Various

“ An Irish Guineaman had been fallen in with by one of our cruisers, and the commander of his majesty’s sloop the Hummingbird made a selection of thirty or forty stout Hibernians to fill up his own complement, and hand over the surplus to the admiral. Short-sighted mortals we all are, and captains of men-of-war are not exempted from human imperfection. How much also drops between the cup and the lip! There chanced to be on board of the same trader two very pretty Irish girls, of the better sort of bourgeoise, who were going to join their friends at Philadelphia. ”

“ In the production of beautiful specimens of mechanical art, much more depends upon the natural taste and ingenuity of the workman than upon the completeness and perfection of his tools. To those who are not much acquainted with the mechanical arts, this may sound somewhat like a self-evident proposition; yet it is far, very far indeed, from being considered such by European mechanics in general, and by our own in particular. ”

“ But, Larry, listen: I’ll now tell you why I wanted you to stop up your back window.
“You must know that this cabin of yours stands on the middle of a fairy pass. We often come this way in our wanderings through the air in cold nights, and often we wished to warm ourselves at your fire-side; but as there was a window in the back of your cabin, we had not power to stop, but were compelled to pursue our journey. Now that the window is stopped, we can come in and remain as long as we wish, and resume our journey through the door by which we enter. ”

“ His labours implied an inconceivable severity of conviction that he had one thing to do, and that he who would do some great thing in this short life must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as, to idle spectators who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity. ”

“ The fact is, that their admirable skill so completely compensates for their knavery, that few would think of questioning too closely, for, rude and simple as are their tools, they far exceed European workmen in the production of delicate and intricately formed trinkets; their small, taper, and flexible fingers more than supplying the place of the numerous varieties of implements which the mechanic of Birmingham or Sheffield finds indispensably necessary. Indian chains of gold and silver have been ever celebrated for the beauty and complication of their structure ”

“ At finishing plain work, however, it must be confessed that the Sumatran and Indian goldsmiths fall short of the European; but if the latter excel in this, which may be considered the lowest department of the art, they are, despite their improvements and the superiority of their instruments, vastly inferior in the elegance and delicacy of the finer parts.
The Sonah Wallah (which signifies in Hindoostanee “the gold fellow”) , or itinerant goldsmith of India, is far better supplied with tools and implements of his trade than the Sumatran ”

“ The only domestic animal in or about Larry Roche’s cabin was a ferocious-looking old black tom-cat, far bigger and stronger than any cat ever seen in that part of the country. His fur was black, he had strong whiskers, his nails were like a tiger’s, and at the end of his tail was fixed a claw or “gaff” as sharp and hooked as a falcon’s beak ”

“ When the work is finished as to the manufacturing part, it is cleansed and brightened by boiling it in water with common salt and alum, or lime juice; and when the goldsmith wishes to give it a fine purple colour, he boils it in water with sulphur. The beautiful little balls with which the Sumatran filagree work is sometimes ornamented, are very simply made. The maker merely drills a small hole in a piece of charcoal, into which he puts some grains of gold dust, and upon exposing it to the fire, it runs into a perfect ball. ”

“ The law which carries water down a declivity was not more unconquerable and invariable than the determination of his feelings towards the main object. The importance of this object held his faculties in a state of excitement which was too rigid to be affected by lighter interests, and on which therefore the beauties of nature and of art had no power. ”

“ Much of the superior ingenuity of the Indian goldsmith may be attributable to the division of the people into castes or sections, by which fundamental law the same profession is carried on by the same people or family through countless generations ”

“ The art of wire-drawing not having been considerably improved upon since the time of Tubalcain, the Sumatran method differs little from the European.
When drawn sufficiently fine, the wire is flattened by beating it upon the anvil, and when flattened, it is twisted by rubbing it upon a block of wood with a flat stick. Having twisted it, the goldsmith again flattens it upon the anvil, and it is then a flat wire with serrated or indented edges, suitable for forming leaves or portions of flowers; these he makes by turning down the end of the wire with a rude pincers, and then cutting it off ”

“ He soon became the best performer on the bagpipes in the south of Ireland, and after some time surrendered his cabin to the sole occupation of the “good people,” and wandered with his family through all the Munster counties, and was welcome and kindly treated wherever he came. After some time, the cabin from neglect fell, and offered no further impediment to the fairy host in their midnight wanderings, whilst Larry followed a life of pleasure and peace, far from the scene of his former perils and privations. ”

“ So commonly is the blame of clumsy workmanship laid upon the badness or the want of tools, that an anecdote is related of a man, who, upon being spoken to by a friend for having committed numerous grammatical errors in a letter which he had just written, cursed his pen, and asked his friend how he could be so excessively unreasonable as to expect him or any man to write good English with such a wretched implement! ”

“ Next to such varieties of shades and layers, those stones are valuable in which two layers occur of black and white of regular breadth. Except on such oriental stones no good artist will now bestow his time; but, till the beginning of this century, less attention was bestowed on materials, so that beautiful middle-age and modern cameos may be found on German agates, whose colours are generally only two shades of grey, or a cream and a milk-white, and these not unfrequently cloudy. ”

“ The specimen of our ancient Irish Literature which we now present to our readers, is one of the most popular songs of the peasantry of the counties of Mayo and Galway, and is evidently a composition of that most unhappy period of Irish history, the seventeenth century. The original Irish which is the composition of one Thomas Lavelle, has been published without a translation, by Mr Hardiman, in his Irish Minstrelsy ”

“ Thus ended the strange tale of Maurice O’Sullivan, who [Pg 349] in addition to the unanimous applause of the company present, was treated to another flowing tumbler of the barley bree, which he tossed off to the health of those who, to use his own words, were “good people” in earnest—not fays or fairies, however, but the hospitable folks of Glen-Mac-Tir; adding at the same time that he was resolved to gratify the lovers of legendary lore with another of his wild Munster tales on the following night. ”

“ Amongst the Soodras, consequently, are the goldsmiths; and as the different professions form a sort of minor castes amongst the greater ones, the same business is transferred from father to son; and all the powers of the mind being directed undistractedly to the single object, pre-eminence in that line is naturally to be expected.
N.
BARNY O’GRADY.
Behold me safely landed at Philadelphia, with one hundred pounds in my pocket—a small sum of money; but many, from yet more trifling beginnings, have grown rich in America. Many passengers who came over in the same ship with me had not half so much. ”

“ These last excel in filagree work, for which they are celebrated, far exceeding even the Chinese in its extraordinary delicacy; yet their tools are ruder than those of the Indian goldsmith of the continent.
When a Sumatran goldsmith is engaged to manufacture some piece of gold or silver work, he first asks for any little piece of thin iron—a bit of an iron hoop will answer his purpose—and with this he makes an instrument for drawing his wire. The head of an old hammer stuck in a block of wood serves for an anvil ”

“ But the mere men of taste ought to be silent respecting such a man as Howard: he is above their sphere of judgment. The invisible spirits who fulfil their commission of philanthropy among mortals do not care about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings ”

“ So, early and late, morning and evening, we were all at the work, and just went this way struggling on even for a twelvemonth, and found, with the high wages and constant employ we had met, that we were getting greatly better in the world. ”

“ Of the first, the value depends on the stone, as well as in the excellence of the work. The stones most prized now are the oriental onyx and the sardonyx, the former black and white in parallel layers, the latter cornelian, brown and white; and when stones of four or five layers of distinct shades or colours can be procured, the value is proportionably raised, provided always that the layers be so thin as to be manageable in cutting the cameo so as to make the various parts harmonize. ”

“ There is something in the sight of a petticoat at sea that never fails to put a man into a good humour, provided he be rightly constructed. When they got on board the man-of-war, they were received by the captain. ”

“ The cat now began to make desperate efforts to escape from the bag, whilst Larry redoubled his exertions to detain him. His attention, however, was soon arrested by the cry of hounds, and on looking westward, he perceived, rapidly approaching over the morass, a big black man mounted on a black horse, and accompanied by a numerous pack of black dogs. ”

“ Go home now, and say you can’t proceed to Mill-street without taking the wife and children with you, to leave the measure of their feet for the brogues. Tell the cat also that he must come too, to have his fit taken; then tie him up in a bag, and bring him with you ”

“ Over this is laid a layer of irregularly broken minute pieces of marble of different colours, and if it is wished, these can be arranged in patterns. After the paste is completely covered with pieces of marble, men proceed to beat the floor with large and heavy tools made for the purpose; when the whole has been beaten into a compact mass, the paste appearing above the pieces of marble, it is left to harden. ”

“ The pattern he has drawn on a piece of paper or card, to the size and shape of which the intended piece of workmanship must correspond. If the work is to be formed upon a plate of gold, he cuts the plate to the shape of his pattern, and proceeds to dispose the various bits of foliage, assorted according to size, and adjusts wire of various thickness for the stems, tendrils, &c., fastening them temporarily together, and upon the plate, with the sago berry, called boca sago, which they reduce to a pulp by grinding upon a rough stone ”

“ To such a degree of excellence has the manufacture of mechanical tools and instruments arrived in these countries, that a British mechanic would be utterly astonished could he but behold the process of manufacturing various articles in the East ”