Genoa, bearing his invitation to Cambiaso. The flattering distinction this conveyed, and the large recompenses held out, would, however, have been ineffectual to induce the painter to comply, had he not fancied that, by interesting the king of Spain in his behalf, he might be prevailed upon to ask from the pontiff the grace denied to him; and filled with this idea, he suddenly passed from the depths of despondency to sanguine expectations of success, that gave back to his hand its former vigour, and to his eye its fire.

Accompanied by one of his favourite pupils, Lazzaro Tavarone, whose gratitude and devotedness had been unceasingly displayed during his master's unhappy state, Cambiaso arrived at Madrid. Here he was received with unwonted affability and interest by the king, who, in aught connected with the adornment of his magnificent toy, the Escurial, somewhat unbent from the usual severity of his demeanour, and at once introduced to the scene of his destined labours.

In the execution of the grand fresco first assigned to him, a representation of Paradise, the artist put forth all the energy of earlier days, and painted with a rapidity and intensity that his frame, worn by

continual anxiety and disappointment, was ill calculated to support, and in the irrepressible agitation with which he now waited the coming of the king, his alternate expressions of gloomy foreboding or buoyant hope, his varying colour and gleaming eyes, Lazzaro, too well acquainted with every fluctuation in his unhappy master, saw how much suffering was at work. Uncertain what topic to introduce, yet unwilling to leave him undisturbed in the painful reverie into which he seemed to have fallen, as, muttering at intervals to himself, he continued to walk slowly backwards and forwards, the faithful scholar leaned against a column, and watched him with mournful solicitude; marvelling for the thousandth time at the undying fervour of this attachment in a man whose grizzled beard and furrowed brow betrayed the footprints of advancing years, no less than the ravages of sorrow.

'Lazzaro,' said Luca Cambiaso, suddenly pausing and confronting him, should I die in Spain, I doubt not the king will retain thee in his service, and my cartoons, and the studies we have made together, will render thee good aid. Yet I would fain have thee return to Genoa one day, and tell her '—

'Now, out upon you, honoured master,' cried the young man cheerily, for such talk as this! Die, forsooth! It is permitted to the unknown and unsuccessful to creep into a corner, hang their heads like a sick bird, and die to boot, if it so please them. But you? your life belongs to Italy and to fame. Remember the story you used to tell me when I idled at my easel, of the strangers who saw the painting of Niobe and her children, and what they predicted to you. Till that saying hath had its full accomplishment, talk no more of dying.'

'Well-a-day, those words might have been verified ere this,' returned Luca sadly; 'for 'tis no vanity to own I have had good gifts, if I confess likewise that for too many precious years they have lain unheeded and unprized. If I return to Genoa, I will seek out and destroy whatever I painted during that dark time. But hush! here comes the king. May my good angel be my help! I vow to our Lady of the Grazie a silver candlestick, and to the cathedral of St Lawrence at Genoa an altar-piece, if they will befriend me now!' And advancing with even more than his usual hesitation, the painter slowly drew near the royal party, which had entered by a private door, while Lazzaro modestly retired to some distance.

In compassion to the extreme timidity of Cambiaso, the king, who in Spain laid aside much of the icy formality which marked his demeanour when abroad, generally came unattended to inspect his progress. Even on this occasion, when he brought the young queen, Anne of Austria, his fourth wife, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and two or three others of his favourite nobles, to have the first sight of the recently finished painting, there was little of the state to be discerned which in those times seemed almost inseparable from royalty, and more especially might be regarded as the attribute of the haughty prince, whose dominions, besides Spain and her vast territories in America, comprised Naples, Portugal, and the Low Countries.

Advancing in the direction from whence he knew, by constant practice, the best view of the fresco could be obtained, the king, in the dress of black velvet familiar to us in the historical paintings of that period, encouragingly beckoned to the painter.

'We are come, as thou seest, good Luca, to enjoy in its perfection the goodly foretaste thou hast furnished us of the condition of the beatified hereafter. Now, draw hither, and take heed if I expound rightly to the queen and these gentlemen all the celestial personages here depicted.'

'Your gracious majesty,' faltered Luca, in his imperfect Castilian, requires no help from me. By

the aid of your benign counsels, and enlightened by your sacred lore, have I carried on this work. This poor hand did but execute what your royal judgment had conceived.'

Tush, Luca! Nature made thee something better than a courtier, though I do not gainsay that I took a slight share in this assemblage of the blessed, which will ever bring thy marvellous speed in painting to my mind. See there, Anne,' continued Philip, turning to the queen, who was surveying, with a pleased girlish air, the bright colouring and richness of the general effect-' see that figure of thy holy patroness, the mother of our Blessed Lady. What say you to it?' 'Sire, it seems to realise my dreams of the venerable saint.'

'Well, mounting one day upon the scaffolding as was my wont, I found Luca had just completed it. I liked the whole, yet observed I wished the face had borne greater marks of age; then, turning away, soon forgot those passing words of blame, so much did I find on every side to praise. A moment afterwards, I chanced to turn round, and what saw I, think you? Why, the blessed saint full ten years older, as you view her now! Like the touch of an enchanter's wand had my Luca wrought this change.'

And the nobles chorused the praise which their monarch so lavishly bestowed; then stood in the attitude of profound attention, while he descanted on the different groups of patriarchs, prophets, and saints the picture comprehended in its vast expanse, bidding them at the same time remark how well the severe simplicity of the black and white marble pavement he had selected for the church, enhanced the glowing splendour of the roof.

'Well done, well done!' he exclaimed exultingly, turning towards Luca, who meantime had shrunk into the background. 'I cease not to applaud myself for having summoned thee hither. I am right well content' -and motioning to him to approach, leaned familiarly on his shoulder, and holding his hand in his, returned to the contemplation of the painting.

'What purity of expression,' said the royal critic, 'what holiness of joy, what beatific ecstasy doth shine on these blessed visages! I had been told thy greater power lay in depicting dark troubled scenes, mournful faces; but here, thou seem'st to have had a vision of celestial happiness to inspire thy fancy.'

or

'O my gracious liege,' murmured the trembling painter, truly it was the thought of what your royal mercy could obtain for me, that cast light upon my soul.'

An ominous cloud passed over the king's brow, and he withdrew his hand; but Luca, in his eagerness, heeded it not, nor was conscious of a warning pressure upon his arm.

One word from your lips, most mighty sovereignbut one word; and he who hath power to bind and loose will grant the dream, the hope of years! O noble prince, the church's prop, the church's pride, spurn not my prayer.'

In his frenzied pleading, he had laid hold of the king's mantle, but Philip plucked it from his grasp, and with a stern frown, turned away. In another moment, Luca's outstretched arm was forcibly drawn back, and he found himself face to face with the Duke of Medina Sidonia.

‘Art thou mad, Luca?' he whispered, dragging him to the recess of one of the side-chapels. How couldst thou presume to venture on such a topic with the king? Thy unhappy passion was well known to him, but he little dreamed thou wouldst ever profane his ears with urging a request that the pope himself saw not fit to grant. What fiend possessed thee that thou must needs thrust thy paltry love-tales on the majesty of Spain? "Let him look to his gray hairs, and learn wisdom," thus doth he bid me tell thee; and beware

thou breathe no word of this again, else thou wilt assuredly forfeit the royal favour, and be instantly ordered to depart.'

Like a person stunned, the unfortunate man reeled backward, and caught for support against the wall, while the duke, abruptly quitting him, rejoined the king, who was much chafed by this occurrence, and with the queen and his attendants, immediately left the church.

As Luca gradually returned to consciousness, and became sensible of their departure, a well-known voice pronounced his name, and he felt himself clasped in the arms of his faithful scholar.

'O Lazzaro,' he gasped faintly, 'take me hence. "Put not your trust in princes," I had often heard it said; yet when he held my hand in his, and I recalled the words of the Florentine, I deemed the time was come, and dared my fate. It is over now. Pray that the King before whom I next shall kneel will not cast me thus away!' And they bore Luca Cambiaso to his dwelling, where in a few days he died.

THE LATEST PROMISE OF THE IRON AGE.

Ir would require some little measure of consideration to determine what characteristic would best express the spirit of the present age. When the attention is fixed upon the doings in Australia and California, golden seems to be not altogether an inappropriate epithet. A few days since, we chanced to be present in a large meeting, in which a ci-devant lecturer, who assumed the nom de guerre of Parallax-Paradox, no doubt, he meant-challenged the collective forces of science to a tourney, undertaking to prove against them all, that our good old jolly round world is flat: whereupon, for a little time, we were constrained to feel that the age was a very brazen one. Glancing from the brazen oracle to its hearers, the suspicion presently arose, that wooden might prove more apt than either brazen or golden. On the fast banks of the Cam, again, the idea always presents itself that mercurial is the proper designation. But then, in moments of quiet reflection, that huge tubular bridge, which carries railway-trains from Caernarvon to Anglesey, across an intervening arm of the sea, comes back to the mind; and that mighty leviathan, too, which is building at Millwall, and which promises, after a short interval of preparation, to rush round the world every three months, with a burden of 25,000 tons in its ferruginous shell. Yes, there is in the composition of this wondrous age an ingredient of higher importance than either wood or mercury, gold or brass, and which does very much more to confer upon it a predominant feature. The age is really an iron one. Iron, in the hands of science, is doing more for the benefit of humanity, and for the advance of civilisation, than any other material agent that has been engaged in beneficent service since the civilised history of mankind began.

The peculiarity which is chiefly operative in rendering iron of high value in the constructive arts, is the extraordinary tenacity with which the little molecules of the metal hold together. They grasp each other so tightly, that it requires a very powerful wrench to tear them asunder. Ân iron bar, of the same size as an oak beam, that would be crushed by a weight of 400 pounds, will bear 2000 pounds, and come out of the trial unscathed. A square piece of sound-wrought iron, one inch thick and one inch long, is capable of sustaining a weight of eleven tons concentred upon its middle.

But there are other properties accompanying this fivefold oak-power of iron, which are of scarcely inferior importance in a practical point of view. By

the instrumentality of the steam-roller and steamhammer, and by the power of heat, the metal can be fashioned into any shape that is required; and by the processes of welding and riveting, masses can be provided of any size. It seems literally that art is now able to oppose to the rude forces of nature iron structures capable of resisting any amount of destructive violence they can bring into play. The hollow beam which lies across the Menai Strait allows railwaytrains, laden with hundreds of tons, to be shot through it almost without causing it to bend from the straight line. The Great Britain steam-ship remained stranded for months on the rocky coast of Ireland, amidst the fury of the Atlantic breakers, almost without a strain. The Great Eastern steam-ship, when completed, if taken up by its extreme ends, an eighth of a mile asunder, with 25,000 tons hanging from its middle, would sustain the weight as if it were no more than twenty-five ounces. The utmost violence of winds and waves will no doubt be trifles when compared with its powers of endurance. Even the hurricane bursting broadside upon the marine giant, will scarcely disturb its equanimity as it floats upon the ocean. Such are the strength and the adaptability of iron!

Then, too, iron is dug from the ground. It lies ready for use upon the earth in inexhaustible masses, which require only to be taken from their natural repositories, and to be prepared for the uses to which mechanics desire to apply them. There, however, is the rub they must be prepared before they can be used. The strength and malleability of the metal are entirely dependent upon its purity; and the native ore contains various earthy minerals besides the metallic iron. It is composed of flint, clay, carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus, besides that subtile corrosive agent which holds its court unseen in the transparent atmosphere, and which chemists call oxygen-that oxygen which is the lurking principle of rust. All these things are mingled together, in what seems to be inextricable confusion, in iron ore. The workers of the metal, however, know the confusion must not be inextricable, and accordingly, by the persevering effort of ingenuity and skill, they have devised a way to extricate the giant from its entanglement. First, they roast the ore; that is, they expose it to considerable heat, by making heaps of mixed coal and ore, and setting fire to the mass. The roasted ore gets to be deprived of several impurities which cannot endure heat, and becomes somewhat light and spongy. Then it is placed in alternate layers, with coke or charcoal, and lime, and the whole is subjected to the refining fire of a blast-furnace. The corrosive oxygen of the ore, under this treatment, capriciously finds that it has a much stronger affection for one of the new-comers, the charcoal, than for its old associate, the sturdy metal; and so takes up with its fresh companion, and flies away with it in the state of vapour, vanishing through the air. The flint and clay, in the same way, make the discovery that they are near relatives of the lime, and forthwith strike up a sort of family union, forming among them an earthy scum or slag. The iron, fairly put upon its mettle by this base desertion, waxes furiously hot, and melts into a liquid. The superintendents of the process, catching it at this advantage, snatch away the earthy scum from an upper opening in the furnace, and draw off the molten mass through a lower one, into channels and moulds prepared for its reception. When it runs into these moulds, it has lost the principal part of the impurities with which it was combined; it still, however, retains enough to interfere with its constructional integrity. It has still mingled with its mass five per cent. of carbon, and smaller quantities of sulphur, phosphorus, and other similar ingredients, which have the effect of rendering its grain coarse, and its consistence brittle. When it has cooled in the moulds, in this semi-purified

state it constitutes the crude pig-iron, or cast iron, of the manufacturers. This cast iron has three times less tenacity, and once and a half less resiliency, or power of recovering its original condition, when slightly interfered with, than the metal possesses in its purest form.

In order that cast iron may be brought into the purest condition the metal can assume, it is again melted in a fierce furnace, and then, when molten, it is splashed about by the end of an iron rod. Corrosive oxygen floating round in the air, thus invited, enters again upon its old pranks; seizes more of the carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus, and flies off with them as vapour. The remains of other less abundant impurities collect into a slight scum, and there then remains tolerably pure iron, which is taken from the furnace as it consolidates in cooling, and transferred to the anvil, to be there knocked and kneaded by the hammer, until it gets dense and close-grained, or rather closefibred, under the repeated assaults. This process of preparing the cast iron for the operations of the forge, by agitating it when in a molten state, is expressively designated by the term puddling. When the cast iron has lost in the puddling four out of its five per cent. of carbon, it has been changed into steel. Steel is a carburet of iron, containing one pound of carbon to every ninety-nine pounds of iron. When the remaining one per cent. of carbon has been almost entirely removed, there remains pure malleable iron.

One great drawback upon the employment of this process for the preparation of malleable iron, has hitherto been the heavy expense of the fuel that of necessity has to be employed in the repeated meltings. Some of the best kinds of iron are only procured after six successive fusings. In addition to this difficulty, it has always been found impossible, also, to prepare any very large quantity at once. Founders have thought they had effected wonders when they have turned out some four or five hundredweights by one puddling. The railings which surround the cathedral of St Paul's in London were made of iron, procured by the puddling process in Sussex, at the expense of L.7000.

All this, however, appears now to pertain to the past rather than to the present. A civil engineer of London has just patented a plan for the preparation of malleable iron by a new process, by which he is able to deal with the metal in almost any quantity at once. He has experimentally shewn his ability to convert five tons of molten cast iron into a vast lump of pure malleable iron, in thirty-five minutes; and it is stated that, by the use of his process, an equal quantity of iron railing with that which stands round St Paul's might be furnished at the comparatively trifling cost of L.230.

This new process of Mr Bessemer's consists merely in forcing air through the molten pig-iron, in the place of splashing up the molten iron into the air. The molten iron, drawn off from the slag in the usual way, after the first roasting and melting, is received red-hot into a sort of basin, instead of into moulds. This basin has holes at its bottom, communicating with a very powerful pair of blast-bellows, worked by steam. The airblast is turned on before the red-hot liquid metal is received into the basin; and the result is, that the metal is prevented from running into the holes by the outset of the blast, and that the streams of air rush through it, tossing it violently to and fro with a sort of fiery boiling. The fierce air-blast forces the carbon combined with the iron into a furious combustion, and the heat of the molten liquid is thus raised higher and higher as the blast goes on. The carbon, which is a superfluous impurity, is itself converted into a valuable fuel through the force of the blast. First, a bright flame and an eruption of sparks burst from the mass; then the fiery liquid swells, and throws up the impurities to the