the nest through a hole in its floor. Some of the men were weeks before they could reach the top, while it was the duty of Sergeant Steel and others to ascend it, and carry on the work in the most tempestuous weather and in the darkest nights. The oscillations of the structure were frequently very violent; but the observer, cool and fearless, continued to complete his arcs, and to record the movements of the stars. In one of the storms which broke over Norwich, an architect paid the sergeant a visit; but the vibration of the nest appeared so alarming to him, that, through his representation, a peremptory order was given to abandon the station, by removing the instrument and scaffolding from the spire. At Beachy Head, the sergeant spent a winter season, where he was exposed to cold the bitterest he had ever experienced. This was in March 1845; and at midnight, when the temperature was 25 degrees below freezing-point, he did not forsake his work, but continued to observe the elongations of the pole-star, protected only by the canvas sides of his frail observatory. In moving from place to place, he acquired much skill and facility in the construction of scaffolding and stages; and some of these fabrics, from his own designs, have only, perhaps, been excelled by the interesting works of Sergeant Beaton. Soon after this, Sergeant Steel was employed during periods of five years in carrying on a series of astronomical observations with Airy's zenith sector for the determination of the latitude of various trigonometrical stations used in the Ordnance survey of the British isles. Out of the twenty-six sector stations, he visited seventeen, at fifteen of which he took the whole of the observations, with the exception of a few at Balta, and about one-half at Southampton, which were made by Corporal William Jenkins. The record of his observations, comprising about 700 quarto pages of closely printed matter, attests both his industry under difficulties and his talents. In this honourable service, he displayed a quickness of perception, an accuracy in the manipulation of his instrument, and a skill and dexterity in the taking and registration of his observations, that place him in an enviable light even among scientific men. The most important work with which the name of Sergeant Steel is popularly associated, is the triangulation of London for the Sewers' Commissioners. He it was who designed the beautiful scaffolding around and above the ball and cross of St Paul's, and who for four months carried on his duties in the observatory, cradled above the cross, with so much spirit and zeal, notwithstanding at times its alarming oscillations. In that period, he made between 8000 and 10,000 observations, and, on the completion of the service, superintended the removal of the scaffolding, which was found to be an operation even more difficult and hazardous than its erection. Another important work superintended by him, was the remeasurement of the base-line on Salisbury Plain by means of the compensation-apparatus, which he conducted with his accustomed fidelity.' This is the Mr Steel who, in 1855, furnished the British Association with 850 determinations of latitudes and theodolite observations from Arthur's Seat, with the view of determining the attraction of that mountain.

Quarter-master William Young is also a man of marked ability. For fifteen years, he superintended a large force of computers and others, employed in carrying out the various calculations for the principal, secondary, and minor triangulation, the preparation of diagrams, the calculations of latitudes, longitudes, and meridional bearings, also the computation of distances and positions for the hydrographical office, to enable the Admiralty to project the nautical surveys of the coast of the United Kingdom. With these scientific duties was connected the computation of trigonometrical and meridional and parallel distances for the surveys and large plans of towns.... For some years

Mr Young superintended, under an officer of engineers, the compilation and calculations for the publication of the grand triangulation of the United Kingdom, and the arcs of the meridian connected with it. In addition to these scientific duties, he had charge of an official correspondence, and the management of large public accounts, the magnitude of which may be judged by the fact, that in four years alone more than L.100,000 passed through his hands-L.50,000 at least in personal payments, and the remainder in issues through him, to other persons rendering their accounts to him for examination. This brief abstract affords sufficient evidence of the extent and responsibility of his duties, which, Colonel Hall reported, "could only have been performed, in the highly efficient manner in which they had been, by the possession on his part of great mathematical knowledge and aptitude for applied sciences." In some respects to compensate him for his services, he had, when a non-commissioned officer, been awarded the highest military rewards and allowances that the regulations permitted-namely, 4s. a day and an annuity of L.10 a year and a silver medal. These, with his sergeant-major's pay, made his annual allowances reach about L.170 a year, exclusive of his regimental advantages of excellent quarters, fuel, and clothing. Even this, the ultimate stretch of military reward, was wholly incommensurate with his acquirements and deserts; and to retain his services in the department, it became necessary that a special course should be taken to better his station in the corps. This was successful; and by the cordial and generous advocacy of Sir John Burgoyne, a commission was obtained for him to the rank of quarter-master, by which he is placed, in a pecuniary view, in a position above the chief civil gentlemen on the survey, and on | a par nearly with the lieutenants of engineers employed on it.'

Who would think of romance in connection with the subject of triangulation? And yet, what between living upon mountain-tops and on high scaffoldsairy perches, difficult of erection, and never visited without the sense of insecurity-the surveying sapper is constantly in the way of adventures. Mr Connolly says, in writing of Sergeant James Beaton: "Throughout his survey-career of more than twenty-three years, his adventures and vicissitudes on mountain-duty, in observing, in scaffold-building, in travels by land and sea, exposed in camp to frost and snow, to violent winds, storms, and deluging tempests, belong almost to the romance of science. This is true not only with respect to the arduous and trying services of Sergeant Beaton, but to many others who, like him, have been allotted to the laborious duty of the great triangulation.'

UNDER THE LIMES.

BY THE LATE MAJOR CALDER CAMPBELL.

As there I stood beneath the flowering limes,
Whose golden blossoms waved above my head-
A fragrant orchester, where hymns were said
In musical intonements and rich chimes
By myriad bees-I saw, as distant climes
Are visible in dreams, a lady laid

Upon the opposite bank, where black yews made
A darkness that benighted sun and air-
Strange contrast with the brightness round me cast!
But oh! the beauty of that face divine,
Where rose and lily did such tints combine
As my tree-odour and sunshine surpassed!
So brightly shone her clouds of golden hair
That-spite of all the shade-there was no shadow there!

Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 23 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers.

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE

No. 186.

TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.

I CERTAINLY do meet with odd people on my travels, though these are neither numerous nor extensive. I have never passed the bounds of-speaking Hibernicé -my three native countries; yet within England, Scotland, and Ireland I have met with characters enough to set up a modern Sentimental Journey; and heard little bits of histories, full of nature, feeling, or humour, that would furnish studies for the greatest novel-writer of the day. Most of these I have lighted upon in railway-carriages-places fruitful in episodes to one who generally travels second-class and alone.

Yes, in this slowly deteriorating world, we may well begin to fear that clothes and purses do not confer that unquestionable respectability which it is generally supposed they do; else why, in spite of silk gowns, unexceptionable broadcloth, and no lunch in a basket, as an ingenious avoidance of Wolverton, Swindon, York, &c., can first-class never trust itself to itself, but must stare in mute investigation of its own merits and position till within a county or so of its terminus, when repentance and satisfied gentility come quite too late? Now, second-class, whose only passport is its face, and only safe-conduct its civil behaviour, has no such qualms, but plunges at once in medias res, settles itself to the evident duties of humanity in transitu, and reaps corresponding benefits.

Nature certainly meant me for a second-class passenger. I cannot help taking a vivid interest in everything and everybody around me. Convinced that

The proper study of mankind is man,

or woman, as it happens, I suffer no little impediments to daunt me, and succumb to none of those slight annoyances, which are grave evils to persons of sensitive organisation. To be sure, it was an inconvenience to be thrust into the carriage with those two young couples, married that morning, and bound for Australia next day, especially when the one husband, half-seas over, would balance sleepily between the corner and his wife's shoulder, and the other wife chattered the most coquettish nonsense to the other husband. Still, in each of the opposite partners, I could trace a quiet sturdy seriousness, which led me to moralise on the future fate of all four, and even to see a wise meaning in the dispensation of matrimony, morally as well as physically, coupling opposite faults and opposite virtues. Also, on that terrible incursion of the Goths, in the shape of six big labourers, accompanied by the unmistakable fustian odour, all brutish and stupid, and the only "cute' one fierce with his wrong in having the

PRICE 11d.

next carriage closed in his face by a 'gentleman;' how the man kept looking at his crushed bleeding finger, and muttering savagely: 'He'd none ha' done it, if I'd had a good coat on my back!' Even among these it was interesting to watch the care with which three or four of them guarded each a branch of white sloe-blossom, to brighten some wretched London attic-the train was going to London; and it was more than interesting-even touching, if it had not been so lamentable in its indications-to see the blank gaze of sullen wonder with which the man with the hurt finger stared at me when I asked the simple civil question, in the commonly civil tone which we English are apt to think it lowers our dignity to use to any but our equals, if he disliked having the window open?' He made not the smallest reply-he only stared. Poor fellow! I wonder whether, in lavishing abuse on the boorishness of the British peasant, it ever crosses the superior British mind to try the novel system of teaching inferiors politeness by example?

But I am wandering from the companions who amused and occupied me during a day's journey last week, and who unconsciously suggested this article. Honest folk! I daresay it never struck their simple imaginations that they were decided 'characters,' or that a chiel' in the corner was 'takin' notes' of their various peculiarities.

It was a double carriage, meant for sixteen, and nearly full. Various comings and goings took place the first hour, which I scarcely observed, till finally waking up out of thought, and feeling that one must take an interest in something, my mind centered itself in the other compartment on a row of black curls, slightly marked with gray, under a sailor-like sort of cap, and above a very nautical pair of shoulders. Shortly, an unmistakably nautical voice, seasoned with a slight foreign, or, as I afterwards discovered, Jersey accent, made itself heard through the clatter of tongues at their end of the carriage and the quiet silence of ours. - We were three women in black, myself, and a gentleman, who looked like a clergyman.

The black curls shook, and the brawny hands gesticulated more and more, in the enthusiasm of description to some passenger opposite. Shortly I saw that the whole compartment, and even those in our own who could hear, were absorbed in attending to our maritime friend.

6

"When I was becalmed off the Isle of France'When I commanded the So-and-so, trading with the West Indies '-'When we ran ashore off the coast of Guinea-these and similar phrases reached us-small fragments of conversation, and casual allusions to

stray corners in every quarter of the globe, which at once arrest the attention and admiration of us islanders. Truly, if we have a weakness, it is for those who traffic upon the deep waters. The seacaptain was, I saw, fast becoming the hero of the carriage.

I could only see his black curls; but I was amused by the face opposite to him-'fat, fair, and forty'thoroughly English, and set off in thoroughly English taste by yellow flowers inside a bright-red bonnet: bourgeoise to the core. She might have never trod beyond the safe pavement of some snug provincial town, save when once-for she wore a bracelet that I felt sure was bought at the Crystal Palace-dragged up to London to bring down to admiring neighbours her report of its wonders. A comfortable, jolly, impassive face, which listened with a sort of patronising smile, I thought, to the wonders of the deep, as detailed by the sailor. I never was more astonished in my life than when, in a pause of the anecdote-it was some attack at sea-Mrs Red-bonnet observed in the quietest drawl:

"Yes, they thought the bursting o' that cannon would ha' killed him; but I just laid him down on a table in the cabin, and I plastered his face all over with wadding, and cut two holes for his eyes, and he got well somehow. There beant no partic'lar scar left-eh ? You see?' Appealing to the carriage generally, as a mild recognition of her personal property in the aforesaid black curls and broad shoulders, which nodded acquiescence.

'Ay, ay-they'd have finished me, more than once, but for her there.'

'Her' smiled; and in the aforesaid meek drawl continued: "Yes, we'd some bad business in that nigger trade. Do you remember the blackie that was nigh killing you asleep in the cabin ?-only I happened to come in, and stuck a sword into him. I helped to throw the other three black rascals overboard; I was a strong woman then.'.

he does; and for sense and fondness he's just as good as a child.' Then, in answer to a question-with a momentary shadow over the round face—' No, sir; we have got no children.' Poor Red-bonnet! perhaps otherwise she would not have put a musket into the back' of an unlucky blackamoor, who must once have been mother's son to somebody.

Human nature is weak, especially female nature. It can resist an attack of pirates much easier than the petty vanity of telling the story afterwards, with every addition possible, for the entertainment of a railwaycarriage. In ours, the masculine tongue stopped entirely-reposed on the glory of adventures passed through-or only now and then dropped a gruff word, in true man-fashion, as if when a thing was once done, it was a great bother' afterwards to be obliged to talk about it.

Not so the better-half. The captain's wife chattered on, at the rate of nine knots an hour; till the three decent bodies in black, who sat by me, cast doubtful looks at one another, and up to the carriage roof, in the mild pharisaical style of thankful self-gratulation; and even the pale young clergyman turned his quiet head half over the compartment, listening with an air halfshocked, half-compassionate, to these apocryphal tales of slave-stealing off the African coast, and accidental butcheries on the Chinese seas, told with as much coolness as if the offending Malays had been Cochin China fowls.

I had noticed the parson's head before. It was one of those that you will frequently find in English country pulpits-pale, fair-haired, with features so delicately cut, and woman-like, in short, that you instinctively think, 'That man must be very like his mother.' Yet there was great firmness in it-the sort of firmness you never see but in fair people-mild, and not aggressive, yet capable of resistance to the death. The brow, square and high, and made higher still by a slight baldness, seemed to occupy two-thirds of the head. Intellect, power of work, patience, perseverance-even a certain sweet kindliness, were all there-and something else, which, alas! you too often see in English of infallible right-the only possible right being that which the assertor held—a still, cold, uninvestigating, satisfied air, to which belief had only one phase, and that was the particular phase in which its defender saw it. The Thirty-nine Articles were written in his face-everything beside them or beyond them being heretical or impossible.

Ay, ay-my wife's right,' said the sea-captain, who thereupon subsided a little, and left his betterhalf to give tongue, which she did pretty freely, telling in that languid dolorous voice the most unaccountable stories of niggers running away-So I just thought I'd put a musket to his back-of niggers trying to assassinate her, when her husband lay sick-'but I just had a horsewhip in my hand, and I gave it him till he howled for mercy: you must get the upper hand of these blackies, or they'll get the upper hand of you.' Or else tales of shipwrecks, disasters, illnesses of the captain-But oh, bless you, the crew always minded me; they knew I could command the ship almost as well as him.' All of which the captain lazily confirmed with his gruff 'Ay, ay;' he evidently had long ceased to consider his wife as at all a remarkable personage.

Not so her present audience. More than one smile arose of amused incredulity-but always, I noticed, behind the black head and its curls. And fat and rosy as the face was, I could trace a certain cold hardness in the blue eyes, a squareness of jaw, and merciless rigidity of mouth, which made me feel that-comfortable as she looked-on the whole I had rather not have been one of the 'rascally niggers' who offended Mrs Red-bonnet.

Various turns her conversation took, from these 'raw-head-and-bloody-bones' anecdotes- some of which I really, for the sake of womanhood, had rather not put down-to little episodes in the domestic history of a poll-parrot, whom I took out of the nest, and now he speaks three languages-I declare

At least, this was the impression he gave me; if a false one, and the reverend unknown should read this paper, I here humbly demand his pardon. For he was true to his profession, which was more than I was; for I confess to an involuntary smile when, shooting her arrow abroad, it might be at random, or it might not, Mrs Red-bonnet thus broke out:

'Yes, it's all very fine to talk about savages; for my part, I should like to tell the people at home a bit of what I know about the missionaries that teach 'em. Lor' bless ye! I wouldn't give a penny to a missionarybox! I've seen 'em abroad. They're all a take-in. They just learn a few little black boys their letters, and then they go up country and enj'y themselves. I knows their ways! Of all the humbugs on earth, there's not a bigger humbug than a missionary.'

More than one pair of eyes glanced towards the clergyman. He sat motionless, his thin lips drawn almost into a straight line; a pale red came into his cheek, and faded away again; but he never said a word.

'Ay,' added the Jersey captain, with a loud sealaugh, innocent enough, for his back was to the clergyman, whom, I do not suppose, he had ever seen-but the poor fellows mean no harm; it is only in the way of business. One of them did say to me,

when I asked of him what he went out for: "Captain," says he, "what do you sail your ship for?" "Money," says I. "That's it," says he; "so do I." And, by George, it's the same with all them poor missionary fellows; they only do it for the money.'

The clergyman started-his brow was knitted, his thin sallow hands tightened on one another; yet still he kept silence. His soul evidently writhed within him at these slanders cast on his cloth; but he did not speak a word. He was not born for a Martin Luther, a Renwick, a John Knox-he could keep the faith,' but he could not fight for it. He could sit still, with those blue eyes flashing indignant fire, those delicate lips curled with scornful disgust at the coarseness of the attacks levelled at his creednay, at any creed, in the presence of one of its vowed professors; but it never occurred to him to turn and say a quiet word-not in defence of the Faith, for it needed none, but in protestation against the blind, ignorant injustice which could condemn a whole brotherhood for the folly or wickedness of one. never seemed to cross his mind to say to these poor people-of whom I heard my neighbour whispering, horrified, 'What heathens!'-that the shortcomings of a thousand priests are as powerless to desecrate real Christianity, as the poor fool who burrows away from daylight in a cave, to annihilate the light of the sun.

It

But passive as he was, there was something in his earnest ascetic face which gave a tacit condemnation to Mrs Red-bonnet. Gradually her onslaughts ceased, for nobody seconded them; and after the first, nobody even smiled. Something of that involuntary 'respect for the clergy,' which lies firm and safe at the bottom of the Saxon heart-especially in the provinces imposed general silence; and the woman, who was not a bad sort of woman after all, I think, turned her course of conversation, and went on a more legitimate tack.

I did not listen to it; my mind was pondering over the pale young priest, and how strange it is that Truth, of itself so pure and strong, the very strongest thing in the whole world, should often be treated by its professors as if it were too brittle to bear handling, too tender to let the least breath of air blow upon it, too frail to stand the smallest contamination from without. Good God! I thought, if people would only believe enough in their own faith to trust it to itself -and to Thee!

We reached the terminus; and, as usual, all the fellow-passengers, like Macbeth's witches, made themselves air.' Mrs Red-bonnet, the captain, the clergyman, myself, and the three meek dummies in black-severally parted; in all human probability, never to meet again in this world. Peace go with them! I am their debtor for a few harmless meditations; and if they see themselves in this article, it will do them no harm-perhaps a little good.

I stopped at the terminus-one of the principal English ports-our great southern sea-gate, as it were. The salt smell blew across me, and the dim tops of far-away masts rose over the houses; indicating the quay, which is the grand rendezvous of partings and meetings between England and her colonies-England and half the known world.

Having to stay two hours, I went into the waitingroom. There-starting up as I entered-was a lady: I never shall forget her face!

Young, though not in first youth; sweet, so inexpressibly sweet, that you forgot to notice whether it was beautiful; nay, it shamed you from looking at it at all; for there were the red swollen eyelids-the hot spots, one on each cheek, while the rest of the face, though composed, was dead white. Yes, this is, as I said, the great sea-gate, the place of meetings and partings-memorable, year by year, to hundreds and thousands. She was sitting at the table-on one side

of her lay a pocket-book, and two or three letters; on the other, open, the waiting-room Bible, in which she seemed to have been reading. Hastily she shut it, and started up.

No, there was no need for that. I did the only thing possible under the circumstances-quitted the room as quickly as I came into it. Whether I ever saw the lady again-how much I felt, or pondered, or guessed of the pang which only those who have endured can understand-I do not intend to say; let it remain between her and me: I shall not put her in print.' If she chance to take up this paper, perhaps she will remember. I will only chronicle this one fact, which was to me a curious comment on the odd people' of my journey-on the heathen' captain and his wife, the silent, wrathful clergyman, the humbug' missionary and all-how I found her, with her unknown story betrayed in every line of her poor face, sitting quiet in the solitary waiting-room, with her hand on the open Bible.

THE NOBLE SCIENCE OF BLAZON. THAT 'the noble science of blazon' should still maintain itself in spite of the utilitarians, is a strong example of the tenacity of associations once generally established. The bearing of heraldic arms, when the arms they represent were really borne by knight and squire, was the distinctive mark of gentility; none being permitted to assume them who was not entitled to them by his rank. And so enduring is a notion which has once rooted itself in the mind of a people, that even now, though centuries have elapsed since the armour of chivalry was consigned to the museums of the curious, no one who lays claim to gentility would like to be supposed deficient in his due attributes of helmet, crest, shield, and motto.

How we ourselves view this question, we shall not at present say. The wealthy cotton-spinner may still aspire, an it likes him, 'to write himself down armigero,' and sue out his liveries and arms at the Heralds' College: our business is with the heraldic devices of the past, and not with those ingenious imitations which the multiplication of persons desirous of bearing arms has kept the invention of heralds on the stretch to supply for emblazonment on the panels of carriages and the covers of side-dishes.

It has been long a matter of dispute amongst antiquaries from what period the adoption of armorial bearings is to be dated. Some of the more zealous illustrators of the Arte of Armorye would carry it back to the heroic ages, because Achilles and Æneas are represented to have borne some device upon their shields. By more than one writer the hieroglyphs of the heralds are deduced from those of ancient Egypt; while others, more rationally, see their origin in the symbols borne by commanders of all ages on their banners, or impressed by sovereigns and states upon their coins. Our own Sir George Mackenzie attributes their invention to the patriarch Jacob; Professor Robison, and after him Gwillim, to Alexander the Great. But the Treatise on Armourye, of the learned prioress of Sopewell, the Lady Juliana Berners, in the Boke of St Albans, as it is our most ancient, is also perhaps the most curious disquisition on the subject. It discusses the questions of how gentylmen began, and how the law of armys was first ordaynt;' and, in the fashion of the old chronicles, commencing with the fall of the angels, and proceeding through that of man and the deluge, it makes out our Saviour to be 'a gentylman on his moder's side;' and goes on to shew, by the lynage of coote armuris, how gentylmen are to be known from ungentylmen.' Mixed up with all this mass of pedantry and absurdity in the books on heraldry, there are, as usual, a few grains of truth and reason. No doubt, in the earliest ages, kings and